Tsar

by Ted Bell

  Somehow, she’d have to get him when he used both hands to pull his pants up. That would be her only chance, catch him when-

  “What the hell?” a new voice somewhere said.

  George. He was at the kitchen door. She stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her husband was standing there in the doorway in his striped woolen robe, a look of total incomprehension on his face. He looked at his naked wife, then at the fat baker, then back to her.

  “Monie? What’s going on?”

  “He’s got a gun, George. But it’s okay. He got what he wanted. Now he’s leaving. Go back upstairs. I can handle this.”

  “Go back upstairs?” George said.

  “The flashlight, George. Check on the X-Men flashlight. Make sure it’s off and nobody can ever get to it. Got that?”

  “Check on the X-Men flashlight,” George said robotically.

  “You know what, George?” Happy said, moving away from her so he could keep an eye and his gun on both of them. Then he was hitching his trousers up and zipping up his fly. “We’re all going back upstairs. You’re going to show me the safe, and then we’ll take it from there. How’s that sound?”

  “You said you’d leave if-”

  “Lady, I didn’t say shit. You did all the talking. Remember? It was your idea, not mine. Let’s go. And leave the robe and the nightie there on the floor. We might need them later. George, do me a favor. Bring the cake up, will ya?”

  George, carrying the cake, was first up the stairs, then Monie. Then Happy, a step behind her with the gun. She could feel his eyes on her naked bottom all the way to the top.

  “Which way’s the master bedroom?” Happy asked.

  “Left,” George said, on automatic pilot. He took a left and walked down the hall toward their room.

  “Kids are in there?” the baker said, pausing as they passed the pink door of the girls’ room.

  “We don’t have any kids,” Monie said, striving mightily to keep her voice even.

  “Really? I counted two.”

  “Neighbors’ kids. I pick them up at school sometimes,” she said. “Their parents are dead. Not dead. Away.”

  “In here?” George asked, reaching their bedroom.

  “Right in there, George. You, too, cupcake.”

  She hesitated a beat, and he nudged the muzzle of the gun into her right butt cheek.

  “You bastard,” she hissed. “I’ve got an entire police force under me that’s going to tear your fat ass to shreds for this. They’ll boil the meat right off your bones.”

  “Spunky, huh? We’ll see about that. Okay, George, put the cake on the dresser there near the bed. That’s right. Now, you and little wifey-poo here climb in the bed and pull the covers up. But keep your hands out where I can see them. Got that?”

  “In the bed? Together?” George asked.

  She looked at her husband’s eyes for the first time. He was in a complete state of shock. No help there. Thanks, George. She was waiting for another break. She just needed a distraction. Anything that would let her go for the gun. Or, wait, scissors. She had a pair of crimping shears, big ones, in the top drawer of the dresser, right beneath where George had put the cake box.

  “At least let me open my surprise,” she said, moving quickly toward the dresser before he could say anything.

  “You want to open it? Why not? Go ahead, it’s for you, after all.”

  In the mirror, she saw him watching her move. Enjoying this. Saw George climbing into the four-poster bed, still in his robe. He pulled the covers up and splayed his hands out on top. Then he put his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes.

  “George?” she said to his reflection, “You may not have noticed, but we’ve got a shit-for-brains psycho doughboy in our bedroom. He’s going to rape me and kill us all. And you’re in bed with your eyes closed? Jesus, George!”

  Her husband of twenty years never even blinked.

  And she could see Happy in the mirror, too, his eyes were still all over her. She tried to shield her hand with her body as she pulled open the small sock drawer where she kept the scissors. She reached in, dug through the socks, all the way to the back, her fingers desperately searching but coming up empty. Wait, maybe the other drawer? Where she kept her bundle of old love letters from George? Yeah. The scissors were right on top.

  “Whatcha doin’ over there, honeybun?” he said.

  She glanced in the mirror. He’d pulled up a chair and was sitting now, watching her, into the live nude show, the gun loose in his right hand.

  “Scissors,” she said, holding them up so he could see them. “To cut the ribbon.”

  “Oh. Sure, why not?”

  But now that she had them, what was she going to do with them? Charge him? She’d be dead before she took three steps. No. She’d open the box, try to palm the scissors somehow, hide them behind her back, wait for her chance. She cut the pink grosgrain ribbon and ripped it away. Then she lifted the top off the box and dropped it to the floor.

  “Bring the box over here,” he said, his voice flat and thick with lust now.

  “Okay.” She lifted it and turned toward him, the scissors still in her left hand.

  “Leave the scissors on the bureau. So you’re not tempted to be a bad girl. You know what happens to bad girls.”

  “Sure.”

  She carried the box to him, her mind clawing for another weapon, another plan, a little hope here, please. The box was full of red crepe paper and heavier than a box with a cake should be.

  “Put it on the floor. By my feet.”

  She did it.

  “Look inside. Take a peek at what you got.”

  She pulled the paper away and felt something metal, smooth, heavy, shaped like a small drum. She lifted it out and stood up with the thing in her hands. Okay. Smash him in the face? Bring it down hard on the hand with the gun? Which? Now! She had to do it now, or-

  She heard the click as he cocked the trigger back.

  “Silly girl,” he said, the gun pointed at her face. “Put it on the floor, and get into bed with your husband.”

  “What is this thing?” she asked, looking at the object in her hands. The silver drum had a small fan built into the lid, beneath a wire mesh. And there was a dial and some buttons.

  “I’ll tell you when you’re all tucked in under the covers with Georgie, okay?”

  The bad dream wouldn’t end unless she ended it. She looked at him one last time, searching his feral eyes for God knows what, mercy, sanity, and then she slammed the metal drum down on the top of his head as hard as she possibly could.

  He screamed in surprised pain and tilted the chair back to get away as she raised the drum again, blood pouring from a deep gash in his forehead. They could both tell the chair was going over backward with his weight, and she dropped the drum and dove for the gun with both hands, trying to wrench it from his fingers as he hit the floor.

  “George!” she screamed. “Go get the girls! Get them out of the house! Run! Now!”

  Happy was on his back on the floor now, dazed but still functioning. She pounced on him, knees in the middle of his chest. She had one hand around his wrist and the other around the barrel of the pistol. She slammed the hand against the wooden floor, hard, once, twice, trying to shake the gun loose. But the goddamn barrel was so short she couldn’t seem to get good enough leverage to pry it out of his fingers.

  “Let go!” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.

  “Fuck you!” she screamed. She gave up on the gun and went for his eyes with her fingernails, raking his face with both hands, ten bright red stripes appearing instantly on his face.

  “Bitch!” he screamed, and then she was flying backward, slamming into the dresser and collapsing to the floor. She saw George on his feet, coming toward her, no shock in his eyes now, coming to help her.

  “George, watch out! He’s still got the-”

  “Good-bye, George,” the baker said, and shot her husband in the head, a fine
red mist where the top used to be. Her husband staggered and fell, his body sprawled across hers. He was dead. She had to get him off. She had to get to the kids, she had to-

  The man who had killed her husband and was now going to kill her was standing above her, the gun pointed at her head. His face was shredded, and the blood was pouring down his white baker’s shirt, splashing onto her. He put the muzzle of the pistol in the middle of her forehead.

  She was going to die now without saving her children.

  “Good night,” he said. But instead of pulling the trigger, he brought the butt of the gun down hard on the top of her head.

  SOMETIME LATER, SHE opened her eyes. She was in her bed, her head on a blood-soaked pillow. She tried to move her hands, but they were tied to something. Bedposts. Feet, too. The baker had pulled the chair up next to the bed, facing her. He had the metal drum in his lap. She couldn’t see his face anymore because of the mask. It had two glass eyes and a protruding round mouthpiece that made him look like a giant insect.

  “Know what your surprise is?” she heard him say through the mouthpiece, lifting the drum. His voice was distorted, making him sound like a computer recording or something. Her head hurt terribly, and she wanted him to go away. She hurt in another place too, and knew that he’d abused her while she’d been unconcious.

  “No,” she murmured, “please.”

  “It’s a sleep machine,” she heard him say.

  “What does it do?”

  “Puts people to sleep. Either for a few hours or forever, depending on the strength of the formula. It’s new. I’m testing out different strengths for my company. Your family is helping out with our little experiment.”

  “Oh. Strengths of what?”

  “Same stuff we used on the Chechens in the Moscow theater siege. Remember that? We pumped it into the theater through the air-conditioning system to disable the Chechen terrorists. Kolokol 1, the stuff is called. An opiate-derived incapacitating agent. What I’m doing, my job here, is testing the various levels of lethality for use in a hostage-rescue situation. At this level, my guess is it takes effect very rapidly. Certainly with children. Probably within ten seconds or so with adults. We’ll see.”

  “Oh,” she heard herself say again.

  “I’m turning it on now.”

  She heard the click of a switch and the whirr of the little fan on the lid.

  She fought the restraints, twisting and turning her body on the bed, feeling the thin plastic cuffs cutting into her wrists, her ankles, knowing it was useless but fighting it until she had nothing left.

  He watched her, looking down at her struggles with amused detachment.

  Exhausted, she let her head fall back against the pillow, felt hot tears running down her cheeks, looking up at the monster looming over her bed, defeated.

  “What about my-what about my children?”

  “Already sound asleep,” he said, taking a clear plastic nose cone attached to a long hose and placing it over her nose and mouth. She screamed again and twisted her head violently from side to side, holding her breath, knowing she couldn’t allow this stuff down into her lungs, because if she did, she would surely just…

  A moment later, she was asleep forever, too.

  37

  BERMUDA

  Pippa Guinness stuck her pert blonde head inside the door of Hawke’s new office at Blue Water Logistics. The Dockyard offices were nice enough. His own space was bright and airy, a corner office on the top floor, with sunny views on two sides overlooking the open ocean to the north and Hamilton Harbor to the south. On the ramparts, huge cannons stared out to sea. Furniture was a bit “moderne” for Hawke’s taste, but it looked appropriate for a start-up enterprise, he supposed. Eventually, he’d fill the empty shelves with books and ship models, and that would help.

  “Alex? They’re almost ready for you in the Tank. C says ten minutes?”

  Hawke and Harry Brock both looked up and nodded in her direction. She was wearing a short pink linen skirt and a tight-fitting blouse opened at the neck, and Hawke was viscerally aware of Brock’s spiking blood pressure.

  “Ten minutes,” Pippa said again, smiling sweetly at the two men seated by the window, and then she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Who the living hell was that?” Harry Brock asked Hawke. Harry was leaning back in the ultramodern leather and steel Eames chair. His feet, shod in wildly inappropriate flip-flops, were propped up on the black leather ottoman covered with newspapers, sailing and motorcycle magazines, a few shipping trade papers, and copies of Tatler and The Spectator.

  “That?” Hawke said, affecting an air of boredom. “That, Harry, was Pippa Guinness. Why do you ask?”

  “Why do I ask? Are you kidding me? That is the single most gorgeous piece of ass on the big blue planet, and you are asking me why?”

  “She has her good points.”

  “Two at the very least. That is one tasty little creampuff, boss.”

  “A creampuff made on a welding machine,” Hawke replied, skimming through his folder for the upcoming meeting.

  “What’s she do around here, anyway? And don’t tell me that’s your secretary. I will have you killed, m’lord.”

  “She runs the joint, actually.”

  “I thought you ran the joint.”

  “I do. Off the books. But Pippa is the acting chief of station. I plan to travel a lot, as you know. She’ll mind the store while we’re in Russia. Ambrose, when he recovers enough to leave his wheelchair, will pitch in as well.”

  Harry clasped his interlocking fingers behind his head and started singing, “Back in the U.S.S.R., boys, you don’t know how lucky you are, boys,” he said, almost getting the Beatles tune right.

  “Yeah. It’s been a while for me. I’m guessing Moscow has changed a bit.”

  Harry laughed out loud.

  “You will not believe your eyes, comrade. The Communist Party World Headquarters is now a dilapidated two-story dump on a side street. They serve warm champagne in the lobby, trying to get people to come inside. Read all the fascinating Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky FAQ brochures.”

  “I wonder what the most frequently asked question about Trotsky might be.”

  “As if anyone had any questions at all anymore.” Harry laughed. “Right across the street is the new Ferrari-Maserati dealership. Much better brochures over there, believe me.”

  Hawke smiled and got to his feet, glancing at his watch.

  “How’s Stoke doing down in Miami, Harry? Happy?”

  “Over the moon. His fiancée just got this big movie deal, but I’m not so sure about the two guys she’s signing with. The fucking Russian oligarchs bought the whole Miramar motion-picture studio with cash and are signing every beauteous babe in Miami, Vegas, and La-La.”

  “Have they actually made a movie yet?”

  “Hell no. But she’s signed on to do some singing gig on an airship. Flying with a bunch of celebs across the Atlantic. Something to do with the Nobel Prize, I think.”

  “Airship?”

  “Yeah. Called Pushkin. Carries seven hundred passengers. Most amazing damn thing you ever saw.”

  Hawke looked at Brock but didn’t say anything. Airship?

  “Let’s go, Harry. Doesn’t pay to keep the king waiting.” Hawke slipped into the grey and white seersucker blazer that he’d hung on the back of the door.

  “The king? Is there a problem between you and your boss I should know about?”

  “Yeah. Pippa. She’s driving me crazy. Always looking over my shoulder. But I can’t do a damn thing about it right now. C wants her here to keep an eye on things. Which means keep an eye on me, basically.”

  “Want me to take her off your hands?”

  “How would you do that, Harry?”

  “Offer her a glamorous new life as the new Mrs. Harry Brock. Take her away from all this.”

  “I thought you were already married.”

  “My divorce finally came through. Only took seven year
s. It’s high time I married somebody else I hate and gave her a house.”

  “But you were obviously in love with the Brazilian special forces woman we met in the Amazon. Saladin’s sister, Caparina. Now, there was a woman, Harry.”

  “I am in love with her. Love is exponential, Alex. You should know that at your age.”

  “Let’s go, Harry.”

  THE TANK WAS the secure conference room on the second floor. It was in the very middle of the building, accessible only from the third floor by a single private elevator. The lift had a keypad and required a retinal scan to operate. Outside the secure room were cubby holes for all cell phones and BlackBerrys. There was a metal detector at the door and two Royal Marines standing guard on either side. This single room was probably the most secure place on the Atlantic Ocean, Hawke imagined.

  C looked up as Harry and Hawke entered. He smiled, got to his feet, and shook hands, first with Alex, then with Brock. Hawke noticed three other men at the table, plus, of course, Pippa Guinness. He’d also noticed Sir David’s black eye, courtesy of the Jamaicans on Nonsuch Island. It seemed better today but was still visible. Ambrose had been in bed ever since that night, but he was recovering nicely.

  “Welcome, gentlemen. Would you like any coffee? Tea?” Sir David said.

  Brock and Hawke both declined and took the last two seats available at the round table in the center of the small, completely sound-insulated room.

  “I’d like to introduce our friend Professor Stefanovich Halter, just arrived from Moscow,” C said, smiling at a tall, portly man who immediately stood up and shook hands with Hawke and Brock. His face was handsome in a classical way, strong-boned, with sharp, dark eyes. “He’s here to brief you on the current political situation in Moscow and offer further assistance to Red Banner as we redouble our intelligence efforts there.”

  “Please, call me Stefan,” the Russian said, in a pitch-perfect rendition of the upper-crust Oxbridge English accent. Hawke found it impossible not to notice his tattered tweed blazer and the old school tie, unusual here on Bermuda.

  Professor Halter was known to Hawke only by reputation, but the man was legendary inside the British service. Twice posted to England by the KGB on long, deep-cover assignments in London and, later, teaching at Cambridge University, the elegant Russian spy had been recruited by MI-6 whilst at Cambridge. He was now a double agent on C’s payroll and had been working both sides of the aisle ever since, currently serving as a mole deep inside the KGB. When not operating inside Russia, he was a teaching fellow at Cambridge, with several doctoral candidates in Western studies under his tutelage.