Hawke: A Novel (49 page)

“You’ve got exactly ten seconds to get that bear out of your plane, son.”

Admiral Howell waited, tracking his binocs right with the streaking fighter, holding his breath as if that would keep his heart in place. A smile broke across his face.

A small white object flew out of the cockpit, hit the jetstream, and was blasted backwards and down.

He stayed with the bear all the way, saw it hit the water. For a few endless moments, he thought the goddamn thing might float, but a smile broke across his face as he saw the bear slip beneath the waves.

So much for your goddamn airborne spores,
amigos
.

The density of the ocean had instantly neutered the Cubans’ weapon.

There was a squawk over the speaker.

“Uh, I’m having a little trouble keeping this bird flying straight,” Nettles said over the speaker. “Busted rudder and all. Anybody got any bright ideas?”

“I’ve had all the good ideas I’m going to have this morning, Chuck. You just saved a lot of lives. I want to thank you for that. I’m going to turn you over to the airboss now. You just bring that big sucker on home, son. Bring her down safely. There’ll be a fifth of George Dickel with your name on it waiting in my wardroom.”

“Copy that,” Captain Nettles said, trying desperately not to let the effect of the blown canopy, destroyed rudder, and the fact that he’d just flown an entire mission with a bomb between his knees show in his voice.

“Bravo Zulu, you are a quarter mile out,” the airboss said. “Turn right to 060 degrees.”

“I can’t do that, she’s not responding to rudder.”

“Well, you’re going to have to land that bird with ailerons and elevators, Bravo Zulu, just like you did out at Coronado in flying school.”

“I can’t remember back that far, sir.”

“Bravo Zulu, you play a little golf, don’t you?”

“Affirmative.”

“Slice or hook?”

“Slice a little.”

“Know how you aim a teensy bit left to correct for that slice?”

“Affirmative.”

“You got a little slice in your current stance. I want you shift your aim left, copy?”

“Left.”

“Easy, easy. Not that much, boy. A teensy. You want to draw it in down the left side of the fairway.”

“How’s that?”

“Call the ball, Bravo Zulu.”

“I have the ball, sir.”

“Come on home, then, Bravo Zulu. Come on home to Papa John.”

The third-story sitting room of the old house in Belgrave Square was lit only by a roaring fire. Pelting rain beat against the room’s tall, broad windows. The upper branches of the plane and elm trees outside, dancing violently in the howling wind, clawed and scratched at the glass.

It was a cold, sleeting rain, but the roaring fire Pelham had laid in the great hearth warmed the room and kept the chill of late evening at bay.

Savage filaments of lightning briefly illuminated the whole room, where two people sat side by side on an immense sofa before a crackling blaze. The lightning was followed immediately by an earth-splitting thunderclap powerful enough, it seemed, to shake a good portion of London to its ancient foundations. In the silence that followed, the woman rested her head on the man’s shoulder and spoke in a quiet, sleepy voice.

“My daddy used to say that all the great romances are made in heaven. But so are thunder and lightning.”

Alex Hawke laughed softly, and brushed back a wing of auburn hair, bronzed by the firelight, from her pale forehead. Her eyes were closed, and her long dark lashes lay upon her cheeks, fluttering only when either of them spoke.

“Amazing chap, your father,” Hawke whispered. “Everything he says seems to have quotation marks at either end.”

“A lot of them are unprintable,” Vicky said, yawning deeply, and pressing closer. “He has a few enormously politically incorrect opinions and he’s an ornery old cuss when you cross him.”

“What did he have to say when you rang him up this afternoon?”

“Not much. Sounded very shaky. It’s going to take him a while to get over all those roller-coaster emotions. I promised I’d come right away to look after him. I’m so sorry. I know you were counting on me to—”

“Shh. I understand. You sound tired, Doc.”

“I am, a little. We must have walked the width and breadth of every park in London. It was lovely. My dream of a foggy day in London Town.”

“We missed one. Regent’s Park,” Alex said, stroking her hair. “I wanted to show you Queen Mary’s rose garden. Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t know. You started it. When one person starts, the other just does it automatically. Funny. Do you want some more tea?”

“What I’d love is a small brandy. Curious. I haven’t seen Pelham lurking about in the last hour or two.”

“I saw him sitting in the pantry just after dinner. Sniper was perched on his shoulder, chattering away, while Pelham was doing needlepoint. Very fancy if you ask me, Lord Fauntleroy. What is it?”

“I’m embarrassed to tell you. It’s to be a birthday present. For me, in fact. A waistcoat with the family crest. I’ve tried to convince him to quit before he goes blind, but he feigns deafness whenever I do.”

At that very moment, there was the creak of an ancient door, and the omniscient Pelham Grenville entered the room bearing a large silver tray, which he placed upon the ottoman before the fire.

“Begging your pardon, m’lord. That last flash and clap made me think a splash of brandy might be welcomed.”

“The man is a mind reader, I tell you,” Hawke said, reaching for the heavy crystal decanter. “Thank you kindly, young Pelham.”

Hawke noticed that, in addition to the decanter and small thistle-shaped crystal glasses, there was a most peculiar box on the tray. It was triangular and made of yellowed ivory, with a hawk carved of onyx embedded in the center of the lid.

“I’ve never seen that box before, Pelham,” Alex said. “Quite beautiful.”

“Yes,” Pelham said. “It was a gift to your great-grandfather from David Lloyd-George himself. Something to do with a political triad long lost to the mists of history.”

“Too small for cigars,” Alex observed.

“Indeed,” Pelham said. “Do you mind if I sit a moment?”

“You may sit as long as you wish, of course. Here, let me pour you a brandy,” Alex said, and he did so.

Pelham pulled up a leather winged-back chair and sat down with a small sigh. He sipped at his brandy, then picked up the box and turned it over in his hands. He focused his clear blue eyes on Hawke.

“Your lordship, I’ve been in service for nigh on seventy years. And for the last thirty years, I’ve been waiting for this exact moment,” the old fellow finally said. Then he downed the brandy in one swallow and held out his glass to Hawke for a refill. This done, he sat back against the cushion and looked about the room. The firelight was licking every corner of the huge space, even reaching up into the ceiling moldings high above them.

“I don’t really know quite where to begin, your lordship,” he said at last.

“I find the beginning is usually appropriate,” Hawke said with a gentle laugh. But Pelham was not amused.

“ ’Tis a serious matter I’ve come to discuss, m’lord.”

“Sorry,” Alex said, and getting to his feet, he began pacing back and forth before the fire, hands clasped behind his back. Something fairly momentous was afoot.

“Your grandfather left this box for you in my trust. He was very clear about its disposition. I was to give it to you as soon as I felt that you were in a sufficiently proper state of mind to receive it.”

“I see,” Alex said, nervously glancing over at him. “A proper state of mind, you say. All very mysterious, old thing.”

“Yes. But he had his reasons, as you’ll soon see.”

“And you’ve obviously concluded I’m in this so-called proper state now?”

“Indeed, I have, m’lord,” Pelham said, a smile passing across his face. “It’s been a fairly rough go for you. Especially since your dear grandfather passed on. We all miss him. But I think he would agree that you have traveled long and lonely through a deep dark wood and have just now emerged into a most sunny place.”

“If you mean by all that, that after a bit of hard sledding I have come to feel as happy as any man has a right to be, then you’re correct. I have. Wouldn’t you agree, Victoria?”

She was about to say “Happy as a clam,” thought better of it, and said, “Never happier.”

“See? And, as you well know, Victoria is something of a psychiatrist. So, assuming the matter of my current blissful state is settled, hand over the goods, young Pelham! Let’s take a look!” He held out his hand.

Pelham extended the box, and Hawke took it.

“Like a mystery novel,” Hawke said, running the tips of his fingers over the lid and smiling at them both. “Isn’t it?”

He placed the strange white box upon the mantelpiece, beneath the mammoth painting of the Battle of Trafalgar. Looking at the box from different angles, Hawke continued his pacing. “Only usually a good mystery writer will stick these intriguing objects right up front to hook the reader.”

“For heaven’s sakes, open it, Alex,” Vicky said. “I can’t wait to see!”

“So, in other words,” Hawke said, looking carefully at Pelham, “Grandfather wanted me to have this box when I had come to grips with—what shall we call it—the past?”

“Precisely, m’lord,” Pelham said, eyes shining.

“Well, then, in that case I think this historic event deserves a toast! Pelham, would you pour us each a wee dram of that fine brandy?”

Hawke received his brandy and stood, glass in one hand, the other up on the mantelpiece. He swirled the amber liquid in the snifter and then lifted it in the direction of Vicky and Pelham.

“A toast,” Alex Hawke said, “if you don’t mind.”

When they, too, raised their glasses, he said, “I would like to drink to the memory of my dear mother and father,” Hawke began, his eyes brimming.

Vicky thought his voice would break, but he continued. “These are memories that have only recently come back to me. But as they do come flooding back, they are filled with a joy and happiness I never knew existed. My father was a splendid fellow, handsome and brave beyond measure.”

“Oh, Alex!” Vicky cried, and there were tears in her eyes.

“My mother—my mother was equally endowed with strength, kindness, and beauty. And she possessed all three in abundance. In the seven short years we had together, she managed to instill in the boy whatever few qualities or virtues the man might have.”

A sob escaped Vicky’s trembling lips.

Alex put the glass to his lips and drank deeply.

“To my mother and father,” Alex said, and flung his empty glass into the fire, shattering it against the blackened bricks.

“Hear! Hear!” Pelham shouted, rising to his feet. He raised his glass to Hawke, eyes glistening, downed the brandy in one swallow, then threw his glass into the fireplace. Seconds later, Vicky’s glass followed his into the fire as well.

“And now at last the mysterious box!” Hawke said, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes. “Let’s see what’s inside it, shall we?”

He took the box from the mantel, looked at it for a long moment, and then slowly lifted the lid.

“Why, it’s a key!” he said, and lifted out a large brass key by the black satin ribbon attached to it. “Where there’s a key, there’s a lock.”

“Yes,” Pelham said. “There is. If you’ll both follow me?”

Vicky and Alex followed him out into the great hall and then began ascending the broad curving staircase, a spiral that formed the center of the entire house. There was a skylight at the very top of the great mansion and flashes of lightning pierced down into the gloom. Pelham, a Scot, never lit any more lights in the house than were absolutely necessary.

“Where are we going, old thing?” Hawke asked, as they passed the fourth-floor landing and continued upwards.

“To my rooms, your lordship,” Pelham said simply.

“Your rooms? What on earth is—”

A violent crack of lightning struck just then, quite nearby, and Vicky cried out, grabbed Alex’s arm, and held on. The few staircase lights that were lit flickered twice and then went out. The whole house was plunged into darkness.

“Not to worry, miss,” Pelham said. “I always carry a small electric torch on my person for just such occasions.”

He flicked the flashlight on and they continued their procession, mounting to the sixth floor of the house.

“Just along here,” Pelham said, “at the end of the hall.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever been to your rooms, Pelham,” Hawke said.

“Ah, but you have done, m’lord,” he said, opening the door to his quarters. “Many’s the time we’d return from an evening out on the tiles and you’d insist on having ‘one and done’ by my fireside before bed. I’d throw a blanket over you on the sofa and try to ignore the horrific snoring.”

“Try the lights,” Vicky said. “They just came back on down the hall.”

Pelham flicked a switch, and two sconces on either side of his small coal-burning hearth came on. It was a simple room, yet rich with books and paintings.

“Let me guess,” Hawke said, dangling the key from its ribbon. “There’s an ancient chest up here, full of priceless gold and silver heir-looms.”

Pelham, meanwhile, had opened a farther door and motioned them to enter.

“What’s this?” Hawke said.

“My clothes closet, your lordship.”

“Your closet?”

“Indeed, sir. At the very rear, you shall find another door, hidden behind all my old jackets and frocks. It’s been locked for thirty years. The key will open it.”

“I’d no idea you were such a clothes-hound,” Hawke said from inside the closet. “All these linen blazers and—what? Here it is! A hidden door!”

Alex turned the key and pushed the door open. A cold musty wind brushed his cheeks as he and Vicky entered the dark room, brushing cobwebs aside.

“Oh, my God,” Alex said.

Casting the beam of the flashlight about the room, Alex saw that it was filled to the rafters with all the furnishings, toys, and objects of the first seven years of his life.

Atop a dusty leather chest, he spied a red rubber ball.

“I used to toss this ball into the sea,” he told Vicky in hushed tones. “My dog Scoundrel would plunge in and fetch it. And look here!

“This was my pram, isn’t it wonderful? Father designed it to look like a fishing dory on wheels. And here, the picture that hung above my bed. And all my armies of soldiers, and—”

“Alex, come here,” Vicky said.

“What is it?”

“A painting,” she said. “One of the loveliest paintings I’ve ever seen.”

Later that evening, with Pelham’s help, Alex managed to take down
The Battle of Trafalgar
, which had hung for a century or so above the fireplace. Then, mounting the tall stepladder once more, he hung the painting Vicky had uncovered in Pelham’s hidden room.

“Is it straight?” Alex asked from atop the ladder.

“Perfectly straight, darling,” Vicky said. “Come down and see!”

Alex returned to the sofa without looking back and sat beside Vicky. Then he raised his eyes to the painting.

His father and mother soon after their wedding day.

Mother was seated, wearing the beautiful white lace dress she’d made famous in
The White Rose
. Father stood at her side in his splendid uniform, his hand on her bare shoulder. A scarlet sash across his chest bore all of his many decorations, and he wore Marshal Ney’s famous sword at his waist.