What Comes Around: An Alex Hawke Novella (Alex Hawke Novels) (12 page)

C
HAPTER 11

H
AWK
E GAVE THE
internationally required hand signal to the crewmen on deck below and flicked the switch that lit the candle. The sudden engine roar behind him was instant and powerful. He added power and taxied into position behind the last jet in line. The blast shield had already risen from the deck behind the lead jet in the squadron, and Hawke watched calmly as the fighter was catapulted out over the ocean, afterburners glowing white hot.

A wave of pain in his rib cage washed over him and he must have passed out because he suddenly heard the air boss screaming in his headset, telling him to get his ass moving. The aircraft directly in front of him had advanced into position and he’d not followed quickly enough for the air boss. Now he added a touch of power and tucked in where he belonged. There remained only three fighters on the deck ahead of him.

He focused for a second on what to say and how to say it. He not only had to get the Chinese right, the words, but also had to get the attitude right, a slangy mixture of swagger and humble obeisance to the air boss gods on high.

“So sorry, boss,” he muttered in the time-honored traditional communicative style of fighter pilots all over the world. For a carrier pilot, the air boss is God himself.

“Don’t let it happen again, Passionflower, or I’ll kick your sugarcoated ass off this boat and clear back to Shanghai.”

“Roger that, sir,” Hawke said, advancing a few feet forward.

“You forget something in your preflight, Passionflower?”

“No, sir,” Hawke said, starting to sweat a bit.

“Yeah? Check your goddamn nav lights off-on switch for me, will you? Just humor me.”

Shit,
he thought, flicking the nav lights switch. He’d actually forgotten to turn his bloody nav lights on! Dumb mistake, and he could not afford to be dumb at this point, not in the slightest.

“You awake down there, boy? I’m inclined to pull your ass right out of the lineup.”

“Sir, no, sir! I’m good to go.”

“You damn well better be. I’ve got my eye on you now, honey. You screw up even a little bit on this morning’s mission and your ass is mine. You believe me?”

“Sir, I always believe you. Sir. But I’ll come back clean, I swear it.”

“Damn right you will. Now, you get the hell off my boat, Passionflower. I got more important things to deal with up here than to worry about little pissant pilots like you. Taxi into position. You’re up.”

Hawke throttled up and engaged the catapult hook inside the track buried in the deck. He heard the blast shield rumbling up into place behind him and looked to his left. He nodded his head, a signal to the launch chief that his aircraft was poised and ready. The chief raised his right arm and dropped it, meaning any second now.

Hawke’s right hand immediately went to what fighter jocks fondly call the “oh-shit bar.” It was located just inside the canopy and above the instrument display. The reason for the handhold is simple: when a pilot is violently launched into space, the gut reaction is to grab the control stick and try to climb. It’s terrifying to feel out of control when the plane’s wheels separate from the mother ship. In the tiny amount of time it takes a pilot to move his or her right hand from the oh-shit bar to the joystick, a nanosecond, the catapult has done its job and the pilot can safely assume control of the aircraft.

Adrenaline was pumping, flooding Hawke’s veins as he gripped the bar with his right hand. A “cat shot” from a modern carrier is as close as any human being can come to the experience of being in a catastrophic automobile crash and surviving. It was that intense.

The cat fired and he was thrown violently backward, leaving the leading edge of the deck.

He stifled an intense scream of pain at the back of his throat.

He was airborne.

He craned his head around and looked back down at the deck lights of
Varyag,
the carrier growing rapidly smaller as he swiftly gained altitude. He deliberately suppressed any feelings of joy over having escaped an agonizing death at the hands of the most sophisticated torturers on the planet.

He wasn’t out of the woods yet, he told himself as he climbed upward to form up with “his” squadron’s flight. Their heading was a WNW course that would take them directly over the disputed Paracel Islands. Exactly the wrong direction, in other words. He needed to be on a heading north-northeast and he needed to get moving.

The rim of the earth was edged in violent pink as Hawke slipped into his designated slot at the rear of the tight formation. The squadron leader acknowledged his arrival and went quiet. There was a minimum of radio chat for which he was grateful. There was normally a lot of banter at this stage and he didn’t want to hear any questions or inside wisecracks over the radio, things he couldn’t respond to without sacrificing his cover.

He needed precious time to remain anonymous until he could figure out the next step of the plan he’d hatched in those few hours he spent alone and in pain. Namely, how the hell to get away from the squadron without a dogfight. A dogfight that would pit him against seven of China’s top guns was a bad bet.

If he simply peeled off and made a run for it, and didn’t respond to radio calls, the squadron leader would immediately radio the carrier and report what was going on. One of their pilots was behaving very strangely. It wouldn’t take a second for the Chinese carrier skipper to put two and two together: the missing American pilot had somehow gotten inside one of their fighters. He was about to steal it. Blow him out of the sky.

The Chinese would then use the incident as clear-cut proof the West was being deliberately provocative. Instead of preventing a confrontation, Hawke would now be the cause of it. C, to put it mildly, would not be pleased.

They would trot out his blackened corpse and the twisted remnants of the stolen fighter jet on global TV. Use his actions to justify an even more aggressive posture in the region. Take retaliatory measures against Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam.

Next step, war.

That’s how he saw it anyway. C might disagree. But C wasn’t sitting in the hot seat with his ass on the line.

For the moment, he had little choice.

He flew on, maintaining his slot in the formation, flying north toward the Pacific Ocean, desperately searching for a means of escape for the second time in twelve hours.

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, battling pain and fatigue, it came to him. It was so simple. The only reason he had not thought of it sooner was the pain of his injuries and mental fatigue. But, he thought, it just might work.

He thumbed the transmit button on his radio.

“Flight Leader, Flight Leader, this is, uh, Passionflower, over.”

“Roger, Passionflower, this is Red Flight Leader. Go ahead, over.”

“Experiencing mechanical difficulties, Red Flight Leader. System malfunctions, over.”

“State your situation.”

“I’m flying hot, sir. Engine overheat. Power loss. Cause unknown. Running override systems checks now. Doesn’t look good.”

“Are you declaring an emergency?”

“Negative, negative. I think I can throttle back and make it home to mother. Request permission to mission abort and return to the carrier, sir. Over.”

“Uh, roger that, Passionflower. Permission to abort. Get back safely. Over.”

“Roger that, Red Flight Leader. Returning to the
Varyag,
over.”

H
A
WKE PEELED AWAY
from the formation, banked hard right, and went into a steep diving turn away from his flight. The sun was up now, just a sliver above the far horizon, streaks of red light streaking across the sea far below. He looked up and saw Red Flight’s multiple contrails streaking across the dawn.

When Red Flight was completely out of visual and radar range, he corrected course to NNE and throttled up. He leveled off at 40,000 feet and took stock of his situation. By his calculations, he could reach his destination in under two hours.

He set a heading for South Korea and stepped on the gas.

His plan was simple.

Contact Kunsan Air Base in South Korea. Home of the American Eighth Fighter Wing, Thirty-Fifth Fighter Squadron, and the Eightieth Fighter Squadron. Tell them exactly who he was, identify his J-2 Chinese fighter, and beg them not to shoot him down. Land. Refuel. Contact C from a secure phone at the base commander’s office and tell him his lockbox containing a few million quid were gone to the bottom of the South China Sea. Admiral Tsang would just have to wait.

But he was coming back to England’s Lakenheath RAF base with one or two little surprises that might just be worth more than the contents of the lost lockbox.

Infinitely more.

C
HA
PTER 12

Washington, D.C.

“
H
APPY BIRTHDAY, DARLING!”
the First Lady trilled.

She swept into his darkened hospital room hidden behind an enormous arrangement of peonies in her favorite shade of pink. She went to the tall windows, threw open the curtains, and cleared a space for the flowers on a dresser top. Watery sunlight flooded the president’s room. She considered a moment, then placed the large cut crystal vase overflowing with pink peonies where it would look best.

“What do you think? I arranged them myself.”

“Beautiful, honey,” the president said, glancing up at her from his slew of binders and briefing papers. “Thanks.”

She looked over at him and smiled. A real smile.
Not like the old ones,
he thought, the ones that could barely mask the fear and the pity in her eyes. The ones that confirmed his own darkest nightmares and worst imaginings.

That he was dying.

“How do you feel, birthday boy?”

“Like a million bucks, baby.”

“In Confederate bills?” she said, repeating an old joke between them.

“Hell, no. Bona fide U.S. greenbacks, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. Namely, me. Not bad for a seventy-year-old coot, sugar.”

“Attaboy! You go get ’em, cowboy. There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s kicking ass and walking tall.”

Tom McCloskey laced his fingers behind his head, leaned back against his pillows, and beamed at his lovely wife. She was wearing the sky blue Chanel suit he’d bought her on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. With the halo of sunlight touching her auburn hair, she looked like an angel. Which, in his humble opinion, she truly was.

He really did feel good, damn it.

In fact, he had made a remarkable recovery since his arrival at Walter Reed Hospital. He was alert, cogent, rational, and in amazingly good humor. His eyes were clear, his skin was radiant. Whatever had been bothering him these last few months, the docs here at Walter Reed were taking care of it. Now he had one overpowering obsession. He was itching to get out of here and get the hell back to work.

The world was blowing up out there. With a lot of help from China and a little added push from North Korea, war was brewing in the Pacific. The Brits had told him they had a three-star admiral in China who’d refused the Kool-Aid. This top naval-ops guy was going to “retard the process.” But so far? He hadn’t seen dick.

The Middle East, as usual, was on fire. At home, too many people were out of work. The stock market was rocketing toward twenty thousand, and yet the economy still sucked the big one. And he was one of the few people on earth with balls of sufficient size and the power to fix it.

Just last night he’d done a fifteen-minute live bedside interview with Bret Baier, the evening anchor from Fox News. Hard questions, no softballs, that was Bret. China, Japan, Iran, Putin’s massive war games. The recent bellicosity of the crazy North Koreans, their threat to nuke Hawaii. And he’d knocked every damn one of Bret’s questions out of the park. Short, concise, cogent answers, backed up with an impressive understanding of the details underlying each issue.

Bret was the former White House chief correspondent, incredibly savvy and a hell of a nice guy. All-American kid, just the way he liked them. Clean-cut, he looked like he could have been on the White House Secret Service staff. People had been calling all morning to wish him happy birthday and report that the “Twitter-verse” was abuzz with news of the president’s miraculous comeback. The
New York Post,
they said, was running a front-page photo of him smiling from his bed. They’d Photoshopped a white ten-gallon Stetson on his head. The headline underneath, they said, was “The Comeback Kid!” The copy would talk about how he had his health back, was itching to get back in the saddle, and would be riding tall when he did.

There was a commotion out in the hall, and Mary Taliaferro, one of his favorite nurses, stuck her pretty red head inside the door.

“Mr. President? Just wait till you see what all has shown up out here at the nurses’ station. My gosh, you just won’t believe it!”

McCloskey laughed and looked at his wife.

“All right, Bonnie, what’s this all about? You know I don’t like surprises.”

“Oh, honey, you know I wouldn’t do that. Would I?”

She crossed the room, trying to keep the smile off her face, and pulled it open.

“Oh my goodness, look who’s here!”

“Who?” the president said, sitting up and straining to see over her shoulder. “Oh, my Lord, look at that!”

The first thing through the door was a massive four-tier birthday cake. It was on a rolling table, and they wheeled it right up to his bedside. It was decorated to look like his old homestead in Colorado, the Silvermine Ranch. Miniature ranch house on top, stables, paddocks, and two little figures on horseback that looked like Bonnie and him. Even the old blue Scrambler jeep he used to get around the property. Every tier was covered with tall green fir trees, cowboys, and cattle, a tiny version of everything he cherished on this earth.

“Well, boys,” he said to the two smiling young Filipino White House waiters, “you guys have outdone yourselves this time. That cake is flat-out beautiful. That big black stallion there even looks just like my own El Alamein.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” one of the waiters said. “We are all very proud of it. The entire kitchen and waitstaff has asked me to wish a most joyous and happy birthday . . . and a speedy recovery.”

The president starting clapping, and everyone joined in the applause.

His wife bent and kissed his forehead.

“Happy birthday, you big hunk,” she whispered in his ear. “You come on home and get your cute little butt back in my bed, okay?”

There was a knock at the door. She smiled, straightened up, and motioned to one of the young Secret Service guys standing just inside the door.

And the next thing he knew, his favorite country singer in the whole world walked through his door. The vice president, the White House chief of staff, and Ken Beer, his personal physician, walked in, followed by about a dozen nurses all crowded inside around his bed. All of them were grinning from ear to ear.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the president said.

Damned if it wasn’t Bonnie Raitt herself.

Dressed in full cowgirl regalia, Bonnie smiled at him as she walked over to his bedside and she took his hand. She sang, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday, Mr. President,” and proceeded to sing by far the best rendition of “Happy Birthday” he’d ever heard. When she finished, the room erupted into cheers and wild applause once more.

The president’s eyes filled with tears.

“Miss Raitt,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. Until this moment, I thought the best version of that song had been sung by Marilyn Monroe to Jack Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. But you know what, you’re not only a lot prettier than Marilyn, you’re one helluva lot better singer.”

Bonnie smiled, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Mr. President? Let’s give ’em something to talk about.”

And she bent over him and kissed him full on the lips.

Everyone in the room erupted into loud, heartfelt laughter.

“Wow. What a birthday,” he said, beaming at his wife. “You are something else, honey. Thank you so much. This means the world to me.”

“Let’s cut the cake!” she cried.

The younger of the two waiters handed the president a silver cake knife.

The president looked at his cake, beaming. “I don’t want to ruin it. Can somebody take a picture first?”

His wife got out her iPhone, starting snapping shots, and said, “Go on, darling, cut the cake. You get the first bite.”

He eyed one of the horses first, but said, “I never cared much for horse meat,” popping a frosted chunk into his mouth. “I’ll eat the jeep.”

And those were the very last words the forty-fifth president of the United States ever said.

The president’s head fell forward on his chest.

Ken Beer, his face stricken, pushed his way through the crowd around the bed and bent over the unconscious president.

The president’s heart had stopped.

“Nurse!” Ken yelled. “Cardiac arrest! Get the bed down flat. Check his pulse!”

“Ken, what is it?” the First Lady cried, her face a mask of horror. “What’s wrong with him?”

The physician plucked a piece of uneaten frosting from the cake, held it under his nose, and sniffed it.

“It’s that fucking cake,” Ken Beer said, staring at the monitor, which had flatlined. “Damn it! Get the crash cart in here now! There’s no cardiac output. Intubate him and start CPR immediately. Who’s the head nurse in here? Get all these people out of here.”

The Secret Service agent in charge got on his radio, “Rawhide is down! White House to lockdown. Secure the entire kitchen staff immediately. Nobody moves.”

An older nurse stepped forward and ordered everyone out of the room except the Secret Service, nurses, doctors, and Ken Beer. “And somebody bag that cake in a HAZMAT container. It’s lethal.”

Half an hour later, the nurse’s compressions on the president’s chest ceased.

They all stared at the monitor, and Ken Beer took the president’s pulse again.

He ordered shock pads. He ordered one milligram of atropine injected. He did everything he could.

“The patient is asystolic,” Ken said, profound sadness inscribed all over his face. “Flatlined. No cardiac output . . .”

The nurses waited. The First Lady had her back to the scene, facing the windows and her peonies. She was visibly shaking. When she heard Ken’s voice, she started sobbing silently.

“Okay. Let’s call it,” he said.

The president’s wife looked at his profile, her heart full of regret for all the steps and missteps that had brought them so full of hope and promise to this place and time.

Thomas Winthrop McCloskey, the forty-fifth president of the United States of America, was dead.

Murdered in his own goddamned bed.

“Let’s give ’em something to talk about,” Bonnie Raitt had said minutes ago.

Within hours, the whole world would be talking.