“I tried your mobile, but as usual it wasn’t turned on.”
“Well, yes, there’s that. I wonder if you could possibly get the secretary some tea and apologize for me, will you? I’m going to have a scrub and put on something clean.”
“Indeed, sir. Your current appearance leaves a great deal to be desired. One might use the word ‘frightening’? I’ve taken the liberty of laying out one of your favorite gray Huntsman suits,” the butler said. “And may I suggest a tie? A nice Turnbull Navy foulard should do quite nicely. After all, your guest is a personage of great—”
But Hawke was already halfway up the sweeping marble staircase, mounting the steps three at a time.
“Lord Hawke is bloodied but unbowed, I see!” the old fellow muttered under his breath.
“Indeed, I am!” Hawke shouted back over his shoulder.
Ten minutes later, he’d showered and, ignoring the wardrobe laid out by Pelham, donned a pair of faded Levis, Royal Navy T-shirt, and an old black cashmere sweater. If Conch saw him in a coat and tie, she wouldn’t recognize him.
Entering the library, he found Consuelo de los Reyes sitting by a crackling fire, sipping a can of Diet Coke through a straw, and staring at the television.
“You’re here!” Hawke said. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
“I figured out how to turn this damn thing on. Hope you don’t mind.”
She was watching herself on CNN Newsbreakers. Hawke couldn’t help smiling at Conch’s television appearance and demeanor.
Very genteel. Black dress, pearls. And, Hawke noticed, a marked absence of the usual stream of four-letter words that flowed so naturally from the mouth of the American Secretary of State.
“Does that dress make me look fat?” Conch asked.
“No dress makes you look fat, Conch.”
Today, Conch had on a tight pink cashmere sweater. It was a sweater he remembered quite well. It buttoned up the back. Or unbuttoned, as the case may be. Beyond the tall crystalline windows on either side of the hearth, a snow-covered Washington basked in the brilliant morning sunlight.
“Well, you’re my first guest,” Hawke said, pulling up a chair by the fireside. “I guess since you found the house for me, by all rights it should be you.” Conch owned the house just across the street and had first shown Alex the pretty Georgian brick home he now owned.
“Good God almighty, Alex,” she said, reaching over to flip off the television and looking around. “You’ve turned the old dump into Brideshead Manor.”
“Decorators certainly captured the English Country look in this room, didn’t they?”
“Feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a goddamn Polo ad. Like Ralph’s going to walk through the door any minute and plop down amidst the chintz with a couple of springer spaniels.”
Hawke smiled. Conch’s tastes ran to bamboo, rattan, and mounted blue marlins, even in Georgetown.
“Dreadful business last night at the Georgetown Club,” he said. “I’ve just come from the hospital.”
“Hell of a fright, buster. I got a call during dinner with the president. The Georgetown Club! We’ll nail these guys, whoever they are. And then we’ll nail the sonsabitches’ balls to the walls, believe me. Tell me about it. What happened to your hand?”
“Just a salad fork through it, Conch. I was lucky.”
“And Victoria?”
“I would say that she is extremely lucky.”
“Meaning?”
“This may be difficult for you to believe, but—” Alex broke off what he was saying when Pelham suddenly floated into the room.
“I’ve laid a breakfast out on the table there, m’lord,” he said. “Fruit, cereal, coffee, tea. Muffins with your favorite strawberry jam. Please ring if you need me. Otherwise I shan’t disturb you further.”
Hawke smiled as the butler withdrew, pulling the double doors closed, and said, “At any rate, I know it’s preposterous, but I think it’s possible that bomb was meant for Vicky.”
“Oh, Alex, get serious. Why in hell would anyone—”
“The bloody Cubans, perhaps. After all, that submarine was purchased by this Telaraсa bunch. Could be trying to scare me away.”
“Alex, if they really wanted to, why not just kill you?”
“Too much bad publicity? I don’t know. Look, I’ll be honest. I gave those Russians a fairly rough go of it. Forced them to divulge who bought the Borzoi. They were terrified of the possible repercussions. In order to cover themselves, they’d go straight to the Cubans and tell them about my keen interest in their activities. So, I expect the new Cuban government aren’t exactly happy with me at the moment.”
“Big-time CYA.”
“Sorry?”
“Cover Your Ass. Your Russian friends are covering theirs with the Cubans,” Conch said. “That’s precisely what your little arms-dealing buddies would do. Go to the Cubans, tell their sob story, blame everything on you. Cuban Secret Service does a little backtracking and ends up in Kuwait City, where the first deal fell apart. CIA just received word that your friend Cap Adams just turned up dead. Sorry.”
“What?”
“London Metro Police found him last night in his apartment in St. John’s Wood. No apparent cause of death. Pathologists using an electron microscope detected a minute pellet of Ricin in his thigh muscle.”
“Ricin?”
“Toxic albumin found in castor beans. Remember the famous ‘Umbrella Murder’? A KGB thug with a trick umbrella assassinated an inconvenient Bulgarian named Marlgov on the Waterloo Bridge way back in ’78. Ancient history to us, but apparently not to the Cubans. Kudos to your British forensic boys for getting to the bottom of this one so quickly.”
“Kudos all around. Hope someone gets word of their brilliant success to Cap’s wife, Anne, and children in Arlington. Christ. I’ve got to call Anne.”
“Stick with Vicky a moment, Alex. What makes you think Vicky might be the target?”
“She was called to the phone by the waiter just minutes before the explosion. When she got to the booth, there was no one on the line. Just breathing. There was a black briefcase on the floor. Thinking someone had simply forgotten it, she gave it to the waiter on her way back to the table.”
“And it exploded in his hands minutes later,” the secretary said, shaking her head. “I’ll get this info to the lead team right away.”
“Thanks.”
“Alex, the reason the president asked me to stop by this morning is Cuba. What we don’t need at State right now is another hotspot right on our doorstep. That island is coming to a fast boil. I’m going to need a little help with this one.”
“Whatever I can do. Tell me.”
“As I told you, rumors of a coup have been circulating for a while. Now, a televised speech Fidel was scheduled to make last evening was canceled at the last minute. It’s not at all like him. I’ve got a shitload of HUMINT pouring in through our Cuban desk at the Swiss embassy in Havana.”
“HUMINT?”
“Sorry. Human intelligence. State Department speak for spies. I try like hell not to talk like that, but sometimes …”
“Castro’s had a rough go of it with Parkinson’s, you know. Relapse?”
“Possible. But we know he’d had a major recovery after the pope’s last visit. We get weekly medical reports on him from a doctor on our payroll. He’s down, but he’s not out by a long shot. Tough old bird. And every male in his family lives to be at least a hundred.”
“So. What’s next?”
“I’m going from here right back to the White House. We’ve had contingency planning for a Cuban overthrow on the books forever, as you can well imagine. We’re moving to the implementation stage right now.”
“Any news on the submarine front?”
“You bet. Here, look at these,” de los Reyes said, and handed Hawke a bright red folder full of black-and-white photographs.
“Where were these taken?” Hawke asked, flipping through the pictures.