“Why’s that?”
“Because, John Henry, I think this computer’s got a bomb inside it. Hell, more I think about it, maybe this isn’t the only one.”
“Bombs in computers.”
“That’d be my guess, yeah. I could be wrong.”
John Henry was turning the thing over in his hands, staring at it in disbelief. “My kid’s fifth-grade computer class uses these.”
“Scary thought, ain’t it?” Stoke said. “We’ve got to talk to Robb. Get the whole damn FBI on this. Find out how many of these damn computer bombs might be out there.”
Stoke’s cell hummed in his pocket. He whipped it out and flipped it open.
“You’re talking to him,” he said.
“Stoke, it’s Luis.”
“Shark. What’s up?”
“Miami Dade PD just called two minutes ago. Friend of mine there picked up on some info he thought we should know about. They tracked our baker boy, All Beef Paddy Strelnikov. He’s back in Miami, all right. One of the local officers who had seen the APB photo made him at the Miami Herald building. Dressed as an exterminator. Carrying two large canisters on his back, like oxygen tanks or something.”
“He’s back in Miami?”
“Not anymore. He gave them the slip. They searched the building top to bottom. Nada. They think he might have gotten aboard the airship, the Pushkin.”
“Listen to me. Did anyone actually see him board?”
“No. But he was in a stairwell to the roof minutes before that thing was getting ready to go.”
“Tell me it’s not gone yet, Shark.”
“Left for Stockholm hours ago. Man, I woulda called you sooner, you know, but I just found out myself.”
Stoke snapped his phone shut.
“Canisters?” he said, looking at Flood. “Oxygen tanks?”
“What?”
“Those tanks were full of gas, not oxygen. He was experimenting with poison gas on the mayor and her family. See how much it would take to put them to sleep before it was lethal. What the Russians did at that theater rescue in Moscow, pumped gas through the AC to put everyone to sleep. But they got the formula wrong, and most of the hostages died. Happy may have smuggled his goddamn poison gas aboard the airship.”
“I’m sorry, but what are you talking-”
“Fancha,” he said under his breath, and then he started scrambling up the steep ravine faster than John Henry Flood would have ever believed a man his size could move.
48
Early-morning bars of gold light streamed across the gilded furniture, the sumptuous bed, and the Persian carpets. Anastasia swept into the room and found Hawke alone in her big canopied bed. He had the quilted blue silk duvet pulled up under his neck, wearing nothing but a grin.
“Hawke, get up!”
“Are you quite sure I’m not up already, darling?”
He’d barely managed to reach down and slide his portable sat phone under the bed without her noticing. He’d just rung off with Harry Brock. It had been a most disturbing conversation. He’d told Brock about last night’s confrontation between Rostov and Korsakov. And thanks to Harry, he now knew what President Rostov had been so angry about the previous evening. What the “insanity” had been. An entire American town had been obliterated. Rostov’s rage could mean only one thing, however far-fetched it might seem. The Russians had been behind the bombing of an American city. Which meant they were clearly willing, ready, and able to risk all-out nuclear war with the United States.
Korsakov had clearly ordered this unprovoked attack without the Russian president’s knowledge. Last night, Hawke had witnessed a power struggle at the very pinnacle of Russian politics. Brock was now communicating this intelligence to his superiors at Langley and the Pentagon. The White House would soon be buzzing as well.
And Hawke? Korsakov’s gorgeous daughter was standing at his bedside, treating him like a naughty schoolboy, her dainty foot inches away from the sat phone hidden beneath the bed.
As a distraction, he flashed what he hoped was a winning smile.
“Alex! There’s no time for that. Seriously. Come along, now, go into your room and get yourself dressed. And packed. We’re leaving in one hour.”
“Leaving? We just got here.”
“Out!” Anastasia whipped back the duvet. The sight of her aroused lover, naked in the morning sunlight, was almost sufficiently diverting to advance Hawke’s cause.
“Look at you.”
“Hmm.”
“Nyet, nyet, nyet. Get up and go. I mean it. Papa will be furious if we’re not ready.” She grabbed his wrist and began to pull him from her bed.
“Okay, okay, I’ll get up,” Hawke said, laughing. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it? God’s in his heaven and all that?”
Hawke climbed down from the bed and slipped his arms into the silk robe she held open for him, surreptitiously kicking the phone further beneath the bed. He’d fetch it later. He then turned inside her embrace, kissed her on the mouth, and patted her lovely rounded bottom. She was still in her dressing gown, he noticed, and naked beneath it. Ah, well, time’s winged chariot, nothing to be done.
“Okay, I give up. Why on earth are we leaving, by the way? I was just getting accustomed to this palatial life you filthy-rich Russians seem to enjoy.”
“Papa just called me to his room. He needs to get back to Moscow. Political events there require his presence. He’s invited you and me to go with him, and I accepted. He’s offered to give us his box at the Bolshoi tonight. Swan Lake with Nasimova. Her opening night. It will be spectacular, I promise. Now, go.”
“How are we getting there, by the way? Troika, one hopes…”
“Even better. We’re taking his private airship.”
“How wonderful. I’ve been dying to climb aboard that thing and have a look. Do you think he’ll let me fly it?”
“The famous Royal Navy flyer? I should think so. Now, get moving.”
She rushed into the bathroom, and Hawke snatched his phone from beneath the bed before going to his own room to pack.
HAWKE WATCHED WITH open admiration as the ground crew slowly backed the gleaming silver zeppelin out of the massive hangar, each blue-uniformed man handling one of the many cables hanging down from the fuselage. She was extraordinary to look at, four hundred feet in length, he’d guess, with a gaping round opening at the front. Quite a radical design, he thought, but then, it had sprung from the mind of quite a radical guy.
Her name, appropriately enough, was emblazoned on her flanks. Tsar. At her tail section, from which a boarding staircase was now emerging, the bright red Russian stars adorned each fin. In the brilliant snow-reflected sunlight, she was a gleaming machine from another world.
“What do you think?” Anastasia asked, suddenly appearing at his side. She was wrapped in her white sable and matching hat and looked lovely.
“Stunning.”
“We can board now, if you’d like. Our luggage has already been taken aboard and stowed. Father is already aboard as well. He’s having a series of private meetings with his closest business associates. I’m afraid we won’t be seeing much of him until we arrive in Moscow.”
“Ah, well. I’m glad I had a bit of time with him last evening. Got the chance to get acquainted.”
“So is he.”
“How fast is Tsar? Remarkable-looking thing, I must say.”
“A hundred and fifty miles an hour is pretty much her top end. But the captain tells me we’ve got a good tailwind this morning. We should be in the capital for lunch.”
“I should make arrangements for a place to stay,” Hawke said. “Do I have time to make a call?”
“Already taken care of, darling. I booked you a suite at the Metropol. Just adjacent to Red Square and very close to the Bolshoi. Shall we go aboard? I think Father would like to get going as quickly as possible.”