moment.
It hit him like a lightning strike to the heart.
These two thugs weren’t aboard the Red Arrow to kill him.
They meant to murder the heir to the crown. The child of the Tsarina.
They meant to kill his son.
Eight
H awke sat in the darkened compartment, smoking incessantly to stay alert. He’d bought a few packs of Sobranie Black Russians in the rail station at St. Petersburg. Despite the black wrapper with its fancy gold tip, they were foul, but effective. The rhythmic click-clack on the tracks threatened to hypnotize him, and he fought it with nicotine. He was seated on one of the small, upholstered chairs in the center of the compartment’s sitting room.
In the adjoining room, mercifully, Alexei was sleeping peacefully on the lower berth, his teddy bear clutched tightly. Hawke had rocked him to sleep and kissed his warm cheek before tucking him in. He’d then propped a sturdy wooden chair against the bedroom door to the train’s corridor, feeling only slightly more secure. He’d left the sliding door between their two rooms open and could hear the reassuring sound of his son snoring softly. It was a sound like no other he’d ever heard.
The only light in Hawke’s tiny room came from a dim violet-blue nightlight, a spiritlike apparition near the floor that gave the small sitting room a rather eerie, stage-set feeling. Like a bad horror film, Hawke thought, some kind of Hammer Films vampire movie.
In his right hand, Hawke held his SIG .45 pistol, a hollow-point round already in the chamber. He’d positioned his chair to one side and in the shadows, so as to be out of the line of fire of someone forcefully entering the room. But he would have a clear shot at anyone coming through that door without an invitation.
He would shoot to kill if, indeed, circumstances warranted it.
For a man expecting a pair of KGB or criminal thugs to burst through his door with guns blazing, Alex Hawke was surprisingly relaxed. He was not the type of man who could be prodded into deciding what he might or might not do under any possible circumstances. And this was certainly not due to bravery, or coolness, or any especially sublime confidence in his own physical prowess or power. It was a powerful instinct to go with his gut and it hadn’t failed him yet.
And, he was, as one of his superior officers in the Royal Navy had said, “Simply good at war.”
From time to time he’d rise and stretch, the long hours of sitting starting to wear on him. He looked at the large face of his black Royal Navy dive watch, the luminous numbers clearly legible. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. He’d been in (or, rather, on ) this bloody chair for six full hours.
He could feel himself losing his edge.
Inaction is the enemy of action, he reminded himself. It was time to move.
He rose from the chair and went to check on his son, understanding for the very first time the expression “sleeping like a baby.” He then went to his travel bag and pulled out a loose-fitting black turtlenecked jumper, pulling it over his head. The black trousers he was already wearing would suit his purposes nicely in the darkness of the train’s corridors. He checked his weapon once more and slapped the mag back into the gun.
Slipping the pistol into the nylon holster in the small of his back, he reached up to the shelf and grasped Peter the Great’s battle sword, the gift from Kuragin. The red leather scabbard had a loop that he ran his belt through, the ivory-handled sword now hanging down his right side. His black gabardine greatcoat was swaying on the door hook. He shouldered himself into it and saw in the mirror that only the razor-edged tip of the sword was visible beneath the hem.
If you’re going to a gunfight, best to bring a gun and a knife, even a sword if there’s one handy.
He listened a long moment to Alexei’s soft breathing, then he stepped out into the corridor. He turned and pulled the door closed, locked it from the
It hit him like a lightning strike to the heart.
These two thugs weren’t aboard the Red Arrow to kill him.
They meant to murder the heir to the crown. The child of the Tsarina.
They meant to kill his son.
Eight
H awke sat in the darkened compartment, smoking incessantly to stay alert. He’d bought a few packs of Sobranie Black Russians in the rail station at St. Petersburg. Despite the black wrapper with its fancy gold tip, they were foul, but effective. The rhythmic click-clack on the tracks threatened to hypnotize him, and he fought it with nicotine. He was seated on one of the small, upholstered chairs in the center of the compartment’s sitting room.
In the adjoining room, mercifully, Alexei was sleeping peacefully on the lower berth, his teddy bear clutched tightly. Hawke had rocked him to sleep and kissed his warm cheek before tucking him in. He’d then propped a sturdy wooden chair against the bedroom door to the train’s corridor, feeling only slightly more secure. He’d left the sliding door between their two rooms open and could hear the reassuring sound of his son snoring softly. It was a sound like no other he’d ever heard.
The only light in Hawke’s tiny room came from a dim violet-blue nightlight, a spiritlike apparition near the floor that gave the small sitting room a rather eerie, stage-set feeling. Like a bad horror film, Hawke thought, some kind of Hammer Films vampire movie.
In his right hand, Hawke held his SIG .45 pistol, a hollow-point round already in the chamber. He’d positioned his chair to one side and in the shadows, so as to be out of the line of fire of someone forcefully entering the room. But he would have a clear shot at anyone coming through that door without an invitation.
He would shoot to kill if, indeed, circumstances warranted it.
For a man expecting a pair of KGB or criminal thugs to burst through his door with guns blazing, Alex Hawke was surprisingly relaxed. He was not the type of man who could be prodded into deciding what he might or might not do under any possible circumstances. And this was certainly not due to bravery, or coolness, or any especially sublime confidence in his own physical prowess or power. It was a powerful instinct to go with his gut and it hadn’t failed him yet.
And, he was, as one of his superior officers in the Royal Navy had said, “Simply good at war.”
From time to time he’d rise and stretch, the long hours of sitting starting to wear on him. He looked at the large face of his black Royal Navy dive watch, the luminous numbers clearly legible. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. He’d been in (or, rather, on ) this bloody chair for six full hours.
He could feel himself losing his edge.
Inaction is the enemy of action, he reminded himself. It was time to move.
He rose from the chair and went to check on his son, understanding for the very first time the expression “sleeping like a baby.” He then went to his travel bag and pulled out a loose-fitting black turtlenecked jumper, pulling it over his head. The black trousers he was already wearing would suit his purposes nicely in the darkness of the train’s corridors. He checked his weapon once more and slapped the mag back into the gun.
Slipping the pistol into the nylon holster in the small of his back, he reached up to the shelf and grasped Peter the Great’s battle sword, the gift from Kuragin. The red leather scabbard had a loop that he ran his belt through, the ivory-handled sword now hanging down his right side. His black gabardine greatcoat was swaying on the door hook. He shouldered himself into it and saw in the mirror that only the razor-edged tip of the sword was visible beneath the hem.
If you’re going to a gunfight, best to bring a gun and a knife, even a sword if there’s one handy.
He listened a long moment to Alexei’s soft breathing, then he stepped out into the corridor. He turned and pulled the door closed, locked it from the
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