Warriors (2 page)

“As long as y’ don’ scare the horses, m’lord.”

Hawke laughed, a laugh of pure joy.

“Anything at all I should know about?”

“Just one thing, sir. Bit of a steering issue. She seems to want to pull to the right a wee bit. I’ll take care of it as soon as you return. Not dangerous, really. I just wanted you to be aware of it in the twisty bits.”

“Thanks. Cheerio, then.”

Hawke engaged first, mashed the go pedal, popped the clutch, and smoked the squealing tires, fishtailing through the wide wrought-iron stable gates until he reached the paved drive, braked hard, and put the car into a four-wheel drift, a left-hander. He backed off the throttle for the length of the drive, slowing to a stop at the main gate to the estate. The gate was off a two-lane road that led to Chipping Campden, rarely used, and certainly not at this ungodly hour.

Burning rubber once more, he took a hard right out into the road. He had a long straightaway shot in front of him, some miles of clear sailing before the road reentered the forest. There was still a bit of ground fog, but it was blowing around a bit and he had a clear view of the road ahead. He upshifted into second and wound the revs up to redline. He was shoved hard back into his seat, and the scenery became an instant blur.

Ian had been right about the steering.

The Cobra had an annoying habit of pulling to the right. It was irksome but nothing he couldn’t handle until he got her back to the stable and corrected it.

HAWKE ENTERED THE DARK WOOD
, a place of blue-tinged evergreens.

The macadam road was a twisting snake, but then, he was at the wheel of the Snake. It was narrow, chock-full of inclines, switchbacks, and decreasing radius turns. It was the perfect place to see how his new prize handled. He pushed it hard, not happy unless his tyres were squealing, and the car responded beautifully, enormous torque, precision handling, wedded to splendid racing tyres. Heaven, in other words.

When he finally emerged from the wood, he charged up a rather steep hill, crested it, went fully airborne for a moment, and then sped down into the next straightaway, the engine warmed up now. He redlined third and upshifted to fourth, then down again to second for the intersection, a tight right-hander into a narrow country lane.

And that’s when he heard the blare of air horns behind him.

Christ,
he thought,
who the hell?

He glanced at the rearview mirror and saw the familiar stately grille of an old Rolls-Royce filling the mirror. Right smack on his tail. He slowed, moved left onto the grassy verge, and gestured to the big silver Roller to overtake, for God’s sake. He couldn’t wait to get a look at the driver. What kind of a moron would even think of trying to pass on this bloody—

A woman. A beautiful woman. Bright yellow Hermès scarf wound round her neck. Silky black hair cut short, and a stunning Asian profile.

She blew the triple air horns again as she blew past, and Hawke’s shouted reply surely went unheard over the wind and the combined engine roar. He saw her right arm emerge, hand raised high, ruby red nails, the middle digit extended straight up as she tucked in front of him, almost nicking his front fender.

Fucking hell.

“Balls to the wall, you crazy bitch!” he shouted at her in vain, shaking his righteous fist in disbelieving anger.

And that’s when it happened.

He’d taken his right hand off the wheel for a split second, the steering had pulled hard right, and a stout and hardy chestnut tree leaped up out of the woods and smacked him good, pinging both his pride and his new and very shiny blue bonnet in one solid blow.

He forgot the stupid incident over time, but for some reason he never forgot the license plate number on that old silver Roller.

M-A-O.

As in Chairman Mao?

He had no idea. But, as it all turned out in the end, he’d been absolutely spot-on about that damn plate number.

It was Mao.

And the woman behind the wheel? Well, she was indeed one crazy bitch.

C
H A P T E R
  1

B
ill Chase picked up the phone and called 1789.

Chase had always thought a year was an odd name for a restaurant. Even for a quaint, colonial eatery in the historic heart of Georgetown. But the year, he knew, was historic: in 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected the nation’s first president. In that same year, the United States Constitution went into effect. And also that year, his alma mater, Georgetown University, had been founded.

1789 had been his go-to dining spot in town since his freshman year. The place felt like home, that was all. He loved the elegant high-ceilinged, flower-filled rooms upstairs, usually filled with an eclectic potpourri of the well-heeled and the well-oiled, frenetic lobbyists, assorted besotted lovers, gay and straight, illicit and otherwise, various self-delighted junior senators with JFK haircuts, as well as the tired, the careworn, the elderly congressmen.

He liked the restaurant for its authentic colonial vibe, the simple food and subtle service, even the quaint Limoges china. Not to mention the complete absence of pretentious waiters or wine stewards who uttered absurdities like “And what will we be enjoying this evening?”

We? Really? Are you joining us for dinner? Or this little gem he’d heard just last week at Chez Panisse: “And at what temperature would you like your steak this evening, Mr. Chase?” Temperature? Sorry, forgot my meat thermometer this evening. Honestly, who came up with this crap?

1789’s utter lack of haute-moderne pretension was precisely what had kept Chase coming back since his college days; those beery, cheery, halcyon days when he’d been a semipermanent habitué of the horseshoe bar at the Tombs downstairs.

Chase hung up the phone in his office, rose from his father’s old partner’s desk, and stood gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was late afternoon, and the cold, wintry skies over northern Virginia were laced with streaks of violet and magenta. His private office on the thirtieth floor of Lightstorm’s world headquarters had vistas overlooking the Capitol, the White House, and the Pentagon.

To his left he could see Georgetown, Washington’s oldest neighborhood, and home to the Chase family for generations. The streets of town were already lost to a grey fog bank. He watched it now, rolling up from the south and over the silvery Potomac like a misty tsunami. Traffic on the Francis Scott Key bridge had become two parallel streams of haloed red and white lights flowing slowly in opposite directions.

Bill Chase had plenty of reasons to be happy despite the dull grey weather. His marriage had never been stronger or more passionate, and his new fighter aircraft prototype, the Lightstorm, had just emerged victorious in a global battle for a huge Pentagon aeronautical contract. But the best part? His two adored kids, Milo, age four, and Sarah, age seven, were healthy, happy, and thriving at school.

Today was a red-letter day. His wife’s fortieth. The Big Four-Oh, as she’d been calling it recently. He had just booked a table for four upstairs at 1789. His family would be dining tonight at a cozy round table in the gracious Garden Room on the second floor, right next to the fireplace.

BILL CHASE HAD COME A
long way.

In this decisive year of 2009, he was the fifty-year-old wunderkind behind Lightstorm Advanced Weapons Systems. LAWS was a global powerhouse whose rapid rise to the top in the ongoing battle for world dominance in the military tech industry was the stuff of legend. Bill himself had acquired a bit of legend.

Fortune
magazine’s recent cover story on him had been headlined: “One Part Gates, One Part Jobs, One Part Oppenheimer!” His portrait, shot by Annie Leibovitz, showed him smiling in the open cockpit of the new Lightstorm fighter.

The Pentagon had relied heavily on LAWS for the last decade. Chase’s firm had just been awarded a massive British government contract to develop an unmanned fighter-bomber code-named Sorcerer. It was Bill’s pet project: a mammoth batwing UAV capable of being launched from Royal Navy aircraft carriers. Heavy payloads, all-weather capability, extreme performance parameters, and zero risk of pilot casualty or death.

An electric crack and a heavy rumble of thunder stirred Chase out of his reverie. He looked up and gazed out his tall windows.

Steep-piled buttresses of thunderheads had towered up darkly. Another mounting bulwark of black clouds to the west, veined with white lightning, was stacking up beyond the Potomac. Big storm coming. He stood at his office window watching the first few fat drops of rain slant across his expansive windows. A stormy night, rain mixed with fog, was on the way and it was too bad.

They had planned to walk the few blocks to the restaurant from their gracious two-hundred-year-old town house just off Reservoir Road.

He wanted the evening to be special in every way. He’d bought Kat a ridiculously expensive piece of jewelry, filled their house with flowers. All day today his wife, Kathleen, had been facing down the Big Four-Oh, and, like most women, she wasn’t happy about it.

Kat had been adamant about her big birthday. She’d insisted upon no fancy-pants black-tie party at the Chevy Chase Club, no shindig of any stripe, and, God forbid, not even the merest suggestion of a surprise party.

No. She wanted a quiet dinner out with her husband and their two children. Period.

No cake, no candles.

Bill was feeling celebratory, but he had acquiesced readily. It was, after all, her birthday, not his. Light-years ago, she’d fallen for his southern Bayou Teche drawl and charm; but she’d come to rely on his southern manners. True gents were somewhat in short supply in the nation’s capital. And Kat, at least, believed she had found one. Besides his own career, William Lincoln Chase Jr.’s wife and family meant the world to him.

And he tried hard to let them know it, every day of his life.

C
H A P T E R
  2

D
inner was lovely. The heavy rain had somehow held off, and they’d all walked the five blocks to the restaurant hand in hand, the evening skies a brassy shade of gold, the skeletal trees etched black against them like a Chinese watercolor Chase used to own.

Kat had worn an old black Saint Laurent cocktail dress with slit sleeves that revealed her perfect white arms. She was wearing the diamond brooch at the neckline, the one he’d given her for their twentieth anniversary. The kids, little Milo and his older sister, Sarah, had even behaved, beautifully for them, and for that he was grateful.

Kat didn’t like this birthday, with its early hints of mortality, one bit. He was determined to make it a happy evening for her and their family. He’d always had a sense of occasion and he wasn’t about to let this one go to waste.

And he’d loved the shine in her lively brown eyes when he gave her the birthday present. She opened the slender black velvet case, took a quick peek, and smiled across the table at him, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

A diamond necklace.

“It’s lovely, Bill. Really, you shouldn’t have. Way too extravagant.”

“Do you like it?”

“What girl wouldn’t, darling?”

“It’s the one Audrey Hepburn wore in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Bill Chase, stop it. I know when you’re teasing.”

“No, Kat, really. There was an auction at Sotheby’s when I was in New York last week.”

“You’re serious. Audrey’s necklace. The one in the movie.”

“Double pinkie swear, crossies don’t count.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Dad?” Milo said.

“Yes, Milo?”

“You’re funny.”

Milo and Sarah looked at each other and laughed. Double pinkie swear? They’d never heard their brainy dad speak like that before.

“Audrey Hepburn?” Kat said again, still not quite believing it. “Really?”

“Hmm,” he said, “Audrey Hepburn.”

It was perfect. For that one fleeting moment, it was all just perfect.

Her favorite actress. Her favorite movie. His favorite girl. The happy smiles on the faces of his two beautiful children.

He was a very, very lucky man, and he knew it.

THE FOG WAS THICK WHEN
the Chase family stepped outside the flickering gaslit restaurant entrance. You could barely make out the haloed glow of streetlamps on the far side of the narrow cobblestone Georgetown street.

Bill held his daughter’s hand; pausing at the top of the steps, he pulled his grey raincoat closer round his torso. It must have dropped twenty degrees while they were inside, and the fog made everything a little spooky.

They descended the few steps to the sidewalk and turned toward the river.

He could hear that melody in his head, the theme song from his favorite horror movie,
The Exorcist
. What was it called? “Tubular Bells.” They’d shot part of that movie on this very same street, on a very foggy night just like this one, and maybe that’s why walking back from the Tombs at night sometimes gave him the creeps.

“Let’s go, kids, hurry up,” Chase said, edgy for some nameless reason as they plunged into the mist.

The street was deserted, for one thing, all the curtains in the town houses drawn tight against the stormy night. He took a look over his shoulder, half expecting to see a deranged zombie dragging one leg behind him.

Nothing, of course.

He felt like an idiot. The last thing he wanted after a perfect evening was to look like a fool and alarm Kat about nothing. She and Sarah were singing “A Foggy Day in London Town” off-key, Kat loving to sing when she’d had a glass or two of her favorite sauvignon blanc.

“Damn it!” Bill cried, bending to grab his kneecap. Looking over his shoulder, he’d walked right into a fireplug, slammed his knee and upper shin against the hard iron rim. He could feel a warm dampness inside his trouser leg. The cut probably wasn’t deep, but it hurt like hell.

“What is it, darling?” Kat said, taking his arm.