Free Crash Dive: An Alex Hawke Story by Ted Bell Page B

her with the cold.
    “I love you,” he said simply. “I always will.”
    “And I shall always love you,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Until my last breath.”
    He put his arm around her and drew her near.
    “I will find a way, you know. I will find a way.”
    “Yes?”
    “Yes.”
    “What do you mean? Find a way?”
    “A way for us all to be together. The three of us. A way out of here. This prison, this frozen fortress. To go somewhere no one can find us. Ever. I will build a fortress around us. I will shelter you and Alexei. I will protect you from any harm. We will begin again. To love each other. To love our child. To raise him to become the—”
    He felt her stiffen. And then convulse, her shoulders heaving. He heard her sobs from inside the cowl of white mink.
    “What, darling?” he said, pulling her closer. “What is it?”
    “It cannot be, Alex. It cannot ever be.”
    “What cannot be?”
    “What you want. Your beautiful dream. It is not possible.”
    “Why? Why on earth do you say such a thing?” He felt his heart lurch within his chest.
    She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes spilling tears.
    “Oh, my darling Alex. You have no idea what you have done. By coming here.”
    “Done? I have come to take you away. You and our child. What do you mean I have no idea—”
    “Alex. Please. Listen.”
    “I am listening.”
    “I cannot go with you. I cannot ever leave here, leave this place. This is my home, Alex, my sanctuary. I am safe here. So is Alexei. Did you know there is a price on both our heads? The Tsarists in the politburo want Alexei and me dead. For betraying my father. Only Kuragin stands in their way. But he’s made sure that one can hurt us here. No one.”
    “What are you saying? I don’t even—we love each other. We have a child to protect. We have—”
    “We have nothing, Alex. Nothing.”
    “Nothing? We have each other. We have Alexei! And that is nothing? God in heaven, Anastasia, what can you be thinking?”
    Anastasia pulled away from him, stood up, and looked down at him, tears coursing down both cheeks, her lower lip trembling, wrapping her arms around herself.
    “Alex, it’s Nikolai. General Kuragin saved me from a firing squad. He saved your son, Alexei, from infanticide. They were going to bash his head against the wall as soon as he was born. The grandson of a tsar, even a dead one, will be a political threat inside the Kremlin for decades to come. Think about it. The bastard son of the Englishman who assassinated their great and noble Tsar? They hate him!”
    “Yes. I see what you are saying. But, surely—”
    “Nikolai Kuragin is our only hope! He is our savior! He is Alexei’s and my only real chance of survival, Alex. You must believe me, because it is true.”
    “I can protect you. I can protect you both. It’s what I do, you know.”
    “You want me to believe that we will be safer anywhere on earth than we are here in this fortress? Do you not understand that? They want me dead. They want our child dead and out of their way. It is the Russian way. Centuries of Russian politics repeated.”
    Hawke looked away for a moment, his mind reeling. For how long had he wandered in his wilderness of grief? Insupportable grief, yes, and loss. Years. And now Asia was here before him, alive, and he felt as if he were fighting for her love! Fighting for his own son! No, more, he was fighting for his life, the one that had been ripped from him on that island in Sweden.
    “My resources are easily the equal of Kuragin’s. Vastly superior.”
    “He will never allow it.”
    “ He will never allow it? Stand between me and my family’s rightful happiness? No one can do that, believe me. Surely the general will understand us, Anastasia,” Hawke said, softening his tone, trying to keep the creeping desperation from his voice. He was shaken. He was beginning to doubt himself. And doubt was something completely alien to his being, his core. He took a