Dead Eye

NINE

At oh one hundred hours the Helsinki Polaris and the two tiny vessels chasing it converged in the black waters of the Baltic Sea, twenty miles due south of Helsinki.

The eight Townsend operators of Trestle Team rode in the two black Zodiac MK2s, powered by beefy but quiet motors that allowed them to cut through the cargo ship’s wake and advance on the stern unnoticed but with commanding speed.

The Zodiacs had one man at the helm, while the three others on each boat held on to rope handles on the craft’s inflatable rubber walls. The two small rubber boats separated behind the cargo ship, with one heading to the starboard side and the other to port. They came abreast of the Polaris simultaneously, and telescoping climbing poles with padded hooks at their tips were raised and hung over the railing of the main deck. Within sixty seconds the first two men were up the poles, over the railing, and lowering a rope ladder so the poles could be removed and the second and third men on each Zodiac could climb more quickly and more safely. After another minute the rope ladders were unhooked from the railing and stored on the deck, and the six men concealed themselves from anyone awake above on the bridge who decided to gaze back to stern.

Within two minutes of arriving alongside the cargo ship, the six-man boarding party was moving up the deck with their Heckler & Koch MP7s held at the high ready.

In the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the entire staff of the signal room watched the giant screen in front of them. It displayed the action via a ScanEagle UAV flying overhead. The drone had been deployed from the backyard of a safe house in Helsinki and operated by the same team who, only twenty hours earlier, had been working from a safe house near Gregor Sidorenko’s dacha.

The direct action team searched the vessel, staying low profile, using their night vision equipment to move in the shadows and soft communications over their headsets to remain in contact with one another while moving through the cargo ship’s labyrinthine passageways.

Twenty-six minutes after boarding, Trestle Actual entered the captain’s cabin and knelt down over the captain’s bunk. He placed his gloved hand over the silver-haired Russian’s mouth and, shining a tactical flashlight in his eyes, woke the man with a hard shake.

“G’de Americanskiy?” Where is the American?

The man’s eyes were wide, the pupils pinpricks in the bright light. He tried to turn away from the beam but the hand held him firm. The light burned through his lids as he squeezed them shut.

“G’de Americanskiy?”

The gloved hand let go of the face and the captain spoke hesitantly.

“The passenger? He said he was German.”

“That doesn’t matter. Where is he now?”

“He disembarked.”

“When?”

“Wha — what time is it?”

“It’s one thirty.”

“About midnight, I think.”

“How did he leave the ship?”

“A boat came for him. It must have been prearranged. We were not told about it until it appeared. On the radio they said it had come for the passenger. He was already on the deck waiting for it.”

“What kind of boat?”

“A Bayliner, I think. White. Canvas canopy.” The man shook his head. “Just a regular little twenty-footer.”

“What language did the man on the radio speak?”

“Russian.”

“Where did it take him?”

“I… I don’t know. Helsinki, maybe? It was the closest port. Forty kilometers from our position at the time. Must have been going to Helsinki.”

Trestle Actual evaluated the captain’s responses and deemed him credible. He seemed entirely too bewildered and terrified to attempt to deceive the armed men in black over him.

The lead Townsend commando looked over his shoulder and reached back a hand, and a teammate placed a syringe in it. He popped the cap of the needle with his mouth, held it there between his lips, and reclamped his hand over the captain’s mouth, just as the man started to scream and thrash, the fear of what was about to happen engulfing him.

The black-clad commando jabbed the needle into the captain’s neck and pressed the plunger down, and the man in the bunk went still.

It was Versed, a powerful muscle relaxer. The captain would not die, but he would be out for hours. Though his memory of what had happened the previous evening would likely be fuzzy, the aim was not to wipe away the appearance of the commandos. It was to keep the captain from raising the alarm until long after Trestle piled into their Zodiacs and left the boat.

Five minutes later the Zodiacs reappeared alongside the Helsinki Polaris, and the six-man boarding party descended into the two boats via the climbing poles. When everyone was back on board the Zodiacs, both craft turned to the north, leaving the cargo ship to continue on to its destination in Mariehamn.

In Washington, D.C., the signal room had been watching the drone feed of the non-event on the main monitor, but it remained Trestle Actual’s duty to call Babbitt on the sat phone and fill him in once they were clear of their target.

Trestle had to all but shout over the Yamaha outboard motor that churned the water just feet behind him. “Negative contact. The target has been off the boat over an hour. Left on a white Bayliner with a canopy. Destination unknown.”

“Understood,” Babbitt replied. “Head back to Helsinki. We’ll check radar data and determine where he went, but it might take a few hours.”

“Helsinki it is. Trestle out.”