Radiant Angel

Chapter thirty-three

After about ten minutes at sea, Conte asked me, “What do you have in mind?”

I didn’t know where The Hana was, but I knew where it was going. “New York Harbor.”

Sergeant Conte informed me from the captain’s chair, “I am not authorized to cross jurisdictional lines.” He made sure I understood, “We are not going to New York Harbor.”

I anticipated that response and reminded him, “You are authorized to cross jurisdictional lines when you are in hot pursuit.” I assured him, “That’s the law.”

“I know the law, Detective. I just don’t see the hot pursuit.”

He had a valid point, so I tried another approach. “I am a Federal law enforcement agent, and Ms. Faraday is a Federal intelligence officer. We have no jurisdictional boundaries in the war on terrorism.”

“I need to speak to a supervisor.”

“Call Captain Kalish.”

He reached for his radio, but I suggested he use his cell phone so the rest of the world couldn’t hear the conversation — or hear that I was on the SAFE boat.

He got Kalish on the phone and explained why he was calling, then handed me his cell phone.

Kalish asked me, “What the hell are you doing?”

“I thought Sergeant Conte just explained that.”

“Look, I’ve already stuck my neck out for you—”

“I appreciate that and I hope you took credit for my theory about how the radiation is being hidden—”

“And if what you think is going to happen actually happens, then neither you nor my officers want to be there when it happens.”

“We’re going to the harbor to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

“I assure you, this operation can proceed without you.”

“I lost my surveillance target, Scott. Now I need to find him.”

“Get over it. And put Conte back on.”

I looked at Sergeant Conte, who was dividing his attention between piloting the boat and trying to decipher my end of the conversation about going to the harbor to make sure something didn’t happen. Officer Andersson, too, seemed all ears.

Tess was looking at me, and I couldn’t tell if she approved of a trip to nuclear ground zero. Maybe I should have asked her.

Kalish said, “John? Put Conte on.”

“Scott, let me explain the situation to Pete and Nikola and put this to a vote.”

“A vote? We don’t vote. I vote. And I vote no.”

Time to pull rank. Or call in a favor. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any rank to pull, and Scott and I were even on favors. So I appealed to his sense of duty. “Look, Scott, you understand how important—”

“Please put Sergeant Conte on or I’ll radio him and everyone can hear what I have to say.”

Tess asked me for the phone, and since I didn’t want Kalish on the radio, I handed it to her.

She said, “Captain Kalish, this is Tess Faraday. I’m putting the phone on speaker.”

“Good.” He said, “Conte, turn the unit around.”

Sergeant Conte called out, “Roger that.” He reduced his speed and began a wide starboard turn.

Tess said to Kalish, “Captain, we believe this event is not going to happen until eight forty-six A.M. or nine oh-three A.M., and I think you agree with that.”

“I might agree, but I’m not going to bet anyone’s life on it. So you and Detective Corey and my officers can run search patterns out in the ocean all night.” He added, “That’s an order.”

The SAFE boat was heading east now, back toward where we started.

Tess went on in a calm and reasonable tone of voice, “I’d like to explain the situation to Sergeant Conte and Officer Andersson, and see if they will agree to take us to the harbor.”

“Last time I saw them, they didn’t look suicidal.”

That seemed to get Conte’s and Andersson’s attention, and they exchanged glances.

Tess said, “All we’re asking for is a quick ride to New York Harbor. When we get there, Detective Corey and I will transfer to an NYPD Harbor unit or a Coast Guard cutter, and your unit can return to your area of operation.”

Kalish was silent, then asked, “How do you know you won’t get to the scene at the time it happens?”

“John and I are willing to take that risk, and we’d like to ask your officers if they are also willing.”

I had to admit that Tess was handling this well. Plus, she had balls, and Kalish appreciated balls.

Kalish stayed silent again, then said, “Okay... lay it out and have Conte call me back.”

Tess hung up and handed the cell phone back to Conte, who asked us, “What the hell is going on?”

I replied, without bullshit, “We believe there’s a ten-kiloton suitcase nuke onboard The Hana.”

Conte had no reply to that. Andersson stared at me.

I continued, “I believe it’s set to detonate at either eight forty-six A.M. or nine oh-three A.M., and you understand why. But I could be wrong about the times.”

Conte nodded, and so did Andersson.

I briefed them on the highlights of what we knew, though the background wasn’t as important to them as the words “suitcase nuke,” “New York Harbor,” and “8:46 A.M.” Or “9:03 A.M.” Or earlier, if Petrov was spooked.

Conte and Andersson listened, then Andersson asked, “Are you sure about this?”

Tess replied, “Not sure, but... almost sure.”

Conte said, “Holy shit.” He stared through the windshield. “Holy shit.”

Neither Tess nor I said anything, and we let them process all this.

Finally, Nikola Andersson turned in her seat and asked Tess and me, “Why do you want to go there?”

I replied, “I don’t actually want to go there. But I need to be there.” I explained, “This guy Petrov is my responsibility tonight.”

Tess added, “And my organization is partly responsible for letting these people into the country.”

Conte pointed out, “The Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau didn’t let them in.” He looked at his partner, and Andersson said, “If you’re just looking for a one-way ride, I think we can do that.” She asked Conte, “Okay?”

He hesitated, then said, “Okay.”

I felt obligated to remind them, “We could be sailing into a mushroom cloud.”

Conte replied, “Understood.” He added, “We won’t hang around after we transfer you to another unit.”

“Fair enough.”

Before he even called Kalish, Pete Conte began to come around.

Well, I thought, be careful what you wish for, especially if you have a death wish. Actually, I didn’t, but I do have an ego problem, and I was pissed at being marginalized by those pompous asses at 26 Fed. Screw them and their quiet end. Also, of course, I was doing my duty and protecting my country. It’s not all about me. Well, maybe it is.

I looked at Tess, who was looking at me. I said to her, “I should have let you know what I wanted to do.”

“Believe me, I figured that out long before I got on this boat.”

Am I that obvious? While I was thinking about that, Conte called Kalish on his cell phone and reported, “Heading west.”

“Copy.” Kalish asked, “Anything further?”

“Negative.”

“Godspeed.”

So that was it.

We headed west toward New York City, making fifty knots, and the SAFE boat practically flew over the water.

The fog was thinning, and I spotted two other Suffolk County Marine Bureau vessels and one helicopter as we continued toward New York Harbor.

The radar showed other craft in the vicinity, including the long line of commercial shipping on the Fairway heading to Ambrose Buoy. I noticed that the blips on the radar were not moving, so apparently shipping had been halted.

I got a text on my cell phone and read Kate’s message:

Okay, so she was still in D.C., which was good. And I’d be able to speak to her in the morning. Maybe.

I did recall, however, that my message to her said it was important that she call me. And she didn’t seem curious about why I was using someone else’s cell phone. I guess she was really tired.

Marital ignorance is bliss, but willful ignorance is just stupid. Detectives want to know things, but unfortunately I wasn’t having much luck today locating either my surveillance target or my wife. In fact, this was turning out to be one of those days where I couldn’t find my ass with both hands.

Tess asked me, “Who was that?”

“My wife.” I added, “She’s staying in D.C. tonight.”

“Good.” She said, “I should call Buck. To let him know where I am.”

“If you let him know where you are, you won’t be here much longer, and neither will I.”

Tess was catching on to the Corey way of doing things, and she nodded, then said, “If he wants to talk to me, he’ll call.”

“Correct.” Same with my wife.

I considered sending Kate a return text, or calling her hotel room, but I had more pressing issues than an AWOL wife. I’d settle this in the morning. If there was one.

Conte set a course that brought us closer to the south shore of Long Island where the fog had dissipated and the ocean was calmer. We were maintaining fifty knots and Conte said we’d be at the Verrazano Bridge in less than ninety minutes.

I stared out at the western horizon. I said to Conte, “If you see a flash of bright light—”

“We turn around and go home.”

“Correct.”

Within half an hour we were in the operational area of the Nassau County Police Marine Bureau, and I could see their units on the radar running search patterns. I spotted the navigation beacon on the Jones Beach tower about three miles away, then the lights of the city of Long Beach stretching along the coast.

We crossed an imaginary line and entered New York City’s borough of Queens, and in the distance across Jamaica Bay I could see aircraft taking off and landing at Kennedy Airport. I was surprised that Washington hadn’t halted inbound air traffic, as they had done on 9/11, but apparently the threat, in their minds, wasn’t as clear or imminent as it was in mine. There is always something lost in translation between the men and women in the field and those in the capital. In any case, I was glad that Kate wasn’t flying in tonight.

Ten minutes later we were off the coast of Brooklyn and I spotted Brighton Beach, where I’d thought this surveillance was going to end this morning. I saw the lights of Coney Island and the landmark twenty-five-story-high parachute tower, where I used to scare the crap out of myself as a kid. A few minutes later we turned northwest into Gravesend Bay, and there in front of us was the illuminated Verrazano Bridge spanning The Narrows between Brooklyn and Staten Island — the entrance to New York Harbor.

I could also see at least a dozen watercraft between us and the bridge, and Conte reduced his speed, then checked his radar screen and told us there were Coast Guard cutters and NYPD Harbor units all around us. Also, we could see and hear helicopters overhead.

It was obvious that there were enough boats at the entrance to the harbor to accomplish the mission, and we all knew that our SAFE boat was not going to add much to the effort. But we also understood that there were times when just showing up was enough.

Conte reduced his speed again and asked me, “You want to transfer to a unit here, or in the harbor?”

“The harbor.”

He looked at Andersson, then said, “Okay.”

We passed under the mile-long Verrazano Bridge and entered Upper New York Bay. We were now in the blast zone.

The fog was patchy in the bay and sat in clumps like gray islands. I didn’t see any other watercraft nearby, but helicopters circled overhead.

Conte further reduced his speed to ten knots and Andersson divided her attention between the radar and the radios, monitoring the marine and police channels.

I could make out the lighted skyline of Lower Manhattan, about three miles straight ahead. Well, I told Howard Fensterman I was on my way to Manhattan, and I kept my word.

To the west was the shoreline of New Jersey, miles of commercial shipping piers and warehouses. To the east was the Brooklyn waterfront, more miles of warehouses and marine terminals where cargo ships sat at their docks.

I looked around the bay at the far shorelines and the towering skyscrapers and the squat warehouses that made up the Port of New York. It took over three hundred years to build this. It would take about five seconds to destroy it.

Through a break in the fog off our port bow I caught a glimpse of the illuminated Statue of Liberty, standing tall in the harbor. And in the distance, where the Twin Towers once stood, I could see the Twin Beams — two vertical columns of searchlights that were lit every September 11 since 2002 as a memorial and remembrance of the September 11 attacks. Tess, too, noticed them, and so did Conte and Andersson, but no one commented.

Conte reduced his speed to five knots, then looked at his radar screen and said, “There are not many units operating in the harbor. What they’re doing is relying on the helicopters, and they’re using the available watercraft to play goal-line defense at The Narrows.”

“Right.” A good strategy if The Hana was still on the ocean. But if Petrov was already in the harbor, then he was already in the end zone, ready to spike the ball.

Conte asked me, “You want me to raise an NYPD unit?” I didn’t reply and he asked, “Or hail a Coast Guard vessel?”

“Why?”

“Why? So you can transfer and I can get out of here.”

“I thought you wanted to stay.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“You’ve come this far.”

Conte looked at Andersson, then said to her as though I wasn’t there, “Who is this guy?”

I informed them, “I don’t think I’m welcome aboard any other vessel.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, then,” Conte suggested, “let me run you ashore while you’re telling me the story.”

Tess interjected, “Let me make some calls to get permission to board a Coast Guard vessel.”

I didn’t want to board a Coast Guard vessel, or any other vessel where I was persona non grata and would probably wind up in chains. I wanted to board The Hana, and I could do that only from this boat. I said to Conte and Andersson, “Let’s give it an hour here in the harbor. Then if we still haven’t located the target ship, Tess and I will transfer to another vessel.” I added, “One that’s sticking around.”

Conte got that I’d challenged his manhood: show balls or chicken out?

He looked at Andersson again, and she said, “I’m okay with waiting.”

Conte said to me, “I’ll go you one better, Detective. We’ll stay here until you tell me you want to leave.”

Well, boys will be boys — especially in front of girls. And the girls, too, seemed okay with looking death in the eye. I said, “You got a deal.”

I looked at my watch. It was 2:35 A.M.

The good news was that if the nuke blew before 8:46 A.M., we wouldn’t feel a thing. And I wouldn’t have to go to 26 Federal Plaza to get fired.

Chapter thirty-four

We took up a position about half a mile southeast of Battery Park off the tip of Manhattan Island. About a half mile south of us was Governors Island, separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel. Farther up the East River I could see the Brooklyn Bridge and the Downtown Heliport where a chopper was taking off, and also Pier 11 where The Hana had docked Saturday morning before sailing out on its fateful Sunday cruise.

If this was a football game, we would be playing safety near the goal line. Unfortunately, the nuclear football didn’t need to get into the end zone to score a touchdown.

A half hour passed, mostly in silence except for radio traffic, which was minimal because of the Russians’ listening post at their residence in the Bronx. Most communication was being done by text, or e-mails on laptop computers, and occasionally by a direct cell phone call to an individual, though even that commo was not secure. My guess, however, was that Petrov’s mission was so secret that no one at the Russian listening post even knew about it, so they weren’t monitoring for a problem, nor was anyone at the Mission or the ’plex in communication with Petrov. Vasily was on his own, and I wondered if the assholes in Moscow who planned this could stop him.

The protocol here would be a direct call from the president to Putin saying we know what you’re up to. But no one in Moscow was going to admit to a nuclear attack, nor would Moscow risk a traceable communication to Petrov to try to stop the show. At this point, the Russians needed to be certain that The Hana, the nuke, and Petrov did not fall into the hands of U.S. authorities. Meaning the nuke had to detonate. And Colonel Vasily Petrov had been chosen as the man to do this.

The SAFE boat’s twin Mercs were idling, and now and then Conte would give them some throttle to keep the craft from drifting out with the tide. We couldn’t drop anchor because if we got an alert it would take too long to hoist it up.

Conte suggested that we take up a position in Buttermilk Channel so that if the nuke blew in the harbor, we’d be protected by Governors Island from the direct blast. I said, “So instead of frying, we’ll have the air sucked out of our lungs. Sounds good.”

We stayed where we were.

Howard Fensterman texted me:

I texted him:

Tess saw the text, smiled, but then said on a related subject, “You should leave a message at the Sheraton telling your wife to call you first thing in the morning.”

I didn’t recall telling Tess that Kate was at the Sheraton, but I did recall Buck mentioning it, though Tess had been out of earshot.

“That’s what I would do,” Tess advised, “in case you don’t connect in the morning.”

Meaning in case I’m reduced to nuclear ash in the next few minutes. Well, I wasn’t sure I should take marital advice from an unmarried woman who had concocted a whole jealous husband. I let her know, “This phone is almost dead.” I turned it off.

It occurred to me that Tess Faraday, an intelligence officer, was trying to share with me some intel about Kate.

In fact, Kate’s trips to D.C., probably with Tom Walsh, and her lack of communication at home and on the road, could be interpreted as suspicious. Plus, of course, my new job put me conveniently out of the office.

I asked Tess, “You have anyone you need to send a message to?”

“No.”

I asked Conte and Andersson the same question and they said they’d already done that via e-mail.

Well, to paraphrase D. H. Lawrence, we had built our ship of death and we were ready for our long journey to oblivion.

Conte was reading a chain of e-mails on his laptop and he informed us that all commercial and private ships coming into the Port of New York had been halted, and scheduled outbound ships were encouraged to leave the harbor ASAP, though I didn’t see many of those on the water or on the radar. Cargo ships at their piers, waiting to load or unload, were not being ordered to leave, Conte explained, because that would be logistically complex, not to mention highly unusual.

Apparently whoever was running this operation in Washington was trying to play it down the middle; stay calm and carry on, but be prepared to kiss your asses good-bye.

I noticed, too, that in the great tradition of bureaucratic communication, none of these messages directly mentioned the nature of the problem — though you’d have to be an idiot not to understand that the threat was a weapon of mass destruction. To be fair, however, you don’t want to put that out in plain English for other people to see and hear.

On that subject, I also knew from classified briefings and memos that there were two opposing schools of thought regarding alerting the populace that an attack from a WMD was imminent. One school of thought said an alert to evacuate a heavily populated area would cause pandemonium, and injuries and death, possibly in excess of the attack itself.

Theory two said that it was morally indefensible to not alert the population.

To take it a step further, if there was no alert, and the nuke blew, a lot of people in Washington would have a lot of explaining to do. And if there was an alert, leading to panic and chaos, and the nuke didn’t blow — or didn’t exist — there would be unnecessary deaths and injuries. Not to mention great embarrassment.

Tough call.

Well, I didn’t know which theory Washington was going with tonight, but if I had to guess I’d say they were still arguing over the word “imminent.”

Conte showed us an e-mail that said:

I didn’t think that was going to go over big with the NYPD Harbor units. But when the Feds are on the case, as we all knew, everyone else stands back and applauds.

Conte received a text and said to us, “All security craft will leave the harbor at zero eight-fifteen hours and proceed to Gravesend Bay. Or earlier if fuel is an issue.”

I glanced at the fuel gauges and saw that indeed fuel could become an issue, and Andersson confirmed, “Even at idle, we’re not going to make it to eight-fifteen.”

Was that good news or bad news? I mean, at what point do we haul ass out of here with enough fuel to make it out of the harbor? Also, apparently I wasn’t the only one who had figured out that you didn’t want to be here at 8:46 A.M.

In truth, however, 8:46 A.M. had no meaning any longer. By now, of course, Petrov knew that we were on to his game, and I had no doubt that he would advance the clock. I had no idea where he and The Hana were hiding, but I was sure Petrov was going to detonate the nuke as soon as he felt we were closing in on him. By now, however, he had turned off all his electronics, including radar and radios, so he was basically deaf, dumb, and blind, and I pictured him aboard The Hana using only his eyes, ears, and instincts to determine when to make his move. Also, by now he must have understood that he was not going to survive this mission, so he, like us, was preparing himself for his final journey. And also, like us, he was not going to lose his nerve at the last minute; Colonel Vasily Petrov was about to sail into history.

Conte looked at a new text message and informed us, “Due to a credible terrorist threat, all flights into Kennedy, Newark, and La Guardia have been diverted. Also, all public transportation into Manhattan has been suspended, and all bridges and tunnels will be closed.”

So there would be no inbound rush hour this morning, and that would save a lot of lives if the worst happened. But there were still a million and a half people who lived in Manhattan and another few hundred thousand visitors and tourists, plus a few hundred thousand people who lived and worked along the shorelines of Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Staten Island, and apparently there was no plan to attempt an evacuation.

Conte received a text saying:

Well, I thought, that was one way of saying to everyone, “Stay awake.”

It was like a stakeout where the hours pass and what you’re looking for and waiting for doesn’t happen. You start to second-guess the information you acted on, and you start to wonder if the bosses got it wrong again. And with each hour that passes, your mind goes from hypervigilance to a sense that this isn’t real anymore. And it’s at that moment when the shit hits the fan.

If I could put myself into the heads of everyone in the White House Situation Room, I’m sure that a bunker mentality was taking hold. Some people would be arguing that the threat was either overhyped, or had passed, or it had never existed.

Also, someone would point out that New York Harbor was blocked, as were the East and Hudson Rivers, and all waterways were being patrolled, and there was no sign of the target ship. Plus, police patrols had checked out all docks and piers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. More importantly, someone would argue, there had not been a single radioactive hit since this operation began. And that was the real problem. Though I hoped everyone had gotten the word about The Hana’s flooded garage and they understood why The Hana was not emitting radiation.

But when you get tons of negative information, that causes a false sense of security, not to mention a comfortable sense of denial.

There’s not a lot to do in a small ship’s cabin while you’re standing around waiting for a nuclear explosion — or hopefully an alert that the target has been spotted — so Conte and Andersson played with their electronics, monitored their instruments, and pulled up New York Harbor on Google Earth. Tess scanned the water and shorelines with binoculars, and I stared out at the Manhattan skyline, and the Statue of Liberty, and the Twin Beams. Now and then Tess, Conte, or Andersson would offer some theories about the whereabouts of The Hana.

The possibilities were reduced to four: Petrov had long ago aborted the mission and The Hana was on its way across the Atlantic. Or two, it was under the Atlantic, scuttled. Three, there never was a mission or a nuke, and Petrov was aboard The Hana having a party with the prince and the prostitutes, probably off the coast of Atlantic City. The fourth possibility was that The Hana with Petrov and the nuke had found a good place to hide, either in the harbor or out on the ocean, and we would be seeing the yacht and/or the fireball very soon.

Conte pointed out, “We’re not contributing much to the operation.”

I replied, “We don’t know that yet.”

Conte shrugged, then smiled and said, “Hey, I’ve never seen a nuke detonate. I can tell my grandkids about it someday.”

Cops, as I said, have a sick sense of humor.

So we waited.

At 4:15 A.M. Nikola Andersson informed us, “We now have a low-fuel situation.”

I asked, “How long can we idle?”

Andersson replied, “Maybe... fifteen minutes. Then we need to head out.” She added, “We have a five-gallon gas can onboard.”

“Kill one engine,” I suggested.

Conte said, “I’ll kill both. We’ll drift out with the tide, then restart if we get an alert.”

He shut down both engines, and the night became very quiet, except for the sound of helicopters overhead.

We began to drift south, away from Manhattan Island.

Conte said, “We’re doing maybe three or four knots, so it will take over an hour to reach The Narrows.”

Well, we were still in the game, but backing out slowly — though with enough fuel to charge back in if we got the word.

The cabin was getting claustrophobic, so I exited and climbed along the gunnel onto the bow. Ms. Faraday decided to join me, and we sat cross-legged on the foredeck. Behind us the skyline of Manhattan was retreating, and ahead, about five or six miles away, I could see the lights of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on the horizon. The old fort on Governors Island was passing by on our left, which reminded me that the entire harbor and the entrance to the harbor were covered with radiation detectors and none of them had lit up, and none of them would if I was right about the nuke being submerged in The Hana’s flooded garage. And if everything went wrong tonight, this place would be radioactive for two or three decades.

Tess asked, “What do you think?”

“About?”

“The Hana. Petrov.” She asked, “Did we get this wrong?”

“I hope so. But I don’t think so.”

“Then where is he? How do you hide a two-hundred-foot ship?”

I looked at the long piers sticking out from the coastline of Brooklyn. I knew there were about forty or fifty of them, some abandoned and derelict, and some hidden in basins that were formed by breakwaters.

The New Jersey waterfront was also lined with piers, active and inactive, over a hundred of them, running from Bayonne near The Narrows up the Hudson River for about fifteen miles.

There was lots of revitalization construction along the shorelines that made up the Port of New York, so there were lots of places for a two-hundred-foot yacht to hide along the waterfront on a dark, foggy night. And even with an air, sea, and land search of this size and intensity, there was so much ground clutter on the radar screen that a stationary ship along the waterfront might well go undetected. Plus, the harbor itself was huge — maybe close to thirty square miles.

I never met Vasily Petrov, but I felt, after watching him for months, that I could get into his head. And if I were Vasily Petrov, I would have made a high-speed run to the goal line before anyone else knew there was a game in progress. I said to Tess, “He’s here. In the harbor.”

She wasn’t so sure and said, “What I think is that The Hana is out on the ocean, electronically silent, ready to make its run through The Narrows.” She added, “I remember you said it would be difficult to stop a big ship that was going full speed ahead from entering the harbor.”

I didn’t reply.

She continued, “Assuming Petrov is prepared to give his life to accomplish this mission, all he has to do is plow through those security vessels around the bridge, and he’s in the harbor. Then he keeps going full speed ahead and within... what did you say? In less than twenty minutes The Hana is at the tip of Manhattan.” She added, “There are not many security vessels inside the harbor.”

“Correct. But the vessels at The Narrows will pursue and carry out a boarding.”

“I’m sure Petrov has the ability to detonate the nuke anytime.”

“Right.”

She stayed silent, then asked, “So why are we here?”

I hate when people ask questions like that.

“John?”

“We are here to let Petrov know we are here. We are here to force his hand and make him detonate the nuke prematurely, before he gets close to Manhattan. We are here to remove any thought he has of escaping the blast or escaping a bullet.” I added, “But mostly we and everyone else are here because this is our job.”

“And maybe we’re here to pray.”

So we sat there on the bow of the SAFE boat, knowing that any second could be our last. Well, there are worse ways to make an exit.

Tess was looking up at the sky, which was clear and starlit. The moon was low on the western horizon and moonlight sparkled on the bay.

In fact, it was a nice night. The harbor was calm, the shore lights reflected on the water, and the misty fog was... well, romantic.

Tess took my hand.

Neither of us spoke for awhile, then she said, “Will you buy me a drink tonight?”

“Of course.”

“You can bring your wife if you’d like.”

“And you can bring Grant.”

She laughed softly, then said, “If you bring Kate, I’ll bring Buck.”

“Is that a threat?”

She squeezed my hand. “I’m frightened.”

“We’re all frightened. It’s okay.”

“What’s your favorite bar?”

“All of them.”

“I’ll take you to the Yale Club if you promise to behave.”

“I’ll take you to a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach if you promise not to behave.”

“It’s a date.”

She put her arm around me and I did the same. I could only imagine what Pete and Nikola were thinking.

Well... what difference did it make at this point?

Conte opened the front window of the cabin and said, “I hate to interrupt, but for what it’s worth, a helicopter just got a radar blip moving on the water near the Thirtieth Street Pier... but no radiation. So maybe it’s an outbound cargo ship.”

I knew the Thirtieth Street Pier, because the NYPD had once used that Brooklyn pier to store vehicles that had been towed, abandoned, or stolen and recovered. But now it was being converted into a modern recycling facility — so there shouldn’t be any ships using the pier.

Last time I saw this facility, a huge steel boathouse bigger than three football fields was being constructed to enclose the pier. On the land side of the project was construction equipment and material, surrounded by a twelve-foot chain-link security fence. It occurred to me that an NYPD patrol car checking out the waterfront could not possibly see the far end of the enclosed pier, which was nearly three hundred yards from the fence. And it was very possible that an NYPD Harbor vessel, even with a searchlight, might not see a ship sitting inside the huge, unlit enclosure, especially if construction barges were moored at the end of the pier. To add to all this, the roof of the steel structure was covered with photoelectric cells that would confuse any helicopter’s infrared devices or penetrating radar. Maybe I should have thought of this sooner.

I said to Conte, “Let’s check this out.”

“Right.” He fired up both engines and reminded us, “We are relying on choppers in the harbor, and almost all the security vessels on this operation are blocking The Narrows or are on the Hudson and East Rivers — so it appears on radar that we are the only sea vessel in this immediate area.”

“Our lucky day.” I pictured in my mind the Google Earth image and said, “Buttermilk Channel is the most direct route from the Thirtieth Street Pier to the tip of Manhattan.”

Conte turned the SAFE boat and headed for the mouth of Buttermilk Channel, which ran between Governors Island and the Brooklyn waterfront. If the radar blip was The Hana, Petrov would be heading toward us from the opposite direction.

As we approached the mouth of Buttermilk Channel, Conte called out to us, “I see it on radar — target is gaining speed... on a course for Buttermilk.”

Tess knelt on the bow of the SAFE boat, staring straight ahead. She glanced at me and I put my hand on her shoulder. “If this is him,” I said, “he won’t detonate in this enclosed channel.”

She nodded.

The SAFE boat continued at about twenty knots through the channel, which was widening as it neared the end of Governors Island.

Ahead was a gray wall of fog spanning the thousand-foot opening to the channel, and as we approached, the huge bow of a gleaming white ship suddenly cleaved through the fog bank, followed by the rest of the towering ship, coming straight at us.

We had found The Hana.

Chapter thirty-five

We were on a collision course with the ship and Conte cut hard to starboard. Tess and I flattened ourselves on the bow and clung to the rail as the SAFE boat heeled sharply to the right. I yelled into the cabin, “Come around!”

Conte continued his turn and within a minute we were behind The Hana, which was making about ten knots as it continued through the channel toward Manhattan Island. We closed the distance quickly, though we were now riding in the big ship’s wake and bouncing badly.

I shouted to Conte and Andersson, “I’m going to board!”

They both acknowledged and Conte increased his speed.

Tess said, “We are going to board.”

Right.

We were less than twenty feet from The Hana’s stern and I got up on one knee, holding on to the rail and calculating my jump from the bow to The Hana’s swimming platform. My float coat was heavy, but it might come in handy if I misjudged.

As we got closer, I could see the glass doors at the far side of the swimming platform, which I assumed were locked. Every police vehicle carries a Halligan tool — a multi-purpose crowbar to pry open doors and smash glass — and I called into the cabin, “You got a Halligan?”

“Right here!” said Andersson, and she passed me the tool through the open windshield.

She also grabbed a bulletproof vest and an MP5 submachine gun with an extra magazine and passed them to me. I flung the vest to Tess and aimed the MP5 at The Hana. I fully expected hostile fire from the yacht, but I couldn’t see anyone on the darkened ship. I wanted to think that Petrov and his pals didn’t know they were about to be boarded, but whoever was captaining this ship must be watching us on their rear video camera.

The bow of the SAFE boat was a few feet from the swimming platform, and as I waited for the bow to drop, I called to Tess, “Cover me!”

“No, you cover me.” She stood, flung the Kevlar vest onto the swimming platform, then jumped.

I called into the cabin, “When I jump, get out of here!”

Conte called back, “Good luck!”

I slung the MP5 over my shoulder, and as the bow dropped again I saw Tess kneeling on the platform, gun drawn, facing the doors. My turn. I might get shot, but I wouldn’t drown. I jumped and hit the wooden platform and shoulder-rolled toward the glass doors, then sprang to my feet and swung the Halligan tool at the door, but the security glass didn’t shatter. I thrust the tapered end of the Halligan between the double doors, rotated the tool inward, and the door popped open. I drew my Glock and dropped to one knee, then glanced over my shoulder and saw the SAFE boat heading south, out of the harbor. We were on our own.

Tess came up beside me carrying the bulletproof vest and I said, “Put it on.”

“Swap you the vest for the MP5.”

“Put it on!”

She slipped off her float coat and put on the vest, and we scanned the interior of the ship.

This was the float-in tender garage and I saw that it was indeed flooded, and it took me a second to realize that the source of the illumination was underwater lights. To the left and right were staircases that rose to the main deck, and also to the left was a catwalk running along the hull connecting the two docks. At the closest dock I could see the amphibious craft that I last saw heading out to sea with Petrov and his friends. Well, we were on the right boat.

We moved in a crouch farther into the ship. Across the flooded garage, near the opposite dock, I noticed something dark under the water, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I recognized it as a submerged boat. I whispered to Tess, “You got that PRD?” She took the radiation detector from her pocket and I could hear a faint beep, followed by another, and I saw the red light flash intermittently, indicating a weak reading, which I’d expect if the nuke was submerged and had a lead shield. So there was little doubt in my mind that we were in the presence of a radiant angel.

Tess said, “That’s got to be it. But how do we—?”

“Get down!”

We dropped into a prone position and I pointed my Glock at where I’d seen movement on the opposite dock.

A man was sitting on the dock with his legs dangling over the side, and even in the dim light I recognized him as Arkady Urmanov.

Tess and I exchanged glances, but before we could decide on our next move, Urmanov called out, “Help me!”

That wasn’t what I expected to hear, but I replied, “Okay. Where—?”

“I am tied. You must free me.”

So if I could figure this out, Urmanov had done his job of arming the device and he was now one witness too many, and for some sick reason Petrov decided that Urmanov should die by his own creation. Petrov was a tough boss.

“You must pump out the water! To your left. On the walkway. The switches for the pump.”

I looked at the catwalk and I could see control panels on the hull.

“Untie me!”

One thing at a time, pal. I said to Tess, “Stay here and cover.”

She got into a kneeling position, and I rose to one knee and was about to make a dash for the catwalk, but another movement caught my eye. The door on the far side of the tender garage had swung open, and I saw a figure crouched in front of the door. But before I could swing my Glock toward the figure, I saw muzzle flashes, but heard no sound. Well, I know a silenced weapon when I don’t hear one, and I hit the deck and shouted to Tess, “Down!”

Arkady Urmanov let out a loud cry, followed by a moan.

I aimed my Glock at the place where I’d seen the flash of the automatic weapon and popped off five rounds, which echoed in the huge space.

Tess did the same, and we rolled away from our firing positions and popped off the rest of our magazines, then rolled again as we reloaded.

There was no flash of return fire, so whoever was shooting was not giving away his position. Or maybe we hit him. I glanced at Urmanov across the flooded garage, and I could see that he was slumped forward. I was pretty sure he was dead, and so were my chances of Urmanov disarming the bomb.

Tess was about twenty feet away, flat against the deck, pointing her Glock downrange, but maintaining fire discipline until a target presented itself, as was the guy who shot at us. Petrov? Gorsky? In either case, they were both trained killers, and killers know when to play dead. Meanwhile, the nuke was sitting about thirty feet away in a sunken boat that I could see but couldn’t get to. And I was sure the timer was no longer set for 8:46 A.M.

I looked up at the catwalk where Urmanov said the pump switch was located, and I would have made a dash for it, but standing there was Viktor Gorsky, who shut off the underwater lights, throwing the garage into total darkness.

I knew he was already gone but I fired anyway to draw his fire, and a second later Gorsky returned the fire and I could hear the rounds smacking into the wooden deck around us as Tess and I shot at the muzzle flashes.

Gorsky’s firing stopped and I lay motionless, listening for Tess, hoping she was alive and Gorsky was dead. I called out softly, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She suggested, “Use the MP5.”

They tell you never to reveal the automatic weapon until you see the target, then you surprise the guy. Gorsky was using his, but it was silenced and he probably had lots of ammo, and I did not.

While I was weighing the pros and cons of bringing out the big gun, another burst of rounds cut through the darkness and I could hear them buzzing over my head. A round smashed into the glass door behind us, confirming that even pros tend to fire high in the dark.

Okay, so Gorsky was obviously alive and not leaving. But if he intended to escape the explosion, he had to leave at some point. But if he was on a suicide mission, then we’d all share the one-time experience of nuclear oblivion. But I didn’t come this far and get this close to the nuke to have it blow up in my face. All I had to do was get to it. Which meant getting to the catwalk and pumping the water out of the garage. Which meant getting rid of Gorsky and his automatic weapon.

And then what? Well, I took a Bomb Squad class on how to disarm a conventional bomb. There are three components you look for when faced with an unknown explosive device: the power source; the explosive charge; and the detonator.

How much different could a nuclear bomb be?

Most sophisticated explosive devices have a collapsible circuit. If you cut one wire leading to the charge, it collapses the other circuit, setting off the charge. But if you can remove any one of the three components...

Right. Easier said than done. Gorsky had this entire open area covered by a silenced automatic weapon, and the nuke itself was covered with water. We had come to a standoff, and in this case with the timer ticking, a standoff was as good as a win for Gorsky and Petrov.

But Vasily Petrov was an impatient and impulsive man and he did not see it that way, because I heard his voice boom out over a speaker, “Kill them!”

Gorsky, who understood that he’d checkmated the intruders, did not fire, and Petrov yelled again, “Kill them!”

It’s not a happy occasion when someone is yelling, “Kill them!” and you see muzzle flashes followed by the sound of bullets impacting around you. I mean, this asshole couldn’t see us, but if you spray enough bullets downrange, eventually you’re going to hit your target. Time to get out of here.

I retrieved the Halligan tool and whispered to Tess, “We have to get around this guy. We split up and take the staircases. Meet you on the main deck.”

“Okay...”

“On three. One, two” — I tossed the Halligan tool into the air over the water — “three!” I heard the Halligan hit the opposite dock, followed by rounds impacting far behind us as we sprinted toward the left and right staircases.

I reached the top of the stairs in about three seconds and saw Tess already there, gun drawn covering the rear deck.

There was some moonlight left, and some illumination came from the Brooklyn waterfront, which was sliding by on our right. I figured we’d be out of the channel and near the tip of Manhattan in about fifteen minutes — or less if this ship picked up speed when it cleared the channel.

There was a helicopter overhead, so we weren’t alone, but we were as good as alone until someone made the decision to board The Hana. Conte and Andersson had by now transmitted a sit-rep, but bureaucracy and chain of command being what they were, the order to commence a combat boarding could take ten or fifteen minutes, followed by a detailed plan of operation, and by that time the show would be over.

Tess asked, “What now?”

“If we can’t get to the nuke, we have to get to the asshole who controls the nuke and the other asshole who’s steering this ship, and one or both of them will be on the bridge.”

I got rid of my heavy float coat and moved quickly to the doors that according to the deck plans led to the bar and dining room. I held my Glock in my right hand and the MP5 in my left, and motioned to the door, which Tess threw open. I burst inside the barroom, but before I had a chance to shoulder-roll, I tripped over something on the floor and found myself staring into the face of someone with a third eye in his forehead.

Vasily Petrov turned away from the image on the video monitor. Even in the dim underwater lights of the garage, he recognized the man and the woman. Viktor was right; he should have killed them at Tamorov’s house.

Gleb said, “It appears that we have been boarded, Colonel.”

“Viktor will kill them.”

“He has not killed them. He has only managed to kill Arkady, who was not a moving target with a gun.”

Petrov ignored the sarcasm and stared through the windshield, fixated on the lighted skyline of Lower Manhattan. He would have enjoyed seeing the post-apocalyptic photographs and news footage of the nuclear wasteland, but that was not to be, though his father would see them and be proud of his son’s sacrifice.

Gleb had set the autopilot on a course to bring The Hana to the ferry terminal at the tip of Manhattan, so Gleb was no longer needed. But Petrov wanted more speed, so he said, “Full speed, Captain.”

“How do we get off this ship?”

Petrov was prepared for the question and replied, “We don life vests and jump.” He added, “When we come ashore, we will go to our car — or find a taxi to take us to the diplomatic residential complex in the Bronx, where we will be safe.” He glanced at Gleb to see if he was believing any of that.

Gleb pointed out, “We will not get far in the water before the Americans capture us, or the explosion kills us.”

“I know what I am doing, Captain.”

“And I know what you are doing.”

Gleb turned on the radar and looked at the screen. There were now four craft within a few hundred meters of The Hana, and overhead he could hear a helicopter. He said to Petrov, “We are surrounded by hostile craft, and there are at least two Americans with weapons onboard.” He looked at Petrov. “It is over.”

Petrov stared at the Manhattan skyline.

“It is over, Colonel.”

“It is within reach, Captain.” He took the arming device from his pocket.

“Yes, if we intend to die in a nuclear explosion. I do not.” He said to Petrov, “Give me that thing in your hand.”

Petrov looked at Gleb and saw that Gleb had his pistol pointed at him.

Gleb repeated, “Give me that thing in your hand.”

Petrov held out the arming device. “Do you mean this thing? Or...” Petrov drew his Makarov from his pocket. “... this one?”

Gleb pulled the trigger on his pistol and was surprised to hear a dull thud.

Petrov said, “We seem to have a problem today with malfunctioning guns.” He aimed at Gleb’s face and fired a bullet between his eyes. Gleb’s head snapped back and he fell to the deck.

Petrov pocketed his pistol and took Gleb’s place at the helm. He looked at the autopilot light. The ship’s speed and course were set, and if he did nothing, The Hana would continue toward the tip of Manhattan Island at ten knots. But if he pushed the throttles forward for more speed, the autopilot would disengage and he would have to steer the ship himself. He wanted more speed, but he didn’t want to cancel Gleb’s pre-set course, in case he had to leave the bridge — or if he was killed. All he had to do now was reset the timer on the nuclear device.

The autopilot display showed that The Hana at this speed would be close to the tip of Manhattan in less than fifteen minutes. He looked at the clock on the dashboard: 06:11. He reset the detonation time on the arming device to 06:27, then did the same with the backup device. He dropped the two arming devices on the deck and put a bullet into each one, sealing not only his own fate but the fate of the City of New York. He would have also put a bullet into his own head, so he didn’t have to wait for death, but he wanted to watch the skyline getting closer as the minutes ticked off. Perhaps, he thought, there would be a moment of incandescent beauty at the instant of nuclear fission. This was the way to die.

Well, I thought, if you gotta die, it’s good to die in a bar.

I didn’t know who these people were, but I knew they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With Tess close behind, I led the way into the dining room, and I saw two more bodies on the floor. I also noticed that the table was set for ten, but the guests were still lingering over cocktails.

I pulled the deck plans from my pocket and Tess shone her penlight on them. I could see an area marked VESTIBULE where there was an elevator and a spiral staircase that connected the decks toward the front of the yacht, and we headed quickly in that direction, guns drawn.

We got to the vestibule and I unslung my MP5. You never take an elevator in a tactical situation, and I whispered to Tess, “I go up the stairs face first, you follow ass first.”

I climbed the stairs, two at a time, my MP5 to my front, and Tess followed, climbing the stairs backwards, covering our rear with her Glock pointed at the base of the staircase.

I had no idea how many hostiles were aboard this ship, but there was a minimum of two. Petrov and Gorsky. And there was probably a Russian skipper aboard. There could also be a few other SVR killers who came aboard along with the Russian captain and the nuke, but maybe not if Moscow wanted to limit the number of people who knew about this. Which was why we found Urmanov waiting to die. So hopefully the only other Russians aboard were the party girls, and based on what I saw in the barroom, the party was over.

And then there was the crew. Maybe twenty of them. Where were they? Could Petrov and Gorsky have whacked them all? If so, Petrov was the worst ship passenger since Count Dracula.

I reached the vestibule on the salon deck and dropped to one knee as I swept my MP5 around the dark space. The ship was very quiet and I could hear my breathing.

Tess backed up the staircase and into the vestibule, her Glock still pointed down the stairs.

The next deck was the bridge where the ship’s office and captain’s quarters were located, and I stood and moved toward the spiral stairs.

Tess, however, moved toward the glass doors of the salon and motioned me to follow.

Well, you’re supposed to check out everything to make sure you’re not leaving hostiles behind you, but in my head I heard a timer ticking.

Petrov’s handheld radio beeped and Gorsky said, “I am not sure they are still here.”

Petrov replied, “In any case you must stay there and guard the device and kill anyone else who comes aboard from the swimming platform.”

Gorsky did not reply immediately, then said, “The Americans will start boarding over the sides, and in force—”

“I see no craft from the bridge,” though he did see them on the radar.

“But they know who we are, Colonel, and why we are here.”

“It is too late for them, Viktor.”

Again, there was a silence, then Gorsky said, “It is also too late for us.”

Petrov did not reply.

“Are we going to die?”

“Yes, we are going to die.”

Gorsky said nothing, so Petrov advised, “Be brave. Stay at your post — as Captain Gleb is doing.” He reminded Gorsky, “We cannot be taken prisoner. We cannot betray our country.” He assured Gorsky, “Your family will be taken care of. If you do your duty.”

Again, Gorsky said nothing, and Petrov had nothing more to say to him, so he signed off and turned his attention to the radar and the windshield, confident that Viktor Gorsky would do his duty. And if not, it didn’t matter because there was literally nothing that could stop The Hana at this point, except perhaps a naval cannon. But even if the Americans had a warship in the area, would they take the risk of firing on the ship that they suspected had a nuclear device onboard?

Petrov stared at the approaching skyline, then glanced at the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. “Yob vas.”

I followed Tess into the long salon. She stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh my God...”

So as it turned out, Tasha and her friends were just throwaway props, easily expendable in the pursuit of some psychotic goal of world domination. Well, Buck and I agreed on another thing — the Russians needed closer watching.

There was nothing more to see there, so we returned to the vestibule and approached the spiral staircase carefully, knowing that at least one person was on the bridge deck — and also knowing that these people carried submachine guns and knew how to use them.

We listened for a sound at the top of the stairs, but all I heard was that ticking in my head.

I made a tactical decision and said to Tess, “The only chance we have of stopping this fucking nuke from leveling Manhattan is if we split up. I go back to the tender garage, kill Gorsky, pump the garage dry, and try to disarm that thing. You go up to the bridge and see if you can get rid of whoever is up there and turn this ship toward the middle of the harbor.” I looked at her in the dim light and I could see she understood that this was our only play. She nodded.

“And if you get a chance, jump ship.”

She looked at me and our eyes met. “Well... nice working with you, Detective.”

“Yeah. You too.” I promised, “I’ll buy you that drink later.”

She started up the spiral staircase toward the bridge, and I moved quickly down the stairs to the lower deck.

Well, there are good plans and there are desperate plans. Petrov, too, had a desperate plan that obviously included dying for his country. He could have stopped the ship and raised the white flag, or he could have jumped overboard. But he wasn’t doing that, so neither were we.

Tess Faraday stopped near the top of the spiral staircase, noting that the bridge door was closed and that the other two doors in the vestibule were also shut.

She climbed the last few steps and swept the vestibule with her Glock, noticing blood trails on the floor that led to the captain’s quarters and the ship’s office, and she understood that dead bodies had been dragged into the rooms. Nothing in there to check out.

She turned toward the bridge door. Behind that door, as Corey said, was the asshole who controlled the nuke and the asshole who controlled the ship.

She took a deep breath, hit the entry pad, and dropped into a low crouch with her Glock aimed at the door, ready to empty her nine-round magazine. This could all be over in a minute.

But the door did not slide open.

She stepped back, aimed at the door, and began firing.

Tess felt a sharp pain in her arm and realized she’d been hit by a ricochet, and that the door was armored. “Damn it!”

An intercom speaker near the entry pad crackled, then a voice with a Russian accent said, “I am watching you on the camera. Where is your friend?”

“Open the fucking door and put your hands in the air!”

“I can’t hear you. Push the intercom button.”

Tess hit the intercom button, took a deep breath, and said, “Listen... we know what you’re doing, and we know this is not an attack by the Saudis. We know all this, and if you want to start fucking World War Three—”

“Shut up.”

“Look... Colonel Petrov... think about—”

“Shut up.”

“Asshole!” Tess took her finger off the intercom button and began kicking at the door. “You bastard! Stop this!”

There was no reply, but then Petrov’s voice came through the speaker. “You will be dead in thirteen minutes.”

I ran through the dark passageway on the lower deck between the staterooms, and at the end of the passageway were the double doors that led to the garage — and to Viktor Gorsky and the nuke.

I gripped my MP5 in my right hand and threw open a door, then dove into a prone position and scanned the darkness.

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears, but that was all I could hear, and I could see nothing except some moonlight coming through the doors that led to the swimming platform across the flooded garage.

Okay, I’d outflanked Gorsky, but where was he?

If I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. But he had to have heard me diving through the door and hitting the deck, so he knew approximately where I was, and I expected to see the flash of his MP5 and hear the bullets smacking into the deck around me — or into me. I tried to control my breathing, but it sounded too loud. Someone had to make a move. But time was still on Gorsky’s side, and he didn’t have to do anything. Unless he’d decided he didn’t want to be standing at ground zero when the nuke blew. So maybe he’d put on a life vest and gone off the swimming platform, leaving me alone with the nuke. File that under wishful thinking.

I rose slowly to one knee and suddenly the underwater lights came on, and I turned quickly toward the catwalk. And there was Viktor Gorsky, not twenty feet away, aiming his submachine gun at me.

I knew I was dead, but Gorsky seemed to hesitate for half a second, or maybe the light momentarily blinded him. I used that half second to dive over the side of the dock into the water, just as I saw the flash of his muzzle and heard the bullets impacting on the dock where I’d been.

I sank to the bottom of the illuminated water and saw bullets coming at me, but they lost their velocity before they traveled a foot into the water.

I found traction on the submerged deck and I half walked and half swam toward the catwalk. I was running out of breath, but if I surfaced for air I’d be inhaling hot lead.

Gorsky kept firing into the water, desperately trying to overcome the laws of physics. He was losing his cool.

I got under the catwalk and hoped that Gorsky would not think of the only thing he could do to save his ass, which was to jump off the catwalk and join me in the water. But he didn’t think of that fast enough and I extended my arm until the submachine gun was out of the water and aimed straight up at the catwalk’s floor grate and squeezed the trigger, hoping the MP5 really could fire when wet.

I felt the submachine gun bucking in my hand, and I looked up through the water to see Gorsky lying facedown on the catwalk, hopefully with a few rounds in his balls and up his ass. Surprise!

The water around me was turning red, and I surfaced, took a deep breath, then reached up and grabbed the edge of the catwalk. Gorsky’s face was right above mine, and his eyes were open, staring down at me through the grate, and his lips were moving. I put the muzzle of my MP5 to his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Now for the nuke.

Vasily Petrov stared at the video monitor. Was it possible that Gorsky was dead? He kept staring at the dim image on the screen, then watched as the American climbed out of the water and onto the catwalk, then found the switch to the pumps, then the switch to the overhead lights. The garage brightened and Petrov continued to stare at the screen as the man Depp searched Gorsky’s body, then ran to the dock toward the submerged lifeboat — and the nuclear device.

It was not possible that this man could disarm the device even if he was trained. There simply wasn’t enough time for the water to recede and for him to get the locked trunk open.

Petrov looked at the clock on the dashboard. Then back at the image on the screen.

The time until detonation was so short that Petrov knew he needed to do nothing... but the American had found Urmanov’s tool kit... so perhaps he needed to go below and kill this man. But first he needed to kill the woman outside his door.

Tess stood in the vestibule, her gun drawn, staring at the bridge door, thinking about how to get to Vasily Petrov and whoever else was on the bridge.

Petrov’s voice said, “I can see my man Gorsky on the monitor. He has killed your friend in the garage.”

Tess felt her stomach tighten.

“It is finished. Save yourself. Go!”

Tess aimed her Glock at the intercom, fired, and silenced it. “Bastard!”

She looked up at the eyeball video camera in the ceiling and fired three rounds into it. “Fuck you.”

She also noticed a skylight on the ceiling, and she moved under it, seeing that it was hinged. It was about ten feet above her head, impossible to reach, but there must be a ladder.

She looked around, then saw a lever next to the elevator buttons, marked ROOF HATCH. She pulled the lever and a collapsible steel ladder fell from an overhead compartment.

Tess slapped a fresh magazine into her Glock and began climbing the ladder, which would take her to the roof above the bridge, and also to the sloping windshield where she could lie flat over the edge of the roof, look into the bridge, and empty her Glock into Vasily Petrov.

I stood on the catwalk and hit the switch marked PUMPS, and heard them engage. I found the light switches, turned them on, and the garage brightened.

I also noticed a switch marked SHELL DOOR, which I assumed opened the door in the hull. I glanced at the amphibious craft tied to the dock. That was a way out of here if the pumps didn’t work fast enough to get the water below the nuke. The question was, How fast was that amphibious craft and how big was that nuke? I hoped I didn’t have to find out.

I also hoped that Tess was having better luck on the bridge, but I could feel that the ship was still moving forward, meaning that the bad guys were still in command.

I quickly searched Gorsky’s body to see if he had something, like a remote control device, or a code to stop the clock, but all he had on him was a small pistol and a knife. As for extra MP5 magazines, apparently he’d used them up murdering everyone. I pocketed his pistol.

The water level was dropping, and I came down from the catwalk and ran along the dock to the submerged boat. I glanced at Urmanov, whose slumped body was soaked in blood. Another asshole who’d made bad decisions.

I noticed an overnight bag on the dock, and it looked like the one Urmanov had carried to the amphibious craft. I knelt and opened it, finding an aluminum box that I also opened and saw it was filled with small precision instruments, which were obviously for the suitcase nuke.

I looked at the black trunk, still underwater. Maybe another two or three minutes before I could get to it. I jumped into the half-submerged boat and examined the trunk, noticing now that it had a hasp and combination padlock. “Damn it!”

I also noticed a wire coming from the side of the trunk, and I followed it visually and spotted a black ball floating in the water. This, I guessed, was the antenna that would pick up radio signals from a remote control and transmit the signals to the device; and Petrov undoubtedly had the remote, so there was no question now that the asshole had reset the time from 08:46 to... now.

I left the wire plugged into the trunk, thinking that if Tess could get onto the bridge and get hold of the remote, and if she or I could figure out how it worked, we might be able to stop the clock. Not likely, but... Well, I was due for a break. But I actually needed a miracle.

The water had dropped to an inch above the trunk. I moved off to the side, knelt in the cold seawater, pulled my Glock and put the muzzle right above the water. I aimed at the combination lock and fired three rounds.

The bullets hit the lock and it swung on the hasp, and I fired four more rounds, then grabbed the damaged lock and pulled. It held fast.

“Damn it!”

I sat in the submerged boat, waiting for the water to drop a few more inches. Seconds, minutes, inches.

The speaker crackled, and Petrov’s voice said, “What are you doing, Mr. Depp?”

I looked toward the catwalk where the public address speaker was mounted on the hull. “Fuck you.”

“I can see you, but I cannot hear you.” He suggested, “Come to the catwalk and use the intercom. I need to speak to you.”

“No, asshole, you need to die.”

“I cannot hear you, Mr. Depp.”

“The name’s Corey!” I flipped him the bird, then I looked at the trunk. The lid was now above water.

Petrov said, “I have killed your lady friend.”

I took a deep breath, then unslung my MP5 and pointed it at the top of the trunk.

Petrov’s voice was a bit urgent. “Do not shoot at the device. You could detonate it.”

Or stop the clock. Well... either way was okay. Tess would agree.

“Save yourself.”

I shifted my aim to the lock, which was now clearing the water, and emptied my last MP5 magazine into it.

Petrov had no comment.

I knelt and pulled at the lock, which still held. “Damn it!”

I remembered the Halligan tool I’d tossed here to draw Gorsky’s fire, and I saw it lying on the dock. I jumped onto the dock, grabbed the tool, and jumped back into the half-submerged boat. I shoved the tapered end between the lock shank and the hasp and twisted, reminding God that it was time for a break. The lock shank held, but the hasp ripped loose from the trunk. “Thank you.” I tossed the lock and hasp aside and lifted the heavy lead-lined lid until its supporting arms locked into place. And there in front of me was the bomb.

There were no dials, no switches, and no ticking clock. Just a smooth metal faceplate, secured by four recessed screws or bolts. The four color-coded ports were obviously for leads and wires attached to the arming device, which, more obviously, I did not have.

Okay, so back to basics. I pulled my Glock, stood, and pointed it at the shiny metal faceplate of the nuclear device.

I expected to hear from Petrov again, but the speaker was silent. He could have jumped ship, but I didn’t think that was part of his plan. And maybe he was lying about Tess and she’d whacked him... but the ship was still moving forward, and I didn’t hear anyone’s voice on the speaker. Not Petrov’s and not Tess’.

I took a deep breath and squeezed on the trigger, wondering if I’d hear the sizzle of fried electronics, or the Big Bang. One way to find out.

Tess scrambled up the ladder and slid quietly across the white fiberglass roof, between the radar tower and the antennas.

Up ahead she could see the skyline of Manhattan, maybe three miles away, and getting closer. A pink dawn was visible on the eastern horizon. It was going to be a nice day.

She saw a helicopter overhead flying in slow circles, and a few hundred yards off the port side was a Coast Guard cutter, keeping pace with The Hana, and to starboard was an NYPD Harbor craft, also running alongside the yacht.

She waved her arm, hoping they knew that a female agent had boarded the hostile ship. Don’t fire.

Tess held her Glock in both hands and propelled herself over the edge of the roof until she was staring down through the windshield into the dimly lit bridge. She saw a body on the floor, and it wasn’t Petrov’s, who was off to her left, looking down at the lighted video screen on the instrument panel. She held her Glock at a downward angle and took aim.

Petrov suddenly looked up and saw her face staring at him a few feet away, and he went for his gun.

Tess fired three rounds into the windshield, realizing instantly that they weren’t penetrating. Petrov returned the fire, with the same results.

They looked at each other for a moment through the fractured glass, then Tess jumped to her feet and emptied her magazine into the fiberglass roof, above where Petrov was standing, but she realized the roof was also bulletproof. “Damn it!”

She scrambled back to the hatch and dropped ten feet to the vestibule floor, then reached into her pocket for a full magazine.

Before she could reload, she was aware that something was moving, and she looked toward the bridge to see the door sliding open. Standing there was Vasily Petrov, pointing his pistol at her.

“Bitch!”

Tess saw a flame spit out of his silenced pistol, and felt something hit her in the chest, knocking her back against the elevator.

He fired again, and again he hit her in her Kevlar vest, knocking her off her feet.

Petrov seemed momentarily pleased, then confused.

Tess dove for the spiral staircase as Petrov fired again. She went over the railing and dropped to the deck below.

Petrov was at the top of the staircase and he fired again, this time hitting her in the left thigh.

She rolled as she slammed a magazine into her Glock and emptied it up the staircase, then ran into the salon and sprinted across the bloody carpeting, tripping over a body, then getting to her feet and continuing until she reached the outdoor lounge.

She was aware that she was covered with blood and that some of it was hers, but it wasn’t gushing, though the wound was starting to throb. She took a deep breath and looked back into the salon, but she couldn’t see Petrov.

As she moved down the outside staircase to the main deck, she saw a large ship about three hundred yards off the starboard side. The ship had a strange bow and she realized it was an icebreaker. They were going to ram The Hana and sink her — her meaning The Hana, but also meaning her. Well... it was a smart move. Maybe the only move left.

She had no idea where Petrov was, but she hoped he was following her so she could kill him before the nuke did.

Tess moved cautiously down to the main deck, then to the staircase that went down to the garage, and began to descend. The wound in her thigh was now sending sharp pains down her leg, and she held the rail with one hand and her Glock in the other.

There was no good reason to descend into the flooded garage, except to see for herself if Corey was dead. And if he was, that meant that Gorsky was alive, and she would also kill him.

Before I fired into the nuclear device, I had a lucid moment and remembered Urmanov’s aluminum box. I’m not good with tools, but I evolve fast.

I found what looked like a screwdriver, except that the tip had a very odd shape with three prongs. I looked at the four holes in the corners of the metal faceplate, which I assumed held recessed screws, and I put the screwdriver in one of the holes and twisted, but it didn’t budge. Shit.

I was about to give up on this idea, but then I thought that this being a Russian suitcase nuke, it was not user friendly, so I twisted clockwise, which is supposed to tighten a screw, and I felt it turn.

I quickly removed all four screws, but there was no place to get a grip on the recessed steel faceplate to lift it off. Then I noticed a narrow notch on the right edge of the plate, big enough to get a knife blade into. I took my pocketknife — Swiss Army — and extended the blade, which I slid into the notch and levered the faceplate up an inch, enough to get my fingers under it. So if I lifted it, would it blow?

One way to find out. And I did, and it didn’t.

I threw the faceplate into the water and looked down at the inside of a nuclear suitcase bomb. Holy shit.

I’m a little squeamish about radiation exposure, but I understood that this was not my immediate problem.

... if you can remove any one of the three components... I looked for the digital countdown clock, one of the items that could possibly be removed, but there was no such thing. The clock must be internal, part of the electronic circuitry, not visible to human eyes. Petrov, of course, had the remote arming device and he could see how many minutes we all had left, but I could not.

I looked for the power source, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a battery, so it must be buried deep in the electronic bowels of this monster.

The third component was the explosive charge... but this explosive was made up of two elements: the nuclear core and the conventional high explosive that was wrapped around the core. And all of this was contained in a beach-ball-sized metal globe, which I was staring at, and there was no way to get into it. Nor did I want to.

Two electrical wires led into the globe, one on each side — and those wires led to the detonators buried in the high explosive material. And the wires came from a battery that I couldn’t see, and somewhere in the circuit was the clock, which I also couldn’t see. Damn it!

Okay... now what? Cut a wire? If you cut one wire leading to the charge, it collapses the other circuit, setting off the charge. Not a good idea according to my Bomb Squad instructor.

I felt sweat forming on my forehead, but my hands were very steady if I wanted to do something with them.

Then I understood that this was actually a win-win situation. If I got lucky and disarmed the bomb, all was good. But if I blew it, this far from the city, then the damage would be... well, acceptable. So if I removed myself from the equation, then I knew what I had to do. I grabbed both wires leading to the metal globe, understanding that they had to be pulled simultaneously — if one was pulled first, the other circuit would probably collapse in a nanosecond and send an electrical charge into the detonator, which would blow the high explosives, and the nuclear core would achieve critical mass and do its fission thing.

I tugged on both wires to sort of rehearse, then I heard a voice in my head, and the voice said, Submerge the electronics, stupid.

Then another voice said, “John!” That voice sounded more like Tess than God.

I stood and looked at her on the opposite dock, and saw blood on her left pant leg. “You okay?”

“I’m okay... Petrov said that Gorsky killed you.”

I wasn’t sure how she’d had a conversation with Colonel Petrov, and I didn’t care, but I cared about his health, so I asked, “Is he dead?”

“No. He’s... he may be following me.”

Shit.

She started limping toward the catwalk, and I asked her, “Who’s steering this ship?”

“I don’t know... I saw a dead man on the bridge.”

Well, he wasn’t steering. So either Petrov was steering or the autopilot was. I informed her, “Gorsky is dead. On the catwalk.”

“Good.”

“How far are we from Manhattan?”

“Maybe... less than a mile.”

So we had maybe five minutes — or less.

She moved across the catwalk and stepped over Gorsky like he was dog turd. She looked at the nuke as she came toward me on the dock and exclaimed, “You got it open!”

“Right.”

“Do you know what to do?”

“I do.”

“Thank God.”

I was about to dash to the catwalk and open the shell door, flooding the garage and submerging the nuke, which, if it was like my cell phone, would die quickly.

But Vasily Petrov had other ideas and he said, “Put your hands up and move away from the device.” He was standing at the double doors and aimed his MP5 at Tess. “Or I will shoot her.”

He was going to shoot her anyway, but he wasn’t going to shoot at me standing in front of the nuke, so I knew I could try to pull my Glock. Or pull the detonator wires.

“Move away!” He raised his submachine gun and pointed it at Tess, who knew the same trick I knew, and she dove over the side of the dock, but the water level was less than two feet now and she took a hard fall, though Petrov lost sight of her.

I used the opportunity to pull my Glock and pumped my remaining two rounds at him, then the gun clicked empty.

Petrov was down but not out, and he got to one knee, blood all over his arms and shirt. He raised his MP5 and aimed it at me, but hesitated because of the nuke behind me, which he did not want to blow prematurely, though I did, so I said, “Shoot, asshole!”

He didn’t shoot, but he stood and staggered toward the edge of the dock and looked down at Tess, who I could see from the boat, lying in the water. She’d been hurt in her dive off the dock and I knew she’d lost a lot of blood.

Petrov aimed his submachine gun down at her, and before I could pull the small pistol that I’d taken from Gorsky, Tess raised her Glock and put a bullet into Petrov, who tottered on the edge of the dock, then fell on top of Tess, who brought her arm around and fired another bullet into the side of Petrov’s head, splattering his brains out the other side. Can’t get deader than that. Das vidanya, asshole.

The water around her and Petrov was red, and I needed to put a tourniquet on her wound, but my only job now was to open the shell door and flood the compartment. I started to climb out of the boat and onto the dock.

A voice with an Eastern European accent said, “Please help me.”

I turned my head toward the voice and saw a guy coming from the double doors, dressed in blue denim. His shirt was open and there was blood on his chest and he was gripping his abdomen with both hands. “Who are you?”

“I am Mikhail. A seaman.” He also assured me, “A Bulgarian. Not Russian. All my mates are dead. I am wounded. Please—”

“Turn around and get down on the deck.” I started to reach for Gorsky’s pistol, but Mikhail had a similar gun and he pointed it at me.

“Do not move.”

What the...?

Mikhail informed me, “To be more truthful, I am not wounded. Also, I am a colleague of the late Colonel Petrov and the late Viktor Gorsky. Along for the cruise to see that all went well.”

I stated the obvious: “It didn’t.”

“I see that.” He continued, “Also I am here to eliminate all witnesses — including my colleagues.”

“Done that.”

“Thank you.” He, too, stated the obvious: “And now it is your turn.”

Well, I was totally pissed that this guy snookered me. That doesn’t happen often, but once was all it took. I glanced at Tess, but she was still lying on her back in the receding water with Petrov still on top of her. Shit.

To make sure Mikhail understood the situation, I told him, “In a few minutes, there won’t be any witnesses, including you, asshole.”

He replied, “I have reduced the speed of the ship.” He held up what looked like a cell phone. “And I have given myself another ten minutes to leave the ship.” He nodded toward the amphibious craft. “But before I leave, I wish to know from you what you and the CIA know about Operation Zero, and how you discovered this.”

I didn’t like being mistaken for a CIA guy, but I didn’t make an issue of it and asked, “What’s in it for me?”

“A quick bullet to your head. The alternative is several bullets to your abdomen.” He assured me, “Very painful.”

I already knew that from the last time I got shot in the gut, but I didn’t find either alternative very attractive or persuasive.

Mikhail sensed this, and he continued along the dock to get into a position to fire without hitting the nuke behind me. “What do you know?”

“I know you’re a dickhead and you’re going to die.” I glanced again at Tess, but she wasn’t moving.

Mikhail now noticed that the trunk was open, and this disturbed him. “Turn around and close the lid.”

So my options were reduced to two — go for my borrowed gun, or turn around and pull the detonator wires, which would either blow the nuke prematurely or kill it right before this asshole killed me.

People are morbidly drawn to looking at dead bodies, and Mikhail made the mistake of glancing at Urmanov as he passed him, and I pulled Gorsky’s gun from my pocket at the same time as Mikhail looked back at me.

I don’t know who would have gotten the first shot off, because all of a sudden I heard a deafening crash and the sound of tearing metal, and the ship rolled sharply to port. I was knocked off the boat and into the water and momentarily stunned, but I jumped to my feet, moved quickly to my left, and aimed my pistol at the dock above me.

Mikhail suddenly appeared with his gun aimed at where he’d last seen me. I popped off three rounds, discovering that Gorsky’s pistol was silenced, at the same time that Mikhail discovered that my aim was good.

I could hear water rushing into the ship, and The Hana was starting to list to starboard. Obviously we’d been rammed. The good news was that the nuke would be underwater. The bad news was that this ship was sinking fast.

I ran to Tess, who was now trying to get out from under Petrov’s dead body.

I pulled him off and helped her to her feet. She did not look good, but her head was clear and she said, “I saw an icebreaker...”

“Right. Let’s go.”

I lifted her onto the dock, then climbed up and got her to her feet. “I’m going to carry you to the swimming platform.” I reminded her, “Your float coat is there. Ready?”

“John, the nuke...”

I assured her, “The electronics will fizzle. Let’s go.”

But she kept staring at the nuke. “It might take too long for the water...”

I could hear the sea rushing in from about midship, but I didn’t see any water coming into the garage. So with the extra time that Mikhail had given us, I went back to Plan A and ran to the catwalk, shut off the garage pumps, then hit the switch marked SHELL DOOR.

I heard a hydraulic sound, and watched as the door on the starboard side began to swing out, letting in the sea. A wall of water ran into the garage, making the ship list more to starboard, and I thought we were going to capsize. Was this a good idea? But the nuke was completely covered with water now, and if it was really like my cell phone, it was dead. If not, we were.

The amphibious craft was rising with the water, and I called to Tess, who was limping toward me on the tilting dock. “Stay there!”

I ran across the catwalk to the opposite dock, jumped into the amphibious craft, and released the two lines.

I looked at the dashboard, which seemed simple enough, like a lot of sports boats I’d been on. I started the engines, pushed off from the dock, and turned the wheel hard. The amphibious craft came around in the tight space and I maneuvered it to the forward dock where Tess was kneeling. “Jump in!”

She slid into the seat beside me as I headed for the open shell door.

The water inside the garage had reached the level of the water outside, so we didn’t have to sail against the incoming sea. That was the good news. The bad news was that The Hana was listing so badly now that the top of the door opening was only about four feet from the water, and the headroom to clear this ship was getting tighter as the ship continued to tilt. I gunned the engines and said, “Duck!”

As we shot through the open door, the windshield of the amphibious craft clipped the top of the opening and ripped it off, sending the windshield flying over our heads.

When I looked up, we were out in the bay where the dawn was breaking.

I put some distance between us and The Hana, in case the nuke was still alive, then I looked back at the big yacht, which was almost on its side, a few degrees from slipping under.

Off in the distance I spotted the icebreaker, heading out toward The Narrows, mission accomplished.

I didn’t see any other ships around, but an NYPD helicopter hovered overhead and his loudspeaker blared, “Stay where you are!”

I cut the engines and we both stood. Tess put her arm around me and we waved, trying to look friendly.

Tess turned toward the rising sun. “Long day.”

“I hope you learned something.”

I took off my shirt and tied it tightly around her thigh as we watched The Hana disappear under the water, taking its secrets with it. At least until it was raised. Then it remained to be seen what secrets were made public. I know how these things work.

I looked at the Manhattan skyline, about half a mile away, still standing, but still in the center of a lot of people’s crosshairs.

The Twin Memorial Beams, which go on at dusk on September 11 and off at dawn, went off. Until next year.

Tess put both arms around me and we looked at each other, then kissed for the video camera in the chopper. I guess I could explain that later.

She lay down on the bench seat and I knelt beside her. “You okay?”

“I need a drink.”

She probably needed a pint of blood, but I said, “We have a date.”

I heard engines approaching and looked up to see a Coast Guard cutter and an NYPD Harbor craft heading toward us.

So, situation corrected. Surveillance target in known location. End of tour.

Holy shit.

Chapter thirty-six

So the FBI put me on paid administrative leave, which they sometimes do during an ongoing investigation into a serious case or incident. This has the dual benefit to them of getting rid of me while still keeping me under their control. As a contract agent, I could have just resigned, but they were going to terminate my employment anyway, so why bother?

Kate finally made it home, oblivious to my bad day on the job. Normally I’d share some of this with her, but this was sensitive compartmented information that she had no need to know. She did, however, have some unclassified information for me that she could share; she had been offered a reassignment to FBI Headquarters in Washington. Or did she ask for the reassignment? I don’t know and I didn’t ask.

The following day, after I visited Tess in the hospital, I told Kate that I had been placed on leave, pending, I told her, an investigation of me losing an important target. Kate seemed concerned, maybe because this brought up the question of me going with her to Washington. But as we both knew, my non-job was still in New York, so officially I had to stay here. I could, however, put in a request to spend my free time — which is every day — in D.C. But Kate and I agreed that a little separation would be good for both of us while we were going through career transitions.

And did I mention that her boss, Tom Walsh, was also being reassigned to Washington? My detective instincts told me this was not a coincidence.

Regarding the events under investigation, there was a complete news blackout on that, except for the cover story that a yacht of Saudi Arabian registry had suffered a serious collision with another boat in New York Harbor and had gone down with loss of life. Salvage operations were underway. All of this is true, confirming once again that the best lies are lies of omission, and about ninety-nine percent of what happened has been omitted.

Geopolitics is not my strong point, but I understand why the government is not calling this a thwarted nuclear attack, perpetrated by the Russians. I mean, American-Russian relations are shitty enough without accusing them of nuclear terrorism, which wouldn’t improve things much, and might restart the Cold War. I’m sure Washington is going to get its pound of flesh from the Russkies, somewhere, somehow, but in the meantime we’re still focused on Abdul, which is an easy sell to the public, and Ivan still looks like a potential ally. At least that’s my take on this. But who knows what the hell is going on in Moscow and Washington?

Well... I think I know what’s going on in Washington. Kate is fucking Tom Walsh. That’s what’s going on. But I could be wrong.

And what’s going on in New York? Well, as it turns out, Tess, like most State Department people, lives in Washington, but she, too, is on paid leave — medical, in her case — so she has some time on her hands and State doesn’t care where she spends it, though they care who she spends it with. Therefore, we’re not supposed to have any contact, but we see each other whenever she’s in New York, which is most weekends. Screw the Feds. What are they going to do? Fire us? We know too much. On second thought, maybe we know too much. But that’s another subject.

As for Georgi Tamorov, the State Department has pulled his U.S. visa, forever, and he’ll never see his Southampton mansion or his Tribeca townhouse again. I don’t know if he cares, but I do know that if he steps foot in Russia again his next address will be an SVR prison. He’s a man without a country. Maybe he can buy one.

Scott Kalish, as I predicted, got no ink, except for a confidentiality statement that he had to sign in triplicate. Same with Pete Conte and Nikola Andersson. I owe them all a dinner. Maybe Dean Hampton can cater it at my place. I’ve had an official-looking award made up for Dean at Sir Speedy and I need to present it to him.

As for Steve and Matt, I took care of that with Howard Fensterman, who got wind of what almost happened and understood that I had tried to warn him to get out of town. So he owed me a big favor, and he saw to it that Steve and Matt got new five-year contracts with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group with promotions to team leader. Hopefully my boys learned from the master — me — how not to do that job. I’m not supposed to have contact with Steve and Matt either, but we’ve gone for beers at McFadden’s on Second Avenue a few times. I don’t know if that constitutes contact. I’ll check.

And then there’s Buck Harris, who has once again thankfully disappeared from my life. I did, however, get a verbal message from him through a third party — Tess — and she said he said, “We continue to appreciate your silence and we trust it will continue.” He also let me know, “I look forward to seeing you again.”

My reply, through the same third party, was, “We’re even. Let’s keep it that way.”

But Tess likes the devious old coot, and she wants us all to be friends. Right. I have to remember to tell Paul Brenner to remove Buck from his hit list. I’ll get to that soon.

Meanwhile, since Tess and I are not allowed to discuss the incident that we were involved in together — even with each other — we talk about things like my past and my future. As for my past, Tess would prefer if I didn’t call Beth Penrose again. Ever. As for my future, Ms. Faraday has invited me to dinner at her parents’ palatial estate in Lattingtown. Can’t wait to get checked out and talk about my future.

So, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? I’m not sure, but I know someone will make me an offer. That’s usually part of the shut-up deal. I see myself as a contract agent again, working for the Feds in dangerous countries, risking my ass for crap money, like I did in Yemen. Can’t be any worse than the quiet end job I had.

Tess thinks I have a death wish, but I don’t; I do, however, enjoy a little excitement. I mean, the only thing worse than someone shooting at you is no one bothering to shoot at you.

Sometimes I walk past the Russian U.N. Mission, which is in my neighborhood, and I think back to that Sunday morning of September 11. If Kate hadn’t been in Washington, I probably wouldn’t have worked that day. And if I hadn’t worked that day... Would another DSG guy have followed Colonel Petrov into Georgi Tamorov’s party? Hopefully yes, but would that have led to the same outcome in New York Harbor? We’ll never know any of that, but what I do know is that it was a damn close thing.

I think, too, about Vasily Petrov, and I wonder what motivated him to commit mass murder and attempt an act of unspeakable evil. I’m sure he never saw himself as evil; he saw himself as a patriot, doing a good and noble thing for his country. We have guys like that, too. And they say I’m crazy?

I thought, too, about Mikhail, the assassin of the assassins. I’ll bet Petrov and Gorsky would have been really surprised when Mikhail popped up and announced that he was going to whack them. Good job, boys. Now here’s your reward. The SVR has a tough H.R. office.

I mean, Petrov and Gorsky risked their butts for their country, probably for the same crap pay I get, and what do they get in return? A bullet to shut them up.

Well, Tess and I saved Mikhail the trouble, and we also saved Petrov and Gorsky from a final disillusionment. Assuming they had illusions to begin with. There’s a lesson here for me, too. But I think I already learned that lesson.

On a happier note, I took Tess to Rossiya one night, a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, where the late Colonel Petrov’s girlfriend, Svetlana, is a chanteuse. Tess didn’t want to go, having just had an unpleasant experience with some Russians, and she said all the guys there looked like Petrov and Gorsky. But you can’t fight your demons unless you go looking for them, and after a few vodkas she got into the right head and we ate Russian food and danced all night and we heard Svetlana sing. She has good lungs. Later we took a stroll on the boardwalk and watched the sun come up.

Do I miss Kate? Yes, I do. But I’d rather try to figure out how to defuse a weapon of mass destruction than try to figure out how this marriage reached critical mass and blew.

Meanwhile, life goes on. And every day is new. And one day, if I live long enough, I’ll come to a quiet end. And that’s okay if I can look back and say, “I did good.”

Acknowledgments

As with all of my novels, I’ve taken advantage of the patience and good nature of friends and acquaintances to assist me with facts, technical details, and inside information that a novelist needs but can’t find in books or on the Internet.

And as always, here is my disclaimer: any errors of fact regarding the procedures or professions represented in this novel are either a result of my misunderstanding of the information given to me, or a result of my decision to take literary license and dramatic liberties. Also, in some cases I have been asked to alter classified information given to me in confidence.

First among these friends who have helped is Kenny Hieb, a.k.a. John Corey. Kenny, like Corey, is a retired NYPD detective, formerly with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and currently with another Federal organization that needs to go unnamed. Thanks, Kenny, for your assistance and, more importantly, for your work in keeping us safe.

Next, I’d like to thank Pete Conte, Suffolk County (NY) Police Officer, Marine Bureau. Pete has been very generous with his time and very giving of his vast knowledge of police work on the high seas. In exchange for all this, I have given Pete a cameo role in this book. And again, whatever errors I’ve made in this regard are mine alone.

Also on the high seas, many thanks to my friend Bruce Knecht, yachtsman and author of Hooked, The Proving Ground, and Grand Ambition, for steering me in the right direction on my voyage of super yacht discovery. If I hadn’t read Bruce’s wonderful Grand Ambition, I could not have created The Hana, which is central to this story.

Thanks, too, to John Kennedy, Deputy Police Commissioner, Nassau County (NY) Police Department (Retired). John’s a member of the New York State Bar, and patron (with me) of many local bars. John has helped me with all my John Corey novels and he brings to this task a unique combination of skills and knowledge as a police officer and an attorney. If I make up too much stuff, John revokes my literary license.

And, now on to my publishing team. Many thanks go to my editor and friend, Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing. Jamie somehow finds time to run a company and edit my manuscripts, and she wears both hats with style and confidence.

Thanks also to my longtime friend Harvey-Jane Kowal, a.k.a. HJ, who has once again come out of retirement from Hachette Book Group to work on this, her thirteenth DeMille book. This comes under the category of “Glutton for Punishment.” HJ knows her grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fact-checking, and she makes me look good on the printed page.

Forgetting to thank your agent at the back of the book is like forgetting to thank your defense lawyer as you walk out of the courtroom a free man. Imperfect analogy aside, I want to thank my team at ICM Partners, Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris, not only for their hard work, but also for their smart work. Authors with good agents suffer fewer suicidal and homicidal urges.

This book was made possible by my two dedicated and hardworking assistants, Dianne Francis and Patricia Chichester. I write all my novels by hand, and there are only two people on the planet who can read my scrawl and put it into typed form, and for that I am very grateful. Dianne and Patricia are also my first readers and fact-checkers, and nothing goes to the publisher that is not perfect. Thanks, too, for keeping my schedule and my life organized.

Another early reader of the manuscript is my son, Alex, who as a screenwriter gets straight to the heart of the storyline and the characters. Screenwriters tell a story with an economy of words and they reveal their characters through dialogue, and I have learned much from Alex, making me feel good about the Yale tuition. Thanks, Buddy.

For a different perspective on the manuscript I always turn to my daughter, Lauren, a psychologist. Dr. Lauren is able to analyze my characters, and through them she can analyze the author and offer help for all of us.

And, penultimately, I want to thank the beautiful Ethel Kennedy, who is truly a radiant angel on earth. Ethel inspires me to be charitable and it’s starting to work.

The best is last, and that is my wife, Sandy, who is an example to me and to all who know her of courage and optimism. Perfect wife, perfect mother, and perfectly beautiful, inside and out.

The following people have made generous contributions to charities in return for having their name used as a character in this novel: Nikola Andersson — East End Hospice; Scott Kalish — Boys & Girls Club of Oyster Bay — East Norwich; Howard Fensterman — Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation; Dean Hampton — Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

I hope they all enjoy their fictitious alter egos and that they continue their good work for worthy causes.