Radiant Angel (John Corey Book 7)

by Nelson DeMille

  “We just told Steve and Matt not to go to Manhattan without telling them why. You can do the same for your wife.”

  This was none of her business, but I said, for the record, “Special Agent Mayfield is a stickler for rules and procedures and she wouldn’t want special treatment.”

  Tess and I looked at each other. Finally, she said, “You have to live with that decision.”

  “And you don’t.” I moved to the driver’s door. “And you don’t need to come with me.”

  She didn’t reply and went around to the passenger’s door and got in.

  I got behind the wheel, started the engine, and backed out over the broken garage door panels, and off we went down the driveway, now lined with police vehicles.

  Two uniformed officers were at the gate and we showed our creds and logged out, then exited the oceanfront estate of Georgi Tamorov, whom I envied when I got here. Goes to show you.

  I remembered a line that I’d read when I was a kid—a line about the nuclear war we all thought was coming. The survivors will envy the dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The United States Coast Guard Station is about six miles west of Tamorov’s house, but the Shinnecock Inlet separates the beach road, so we had to go around the bay, and Tess navigated the foggy roads. What would I do without her? I’d use my GPS.

  Tess seemed to be having second thoughts. She asked, “Are you sure we should be doing this?”

  “What else would you like to do tonight?”

  “Maybe our job is to stay with the police at Tamorov’s, then work the case at police headquarters.”

  “Actually, I have no job.” I suggested, “We can keep going and be at 26 Fed in two hours, as per orders.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Or I can leave you at the Coast Guard Station.”

  “I’m with you.”

  I called Kalish, he answered, and I said, “Ms. Faraday is with me on speaker.” I asked him, “Did you find the yacht, Scott?”

  “I haven’t, but I have some info for you about The Hana.”

  “Great.”

  I heard some paper shuffling and Kalish said, “Here’s the scoop—The Hana is indeed registered to a Saudi prince named Ali Faisel, and is here in New York. The ship got cleared at Ambrose yesterday, around noon. It had arrived from Istanbul with a refueling stop in the Azores.” He continued, “The Hana, with the prince onboard, picked up a harbor pilot, then docked at Pier 11 and was inspected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who found no problems or issues, and everyone onboard who had passports and a valid visa was cleared to disembark. Six crewmembers and five passengers, including the prince, left the ship, and everyone returned by three A.M. according to ICE.”

  “I hope they partied like there was no tomorrow.”

  “Not funny. Okay, then this morning, around nine A.M., The Hana’s skipper, a Brit named Jack Wells, asked for a harbor pilot and for permission to leave the pier and go on an overnight cruise, within U.S. territorial waters, expecting to return about eight Monday morning.”

  The facts were starting to match the theories. I glanced at Tess, who was paying close attention. I said to Kalish, “Have the Feds check out the names on The Hana’s manifest.”

  “Already being done, no red flags so far.” He continued, “This prince has some sort of U.N. diplomatic status, plus, of course, he’s a member of the Saudi royal family, so he’s VIP.”

  “Where did you get this info on Ali?”

  “A reliable source.” He confessed, “The Internet.”

  “What’s the Internet say about The Hana?”

  “Not much, but I did get some info from a luxury yacht website.” He read, “Built in Ancona, Italy, by CRN Shipyard, The Hana is two hundred and twenty feet, with a forty-foot beam, and weighs in at six hundred and thirty tons, powered by two twenty-one-hundred-horsepower engines, and has a cruise speed of twenty-one knots and a max speed of twenty-five knots. It can sleep a crew of about twenty, plus four officers, and will accommodate ten to twelve overnight guests.”

  I guess the twelve hookers sleep with the twelve overnight guests—or they’re all sleeping with the fishes.

  He continued, “Here’s the interesting part—it has a float-in garage space below deck for two twenty-five-foot tender craft.”

  “Does it say anything about an amphibious craft?”

  “No, just the max length of the tender craft.”

  “Well, the length is right.” I recalled something Kalish had said earlier and asked, “Does this yacht have a submersible craft?”

  “I don’t see that on this website. But some of these yachts are built in semi-secrecy, and some are retrofitted later.”

  “Okay. Well, this sounds like what we’re looking for.”

  “Where did you get the name of the yacht?”

  “From Tamorov. But I can’t directly connect this yacht with Petrov, though it looks like a no-brainer.”

  “Right. And the yacht seems to fit the profile we discussed—friendly nation, good creds, previously cleared at Ambrose and cleared by ICE at the pier, out for a cruise, and holds up to two twenty-five-foot tenders.” He asked me, “What more evidence do you need?”

  “None. I need the yacht.”

  “I don’t understand why Petrov and his pals didn’t just meet The Hana at its pier this morning before it set out on its cruise.”

  “Because the Diplomatic Surveillance Group is up Petrov’s ass 24/7, and we would have seen him boarding, and even if he gave us the slip he’d still have to go through security at the pier. And obviously he wants no connection between him and The Hana.”

  “Right.”

  “What else have you done for me tonight?”

  “Well, now that we have the name of the ship, we were able to tune in to The Hana’s AIS transmitter to find its location.”

  “But it wasn’t transmitting or you’d be aboard by now.”

  “Correct.” He also told me, “It’s illegal to shut off the transmitter.”

  “The transmitter could be out of service.”

  “It could be, but then The Hana would have radioed this fact to the Coast Guard, but they haven’t. Also, the Coast Guard has decided not to call The Hana on the hail and distress channel, so as not to tip them off.”

  “Right.”

  “And finally we have no signal from The Hana’s GPS.”

  “Well, that just about nails it, Scott. No GPS signal and no transmitter signal. The Hana is hiding.”

  “It would appear so.” He added, “We’ve seen this M.O. with drug smugglers.”

  “Right.” And for all I knew, The Hana had rendezvoused with a South American ship and taken a ton of Colombian marching powder aboard, and this had nothing to do with Russians or nukes. This wouldn’t be the first time I was investigating one crime and discovered another. In fact, there was really nothing to conclusively link Petrov and his pals to The Hana, or to a nuke. Except that Tamorov introduced Petrov to the prince, and if everything looks like a coincidence, it isn’t.

  Kalish informed us, “This fog is not helping, but we’re using infrared imaging now that we have an idea what this ship looks like. And we also know we’re not looking for an amphibious craft on its deck.” He also let us know, “By now the search area is thousands of square miles, and quite frankly even with every available craft from every agency out there, it’s not easy looking for an electronically silent speck in a fog-shrouded ocean at night. And if The Hana is hiding it probably has all its lights off.” He added, “But if you’re right about the nuke, we do have the radiation emission going for us.”

  Unless Petrov had a way to shield his nuke. I said, “I think we’ll have more luck as the shipping lanes narrow and funnel into New York Harbor.”

  “Right. But you don’t want that ship getting that close.”

  “Correct.” That’s a goal-line defense, and it wouldn’t take much to get The Hana into the end zone. Or it was already there.

  Kalish
speculated, “By now they could know we’re looking for them, and their first clue would be if they noticed helicopters flying search patterns overhead, or saw high-speed craft on their radar, or saw we were using the Midnight Sun. And a bigger clue would be if The Hana was monitoring police search and rescue frequencies.” He added, “But of course no one is using the name Hana on the air, so Petrov and his pals could think they were seeing and hearing a search and rescue. Or a drug interdiction.”

  “Hope so.” But Vasily Petrov, a.k.a. Vaseline, might have guessed we were looking for him. A sane man would have dumped the nuke overboard and aborted the mission. But no one who intends to murder a million innocent people is sane.

  Kalish asked me, “You think this Saudi prince is in cahoots with Petrov?”

  “I don’t know. Could be that Petrov hijacked the ship. Or conned the prince. Or the prince is complicit. I don’t know.”

  “Okay… so we don’t know how many hostiles are onboard.”

  “Correct.”

  Tess asked Kalish, “How many crew would it take to run a ship of that size?”

  “Three for a long cruise. But for a short run, like to New York Harbor, one person could do it if he knew how to steer, navigate without GPS, and set the engine speeds.”

  Tess said, “So this captain, Jack Wells, or one of his officers, could sail The Hana by themselves?”

  “Theoretically,” Kalish replied, “but why would they? Unless they were in cahoots.”

  I didn’t think any of The Hana’s crew was in cahoots. But you never know what money can buy. Or how much cooperation you could get from a man with a gun to his head. It was also possible that the officers and crew were clueless about what was going on. The last possibility was that Captain Wells and his officers were no longer in charge of the ship, and Petrov picked up a Russian sea captain and crew along with the nuke.

  There were a lot of unknowns here, and as someone once said, you need to know how many unknowns there are that you don’t know about. On the other hand, you can get lost in weeds if you go down that path. To simplify this, all we needed to know and to believe was that a yacht named The Hana was headed to Manhattan with a suitcase nuke onboard. It was amazing, I thought, how something so small could alter the course of history.

  Vasily Petrov, however, must understand by now that his mission was compromised. But maybe he saw it as a challenge. Or maybe he was so crazy that he couldn’t understand that all the odds were against him. Or were they?

  Tess said to Kalish, “I assume the Coast Guard and all Federal authorities are up to speed on this.”

  “I have shared all this information.”

  “And what did they suggest?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He let us know, “We have a good relationship with the Coast Guard, but sometimes with the Feds they suck in information like a black hole and nothing comes back.”

  I advised him, “Don’t take it personally.”

  “Right. They can’t help themselves. And they’re not helping me much.”

  “But they want you to help them.”

  “They appreciate my assistance.”

  “That’s all you need to know, Scott. And I mean, that’s all you need to know.”

  “Right.” He also let us know, “The thinking is that this ship—The Hana—is no longer in my area of operation. It could be much farther west by now, close to New York Harbor. But the Coast Guard has asked the Suffolk County Marine Bureau to continue the search in our area in case The Hana is lurking around in the fog, waiting to make its run.”

  “Good thinking. And I hope that’s the case.”

  Scott Kalish and I both knew through long experience with the Feds that they needed you when they needed you. And the minute they didn’t need local law enforcement, you were dropped like a cheap date, and you never heard another word about the case until you read about it in the papers. Well, two can play that game.

  He asked me, “Where are you?”

  “About ten minutes from the Coast Guard Station.”

  There was a silence, then Kalish said, “I was told that the Diplomatic Surveillance Group is no longer part of this operation.” He concluded, correctly, “I think that means you.”

  “Probably. But Ms. Faraday has deputized me to join her on the SAFE boat.”

  “Can I have that in writing?”

  “No.”

  “Well…”

  “Who’s in charge here, Scott? You or the Feds?”

  “This is a joint operation.”

  “If the worst happens with this joint operation, which joint gets blamed?”

  He didn’t reply, so I added, “And if this has a happy ending, you’ll be lucky if you get a one-line mention in a press release or two words at a press conference.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” He let me know, “I don’t think you can get aboard my SAFE boat, John.”

  Time to call in my I.O.U. “Did you phone your daughter?”

  “I didn’t tell her why she needed to come home tonight.”

  “But I assume she’s on her way.”

  “Right…”

  I changed the subject and asked him, “Does that website have a photo of The Hana?”

  “Yeah. Plus plans of its five decks.”

  “Did you send that out to all the units?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Good. Please make sure there are printouts of this info at the Coast Guard Station.”

  “All right.” He let me know, “You did a good job. But if I were you, I’d let it go.”

  “You’re not me.”

  “And you’re not me. And I don’t need you out on one of my units.” He asked me, “What is your purpose?”

  “You’re breaking up.”

  “Do you think you’re going to take part in a combat boarding?”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you trained to do that?”

  “Why don’t you just find The Hana? And let me worry about what I’m going to do.”

  He didn’t reply to that, but said, “You owe me dinner.”

  “Ecco’s,” I said, naming a restaurant in the nuclear blast zone.

  He knew the place and replied, “We hope.”

  “Speak to you later. And thanks.”

  “Anytime, except not next time.”

  I hung up and Tess said, “He made a good point. About you not being authorized, or trained—”

  “You’re staying at the Coast Guard Station.”

  “I am not. If you go, I go.” She did ask, however, “What is your purpose? What is driving you?”

  “I’m driving myself.” I turned the steering wheel. “See?”

  She said, with some insight, “You don’t have to prove to your bosses—or to your wife—”

  “You’re out of line.” I should have left her with Buck. I said, “For the record, you did not approve of my actions, and chose to stay at the Coast Guard Station.”

  “You’re not getting all the glory, Mr. Corey.”

  “There will be none, I assure you.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “We will finish this together.”

  I didn’t reply.

  She changed the subject and asked, “What was that about Scott Kalish’s daughter?”

  “She lives in Manhattan.”

  “Sounds like you both discussed it and you said it was okay to tell her to get out.”

  Ms. Faraday has a deductive mind. She should be a detective.

  “You need to call your wife,” she reminded me.

  “Later.”

  She continued, “If, as you said, Petrov is spooked, he will advance the time, and there will be no later.”

  “Or he could abort the mission.” I added, “There is a lot we don’t know, so don’t make assumptions. In fact, aside from the fact that we’re not sure we’re dealing with a nuclear threat, we don’t even know the target, if there is one.” I reminded her, “We only assume it’s the financial and government districts of Low
er Manhattan.”

  “What else would it be?”

  “The East Coast of the United States is what we call a target-rich environment. For instance, there’s the nuclear submarine base in Groton, Connecticut, which the Russians would love to see vaporized.”

  “But if you’re saying that it’s supposed to look like Islamic terrorists—9/11, Part Two—then the target is once again Lower Manhattan.” She suggested, “Don’t overthink this, Detective.”

  “Right.”

  I know never to underestimate the enemy, but I also know never to overestimate him. Somewhere in between was the sweet spot, the place where facts, clues, logic, instinct, and experience come together to form reality.

  In any case, I had no other goose to chase tonight, so I either chased this one or I went for a drink. End of tour.

  Tess said, “I need to call Buck.”

  “He knows everything we know, and probably more. And if Buck wants you to know what he knows, he’ll call you.”

  “Okay… but I need to tell him we’re going out with a search unit.”

  “That’s the kind of call you make after the fact.”

  She thought about that and concluded, “You have a problem with authority.”

  “No problem.”

  She said, again with some insight, “Your NYPD days are over. You need to adjust your thinking and your attitude or get out.”

  I think that decision had already been made for me. But if I was going out, it would be in a blaze of… well, something.

  As I drove through the fog, it occurred to me that The Hana could be in New York Harbor now, with its timer ticking down the last few minutes. Well, when we got on that SAFE boat, if I saw the western horizon light up it wouldn’t matter that I got it right if I got it right too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Ms. Faraday got us on the right road, and up ahead I could see the lights of the Coast Guard Station through the mist.

  My Nextel—actually Matt’s Nextel—chimed and I looked at the message: Corey, call me ASAP—Fensterman. Apparently he’d learned I had Matt Conlon’s phone.

  Tess asked, “Who texted?”

  “Fensterman.”

  She didn’t waste her breath telling me to call him.