“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Dewey hadn’t heard that from the master chief in a long time. “Shoot the motors, Hugo. Not the fugitives.”
DeGroot merely nodded this time, then exited fast.
Dewey turned the cutter beam to the wind, providing DeGroot some shelter for the launch. When the faster inflatable was under way, white froth kicking up behind it, he ordered the Manteo back to full speed ahead, aiming for the barely discernible wake of the retreating pontoon boat.
Kelleter, Dewey’s No. 2, came onto the bridge, having helped with the inflatable.
“Get someone on the machine gun,” Dewey said. “I want periodic bursts. Get their attention and keep it.”
“You got it.”
The officer clambered noisily back down the ladder. Dewey looked to the computer projection of the Delaware River chart on his video screen. There was a wide bend in the river coming up. If they could keep herding the fugitive craft to port, there was a chance of forcing it to the shore.
Dewey went out onto the bridge wing. “Keep it on ’em,” he shouted to the man working the forward searchlight. “We don’t want to run him over when they stop him.”
There were pinpricks of orange light from the fleeing boat. The wretches were shooting back. Dewey knew he could end it all with his twenty-five millimeter deck gun. He was sorely tempted.
The radio was crackling with official chatter. Coast Guard and police vessels of all sorts were swarming over the river, seeking the terrorists everywhere. One police boat had run bow-first into the muck at the north end of Fort Delaware’s island. In his haste, Dewey had failed to report his sighting and pursuit.
But he didn’t want to take his eyes off his quarry. He called to a seaman standing at the window. “Get on the horn and inform all units of our location. Tell them we have suspects in sight and are pursuing.”
The young man moved to the radio. Peering ahead, Dewey noted that the cone of illumination from the searchlight was sliding farther to port. Suddenly, the boat vanished into the darkness.
He’d turned, hard, to port. For a moment, Dewey feared the bastard was doubling back on them. With his shorter turning radius, he might get in the clear. Dewey stepped back inside and called DeGroot on the handheld radio.
“This is Dewey. Have we lost them?”
“Negative. I’m on him. He’s running for the shore.”
“Have you a shot at their motor?”
“Not if you want them alive.”
“Stick with ’em. I’m following.” He ordered a course change to due east, going now to the radar. He didn’t want to pile the Manteo into the riverbank.
The quartermaster was calling to him from the helm. The searchlight had caught the fugitive boat again. Just as DeGroot had said, he was headed straight for the darker line of the horizon.
There were more gunfire flashes. The bad guys were shooting at DeGroot, who apparently was maneuvering off the pontoon boat’s stern quarter. Dewey called out a reduction in speed. The shallow water was coming up fast.
Too fast. Dewey ordered a sharp turn to starboard and full stop. He crossed to the other side of the bridge. There were three more bursts of gunfire, then silence. The searchlight found the boat, which was now motionless.
DeGroot came onto the handheld. “We got ’em.”
“Got the boat?” Dewey asked.
“Affirmative. And two suspects.”
“Alive?”
“One dead. One alive.”
Chapter 29
Leaving the uncertain park rangers behind, Westman, Cat, and Schilling departed Henlopen State Park by driving south along the beach toward Rehoboth instead of back through the park’s main entrance, where the state police would be arriving. If this made them fugitives, Westman didn’t care.
He drove the flatbed truck. Cat followed in the Wrangler, with a shell-shocked Burt beside her.
Once in Rehoboth and on hard pavement, they used the back streets of the town, passing by Silver Lake and rejoining Highway 1 at Dewey Beach. In the darkness of the Delware State Seashore beyond, there were state cops to be seen on the highway, a couple whizzing by with rooftop lights whirling. But none bothered them. Everyone’s attention was to the north. New Jersey. The possibility of radioactive clouds.
Westman rented a double room for them in a motel at the north end of Ocean City, just across the Maryland line from Fenwick Island, Delaware. Burt collapsed on one of the beds, asking for whiskey.
Cat sighed. “Is that really necessary, Captain Schilling?”
“Yes, ma’am. Can’t think of anything more necessary.”
He’d more or less lost everything of any importance to him that night. He had something coming. She hoped it would make him go to sleep.
“Do you think it’s safe to go back out?” she asked Westman. They had parked the truck and the Wrangler behind the motel, by a Dumpster.
“Yes. I think we’re a pretty low priority for law enforcement at the moment. But I want to look at you.”
“Erik …”
“Let’s not take any chances.” He had her stand in the light so he could examine her face. The pupils of her eyes seemed normal. Apparently she’d suffered no concussion. But there was a nasty abrasion along her left cheekbone and cuts on her forehead and hand, plus a bloody scrape along her knee and shinbone.
“You must hurt like hell,” he said.
“You don’t look like a finalist in the Miss America contest yourself.” She clung to him a moment, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m not sure I’m up for what comes next.”
“I’m not either—though I’ve no idea what it will be.”
“You don’t look unsure. You look like some Viking action hero.”
“That’s just Icelandic stoicism. I’m completely at a loss here.”
“So what do we do?”
“I live in the belief that we’ll know when the time comes.” He kissed her forehead. “But right now, I’m going to try to get some help.” He took out his cell phone.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she said.
When she returned, he was watching the news on television. She took the fifth of Jack Daniel’s from its brown paper bag and poured some of the whiskey into a cheap plastic cup, bringing it to Schilling as she might medicine to a sick child. “Here’s your bourbon, Burt. Now sit up.”
He’d been lying with his face to the wall. Slowly, he turned over and looked up at her. “You should get out of here,” he said.
“No such luck,” she said, handing him the cup. “Only one way out of this now.”
She rose and went to Westman. “Where do we stand?”
“Help will be a while in coming.”
The television networks were providing continuous live coverage of what seemed to be mass panic everywhere. Atlantic City was being evacuated—a massive traffic jam on the causeway leading to the mainland the result. People were fleeing Philadelphia for Bucks County.
“Are we all going to die of radiation?” she asked: “The people in the liquor store didn’t seem to give a damn.”
“Someone from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission came on to say there was no danger. A lot of people apparently think he’s lying.”
She sat down next to him. “Imagine the federal government doing that. Did you find anyone to help us?”
“I’ve called the Wilmington police, who haven’t an officer to spare, and the Coast Guard. I hope to hear from my friend Tim Dewey on the Manteo again. But he has his hands full. More than anyone. He captured a terrorist suspect. They haven’t identified him. Speaks a strange language. Something like Afghan.”
“And now?”
“I’m going to walk over to the shore.”
“It looks like rain.”
“I need the sea.”
They strolled an empty street hand in hand, coming finally to a beach just as deserted. The windows of the high-rises that stretched to the south were mostly dark.
She sat down in
the sand and he joined her, putting his arm around her. Rough weather was sliding along the northern horizon again, darkening the night. A moment later, it was illuminated by a flash of lightning.
Westman listened to the following thunder. “It’s a good ten miles away.”
“You’re good at that.”
“Spent some time at sea.”
“So did I.”
“You Naval aviators are contemptuous of the sea. You call a ship a boat and the bow the sharp end.”
She leaned closer, resting her head on his shoulder. “We’re only contemptuous of people who don’t fly.”
He said nothing.
“Not you,” she said. Her hand went to his.
The lightning became more general. Orange streaks darted from cloud to sea all along the line of storm.
“It looks like a battle,” he said.
“Or a nuclear power plant turning into an apocalyptic disaster.”
He squeezed her hand. “I don’t think that’s a worry. If there was a radioactive leak, you wouldn’t have TV crews lined up outside the plant.”
She shivered. “There’s another worry.”
“We’ll get back the bomb.”
Cat laughed. “A sick old drunk. A washed-up Navy flyer. And a Coast Guard cop who’s in trouble with his own people.”
“We’ll get help.”
“No, we won’t. I don’t know how it’s been for you in your service, Warrant Officer Four, but if you haven’t noticed yet, when the military wants to be stupid, it gets stupid from the top four-star down to E-1. That Air Force colonel at Dover could have ended this whole mess with a single phone call. So could that lady admiral of yours. Instead, they treat us like crazy people. There’s a nuclear weapon somewhere along this coastline and another underwater right off the beach and they act like we’re talking about flying saucers. I just hate them now. The Navy was everything to me. Like it was for my father. Now I hate it.”
He kissed her forehead. “As I said before, you should take your Wrangler and go to Washington. Now. Tonight.”
“No.”
“You’ve got a shot, Cat. You were in the right. Now they know that. Take the chance.”
“No. This is going to come first.”
“What would your dad think?”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t have known my dad. He’d be sitting right here with us. He did crazier things. I don’t know how he stayed a commander.”
Westman released her hand and got to his feet. “Very well, Lieutenant. We’ll carry on.”
Six or seven stabs of orange struck the sea in succession to the northeast, followed by a blue-white flare of light. In the brightness, they could see the distant silhouette of a ship.
She got up, facing the storm. “What do we do now, Erik? Let’s figure that out.”
“That’s easy. Sleep. We’re going to need it.”
Encountering heavy traffic on Highway 49, Turko cut inland, turning to back roads and making his way by dead reckoning. The car radio was full of news, but much of it was contradictory. For some reason, there was no weather report. But the winds had been from the northwest just before he and his team had gone after the power plant. He’d have to gamble they’d stay that way.
All the bars he passed were closed. Finally, near a town called Mullica Hill, he found one with lights on. The bartender and three men dressed in jeans and T-shirts were staring fixedly at the television screen, which showed a blond woman with a microphone standing in front of a police car.
She was quoting unnamed federal officials as saying the attack on the Farmingdale plant had been successfully repulsed and there was no danger of radiation.
Turko had seen the explosion. The amazing little Iraqi had detonated the package inside the fence.
He ordered a double vodka and Coca-Cola, paying for it immediately. The bartender hardly glanced at him, returning quickly to the television set.
“Fuckin’ rag-heads,” said one of the men in jeans. “How many times do we gotta go over there and kick their ass?”
“They’re tryin’ to nuke us. We oughta drop a couple nukes on them,” said another of the men. “End this shit.”
The bartender gestured at them to be quiet as the network anchorman came on the screen. He had a bulletin. “The New Jersey State Police report that a suspect has been apprehended.”
This was impossible. Turko had seen the Iraqi die.
“He has not been identified. He is being flown by helicopter to Washington. Police say he has been injured but we don’t know the extent of his injuries. The police also say they have identified another suspect.”
Turko ordered and paid for a second drink. He was nearly done with it when an image came on the screen that chilled him to the bone. It was his own picture, taken from the driver’s license he had used. He was identified as Anthony Bertolucci.
Dewey got a radio call from the Lewes pilot boat station that an inbound vessel was headed into the bay. Immediately after the power plant explosion the Homeland Security Department had ordered the Delaware River closed to all maritime traffic except military and law enforcement, and the pilot station assumed that applied to Delaware Bay as well.
“Only to the river north of Bombay Hook,” Dewey said, “but thanks for the heads-up. What type vessel?”
“Looks like a big tug.”
“That’s the one I’m looking for. Thanks again.”
He went to the radar screen. The tug was still out of range. “Prepare a boarding party, Master Chief,” he said. “And I want a man on the twenty-millimeter and the fifty-caliber.”
Turko stopped at a convenience store and went directly to a pay telephone. He knew the number indelibly though he had only used it twice before.
“I need to talk to him,” he said to the voice that answered.
“You’ll have to wait.”
“I understand. But I must talk to him.”
“Wait.”
“I will.”
While he did, he continued to talk. Behind the counter were a teenage boy and a dark-skinned Asian woman who, having nothing else to do, were watching him.
He kept his face turned away.
“Why are you calling?” A different, gruffer voice.
“My picture is on television. The name Bertolucci too.”
“Could not be helped.”
“You promised.”
“Could not be helped.”
Turko hesitated. “The job is done. I want to leave now.”
“No. The job is not done. You must do what you promised.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Deliver the goods.”
“I’m not sure that will be possible.”
“It better be.” The line went dead.
The cutter came out of the misty darkness fast, turning on its forward searchlight and flooding Bear Gergen’s wheelhouse with an incapacitating brightness. Bear hove to, idling his engines. He’d picked up the approaching ship on his radar, but hadn’t realized it was Coast Guard.
He’d prepared for that possibility, though. All of his explosives and firearms had been taken off and left with his cousin Leonard. The only thing illegal on the tug was the pint of Jim Beam in his back pocket. He tossed that over the side.
The Coast Guard vessel pulled close alongside and an officer came out on the bridge wing with a loud-hailer.
“Stand by to receive boarders!” he commanded.
Bear went out on deck and waved, signaling his acquiescence. He stood in the wheelhouse door as the cutter lowered an inflatable and four men clambered into it. When they came alongside, Bear recognized the cutter skipper, Lieutenant Dewey, and his master chief, Hugo DeGroot. All of the Coast Guardsman were wearing side arms.
“What’s up, Lieutenant?” Gergen asked as Dewey came aboard.
The lieutenant adjusted his belt and uniform, then stepped forward, peering into the wheelhouse. “Don’t you keep your radio on?” he said. “There was a terrorist
attack on the Farmingdale nuclear power plant. The river’s been closed from Bombay Hook to Trenton.”
Bear’s surprise was not feigned. He’d not been paying attention to anything but the task he’d had at hand. “I heard a lot of emergency chatter on the radio, but wasn’t sure what it was.”
“That’s interesting,” said Dewey. “Emergencies are your business, Gergen.”
“I listen for distress calls.”
“Right. What are you doing out here tonight—if you weren’t responding to a distress call?”
“Taking some equipment down to my cousin’s place in Ocean City.” Once again, the best lie was the truth.
Dewey took a flashlight off his belt. Master Chief DeGroot already had his in hand. “I’m going to have to search your boat, Gergen. Stand aside, please.”
“Sure,” Bear said, obeying. “How come?”
“Searching all vessels—because of the attack.”
Gergen followed Dewey as he went into the wheelhouse. “What happened? Did they blow up the reactor?”
“They were going for one of the spent-fuel bunkers,” said Dewey, leafing through Bear’s logbook. “Might have done it if the perps had set the charge properly. It exploded in the yard. The perp was killed and the bunker’s intact.”
“Second time they fucked up.”
“They’ve got the whole country in an uproar.” Dewey pointed to a locked wooden cabinet. “Open that, please.”
It contained legal papers from a number of salvage jobs, plus a collection of coastal charts. Everything was in order.
They went through the boat from bow to stern, tossing everything—turning bunk mattresses over and even checking out the bilges.
“Is this necessary, Captain?” Gergen asked when they’d returned topside again. “You guys know me. I’ve tipped you to a lot of bad guys. Why’re you giving me a hard time?”
Dewey flashed his light around the deck. Something caught his eye and he went over to the starboard rail. It was scraped and bent. The wood below was marred and splintery. “What happened here?” he asked.
“I brought in a freighter a few days ago. She rode up on her towline.”
Deepkill Page 29
