“We have radio contact?” Williams asked the bridge communications officer.
“Yes, sir.”
Williams grabbed his headset. “This is Captain Henry Williams of the United States Navy. To whom am I speaking?”
“Captain Alvar Haxhi.” Haxhi had a heavy Eastern European accept. No surprise. Lots of ship captains were from Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.
“You are the commander of the Juno, registered in Monrovia, Liberia?”
“That is correct.”
“Captain Haxhi, by order of the United States Navy, you are commanded to stop so my men can board and search your vessel.”
“Under what law of the sea do you make this demand?” The captain sounded surprisingly unworried given the circumstances.
“We have reason to believe your vessel is carrying sensitive material that belongs to the United States government. If you don’t allow us to board, I’ve been authorized to use deadly force.”
A pause. “Then I suppose I have no choice.”
THE BOARDING WENT smoothly enough. Over the radio, Williams asked Haxhi to come to the Decatur so he could be interviewed about the Juno’s movements.
“I will not leave my ship,” Haxhi said.
“Under any circumstances?”
“You and I both know this boarding is very much illegal, Captain. I allow it because I must. But I will not leave my men.”
Williams had to respect that attitude. “Then I’ll come to you.”
A half-hour later, Williams was sitting with Haxhi in the captain’s cabin on the Juno, an unadorned white-painted room ten feet square. The cabin stank of Eastern European cigarettes and was furnished with a metal desk, a full-sized wooden bed, and a dresser, all bolted to the floor. Two photographs of a pretty young woman were taped over his desk, Haxhi’s wife or girlfriend or maybe even his daughter, and a couple of Albanian novels lay on his bed. Otherwise, the cabin was devoid of any signs of personality, except for the putting green nailed to the floor.
“You like to golf?” Williams said.
“Of course, Captain. Do you?”
“I think it’s a big waste of time. Tell me where you’ve been.”
“The stupidest of trips,” Haxhi said. “We were on way to Nigeria. When we reached a hundred kilometers from Lagos, my manager called, said, Head west to Caracas.”
The story was implausible to the point of being insulting. “When was this?” Williams said evenly.
“Ten, eleven days. I can check.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“One time.”
“And who is your manager?”
“Name is Serge.”
“Serge what?”
“I just call him Serge. But, sure, we have his name on the manifest.”
“What’s the company?”
“Called Socine Expo.”
“You have a phone number, address, e-mail?”
Haxhi gave him all three.
“How’d you end up here?”
“I told you, after Lagos, they tell us Venezuela. We go there, all the way across the Atlantic, and then when we’re two hundred kilometers from Caracas, they tell us, back. To Jo’burg this time. So we turn around again.”
“Not a very well-run company. You wasted a lot of diesel.”
“Bosses change their minds. Why they’re bosses.”
“And when we found you?”
“As I said, on way back from Caracas.”
“You short on food or fuel?”
“Have plenty of both.”
“Your crew must be sick of this.”
“My crew, they do what I tell them.”
That much Williams believed. “You have logs to support this story of yours?”
Haxhi nodded at his desk. “Of course. Maybe you tell me what you looking for? Maybe I can help.”
“You get to wait here until we’re done looking around. It may be a while. I’m going to put a sentry outside the door, so don’t be stupid.”
“Mr. American Captain. You must be kidding. Look at my ship and look at yours. Maybe I am stupid but crazy I am not.”
FOR THE NEXT SIX HOURS, the Decatur’s crew combed the Juno with radiation detectors, looking for any hints that uranium or plutonium had been carried on the ship. But they found only the car parts that were listed on the manifest, a hull of crates packed with gear shafts, tires, brake drums, and shocks. The destroyer’s medic examined the sailors on the Juno for radiation sickness but found nothing unusual. Williams tried to talk to the sailors but got nowhere. To a man, they claimed they couldn’t speak English. He went back to Haxhi’s cabin, now clouded with smoke.
“Captain, may I get you anything?”
“My ship. Get it back to me.” Haxhi offered Williams the pack. “Cigarette?”
Williams shook his head.
“Have you found it yet, what you’re looking for?”
“No, and we’re not going anywhere until we do. And neither are you.”
“What about my delivery?” Haxhi asked the question with a straight face.
“Those poor South Africans, waiting for your precious car parts?” Williams almost laughed. “They’ll have to hang on a few more days. Let me tell you something, Captain. Pretty soon half the U.S. Navy’s going to be here. If we have to put this rustbucket in dry dock and cut holes in it from stem to stern, we will.”
“Whatever you like to do, you will do. But I am sure, this thing you’re looking for, you will not find it.” Haxhi exhaled a cloud of smoke in Williams’s direction, though not exactly at him. He was too confident, Williams thought. Whatever contraband the Juno had been carrying, loose uranium, a bomb, whatever, it was long gone.
Then Williams knew what he needed to do. He should have thought of it before, but better late than never.
“Sit tight, Captain,” Williams said. “I’ll be back.”
He ordered the Juno’s crew assembled on the front of the freighter’s deck, in two lines. To starboard the sun was setting, turning the sky a brilliant crimson. “Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight,” Williams said to the crew, pointing at the sun. “Red sky at morn, sailor be warned. I know some of you know what I’m saying. I know some of you speak English. And if you don’t, there are men on my crew who speak French, German, Spanish. They’re going to translate.”
One by one, the Decatur’s bilingual sailors repeated Williams’s message to the men. They stood still, their mouths shut, hardly moving even to breathe.
“I know you all are pretending you don’t understand. I see you standing there like a bunch of damn deaf-mutes who’ve been commanded to sail the oceans until the Second Coming. And I know it’s a bunch of bull. Let me explain this to you. We didn’t want to board your vessel, but we must find the contraband you were carrying. We don’t blame any of you. We understand that you probably didn’t know what you had. But we must find it.”
A pause for translation.
“Now, we could separate you, interrogate you one by one, pick a few of you to put in our brig. But we’re low on time. So I’m going to extend a one-time offer. On my authority as a captain in the United States Navy, and on my honor as commander of the USS Decatur.”
Translation. The sailors in the Juno looked curiously at one another as they heard Williams’s words.
“I promise that any man who gives us the truth about your route, helps us find the cargo you were carrying, will receive American citizenship. Your immediate family as well. Wife, children, parents, all to the United States. Right now. No red tape. You have my word, and the word of my crew.” Was he allowed to make this deal? Surely not. No more than the Decatur was allowed to leave its position off the African coast. But if he could get the information his admirals needed, no one would care. And if they did . . . what are you going to do, fire me? “I’ll take two men. The first two to come forward, no more, so decide quickly.”
Williams signaled for his translators.
But even before they could spea
k, two men stepped out of line.
28
Wells banged the brass lion knocker against Bernard Kygeli’s front door.
“Hullo? Hey?”
“Ja?” Bernard’s wife.
“It’s Roland.”
“Nein.”
“Open up, you handkerchief-wearing twit. I need Bernard.” Wells hadn’t seen Bernard in almost a week, since the meeting in the hotel. Two days before, Wells had called Bernard and briefly updated him on the progress he was supposedly making in getting the beryllium and promised to deliver the rest within seventy-two hours. Bernard had seemed satisfied. Wells figured he’d try to string Bernard along for a few more days, give the agency as much time as possible to find out where the bombmakers were hiding.
But this morning, Shafer had called Wells, told him he needed to get hold of Bernard. Immediately. Bernard wasn’t answering his phone. So Wells had come to the house.
“Nein. Not here.”
“Where is he then?”
But the house stayed silent. Wells waited a minute more, then dropped to a crouch and scuttled along the front porch. He vaulted over the rail of the porch and ran into the backyard, which was hidden from the neighbors by a high white wall. Most of the yard was taken up by a little garden, the plants wrapped in blue plastic to protect them from the winter. Three recycling bins stood tidily beside the back door of the house, which opened into the kitchen. The savory smell of Turkish coffee wafted into the yard through a half-open kitchen window.
For this visit, Wells had brought his Glock. He unzipped his jacket and started to pull the pistol from his shoulder holster. Then he changed his mind. He left the gun in the holster and stepped to the door and peeked inside. The kitchen was empty. Wells tested the door. Locked. He pushed on the window but couldn’t raise it.
Wells was wearing a black wool knit cap low on his head. He pulled off the cap and wrapped his gloved hand in it and punched through the window beside the door. The glass cracked with the sweet tinkle of a distant ice-cream truck. Wells reached in and opened the door and stepped inside. “Bernard,” he yelled. “It’s Roland.” Heavy steps thumped through the house toward the kitchen. Wells pulled his pistol. Helmut, Bernard’s son, skidded into the kitchen on black dress socks. He held a poker in both hands. He stepped toward Wells but stopped when he saw the Glock.
“Put it down,” Wells said.
“We’re calling the police.”
“No you’re not. Put it down, boy.”
Helmut laid the poker on the kitchen table.
“Good.” Wells tucked away his gun and stepped toward Helmut.
“Where’s your father?”
“At the warehouse.”
Wells lunged and grabbed the poker as Helmut shrank back against the refrigerator.
“I was just there. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I swear.”
“Bloody hell. Do you have any idea what he’s gotten us into?”
Wells pressed Helmut against the refrigerator and put his gloved left hand around Helmut’s neck and lifted and squeezed—
To his right, Wells sensed as much as saw a shape coming at him through the doorway—
Still holding Helmut, he swung the poker diagonally downward, a quick blind slash that ended when the iron rod thumped solidly into bone—
A woman screamed and a knife clattered to the floor and Helmut swung his skinny arms wildly at Wells like a puppet trying to slip its strings—
But Wells kept his grip until Helmut’s shoulders drooped and he gave up—
Wells loosened up on Helmut and kicked the knife to the far end of the kitchen. Meanwhile, Bernard’s wife, his would-be attacker, held her damaged hand to her chest and groaned. Wells wasn’t sure if he’d broken any bones, but she’d be black-and-blue for sure. He jabbed at her with the poker to keep her at bay.
“Tell your mother to step back,” Wells said. “Before I start shooting.”
Helmut fired German at his mother. Wells was surprised that they didn’t speak Arabic or Turkish with each other, but maybe Helmut had never learned it. Finally, the woman retreated. Wells stepped back to the far end of the kitchen and dropped the poker and drew his Glock.
“Crazy family,” he said. “Helmut the screenwriter, his killer mom, his disappearing dad. What’s her name, anyway?”
“Ayelet.”
“Tell Omelet I need her husband.”
“Ayelet.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass. You two talkee-fastee and find me Bernard or we’re all in trouble.”
But after talking to his mother, Helmut shook his head. “She doesn’t know. And I don’t either.”
“Lying.”
“No. He left yesterday morning and he hasn’t been home since.”
Did the BND know where Bernard was? Wells wondered. They had to. Then why hadn’t they told Shafer? Or had the Germans somehow lost him? “Let’s go,” Wells said. “I want a look around.”
“I don’t understand,” Helmut said. “Are you Polizei?”
“Do I look like the constabulary? Your father owes me three million euros. I want my money and I don’t want to wind up in some Kraut jail.” Wells walked through the living room to Bernard’s office. The door was locked, but Wells put his shoulder to it and popped it.
Inside, the file cabinets were empty and the papers on Bernard’s desk were gone. So was his laptop dock. Only the maps and the volumes of maritime law remained.
“Bloody hell,” Wells said, not acting anymore. The BND better know where he is. “Did you know about this?”
“No.”
Ayelet murmured something to Helmut. “She says he burned his papers.” Wells walked back into the living room. Heaps of charred ash filled the fireplace. Wells kicked through them but found nothing of value. Then, deeper in the fireplace, a lump of melted plastic. Bernard’s laptop, permanently rebooted. Bernard had taken advantage of the cold weather to get rid of his records without attracting the BND’s attention.
“When did he do this?”
“Last night.”
Wells backhanded Helmut across the face, hard enough that the kid nearly banged his head on the marble fireplace mantel. “You told me he left yesterday morning.”
“He came back last night to burn the stuff. Just for an hour.”
Wells pulled Helmut close, got a faceful of the kid’s cologne. “Who else was in on this?”
“I don’t even know what you’re doing here. You think my father talks to me?” Helmut’s voice was a piteous but truthful whine.
“You don’t know what we’re doing? I’ll tell you, then. Your dear old da’ asked me to find him some beryllium. Know what that’s for, Helmut? Atomic bombs. Try that in one of your movies. Your dad wants an A-bomb.”
“That’s—” But Helmut had nothing else to say.
“You ever seen anyone from the BND with your dad?” Wells said. “Think hard.”
Helmut shook his head.
“Then who’s it for, Helmut?”
Helmut hesitated. His eyes flicked at his mother, at the floor, and then finally back at Wells. “I don’t know.” He knew something, maybe not a name, but something. Even so, Wells decided to hold off on pushing the question. Finding Bernard was the key. Wells grabbed Helmut and pulled him close and stuck the Glock under his chin. Helmut’s cologne could no longer hide the reek of his sweat. Wells didn’t like scaring civilians this way, but he didn’t see any choice.
“Your dad and me, we had a deal. And I intend to get paid. And if he goes down, he had best keep his mouth shut and never mention me to anyone. Otherwise I will kill you and your ugly twit of a mother and your sisters. So find Bernard and tell him I want to see him in person. Do you understand?”
“You have a foul mouth,” Helmut said through clenched teeth.
“And an even fouler mind at that. But I keep my promises. Tell him.”
And with his message delivered, Wells flung Helmut aside and stalked out.
AN HOUR
LATER, from his hotel room, Wells called Shafer. “Bernard is AWOL.” Wells told Shafer about the empty office and his run-in with Helmut.
“That’s a problem,” Shafer said.
“Why did he run?”
Shafer told Wells about the Decatur and the Juno.
“And you didn’t tell me about this?”
“I wanted you outside the loop so you wouldn’t blow your cover. Anyway, we didn’t find the Juno until yesterday, so there was nothing to tell.”
“And it wasn’t carrying anything.”
“Clean. But the crew members say it sailed from Hamburg to somewhere off eastern Canada and that there it dropped two guys off. Both Arab. They hardly talked to the crew during the trip, mostly stayed in their cabin, and the captain gave strict orders that they weren’t to be disturbed. Like ghosts, one of the crew said.”
“Names or faces?”
“We’ve shown the crew a couple hundred possibles. No matches yet. Anyway, these guys were carrying four wooden crates. Two as big as steamer trunks. Much more than you’d need to carry a few kilos of HEU. Which means the Russians are lying. I’m sure you’re shocked.”
“If they have that much material, why do they need the beryllium?”
“We asked the boys at Los Alamos the same question. Their best guess was that maybe these guys have a few hundred kilos of material, but not military-grade. The way the physics work, if it’s sixty or seventy percent enriched, you need much more uranium than if it’s 93.5. Or it could be components for a bomb, or some kind of shielding. Outside chance they have a finished bomb, but we think that’s unlikely. It would have gone off already.”
“And this was when?”
“January 10 or 11. More than two weeks ago.”
“So where exactly did the drop happen?”
“No one on the crew can tell us.”
“How is that possible?”
“The navy says these freighters, they’re not democracies. Officers’ orders aren’t questioned. Ever. And this time, only the captain and the first mate knew exactly where they were. And the first mate went overboard when they were bringing the crates in. Maybe intentional, maybe an accident. That leaves the captain. Haxhi is his name. Albanian. And he’s not talking, not yet. But we’re guessing it must have been Nova Scotia. Highways from there lead straight to the U.S. border. The Canadians are checking their naval records for suspicious contacts. But they haven’t found anything, and considering this was a couple weeks ago, they probably won’t.”
The Silent Man Page 30
