Radiant Angel

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, ru

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 Cha

Conte turned the SAFE boat and headed for the mouth of Buttermilk Cha

As we approached the mouth of Buttermilk Cha

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 cha

She nodded.

The SAFE boat continued at about twenty knots through the cha

Ahead was a gray wall of fog spa

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 cha

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.