“It’s very soon, isn’t it, Mac?” he said reverently.
“It looks like it.”
“So what do we do next?” Adkins asked.
“Keep looking for him and the bomb on the assumption we’re wrong about New York, and the bomb was never aboard the yacht. I’m going up there. It’s probably a waste of time, but I want to see the yacht.”
Los Angeles
Tony Lang came in with Henry Kolesnik a couple of minutes before 6:00 a.m. The President looked up from his breakfast alone in the living room of the Century City Plaza Hotel’s presidential suite, his nerves giving a start. Something had happened.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” his chief of staff said brightly. “We have some good news, I think.”
Whenever possible especially if they were on the road, the President liked to have his breakfast in private with his wife and daughter. But it had been a late night and the girls were leaving for San Francisco later this morning, so they were sleeping in.
“What is it?” the President asked, quelling his irritation.
“The CIA called two hours ago,” Kolesnik said. “Ali Bahmad, the guy we think bin Laden sent over with the bomb, has been placed in New York City, and he’s apparently been there for a while. The FBI is looking for him, but now we’ve got a decent description.”
The President’s eyes narrowed. “Am I missing something, Tony?”
“We just might be off the hook in San Francisco,” Lang said. “The Bureau thinks that the bomb may have been aboard a private yacht in a New York marina two days ago.”
The President understood what they were getting at, but he didn’t think they did. “San Francisco has been under a microscope for the past seventy-two hours. If the bomb isn’t already in place, it’s not coming. It wouldn’t get through. Is that about right, Henry?”
“Yes, sir. You were right all along, Mr. President. San Francisco never was his target.”
“Well, I am relieved to hear that,” the President said sharply. He got up, nearly knocking his chair over.
“Yes, sir,” Kolesnik said uncertainly.
“We don’t have to worry about a nuclear device being detonated in San Francisco killing me, my wife and my daughter, and maybe tens of thousands of other people.”
Lang saw it, and he backpedaled. “We didn’t mean it that way, sir.”
“If I were president of California that indeed would be good news. But of course that’s not the case. I’m President of the entire United States, which includes New York City, which is, I think you’re telling me, the target for the largest terrorist attack ever planned in all of recorded history.”
“I see your point, Mr. President,” Kolesnik said. He was a professional, not a politician, so he didn’t back off. “The Bureau and the CIA are handling the investigation on the East Coast. In the meantime my job is to protect you and your family. From my standpoint learning that New York City may be the target rather than the Special Olympics is good news.”
The President’s stomach was sour. Breakfast was over, and his day was about to begin. In situations like these he sometimes asked himself that if he knew then what he knew now, would he have quit campaigning for the White House and gone home. The answer was of course no. Most of the time the job was interesting; not much different than being the CEO of a very large and complicated corporation. But at other times, like now, he felt like a father driving a car, his family asleep, trusting him to do a good job in a blizzard at night on a very dangerous road. His decisions could mean life or death. And he was completely alone to make them.
New York City
McGarvey and Dick Yemm took the CIA’s Gulfstream bizjet to La Guardia From there they choppered across to the West Thirtieth Street Heliport near the Penn Central Yards. A car was waiting for them, and Yemm drove him to the marina. He had to show his credentials to a cop at the Papa’s Fancy boarding ladder before he was allowed to go aboard. Yemm waited on the dock.
The yacht was a mess. The main saloon had been all but dismantled; the furniture had been cut apart; the bar and cabinets reduced to pieces; ceiling tiles removed, wall panels taken off and set aside and the carpeting and padding pulled up to show the bare metal of the deck.
“We didn’t find a thing,” a man in shirtsleeves said coming from the forward passageway. He looked like a ward politician, or a Teamsters boss. Tough and gnarly. “You McGarvey?”
“Yeah,” McGarvey said. They shook hands.
“I’m Kevin O’Brien, FBI Counterespionage. Mr. Rudolph said you wanted to come up and take a look.” He glanced around the saloon and shrugged. “We took it down to bare metal and didn’t find a thing other than what’s on the amended police report, so I sent everybody home.”
“No radiation?”
O’Brien shook his head. “Nada. That would have been a bad sign anyway. Would have meant that the device was leaking, which would have given us a whole host of other problems.”
McGarvey pegged O’Brien as a former street cop. Probably from right here in New York. He’d bea good man to have at your back in a crisis. “There was supposed to be an aluminum case here. Any sign of it?”
“We found some indentations on the carpet beside the bed in the master suite. Traces of aluminum oxide. It could have contained the device. The package was just about large enough, and our forensics people estimated it weighed between fifty and eighty pounds, from the depth of the indentations.” O’Brien shrugged again. “Makes you wonder though, just how cool and collected the sonofabitch would have to be in order to lie down and go to sleep next to a nuclear weapon.”
“If he’s who we think he is, he’s cool enough to push the button,” McGarvey said. This had been a waste of time after all. He was picking up no sense whatsoever that Bahmad was ever here, let alone why he chose a yacht as his base of operations. Nor was he any further ahead in trying to work out the man’s tradecraft.
“Well, he’s had a two-day head start and he left nothing behind. He could be just about anywhere.”
McGarvey started to turn away when what the FBI Counterespionage agent just said struck him. Bahmad didn’t have a two-day head start. He had an eight-week head start. The bomb was never aboard the yacht. There was no reason for it to be here. The aluminum case contained Bahmad’s equipment for the strike: weapons, explosives, maybe lock picking sets and surveillance devices. Things that he might need in order to set up the attack and then get away afterward. Maybe a remote detonator for the bomb.
“Did you find any weapons?”
“A Ruger Mini-14 in stainless and a couple of Beretta 9mm pistols in the captain’s quarters. A couple of boxes of ammunition. About what you’d expect to find on a boat like this.”
“No explosives?”
“You mean like Semtex?” O’Brien shook his head. “Nada.”
“Was the captain armed?”
“He had nothing on him when the gold shields showed up.”
“Was he carrying any keys?”
“He had a key to get in, and the key locker in his cabin was open.”
“The bulk of his fingerprints were found in the master stateroom?”
“That’s right,” O’Brien said. “What are you getting at, Mr. McGarvey?”
“I think that the captain was ordered to search the master stateroom. Probably for the aluminum case.”
“Right. And this guy kills him because of it.”
“Maybe,” McGarvey said. “Or maybe the captain had already gotten rid of it and was killed to keep his mouth shut. Get a diver over here, I want to find out what’s at the bottom of this slip.”
M/V Margo
Southwest of San Diego They had turned north around dawn and were making fifteen knots on their new course of 340 degrees which would close slowly with the U.S. mainland when the Coast Guard helicopter came at them out of the sun.
Bahmad was in the chartroom going through the ship’s documents and memorizing the captain’s papers and company orders when Green came t
o the doorway. “It’s the god damned Coast Guard,” he said, out of breath. Bahmad looked up calmly. Green was pale.
“Have they attempted to make contact with us? Is it a ship?”
“It’s a helicopter, a Sea King, and it’s heading right at us.”
Bahmad put down the dividers and followed Green onto the bridge. The helicopter was at about eye level just off to the starboard and pacing them. Bahmad found that he wasn’t surprised by its presence, nor was he. going to allow himself to become distressed. If the Coast Guard was on a drug interdiction mission they would have sent a cutter with a boarding party, but there were no ships on the radar. He was going to play it cool for now because he had no other choice. If the Coast Guard actually put someone aboard the mission would be over.
Bahmad picked up the VHP radio handset and keyed it. “Good morning, Coast Guard, this is the Margo. Would you care to come aboard for some fresh coffee and doughnuts?”
“Thanks for the invite Margo, but it’d be a little tough setting down. Switch to twenty-two and identify yourself please, sir.”
Bahmad switched from channel 16 to the Coast Guard frequency. “I’m George Panagiotopolous, the master.”
“What is your cargo and destination, sir?”
“We’re carrying twenty-seven containers of Italian tile, fifteen containers of teak furniture, three hundred seventeen containers of Nike shoes, and the remainder, four hundred eighteen containers of marine life rafts, plus one helicopter on the afterdeck bound for San Francisco.”
“Looks like a Russian chopper.”
“Sorry, I don’t know a thing about such machines, except that this one is inoperable and it’s heading for a museum.”
“How many POBs, skipper?”
Bahmad held his hand over the mouthpiece and gave Green a questioning look.
“Persons-on-board,” Green whispered.
Bahmad turned back to the radio. “In addition to myself, we are sixteen men and officers, no passengers.”
“When was your last course or speed change?”
“About thirty-six hours ago,” Bahmad said. “What brings you gentlemen all the way out here this fine morning?” If they were looking for drugs they would have already asked the Margo to heave to.
“We received a possible distress call last night about seventy miles southwest of here. Did you pick up anything, skipper?”
“There was nothing in the log.”
“Did you see any traffic last night?”
“Nothing, Coast Guard. Like I said, the log is blank except for positions, weather and sea states.”
“Okay, skipper, sorry to have bothered you,” the Coast Guard said. “Have a good one.” The helicopter peeled off to the right, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then headed east back into the sun.
“What the fuck was that all about?” a greatly relieved Green demanded.
“Whatever it was, it’s no longer any concern of ours,” Bahmad said, smiling faintly. “The Coast Guard has looked us over and has given us a clean bill of health. We won’t be bothered again.”
New York City
It took less than an hour to summon a New York City Police Department search and rescue dive team to Papa’s Fancy. McGarvey told the two men exactly what they were to look for, but to pick up anything that looked suspicious. A halfdozen uniformed cops showed up and expanded the area cordoned off by police tape to include the entire dock. A small crowd of people, some of them marina employees, others yacht crew or owners, gathered in the parking lot and adjacent docks to watch. The divers, police sergeants Benito Juarez and Tom Haskill, suited up and slipped into the water at the bow of the yacht “What if they find the aluminum case down there?” O’Brien asked.
“Depends on what’s inside it,” McGarvey said absently. Yemm had gotten out of the car and came over. He was watching the crowd with suspicion.
“The bomb?”
“I don’t think it was ever aboard,” McGarvey said. “This will be his weapons, and maybe the remote detonator.”
O’Brien looked at the black water roiled up by the bubbles rising from the divers’ scuba equipment. They were slowly working their way aft. “I don’t get it. Why would the captain dump the stuff overboard?”
“Because he was ordered to do it. Bin Laden might be getting cold feet, so the captain was told to get down here and grab whatever he could. It was just bad luck that Bahmad showed up at the same time. I’m betting that the captain spotted Bahmad coming aboard and tossed the case overboard. About the only thing he could have done.” McGarvey was working all that out in his head as he spoke.
“So Bahmad killed him because of it, and then he took off. Means we’re out of the woods, doesn’t it? No detonator, no explosion?”
“The bomb can be set off manually.”
O’Brien looked at the water again. “Then if the detonator is still down there, it means he was in too big a hurry to bring it up. He had to get somewhere. Could mean that the bomb isn’t here in New York after all.”
“Something like that,” McGarvey said, still working it out. Bahmad had come back for his things, which meant that the attack was going to happen very soon. Yet he didn’t bother trying to recover any of it. That’s if the case was actually at the bottom of the slip.
The divers surfaced just aft of the flare of the bows and passed up a line. “It’s down there, just like you said,” Haskill called up to McGarvey.
Two uniformed cops hauled the muddy aluminum case to the surface and then pulled it up onto the dock. McGarvey walked over and hunched down in front of it.
“Maybe we should get the bomb squad over here first, boss,” Yemm suggested. “No need,” McGarvey told him. “It’s already been opened. The locks have been forced.” He popped the latches and opened the lid. Some water came out. In addition to some cameras and photographic equipment the case contained a gun, a silencer, some ammunition, a lock pick set and an assortment of other things.
He pulled out a small leather case and from it withdrew an electronic device that looked very much like a television remote control.
“The detonator?” O’Brien asked in a hushed tone. Even Yemm was impressed. The police officers were impressed.
McGarvey nodded. “No telling the range,” he said. He carefully eased the battery cover open on the back of it and pried the Nnicad battery out. Only men did he allow himself to relax, and release the pent-up breath.
“This guy isn’t going to give up, is he?” O’Brien said. “I don’t think so,” McGarvey said. He put the detonator and battery in separate pockets and got up. “Get the rest of this stuff down to Washington and see what your people can come up with.”
“What about the yacht?”
“The owner won’t be coming back,” McGarvey said, but his mind was elsewhere. He was sure now what bin Laden’s target had been all along. And he had done exactly what bin Laden would have wanted him to do by sending his daughter to California to be with the President’s daughter. Now he was going to have to figure out how to save both of their lives.
Los Angeles
At ten of twelve President Haynes was racing through downtown Los Angeles in the back of his limousine with his chief of staff Tony Lang and his press secretary Sterling Mott. They were going over some last-minute changes to the lunch speech he was giving to the Association of California Mayors at the Convention Center. Normal traffic was backed up at every intersection to allow the motorcade, sirens blaring, lights flashing, to pass. Since it was the lunchtime rush hour he didn’t think that a poll of stalled motorists would elect him to any office, not even that of dog catcher. It was one of the downsides that any city hosting a presidential visit was faced with. But L.A. cops were used to just about everything, and within a minute after the eight car, four motorcycle motorcade had passed, traffic was back to normal.
A telephone in the console beside Lang chirped softly and he picked it up. “This is Tony Lang.”
The President looked up.
“
Just a moment,” Lang said, and he touched the hold button. “It’s Kirk McGarvey, Mr. President. He’d like to talk to you.”
The President’s jaw tightened. McGarvey had sent his own daughter out to help look after Deborah. If it had been anyone else doing it, he would have taken it as grandstanding. But that wasn’t McGarvey’s style. But what the hell did he want now? “Where’s he calling from?”
Lang glanced at the display. “New York City. It’s a cell phone.”
“Maybe it’s good news,” Mott suggested.
“Right,” the President said dryly. He held out his hand for the phone. “Good morning, Mac. What do you have for me?”
“The bomb is not in New York, Mr. President. It was never here. I think it’s already in San Francisco. You have to cancel the games.”
The President closed his eyes for a moment. He could count on the fingers of one hand how many people he could trust implicitly. McGarvey was one of them. “One hundred percent sure?”
“Ninety percent. It’s your call, sir, but the bomb could be just about anywhere in the city.”
“What’s your best guess?”
“Candlestick Park.”
The President felt a cold knot of frozen lead in his gut “Our daughters are there right now. Mine to practice and yours to keep an eye on her.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President could hear a note of resignation in McGarvey’s voice, and he understood exactly what the man was going through. What both of them were going through. “If you’re so certain why don’t you pull your daughter out of there?” It was a low blow, but he had to know what McGarvey’s reaction would be.
“Because she has a job to do.”
The President nodded. It was the answer he had expected. “We all do, Mac,” he said gently. “I’ll have the Secret Service tear the place apart again, but I won’t cancel the games because I still don’t believe that bin Laden will kill his own people.”
“I understand, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “I’ll be in San Francisco this afternoon then.”
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