Текст книги "Radiant Angel"

Автор книги: Nelson Demille

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

We took up a position about half a mile southeast of Battery Park off the tip of Manhattan Island. About a half mile south of us was Governors Island, separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel. Farther up the East River I could see the Brooklyn Bridge and the Downtown Heliport where a chopper was taking off, and also Pier 11 where The Hana had docked Saturday morning before sailing out on its fateful Sunday cruise.

If this was a football game, we would be playing safety near the goal line. Unfortunately, the nuclear football didn’t need to get into the end zone to score a touchdown.

A half hour passed, mostly in silence except for radio traffic, which was minimal because of the Russians’ listening post at their residence in the Bronx. Most communication was being done by text, or e-mails on laptop computers, and occasionally by a direct cell phone call to an individual, though even that commo was not secure. My guess, however, was that Petrov’s mission was so secret that no one at the Russian listening post even knew about it, so they weren’t monitoring for a problem, nor was anyone at the Mission or the ’plex in communication with Petrov. Vasily was on his own, and I wondered if the assholes in Moscow who planned this could stop him.

The protocol here would be a direct call from the president to Putin saying we know what you’re up to. But no one in Moscow was going to admit to a nuclear attack, nor would Moscow risk a traceable communication to Petrov to try to stop the show. At this point, the Russians needed to be certain that The Hana, the nuke, and Petrov did not fall into the hands of U.S. authorities. Meaning the nuke had to detonate. And Colonel Vasily Petrov had been chosen as the man to do this.

The SAFE boat’s twin Mercs were idling, and now and then Conte would give them some throttle to keep the craft from drifting out with the tide. We couldn’t drop anchor because if we got an alert it would take too long to hoist it up.

Conte suggested that we take up a position in Buttermilk Channel so that if the nuke blew in the harbor, we’d be protected by Governors Island from the direct blast. I said, “So instead of frying, we’ll have the air sucked out of our lungs. Sounds good.”

We stayed where we were.

Howard Fensterman texted me: Where are you?

I texted him: I’m with your wife. Don’t come home.

Tess saw the text, smiled, but then said on a related subject, “You should leave a message at the Sheraton telling your wife to call you first thing in the morning.”

I didn’t recall telling Tess that Kate was at the Sheraton, but I did recall Buck mentioning it, though Tess had been out of earshot.

“That’s what I would do,” Tess advised, “in case you don’t connect in the morning.”

Meaning in case I’m reduced to nuclear ash in the next few minutes. Well, I wasn’t sure I should take marital advice from an unmarried woman who had concocted a whole jealous husband. I let her know, “This phone is almost dead.” I turned it off.

It occurred to me that Tess Faraday, an intelligence officer, was trying to share with me some intel about Kate.

In fact, Kate’s trips to D.C., probably with Tom Walsh, and her lack of communication at home and on the road, could be interpreted as suspicious. Plus, of course, my new job put me conveniently out of the office.

I asked Tess, “You have anyone you need to send a message to?”

“No.”

I asked Conte and Andersson the same question and they said they’d already done that via e-mail.

Well, to paraphrase D. H. Lawrence, we had built our ship of death and we were ready for our long journey to oblivion.

Conte was reading a chain of e-mails on his laptop and he informed us that all commercial and private ships coming into the Port of New York had been halted, and scheduled outbound ships were encouraged to leave the harbor ASAP, though I didn’t see many of those on the water or on the radar. Cargo ships at their piers, waiting to load or unload, were not being ordered to leave, Conte explained, because that would be logistically complex, not to mention highly unusual.

Apparently whoever was running this operation in Washington was trying to play it down the middle; stay calm and carry on, but be prepared to kiss your asses good-bye.

I noticed, too, that in the great tradition of bureaucratic communication, none of these messages directly mentioned the nature of the problem—though you’d have to be an idiot not to understand that the threat was a weapon of mass destruction. To be fair, however, you don’t want to put that out in plain English for other people to see and hear.

On that subject, I also knew from classified briefings and memos that there were two opposing schools of thought regarding alerting the populace that an attack from a WMD was imminent. One school of thought said an alert to evacuate a heavily populated area would cause pandemonium, and injuries and death, possibly in excess of the attack itself.

Theory two said that it was morally indefensible to not alert the population.

To take it a step further, if there was no alert, and the nuke blew, a lot of people in Washington would have a lot of explaining to do. And if there was an alert, leading to panic and chaos, and the nuke didn’t blow—or didn’t exist—there would be unnecessary deaths and injuries. Not to mention great embarrassment.

Tough call.

Well, I didn’t know which theory Washington was going with tonight, but if I had to guess I’d say they were still arguing over the word “imminent.”

Conte showed us an e-mail that said: To reiterate previous instructions, U.S. Coast Guard craft will take the lead in any attempted boarding of target vessel.

I didn’t think that was going to go over big with the NYPD Harbor units. But when the Feds are on the case, as we all knew, everyone else stands back and applauds.

Conte received a text and said to us, “All security craft will leave the harbor at zero eight-fifteen hours and proceed to Gravesend Bay. Or earlier if fuel is an issue.”

I glanced at the fuel gauges and saw that indeed fuel could become an issue, and Andersson confirmed, “Even at idle, we’re not going to make it to eight-fifteen.”

Was that good news or bad news? I mean, at what point do we haul ass out of here with enough fuel to make it out of the harbor? Also, apparently I wasn’t the only one who had figured out that you didn’t want to be here at 8:46 A.M.

In truth, however, 8:46 A.M. had no meaning any longer. By now, of course, Petrov knew that we were on to his game, and I had no doubt that he would advance the clock. I had no idea where he and The Hana were hiding, but I was sure Petrov was going to detonate the nuke as soon as he felt we were closing in on him. By now, however, he had turned off all his electronics, including radar and radios, so he was basically deaf, dumb, and blind, and I pictured him aboard The Hana using only his eyes, ears, and instincts to determine when to make his move. Also, by now he must have understood that he was not going to survive this mission, so he, like us, was preparing himself for his final journey. And also, like us, he was not going to lose his nerve at the last minute; Colonel Vasily Petrov was about to sail into history.

Conte looked at a new text message and informed us, “Due to a credible terrorist threat, all flights into Kennedy, Newark, and La Guardia have been diverted. Also, all public transportation into Manhattan has been suspended, and all bridges and tunnels will be closed.”

So there would be no inbound rush hour this morning, and that would save a lot of lives if the worst happened. But there were still a million and a half people who lived in Manhattan and another few hundred thousand visitors and tourists, plus a few hundred thousand people who lived and worked along the shorelines of Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Staten Island, and apparently there was no plan to attempt an evacuation.

Conte received a text saying: Search continues in New York Harbor and all adjacent waters for target ship. Threat level remains high.

Well, I thought, that was one way of saying to everyone, “Stay awake.”

It was like a stakeout where the hours pass and what you’re looking for and waiting for doesn’t happen. You start to second-guess the information you acted on, and you start to wonder if the bosses got it wrong again. And with each hour that passes, your mind goes from hypervigilance to a sense that this isn’t real anymore. And it’s at that moment when the shit hits the fan.

If I could put myself into the heads of everyone in the White House Situation Room, I’m sure that a bunker mentality was taking hold. Some people would be arguing that the threat was either overhyped, or had passed, or it had never existed.

Also, someone would point out that New York Harbor was blocked, as were the East and Hudson Rivers, and all waterways were being patrolled, and there was no sign of the target ship. Plus, police patrols had checked out all docks and piers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. More importantly, someone would argue, there had not been a single radioactive hit since this operation began. And that was the real problem. Though I hoped everyone had gotten the word about The Hana’s flooded garage and they understood why The Hana was not emitting radiation.

But when you get tons of negative information, that causes a false sense of security, not to mention a comfortable sense of denial.

There’s not a lot to do in a small ship’s cabin while you’re standing around waiting for a nuclear explosion—or hopefully an alert that the target has been spotted—so Conte and Andersson played with their electronics, monitored their instruments, and pulled up New York Harbor on Google Earth. Tess scanned the water and shorelines with binoculars, and I stared out at the Manhattan skyline, and the Statue of Liberty, and the Twin Beams. Now and then Tess, Conte, or Andersson would offer some theories about the whereabouts of The Hana.

The possibilities were reduced to four: Petrov had long ago aborted the mission and The Hana was on its way across the Atlantic. Or two, it was under the Atlantic, scuttled. Three, there never was a mission or a nuke, and Petrov was aboard The Hana having a party with the prince and the prostitutes, probably off the coast of Atlantic City. The fourth possibility was that The Hana with Petrov and the nuke had found a good place to hide, either in the harbor or out on the ocean, and we would be seeing the yacht and/or the fireball very soon.

Conte pointed out, “We’re not contributing much to the operation.”

I replied, “We don’t know that yet.”

Conte shrugged, then smiled and said, “Hey, I’ve never seen a nuke detonate. I can tell my grandkids about it someday.”

Cops, as I said, have a sick sense of humor.

So we waited.

At 4:15 A.M. Nikola Andersson informed us, “We now have a low-fuel situation.”

I asked, “How long can we idle?”

Andersson replied, “Maybe… fifteen minutes. Then we need to head out.” She added, “We have a five-gallon gas can onboard.”

“Kill one engine,” I suggested.

Conte said, “I’ll kill both. We’ll drift out with the tide, then restart if we get an alert.”

He shut down both engines, and the night became very quiet, except for the sound of helicopters overhead.

We began to drift south, away from Manhattan Island.

Conte said, “We’re doing maybe three or four knots, so it will take over an hour to reach The Narrows.”

Well, we were still in the game, but backing out slowly—though with enough fuel to charge back in if we got the word.

The cabin was getting claustrophobic, so I exited and climbed along the gunnel onto the bow. Ms. Faraday decided to join me, and we sat cross-legged on the foredeck. Behind us the skyline of Manhattan was retreating, and ahead, about five or six miles away, I could see the lights of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on the horizon. The old fort on Governors Island was passing by on our left, which reminded me that the entire harbor and the entrance to the harbor were covered with radiation detectors and none of them had lit up, and none of them would if I was right about the nuke being submerged in The Hana’s flooded garage. And if everything went wrong tonight, this place would be radioactive for two or three decades.

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, running from Bayonne near The Narrows up the Hudson River for about fifteen miles.

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 Channel is the most direct route from the Thirtieth Street Pier to the tip of Manhattan.”

Conte turned the SAFE boat and headed for the mouth of Buttermilk Channel, which ran between Governors Island and the Brooklyn waterfront. If the radar blip was The Hana, Petrov would be heading toward us from the opposite direction.

As we approached the mouth of Buttermilk Channel, Conte called out to us, “I see it on radar—target is gaining speed… on a course for Buttermilk.”

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 channel.”

She nodded.

The SAFE boat continued at about twenty knots through the channel, which was widening as it neared the end of Governors Island.

Ahead was a gray wall of fog spanning the thousand-foot opening to the channel, and as we approached, the huge bow of a gleaming white ship suddenly cleaved through the fog bank, followed by the rest of the towering ship, coming straight at us.

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 channel toward Manhattan Island. We closed the distance quickly, though we were now riding in the big ship’s wake and bouncing badly.

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.

As we got closer, I could see the glass doors at the far side of the swimming platform, which I assumed were locked. Every police vehicle carries a Halligan tool—a multi-purpose crowbar to pry open doors and smash glass—and I called into the cabin, “You got a Halligan?”

“Right here!” said Andersson, and she passed me the tool through the open windshield.

She also grabbed a bulletproof vest and an MP5 submachine gun with an extra magazine and passed them to me. I flung the vest to Tess and aimed the MP5 at The Hana. I fully expected hostile fire from the yacht, but I couldn’t see anyone on the darkened ship. I wanted to think that Petrov and his pals didn’t know they were about to be boarded, but whoever was captaining this ship must be watching us on their rear video camera.

The bow of the SAFE boat was a few feet from the swimming platform, and as I waited for the bow to drop, I called to Tess, “Cover me!”

“No, you cover me.” She stood, flung the Kevlar vest onto the swimming platform, then jumped.

I called into the cabin, “When I jump, get out of here!”

Conte called back, “Good luck!”

I slung the MP5 over my shoulder, and as the bow dropped again I saw Tess kneeling on the platform, gun drawn, facing the doors. My turn. I might get shot, but I wouldn’t drown. I jumped and hit the wooden platform and shoulder-rolled toward the glass doors, then sprang to my feet and swung the Halligan tool at the door, but the security glass didn’t shatter. I thrust the tapered end of the Halligan between the double doors, rotated the tool inward, and the door popped open. I drew my Glock and dropped to one knee, then glanced over my shoulder and saw the SAFE boat heading south, out of the harbor. We were on our own.

Tess came up beside me carrying the bulletproof vest and I said, “Put it on.”

“Swap you the vest for the MP5.”

“Put it on!”

She slipped off her float coat and put on the vest, and we scanned the interior of the ship.

This was the float-in tender garage and I saw that it was indeed flooded, and it took me a second to realize that the source of the illumination was underwater lights. To the left and right were staircases that rose to the main deck, and also to the left was a catwalk running along the hull connecting the two docks. At the closest dock I could see the amphibious craft that I last saw heading out to sea with Petrov and his friends. Well, we were on the right boat.

We moved in a crouch farther into the ship. Across the flooded garage, near the opposite dock, I noticed something dark under the water, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I recognized it as a submerged boat. I whispered to Tess, “You got that PRD?” She took the radiation detector from her pocket and I could hear a faint beep, followed by another, and I saw the red light flash intermittently, indicating a weak reading, which I’d expect if the nuke was submerged and had a lead shield. So there was little doubt in my mind that we were in the presence of a radiant angel.

Tess said, “That’s got to be it. But how do we—?”

“Get down!”

We dropped into a prone position and I pointed my Glock at where I’d seen movement on the opposite dock.

A man was sitting on the dock with his legs dangling over the side, and even in the dim light I recognized him as Arkady Urmanov.

Tess and I exchanged glances, but before we could decide on our next move, Urmanov called out, “Help me!”

That wasn’t what I expected to hear, but I replied, “Okay. Where—?”

“I am tied. You must free me.”

So if I could figure this out, Urmanov had done his job of arming the device and he was now one witness too many, and for some sick reason Petrov decided that Urmanov should die by his own creation. Petrov was a tough boss.

“You must pump out the water! To your left. On the walkway. The switches for the pump.”

I looked at the catwalk and I could see control panels on the hull.

“Untie me!”

One thing at a time, pal. I said to Tess, “Stay here and cover.”

She got into a kneeling position, and I rose to one knee and was about to make a dash for the catwalk, but another movement caught my eye. The door on the far side of the tender garage had swung open, and I saw a figure crouched in front of the door. But before I could swing my Glock toward the figure, I saw muzzle flashes, but heard no sound. Well, I know a silenced weapon when I don’t hear one, and I hit the deck and shouted to Tess, “Down!”

Arkady Urmanov let out a loud cry, followed by a moan.

I aimed my Glock at the place where I’d seen the flash of the automatic weapon and popped off five rounds, which echoed in the huge space.

Tess did the same, and we rolled away from our firing positions and popped off the rest of our magazines, then rolled again as we reloaded.

There was no flash of return fire, so whoever was shooting was not giving away his position. Or maybe we hit him. I glanced at Urmanov across the flooded garage, and I could see that he was slumped forward. I was pretty sure he was dead, and so were my chances of Urmanov disarming the bomb.

Tess was about twenty feet away, flat against the deck, pointing her Glock downrange, but maintaining fire discipline until a target presented itself, as was the guy who shot at us. Petrov? Gorsky? In either case, they were both trained killers, and killers know when to play dead. Meanwhile, the nuke was sitting about thirty feet away in a sunken boat that I could see but couldn’t get to. And I was sure the timer was no longer set for 8:46 A.M.

I looked up at the catwalk where Urmanov said the pump switch was located, and I would have made a dash for it, but standing there was Viktor Gorsky, who shut off the underwater lights, throwing the garage into total darkness.

I knew he was already gone but I fired anyway to draw his fire, and a second later Gorsky returned the fire and I could hear the rounds smacking into the wooden deck around us as Tess and I shot at the muzzle flashes.

Gorsky’s firing stopped and I lay motionless, listening for Tess, hoping she was alive and Gorsky was dead. I called out softly, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She suggested, “Use the MP5.”

They tell you never to reveal the automatic weapon until you see the target, then you surprise the guy. Gorsky was using his, but it was silenced and he probably had lots of ammo, and I did not.

While I was weighing the pros and cons of bringing out the big gun, another burst of rounds cut through the darkness and I could hear them buzzing over my head. A round smashed into the glass door behind us, confirming that even pros tend to fire high in the dark.

Okay, so Gorsky was obviously alive and not leaving. But if he intended to escape the explosion, he had to leave at some point. But if he was on a suicide mission, then we’d all share the one-time experience of nuclear oblivion. But I didn’t come this far and get this close to the nuke to have it blow up in my face. All I had to do was get to it. Which meant getting to the catwalk and pumping the water out of the garage. Which meant getting rid of Gorsky and his automatic weapon.

And then what? Well, I took a Bomb Squad class on how to disarm a conventional bomb. There are three components you look for when faced with an unknown explosive device: the power source; the explosive charge; and the detonator.

How much different could a nuclear bomb be?

Most sophisticated explosive devices have a collapsible circuit. If you cut one wire leading to the charge, it collapses the other circuit, setting off the charge. But if you can remove any one of the three components…

Right. Easier said than done. Gorsky had this entire open area covered by a silenced automatic weapon, and the nuke itself was covered with water. We had come to a standoff, and in this case with the timer ticking, a standoff was as good as a win for Gorsky and Petrov.

But Vasily Petrov was an impatient and impulsive man and he did not see it that way, because I heard his voice boom out over a speaker, “Kill them!”

Gorsky, who understood that he’d checkmated the intruders, did not fire, and Petrov yelled again, “Kill them!”

It’s not a happy occasion when someone is yelling, “Kill them!” and you see muzzle flashes followed by the sound of bullets impacting around you. I mean, this asshole couldn’t see us, but if you spray enough bullets downrange, eventually you’re going to hit your target. Time to get out of here.

I retrieved the Halligan tool and whispered to Tess, “We have to get around this guy. We split up and take the staircases. Meet you on the main deck.”

“Okay…”

“On three. One, two”—I tossed the Halligan tool into the air over the water—“three!” I heard the Halligan hit the opposite dock, followed by rounds impacting far behind us as we sprinted toward the left and right staircases.

I reached the top of the stairs in about three seconds and saw Tess already there, gun drawn covering the rear deck.

There was some moonlight left, and some illumination came from the Brooklyn waterfront, which was sliding by on our right. I figured we’d be out of the channel and near the tip of Manhattan in about fifteen minutes—or less if this ship picked up speed when it cleared the channel.

There was a helicopter overhead, so we weren’t alone, but we were as good as alone until someone made the decision to board The Hana. Conte and Andersson had by now transmitted a sit-rep, but bureaucracy and chain of command being what they were, the order to commence a combat boarding could take ten or fifteen minutes, followed by a detailed plan of operation, and by that time the show would be over.

Tess asked, “What now?”

“If we can’t get to the nuke, we have to get to the asshole who controls the nuke and the other asshole who’s steering this ship, and one or both of them will be on the bridge.”

I got rid of my heavy float coat and moved quickly to the doors that according to the deck plans led to the bar and dining room. I held my Glock in my right hand and the MP5 in my left, and motioned to the door, which Tess threw open. I burst inside the barroom, but before I had a chance to shoulder-roll, I tripped over something on the floor and found myself staring into the face of someone with a third eye in his forehead.

Vasily Petrov turned away from the image on the video monitor. Even in the dim underwater lights of the garage, he recognized the man and the woman. Viktor was right; he should have killed them at Tamorov’s house.