Conte further reduced his speed to ten knots and Andersson divided her attention between the radar and the radios, monitoring the marine and police channels.

I could make out the lighted skyline of Lower Manhattan, about three miles straight ahead. Well, I told Howard Fensterman I was on my way to Manhattan, and I kept my word.

To the west was the shoreline of New Jersey, miles of commercial shipping piers and warehouses. To the east was the Brooklyn waterfront, more miles of warehouses and marine terminals where cargo ships sat at their docks.

I looked around the bay at the far shorelines and the towering skyscrapers and the squat warehouses that made up the Port of New York. It took over three hundred years to build this. It would take about five seconds to destroy it.

Through a break in the fog off our port bow I caught a glimpse of the illuminated Statue of Liberty, standing tall in the harbor. And in the distance, where the Twin Towers once stood, I could see the Twin Beams—two vertical columns of searchlights that were lit every September 11 since 2002 as a memorial and remembrance of the September 11 attacks. Tess, too, noticed them, and so did Conte and Andersson, but no one commented.

Conte reduced his speed to five knots, then looked at his radar screen and said, “There are not many units operating in the harbor. What they’re doing is relying on the helicopters, and they’re using the available watercraft to play goal-line defense at The Narrows.”

“Right.” A good strategy if The Hana was still on the ocean. But if Petrov was already in the harbor, then he was already in the end zone, ready to spike the ball.

Conte asked me, “You want me to raise an NYPD unit?” I didn’t reply and he asked, “Or hail a Coast Guard vessel?”

“Why?”

“Why? So you can transfer and I can get out of here.”

“I thought you wanted to stay.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“You’ve come this far.”

Conte looked at Andersson, then said to her as though I wasn’t there, “Who is this guy?”

I informed them, “I don’t think I’m welcome aboard any other vessel.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, then,” Conte suggested, “let me run you ashore while you’re telling me the story.”

Tess interjected, “Let me make some calls to get permission to board a Coast Guard vessel.”

I didn’t want to board a Coast Guard vessel, or any other vessel where I was persona non grata and would probably wind up in chains. I wanted to board The Hana, and I could do that only from this boat. I said to Conte and Andersson, “Let’s give it an hour here in the harbor. Then if we still haven’t located the target ship, Tess and I will transfer to another vessel.” I added, “One that’s sticking around.”

Conte got that I’d challenged his manhood: show balls or chicken out?

He looked at Andersson again, and she said, “I’m okay with waiting.”

Conte said to me, “I’ll go you one better, Detective. We’ll stay here until you tell me you want to leave.”

Well, boys will be boys—especially in front of girls. And the girls, too, seemed okay with looking death in the eye. I said, “You got a deal.”

I looked at my watch. It was 2:35 A.M.

The good news was that if the nuke blew before 8:46 A.M., we wouldn’t feel a thing. And I wouldn’t have to go to 26 Federal Plaza to get fired.

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.