But Tess likes the devious old coot, and she wants us all to be friends. Right. I have to remember to tell Paul Brenner to remove Buck from his hit list. I’ll get to that soon.

Meanwhile, since Tess and I are not allowed to discuss the incident that we were involved in together—even with each other—we talk about things like my past and my future. As for my past, Tess would prefer if I didn’t call Beth Penrose again. Ever. As for my future, Ms. Faraday has invited me to dinner at her parents’ palatial estate in Lattingtown. Can’t wait to get checked out and talk about my future.

So, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? I’m not sure, but I know someone will make me an offer. That’s usually part of the shut-up deal. I see myself as a contract agent again, working for the Feds in dangerous countries, risking my ass for crap money, like I did in Yemen. Can’t be any worse than the quiet end job I had.

Tess thinks I have a death wish, but I don’t; I do, however, enjoy a little excitement. I mean, the only thing worse than someone shooting at you is no one bothering to shoot at you.

Sometimes I walk past the Russian U.N. Mission, which is in my neighborhood, and I think back to that Sunday morning of September 11. If Kate hadn’t been in Washington, I probably wouldn’t have worked that day. And if I hadn’t worked that day… Would another DSG guy have followed Colonel Petrov into Georgi Tamorov’s party? Hopefully yes, but would that have led to the same outcome in New York Harbor? We’ll never know any of that, but what I do know is that it was a damn close thing.

I think, too, about Vasily Petrov, and I wonder what motivated him to commit mass murder and attempt an act of unspeakable evil. I’m sure he never saw himself as evil; he saw himself as a patriot, doing a good and noble thing for his country. We have guys like that, too. And they say I’m crazy?

I thought, too, about Mikhail, the assassin of the assassins. I’ll bet Petrov and Gorsky would have been really surprised when Mikhail popped up and announced that he was going to whack them. Good job, boys. Now here’s your reward. The SVR has a tough H.R. office.

I mean, Petrov and Gorsky risked their butts for their country, probably for the same crap pay I get, and what do they get in return? A bullet to shut them up.

Well, Tess and I saved Mikhail the trouble, and we also saved Petrov and Gorsky from a final disillusionment. Assuming they had illusions to begin with. There’s a lesson here for me, too. But I think I already learned that lesson.

On a happier note, I took Tess to Rossiya one night, a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, where the late Colonel Petrov’s girlfriend, Svetlana, is a chanteuse. Tess didn’t want to go, having just had an unpleasant experience with some Russians, and she said all the guys there looked like Petrov and Gorsky. But you can’t fight your demons unless you go looking for them, and after a few vodkas she got into the right head and we ate Russian food and danced all night and we heard Svetlana sing. She has good lungs. Later we took a stroll on the boardwalk and watched the sun come up.

Do I miss Kate? Yes, I do. But I’d rather try to figure out how to defuse a weapon of mass destruction than try to figure out how this marriage reached critical mass and blew.

Meanwhile, life goes on. And every day is new. And one day, if I live long enough, I’ll come to a quiet end. And that’s okay if I can look back and say, “I did good.”

THE END

Acknowledgments

As with all of my novels, I’ve taken advantage of the patience and good nature of friends and acquaintances to assist me with facts, technical details, and inside information that a novelist needs but can’t find in books or on the Internet.

And as always, here is my disclaimer: any errors of fact regarding the procedures or professions represented in this novel are either a result of my misunderstanding of the information given to me, or a result of my decision to take literary license and dramatic liberties. Also, in some cases I have been asked to alter classified information given to me in confidence.

First among these friends who have helped is Kenny Hieb, a.k.a. John Corey. Kenny, like Corey, is a retired NYPD detective, formerly with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and currently with another Federal organization that needs to go unnamed. Thanks, Kenny, for your assistance and, more importantly, for your work in keeping us safe.

Next, I’d like to thank Pete Conte, Suffolk County (NY) Police Officer, Marine Bureau. Pete has been very generous with his time and very giving of his vast knowledge of police work on the high seas. In exchange for all this, I have given Pete a cameo role in this book. And again, whatever errors I’ve made in this regard are mine alone.

Also on the high seas, many thanks to my friend Bruce Knecht, yachtsman and author of Hooked, The Proving Ground, and Grand Ambition, for steering me in the right direction on my voyage of super yacht discovery. If I hadn’t read Bruce’s wonderful Grand Ambition, I could not have created The Hana, which is central to this story.

Thanks, too, to John Kennedy, Deputy Police Commissioner, Nassau County (NY) Police Department (Retired). John’s a member of the New York State Bar, and patron (with me) of many local bars. John has helped me with all my John Corey novels and he brings to this task a unique combination of skills and knowledge as a police officer and an attorney. If I make up too much stuff, John revokes my literary license.

And, now on to my publishing team. Many thanks go to my editor and friend, Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing. Jamie somehow finds time to run a company and edit my manuscripts, and she wears both hats with style and confidence.

Thanks also to my longtime friend Harvey-Jane Kowal, a.k.a. HJ, who has once again come out of retirement from Hachette Book Group to work on this, her thirteenth DeMille book. This comes under the category of “Glutton for Punishment.” HJ knows her grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fact-checking, and she makes me look good on the printed page.

Forgetting to thank your agent at the back of the book is like forgetting to thank your defense lawyer as you walk out of the courtroom a free man. Imperfect analogy aside, I want to thank my team at ICM Partners, Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris, not only for their hard work, but also for their smart work. Authors with good agents suffer fewer suicidal and homicidal urges.

This book was made possible by my two dedicated and hardworking assistants, Dianne Francis and Patricia Chichester. I write all my novels by hand, and there are only two people on the planet who can read my scrawl and put it into typed form, and for that I am very grateful. Dianne and Patricia are also my first readers and fact-checkers, and nothing goes to the publisher that is not perfect. Thanks, too, for keeping my schedule and my life organized.

Another early reader of the manuscript is my son, Alex, who as a screenwriter gets straight to the heart of the storyline and the characters. Screenwriters tell a story with an economy of words and they reveal their characters through dialogue, and I have learned much from Alex, making me feel good about the Yale tuition. Thanks, Buddy.

For a different perspective on the manuscript I always turn to my daughter, Lauren, a psychologist. Dr. Lauren is able to analyze my characters, and through them she can analyze the author and offer help for all of us.

And, penultimately, I want to thank the beautiful Ethel Kennedy, who is truly a radiant angel on earth. Ethel inspires me to be charitable and it’s starting to work.