Nelson Demille - Radiant Angel

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.