Nelson DeMille - Night Fall

“Right. But we don’t want to manufacture one.”

“No. But you’ve worked in the Anti-Terrorist Task Force long enough to know there’s a real threat out there that neither the government nor the people are paying attention to.”

I didn’t reply.

She said, “You’ve got the Plum Island biological research lab not far from here, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Groton Naval Submarine Base, and the New London nuclear plant across Long Island Sound.” She said, “And let’s not forget the attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993.”

I replied, “And let’s not forget Mr. Asad Khalil, who still wants to kill me. Us.”

She stayed silent a moment and stared off into space, then said, “I have this feeling that there’s an imminent threat out there. Something far bigger than Asad Khalil.”

“I hope not. That guy was the biggest, baddest motherfucker I ever came across.”

“You think? How about Osama bin Laden?”

I’m bad with Arab names, but I knew that one. In fact, there was a Wanted Poster of him hanging at the coffee bar in the ATTF. I replied, “Yeah, the guy behind the attack on the USS Cole.”

“He is also responsible for the bombing of a U.S. Army barracks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in November 1995, which killed five U.S. soldiers. Then, in June 1996, he was behind the bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which housed U.S. military personnel. Nineteen dead. He masterminded the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed 224 people and injured another five thousand. And the last we heard from him was nine months ago-the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, which killed seventeen sailors. Osama bin Laden.”

“Some rap sheet. What’s he been doing since then?”

“Living in Afghanistan.”

“Retired?”

Kate replied, “Don’t bet on it.”

CHAPTER SIX

We began walking back toward the Jeep. I asked Kate, “Where to now?”

“We’re not done here.”

I had thought this was just a memory-lane stop for Kate and a place for me to get inspired. Apparently there was more.

She said to me, “You wanted to interview a witness.”

“I would want to interview many witnesses.”

“You have to be satisfied with only one witness tonight.” She motioned toward a rear door of the shingled Coast Guard building. “That will take you up into the lookout tower. Top floor.”

Apparently she wasn’t coming with me, so I went through the screen door into the base of the tower and found the staircase.

Up I went. Four floors, which reminded me of the five-story walk-up where I grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I hate stairs.

The last flight of stairs rose into the middle of the glass-enclosed lookout room. The room was not lit, but I could make out a few tables and chairs, a desk with telephones, and a military-type radio that was glowing and humming in the quiet room. There was no one in the room.

Through the plate glass picture windows I could see a railed catwalk, which ran around the square tower.

I opened a screen door and went out onto the catwalk.

I walked around the square tower, and I stopped at the southwest corner. Across Moriches Bay, I could see the outer barrier islands and the Moriches Inlet that separates Fire Island from the Westhampton dunes and Cupsogue Beach County Park, where, in vulgar police parlance, someone banged his bimbo on the beach and maybe videotaped a piece of evidence that could blow this case wide open.

Beyond the barrier islands was the Atlantic Ocean, where I could see the lights of small boats and large ships. In the sky were twinkling stars and the lights of aircraft heading east and west along the shoreline.

I focused on an eastbound aircraft and watched as it came opposite Smith Point County Park on Fire Island. It was climbing slowly at about ten or twelve thousand feet, about six or eight miles offshore. It was about there that TWA Flight 800, following the normal flight path out of Kennedy Airport toward Europe, had suddenly exploded in midair.

I tried to imagine what it was that more than two hundred people saw rising off the water and streaking toward the aircraft.

Maybe I was about to meet one of those people-or someone else.

I walked back into the watchtower and sat in a swivel chair at a desk facing the staircase. After a few minutes, I heard footsteps on the creaky stairs. Out of habit, and because I was alone, I drew my off-duty.38 Smith amp; Wesson from my ankle holster and stuck it in the back of my waistband under my knit shirt. I saw the head and shoulders of a man coming up the stairs, his back to me. He walked into the room, looked around, and saw me.

Even in the dim light I could see he was about sixty, tall, good-looking, short gray hair, and dressed in tan slacks and a blue blazer. I had the impression of a military guy.

He walked toward me and I stood. As he got closer, he said, “Mr. Corey, I’m Tom Spruck.” He put out his hand and we shook.

He said, “I’ve been asked to speak to you.”

“By who?”

“Miss Mayfield.”

It was actually Ms. Mayfield, or Special Agent Mayfield, or sometimes Mrs. Corey, but that wasn’t his problem. In any case, the guy was definitely military. Probably an officer. Special Agent Mayfield knew how to cherry-pick a good witness.

I wasn’t talking, so he said, “I was a witness to the events of July 17, 1996. But you know that.”

I nodded.

He asked me, “Would you like to stay here or go outside?”

“Here. Have a seat.”

He rolled a swivel chair toward the desk and sat. He asked, “Where would you like me to begin?”

I sat behind the desk and replied, “Tell me a little about yourself, Mr. Spruck.”

“All right. I am a former naval officer, Annapolis grad, retired with the rank of captain. I once flew F-4 Phantoms off aircraft carriers. I flew a hundred and fifteen missions in three separate deployments over North Vietnam between 1969 and 1972.”

I remarked, “So, you know what pyrotechnics look like at dusk over the water.”

“I sure do.”

“Good. What did they look like on July 17, 1996?”

He stared out through the plate glass window toward the ocean and said, “I was in my Sunfish-that’s a small, one-man sailboat-and every Wednesday night, we’d have informal races in the bay.”

“Who are we?”

“I belong to the Westhampton Yacht Squadron on Moriches Bay-and we finished sailing about eightP.M. Everyone started back to the club for a barbeque, but I decided to sail through the Moriches Inlet into the ocean.”

“Why?”

“The sea was unusually calm, and there was a six-knot wind. You don’t often get conditions like that for a Sunfish to venture out onto the ocean.” He continued, “At about eight-twenty, I had navigated the inlet and was out to sea. I took a westerly heading, along the Fire Island shoreline opposite Smith Point County Park.”

“Let me interrupt you here. Is what you’re telling me public record?”

“It’s what I told the FBI. I don’t know if it’s public or not.”

“Did you ever make any public statements after you spoke to the FBI?”

“I did not.” He added, “I was told not to.”

“By who?”

“By the agent who first interviewed me, then by other FBI agents in subsequent interviews.”

“I see. And who first interviewed you?”

“Your wife.”

She wasn’t my wife at the time, but I nodded and said, “Please continue.”

He glanced out at the ocean again and continued, “I was sitting in the Sunfish, looking up at the luff of the sail, which is how you spend most of your time in a sailboat. It was very quiet and calm, and I was enjoying the sail. Sunset was officially eight-twenty-oneP.M., but EENT-end-of-evening nautical twilight-would be about eight-forty-fiveP.M. I glanced at my watch, which is digital, illuminated, and accurate, and saw that it was eight-thirty and fifteen seconds. I decided to come about and enter the inlet before dark.”