Authors: David Hagberg
"Maybe," McGarvey said. "Or maybe the captain had already gotten rid of it and was killed to keep his mouth shut. Get a diver over here, I want to find out what's at the bottom of this slip."
M/V Margo
Southwest of San Diego They had turned north around dawn and were making fifteen knots on their new course of 340 degrees which would close slowly with the U.S. mainland when the Coast Guard helicopter came at them out of the sun.
Bahmad was in the chartroom going through the ship's documents and memorizing the captain's papers and company orders when Green came to the doorway. "It's the god damned Coast Guard," he said, out of breath. Bahmad looked up calmly. Green was pale.
"Have they attempted to make contact with us? Is it a ship?"
"It's a helicopter, a Sea King, and it's heading right at us."
Bahmad put down the dividers and followed Green onto the bridge. The helicopter was at about eye level just off to the starboard and pacing them. Bahmad found that he wasn't surprised by its presence, nor was he. going to allow himself to become distressed. If the Coast Guard was on a drug interdiction mission they would have sent a cutter with a boarding party, but there were no ships on the radar. He was going to play it cool for now because he had no other choice. If the Coast Guard actually put someone aboard the mission would be over.
Bahmad picked up the VHP radio handset and keyed it. "Good morning, Coast Guard, this is the Margo. Would you care to come aboard for some fresh coffee and doughnuts?"
"Thanks for the invite Margo, but it'd be a little tough setting down. Switch to twenty-two and identify yourself please, sir."
Bahmad switched from channel 16 to the Coast Guard frequency. "I'm George Panagiotopolous, the master."
"What is your cargo and destination, sir?"
"We're carrying twenty-seven containers of Italian tile, fifteen containers of teak furniture, three hundred seventeen containers of Nike shoes, and the remainder, four hundred eighteen containers of marine life rafts, plus one helicopter on the afterdeck bound for San Francisco."
"Looks like a Russian chopper."
"Sorry, I don't know a thing about such machines, except that this one is inoperable and it's heading for a museum."
"How many POBs, skipper?"
Bahmad held his hand over the mouthpiece and gave Green a questioning look.
"Persons-on-board," Green whispered.
Bahmad turned back to the radio. "In addition to myself, we are sixteen men and officers, no passengers."
"When was your last course or speed change?"
"About thirty-six hours ago," Bahmad said. "What brings you gentlemen all the way out here this fine morning?" If they were looking for drugs they would have already asked the Margo to heave to.
"We received a possible distress call last night about seventy miles southwest of here. Did you pick up anything, skipper?"
"There was nothing in the log."
"Did you see any traffic last night?"
"Nothing, Coast Guard. Like I said, the log is blank except for positions, weather and sea states."
"Okay, skipper, sorry to have bothered you," the Coast Guard said. "Have a good one." The helicopter peeled off to the right, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then headed east back into the sun.
"What the fuck was that all about?" a greatly relieved Green demanded.
"Whatever it was, it's no longer any concern of ours," Bahmad said, smiling faintly. "The Coast Guard has looked us over and has given us a clean bill of health. We won't be bothered again."
New York City
It took less than an hour to summon a New York City Police Department search and rescue dive team to Papa's Fancy. McGarvey told the two men exactly what they were to look for, but to pick up anything that looked suspicious. A half-dozen uniformed cops showed up and expanded the area cordoned off by police tape to include the entire dock. A small crowd of people, some of them marina employees, others yacht crew or owners, gathered in the parking lot and adjacent docks to watch. The divers, police sergeants Benito Juarez and Tom Haskill, suited up and slipped into the water at the bow of the yacht "What if they find the aluminum case down there?" O'Brien asked.
"Depends on what's inside it," McGarvey said absently. Yemm had gotten out of the car and came over. He was watching the crowd with suspicion.
"The bomb?"
"I don't think it was ever aboard," McGarvey said. "This will be his weapons, and maybe the remote detonator."
O'Brien looked at the black water roiled up by the bubbles rising from the divers' scuba equipment. They were slowly working their way aft. "I don't get it. Why would the captain dump the stuff overboard?"
"Because he was ordered to do it. Bin Laden might be getting cold feet, so the captain was told to get down here and grab whatever he could. It was just bad luck that Bahmad showed up at the same time. I'm betting that the captain spotted Bahmad coming aboard and tossed the case overboard. About the only thing he could have done." McGarvey was working all that out in his head as he spoke.
"So Bahmad killed him because of it, and then he took off. Means we're out of the woods, doesn't it? No detonator, no explosion?"
"The bomb can be set off manually."
O'Brien looked at the water again. "Then if the detonator is still down there, it means he was in too big a hurry to bring it up. He had to get somewhere. Could mean that the bomb isn't here in New York after all."
"Something like that," McGarvey said, still working it out. Bahmad had come back for his things, which meant that the attack was going to happen very soon. Yet he didn't bother trying to recover any of it. That's if the case was actually at the bottom of the slip.
The divers surfaced just aft of the flare of the bows and passed up a line. "It's down there, just like you said," Haskill called up to McGarvey.
Two uniformed cops hauled the muddy aluminum case to the surface and then pulled it up onto the dock. McGarvey walked over and hunched down in front of it.
"Maybe we should get the bomb squad over here first, boss," Yemm suggested. "No need," McGarvey told him. "It's already been opened. The locks have been forced." He popped the latches and opened the lid. Some water came out. In addition to some cameras and photographic equipment the case contained a gun, a silencer, some ammunition, a lock pick set and an assortment of other things.
He pulled out a small leather case and from it withdrew an electronic device that looked very much like a television remote control.
"The detonator?" O'Brien asked in a hushed tone. Even Yemm was impressed. The police officers were impressed.
McGarvey nodded. "No telling the range," he said. He carefully eased the battery cover open on the back of it and pried the Nnicad battery out. Only men did he allow himself to relax, and release the pent-up breath.
"This guy isn't going to give up, is he?" O'Brien said. "I don't think so," McGarvey said. He put the detonator and battery in separate pockets and got up. "Get the rest of this stuff down to Washington and see what your people can come up with."
"What about the yacht?"
"The owner won't be coming back," McGarvey said, but his mind was elsewhere. He was sure now what bin Laden's target had been all along. And he had done exactly what bin Laden would have wanted him to do by sending his daughter to California to be with the President's daughter. Now he was going to have to figure out how to save both of their lives.
Los Angeles
At ten of twelve President Haynes was racing through downtown Los Angeles in the back of his limousine with his chief of staff Tony Lang and his press secretary Sterling Mott. They were going over some last-minute changes to the lunch speech he was giving to the Association of California Mayors at the Convention Center. Normal traffic was backed up at every intersection to allow the motorcade, sirens blaring, lights flashing, to pass. Since it was the lunchtime rush hour he didn't think that a poll of stalled motorists would elect him to any office, not even that of dog catcher. It was one of the downsides that any city hosting a presidential visit was faced with. But L.A. cops were used to just about everything, and within a minute after the eight car, four motorcycle motorcade had passed, traffic was back to normal.
A telephone in the console beside Lang chirped softly and he picked it up. "This is Tony Lang."
The President looked up.
"Just a moment," Lang said, and he touched the hold button. "It's Kirk McGarvey, Mr. President. He'd like to talk to you."
The President's jaw tightened. McGarvey had sent his own daughter out to help look after Deborah. If it had been anyone else doing it, he would have taken it as grandstanding. But that wasn't McGarvey's style. But what the hell did he want now? "Where's he calling from?"
Lang glanced at the display. "New York City. It's a cell phone."
"Maybe it's good news," Mott suggested.
"Right," the President said dryly. He held out his hand for the phone. "Good morning, Mac. What do you have for me?"
"The bomb is not in New York, Mr. President. It was never here. I think it's already in San Francisco. You have to cancel the games."
The President closed his eyes for a moment. He could count on the fingers of one hand how many people he could trust implicitly. McGarvey was one of them. "One hundred percent sure?"
"Ninety percent. It's your call, sir, but the bomb could be just about anywhere in the city."
"What's your best guess?"
"Candlestick Park."
The President felt a cold knot of frozen lead in his gut "Our daughters are there right now. Mine to practice and yours to keep an eye on her."
"Yes, sir."
The President could hear a note of resignation in McGarvey's voice, and he understood exactly what the man was going through. What both of them were going through. "If you're so certain why don't you pull your daughter out of there?" It was a low blow, but he had to know what McGarvey's reaction would be.
"Because she has a job to do."
The President nodded. It was the answer he had expected. "We all do, Mac," he said gently. "I'll have the Secret Service tear the place apart again, but I won't cancel the games because I still don't believe that bin Laden will kill his own people."
"I understand, Mr. President," McGarvey said. "I'll be in San Francisco this afternoon then."
San Francisco Candlestick Park
"Ms. McGarvey, I'll take you down to meet her now," Chenna Seranni said. "We're identifying you as one of her personal trainers."
"Sounds good," Elizabeth said. "But my friends usually call me Liz."
Chenna allowed herself to relax just a little. She had no idea how the CIA was going to act out here, and especially not in the person of the daughter of the deputy director of Operations. "Okay, Liz. It's just that we're all pretty protective of Deb. And not just because it's our job. She's a good kid."
"That's what I've heard," Elizabeth said. She was dressed in a dark blue jogging outfit with the ISO linked rings logo on the back. She carried a Walther PPK in a quick-draw holster under her left armpit, and a comms unit that fit nearly out of sight in her ear like a hearing aid. The unit was voice-operated, and the tiny microphone picked up her words through the bones in the side of her head. They walked out of the skybox high above the field where hundreds of athletes and their coaches were working out, and took an elevator to the ground level. There were Secret Service and FBI agents everywhere. Orders had come down to tear the stadium apart for the third time in an effort to find the bomb, and the cops were doing so with discretion but with a lot of enthusiasm. There were hundreds of other people in the stadium as well; family members, journalists, technicians, ISO officials and a handful of park staff. Everyone had been vetted, and no one got near the stadium without the proper pass. Todd Van Buren had gone off with Brace Hansen to review the security procedures for the start of tomorrow's half-marathon. He shared Elizabeth's feeling that protecting the President's daughter in this crowd would be next to impossible, but they had no other option than to try.
Down in the field the day was absolutely gorgeous; a lot cooler and windier than Washington, but just perfect for most of the track and field events. They got into an electric golf cart and Chenna drove them to the opposite side of the field where Deborah Haynes was going through her stretching and warmup routines with Terri Lundgren. Elizabeth was struck all at once by how beautiful the President's daughter was. She could have been a runway model from somewhere in eastern Russia; Siberia maybe, except that when she looked up, her eyes were somewhat blank. Her face was animated, but something was missing; something that was hard for Elizabeth to put her finger on even knowing that the girl suffered from Down syndrome.
When she saw them pull up, her face lit up like a million watt lightbulb and she bounded over. "Chenna," she cried. They hugged.
"I brought someone over to meet you," Chenna said. "Her name is Liz and she's going to be working out with you during the games." Deborah gave Elizabeth an oddly appraising glance as they shook hands. "Do you work for the CIA?"
Elizabeth was somewhat taken aback, but she smiled. "What makes you think that?"
"Ah, I heard my mom and dad talking about it this morning. Are you a spy?"
"I guess you could call me a spy," Elizabeth said, exchanging glances with Chenna and the other Secret Service officers standing nearby. "They sent me over to help keep an eye on you."
"Oh, cool," Deborah said with genuine enthusiasm. "Can you work out with me? Can you run?"
"I can give it a try, Deb, but I don't know if I can keep up with you. I heard that you were awfully good."
Deborah's face went blank for just a moment. "That's an oxymoron ... awful and good."
Elizabeth had to laugh. "That it is."
"Let's go," Deborah suddenly shouted. She looked to her coach for approval and Terri Lundgren gave her a nod.
"Just take it a little easy, we don't want to kill the new girl on the first day."
Deborah laughed from the bottom of her toes, then turned and practically leaped onto the track as if she had been shot out of a cannon. Elizabeth scrambled to catch up, and after forty or fifty yards they settled into a very fast loping run. Dozens of flags from all the participating nations fluttered and snapped at the top of the stadium, while in the stands more than a thousand spectators watched the athletes work out on the field--pole vaults and high jumps, shot puts and discus throws. A couple of dozen runners shared the track with them, and when Elizabeth looked over her shoulder she saw Chenna and Terri Lundgren in a golf cart pacing them on the outside line. For a second or two she seriously wondered if she was up for this, but then she turned back and began to enjoy the moment that for the President's daughter was one of absolute and total joy.