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.”
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 halfdozen 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.
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.”
