The Silent Man

“Doubt it. Those look like real deals. Then when Bernard was looking for beryllium, he went to Kowalski since he had the connection already.”

“And we can’t figure out where he’s getting his money?”

“He makes a decent living legitimately through the business. We could go in, turn his house upside down —”

“But then he’ll know we’re looking and—”

“He’ll tip the guys who are making the bomb. Exactly. We can’t take a chance on spooking him. Same reason we haven’t talked to any of his workers or gone at that law firm in New York yet. We could try to talk to them quietly, pull the national security card, but if they call him we’re in trouble.”

“What law firm in New York?”

“I didn’t mention this?” Shafer explained how Wells had gone to Bernard’s house and found the bill from Snyder, Gonzalez, and Lein.

“Have we checked his ships?”

“He doesn’t own ships. At least they’re not in his corporate record or registered in Germany or anywhere else we can find. We looked. And the harbormaster didn’t mention them.”

“Come on, Ellis. He has a decent-sized ex-im business, he makes regular runs, he must own a boat or two. They’re not in his name, that’s all. Some shell company in the Caymans or Gibraltar is holding them, with a lawyer as the corporate nominee.”

“And you think that law firm in New York is the connection?”

“I don’t know,” Exley said. “But we ought to pull the suits they’ve filed, see what turns up.”

“I missed you,” Shafer said.

BESIDES NEW YORK, Snyder, Gonzalez, and Lein had offices in Baltimore and Miami. The firm specialized in representing ship and aircraft owners against insurance companies and boatyards. Most of the suits were straightforward, and Exley didn’t see any connections to Hamburg. Certainly none to Bassim Kygeli. By the end of the afternoon, her back was aching so badly that she’d been reduced to lying on Shafer’s floor. “All right, Ellis,” she said. “I’m not sure I can stand, but it’s time for me to go.”

“Give it a few more minutes. Don’t you like reading about all these rich guys whining because they ordered a helicopter pad for their yacht and got an extra Jacuzzi or vice versa?”

Another half-hour crawled by. And then Shafer stood and clapped his hands. “Check this out. Two years ago, our friends at Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe filed suit against AIG. On behalf of a company called YRL Ltd.”

“AIG, the world’s biggest insurance company?”

“The one and only,” Shafer said. “YRL looks to be a shell. Based in the Caymans. But the suit was filed in New York because that’s where AIG is headquartered. YRL wants AIG to pay a four-million-dollar insurance claim for a freighter called the Greton, registered out of Liberia. About two years ago, the Greton burned up off the Nigerian coast.”

“Anybody die?”

“Doesn’t look that way. Anyway, AIG won’t pay. It says the Greton didn’t have a decent fire-suppression system or an adequately trained crew. Basically that it was an accident waiting to happen.”

“So who won?”

“The lawyers. Two years gone, a dozen claims and counterclaims already and they’ve barely started discovery. By the time they’re done, they’re going to spend more on the suit than the boat was ever worth. But—” Shafer stepped out from behind his desk and stood beside Exley and jabbed at the filing he was reading. “Lookee here.”

“Lookee here?”

Shafer tossed the filing to Exley. “Page eight.”

On page eight, a description of the Greton: “used primarily to bring cargo from Turkey to ports in Western Africa. Frequently chartered by Tukham, Ltd., an import-export company based in Hamburg.” Tukham, Ltd. was Bernard Kygeli’s company.

“You are one smart girl,” Shafer said. “And I say that in the most sexist way possible.”

“Guess we should find out who owns YRL.”

“And what other boats YRL owns.”

Exley checked her watch: 6:30. “The corporate registry in the Caymans is closed for the night. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“We? That mean you’re coming in tomorrow?”

Exley didn’t bother to answer.

THE INCORPORATION PAPERS that YRL Ltd. had filed with the Cayman Secretary of State’s Office were only two pages long. But they told Exley and Shafer everything. YRL’s president was one Bassim Kygeli, of Hamburg, Germany.

Within the hour, they’d checked ship registries worldwide for boats registered to YRL. They found one more: the Juno, also registered in Liberia. YRL had bought it two years before, presumably as a replacement for the ill-fated Greton. It had been built in Korea in 1987 and displaced 22,000 tons, a pipsqueak compared to the newest and largest container ships. But more than big enough to carry a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium. Exley couldn’t find pictures of the Juno online, but AIG would have some and a quick call from Langley would shake them loose.

“If the Greton is out of commission, that’s got to be the one,” Shafer said.

“Assuming that Bernard shipped the stuff on his own boat.”

“What’s the point of owning a boat if you can’t use it for something like this?” Shafer said. “Anyway, it’s the first place to look.”

Exley checked the Hamburg port records. “Shows up only twice in Hamburg in the last two years. Once last summer. And on December 31. Happy New Year. It left Hamburg with a load of used car parts. No mention of Tukham or Kygeli. It’s supposedly being managed by a company called Socine Expo.” Exley looked up Socine on the D&B corporate database. “Socine’s offices are at the same building as Tukham, 29 Josefstrasse.”

“Wouldn’t you know,” Shafer said. “No wonder the German port records don’t connect Bernard and the Juno. Where’s it headed? I’ll bet New York.”

“Close,” Exley said. “Dock records say Lagos, Nigeria.”

“Then it should have gotten there already.”

“Think the Nigerians have their port records online?” With a few keystrokes, Exley sniffed out the records. “Amazing but true. They do. Arrivals and departures in Lagos. In English. I’m not surprised about the Germans, but the Nigerians?”

“Nothing about the Internet surprises me anymore.”

“Well, this won’t surprise you either,” Exley said. “There’s no record of the Juno.”

“Which means it’s either in port here or somewhere in the Atlantic. We’d best tell Duto, get the navy looking for it. How hard can it be to find a two-hundred-foot-long boat? The Atlantic’s only a couple of million square miles.”

“You going to tell John about this?”

“Not yet. At this point, the less he knows, the better off he is. He seems to be handling Bernard decently so far.”

“How is he, Ellis?”

“Oh, no. I’m not playing matchmaker. You want to know, you ask him yourself.”

26

Even waiting for the Juno in Newfoundland, Bashir had never