The Silent Man

“Of course, Captain. Do you?”

“I think it’s a big waste of time. Tell me where you’ve been.”

“The stupidest of trips,” Haxhi said. “We were on way to Nigeria. When we reached a hundred kilometers from Lagos, my manager called, said, Head west to Caracas.”

The story was implausible to the point of being insulting. “When was this?” Williams said evenly.

“Ten, eleven days. I can check.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“One time.”

“And who is your manager?”

“Name is Serge.”

“Serge what?”

“I just call him Serge. But, sure, we have his name on the manifest.”

“What’s the company?”

“Called Socine Expo.”

“You have a phone number, address, e-mail?”

Haxhi gave him all three.

“How’d you end up here?”

“I told you, after Lagos, they tell us Venezuela. We go there, all the way across the Atlantic, and then when we’re two hundred kilometers from Caracas, they tell us, back. To Jo’burg this time. So we turn around again.”

“Not a very well-run company. You wasted a lot of diesel.”

“Bosses change their minds. Why they’re bosses.”

“And when we found you?”

“As I said, on way back from Caracas.”

“You short on food or fuel?”

“Have plenty of both.”

“Your crew must be sick of this.”

“My crew, they do what I tell them.”

That much Williams believed. “You have logs to support this story of yours?”

Haxhi nodded at his desk. “Of course. Maybe you tell me what you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

“You get to wait here until we’re done looking around. It may be a while. I’m going to put a sentry outside the door, so don’t be stupid.”

“Mr. American Captain. You must be kidding. Look at my ship and look at yours. Maybe I am stupid but crazy I am not.”

FOR THE NEXT SIX HOURS, the Decatur’s crew combed the Juno with radiation detectors, looking for any hints that uranium or plutonium had been carried on the ship. But they found only the car parts that were listed on the manifest, a hull of crates packed with gear shafts, tires, brake drums, and shocks. The destroyer’s medic examined the sailors on the Juno for radiation sickness but found nothing unusual. Williams tried to talk to the sailors but got nowhere. To a man, they claimed they couldn’t speak English. He went back to Haxhi’s cabin, now clouded with smoke.

“Captain, may I get you anything?”

“My ship. Get it back to me.” Haxhi offered Williams the pack. “Cigarette?”

Williams shook his head.

“Have you found it yet, what you’re looking for?”

“No, and we’re not going anywhere until we do. And neither are you.”

“What about my delivery?” Haxhi asked the question with a straight face.

“Those poor South Africans, waiting for your precious car parts?” Williams almost laughed. “They’ll have to hang on a few more days. Let me tell you something, Captain. Pretty soon half the U.S. Navy’s going to be here. If we have to put this rustbucket in dry dock and cut holes in it from stem to stern, we will.”

“Whatever you like to do, you will do. But I am sure, this thing you’re looking for, you will not find it.” Haxhi exhaled a cloud of smoke in Williams’s direction, though not exactly at him. He was too confident, Williams thought. Whatever contraband the Juno had been carrying, loose uranium, a bomb, whatever, it was long gone.

Then Williams knew what he needed to do. He should have thought of it before, but better late than never.

“Sit tight, Captain,” Williams said. “I’ll be back.”

He ordered the Juno’s crew assembled on the front of the freighter’s deck, in two lines. To starboard the sun was setting, turning the sky a brilliant crimson. “Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight,” Williams said to the crew, pointing at the sun. “Red sky at morn, sailor be warned. I know some of you know what I’m saying. I know some of you speak English. And if you don’t, there are men on my crew who speak French, German, Spanish. They’re going to translate.”

One by one, the Decatur’s bilingual sailors repeated Williams’s message to the men. They stood still, their mouths shut, hardly moving even to breathe.

“I know you all are pretending you don’t understand. I see you standing there like a bunch of damn deaf- mutes who’ve been commanded to sail the oceans until the Second Coming. And I know it’s a bunch of bull. Let me explain this to you. We didn’t want to board your vessel, but we must find the contraband you were carrying. We don’t blame any of you. We understand that you probably didn’t know what you had. But we must find it.”

A pause for translation.

“Now, we could separate you, interrogate you one by one, pick a few of you to put in our brig. But we’re low on time. So I’m going to extend a one-time offer. On my authority as a captain in the United States Navy, and on my honor as commander of the USS Decatur.”

Translation. The sailors in the Juno looked curiously at one another as they heard Williams’s words.

“I promise that any man who gives us the truth about your route, helps us find the cargo you were carrying, will receive American citizenship. Your immediate family as well. Wife, children, parents, all to the United States. Right now. No red tape. You have my word, and the word of my crew.” Was he allowed to make this deal? Surely not. No more than the Decatur was allowed to leave its position off the African coast. But if he could get the information his admirals needed, no one would care. And if they did. what are you going to do, fire me? “I’ll take two men. The first two to come forward, no more, so decide quickly.”

Williams signaled for his translators.

But even before they could speak, two men stepped out of line.

28

Wells banged the brass lion knocker against Bernard Kygeli’s front door.

“Hullo? Hey?”

“Ja?” Bernard’s wife.

“It’s Roland.”

“Nein.”

“Open up, you handkerchief-wearing twit. I need Bernard.” Wells hadn’t seen Bernard in almost a week, since the meeting in the hotel. Two days before, Wells had called Bernard and briefly updated him on the progress he was supposedly making in getting the beryllium and promised to deliver the rest within seventy-two hours. Bernard had seemed satisfied. Wells figured he’d try to string Bernard along for a few more days, give the agency as much time as possible to find out where the bombmakers were hiding.