Yes, Petrov thought, just like in a James Bond movie, and the second act would be even more dramatic.

A deckhand tossed a line to the crewman in the amphibious craft, and he secured the boat as the shell door was closing, keeping out the sea.

The ladies, carrying their beach bags, were helped onto the polished wood dock. They seemed happy and excited as they looked around the well-appointed reception area that opened onto the stern, where a swimming platform was located behind plate-glass doors.

One of the ladies called out, “Viktor! Give us our phones so we can take photos!”

Gorsky tapped his overnight bag, which contained not their phones—he had dropped them overboard—but his weapons, which the ladies would see soon enough. He replied, “There will be time enough to take photos—if you behave!”

“You are a hard man, Viktor.”

Indeed.

Petrov, Gorsky, and Urmanov stepped onto the dock unassisted, carrying their bags, and Petrov looked again at the empty dock across the flooded garage. The lifeboat that would arrive from the Russian fishing trawler would be driven by The Hana’s new captain, known to Petrov only as Gleb. Gleb had studied the plans and operational specifications of The Hana, and he had actually spent a few hours aboard the Saudi yacht in Monte Carlo some months before at the kind invitation of The Hana’s captain, an Englishman named Wells, who didn’t know that his Russian guest would one day take his place as captain of the prince’s yacht.

Petrov had never met Gleb, and Gleb wasn’t an SVR agent—he was a former cargo ship officer. But he had worked for the SVR before and Moscow said he could be trusted to do what he was told and to keep his mouth shut. Otherwise, Captain Gleb would share the same fate as Dr. Urmanov, who would not be leaving this ship.

Gleb had assured his SVR employers in Moscow that he could sail The Hana by himself, and that he could navigate into New York Harbor without a pilot and anchor off the tip of Manhattan Island. Once they were anchored, sometime before dawn, as the clock was ticking on the nuclear device, Petrov and Gorsky, with Gleb at the helm, would sail The Hana’s amphibious craft—which had no markings to connect it to The Hana—to a pier in Brooklyn that was unused while it was being rebuilt. On an adjacent city street was a parked Ford Mustang—the horse waits—to which Petrov had the keys. He, Gorsky, and Gleb would drive to Kennedy Airport and, using false passports, they would board a private jet—the bird will fly—that would take them to Moscow. And while they were all having breakfast aboard the aircraft, at 8:46 A.M.—the same time as the first hijacked aircraft had hit the North Tower on September 11—the southern tip of Manhattan Island would be engulfed in a nuclear fireball whose source would be the Saudi prince’s yacht.

Yes, Petrov thought, it was a very good plan, and though he wished the kilotonnage was larger, it was large enough to kill a few hundred thousand people and cause a multitrillion-dollar crash on Wall Street. He thought of something his father had said to him: “Victory is measured not by the number killed, but by the number frightened.” And that number would be three hundred million people.

Petrov watched as a deckhand standing on a catwalk that connected the two docks hit a switch and the water in the flooded garage began to drop. He had been told that The Hana’s high-powered pumps could empty seven thousand liters of water a minute from the garage compartment. More importantly, The Hana was rated as seaworthy even with the garage compartment flooded, which it would be as it sailed to New York Harbor with the nuclear device submerged in a hundred thousand liters of water.

The water in the garage compartment was nearly gone and the amphibious craft settled into its hull chocks. Sailing The Hana’s amphibious craft out of this garage without the assistance of deckhands, Petrov knew, would be a bit more difficult than arriving. But Gleb had assured the planners in Moscow that this would not be a problem. And Petrov hoped that was true—he didn’t want to be trapped onboard The Hana as the clock ticked down.

Suicide missions, he knew, were much more likely to succeed than missions that included an escape. This was not a suicide mission, though it could become one. The important thing was that the nuclear device detonate in New York Harbor, destroying not only Lower Manhattan but also destroying all evidence of Russian involvement in the attack, which was obviously perpetrated by the Saudi prince.

Petrov looked at Gorsky, who he knew was also thinking about some of this. Gorsky was good at two things—killing people and living to kill another day. Petrov was glad he had chosen his former Chechen War assassin for this mission.

Petrov and Gorsky exchanged nods, then turned their attention to their surroundings. Two staircases, port and starboard, rose to the upper decks, and two deckhands were leading the ladies up the stairs.

A gray-bearded man in full white uniform appeared and said to the three Russians in British-accented English, “Welcome aboard The Hana, gentlemen. I am Captain Wells and I bring you greetings from His Highness.”

Petrov replied, “Thank you, Captain.”

“The prince will welcome you himself, in the salon, within the half hour. Meanwhile, a steward will show you to your staterooms, where you can freshen up.” Captain Wells looked at his new arrivals, expecting perhaps that being Russian they’d been drinking, and he advised them, “Please be punctual.”

Petrov replied, “We will not keep the prince waiting.”

Captain Wells nodded and motioned to a steward to take the overnight bags, but Petrov said, “We will take these directly to the salon.” He explained, “They contain gifts for the prince.”

“As you wish.”

Captain Wells was about to take his leave of the Russians, but he felt he should further advise the prince’s guests, “You are responsible for the conduct of your ladies.”

It was Gorsky who replied curtly, “And you, Captain, are not.”

Petrov admonished in Russian, “Be courteous, Viktor.” He wanted to remind Gorsky that he needed to gain the captain’s trust and goodwill so he could easily kill him later—but Dr. Urmanov would not want to hear that, so Petrov said to his assassin, “Save your rudeness for later.”

Gorsky smiled.

Captain Wells stared at Viktor Gorsky and thought to himself that the man looked like a thug, though he supposed that all Russian oil men looked like thugs.

Captain Wells said, “Good day,” turned and left.

The steward said he would show them to their staterooms, but Petrov told him to lead them directly to the salon and that they would carry their own bags.

On the way up the staircase to the salon deck, Petrov remarked to Gorsky and Urmanov, in Russian, “I think we are in the wrong business, gentlemen. The real money is in oil, not nuclear energy.”

Gorsky laughed.

Urmanov did not.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Hana was underway again, heading west toward New York City.

Colonel Vasily Petrov stood in the yacht’s long salon, waiting for the prince to welcome him and his Russian guests aboard.

The salon, Petrov thought, looked as outlandish as the photos he’d seen of it: gilded chandeliers, gold-brocaded furniture, and a floor covered with garish oriental rugs. The walls and ceiling were draped with loose folds of white silk to replicate a tent, a nostalgic reminder, perhaps, of the royal family’s nomadic origins. All that was missing was a camel.