Gorsky nodded.

“I actually passed him earlier on a staircase. A Bulgarian.” Petrov added, “He said he was going to dinner, but he wasn’t in the crew dining room.” He smiled. “Well, he can’t go far.”

Gorsky pointed out, “He can, if he goes into the tender garage and takes the amphibious craft.”

Petrov looked at the instruments on the panel that monitored the tender garage. There was no indication that anyone was opening the door and flooding the compartment.

Gorsky went to the security camera screen and pulled up the garage, but he couldn’t see anyone there, and the amphibious craft sat in its chocks on the dry deck.

Petrov said, “I think we should not worry about one deckhand.”

Gorsky didn’t like his colonel’s inattention to a problem. Petrov did this too often, and one day it would prove fatal to him. Or to the mission. He thought again of the man and woman at Tamorov’s house. Problems—real or imagined—had to be addressed quickly and forcefully. He said, “I will go look for this man.”

Petrov checked his watch. “Gleb will be here soon.” He said to Gorsky, “We will follow the plan. I will stay here and secure the bridge, and you will go to the garage and open the door for Captain Gleb.” He added, “Don’t forget our nuclear physicist on the way.”

Gorsky nodded.

“I will call you on the public address system when I see Gleb’s craft approaching.” He smiled. “No one else will hear me.”

Gorsky ignored the joke and reminded Petrov, “The deckhand will hear you. And if he is Bulgarian, he will speak or understand some Russian.”

“Well, then, Viktor, see if you can find him on your way to the garage.” He smiled again. “You have as good a nose for finding the living as a cadaver dog has for finding the dead.”

Gorsky did not reply.

Petrov was feeling suddenly better, and he said to Gorsky, “You did a good job, Viktor.”

“Thank you, Vasily. Yourself as well.”

“The pieces are almost all in place. We now await our new captain, and our cargo. And then we sail for New York.”

Gorsky nodded. The colonel’s optimism was perhaps justified. They were more than halfway toward the successful completion of the most important military mission that Russia had mounted since the Great Patriotic War against the Germans. For the colonel, this meant a promotion to general and a comfortable position in Moscow for the rest of his life. And of course, his father would be proud of him. As for Gorsky, he had been promised any assignment he asked for—as long as it was in Russia. Neither he nor Colonel Petrov would ever be allowed to leave Russia again. Not after what they did in New York. They would take that secret to the grave with them.

Petrov said, “I will remove these corpses from the bridge so they don’t upset Captain Gleb. You will now go to the garage—”

The beating sound of helicopter blades penetrated into the nearly soundproof bridge, and both men looked through the windshield and saw the lights of a helicopter off their port side, at about two hundred meters altitude, traveling west.

Petrov said, “A commuter helicopter from the Hamptons.”

Gorsky did not reply, though he knew that a commuter helicopter would not fly that low or be this far from land. But perhaps it was a Coast Guard helicopter, looking for a boat lost at sea.

Petrov said, “Go. Gleb will be here shortly.”

Or, Gorsky thought, the Coast Guard was looking for them.

“Go!”

Gorsky stared at the retreating lights of the helicopter as it disappeared, then pulled his pistol, turned, and left the bridge, taking the spiral staircase down to the lower deck. He hoped he would find the deckhand trying to escape on the amphibious craft. Or maybe the man had put on a life vest and gone overboard. That’s what he would do. Or perhaps the deckhand would do what most sailors would do—come to the bridge to see if the officers were there. Well, there was an officer there—Colonel Petrov of the SVR.

As he descended to the lower deck, Gorsky began to realize that all was not well. A deckhand was missing, and a helicopter had just flown by. These facts were not related, but it was possible that the helicopter was related to the two caterers, who he still believed were not caterers.

The mission control officer in Moscow had given them a way to abort this mission, even at this point. But that was not going to happen with Colonel Vasily Petrov in command. Colonel Petrov had dreamt too long about sitting in the private jet having coffee as a nuclear fireball engulfed New York City. That was the only way Colonel Petrov was going home.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Viktor Gorsky, with his pistol in his hand and his submachine gun slung across his chest, moved through the passageway between the staterooms.

He came to Urmanov’s door, knocked, and called out in Russian, “It is time, Arkady.”

The door opened slowly and Dr. Arkady Urmanov stood there, a blank expression on his face.

“Take your bag, Doctor.”

Urmanov retrieved his overnight bag.

“Do you have your gun?”

Urmanov tapped his bag.

“Good. Follow me, please.”

Urmanov closed his door and followed Gorsky down the passageway. As they passed beneath the bar area on the main deck above, Gorsky saw blood trickling down the wall. Urmanov saw it, too, and hesitated, but Gorsky took his arm and propelled him forward.

At the end of the staterooms, they came to a set of ornate doors marked GARAGE and BEACH CLUB.

Gorsky opened one door, revealing the two docks and the amphibious craft sitting on its chocks on the dry deck. Beyond the garage, through glass doors, was the swimming platform, which was illuminated, and the light reflected off the fog that lay over the platform.

Gorsky looked around to be certain he was alone, then moved into the garage and motioned Urmanov to follow him.

The public address system came on and Petrov, speaking in Russian, said, “Good evening, Doctor.”

Urmanov was momentarily startled, then looked around for the source of the voice.

“You are on camera, Doctor. I can see you, but can’t hear you. Wave to me.”

Urmanov raised his arm without enthusiasm.

Petrov informed Gorsky, “I see a small craft on the radar, two hundred meters south on a direct course for The Hana.”

Gorsky nodded in acknowledgment.

“Prepare to open the door.”

Gorsky walked along the dock to the port side of the yacht where a catwalk connected the two docks, and stopped at an electrical panel that controlled the shell door, the pumps, and the lights.

“One hundred meters,” Petrov announced. “I can now see him coming out of the fog and he is signaling with a red light. I will return the signal.”

Gorsky knew that Petrov was now turning the bridge lights off and on—the signal to Captain Gleb that The Hana was secure.

“Open the door,” Petrov ordered.

Gorsky engaged the switch, marked in English SHELL DOOR. He could hear the hydraulic sounds as the huge door on the starboard side of the forty-foot-beamed yacht began to rise slowly from its top hinges.

The sea rushed in like a waterfall, running at high speed across the garage deck and lapping against the two parallel docks, then washing up against the hull beneath the connecting catwalk where Gorsky stood. The amphibious craft began rising from its chocks.

Gorsky could smell the ocean and feel the damp fog entering the flooding compartment.

Petrov said, “Welcome our new captain with the underwater lights.”

Gorsky found the switch, and the rushing seawater in the compartment suddenly lit up, reminding Gorsky of their own arrival aboard The Hana.