He pressed the starter and the engine sprang to life with a cough. He then turned the wheel to point the boat into the wind. This allowed the sails to flap taking the pressure of the lines so he could pull on the rope that furled the headsail. A drum at the foot of the sail turned and the sail rolled itself up neatly around the forestay wire.
The mainsail was a little harder to stow. He pulled and locked the topping lift which stopped the boom falling to the deck when the sail was down. Then he released the main halyard and the mainsail lowered down the mast. Rather than put it away under its cover, he just tied it in a couple of places with small ropes so it would not flap around too much.
Kamal’s plan was to motor for about thirty minutes upstream, and then come back with the tide to be directly under the bridge at 4pm.
He reached for the control box and flicked the black toggle to arm the weapon. The box beeped in confirmation.
Chapter 122
Matt watched through binoculars looking for boat number 79. He could spot the other coast guard boats moving slowly through the fleet also on the lookout.
It was now getting perilously close to show time.
Matt shouted down to Natasha "Is there anything else about the boats we can look for?"
"Well, the feeds from the boats are black and white images, but one of the boats has a dark colored hull, the other looks white."
Matt re-scanned the boats. Most were white, but there were still a few darker colored boats scattered around.
The radio crackled to life.
"Invicta, this is Valiant, I see number 79."
Bill grabbed the microphone "Where is she?"
The commander on the Valiant gave them the GPS co-ordinates and they took off at full speed.
They met the boat about three miles downstream from the bridge.
"Heave to and prepare to be boarded" yelled the skipper through a hailer.
Matt joined three other sailors all with guns drawn aboard the boat called Serenity.
"What the hell is this about?" asked a surprised young man with his arm around a young busty brunette.
"Hand on your heads now" yelled Matt.
"Get off my boat! I demand an explanation."
Matt pointed his gun at the man’s head.
"Get your hands on your fucking head before I blow it off!"
The man wanted to argue, but the look on Matt’s face convinced him to comply.
It took ten minutes to search the vessel thoroughly. They found nothing and there was not even a murmur on the portable Geiger counter.
"Sorry for the inconvenience folks. Please head on home and don’t go anywhere near the bridge" shouted Matt as he leapt back aboard Invicta.
"Nothing" said Matt to the Commander.
"Where to next?" he asked.
"That boat had a white hull. Let’s start looking for dark hulled boats close to the bridge."
"Aye aye sir" said the commander.
Matt’s felt the vibration of his cell phone in his pocket and noticed a Washington number.
"Hello, Peterson here."
"Pentagon operator, please hold for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs."
A few moments later Admiral Nelson came on the line.
"How is the search going Matt?"
"We have nothing positive yet Sir, but we have lots of teams out here. They are all on the lookout" said Matt truthfully.
"I managed to track down one of our munitions experts. He has seen the plans for the Russian suitcase nuke" explained the Admiral.
"Excellent Sir. Is there anything we need to know?" asked Matt.
"I will read exactly what our man wrote" said Admiral Nelson, "The weapon is the size of a large airline suitcase. The outside is made of dense black plastic. There is a control box attached to the top which can be pulled off. There is about ten feet of wire on a self retracting reel attaching it to the weapon. It can be locked at any length. On the control box there is a toggle switch. Switching this on arms the weapon and must be done at least a half hour before detonation. There is a red button on the control unit that actually causes the bomb to explode. If you find it don’t break the wires as that will cause instant detonation. If the button is not pressed, the weapon automatically disarms itself after two hours."
"That helps a lot Sir. We will be careful."
Chapter 123
The radio crackled to life "Tango Three to Invicta, we are upstream from the bridge. We just got a small hit over a group of boats there. It could be nothing, but it was a definite blip. I rechecked the recording and there was a spike."
"Tell them to go back and look for dark hulled boats" said Matt.
"Invicta to Tango Three. Take another run and rescan. Make dark hulled boats your priority" said the Commander into the microphone.
"Tango Three to Invicta. We will try, but it is really hard for us to see the color of the hull from up here. All we can see is the deck."
"Get us back over there" said Matt to the Commander, "let’s check out those dark hulled boats. We better be right, time is running out."
Chapter 124
Bob Evans spotted the boat first. The hull color was midnight blue, but looked black to anyone except a color consultant. The sails were down and she was motoring toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
"We don’t have time to board every boat and search, just pull alongside" said Matt checking his watch.
He took off his jacket and unconsciously brushed his pancake holster just to make sure the gun it was easy to draw if needed. At least it was a Yarygin he mused.
Natasha was still below decks monitoring the video feeds.
They soon overtook the boat and Matt noted the name.
"Ahoy Surprise" yelled Matt as they pulled alongside.
"Hello there, a beautiful day to be out on the water" said the dark skinned sailor. He was wearing a captain’s cap and spoke with an East Coast accent. He took a swig from a Budweiser bottle.
"Where are you headed?" asked Matt.
"Back to the dock at the yacht club, have had a spot of bother and sprung a leak" announced the man as he rose and pumped the bilge pump handle.
"How long have you been out?"
"I left early this morning, my wife was still in bed" said the man.
Matt noticed the wires running across the deck but figured it was something to do with the bilge pump.
Chapter 125
Natasha had a beta test version of the latest Russian facial recognition software running on her notebook computer.
She had grabbed an image of the man from the video feed and the file copy of the web picture she had for Kamal Pashwari. In addition she remembered the picture from the boatyard in Minsk and input this for scanning as well. The program compared points on the face looking for pre-programmed facial characteristics. The program was almost foolproof, and Natasha was hoping the beard would not cause it any grief.