“Ms. Hoffmann, are you in agreement with this strategy?” Mason asked.
“Wholeheartedly. We need to stay on Smolin like ticks on a dog, and he’ll lead us to the other assets.”
“What about leak containment?” Mason probed.
“It’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to drop a dime on the street without several agents seeing that. We’re confident no information will change hands without us knowing about it. I am positive the leak is contained.”
“Good,” Mason said with a long sigh. “Then one thing remains on today’s agenda. Tomorrow’s Memorial Day ceremony and inaugural demonstration of the laser cannon onboard the USS Fletcher. Are we canceling that? Do we have reasons to be concerned for anyone’s safety? Let me remind you it’s a highly anticipated event. It has been publicized everywhere, and canceling it will put a big blemish on the Navy’s reputation, not to mention SecNav’s.”
“These are paper spies we’re dealing with,” Jeremy said. “I am confident everything will be all right tomorrow. We don’t have any information about any threat to the USS Fletcher. Neither do NCIS or Homeland. All quiet.”
“Ms. Hoffmann?” Mason asked.
She nodded in response, a little preoccupied.
“Then we’re good,” Mason replied. “See you all tomorrow at the ceremony.”
They left the office and headed for their cars, Alex still preoccupied and tense.
“Something tugging at your gut there, kiddo?” Sam asked her, patting her on the shoulder.
She thought for a second of Smolin’s loathing message. Bolshoy khuy kolbasy… The message reeked of hate, hate against the weapon itself, against the object. Or maybe she didn’t really grasp the Russian culture, and she was overthinking the issue.
“Nah… it’s nothing,” she said, and forced herself to smile.
…59
The colors were flying high on the USS Fletcher, and she was dressed up for the ceremony, with red, white, and blue garlands all around.
The guests were starting to arrive and traffic was jammed in front of Pier 7. Guests walked from the parking area across from the pier, where their limos would drop them off, and then lined up for the security screening before boarding the vessel.
The laser cannon demonstration of accuracy had attracted an elite attendance; admirals and NATO secretaries-general came in great numbers, attracted by the novelty of a weapon that promised to change the balance of power at sea, on land, and in the air.
Security was very tight for a Memorial Day ceremony. There were millimeter wave scanners and X-ray machines on loan from the TSA, installed overnight. Everyone had to go through the screening, no exceptions. When he arrived, the SecNav frowned a little at the unprecedented security measures, but then proceeded through the scanners with a smile, under the flashes of the cameras.
Media was present in hordes, attracted by the select attendee list of the event, and by the novelty and buzz about the new weapon scheduled for demonstration a little later in the day. A couple of news helicopters circled in the air like vultures, from a respectable distance imposed by restrictions and the promise of a laser cannon demo, waiting to catch a snippet of sensation, and causing an irritating, omnipresent background noise.
The helipad at the stern of the Fletcher had been set up for the ceremony. Rows of folding chairs were laid out in a semicircular pattern, facing toward the laser cannon dome at the right and toward the open sea at the left. A lectern was erected on a small platform; SecNav, SecDef, and Captain Meecham would give their addresses from there.
Alex took in all the details, together with the crisp smell of salty air in the morning sun. It was a beautiful day for such a ceremony. She waited patiently in line to be screened, then boarded the Fletcher and started looking around for familiar faces. Sam, Mason, and Jeremy were attending the event, and, of course, Special Agent Moore of NCIS was planning to be aboard, with a team of naval counterintelligence agents.
“There you are,” she heard Jeremy say.
“Hey,” she replied, focused on a familiar silhouette, a young man with fire-red hair, wearing a full-dress white uniform.
“What’s the matter?” Jeremy asked.
The red-haired man turned and locked eyes for a second with Alex, then bolted through a bulkhead.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, “really wrong.”
“But what? We’ve screened everyone who came aboard.”
“Maybe the problem was aboard to begin with,” she replied. “Help me track down that guy,” she said
“You got it,” Jeremy said, then dialed Moore to brief him.
“Suspect is young, maybe twenty, has bright red hair and freckles, wears whites,” she heard him say as she disappeared though the same bulkhead, just when several NCIS agents were entering the deckhouse from all directions.
She caught up with the young man in the cafeteria, where she found him sitting inconspicuously at a table, with a half-empty coffee cup in front of him.
Smart, she thought, jumpy, but smart.
She sat at his table, across from him.
“May I?”
There was no answer, other than the young man turned a sickly shade of freckled pale.
“We just want to talk to you, that’s all,” she said, smiling as gently as she could.
“I’ve got nothing to talk to you about,” the sailor answered, then looked away, averting his eyes from her intense scrutiny.
“What are you afraid of?” she pressed on. “What’s wrong?”
He turned paler and tightened his lips, as if forcing himself to clam up. Then all of a sudden he sprang up from his seat and bolted, heading for the exit. Alex jumped off her chair and lunged, grabbing his right sleeve with all her strength. Then she came right behind him and kicked the back of his knee with a Krav Maga move, bringing him to his knees. Then she pushed her foot between his shoulder blades, forcing him flat on his stomach, face on the deck.
“I’ll take it from here,” a man said, flashing an NCIS badge. “What’s he done?”
The agent pulled the sailor up from the floor, now handcuffed with flex cuffs.
“Umm… not sure,” she said, a little embarrassed. “Not sure yet.”
“What? We can’t just grab people and handcuff them because a civilian is not sure. Pardon me, ma’am, even if my boss asked me to extend all support, this is all wrong.”
He started to uncuff the sailor, but Alex stopped him.
“No!” she said. “Something’s wrong, you got that right. Search his quarters, please. And tell me his name.”
“His name is Mike Simionov,” the agent said. “Petty officer third class.”
Mike, my ass, she thought. I bet he was born Mikhail. A Russian… What a coincidence.
Jeremy entered the cafeteria, followed closely by Gabriel Moore.
“I’ll handle it from here, take him downstairs,” Moore told the other agent. “What’s going on?”
“His behavior was off, both times I’ve seen him. This is the man I was asking about on Tuesday, in Mason’s office, Jeremy. This is him. He’s definitely hiding something.”
“We’ll talk to him,” Moore said.
“While you pull the information out of him, let’s address the potential issues by order of urgency. Jeremy, can you call in explosive-sniffing dogs?”
“Yeah… I can, but it will take a while for them to get here. Aren’t we jumping the gun from a scared sailor to explosives?”