would be the end of Yusef’s whining and groveling. He was in Hell where he belonged, his passage to Heaven denied by his own traitorous actions.
He wiped his blade clean, then climbed back up on deck. The two crew members who served Yusef were dead on the deck. He nodded in satisfaction to his team. “Let us finish this work and get back on land. My stomach does not tolerate this well. If I never step foot on a boat again it will be too soon.”
One of the men muttered a short prayer under his breath as they moved to unload the heavy crate from the yacht. Yasim prayed, too. He prayed that Allah would be with them as Sayid’s plan was put in motion and that thousands of Americans would die because of his efforts.
This was their jihad, their struggle. Justice would be visited upon them for all the wrongs done to their people by the Americans.
1
Denny Seles, the Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sat in his black SUV for a moment, watching the scene. He was pushing forty, and while he’d long since gotten used to the middle-of-the-night phone calls that were part of his job, they didn’t usually come from the Coast Guard. More often than not, it was one of his field agents calling about a body. The flashing lights of an ambulance, along with two police cars, a fire truck and two other unmarked vehicles lit up the night. He flicked the Detroit Lions air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror, a superstitious habit he’d picked up along the way, and stepped out of the SUV.
Faintly, over the sound of voices and vehicles, he could hear the lapping of the waves of Lake St. Clair. He guessed that the large, white yacht grounded on the beach was the source of the call he’d received less than half an hour before.
“You must be Special Agent Seles?” a man said, stepping out of the crowd and extending a hand.
At six foot one, Denny wasn’t considered small, but the man standing before him had him by a good three inches. He was tall and lanky, but offered a tired smile.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said. “Special Agent in Charge, Denny Seles.”
“Chief Richard Cline, sir,” he said, and they shook hands. “When the local guys told me your office had jurisdiction, your name and number were what they gave us. So you’ll be taking over this mess?”
“If the local guys are right about jurisdiction, then yeah. Tell me what you got.”
“A local fisherman called us in with a report of a boat run aground. We dispatched both a boat and a ground crew to the coordinates. Our ground crew got to the vessel first and backed out to wait for law enforcement as soon as they’d verified that everyone aboard was dead.”
“You logged the caller’s information?” Seles asked.
Cline nodded. “It will be in my written report, which will be on your desk by 0800.”
“Good,” Seles said. “Tell me what your ground crew found inside the boat.”
“You’ve got three dead—two with bullet wounds to the head, one with a knife wound to the throat. But I think the important information, sir, is that this isn’t an ordinary yacht.”
His tone caught Seles’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this isn’t a lake cruiser. This ship has been modified to sail the high seas, complete with an extendable mast system and sails. She came from deeper waters than Lake St. Clair.”
“A lot of ships in the Great Lakes are modified or even built to sail on the ocean. How do you know this one actually came from somewhere else?” the agent asked.
Cline chuckled. “I’m not guessing, sir. We ran the numbers on the hull. This boat was logged in the Mediterranean Sea three months ago and docked in Gibraltar around that time. All the permits for a non-commercial ocean crossing were found aboard.”
“Interesting,” he said. “You know anything else?”
“One last thing, sir. Beneath the table in the galley was a hidden, refrigerated compartment. It was empty, and when the local guys gave me the go-ahead on federal jurisdiction, I went ahead and ordered our forensic team to come in and do a full sweep.”
“You suspect something more than drug-smuggling?” Seles asked. “Out here?”
“A refrigerated metal compartment, sir? For drugs?” The chief shook his head. “It doesn’t add up.”
Seles nodded, appreciating the man’s professionalism. He hadn’t dealt with the Coast Guard much, but every time he had, they’d been genuine pros. “Okay. Thanks, Chief. I think I’ll go have a look-see.”
The large yacht had come aground among the jagged rocks of the coast near Grosse Point, and it was canted awkwardly to one side. He was a bit skeptical about climbing up, but his hesitation was overcome as Chief Cline moved easily onto the sloped deck. Seles mimicked his steps and was soon on the slanting deck himself.
Two bodies were pressed against the rail and the polished wood was streaked with blood. The shots had been up close and personal, as the powder burns on their clothing were easily visible in the bright light being supplied to the scene by the Coast Guard. Staring at them, Seles could feel his stomach tightening. All of the anti-profiling training in the world didn’t change his gut reaction after he’d spent two tours fighting in the Persian Gulf.
“I made sure our men didn’t move the bodies,” Cline was saying. “And we haven’t let anyone else do much with the scene. Pissed the coroner off to no end that the locals were called, but I don’t answer to county folks and I wasn’t about to let them contaminate the scene. God knows how much damage our guys already did by accident.”
“That’s good work, Chief. Where’s the third?”
“Down below deck,” he said. “Follow me.”
Seles’s shoes slipped as they worked their way below deck. He made his way down the steps and came up short as the container hidden beneath the galley table came into view. The heavy metal top lay open and the cooling lining looked like something out of a science-fiction movie. Denny immediately agreed with the chief’s assessment and walked carefully into the room.
“How long before that team of yours gets here?”
“They’re here now, sir,” Cline said. “Shall I have them come aboard?”
“Do it,” Seles said, then waited as Cline used his handheld radio to call them up.
A couple of minutes later, two men in hazmat suits walked on board, each carrying different types of detectors. The first team member who made his way into the cabin struggled with the lack of maneuverability of the suit in the confined space, and waved the second man back to the deck. Then he turned and stared at them wide-eyed. “What are your men doing in here without protective gear?”
“Hang on,” Cline said, “before you get hazmat-crazy. We brought you in to look at this container to see if you could get any tracings off it. We weren’t really expecting some major decontamination scene.”
The man’s eyes moved to the open container and then up to Cline’s. “Your call, Chief,” he said. Stepping
