Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding and we can laugh about it later this evening.
It took almost a half hour before Vanmeter returned to the stateroom, his jaw set.
“Dwight, I want you to tell me everything you know about Carol, every single detail.”
Hagan shook his head. “I don’t understand. I’ve told you everything. Can I have my phone back? I can call her.”
The agent didn’t hesitate. “No, Dwight, you cannot have your phone back. Right now, a couple of technical guys we borrowed from the FBI are downloading everything that’s on your phone and giving the thing a thorough strip search.”
Hagan was stunned. “I–I don’t understand. The FBI?”
“Dwight, I checked with the FBI and there isn’t a Carol Cline with a C or a K in the Newport News area. In fact, there isn’t one in Virginia. You said she has a home, but the assessor’s office has no record of a Carol Cline, C or K, owning a home. We also checked the DMV records for the Mustang you mentioned. There is none registered under her name.”
Hagan froze.
“Our people checked the Inn on Jefferson,” Vanmeter continued in a staid voice. “There are video cameras around that place. They found the yellow Mustang on one.”
Sensing a disaster in the making, Hagan nervously glanced around the stateroom.
“We just ran the tag,” Vanmeter said with a sigh, and then studied Hagan for a moment. “It’s a stolen plate.”
Hagan’s head drooped. “I don’t understand…” He trailed off.
“Dwight, listen to me,” Vanmeter asserted. “Look at me,” he ordered in a commanding voice.
Hagan slowly lifted his gaze, feeling his throat tightening at the thought of his career ending and a life in prison.
“Relax. We know you’re one of the good guys,” Vanmeter said in a sincere voice. “We don’t think you were an accomplice,” Vanmeter encouraged. “However, we need your help.”
Hagan sat up. He wasn’t in trouble, it seemed. He just had to help.
“We have our folks searching for the Mustang. Anything you can tell us would be helpful.”
Elated to be off the hook, Hagan spent the following hour providing anything he could remember, and as he did, he couldn’t help but wonder how he’d been so easily taken in by the woman.
Another NCIS agent came in and whispered in Vanmeter’s ear. Vanmeter responded, but all Hagan heard was “classic honey trap.” He’d heard the term in movies and read it in books. He knew it was when a foreign country sent a beautiful spy to trick a man into giving her information. He just couldn’t believe he’d been that stupid.
Commander Briana Sasso, formerly of USCGC Morgenthau, wasn’t easily impressed, but as she stood on the ultramodern bridge of the Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer drinking a hot cup of coffee, she wondered if this vessel represented the future of naval warfare. It had an amazing stealth capability with a radar cross-section akin to that of a small fishing boat, despite being six hundred feet in length and displacing fourteen thousand tons. But besides that, the vessel just looked space-age, especially when compared to Morgenthau.
Resembling more a submarine than a surface ship, the first in its class, Zumwalt could achieve a flank speed in excess of thirty knots, which her skipper, Commander Ronald Cartwright, had ordered after rescuing Morgenthau’s crew just four hours earlier.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a break, Commander?” he asked. “You’re welcome to use my cabin.”
Briana smiled but shook her head. “Very thoughtful of you, but I can’t rest now. Not until we bag the bastards who sank my ship, and the first step is intercepting that.” She stretched a finger at the vessel on the horizon.
An HC-130H Hercules from Subic Bay had located it two hours before and continued to circle it. Cartwright had maneuvered Zumwalt to a position three thousand yards from the Nuovoh Arana when it made a sudden twenty-degree turn away from the destroyer.
Briana scanned the vessel with a pair of binoculars as Cartwright brought the destroyer up the port side of the freighter, adjusting speed to remain even with its bridge.
“They’re dumping cargo,” Briana said, passing the binoculars to Cartwright, who peered through them before turning to his XO. “Launch the helo.”
A couple of minutes later, a large white-and-blue Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopter took off from the deck helipad and flew around the freighter once and then stabilized in a hover on the starboard side of the bridge.
“Disney Zero-Five,” the Seahawk’s pilot reported. “They’re shoving cargo over the side with what I would describe as intense enthusiasm.”
Cartwright caught his XO’s eye standing by the fire station. “Fire a few rounds close to the waterline.”
Aboard the Seahawk, a sailor sprayed .50-caliber gun rounds from its side-mounted Browning machine gun, the report reverberating across the destroyer. The gunner paused a few moments and fired more rounds closer to the ship, but Nuovoh Arana’s crew members continued their dumping, reminding Briana of her encounters with ships hauling drugs or arms in the Gulf of Mexico in a prior life.
“Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think they’re getting the message,” she commented.
“Dammit.” Cartwright frowned. “Why is it always so difficult?”
“Time for the big stick,” she said.
“Fire a round across the bow,” Cartwright ordered, “and make it close.”
The fully automated, remotely controlled 155 mm Advanced Gun System shifted into action, blasting a single projectile.
Accompanied by a huge, circular plume of grayish smoke, the round made a spectacular splash thirty yards in front of the freighter, enveloping the bow in white foam and mist. The obstinate captain, however, elected to ignore the warning shot while the cargo continued to be jettisoned.
“Seriously?” Cartwright mumbled. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Just like those damn drug lords in the Gulf of Mexico,” she said. “Hit them hard, Commander. It’s the only language they know.”
Cartwright gave the order to disable the ship.
Fired in a water-skimming trajectory, the second AGS round ripped a gaping hole in the stern of the cargo ship in a burst of fire and shrapnel that made everyone aboard hit the deck.
The vessel immediately began taking on water, and shortly thereafter, M/V Nuovoh Arana came to a stop.
A well-armed party boarded the cargo ship less than fifteen minutes later. Though the crew had worked feverishly to dispose of the evidence, it was apparent the freighter had resupplied another ship, presumably a submarine, given the two DM2A4 Black Shark torpedoes discovered under green tarps belowdecks.
After the captain and crew members were taken into custody and transferred to Zumwalt, Commander Cartwright contacted the Pentagon. He reported the condition of the ship and was instructed to have his crew gather all computers and any documents with potential intelligence value and to scuttle the ship.
Briana found some solace in the freighter vanishing in a whirlpool of bubbles and surf, but she felt even better when a Seahawk from Subic Bay arrived packed with men in civilian clothes that hit the deck running, turning a dozen cabins into interrogation rooms. Leading the effort was Art Gomez, a native of Manila with leathery golden-brown skin and strong Asian features. He identified himself to Cartwright and Briana as “a civilian contractor for the US Government” and handed a letter signed by the commander, US Pacific Fleet, ordering the captain to provide him and his team with their full cooperation.