Then it was back to regular patrol. With a lull in November’s often stormy weather and no reports of smugglers, they had a run of easy days. Cruising off Montauk Point, Tom stood on the foredeck looking west and saw the orange line of sunset just above the horizon. When he turned east, the sky was darkening from slate gray into night, and for just a moment, he thought he glimpsed the silhouette of a large sailboat.
He raised the binoculars to his eyes. There it was again—backlit by the loom of Block Island. It was completely dark, no running lights. The mast was bare, no sails hoisted. He had a good look and estimated the boat’s length at sixty feet overall with a graceful shear and an elegant waterline. At first, he thought the boat was becalmed, but after a few seconds, he saw that it was underway, motoring at a slow speed.
Seconds after spotting the sailboat, he lost sight of it. The vessel passed Block Island into the open ocean, and with no light behind it, the silhouette dissolved. Although the last three days had been calm, a gale was forecast, and by dawn the Atlantic would be roaring.
Glasses held to his eyes, Tom radioed Luis Santiago, the deck watch officer, up on the bridge.
“Twenty degrees off the port bow,” Tom said. “A sailboat running south-southeast without lights. I had her but I lost her.”
“I got her on radar. A smuggler or just a goddamn idiot?” Luis asked.
“Going south is the wrong direction for smuggling drugs,” Tom said.
“Then check box number two. A goddamned idiot who missed the September exodus. His voyage to Saint Barts or wherever will have to wait. We’re going to ruin his night.”
Nehantic sped toward the invisible boat and minutes later approached what appeared to be a ghost ship. The yacht glided across the glassy sea, its wake white and rippling in the floodlights of the cutter. Its transom was illuminated, and Tom read the name and port: Rembrandt, Newport, Rhode Island. The cockpit was empty, but the boat steamed along, obviously on autopilot.
“Yacht Rembrandt!” Luis said, his voice booming out the speaker. He didn’t have time to say anything else—two heads poked out of the companionway, and a man and woman scrambled up on deck.
“Hello!” the man called. “We’re fine! Everything’s okay.”
“Running lights,” Luis said.
“Oh, shit,” the man said. “Sorry—it got dark so fast we didn’t even notice. Flip them on, will you, Sally?”
And the yacht’s running lights—white masthead and stern lights, the red port and green starboard lights—came on. That should have been enough. Maybe a citation for ignoring rules of the road. It might have been stupid to be heading south in November, but it wasn’t illegal.
But in the spotlight’s glare, Tom spotted firearms, and not just any: just behind the nav station were two AK-47 assault rifles. They looked like the Chinese Norinco Type 56s they’d taken off the narco-sub a week before. The man glanced at Tom, noticed his line of vision, and inched toward the wheel, moving toward the guns. Tom drew his sidearm and pointed it at the captain and Sally.
“Hands up!” he said.
“You’re making a mistake,” the man said. “We’re heading south for the winter, and we . . .”
“Hands up!” Tom shouted. The man and Sally complied. The entire Nehantic crew had responded. Several crew members were standing along the port rail, weapons drawn and pointed at the two people aboard Rembrandt; others were hurrying down to the deck where Tom stood. A call was made to headquarters—a request for air-and-sea backup. The raid boat was readied and lowered. Tom led the boarding party.
They handcuffed and searched the two people on board Rembrandt—Joshua Anderson and his wife, Sally. Both had Glock 9s in hip holsters hidden beneath their red fleece jackets. The hands of both suspects were covered with deep scratches. Tom took photos of their hands to show that with the blood already coagulating and scabbing, the injuries couldn’t have been caused during the arrest.
The boarding team secured the weapons. The yacht was a Nautor Swan, one of the most luxurious and seaworthy production sailboats made. Tom heard Joshua babbling about pirates, how you can’t be too careful these days, how the Glocks and Chinese AKs were for self-defense, how the rules of the high seas were different, how boat invasions were just as deadly and prevalent as home invasions.
Tom scrambled down into the cabin. At first he thought the gold-framed museum-looking paintings on Rembrandt’s walnut-paneled walls were just part of the Swan’s decor. He spotted a thin edge of metal between two of the walnut panels and leaned closer to examine it. He wondered if it was a hinge, so he ran his hands over the wall, pressing as he went, and a door opened. Inside the secret compartment were at least ten more paintings in heavy gold frames and several canvases that looked as if they’d been sliced out of their frames.
He pulled out one of the framed paintings and propped it up on the chart table. It depicted a night scene of beauty and mystery. A large stone house was bathed in gauzy silver light. The moon glinted through dark-green leaves and illuminated a young girl dancing in the yard. The painting conveyed passion and urgency. The lower left corner was signed B. Morrison. Tom looked on the back of the painting. The canvas was protected by a sheet of brown paper. A yellowed card taped to the paper gave the painting’s title and other information: Moonlight by Benjamin Morrison, 1906.
Ever since the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston had been robbed in the early-morning hours of March 1990, New England law enforcement officers and military had been on the lookout for over a dozen stolen works of art. Rumors had flown—they’d been stolen by the Irish mob to pay for guns; or a gang of drug dealers had ordered them stolen as ransom to have their leaders released from prison; or the old favorite ORDIAMITB theory: One Rich Dude in a Mansion in the Bahamas who wanted to keep the paintings in a locked room for only him to see.
One of the most important missing paintings was The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn. Could Rembrandt, the name of the yacht, be a play on that? Tom wouldn’t know a Rembrandt from a Picasso, but Moonlight looked like it belonged in a museum, and the idea occurred to him. He told his theory to his commanding officer, and he figured that if there was anything to it—if the paintings had come from the Gardner—the FBI would take it from there.
But the source of the paintings was much more local. It hadn’t hit the news yet, but they had been stolen from the Harkness-Woodward Gallery earlier that day. And Tom’s brother had been first on the scene.
Glancing across the chopper, Tom knew that case had inaugurated Conor’s career and got him promoted to the Major Crime Squad. Conor was gripped by that long-ago case. He rarely talked about it, but Tom had seen a change in him after he’d rescued the sisters. He began drinking too much, and when Tom called him on it, Conor said he couldn’t sleep, that he figured scotch was better than sleeping pills. Eventually Conor had cut way back on the booze, but he’d never returned to the easygoing way he’d had before.
Tom knew Conor would never forget what he had seen in that basement, and right now Tom felt uneasy, wondering whether it could be clouding his judgment about Pete. He could read his brother’s mind, see the gears turning, and knew that Conor 100 percent wanted Pete for Beth’s murder.