CHAPTER 38
Nantucket Harbor
The fishing boat drifted lazily in the dark night about half a mile north of Nantucket. The lone boatman had been watching the long, slow approach of the Nantucket Eagle ferry and patiently awaiting his signal.
Just over one hundred yards from the Eagle’s route, the boatman noticed a blinking red light on the port side. His contact was ready for pickup. The boatman tossed his cigarette into the dark water, pulled a flashlight from his duffel bag, and blinked back a series of lights.
The boatman hung a dive ladder over the side, then shifted the motor into Neutral. The man in the water waited for the boat to stop rolling in the Eagle’s wake before attempting to haul himself aboard. The boatman held out his hand to his brother-in-arms and helped him into the craft.
The men did not recognize each other, nor did they expect to. Even in the beam of the flashlight, both could see that the boatman was darker-skinned than the man who had jumped off the Eagle.
Without saying a word, the swimmer pulled off his backpack, settled himself on the deck, and reached inside for a waterproof bag.
Engrossed in the setup of his mission’s next step, he failed to notice the boatman’s movements near the cockpit.
The machete blade hit the back of the swimmer’s neck with such force that it sliced easily through his vertebrae and stuck in the deck of the boat.
The swimmer’s head tumbled into his own lap.
The boatman had followed his orders exactly. Now to make the call. He picked the waterproof bag out of the pool of the swimmer’s blood and extracted the preprogrammed cell phone.
The boatman used one of his own phones to quickly send a one-word text: GLORY. Then he pulled out the SIM card and threw the phone, the machete, and the tiny chip into the black seawater, along with the swimmer’s head and body.
As the ferry glided toward Nantucket Harbor, the boatman tacked in the direction of Martha’s Vineyard and gave the engine all the gas he could. He needed to put at least half a mile between his sloop and the Eagle if he was to escape the brunt of the coming explosion.
At 10 p.m., he found the number in the speed dial of the swimmer’s phone and called it.
The war was about to begin.