Radiant Angel (32 page)

As with all of my novels, I’ve taken advantage of the patience and good nature of friends and acquaintances to assist me with facts, technical details, and inside information that a novelist needs but can’t find in books or on the Internet.

And as always, here is my disclaimer: any errors of fact regarding the procedures or professions represented in this novel are either a result of my misunderstanding of the information given to me, or a result of my decision to take literary license and dramatic liberties. Also, in some cases I have been asked to alter classified information given to me in confidence.

First among these friends who have helped is Kenny Hieb, a.k.a. John Corey. Kenny, like Corey, is a retired NYPD detective, formerly with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and currently with another Federal organization that needs to go unnamed. Thanks, Kenny, for your assistance and, more importantly, for your work in keeping us safe.

Next, I’d like to thank Pete Conte, Suffolk County (NY) Police Officer, Marine Bureau. Pete has been very generous with his time and very giving of his vast knowledge of police work on the high seas. In exchange for all this, I have given Pete a cameo role in this book. And again, whatever errors I’ve made in this regard are mine alone.

Also on the high seas, many thanks to my friend Bruce Knecht, yachtsman and author of
Hooked
,
The Proving Ground
, and
Grand Ambition
, for steering me in the right direction on my voyage of super yacht discovery. If I hadn’t read Bruce’s wonderful
Grand Ambition
, I could not have created
The Hana
, which is central to this story.

Thanks, too, to John Kennedy, Deputy Police Commissioner, Nassau County (NY) Police Department (Retired). John’s a member of the New York State Bar, and patron (with me) of many local bars.
John has helped me with all my John Corey novels and he brings to this task a unique combination of skills and knowledge as a police officer and an attorney. If I make up too much stuff, John revokes my literary license.

And, now on to my publishing team. Many thanks go to my editor and friend, Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing. Jamie somehow finds time to run a company and edit my manuscripts, and she wears both hats with style and confidence.

Thanks also to my longtime friend Harvey-Jane Kowal, a.k.a. HJ, who has once again come out of retirement from Hachette Book Group to work on this, her thirteenth DeMille book. This comes under the category of “Glutton for Punishment.” HJ knows her grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fact-checking, and she makes me look good on the printed page.

Forgetting to thank your agent at the back of the book is like forgetting to thank your defense lawyer as you walk out of the courtroom a free man. Imperfect analogy aside, I want to thank my team at ICM Partners, Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris, not only for their hard work, but also for their smart work. Authors with good agents suffer fewer suicidal and homicidal urges.

This book was made possible by my two dedicated and hardworking assistants, Dianne Francis and Patricia Chichester. I write all my novels by hand, and there are only two people on the planet who can read my scrawl and put it into typed form, and for that I am very grateful. Dianne and Patricia are also my first readers and fact-checkers, and nothing goes to the publisher that is not perfect. Thanks, too, for keeping my schedule and my life organized.

Another early reader of the manuscript is my son, Alex, who as a screenwriter gets straight to the heart of the storyline and the characters. Screenwriters tell a story with an economy of words and they reveal their characters through dialogue, and I have learned much from Alex, making me feel good about the Yale tuition. Thanks, Buddy.

For a different perspective on the manuscript I always turn to my daughter, Lauren, a psychologist. Dr. Lauren is able to analyze my
characters, and through them she can analyze the author and offer help for all of us.

And, penultimately, I want to thank the beautiful Ethel Kennedy, who is truly a radiant angel on earth. Ethel inspires me to be charitable and it’s starting to work.

The best is last, and that is my wife, Sandy, who is an example to me and to all who know her of courage and optimism. Perfect wife, perfect mother, and perfectly beautiful, inside and out.

The following people have made generous contributions to charities in return for having their name used as a character in this novel:
Nikola Andersson
—East End Hospice;
Scott Kalish
—Boys & Girls Club of Oyster Bay–East Norwich;
Howard Fensterman
—Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation;
Dean Hampton
—Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

I hope they all enjoy their fictitious alter egos and that they continue their good work for worthy causes.

To contact the author, please visit his website, www.nelsondemille.net

Available from Grand Central Publishing

By the Rivers of Babylon

Cathedral

The Talbot Odyssey

Word of Honor

The Charm School

The Gold Coast

The General’s Daughter

Spencerville

Up Country

The Gate House

Plum Island

The Lion’s Game

Night Fall

Wild Fire

The Lion

The Panther

Mayday

The Quest

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Nelson DeMille

Cover design by Stanislaw Fernandes

Type Design by James Matejka

Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First ebook edition: May 2015

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ISBN 978-1-455-58231-0

E3