"I like that," said McBride, bringing a blush to Tony's face.
"Is it possible to sneak through the ventilation system, and perhaps grab some of their weapons?"
McBride answered. "That only works in the movies, and for three reasons, one," he counted off on his fingers, "the transmitted noise through the ducting sounds like thunder, so people hear you coming from half a ship away, and two, there are all sorts of obstructions, such as fans, flaps to divert the airstreams, you just wouldn't believe the junk in those ducts. And thirdly, if you do manage to get to your destination, you would get stuck trying to get out!"
The captain said, "It would inconvenience the terrorists if we cut off the speaker system in the reception area."
Morton looked up from his writing. "You could get the electrician to do that, but I personally doubt that it would cause much inconvenience, they can use the system on the bridge. It might get them to move everything up to that deck. I'd rather have them down on deck 5, personally."
"Yes, on reflection, I withdraw that suggestion," said the captain. "So Mr McBride's suggestion, assisted by Tony here, looks like the only one that might work. All agreed?"
"Yes," said Morton. "It's a working compromise. The question remaining is when do we launch our attack?"
"Well, before they start shooting people, but as late as possible before that, I would have thought," said the captain. "Tuesday is the current deadline, but it might well be extended. Also the later we can leave it, the more chance that the military arrives to do the job.
"So, are we all agreed that the action to be taken, is that of John McBride, and that we leave it as late as can be?"
Everybody round the table nodded, and the captain closed the meeting.
Chapter 25
Tony Brown, plainclothes security, leaned on the rail, looking out towards the container ship lying some way off. The uniformed security men had been picked up and were safe. The hijack had gone so smoothly how come they hadn't picked up Annabel and him? It seemed almost too good to be true. Of course, they could be secretly watching him, keeping him in reserve so to speak. No, that was absurd. They had done their homework, but not as well as they thought.
He turned, now with his back to the rail as he heard footsteps and saw, coming towards him two of the hijackers dressed in their quasi-uniform, light brown chinos, white shirts and armbands. Both carried rifles, one a man and the other the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was sun-tanned, with very little makeup, walking very erect, slim, pert breasts, golden brown hair cut short.
He watched as they passed, and the girl gave him a wink, just a wink, not a smile. He was instantly in love.
Tony had worked on the cruise ship for nearly ten years now in the same job. Initially he had joined because he wasn't meeting many women. And he still wasn't. There was his colleague Annabel, of course but he suspected she might be lesbian. Any way she didn't respond to any advances and he had long ago given up. Maybe he was destined to remain a virgin forever. Until this girl had passed by and given him a wink.
He knew he was shy as far as women were concerned but he couldn't let this beautiful girl go without making an effort.
For the rest of the day, whenever he wasn't in the captain's meetings, brainstorming on how to beat the hijackers, he was loafing around on various decks where he thought he might meet Miss Beautiful. He wasn't aware because he hadn't thought about it, that she might be on patrol shifts.
By evening, he mustered up courage to go down to deck five, the deck that Bourne had said was out of bounds. He was coming down the stairs from deck six when he saw the girl just as she walked past on the landing below. She caught sight of a figure descending, stopped and looked up at him. He could hardly turn and run back up the stairs so he continued his downward path.
As he reached the second step from the bottom he smiled at her. She smiled back and said "My name's Audrey, what's yours?"
"Tony." It came out rather croakily. They both walked across the lobby, intuitively in step.
"Where are you going, Tony?" she said.
"Just wandering around, really." It sounded a bit lame to his ears.
"Come and have a coffee in the bar."
"Am I allowed to?"
"Keith isn't around," she said. Tony realised she was referring to Bourne.
"Okay."
They went through to the bar just off the lobby. There was nobody else in the room, and no one serving at the bar. Audrey strode up and rang a bell that stood on the counter. After a while, a waiter appeared through a door on the other side. She ordered, and led the way to a table by the window, "Sit down"
The waiter brought a coffee pot and two cups on a tray, and poured the coffee.
"Are you a passenger, or on the staff" Audrey asked.
"On the staff."
"Off duty, then, being in civvies." He was about to correct her and then thought better of it. He nodded in reply.
"You're frightened of me? Is that it?" She smiled at him.
"Just a bit," he confessed.
"I won't eat you," she said tritely.
"I'm a naturally shy person."
"That I can't believe. Come on, tell me about your job, that you get time off during the day."
He sipped his coffee, giving him time to decide what to say. "I work in one of the offices, on the computers."
"But not in the daytime."
He felt himself falling into a trap. Or perhaps there wasn't a trap. He was becoming paranoid. "Not always."
"You are certainly difficult to get to know." She laughed, and her eyes twinkled when she did that. He was madly in love, and it must be showing.
"How did you get into Bourne's League, or whatever you call it?"
"It seemed to be a bit of fun. And I get paid. Quite well, but I'm not going to tell you how much. Come on, don't be shy, tell me what you do."
"If I tell you, you might have to shoot me." He laughed, but inwardly he was frightened.
"I haven't got my rifle with me, and in any case I don't shoot men I like."
Tony blushed. "I'm plain clothes security. I investigate thefts on board, or shop lifting. That sort of thing."
"And we didn't know, and didn't turn you off the ship. Bourne slipped up there. Mind you, he is a bit of a prat."
"And now, you shoot me."
"Not shoot you, I like you too much. But I had better not tell anyone what you do. And I advise you to keep stum. Tell you what, I'll get changed, then we can have a meal, what do you say? Early dinner. Two people in civvies."
"I'd like that." He smiled at her.
"Come on, I can't leave you alone in this bar. The others won't like you as much, and they could shoot you. That would upset me. Come on." She held out her hand, and he stood up and took it. Hand in hand they walked back across the lobby, down the corridor to her cabin.
He followed her through the door, and she pushed the door closed and grabbed his face, kissing him. "You're too shy. Sit down over there, while I shower. I won't be long." She vanished into the bathroom, and he walked over and sat in a chair near the patio doors.
After a few minutes she walked out in just a pair of pants and a bra, smelling strongly of perfumed talc. He immediately got an erection. She sat on his knee, and kissed him again, then she stood up, and went over to the bed.
"With a hard on like you've got, I think we had better put it right."
He blushed fiercely.
"My word, you are a shy boy," she was pulling his clothes off as she spoke.
Not a long time later she said to him: "Don't worry, you'll be better next time." Which embarrassed Tony even more. Takes a girl to bed, and still he's a virgin. No wonder he was embarrassed. But she still wanted to go for a meal with him, which was great.
They sat in a corner in the grillroom. The lighting was turned down, but Tony was worried that somebody might see them who recognised the girl, knew she was a terrorist. God, for this crime they would throw the book at him. Morton woul
d throw him the cells, if the captain didn't beat him to it.
"What's bugging you?" Audrey wanted to know, between spoonfuls of soup.
"Being spotted with you, I mean I love being with you, but if anyone who knows me and connects you with Bourne, well, I'm in the shit." He blushed again as the crude language came out, but it seemed to be unnoticed by Audrey. Perhaps it was the low lighting in his favour. "I'm supposed to be on the opposite side of the fence."
"We'll go in a minute, after we've eaten the starters, but we can't go back to my cabin. Bourne will be back for a start. We could go to your cabin, could we?" She looked at him and waited. After a long pause, Tony replied
"It's a shared cabin, so we can't. " he blushed again.
"Well I can see you again tomorrow, don't worry, we'll find a way. Or are you going to attack us?" Asked in a casual way.
"Not tomorrow, I don't think. But you should get some swimming goggles from the sports shop by the pool. We have tear gas, it could be painful."
They left the restaurant separately, a mutual decision after she told Tony what time her patrols were the following day.
Chapter 26
Kevin was a whizz kid when it came to computers, and he asked Bourne if he could try to break into the computers on the reception desk.
"It doesn't bother me," said Bourne, "they're not mine. But don't play with them when you should be on patrol."
Kevin sat down behind the desk and examined the monitor. Looked like a Windows adaptation to him. It had been running on standby for over a day now. It was open, so he needed no password at this stage. He clicked back to the main menu, and saw that there were sub programmes listed as Reception, Currency, Tours, Catering, and Housekeeping.
Kevin assumed that he was currently in the Reception programme, but would probably need passwords for the other sub-programmes. He managed to get up a menu for Reception alone, and found it very interesting. Firstly, there were details of every guest on board. Another heading was entitled 'Voids'. Kevin worked out that this listed cabins that were unoccupied. The ship was not full. The list would be given to the cleaning staff, so that they weren't doing unnecessary cleaning. And the cabins could be allocated to passengers joining the ship at various ports en route. Even more interesting, key cards could be printed out for any cabin.
Kevin looked at the accessories hooked up to the computer, and found two normal printers, and a printer that looked as though it printed key cards. He tried it out and produced a key card for his own cabin. He left the reception and walked down the corridor to try it out.
Bingo! It worked!
For the next couple of hours he played around with the computer. He was unable to access any of the other major programmes, but he betted that the other monitors along the counter would be logged in to the various sub programmes. He would try tomorrow.
Kevin went on his patrol and didn't see Bourne until he came back four hours later.
The terrorists were in the habit of dining together, those that weren't on duty, in The Bar. They had left the tables alongside the sea windows, the rest of the bar was a bit of a mess. The barman could only be obtained by ringing a bell on the bar top. Kevin acknowledged to himself that the staff were doing what they wanted, and Bourne seemed not to mind, and the captain seemed to have washed his hands of everything. The times that Kevin had been on bridge duty, he only saw the captain on very fleeting occasions. Kevin wondered how this would end, would he die, would they all die. He couldn't see any other outcome, if he was honest with himself.
Now he wandered over to tables which were moderately occupied. He was seeking out Bourne, and he spotted him talking with Audrey. They were both eating.
"Can I join you, Keith? I want to talk about something I've found out."
"Sure, what is it?" Bourne seemed to be in a good mood. He sat down in an adjacent chair.
"You know I was playing about with the computers. There's a list of all passengers."
"That doesn't surprise me. It seems obvious there would be."
"Yes, I suppose so. But you can print out key cards for any passenger cabin on the ship."
Bourne became interested. "What down here at reception?"
"Yes, there's a special printer. And there's a programme called 'voids' that shows all the empty cabins. The ship's not full. I guess there's room for more than a hundred extra people at least. If you wanted an upgrade, I could get you one."
Bourne started to laugh, and Audrey joined in. Kevin didn't know what he had said that they found funny. He stared at them blankly.
"Kevin, if I wanted any cabin, even the captain's cabin, I could just threaten him with my rifle, and take it over."
Chapter 27
Simon Southern had joined the White Christian League because he thought it would be a bit of fun, a jolly sort of hobby to fill in his time. That was because he had an inherited private income, and did not have to work. As a result, he tended towards laziness.
He was on shipboard patrol with Audrey, since Bourne had insisted they patrol in this fashion. He had said, "It stops you being picked off." The fact that they had Russian AK47s stopped you being attacked so, in Simon's opinion, a double patrol was baloney. He didn't really care, though, because he wasn't paid to think. Come to that, he wasn't paid at all.
Audrey was not very friendly. In Simon's book, the word 'friendly' meant 'agreeable to a sexual liaison.' So yesterday he had met a woman at the pool, and talked to her for a while. He decided to see if she was at the pool today. So he gave Audrey the slip, and climbed the stairs to level ten, and went out through a set of doors by the poolside bar. As he turned the corner, he saw the woman on a sun lounger, reading a magazine, a drink beside her on a low table. Southern went over to her, sat on his heels beside her.
"Hello there," he said. "Here you are again, getting a lovely sun tan. Do you remember me? I was talking to you yesterday"
She lifted her sunglasses, parked them over her hair, eyes screwed up against the sun.
"Oh hey! Are you on guard duty again? Don't you get any time off?"
"I can get time off, any day I want. You could say I'm my own boss," he said.
"My, you must be important." He looked at her face, she sounded at first as though she was taking the piss. When she wriggled her bottom on the sun lounger, and winked at him, he realised it was just the way she talked. He knew he had a hot babe here.
"Have you got a cabin on this deck?" he said.
"No. Two decks down. I share with a friend, but she doesn't drink much. She goes to the on-board gym, instead. Or else she jogs round the running track. She still stays fat, though. She won't be back until lunchtime."
She paused then. "You could come down now, and look at my cabin. I'll leave my magazine on the lounger, so no one else will sit here, while we are away. And my drink's still here."
She stood up. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Southern. She took his hand and led him to the lift.
Her cabin was a standard twin-bedded one, exactly the same as Southern's, but he didn't point that out. He praised the fixtures and peeped into the bathroom, saw women's underwear thrown about, looked through the doors at the balcony.
She got impatient. "We haven't got much time before Susan is back, so if you want to do it, be quick."
Simon needed no further encouragement and put his arms round her, kissed her on the mouth whilst undoing her bikini top.
She said, "Come on, get your clothes off, and moved over to one of the beds, shucking her bikini bottom on the way. Southern, busy undressing looked over. She was standing there, completely nude. He leaped over to the bed, crouching to hide his swinging erection, and climbed in. "Oh, honey," he said.
She put her hand down and eased him into her.
"Wow," she said, "you are big. I thought you would be." Within a very short time she was shouting and groaning. Southern felt it couldn't be better and then it was climbing and climbing. Just before he climaxed, it was getting worse, the pain racking his
chest, and he couldn't breathe. He didn't even have any breathe to tell her he was dying. Suddenly a black cloud descended.
"Hey, Honey, you're hurting me, you're so heavy, move off, can't you?" She opened her eyes to see his face almost in her own, his skin a light blue cover, eyes staring sightlessly.
He didn't move, and he didn't answer, so she managed after a lot of effort to free herself, and sat up in the bed. She couldn't hear him breathing, and his face was even bluer.
"Good God, you're dead!" she said, and leapt out of bed, dashed to the door to summon help.
Suddenly she realised she was naked, and grabbed a robe hanging on the door, dragged it on, and dashed out of the door. The corridor was empty. She wondered what else she could do, and then a cabin door across the way opened and that artist fellow walked out, checking that his door was locked behind him.
"Excuse me, I've got a man in my room who I think is dead." She spoke rapidly, in a panicky voice.
McBride looked across at her. "A dead man? You want me to look?" He crossed the corridor.
She pushed the door open. "Please," she said. "He's just here on the bed." She pointed.
McBride saw the mussed up bedding, and the man, naked, lying belly down with his head turned towards him, eyes staring, his face contorted in pain, but obviously alive no more.
He saw the man's clothing hastily discarded in a trail leading to the bed. There was a white shirt, still with a red band on the sleeve, light brown chinos, socks, shoes lying sideways on the carpet. It was the uniform of the White Christians. McBride looked rapidly over the rest of the cabin, saw the rifle propped up in a corner. He picked it up, and then went over to the man on the bed, felt for the neck artery. No pulse, the man was dead. McBride wasn't going to try and revive him. He went to the phone, dialed emergency.
"There's a guy died here in cabin number er," he raised his eyebrows at the girl, still standing in the doorway.
Cruise the Storm Page 10
