by L. J. Martin
In only a half hour after his disconnect, the encrypted phone on the desk of Frazier Mendleson, CIA section chief Terrorism, rings. NSA Director General Fred Quinn is on the line.
Mendleson immediately recognizes General Quinn’s southern drawl.
“A call originated from the Blue Pearl to another SAT phone in the middle of the Libyan desert. We have the originator as a Mumin Amir, the recipient as Sheik Ali Hassan, another oil rich son of a bitch. I’m sure your Libya desk knows far more about him than we do; however, we’re doing a deep investigation of all his email and international phone data and will bring y’all up to speed with what we learn soon. We’ll stay on it.”
As soon as he disconnects, Frazier checks the number of the Blue Pearl originating call against that which State had provided him from the number their Libyan mission Chargé d’Affaires, Sally Ann Maddison had recorded.
He immediately buzzes his secretary and instructs her, “Conference call, Director of the FBI, the President’s Chief of Staff Harley Forrest, Director CIA, and General McKniffin at the Pentagon.”
“Yes, sir.”
In moments he has them all on the phone, all at work even though it was not yet nine AM.
He has one question. “Gentlemen, do we have a consensus that I’ll take the lead in stalling his Amir until we can act?”
All concur except Forrest, who replies, “It will take me ten minutes to get to the President, then I’ll get right back to you.”
“Standing by,” Frazier says.
In less than ten minutes he gets his call. “The President suggests you have an FBI profiler and hostage psychologist at your side. But don’t wait for them. Make your call, then send us a recording. This guy does speak English.”
“Miss Maddison at the mission in Libya says his English is as good as hers. First report is he’s a Somali. I have an expert from the Somali desk at State on the way here. We believe he’s Al-Shabaab, so I have a Marine Colonel who served in that Mogadishu mess coming in as well. We should have all bases covered.”
“Go for it, Mendleson.”
Frazier takes a deep breath, waits for a nod from his equal at the CIA, the section chief of the Terrorism Analysis desk who has coordinated the recording and analysis of the call, and dials the number. It is not necessary to go outside to make a SAT call in most Intelligence buildings as they have an antenna array that can reach most the world.
The party who answers has only a slight accent, but a very smartass tone to his rather thin voice.
“You have called to save infidel American lives?”
“Mister Amir.”
“You took your time.”
Frazier answered quickly. “We get many crank calls. You know, illegitimate calls of the nature of your call to our mission in Tunis. We never know what’s real.”
“You may assure yourself mine is not a crank call. I’m sure you have your satellites watching the Blue Pearl even as we speak. You will note she is dead in the water.”
“Not yet with our birds, but I’m sure they are being reprogramed. My name is Frazier Mendleson and I’ve been authorized by our President to discuss this matter with you.”
“There will be no discussion, Mendleson. You will not call me again until you’re ready for instructions as to where to deliver the five hundred million in gold.”
“I understand, but…”
“No buts, Mister Mendleson. The first American passenger’s body will hit the water at one-minute past midnight should I not hear from you before with the word that a C130 is loaded and ready for my instruction. The gold should be on pallets for delivery via parachute in North Africa at GPS coordinates per my instruction. Call me when your delivery is ready.”
“Mister Amir…” Frazier begins, but realizes Amir has disconnected.
Frazier can’t help but give a sardonic laugh, and thinks, I wonder if this damn fool has figured out that five hundred million dollars in gold, at today’s price of around $1,400 an ounce would weigh over twenty-two-thousand pounds.
We can sure as hell drop it from a C130, in fact she’ll carry twice that weight, but who the hell is going to haul it off?
Now I’m really worried. Connie has still not returned, and the junk freighter is tied alongside, unfortunately on the far side and I can’t see what’s going on.
I’ve checked our hiding place and she must have her little Smith and Wesson .380 semiauto with her. She has a thigh holster and, if worn in the inside, which is how she’s worn it before, it’s undetectable unless someone gets very personal. And knowing Connie they’ll only try to get that personal once, and she’ll either use the stun gun makeup compact or they’ll be well ventilated with the .380.
I’m tired of waiting, so I make the climb up a deck on the outside again. I rap on Mrs. Tolliver’s slider and get no answer, then transfer to the kids’ veranda. No one there either. Jesus, what’s going on? My alarm has buzzed off and on, but I can’t respond to someplace if I don’t know where someplace is. It’s driving me a little batshit. I finally take it off my wrist and stuff it in a drawer. I should have found one with voice.
I hustle back to my suite and dig out a Glock and a KRISS. I have two magazines for the handgun and four for the KRISS Vector, if I abscond with Connie’s. Even if I make a kill with every three-shot burst from my KRISS, I’d likely not clean up the bad guys.
I hate impossible odds.
I have a plan to isolate the guards on each floor, and know exactly how to do it, but I inferred to the boys at lunch that I would wait until after dark.
Things change on a battlefield, and this ship is rapidly about to become one. A soldier must adapt.
No matter the odds.
When I studied the ship while back in Vegas, I took a hard look at fire protection, and part of that system is the ability to close all fire doors from the bridge. There’s no opening them—sans explosives—when closed, except from the bridge. And now closing them seems my only move. Isolate each floor and hope those on that floor can overpower the two guards there.
Of course, the first problem is getting to the bridge and activating the fire doors.
38
I’ve pulled on my combat trousers with multiple pockets and a camo shirt, and I sling the KRISS Vector on my back and holster a Glock. Maybe some hostile will hesitate ventilating my hide if he mistakes me for a fellow terrorist? I’m carrying the semiauto’s suppressor in a thigh pocket since it won’t fit in a holster if screwed onto the muzzle, pocket the two grenades I lifted from the guy who attacked Patty, and am about to scale the outside of the ship when my SAT phone rattles. I grab it up off the floor where I’ve left it near the open slider so it ‘sees’ the sky.
“Reardon.” It’s a voice I don’t immediately recognize.
“Make it quick,” I reply.
“Harry Weinstein, on board as Harry Drummond, FBI, special liaison to the CIA.”
“Make it quick,” I say again.
“You said call you but didn’t leave your number. I got it from DC.”
“I have a plan and it’s time to get on with it.”
“You realize they’ve loaded the women aboard another ship? At least most of them. My associate hid out and is still aboard. The Jewish women they isolated were not among those offloaded. I watched from my veranda until I was threatened and forced back inside.”
“No, I didn’t know, but I suspected something like that as my lady has not returned from lunch. And my alarm has been running over. My client had a… Doesn’t matter. I gotta go.”
I’ll have to relax to speak again. The heat floods my backbone and my jaw is knotted so tight it’s already beginning to ache. Both my charge, my responsibility, Simone, and my lady love are among the missing. I’ll fix this, or never be able to fix anything again.
“DC has instructed me to tell you to stand down. A SEAL team is being staged.”
“Nice, but as good as they are, it will likely get us all killed. We’ve got to move from the inside, disarm
these explosives, and methodically kill all these pricks. Are you armed?”
“Sidearm only, two actually, as Angelina has hers, and a couple of other defensive toys, but they only work in arm’s reach.”
“Do these assholes have any demands?”
“Gold, lots of it, delivered to North Africa by parachute.”
“That’s good news. If it was purely political, killing would be the only result. Where are you?”
“I’m on Deck Eight.”
“One deck below the bridge.”
“Correct.”
“Are you ready to assist if I make a move?”
“Are you sure you won’t be the death of us? Bad pun, I guess.”
“Hell no, I’m not sure. But if these jihadists see a team coming, I’m sure that will be the death of us. It’s a long way from the garbage deck or other opening that an underwater team can breach, or from a deck that a chopper team can rappel to, in order to get to this Mumin. He’ll know they’re coming long before they reach him and can likely blow this ship with the push of a button. We have to get to him from inside.”
Weinstein is quiet for a second, then agrees. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Isolate each floor so those of us who are combat-willing can act against reasonable odds, but only after I remove the threat of the destruction of the ship, which means this Mumin. Eventually disarming the explosives. This Mumin claims he has a dead-man switch to detonate, but it’s bullshit. I saw the dumb bastard change hands with the switch, and he took no special care.”
“Remove the threat how?”
“The fire doors are activated from the bridge and can’t be opened other than from the bridge. That will mean only two guards on each floor, then it’s up to those on each floor to neutralize them. Mumin is on the bridge or has been and I can only hope still is. I’m headed for the bridge.”
“How, with guards on every floor?”
I don’t know this guy, so I’m not eager to let him or anyone know I’ll be like a fly on the wall climbing up the outside of the ship. I’ll be too easily swatted. “Don’t worry about it. I can get there. We have players on nearly every deck, so we have a chance. I’m counting on the fact I can reactivate the cabin phones and advise our people we’re moving before I close the fire doors. Have you contacted DC regarding the women?”
“I have, but they already knew most of it. Eyes in the sky.”
“I gotta go.”
“Go with God, young man. You realize you’re depending on a bunch of old farts?”
I have to laugh. “I’d rather have willing old farts than pussy millennials.”
I disconnect without a reply and begin my climb.
I’m on Deck Six, and this will be by far the biggest climb to date. Three decks up the outside of the ship. And it’s warm, my hands sweating, much more weight with the KRISS Vector, grenades, Glock, and eight magazines—four of thirty cartridges each for the KRISS Vector, four extended twenty-four cartridge magazines for the Glock. Normally they’d hold fifteen plus one in the chamber.
Passing Deck Seven there’s no one in General Tolliver’s suite. I climb on. On Deck Eight, as I light on the veranda, the slider opens. I palm the Glock, but it’s an older wizened gentleman I can remember seeing.
He’s not bashful however and demands, “Who the hell are you?”
“When you hear the fire doors slam shut, it’s a call to arms, disarm and control…hell, throw overboard…there are, or should be, two guards left on your floor. They’ll be locked in until the doors are reopened and that can only happen from the bridge.”
“I'm no soldier...no hero...I don’t want to get involved in this,” the watery-eyed old boy says.
“Sir, you are involved. Is your wife with you?”
“She was. She hasn’t returned from lunch.”
“And likely won’t. They offloaded the ladies onto that freighter that’s been hanging around. Our only hope is to take back the ship and dispatch the invaders, which means every one of them, one or two at a time.”
“They better not hurt my Margaret,” he says, and I see a little fire in the old boy’s brown eyes.
“We’ll never know the fate of the ladies unless we get the ship back. If you’re not going to help, stay out of the way.”
He nods, and the door slides shut.
So, I continue my climb. There is only a half-dozen suites, all high end, on Deck Nine, and you pass them on the way forward to a door marked ‘NO ENTRANCE – CREW ONLY’ in bright red letters. The bridge.
As I get my feet on the top rail, reach for and grasp the deck above, my sweaty hand slips and I’m hanging by one hand. Before I can regain my handhold, I feel the old man below wrap his arms around my legs.
“I’ll hold you,” he yells.
“Thanks,” I yell down. “But please don’t. I’m okay. Boost me if you want to help.”
“You sure?” he asks, then adds, “I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks. Let go, please.”
He does, puts feeble hands under my feet, tries to lift, and I kip on up, get a foot on the deck, then hand over hand up the three rails and vault the railing.
My feet no more than hit the deck of the veranda on Deck Nine, when the slider opens. I’m reaching for my Glock, then realize I don’t have to do so. Tall, still thin and fit if totally white haired, stands former SAS officer, Alistair Nelson.
“Hallways a wee bit crowded?” he asks, with a wicked smile.
“Yes, sir, and we can’t wait until dark. I’m headed to take back the bridge.” I have to smile as he has a long thin lamp in hand, shade and cord removed, heavy base on the bludgeon end. I can’t help but add, pointing at the lamp, “That standard SAS issue?”
He smiles. “UCIW, the short version of the M4 was my favorite, but I forgot mine. You need both those weapons?” he asks.
39
A petite gray-haired lady is seated nearby. I’m avoiding answering his question, trying to poach one of my firearms. I turn to her. “Sorry about the intrusion, ma’am.”
She actually works up a smile and a nod. “I’m used to such things, young man. I’ve followed that bloke over half the world.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, then turn to Nelson, “You coming along?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t miss it. Queen Lizzy Two would be a little miffed if I let you bloody Yanks have all the fun.”
So, I reverse the Glock and offer him the grip, then take it back before he grabs it. I slip the KRISS Vector off my shoulder and hand him it, reach down and pull the Glock’s Gemtech suppressor from a pocket and screw it on. “You're familiar with the KRISS Vector so you back me up, but don’t fire that loud prick,” then I turn to the lady, “pardon my language, ma’am,” and back to Alistair, “unless we’re in trouble. I’ll take the lead and the suppressed weapon.”
“You boys try and come back safe,” Mrs. Nelson says and glances at her watch. “It’ll be teatime soon.”
Then I realize a woman is left on board. “They didn’t take you?”
“Age seventy-five seems to have been their limit.” She laughs, “Maybe they were short on Depends. There were nearly thirty of us they left behind, and I didn’t see any of the Jewish ladies being loaded.”
Alistair interrupts. “Social hour is over. There’s only been one guard in this short hallway. I might be able to lure him in.”
“Go for it.” I step back into the bathroom, only leaving the door ajar a couple of inches. The bathroom door is only two paces in the entry hall from the entry door.
Damned if the old boy couldn’t have been a Shakespearian thespian. He swings the door open, drops to his knees, grabs his chest with one and leans out propping himself up with the other, looking up and down the hallway. “Help, please, help, I think I’m having a heart attack,” then he moans, falls to his back, and scoots a little farther away from the door so the guard, if suckered in, will have to come even with the bathroom door. Alistair’s on his back, grasping his chest with both h
ands, rocking back and forth and moaning.
I hear footfalls in the hall, then see the barrel of an AK47 appear in the hall. The guard is entering slowly.
“Please, please help him,” his wife says. She could have starred in Romeo and Juliet, but she stays seated across the living room of the suite.
Finally, the guard steps in and puts the muzzle of the AK in the middle of Alistair’s chest. “You…you faking?” he challenges.
When I fling the door open, he tries to swing the muzzle my way but isn’t nearly fast enough as I crack him on the left jawbone with the Glock and grab the AK out of his hands with the same motion. Luckily the dipshit has the safety on, so an errant shot doesn’t alert any in earshot.
I didn’t finish him with the blow, and he starts to yell, but my knuckles driven into his Adam’s apple squish his scream. It drives him back against the wall, I pistol whip him one way then the other, and this time he goes down hard and unmoving.
He’s chewing something, and I’ve knocked some leaves out of his mouth.
“Khat,” Alistair says. “It’s a narcotic. I hope they’re all chewing away.”
“I remember seeing some of it in Iraq.”
“Overboard?” Alistair asks, nodding at the guard while climbing to his feet.
“Later maybe. We’ve been lucky as hell that no one has spotted a couple others dropped overboard, or me swinging like an orangutan up and down the ship. You got the cord from that lamp?”
“You bet.” He fetches it and throws it to me. “And a gag?” I ask, and Mrs. Nelson crosses the room and hands me the silk scarf around her neck, which I imagine she’s been using for a hijab. I tie his mouth so tight I hope he’s got stuffed up nasal passages and can’t breathe.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I give her an encouraging smile. The cord is long enough to tie his wrists then fold his legs up and hog tie him.
