Death Takes Passage #4

by Sue Henry

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Alex told McKimmey, “or we’ll be just as trapped as the passengers, even if they don’t know we’re here.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Leaving Jessie with Lou, they carefully looked around the edge of the door. Three of the crew members were setting tables. By the door to the galley stood a stranger with another assault rifle cradled in his arms, watching them work.

  “Damn. I think we waited too long.”

  “No, wait.”

  “What?”

  “Just wait a minute or two. I’ve got an idea I think will work.”

  They watched, cautiously, and the man with the gun watched, looking bored. He yawned and scratched his head. In a short time, Jensen got a glimmer of what McKimmey was thinking about. The tables were being set in order from the galley across the room toward them.

  In a few minutes one of the table setters, the red-haired woman Jensen had spoken to after the first mystery play, came to the corner in which they were concealed, carrying a plastic bin of silverware. She began to set the window table nearest them. From that angle, they could see her, but they couldn’t see the man with the gun; that meant he couldn’t see them, either.

  “Cindy,” McKimmey hissed.

  She stopped and frowned, then went on with her work.

  “Over here.”

  She was good … didn’t stop what she was doing again, but turned her head toward where they stood, making it seem a part of her work. She nodded, once, just enough to let them know she had seen who it was.

  “Drop that thing when you go back to the galley.”

  Again she nodded, understanding what he meant. With her back toward the man with the gun, she raised an index finger, wait. When she had set the next two tables, and the rest were completed, she picked up the bin, still half full of silverware.

  “Get ready,” Ray said, and Alex signaled Jessie that they were leaving.

  At the door to the galley, Cindy suddenly appeared to trip. With an exclamation, she all but threw the bin toward the metal counter three feet in front of her. It smashed against it, metal hitting metal, knives, forks, and spoons clanking, crashing to the floor. She went to her knees, silverware falling all around her.

  “Now,” Ray said, as the man with the gun turned his back on the room and took two steps into the doorway to see what was going on. They moved fast around the corner to the right and out the door to the gangway. Racing to the stairs, they leaped up them by twos and threes. As Jensen’s eyes passed the level where he could see into the dining room, the gunman was still watching Cindy pick up the silverware from the tiles of the galley floor.

  “Made it. Good going, Ray.”

  “Good going, Cindy.”

  They were now on the level of the lounge, on the starboard side. The stair came out in a rectangular well that insured that the line of the outer stateroom wall was unbroken as it neared the stern. They stopped, standing in front of stateroom 215. Carefully, Jensen leaned out enough to peer along the deck.

  Indeed, three passengers were up, dressed, and moving. Two leaned on the rail to look at the massive walls of the Grenville Channel. The other headed for the dining room. But, as Alex watched, a bulky figure came through the door at the end of the gangway, put his hands in his pockets, and continued toward the rear of the ship. It was the other guard from the gold room. Clearly, they were letting the passengers go to breakfast, but they were keeping a watch all the same.

  “Damn,” he whispered, under his breath.

  “What?”

  “One of the guards. We can’t move without being seen, and he’s coming.”

  “Can we take him?”

  “Not without a lot of noise that will attract attention.”

  Suddenly Alex remembered. No door on the Spirit was ever locked. So, he simply opened the door to stateroom 215 and walked in, pulling Ray after him. He leaned against it, listening. The sound of the guard’s footsteps passed and continued beyond the door till they could no longer be heard.

  The woman in her nightgown who stood facing them stared with her mouth open, but said nothing for a long moment. Then she turned and walked to the door of the bathroom, through which they could hear the sound of a shower running.

  “Lawrence,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Lawrence, you have … unexpected … company.”

  Safe for the moment, Jensen explained the situation to the Walkers, Darlene and Lawrence, U.S. Army, colonel, retired, after he and McKimmey had introduced themselves. He had noticed this couple—she, petite and pleasant looking, he, outstanding in his erect military posture—but he’d never met them. After the introduction, she retreated to the bathroom with her clothes in hand, but she left the door open enough to hear. Lawrence dressed as he listened with unbroken attention and no interruptions until they had finished telling why they had appeared in his stateroom so abruptly.

  “So, you don’t know who these men are, but it’s pretty clear they’re making an attempt to steal the gold we’re carrying, and they may be responsible for the murder of that woman who disappeared from the ship?”

  “Right. We think so, sir,” Jensen agreed.

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “We’re working to figure that out. Right now we’re trying to reach the intercom to the bridge in the purser’s office. If we can talk to Captain Kay, maybe he can somehow give us an idea of what we’re up against. They have clearly taken over the bridge, but I doubt they would do more than make him take this ship where they want, which, right now, seems to mean continuing through the channel. Someone on the ship, besides the guards in the gold room and the assistant engineer, is working with these guys and made him slow the Spirit to let the others board. They’re armed with very nasty weapons and are extremely dangerous.”

  “That where you got the assault weapon?”

  “Yes. Put one of them out of commission in the engine room, but don’t know how long till someone finds him. From what we saw, we think they intend to take the passengers hostage at breakfast.”

  “We won’t go down.”

  “I think you’d better rethink that, sir. If you don’t, they’ll probably come looking for you. There are very few places to hide, and they’re being careful. They’ll undoubtedly keep all the passengers in the dining room, or possibly move them to the lounge. They probably have a complete list of the passengers, or we should assume so.”

  “That’s only a possibility, as you say. What’s to keep them from some more radical solution? Are they making any attempt to conceal their identities?”

  “No, sir, they’re not.” Alex realized that, in his attempt to establish communication with the bridge, he was thinking with blinders on. Why weren’t they covering their faces? He should have wondered about that. He didn’t like the idea of the explanations that occurred to him, and suddenly he couldn’t decide if he was glad or sorry he had asked Jessie to stay below with Lou.

  He glanced at Ray, who was wearing a troubled expression.

  “I think we’d better do something careful and quick,” the engineer said, slowly. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Agreed. But first, we’ve got to get you some different clothes. Those coveralls are a dead giveaway.”

  Walker solved the problem with a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that McKimmey swiftly changed into, rolling up the cuffs.

  “Look,” Walker told them, “you need more help. I will go with you, but my wife shouldn’t. She can’t stay here. Can’t see just giving herself up, but … Darlene?” He turned to his wife, who had come out of the bathroom and was listening quietly from a seat on the bed.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “You game to go ahead to breakfast without me, knowing what we know? You might be able to warn some of the people down there, let them know we’re working on it.”

  “It seems the most reasonable thing to do.”

  Walker turned ba
ck to Jensen.

  “They will come looking for anyone not in the dining room, you think? Right?”

  “Wouldn’t you, in their place?”

  “You’d better go ahead, Dar.”

  She picked up a jacket and turned to a box on the dressing table, which she opened and began to empty into her pockets.

  “I’m taking my jewelry. No one gets my anniversary presents.”

  They smiled at each other, she kissed her husband, and went to the door. “Just keep in mind that I’ve done a lot of waiting while you fought battles. Be careful and don’t keep me waiting too long on this one.”

  She closed the door quietly as she went out.

  McKimmey hid the coveralls he had been wearing in the back of the closet.

  “They’d better not find these in here.”

  “Now, we wait for that guard to go by again,” Walker said, listening at the door.

  In just a few minutes, they heard him pass, and they peered between the curtains to make sure. Slipping out the door, they raced down the side of the ship, through the door, took a quick look to be sure the inside hall was empty, reached the purser’s officer, and were inside when he came around again.

  31

  6:30 A.M.

  Thursday, July 17, 1997

  Spirit of ‘98

  Grenville Channel, Inside Passage

  British Columbia, Canada

  THE PURSER’S OFFICE WAS EMPTY AND, FOR ONCE, LOCK able. Alex locked it. The intercom with a telephone handset was on the manager’s desk.

  Alex collapsed into a chair and looked up at the other two.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, noticing McKimmey’s squint.

  “Well,” McKimmey answered, after a short moment of analysis, “I’m thinking my headache’s worse.”

  “I’m not surprised. You should be resting.”

  Ray rummaged through the first aid kit and came up with the painkiller he needed and Jensen stared at the intercom, trying to plan his call to the bridge.

  “Before I do this, I need to know a couple of things,” he told McKimmey. “If I call from here, does anything on the bridge indicate where the call is coming from?”

  “No. I always have to say it’s the engineer, when I call up from below.”

  “Where is the call answered?”

  “It can be picked up from the forward section of the bridge or from the captain’s office, either one.”

  “Which is used most?”

  “The forward.”

  “Can someone else listen in from the office?”

  McKimmey thought for a minute. “I don’t know. Possibly, I guess. Never had a reason to find out.”

  “Give me some reasons the purser might call the captain.”

  “Well, to begin with, we don’t have a purser, even though this is called the purser’s office. This position is called the hotel manager. We just say ‘the manager.’ I know I said purser’s office, but that’s what it’s called on the blueprints I have to look at periodically, and I get ‘em mixed sometimes. The manager might call the bridge to ask for our ETA at a specific location … or, if a passenger wanted to make a phone call, he might call to ask before sending them up … to adjust the schedule on something, meals, bar openings or closings … to give the captain some kind of information … lots of things.”

  “I like the passenger phone call idea. If I say I’m the purser, will Captain Kay catch on that I’m not, just from the wrong term? Is the sound good enough so that he could recognize my voice?”

  “I think so. He’s used to the sound. He knows that our manager would never call himself the purser. I think he’d catch on, especially now, when he might be hoping for something … anything.”

  “Okay.”

  While Walker and McKimmey watched silently, he took a deep breath, and, picking up the handset, made the call.

  “Bridge.”

  Damn, it was the first mate, he had hoped for the captain.

  “This is the purser. Could I speak to the captain, please?”

  A hesitation, then he could tell she had risen to the requirement … heard her say, “For you, Captain. The purser’s office.”

  He heard a second pick-up, undoubtedly from the office, and a click as the first mate hung up the handset in the forward bridge.

  So … the captain was in his office, and it was possible for someone to listen in, but there would be a telltale sound if anyone picked up the handset. All the same, he would be cautious.

  “Captain speaking.”

  “Captain, this is Purser Alex … ander, on Three Deck.”

  “Yes?… Oh … Yes!”

  Great. He knew who he was talking to.

  “I have a passenger and a crew member here, who wish to know if I can bring them to the bridge to make a call … or do you have too much going on up there at the moment?”

  “Yes. We do.”

  “Can you tell me how many calls are waiting, and how …” he thought hard for a moment, trying to think how to phrase it. But the captain spoke before he got it together, answering his unspoken question with a similarly coded answer.

  “We can’t call out from the Grenville Channel. Radio blackout zone. We have a call waiting till we reach the other end, and must give it priority. Besides, it may take us longer if that valve in the engine room gives us any more trouble and we have to go slower.”

  Ah … there was only one of the gang on the bridge, and the captain wanted to let him know that he thought McKimmey had been captured and the engine room was under the control of the intruders.

  “The valve has been repaired, sir. It’s operating freely now.”

  “Good. That’s good news. We’ll proceed more efficiently with it repaired.”

  “Do you know how many other calls may be on hold until we reach the end of the channel?”

  “Two … no, three …” There was a sudden click, as the second handset was lifted on the forward bridge, but no one spoke. “… to the best of my knowledge. But, tell your passenger that all calls will wait till we are out of the channel.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will bring them up to see about it later.”

  He heard the captain disconnect, the second handset go down, and then he hung up himself.

  “Your captain’s as shrewd as I imagined,” he told McKimmey, through a sigh of relief. “Picked right up, like a pro. There’s only one of them on the bridge, but, including that one, he’s seen or knows of four. Makes sense. They wouldn’t all go up to the bridge. They’re waiting to do something till we reach the end of the channel, and he’s relieved that you—the valve—are out of the engine room. He also knows that there are three of us and that we’ll try to help them out up there, later.”

  “Four?”

  “Four that he knows about. We know there are more than that, I think.”

  “Okay.” Ray held up fingers as he counted. “One—Carlson in the engine room, two—the guy in the dining room, three and four—the two gold room guards, five—on the bridge … I’ve run out.”

  “Well, everyone but the last you’ve identified has been on the ship all along. Then there’s whoever came in that powerboat—numbers five and six, or, maybe five, six, and seven. But we haven’t counted whoever was on the ship to make the captain slow it to allow them to board. So, seven or eight, at least. And there could be another one, or two.”

  Colonel Walker spoke for the first time since they had entered the purser’s office.

  “Only seven or eight of these guys? I thought we had a lot of them to deal with.”

  “That’s quite a number, sir, on a fairly small ship, with assault rifles.”

  “You could say so, if you were dealing with them all together at once, Sergeant. But examine the situation in terms of a strategic takeover of their forces spread out, and it’s a little different.”

  All at once, Alex felt as if he had suddenly been demoted in rank, and he had to grin. Colonel Walker seemed to be standing even straighter, if that was p
ossible, and his manner had taken a definite shift into a military command mode.

  “Yes, sir. What are you thinking?”

  “Our timing right now is good. In order to guard the bridge, hold the owner and his family hostage, assure the desired location of the passengers, and collect strays that don’t come to the dining room, they will have to extend their resources to the limit—even if we assumed nine or ten of them. If you can’t make a concerted assault on the enemy as a single unit, what’s the next best solution for neutralizing them, while conserving, even adding to, me strength of your own forces?”

  McKimmey, also grinning, was listening carefully, as Walker stepped easily into a role he had obviously excelled at before retirement. The man had plainly not been a paper-pusher, was actually having a good time being actively included with the good guys.

  Jensen knew what he was thinking, and it made sense.

  “You take them out one by one, sir,” he told Walker.

  “Absolutely, young man. Now I don’t want to take over your job, but I think I can make some suggestions that might help, if you don’t mind.”

  “Colonel Walker, I couldn’t mind less. I’m interested in neutralizing these guys, the faster, the better. Suggest away.”

  “Well, we need two things—three, really—but number two will hopefully take care of number three. First, we need to add support to our side. Second we need to start whittling down the opposition. And third, we need more weapons, but whittling them down one by one will give us theirs, I think.”

  “I think so too.”

  “It’s early, ten minutes till seven, and half the passengers are always late to breakfast. We’ve still got a chance to collect a few more recruits. Let’s start by waiting till that guard comes around once more, and we’ll take him out of operation. Then we can take care of the one there’s bound to be on the next deck up.”

  It was a good and simple plan. They agreed, and waited, Jensen listening with the door slightly cracked. In a very short time, he heard the guard come past and go through the door to the outside gangway, following the same route as before, with no imagination. As soon as he had gone through the door and his back was turned, they followed quickly, quietly, and hit him—McKimmey, around the knees, Jensen, at his waist, and Walker, grabbing his arms to keep him from reaching for the pistol he carried in his pocket. There was no one on deck. He hadn’t a chance. A deftly applied piece of duct tape, from a roll found in the purser’s office, kept him from crying out.