by Cindy Dees
The general wasted no time in getting down to brass tacks. “In the last four hours, eight more lifeboats of passengers and three boatloads of crew members from the Grand Adventure have been recovered. That’s about one-third of the passengers and crew. And every last one of them is male. Looks like our hijackers are hanging on to the women and children.”
Her stomach sank. Not a good sign. It showed a fair bit of foresight to get rid of the people most likely to mount resistance. She asked tersely, “Where’s the Grand Adventure now?”
Wittenauer moved over to a map of the Caribbean tacked to one of the walls and pointed to a red push pin stuck north and slightly west of the Turks and Caicos islands. “Satellite imagery places the ship right here as of about ten minutes ago. Appears to be steaming south.”
“Destination?” she asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine. South America maybe. Could be any one of the islands within a couple-thousand-mile radius of her current position. The ship was fully fueled yesterday. She can sail for a solid week.”
Aleesha did some quick math. Say twenty-five miles per hour, twenty-four hours per day, for seven days—they were talking a range of four thousand miles or more. Ouch. The Grand Adventure could make it to Europe, and that was assuming she didn’t stop and refuel. Many of the small islands in the Caribbean were fully capable of refueling a ship her size. And with a lot of hostages onboard, it wouldn’t be hard for the hijackers to trade a few for a supply of fresh water, food and a load of diesel.
Aleesha listened in dismay as General Wittenauer continued. “As for what happened aboard her, it appears that roughly twenty terrorists, mostly Caucasian males, calling themselves L’Alliance de la Liberté, took control of the children at gunpoint yesterday afternoon and immediately parlayed that into control of the entire ship. They owned the bridge about five minutes after they first hit the kids.”
Even Bud Lipton whistled between his teeth at that one. These terrorists had been nearly as efficient as a Special Forces team would have been in the same situation.
Wittenauer plowed on grimly. “The crew put up no fight, with over four hundred children’s lives at risk. But, here’s the kicker. It appears the ship’s officers have been slaughtered to the last man. According to the Adventure Cruise Line, there were thirty-two officers aboard.”
Nobody said anything, but she noticed a whole lot of tight jaws.
Wittenauer sat down at the head of the table. “We believe the hijackers control all major functions of the ship. They have been in contact with no one, and we have no idea what they want or what they plan to do.”
She leaned back as Wittenauer fell silent. Wasn’t that special? Gotta love a world where hijackers flew their own jets and piloted their own ships.
A few minutes later an analyst stepped into the room and passed Wittenauer a piece of paper. The general glanced at it and remarked, “Still no word on where the children are being held. We don’t know if they’re being kept in a central location or if they’ve been dispersed throughout the ship. Assuming we don’t pick up any boatloads of women and children, it looks like around a thousand adult female passengers and a hundred female crew members are still aboard. So with the kids, we’re looking at roughly fifteen hundred hostages.”
Bud Lipton, who’d been doodling on a legal pad in front of him for the past minute or so looked up. “Weapons?”
Wittenauer shrugged. “Nobody so far has reported seeing anything beyond a few submachine guns, but that doesn’t mean the bastards don’t have more toys. Nobody’s alive who can tell us what they used to take over the bridge. Thing is, if they managed to get guns aboard, they could have just about anything else onboard, too.”
“Who’s going to run the op?” Bud asked.
Aleesha watched with interest as frustration and disgust warred in Wittenauer’s expression. “The political wrangling has already started. A little birdie told me the Brits want in on it, but we’re holding out for full control. Who the hell knows who’ll come out on top? We have no orders at this time. But we’ll ramp up for the op just in case.”
Bud nodded, his mouth curled down in disgust that mirrored the general’s.
A fax was passed to Wittenauer. “They’ve picked up another raft of crew members. This bunch is reporting that the ship’s hospitality officer—a woman—may still be alive. She was seized and dragged out of the ship’s theater before the other senior officers were shot.”
Aleesha leaned back in her chair. And now that hospitality director was the senior ranking officer in charge of the whole damned ship. That had to be a hell of a jolt to the poor woman. She was supposed to be commander-in-chief of shuffleboard and Bingo night, and now she was in charge of an entire highjacked ship.
And if that wasn’t a cosmic object lesson to her, she didn’t know what was. Aleesha’s blood ran cold as a single thought filled her mind. Thank God Vanessa was here to take charge of the Medusas. Aleesha so did not want to be the senior officer on her team if this thing went south. Coward, a little voice taunted in the back of her head. She ignored it. She was here, wasn’t she? A ship full of women and children was floating around out there somewhere, at the mercy of terrorists, and if there was something she could do about it, she would.
“Any guesses at what the Tangos’demands will be?” she asked.
Wittenauer replied, “Nope. They’ve turned off all communications, incoming or outgoing. Until they want to talk, or until we figure out who this Alliance de la Liberté is and what they want, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do.”
Bud Lipton leaned forward. “How are we tracking the ship?”
“We’ve got long-range radar off a tender ship about forty miles away from her. They’re trailing the Grand Adventure until other assets can be moved into position. The terrorists have turned off the IFF systems, but we’ve identified every other vessel in the neighborhood. It has to be them.”
Aleesha’d learned on the bridge of the destroyer yesterday—it felt like a lifetime ago—that IFF stood for Identification Friend or Foe. It was an electronic system that allowed moving vehicles like tanks, ships or airplanes to identify which radar blips were allies and which were enemies. Every country’s armed forces had them. Aloud she asked, “What has their track been?”
The general shrugged. “They turned from a southeasterly course to a heading of due south about an hour ago. Could be making a run for South America—could be a misdirection. They may just be sailing around in circles until whatever plan they have in mind plays itself out.”
“Does anybody have any idea who these guys are?” she asked.
“None. Nobody in our intel community has ever heard of them.”
By rights, she ought to be sitting here quietly and observing. This was the SEALs’ show. They were the experts on seizing naval vessels, and the Medusas were merely the trainees tagging along. By rights Vanessa should act as their mouthpiece. But someday they’d be the group on the hot seat, and Aleesha had to operate as if that day had come. And when had she ever held her tongue on account of military protocol? She asked, “Do we have blueprints of the ship? Any satellite imagery of her? Hell, publicity brochures?”
The general replied, “Working on it. The ship’s practically new and her owners haven’t gotten around to filing a set of blueprints with JSOC yet. We’ve contacted them and asked to have them faxed to us. But that could take a couple of hours.”
Sheesh. In a couple of hours everyone onboard could be dead. Although she doubted it. The hijackers wouldn’t have made a point of specifically keeping the women and children if they only had murder in mind. The hostages were a human shield for whatever the hijackers were really up to.
What would she do with a cruise ship if she were a terrorist? Scaring tourists away from that industry wouldn’t hurt anyone’s economy in a big way. It would be a logistical nightmare to retain control of something the size of a cruise ship and would require a lot of conspirators and a lot of careful coordination. Why n
ot just hijack an airplane or take over a day-care center if they wanted to kidnap kids? Why a ship? The one thing a ship had was its ability to carry gigantic payloads over long distances. So what were these terrorists planning to move? Her mind remained frustratingly empty of ideas.
Wittenauer interrupted her thoughts. “For the next few hours, we’re stuck cooling our jets while the situation unfolds. Go get some sleep. The folks here will work up some preliminary ideas, and I’ll call you when we get more information.”
She didn’t need to be told twice to sleep while she could. Rooms were already lined up and waiting for them in the Q—the visiting officer’s quarters. She stepped into her chilly, dark room, stripped and crawled into bed, physically tired.
Except her brain was having no part of sleeping. A niggle of doubt wormed its way into her head and wouldn’t go away. How nasty would this scenario get before it ended? Women and children dead? Terrorists obliterated? Thirty of the ship’s officers had already died, and this thing was just starting. A chill chattered across her skin. Grandmama would call it a ghost walking over her heart. Grandmama would also say it was the harbinger of bad mojo. Were the Medusas to get the call, could Aleesha board that ship and kill twenty men?
The mission was a no-brainer. Kill the bad guys so the children would live. But now, alone in the dark, she couldn’t dismiss the physician in her. She was trained not to judge, not to see beyond a human being in need of medical care. In her experience, even the most hardened criminal was a regular person beneath it all. They bled and hurt and were grateful for compassionate care like anyone else. So, who were these hijackers? Why had they done this? What cause had motivated them to such passion that they did something so clearly suicidal? With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she realized she needed to know the answers to those questions before she barged in and blew the guys’ heads off.
But she couldn’t just march up to them and ask. So where did that leave her?
With her finger on the trigger and a whole lot of doubts about pulling it.
Chapter 6
Viktor threw Michael off the bridge just after sunrise. “Go. Get some sleep. I need you to stay sharp. You are my secret weapon when it comes to handling the unexpected.”
Michael made his way wearily toward his room. Viktor was right. He did need to stay sharp. The last twenty-four hours had been more than a little stressful. And the fun was just beginning. Some secret weapon he’d been so far. Twenty-nine officers, two crew members and two passengers dead. Why he was keeping that macabre running count in his head, God only knew. Surely, by now, the powers that be knew what had happened aboard the Grand Adventure. Surely, somebody would respond soon and help him stop this madness. He’d shoot Viktor right now if it weren’t for the Americans. But that bunch was fully capable of continuing with the hijacking on their own.
The American team members still hadn’t located the three missing crewmen. Had they slipped behind the Americans as they cleared the ship or was the ship’s manifest wrong? Such mistakes did happen. Until they were caught or accounted for, Michael couldn’t let down his guard.
He drew his weapon and spun into his suite, checking every possible spot where a man could hide. Fortunately, in the compact confines of a ship, there weren’t many spots like that, even in a suite like his. All clear. He stretched out across the king-size bed and savored letting go of the tension in his muscles. This was the calm before the storm. He’d better enjoy it while it lasted, because when this thing blew up, it would go sky high. He tucked his MP-5 under his arm like a macabre teddy bear and let sleep claim him.
Lieutenant Colonel Jack Scatalone leaned across the conference table and stabbed off the speaker phone. He made eye contact with the man at the end of the table. Henry Stanforth, the President of the United States. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“By all means.”
Jack looked around at the cabinet members and members of the joint chiefs of staff. What was he doing swimming with these big sharks? He was an operator, for Christ’s sake. A little minnow compared to them. He didn’t play politics. That was Wittenauer’s job. Jack was just a field schmuck, a team leader who crawled around on his belly and shot stuff for a living. He never should’ve taken the job as Wittenauer’s aide.
But it wasn’t like the old man had given him a choice. He’d told Jack that if he was going to make general, he had to pull a staff tour and learn how to play the game in Washington. He didn’t give a crap about being a general, but Wittenauer had threatened to retire him from the teams if Jack didn’t play ball. So here he was, whether he liked it or not. In a White House cabinet meeting, for God’s sake. He sighed. A mission was a mission, be it hiding in a jungle or a command performance at the White House. He had his orders for today.
He spoke carefully, weighing every word. “The Brits are competent. And it is technically their ship. But we have ten times the assets nearby, and we’ve got resources that can get aboard the Grand Adventure unseen and stay unseen.” Jack shot a significant glance at Stanforth, who nodded his understanding. Jack was talking about the Medusas, and they both knew it.
The Assistant Secretary of State leaned forward. “If that was speaking freely, Colonel, you lost me. What resources are you talking about?”
Jack gave the guy a level look. No way was he blowing his girls’ cover. Only a handful of people knew of their existence, and it was his job to keep it that way. “I’m not at liberty to go into detail, sir, but I assure you, the Brits have nothing of the kind.”
The assistant secretary gave him the most diplomatic fuckyou glare he’d ever seen. Jack absorbed the look dispassionately and never let his own gaze waver. Within a few seconds the State Department weenie looked away. Not too many people won a game of chicken with one of the Delta Force’s most experienced operators.
Jack glanced around the table, inviting others to challenge him. He ended his survey with the president, conveying a silent reminder of their solemn vow to keep the Medusas’existence secret.
Stanforth’s mouth tipped up in a smile so fleeting Jack wasn’t even sure he saw it. Then the president cleared his throat and said sternly, “Thank you for the display of security consciousness, Jack. You can stand down now. Your secret weapon is safe. I’m not going to order you to reveal it.”
Jack nodded his understanding and deliberately released the tension lying across his shoulders. God, he hated roomfuls of politicians. It was at this level of government that most Special Forces missions got sent to hell, and good men—and women—got set up to die. Jack’s job was to keep these people’s noses out of the mission planning. If only they could be convinced to stand the hell back and let the experts figure out how to get the missions done, the world would be a safer place, and his teams’jobs would be a whole lot easier.
The conversation devolved into how to diplomatically break it to the British Foreign Office that the Unites States was taking over the rescue operation. Jack let it flow past him. Not his job. Let the politicians do what they did best, and he’d stick to what he did best.
He started when Stanforth asked him abruptly, “So what do you need from me?”
God bless Henry Stanforth. “Just a green light and a clear playing field for my teams, sir. We’ll take care of the rest.”
The chairman of the joint chiefs piped up. “That’s what JSOC is for. Coordinating between the services to make sure all the assets needed are available and in place in a timely fashion.”
“Then see to it the job gets done,” Stanforth retorted. He spoke into the intercom beside him. “I need to speak to the British prime minister. Now.”
At 9:00 a.m. Aleesha’s beeper went off, dragging her yet again from a deep, hard sleep. She popped up this time, though, alert right away. That beeper meant there was some sort of development in the Grand Adventure situation. She headed for the lobby and was startled to see General Wittenauer himself waiting for the Medusas. Silent, she and her teammates exchanged curious glances and followe
d him out to a waiting van.
“What’s the latest?” Vanessa asked as he pulled away from the curb.
“In the command post,” Wittenauer replied sharply.
Yikes. Something big had happened. And the old man didn’t like it one bit. They filed into the secure briefing room once more, and the SEALs were there, waiting for them. Wittenauer stalked to the head of the table as the Medusas took seats across from the SEALs. This time, there were also a half-dozen civilians in the room in addition to the uniformed men working the phones. Wittenauer introduced them briefly as some of JSOC’s senior intelligence analysts.
Wittenauer turned to face the group. “The Navy has picked up the last lifeboats and verified that every male over the age of thirteen is off the Grand Adventure. There are six men unaccounted for. We don’t know if they hid aboard the ship or if the ship’s manifest is wrong. But we are operating on the assumption that everyone who’s getting off that ship is already off it.
“The Navy sent an observation vessel out toward the Grand Adventure an hour ago. The second it got within twenty-five nautical miles of the ship, the hijackers broke radio silence just long enough to tell our vessel to back off or they’d kill a couple of kids.”
An observation vessel, huh? A nice euphemism for a spy ship rigged to look like a fishing trawler. “Any voice print analysis on the radio call?” Aleesha asked. A spy ship would surely be capable of such a thing.
“The bastard was American,” Wittenauer snapped. “And not under appreciable stress.”
American? She blinked in surprise. Wow. That threw a nasty wrinkle into things. The SEALs were going to kill Americans, were they? Great. Now all kinds of political maneuvering were likely. Would the president openly authorize the execution of Americans, even if they were terrorists? It would be a political hot potato either way.
