by Cindy Dees
It would’ve been easier to stuff all the hostages in a big room and put a few armed guards on them, but Michael had made it clear that such a plan would make a rescue by commandos that much easier. Better that any rescuers face the prospect of having to clear a thousand rooms, rather than having a single location to assault and liberate. He would’ve liked to have spread the kids all over the ship, too, but he just didn’t have the manpower to pull that off. Besides, what were a bunch of terrified mothers going to try with guns pointed at their kids? They knew better by now than to mess with him.
One of the kids’ staff members looked at him pointedly as though she wanted to ask him something, but as his cold gaze locked with hers, she looked down and moved away, clearly thinking better of it. Smart girl. The kids had decent food, clean water and working toilets. That was more than he’d had growing up.
Everything had been a struggle when he was a kid. His mother struggled to scrounge up the next meal for her family as his father drank away what little money she earned. God, Viktor had hated his mountainous home. It was too remote, too damned cold, too forbidding. He’d wanted out so bad he could taste it. Only after he’d been gone from his homeland for a decade or more had the itch to return finally caught up with him. But by then he’d been a wanted man living in semi-hiding in America. An outcast. A stranger in a strange land with no country to call his own. And that’s when the rugged beauty of the Pyrenees and the indomitable spirit of the Basque people began to call to him, when the dream of freeing Le Pays Basque had really captured his soul.
These kids on the ship could just shut up and be happy with what they had, the spoiled brats.
Aleesha supervised one last inventory of the gear piled in the middle of the supply locker. Standard complement of weapons, ammunition and explosives. Spare batteries for the radios—of which there were several state-of-the-art models to circumvent detection by the hijackers. A full surveillance kit with its parabolic mikes, telescopic sights, bugs and various electronic surveillance doodads. And then there was the miscellaneous stuff they’d need—food for a week, med kits and tool kits. Incongruous in the high-tech military gear was a pile of brightly colored, cruise-wear clothing: tropical beach print shirts and shorts, halter tops, bikinis, sweatshirts and even a couple of cocktail dresses. The Medusas had been helicoptered to the nearest inhabited island for a grand total of fifteen minutes earlier that afternoon to stock up on the civilian clothes they’d need to mingle with the passengers and observe the hijackers. She’d never shopped so fast in her life. They’d just grabbed the first stuff in the right size, charged it and run.
Hard to believe that they were actually going to do this. Adrenaline trickled through her system in spite of her best efforts to stay calm, and she felt jittery and on edge. But, given the importance of this op, she was probably entitled to a case of nerves.
“How are we looking, Mamba?” Vanessa asked from behind her, all business.
“Good to go,” she replied. “It should take about ten minutes to pack this stuff into the waterproof bags the SEALs gave us, and then we’ll be ready.”
“Let’s get it all bagged up, then.”
The six women went to work in silence. Aleesha glanced up from the med kit she’d just stowed in an oversize gear bag. Her teammates were moving a tad jerkily. Wired. But they also radiated quiet confidence. A hell of a group of brave women. She was proud to be one of them.
Vanessa glanced around at the team. “Anybody feel in need of a pep talk?”
Karen, the tall Marine, replied, “Nah, we know what we’ve got to do. It’s just another day at the office. No biggie.”
No biggie, indeed. Every one of these women had spent most of their lives working toward this moment. Their first official op as bona fide members of the Special Forces. Aleesha grinned and retorted, “Speak for yourself, girlfriend. I’ve never been on a cruise before, and I’m looking forward to working on my tan.”
Karen laughed aloud. “Wouldn’t that just toast Bud Lipton’s muffins if we ended up lying around in the sun by the pool, sipping piña coladas while making position calls?”
Aleesha’s grin widened. The guy would have a stroke. “Now what?” she asked as she zipped up the last bag.
Vanessa shrugged. “Now we suit up and wait for the final green light. Everybody get what rest you can.”
Aleesha reached for another gift from the SEALs—a hightech wet suit that was waterproof when exposed to moisture, but breathed like fabric when dry. It was a dull-gray color and felt like little more than a Spandex bodysuit against her skin. A very good toy indeed. She finished shimmying into her suit and sat down next to a gear bag to make herself comfortable.
She watched Vanessa keenly as her boss stretched out and leaned back against one of the gear bags. “How are you feeling, Viper? Any more queasiness?”
“Shockingly enough, I feel great. Those little pills of yours are magic.”
They were a great invention—an experimental drug that Uncle Sam had invented recently. They took about twelve hours to work fully into a person’s system, but once there, they defied anyone to get seasick. Aleesha had given them to the whole team, including herself, to take through the day in preparation for tonight’s fun. They couldn’t afford to have any of the team go down on this op. They’d be spread preciously thin as it was, trying to observe an entire ship with just the six of them.
The one drawback of her wet suit was that it had no insulation value when dry. The steel floor beneath her rear end was as cold as ice and she started shivering in a matter of minutes. At least the gear bag she leaned on kept her upper body a tiny bit warmer. Over the last month of training, she’d gained a rich understanding of the effects of hypothermia on the human body and how to manage those effects. Right now she might be cold, but she was far from dangerously chilled. Thanks to the SEALs, she knew exactly what that felt like.
She let the barely discernable roll of the deck soothe her into a semiconscious state. She used to lie on the deck of her father’s boat like this while the tourists tried their hand at sport fishing. It had been a good life, even though they hadn’t had much. Food had been tight, especially when the fishing was bad, and there was never extra money for luxuries like new clothes. She’d spent her childhood wearing haute Goodwill couture. But there had always been the grandeur of the ocean nearby, the beauty of blue skies and emerald forests beyond the squalor of the slums. Besides, the poverty of her youth had given her drive, an ambition to better her circumstances that she might not have otherwise had.
She started when Vanessa’s cell phone rang a few feet away, the sound hurling Aleesha into full consciousness before the first ring even ended. She sat up and watched her boss take the call.
“Blake here.”
A pause.
“Hi, Jack. Yup, we’re ready to go. Dozing on our gear bags in our wet suits.”
Another pause.
“Roger. Will do. You, too. Bye.”
Aleesha looked at her boss expectantly.
Vanessa said, “We’re green-lighted. Jack says to be careful and have fun.”
Fun, indeed. Aleesha grinned along with the others. Count on the man who’d trained them to know they could use a moment of comic relief to break up the prelaunch tension.
A seaman walked toward them quickly, looking self-important. He stopped in front of Vanessa and announced, “Your orders just came in. Helicopter’s cranking up on the deck right now. We’re ready to go if you are.”
The women jumped to their feet and hefted the gear bags onto their backs. Aleesha’s bag weighed roughly ninety pounds. As she settled its straps on her shoulders, she was grateful for the grueling hikes Jack had put them through carrying sixty-and seventy-pound packs on a regular basis. The good news was they didn’t have to go far with these babies. Just up one level to the flight deck.
When they got there, a helicopter was indeed waiting for them. They climbed into the guppy-fat Huey, wedging themselves in between their gear and
the bulky bundle that was the inflatable Zodiac they’d use to approach the ship. A crewman on deck gave them a thumb’s-up and slid the door shut. Seconds later, the helicopter lifted off, jumping into the air like a young hawk eager to test its wings. Sort of like the Medusas themselves, untried, but antsy to get on with it.
Here went nothing. Or everything.
The Huey climbed up several thousand feet in the air for the first part of the flight. The mission profile called for it to drop down to wavetop level as they got within radar range of the Grand Adventure. It wasn’t likely that the cruise ship would have its radar set high enough to paint aircraft, but they weren’t taking any chances and would come in completely under it. The helicopter would drop them off a ways away from the ship—well out of visual range—and then the Medusas would motor to the ship on the Zodiac.
The helicopter swooped low all of a sudden, plummeting toward the ocean like a rock. Aleesha’s stomach floated up around her throat somewhere, and she cast a concerned glance at her boss.
Vanessa yelled back over the thwocking of the rotor blades, “It’s okay. I love roller coasters.”
Dang, those pills really were amazing if Vanessa wasn’t barfing her guts out on this thrill ride. Aleesha nodded and tried to enjoy the ride as the helicopter dropped right down to the surface of the ocean and skimmed over the waves. She glanced out the tiny window set high in the door and looked away fast as she saw a wave practically level with her eyes. How they weren’t catching a skid in the water and cartwheeling to their watery deaths, she had no idea.
She glanced over at Misty, the Medusa’s token pilot. She had a beatific smile on her face as if this wild ride were nearly better than sex. Well, if the pilot among them wasn’t worried, things must be okay, then. But the contents of Aleesha’s stomach continued to hover uncomfortably near the back of her throat.
The sound of the rotors changed pitch, deepening and slowing to a more rhythmic thwock-thwock-thwock above their heads. One of the pilots leaned back and motioned for them to open the door. The helicopter had been too full with them and all their gear to allow for a crewman in the back, so they’d have to launch themselves into the water. Good thing the Army had trained them on that very maneuver. Funny how little things like that became a big deal in the field. Over the decades of its existence, the Delta Force had accumulated a detailed list of oddball training items that had come in handy on past missions. Although it took years to get properly trained in every skill, the Medusas had made a good start on the major skill sets already.
Karen slid open the side door and clipped the long line attached to their folded-up boat to the skid just outside. Isabella, Kat and Aleesha pushed the Zodiac out the door while Misty yanked the cord that detonated its compressed air tanks and inflated it. In seconds, a fully formed rubber dinghy, with a powerful outboard motor attached, bobbed in the rotor downwash outside.
Karen jumped into the water beside the boat, then climbed into it. She took the bags of gear as they were passed down to her on ropes. Then, one by one, the other women climbed out of the helicopter, balanced for a second on the skid, and jumped into the water. Finally it was Aleesha’s turn. She balanced carefully on the slippery skid as the rotor wash pummeled her worse than any hurricane she’d ever experienced. She slid the door closed behind her and latched it shut. She thumped her fist twice on the copilot’s window and then she jumped.
The ocean out here was viciously cold, unlike the warm coastal waters she was used to diving in. The helicopter above churned the waves into a seething cauldron, and it was hard to tell which way was up. How rich would that be if the Medusa’s divemaster drowned herself on her first operational water jump? She peered at the frothing bubbles around her and figured out which direction the majority of them were traveling. Following their dubious trail, she saw light just as she burst onto the surface of the water. She turned her head aside as the Huey peeled away, spraying her with icy needles of water in a two-hundred-mile-per-hour downwash.
“Over here,” she heard Karen call behind her.
She turned and swam to the boat in the now much calmer water. She flopped aboard the Zodiac and pulled off her face mask and fins. Well, that was fun. And the good times were just getting started. She sat up, coughed out the seawater she’d inhaled, and crawled on her knees to the motor. With a sharp tug on its starter line, the engine turned over, purring quietly and powerfully.
This Zodiac rode lower in the water than she was used to, a combination of their heavy gear and this being a new design with an even lower radar profile than the model they’d trained on. She pointed its prow to the west and squinted into the white-orange ball of fire shimmering on the horizon.
The last fiery remnants of the sunset faded into a mauve-tinted dusk. Darkness fell quickly once the sun slid behind the flat rim of the ocean, and night abruptly wrapped, thick and impenetrable, around them. They were running blacked out, and the world narrowed down to the next swell lifting them gently and setting them back down. They had about a thirty-mile gap to close before reaching the ship, which was running south across their current course. The plan was to take a couple of hours to catch the Grand Adventure. They didn’t want to board her much before midnight, when the ship’s passengers would be out of the way if the infiltration went badly. They’d had to make the helicopter drop before dark, though, because the only pilots at hand on the tender ship weren’t trained in Special Operations and couldn’t chance running at watertop level at night.
Navigating via a handheld global positioning unit, Aleesha more or less homed in on the Grand Adventure’s position. They cruised along for about a half hour, and then she pulled the radio out of her wet suit and put the earpiece in her ear. She transmitted a single beep on the preset frequency and then waited.
And waited. What was taking Bud so long to clear the frequency? She needed to get an updated position fix on the Grand Adventure. As big as it was, a cruise ship was a tiny speck in comparison to the expanse of water out here. It would be a bear to find her without current location information. Especially if she happened to change course again. Throughout the day, the Grand Adventure had made several course changes, sailing more or less in a giant circle and keeping the Navy hopping to stay out of its way and out of its radar range. Finally, two beeps came back. The frequency was clear and usable. Thank God.
She replied, “Hey, Boudreaux. It’s me. Wha’ appun, dude?” They’d agreed to keep their transmissions completely nonmilitary in case the terrorists had sophisticated radio frequency scanners with them. Once the Medusas got aboard, they’d be able to scan for such receivers and eliminate the possibility of the hijackers possessing sophisticated radios like theirs. But until then, she and Bud were stuck talking jive.
“Chillin’ out, hot stuff. What’s happenin’ wit’ you?” came back Bud’s drawled reply. “Hot stuff?” He must think he was really funny.
“Pinin’ for ya, babycakes,” she shot back. “Where you be, anyhow?”
“Guess. I’m about five minutes from you.”
The Grand Adventure had adjusted its course by five degrees, then. “Gimme a hint,” she cajoled.
“Down by de beach,” he replied.
Beach was their code word for west. Five degrees west. Aleesha squealed in outrage. “If you shackin’up at Janelle’s flop, I’ll kill you, I swear!”
Bud laughed, although the poor guy sounded taken aback. “With a firecracker like you hanging around, I’m too worn out to mess with Janelle.”
“You better be telling me the truth,” she warned. “If I fin’ out you cockin’ up dat bumboclot basement gal, I’ll Bobbittize you into a chi-chi boy.”
Now Bud really sounded back on his heels. “Me not dat horny nor stupid, baby. Run along now. And don’t you check up on me. Makes me look henpecked.”
“Henpeck this,” she retorted, and then she signed off. She adjusted her heading and pressed onward into the night.
Misty asked casually, “What’s a chi-chi boy?”
Aleesha shrugged. “It’s Jamaican slang for a gay man.”
Her teammates grinned while the evening’s silence settled around them, interrupted only by the low roar of the boat’s engine.
The temperature dropped gradually, but after a couple of hours of drenching salt spray and the thirty-knot breeze of their passage, she was getting damned uncomfortable. More of that lovely seventy-five-percent-boring action.
Every thirty minutes or so, she made a radio call to the TOC aboard the Roosevelt and her fake boyfriend Bud, aka Babycakes. Lipton alternately called her Sugar Mama, Chocolate Heaven, and her personal favorite, Pussycat—said with just enough R-rated innuendo to set her teeth on edge. He must think it was hilarious to call a Harvard-educated physician and trained killer “Lovemuffin.” She vowed to herself that the next time she saw him, she’d seriously make him pay.
The Grand Adventure turned due west a little before midnight, which slowed its forward speed by a couple of knots as it headed into a stiff breeze. Tropical Storm Evangeline was in the air. As a native islander, she felt it in the heavy humidity and rapid pressure drop and in the ominous gusts of wind kicking up the very swells that disguised their approach to the ship. In a few more days, nobody would want to be out on this stretch of ocean in any vessel smaller than a jumbo cruise ship.
A few minutes before 1:00 a.m., Kat spoke up from where she lay on the bulging rubber prow of the boat taking a turn at spotting. “I’ve got a light on the horizon.”
