Cruise the Storm

by David Chilcott

  He went over to the bank of security screens on the wall. He could see several of them pictured the hijackers patrolling the public spaces. Then he spotted Bourne, looking over the rail on the open pool deck. He was watching the embarkation of the security men. And then, while the captain still watched the screen, Bourne lifted hi AK47, aimed it and sent a burst of gunfire at the departing tender. McBride watching over the captain's shoulder, drew a sharp breath: "That is evil," he said

  "You like our secret command centre?" asked the captain. "It was adapted from a suite a few years ago, when one rather public hijack showed the lack of a command centre was a handicap."

  "Where has Morton gone? As soon as he led me in here, he left without saying where he was going."

  "He'll be snooping around somewhere, I just left him on the bridge. He's got to prepare a report for the government shortly, so he needs to assess the situation. You guessed he's MI5?"

  "It was either that, or he owned the operating company."

  Chapter 24

  Up on the balcony of the highest suite on the ship Luciano Benvento was standing looking down on the pool deck. He had seen Bourne come on to the deck carrying what looked to Benvento like an AK47, and he had seen holidaymakers furtively leave the deck. He watched Bourne lean on the rails, looking down. Benvento saw what was engaging the gunman's attention.

  The ship's tender was just casting off, carrying a group of security men dressed in their quasi-police uniform. As the distance between the ship and the tender increased, he saw Bourne lifting the AK47 to his shoulder, and heard the rattle of a short burst of bullets. A man in the tender arched his back and slowly toppled into the water. He could see the blood clouding the water. It was a pointless act of barbarism.

  "Ehi, stupido. Cosa credi di fare?" snarled Benvento, and swung on his heel, returning indoors

  He called for his bodyguards, Aldo and Carlo. They came through to his drawing room, large northern Italian men, muscular, men who worked out.

  "You heard the speaker announcement, that these stupid people are attempting a hi-jack? Would you like to get involved, to free the ship of these clowns? If so, I tell the capitano you help him, because you have the only guns, probably, except for the hijackers, yes?"

  Exactly how Luciano got guns through the ship's security, one didn't need to ask. He was head of Stidda, the 5th Mafia in Italy, with links worldwide in the criminal fraternity. He was an old man now, in his sixties, a widower. Despite his age he had a trim figure, and passed for a man in his late fifties. Every year he followed a fixed pattern. In early September, which this was, he cruised in luxury from England round the Mediterranean. He rarely left the ship, except in Greece, a country he liked. He booked the best two suites on the ship, top deck, interlinking suites, his two bodyguards in one suite, himself in the other. Mostly he dined in his suite, and had the permanent use of a butler whilst on board.

  Luciano dismissed his men, and sat down at the desk. He plucked a letterhead from the rack on the desk and pulled his pen from his pocket. He rang for the butler, whilst putting the letter in an envelope and addressing it to the captain.

  When the butler arrived, he gave the letter to him with instructions that the captain was given the letter immediately.

  In the event, the butler presented the letter to the first officer, who was just leaving the bridge.

  The first officer pushed the letter under the door of the captain's cabin.

  In the control room, Morton was telling the captain and McBride what was happening, particularly on deck 5.

  "There aren't many passengers about, I can tell you. It seems that the hijackers have occupied the bar, as well as the lobby. They are busy moving tables over to one side of the room. My guess is that they are going to keep a selection of passengers in captivity, and execute them one by one if their demands are not met.

  "It does mean that they are going to come up with deadlines. We are moving rather rapidly into phase two."

  "Yes," mused the captain, "phase two. That is what they called it on the course. I've notified the owners, also put out a general message to ships in the area. There's a small container ship nearby, they are going to keep a watching brief from about four miles away. I daren't let them any nearer. You'll be pleased to know that they've picked up the tender. All crew safe, one man badly injured with bullet wounds. Stable condition."

  "Has the hijacker talked to the owners yet?" said McBride.

  The captain looked at his watch. "Not yet, about half an hour. We can listen in from this phone. But we know what the hijackers will say. We would be better off at this stage making some plans of our own. However, I have to say that the UK government might ask to participate. But there are reasons that they might avert their eyes."

  McBride said, "Surely not. There are a lot of British nationals on board, and it's a UK cruise. Surely the government will intervene?"

  "We're registered under a flag of convenience. Technically it's not a British ship. And a lot of the passengers are American, and mainland Europeans. They will dither, although eventually they may help, when it is too late.

  "It's two o'clock now. I'm going briefly to the bridge, and then for a snack. I suggest we meet back at four o'clock here, and try to thrash out some plans. John," he said to McBride "Don't leave this deck, we may be getting a call from the prime minister's representative, and they will need a summary of the situation, and the possibility of military intervention. You're the best man to ask." The captain looked at the CCTV near the door, and when the corridor was clear he left quickly.

  He made his way to the bridge. Both the hijack guards were leaning moodily looking out of the window at the open deck below them. The captain thought that the discipline was so lax that they might have a chance, guns or no guns. He got a report from the first officer, who was about to go off duty. He made a note of the position on the GPS. There was hardly any drift. He looked across to the horizon. He could make out the container ship, on station still.

  Looking down himself on to the pool deck, he saw that a few intrepid passengers were on deck chairs, sunning themselves. That was what attracted the guards, then.

  He made his way to the lift, and then straight for the main restaurant. Business was bad here, maybe only ten or twelve people in a room built to hold two hundred or more. Presumably everyone was eating in their cabins, which could be the worst place to be, certainly at these lower levels. Some time soon the hijackers would be culling the cabins, putting passengers into the bar on level five. He ate quickly observing covertly what was happening. He didn't see any guards.

  The speaker system hummed briefly and then Bourne was on: 'Captain to the bridge please'

  The captain waited five minutes before he rose to his feet and slowly made his way up to level ten.

  Bourne was on the bridge, fidgeting with the microphone. He glowered at the captain.

  "You took your time."

  "I was busy. What do you want?"

  "We just got a call from your boss. They're phoning back in ten minutes, which should be about now. They want you to hear what I'm going to say to them." As if on cue, the satellite phone rang. Bourne picked it up himself. Getting confident, thought the captain.

  Bourne held out the handset to the captain. "They want to speak to you," said Bourne grumpily.

  "Captain Moore speaking."

  "Hello, Geoffrey, how are things?" It was the chairman.

  "I've known better. But we're coping, so far."

  "You'd better put me on to the lad. See what monstrous amounts of cash he wants. Just before you do, I spoke to the prime minister's secretary, he is going to phone you on the scrambler phone in the command centre. Make sure you're there, okay? You can hand the phone over now."

  The captain held out the telephone in Bourne's direction, wordlessly.

  Bourne took it from him, put it to his ear. "As you know, your ship has been hi-jacked by the White Christian League. We need a ransom of twenty million pounds sterling paid
into an offshore account before we will release hostages. There is a time limit. From 2pm tomorrow, if the amount has not been paid, we will shoot one hostage every four hours."

  The chairman said, "Is that the end of the message?"

  "Yes."

  "You can telex your bank account details from the ship, but I don't think we can pay."

  "You will have to borrow the money"

  "Over the weekend? That is not possible. We would need a week to raise that kind of money. Wait a week, or reduce the demand."

  "One week? Then we will extend the deadline to three days. You will have to work quickly, you have the incentive."

  "I will speak to you tomorrow." The chairman put the phone down. It was a few seconds before Bourne realised that the line was dead. Then he put the handset down.

  By the time the captain returned to the command centre, Morton had received from head office via the scrambler phone the exact details of the conversation held between Bourne and the chairman. Morton greeted him: "Not bad at all. Bourne set a dead line of twenty-four hours, and your chairman has got that extended to three days, and no doubt he will be able to get another extension. This is all going very well. We are in phase three, don't you think?"

  The captain smiled. "Perhaps." He threw an envelope on the table. "I found this in my cabin when I called in. It's a letter from one of our passengers, a mafia boss, no less. He occupies two of our best suites. He has offered us the use of his bodyguards." He looked at Morton and McBride, "Two of them, and they have guns."

  "How did they get those on board?" said McBride.

  "I would like to know that, too, but I don't think now is the time to ask Signore Benvento. In fact I called by his suite, and told him we would accept their help. They are very muscular northern Italians. The guns are point 38 pistols."

  McBride said, "Quite useful."

  "I said we would have a meeting here on what we do next. We three will be in attendance, obviously. I would like our plain clothes security people in, too. I don't think we should invite our Italian friends at this stage. Too big a meeting, we'll never get any decisions. So I propose we confine the initial meeting to five people. We can have other meetings, or decide to have sub-committees. Would you like to take minutes, Mr Morton?"

  Morton nodded. The captain thought he would be used to meetings and taking minutes. He was a civil servant, when it came down to it.

  McBride said, "Aren't we waiting for Downing Street to phone?"

  "Yes, but that doesn't preclude us from getting started. I'll try and raise the security guys on the phone." The command centre had a handset that was connected to the ship system, apart from the GPS scrambler phone. The captain used the ordinary phone, and when he was speaking to his security people, the scrambler phone started ringing and Morton took it.

  "Morton speaking,"

  "Downing Street, I have the prime minister's secretary for you. Please hold."

  Morton held for maybe ten seconds and then a deep male voice said: "Victor Cross here, PM's secretary. Who am I speaking to?"

  "Michael Morton, MI5."

  "The prime minister is rather concerned about this hi-jack affair. He is toying with the idea of putting the military on the ship to deal with it. He has asked me to get a feel of the situation"

  "Well, there are twelve, we think, hijackers all with guns, established on deck 5, with two of them on the bridge, and others patrolling other parts of the ship. They have access to the speaker system in the reception area. We think they are preparing the bar on level five to hold passenger hostages. They have just extended their deadline to Tuesday, so that is promising."

  "I took the liberty of inviting a colonel from the SAS Regiment to Downing Street and he is sitting with me now. He would like to speak to you to familiarise himself with the situation. From there he will be able to advise the PM on the likelihood of success, where an intervention to take place."

  Morton said, "We have on board a retired captain from the SAS Regiment, and I can put him on the phone, if you wish."

  "Yes please, that would be useful."

  Morton called McBride over. "The PM's secretary Victor Cross has an SAS Regiment Colonel who would like to speak to you." He offered the phone to him.

  "John McBride here."

  "PM's secretary, I am putting you on to Colonel James Blair"

  "Hello, It's John McBride. Don't I know you? I seem to remember you as a lieutenant when I left ten years ago."

  "That's right. Well, well. Captain McBride. How are you doing? I keep seeing your paintings. Are you enjoying your new career?"

  "Yes, fine. You've been climbing the ladder fast, to Colonel in only ten years! Congratulations."

  "I have had some breaks. Wars help, as you know. Now, what can you tell me about the hijack?"

  "Well, it only started this morning. They dumped the ship's security guys off in the tender. They've been picked up by a container ship which is standing by, about two miles away.

  "The hijackers are using the reception area on deck 5 as their HQ, and their cabins are on that level, too. We've got an MI5 guy aboard, who tells me that they are altering the bar on deck 5, shifting furniture around. He thinks they are going to keep hostages there, prior to shooting them, if we don't meet their demands. He's probably right. The hijackers took guns aboard at Malaga. They must have a man working on the crew as kitchen porter, since the arms apparently came aboard with a cargo of fruit.

  "The guns are AK47s, I've identified them. Not too difficult since they're all walking around with them."

  "What about the ship layout?"

  "You need to get plans from the owners. It's only a small ship by cruise standards, about 38,000 tonnes; a crew of 400, passengers 600, if it's full, which I doubt. Probably there are 500 passengers, tops.

  "At the moment, we're not steaming anywhere, we're lying at … hang on, I'll get the GPS reference." He called to the captain, now off his phone: "Ship's position, Captain?"

  The captain reeled off the figures from memory. McBride said, "Have you got that, Jim?"

  "Yes, thanks. So where are you located on the ship?"

  We are on deck 10, in a command centre, the whereabouts are not on the plan, but about three doors down from the captain's cabin. It's equipped with CCTV monitors, desks, chairs, a scrambler phone that I'm on now."

  "What's the chance that I could get, maybe fifteen men on board without being seen?"

  "About zero, I would have thought. But we've got three days extension before they act, so they might get bored and sloppy over time. But as I say, they have two people on the bridge, twenty-four hour cover. The bar that they're using has a plate glass wall facing starboard. Most of their cabins face port, with glass balcony doors. I notice that there is a half moon at the moment. You will show up like a sore thumb."

  "Say we could board just before dawn, blacked up, rubber dinghy, rowing quietly. You have doors at sea level?"

  "Yes, up forward, double doors. They connect with a central corridor, running the length of the ship; but intersected with watertight doors, which are normally in the closed position."

  "But needn't be?"

  "Maybe not, I see where you are going here. There's a service lift from the crew quarters up to the reception area. Quite big, I should imagine, since they bring up dining trolleys and so on. Could maybe take five or six people, which could be the advance force. Yes, it could work."

  "Good man. I'll spend some time on the idea, look at a copy of the plans, and then tell the PM. If he's keen, we could fly in to Malta, and helicopter out to a cruiser, if the government put one close by, say a few miles away from you. Anyway, I'll speak to you again before then. Have fun." And he was gone.

  McBride put the phone down. Whilst he had been on the phone, two more people had joined the party.

  The captain introduced them: "John, I want you to meet our plainclothes security, Tony Brown and Annabel Berkeley. This is John McBride, ex SAS Regiment."

  McBride looke
d them over as he shook hands. Tony was early thirties, or even a bit younger, and looked capable of handling any problems. Annabel was younger, maybe mid-twenties, tall and looked as if she had done a lot of athletics.

  The captain had dug out the plans from a desk, and they now littered the table. "John, I heard you discussing things with the military in London. It sounded as though you both had a plan worked out."

  "I'm not too sure you could call it cut and dried, Captain." He waved his hand at the papers on the desk. "The colonel was all for landing on the boat. But that would only be possible if they could escape detection by Bourne's boys, and that's by no means certain. If they are spotted, there will be a gun battle that might end in scores of innocent people dead. If the colonel thought that was likely, as he must, then the PM won't allow it.

  "In other words, don't rely in getting any help. If we were Israeli nationals, then it would be different. They have a track record."

  "Right," the captain said, "let's get this meeting under way. Can you all sit round the table? Are you ready with the minute book, Michael?" Morton looked up, waved a notepad at him.

  "The first thing we should do is list our armaments. We have a couple of point three eight pistols, which our Italian gunmen will have. Then we have, what, a few tear gas grenades, Tony?"

  "Six, actually."

  McBride said, "Stun grenades would have been a lot more use."

  "We had tear gas for a different purpose. It can't be helped," said the captain.

  "Do you have gas masks for the gas?" asked McBride.

  Tony answered: "Two only. But I think the poolside shop sells goggles, it might help a bit."

  "It sounds pretty feeble, up against twelve AK47s, but if we attack suddenly, say from below, using the lift, and lobbing the tear gas out of the lift as the doors open, spread out with the two pistols firing, we could give the impression of a much bigger force. If some of the terrorists panic, we might grab a couple of their rifles." McBride looked at them, "So not all is lost."

  "In fact," said Tony, "if we have a couple of crew, one up each staircase from the lobby, and they throw a grenade each, it really will look like a large attacking force." He glanced nervously round the table, his youthfulness making him shy at contributing suggestions.