It was simple enough. They would fly out to the helicopter barge, take the boat from there to the ship, and infiltrate the ship. It was not a direct assault, it was an undercover operation. By the time security on the ship realized it, it ought to be a done deal. Much less likely there'd be any shooting this way, and less chance of civilians getting wounded by accident. A pretty clever idea, actually.
Though Michaels had planned to stay in Quantico and wait until it was over, Toni's failure to report wouldn't let him do that. Right up until the last minute, he was hoping she'd call, but she didn't. And he wasn't going to let his people and all their hardware go without him, not as long as Toni was on that ship.
It wasn't politically or tactically smart, but hey, hell with it, he was the boss. At least for now.
The line moved along easily, with a military precision. Michaels had to grin at that. The copter's crew wouldn't have any idea their passengers were all part of the same group. Jay's work had made them appear to be from all over the country, singles, couples, a trio of college friends, no reason to think they were anything other than tourists.
As he climbed the short flight of steps into the craft, Michaels heard two troopers, a man and a woman, talking to each other.
"So, this your first trip to Florida?"
"No, actually, my family used to vacation here when I was a girl. Of course, that was up north, a little town called Destin, near Fort Walton Beach."
"Wow. I had an uncle who was stationed at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola. Small world."
Other troopers talked, establishing their cover. Michaels felt a nervous twinge in his belly, a quick flutter. He found a seat, tucked his bag between his feet, and buckled himself in. John had lent him his body armor vest. It was folded into the bag, along with a plastic handgun and a com headset. Since he had no active role in the mission, Michaels was supposed to find a secure spot and stay out of the way until the ship was secured, but if trouble popped up, he'd be able to communicate and he'd have a weapon and some protection.
He hoped Toni was all right. Yes, she could take care of herself better than most people, but even so, she wasn't a superwoman. Something could have gone wrong. Probably it was nothing—weather, crowded flights, her phone on the blink, that was all. But he couldn't help worrying. He loved her. And if she was all right, he didn't care how much she hated it, he was never going to send her into the field like this again.
35
On the Bon Chance
Keller had checked the operations center and everything was fine. Well, as fine as it would get. Chance's hurry-up was going to cause big problems. His team was good, the best, but they couldn't walk on water. They were at eighty-five, eighty-eight percent readiness, and if Omega launch was tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to improve on that. He had them all running full blast, and as soon as he had a chance to take a shower, get into some fresh clothes, and grab a quick bite, he would be right back there with them. He hated this. He wanted ten-for-ten for his part, but eight or nine was going to have to do it.
Maybe Santos the sociopath and his team of mouth-breathers could take up the slack. Not Keller's fault if they couldn't. He had been given a timeline, he had kept to it. If they wanted to hurry him along, fine, but in that case, they couldn't bitch about his work.
The door to his cabin stuck. He had to wipe the keycard three times to get it to open. Just one more little glitch in his life he didn't need. He flipped on the lights, went into the bedroom, and sat on the bed. Took off his shoes, his shirt, and undershirt. He was reaching for his belt buckle when a woman said, "I think that's enough for now."
He jerked around so hard he nearly fell down.
A short little brunette stood there in T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes.
"Who are you? What are you doing in my room?"
"Nobody you know, Mr. Keller. What happened to you? You get caught in a riot?"
She nodded at his bruises, which had developed several different shades of brown and purple.
"I'm going to call security," he said.
She shook her head. "No, I'm afraid you can't do that."
He blinked at her. She was, what? Five two, maybe a hundred and twenty, twenty-five pounds? He took a step toward the cabin's phone on the bedside table.
Somehow, she got between him and the phone and shoved him. He was off-balanced by the little push. He fell on the bed.
Screw this! He might get mauled by a man like Santos, but he was not going to be pushed around by some little womanl He jumped up, intending to slap her silly. He swung his hand at her face, hard—
She ducked the slap, and hit him with a brick in the ribs! Before he could recover, she did something to his feet, tripped him, and he fell back on the bed again.
He lost it. All the suppressed rage he'd felt at being used and abused by Chance, at being assaulted by that trained ape Santos, at being attacked by a woman in his own room, it all exploded. He screamed and leaped at her. He was going to choke the life from her—!
He came out of grayness, puzzled. He saw a woman sitting next to him, watching him. Who was this? Where was he? His thoughts were sluggish, as though wrapped in sheets of lead. He hurt, more than he had before. He needed a pain pill, that's what he needed. Had he been in an accident?
"Sorry," the woman said.
Part of it came back to him. He was in his cabin, on the ship. He'd come here, to… to do something, and this woman had been here. She had attacked him. Hit him with a club. Where was the club?
"Wh-who are you? What do you want?" God, he hurt.
"It's not important who I am," she said. "But we need to talk. I need you to tell me all about what you've been up to."
A surge of depression broke over him. This sucked! He had been beaten by Santos, threatened with death. And now, he had been beaten by a woman! A tiny little woman! It was embarrassing. He was ashamed. He felt himself starting to cry. What had he done to deserve any of this? It wasn't right!
"It's all right," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "I won't hurt you anymore."
That really made things worse.
In the Air East of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The Sikorsky's intercom bonged: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. As you've noticed, we're getting a little weather here, and apparently the conditions are worse at our destination. While we could probably make it just fine, I'd rather not take the risk, so I'm afraid we're going to have to abort our flight and go back to Fort Lauderdale. Sorry for the inconvenience."
With those words, the big helicopter started a slow turn to port.
Howard sighed. Of course. It had been too easy. He looked across the aisle at Julio and nodded.
Julio unbuckled his seat belt, stood, then stepped into the aisle and headed forward.
One of the two flight attendants moved to intercept him. "Sir, please take your seat. The captain has the seat belt sign lit."
"I'm gonna puke," Julio said. He moved closer toward the flight control cabin, which wasn't far.
"I'll get you an airsickness bag, but you need to sit down—"
Julio said, "Sergeant Reaves?"
Reaves, a brawny man with a high-and-tight buzz cut, came up and grabbed the flight attendant, one arm pinning her arms to her body, the other hand covering her mouth. The woman tried to yell, but only a little sound got past the sergeant's powerful grip.
The second flight attendant, at the back, saw this and reached for an intercom mike, but a trooper caught her and sat her back in her seat.
Julio reached under his tails-out Hawaiian shirt and pulled his pistol, the old warhorse of a Beretta he carried, and hurried forward to have a little chat with the pilot and copilot.
A few seconds later, the helicopter turned back toward the southeast.
Howard looked at Michaels and gave the commander a little shrug. "Stuff happens," he said. "No problem."
Howard turned and motioned to his pilot to go forward. The man did. A minute later, Julio march
ed the copilot back and sat him in the vacated seat. His pistol was tucked back into its holster. He went back to his seat and buckled himself in.
"Everything okay, Lieutenant?"
"All systems green, sir. The captain has decided that cooperation is in his best interest, since our pilot is in the second chair with a gun and he's let the captain know he knows how to fly this thing. He wasn't ordered to turn back, it was his decision. ETA is thirty minutes. Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride."
A downdraft dropped the copter at that moment, a free fall that made them nearly weightless for a second or so. The fall stopped, and the craft shook as if it had bumped into something in the air. Howard looked at Julio.
"Think of it as a new and exciting ride at Disney World," Julio said. "The Upchucker."
On the Bon Chance
Santos looked at his watch and frowned. Forty-five minutes, and no sign of Mary Johnson. He had called and found that she had checked out, but the rain and wind were worse now, and they had shut down the commercial flights back to the Mainland, and according to their records, Ms. Johnson had not left yet. So she was here somewhere, and if she wasn't in her room, or in the casinos, restaurants, or bars, where was she?
Maybe she had found a lover? Was lying in bed letting the roll of the sea rock her and some lucky man into easy sex?
Well. It didn't really matter. Pretty soon, he would have to leave. Too bad.
His com rang. He pulled it from his belt and opened it. "Yes?"
Missy said, "Have you seen Jackson? He's supposed to be in Computer Operations and he's not."
"Haven't seen him," Santos said. And wasn't likely to, if Jackson saw him first. "You try his room?"
"He's not answering his phone, his pager, or knocks on the door."
"Maybe he's in a bathroom throwing up? Boat's moving some, and that Jackson, he's got kind of a weak stomach. So I heard."
"I doubt that."
"Or maybe he's getting himself a little pussy. I hear he likes that."
"Grow up, Roberto!" There was a short pause. "You'd better get going. The storm is getting worse, and you have to be on the Mainland."
"Don't worry about me, I'm not gonna disappear like Jackson."
He flipped the phone shut, tapped it against his other palm, then stuck it back on his belt. That was odd, that Keller wasn't around. He lived for his computers. Maybe before he took off, he should check Keller's cabin, make sure he hadn't had a heart attack or something.
Toni listened, astounded by the scope of the planned attack on the Internet. Keller, once he got started, was babbling like a man stoked on amphetamines, talking so fast he kept running out of air and had to suck more in big gasps.
Hacks. EMP devices. Men with guns and cable cutters. This was major. She was going to have to call Alex with this, it was too big to risk letting it get started. People were poised to do all this in a few hours, and authorities around the U.S., around the world, had to know.
Keller knew some of it, but not all. They needed to get the locations for attacks on the hardware, so they could stop them. Undoubtedly those were in the computers. Could Keller access those plans from here?
Yes, he could. He had his flatscreen. He could download those files. Would she like him to do it?
Toni smiled. This would justify her staying here! "Do it," she said.
It didn't take that long. When he was done, he burned the download into a mini-DVD and ejected it from the machine. "Here it is," he said.
Toni took it. She would call Alex, right now. If he wasn't on the way, this would be important enough to scramble a military copter and get help here. Toni said, "You did good, Jackson. Now just sit there for a minute while I make a call."
As she reached for the phone, somebody knocked on the cabin's door. No, not knocked, pounded on it, as if they were trying to punch a hole in it.
"Jackson! You in there, boy? Open up!"
Santos!
"No! No! Go away!" Keller yelled, before Toni could stop him.
Uh-oh. They were in trouble now—
Chance felt like a caged beast. She paced back and forth in her office. Where was Keller? Where was Santos? Why hadn't he left yet? Neither man was absolutely necessary at this point—the plan would go with or without them—but the lack of either would cripple things more than a little. Dammit! What was happening here?
In the Air
It was dark, the wind rocked the copter like a leaf blown by the winds of fate, and the rain was coming down pretty steady. Not a great night to be flying way the hell out over the ocean.
"There it is," Howard said.
Michaels looked through the window. A smear of bright light shined through the darkness. The helicopter barge. Past that, at least half a mile or so, he'd guess, was the gambling ship, also lit up like a Christmas tree.
Fernandez lurched back from the front of the copter, holding onto the seats as he came down the aisle, just barely able to stay on his feet. He got to them, sat, buckled up. "Landing is gonna be tricky," he said. "Our pilot wants to let the captain do it, it's his bird, he knows her better. The barge is rocking some, and their flight control doesn't really want to let us try it, but we have insisted—too dangerous to fly back, the captain said. They said we're gonna have to ride the storm out tied to the deck, 'cause they ain't running the transport boats, it's pretty choppy out there."
"It's a little far to be swimming in this weather, isn't it?" Michaels said.
Howard grinned. "Oh, I'm sure we can convince them to let us use the shuttle boat, if we ask real politely."
The copter dropped lower, spiraling in toward the landing barge. The deck didn't look very big from.here. Kind of like a postage stamp.
Michaels leaned back from the rain-streaked window. The helicopter bounced and jerked to the left, then back to the right, and caught another wind shear that dropped them like a stone so suddenly that his stomach tried to climb up into his mouth. Behind him, he heard somebody vomiting. Into a puke bag, he hoped.
"Hang on, folks," the captain said. "We're going in."
36
On the Bon Chance
Toni had, she figured, about two seconds before Santos came through the door, either by using a keycard or by kicking it down. He knew Keller was in here, no question.
But Keller was a quivering lump on the bed, curled now into a fetal position, hands over his face.
She had to get this information to Alex. And she didn't want to go one-on-one with Santos, not in a space as cramped as this cabin. Maybe she could take him. Maybe not. He was big, strong, fit, and trained, and she couldn't risk losing the data she had gotten from Keller. What to do?
The moment of panic flared, but then her brain started working. She realized that Santos didn't know who she was, or what she was doing in Keller's cabin. She could play that, but she'd have to do it fast.
She grabbed her shirt, pulled it off, then peeled off her sports bra. She held them in one hand, loosely covered her breasts, and hurried to the door.
• • •
Santos was having trouble getting the keycard override to work. He kept dragging it through the slot, but the little light stayed red. He was about to kick the door when it opened.
A half-naked woman stood there.
The secretary!? She was here with Keller^
What god had he pissed off that this man, this picaflor, was sleeping with two of his women? That was it. He was gonna kill the guy.
"Roberto? What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to Keller. He's supposed to be working. But I guess I can see why not. No wonder I couldn't find you."
"He's putting his clothes on," she said. "In there."
"Yeah, well, you wait right here. I got something for you." He cupped his groin, hefted it. "Bigger and harder than anything Keller has."
She smiled at him. Moved her hand with the shirt in it out of the way and took a deep breath.
Ah. Nice mambas.
Oh, yeah, this would
have to be quick, but he could do that. Get Keller out of here, pronto, and get back to her. Leave Missy with a little something to think about—he'd make sure Keller told her about it.
He was already halfway ready as he moved past her through the short hall toward the bedroom.
Toni ran. She sprinted as if she were trying out for the Olympic hundred-meter dash team. She passed a couple in the hall, saw the man grin at her. Well, a half-naked woman running down the hall was probably not something they saw every day. She didn't have time to stop and dress. By the time Santos realized something was wrong, she wanted to be far away. She had to find another hiding place, fast.
The rain slashed down like a first-class hotel shower with good water pressure, and the blue-and-white-striped canvas roof on the shuttle boat didn't do much to keep the people under it dry.
Michaels was soaked by the time he got on the craft, as were the other "tourists." The rain came in almost horizontally when the wind gusted. The spider silk vest he wore under his shirt didn't help anything.
Next to him, Howard yelled, "I've left the pilots watching the crews of the two birds and two other troopers guarding the barge crew. They just developed serious radio and com trouble."
The way the boat was bobbing up and down, pitching and yawing, the helicopter crews were the least of Mi-chaels's worries. There was enough light here to see the whitecaps and foam blown from the waves. He tasted salt then yelled, "Nice night for a boat ride!"
Whichever trooper was operating the engine cranked it up, and the shuttle, built to hold sixty people and only half full, moved away from its moorings against the barge. The motion got worse. Anybody who was prone to seasickness was going to be giving up everything they'd eaten for a month. Fortunately, that wasn't one of Mi-chaels's afflictions.
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