Ben glanced at the plastic carrying wallet that had contained Josh’s mobile. The hijacker who’d taken Josh’s phone had ripped the phone from the slim wallet, looking for cash or credit cards, knowing that people sometimes slip these into their phone wallets. Josh had in fact been keeping his Ocean Pass in the phone wallet. The hijacker had cast wallet and Ocean Pass to the floor, and Ben had later picked them up and put them on the bedside table. An idea was forming in his mind. Taking up the empty phone wallet, he slipped it into his pocket.
‘Josh, I want you to stay here in the cabin,’ he said, moving to the door.
‘Dad, where are you going?’
‘There’s something I need to do. I won’t be long,’ Ben promised.
‘Weren’t we supposed to stay in our cabins? What if they catch you?’ Josh asked with growing concern.
Ben smiled. ‘They won’t. I’m trained not to get caught. You wanted me to do “Special Forces stuff”, and now I’m doing it. Just trust me – I won’t be gone long. But under no circumstances are you to leave this cabin.’ He waved a cautionary finger at his son. ‘Have you got that, Josh? You don’t leave this cabin.’
Josh nodded. ‘Okay. Just don’t be too long, please, Dad.’
‘Roger to that. Sit tight.’
Ben opened the cabin door and poked his head out into the corridor. It was empty and quiet. He closed the door behind him with care so that it made no noise. Walking on the balls of his feet, he moved silently along the corridor and reached the forward lobby. Bypassing the lifts, he went to the stairs and quickly ascended to Deck 4. Padding through the deserted Delta shopping mall, he came to the Hub. There was still no sound and no sign of life. Keeping close to the wall, he edged into the Hub. Ahead of him he saw the dance floor. Several mobile telephones lay in the middle of it. Obviously, more than one passenger had been hanging onto their phone.
There was movement on the other side of the Hub. Pressing back into the shadows, Ben watched as a woman of fifty or so, wearing a bright floral dress, walked uneasily to the centre of the dance floor. First looking all around her, she bent and placed a mobile phone with the others. The woman then straightened and scuttled fearfully back the way she had come.
Ben continued to wait and watch. Soon, a young man in his twenties arrived to drop a phone with the collection, before hurrying away. Ben waited another ten minutes. No one else came. The thirty-minute deadline was ticking closer. Hearing a cough from above, he looked up to see two hijackers on an internal balcony on Deck 6. One of them had a shiny shaven head and was looking down. Both hijackers were armed with AKMs and were obviously stationed up there to keep an eye on the depositing of mobiles.
Taking Josh’s mobile wallet from his pocket, Ben quickly moved out into the open and walked to the little collection of phones. He turned so that his back was to the pair of bandana-wearing thugs above, preventing them from getting a good look at his face. Ben then squatted and placed the phone wallet with the collection. In the same movement he deftly took up one of the phones and held it close to his leg. As he stood up, he casually slipped the phone into his right trouser pocket. He had acquired the phone with the skill of a magician. With a hand in his pocket, he sauntered from the Hub. No challenge came from above. As Ben had hoped, the hijackers had failed to spot the switch.
Chuppa took the lift down to Deck 4 and ambled onto the Hub’s dance floor. Looking up, he could see his colleague Arturo up on the Deck 6 balcony, where Chuppa had been for the past half-hour. Slipping his AKM over his shoulder, Chuppa knelt to collect the mobiles. As he swept phones into a rubbish bag, he counted seven of them.
‘Stupid people keeping their mobile phones,’ Chuppa muttered to himself.
When he encountered Josh’s mobile phone wallet, he frowned momentarily. His mind ticked over as he processed what this might mean. Chuppa had kept a vague count of the number of people who had left mobile phones here. He thought that the number was eight. But he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was seven and he hadn’t counted correctly, he told himself. But what would explain the empty phone wallet? Not possessing the imagination to suspect that someone had done a neat switch, he decided that the wallet must have slipped off one of the seven phones. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed the wallet towards a nearby rubbish bin. It flew in through the bin’s opening without touching the sides.
‘Goal!’ he exclaimed with satisfaction. He glanced up to see if Arturo had witnessed his marksmanship, but Arturo was looking the other way. Chuppa took the walkie-talkie from his hip and flicked the ‘transmit’ button. ‘Hey, chief, are you there? This is Chuppa, on Deck 4. We got seven phones down here.’
Ricardo was surprised. ‘Seven? Such stupid people, not handing them over before. Okay, dump the phones with the rest.’
Sitting glumly on the end of his bed, Josh looked up as his father slipped back into their cabin. Relief washed over his face. Springing to his feet, he embraced his dad.
‘I thought they must have caught you,’ he said. ‘It felt like you were gone forever.’
‘It’s okay now,’ Ben said. He triumphantly held up the mobile phone. ‘And we’ve got this.’
Josh looked at what his father was holding and his eyes widened. ‘Awesome! How did you get that?’
‘A little sleight of hand,’ Ben said with a smile. ‘But we don’t tell a soul we have it. Right?’
‘Absolutely. Are you going to call GRRR?’
Ben nodded, already keying in the top-secret number he knew off by heart.
In the Coast Guard drill hall, the eleven GRRR men sat in a circle with Liberty Lee and Alex Jinko. The Australian intelligence officer had obtained a pile of information about the Cleopatra from the Kaiser Line’s head office in Athens. Keen to do everything it could to end the hijack, Kaiser had emailed him the passenger manifest, a crew list and plans of the ship. It had also volunteered to send one of its off-duty captains to advise GRRR. Jinko had printed out the ship’s blueprints and handed them around.
‘Gentlemen,’ Liberty began, ‘the tactics for this operation will need to be carefully worked out. This is new ground. Never before has an entire cruise ship and its three thousand passengers and crew been taken hostage. If stealth were not required, insertion could be by helicopter.’
‘Even Caesar is experienced at that,’ Jinko said with a smile.
‘But stealth is needed. If insertion can be made at night, a HALO drop might be considered, even onto a moving ship. But the safe landing areas on the Cleopatra for a parachute drop are extremely limited. We need your suggestions, gentlemen. How do we get the team aboard the Cleopatra in the middle of the ocean without being seen?’
For over an hour, those sitting in the circle tossed around ideas on how to approach the problem. Chris Banner, whose prime operational environment was the water, was keen on using small boats to deliver the team to the Cleopatra. This would involve scaling the ship’s sides. The first natural opening was at Deck 4, the Boat Deck, and reaching that from sea level was the equivalent of climbing to the top of a five-storey building. There was the added difficulty of the ship being underway, involving ship and sea movement. Worse still, to reach Deck 4 by climbing up the ship’s side, team members would have the hard task of avoiding being spotted through the portholes that lined several decks. Only by climbing the ship’s stern, where there were no portholes, would this problem be solved. But how would the team get close enough to the ship to climb its stern without being spotted on their approach?
Around and around the conversation went. Duke Hazard had earlier pushed landing by parachute, a high altitude low opening jump, and he returned to the subject once again. ‘HALO worked like a charm in Antigua, didn’t it?’ he persisted.
‘As I pointed out before,’ Jinko responded, ‘the only place on the ship even remotely suitable for a parachute landing is in the bow area and that would be in full view of those up on the bridge. The element of surprise would be lost.’
‘What about here?’ Hazard sugges
ted, tapping the page in front of him. ‘The second, smaller pool, on Deck 10.’
‘You want to land in the pool?’ Jean-Claude said.
Hazard shrugged. ‘In the small print it says there’s a retractable roof over that pool, pal.’
‘He’s right,’ Jinko said, studying the plan carefully.
‘So, if the pool roof is closed,’ Hazard said, ‘we might get one or two of our guys onto that by parachute. I’m guessing it’s a flat roof.’
‘If the roof is closed,’ Willy cautioned.
‘We’ll get the EITS to focus on that as soon as it’s in position, and establish the position of the retractable roof, and whether or not it’s flat,’ Jinko said.
‘Even so,’ Liberty said, ‘there would be a very small margin for error landing on that retractable roof. Only one man at a time could land on it.’
‘So, what if we put one man aboard first, to collect a wee bit of intel before the rest of us go in?’ Angus suggested. ‘So we know what’s what.’
‘And that bloke could try linking up with Ben,’ Baz said hopefully.
‘That man could pose as one of the passengers,’ Charlie said, thinking aloud. ‘I could do it and coordinate everything from on board the ship. Caesar could jump with me – that would solve the problem of getting him aboard.’
Around the circle there were interested looks and nodding heads.
‘You’d need a disguise of some sort,’ Jinko said. ‘Something that makes you look innocuous, so hijackers don’t give you a second glance.’
‘Charlie could leave his legs behind,’ Baz joked. ‘You wouldn’t look like a threat to anyone then, mate.’ This generated laughter around the circle.
‘Wait a minute,’ Charlie said, as an idea formed in his mind. ‘That’s not such a silly idea after all.’
Jinko raised an eyebrow. ‘What, remove your prosthetics?’ he said. ‘Really, Charlie?’
‘Only temporarily. What if I were in a wheelchair and could somehow conceal my Zoomers under the chair, within easy reach so I could get them out in a hurry when I had to? No one would consider me a threat, sitting there without legs.’
‘Take a wheelchair with you when you jump?’ Casper said, frowning.
‘No, a big ship like that would have a sick bay on board,’ Charlie said. ‘With so many elderly passengers, I bet they’d have a fold-up wheelchair or two in that sick bay, just in case.’
‘That makes sense,’ Angus said.
‘We can ask the Kaiser Line representative when he arrives, just to be sure,’ Liberty suggested. ‘But tell me, Sergeant Grover, could you handle Caesar from a wheelchair?’
Charlie smiled nostalgically. ‘You bet I can, ma’am. A few years back, when I was in a wheelchair recovering from my wounds, Ben loaned Caesar to me to act as my care dog. I taught him a hundred hand signal commands. We went everywhere together. I haven’t told many people this, but one morning, when Caesar and I went out for our regular walk together, my wheelchair was clipped in a back street by a speeding car. I was sent flying and landed badly. I was knocked out.’
‘Crikey, Charlie!’ Baz exclaimed. ‘You never told me about that.’
‘That was when I was hoping to get back on SAS ops, before I got my Zoomers and before I did the SAS selection course all over again to prove I was up to it,’ Charlie explained. ‘I didn’t want the brass to know. How would I convince them I was capable of going on ops again when I’d been laid low by a passing car? So I only told Ben about it and I made him swear not to tell anyone.’
‘Caesar sure wasn’t going to tell anyone about it,’ Baz quipped.
‘So, you were knocked out of the wheelchair?’ Angus asked.
Charlie nodded. ‘I was out cold and lying in the street. There wasn’t anyone around, so Caesar went looking for help. I heard later that he went to the doors of houses in the street, barking to attract attention, but at that time of day the only people at home were oldies and they were frightened by this big dog barking on their doorstep. But Caesar didn’t give up. He went to a cafe at the end of the street and got a couple of people to follow him to where I was lying. They called an ambulance.’
‘No lasting injuries, Charlie?’ McHenry asked. ‘No skull fracture, or anything like that?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘Apart from a concussion, which cleared up in a week or two, I was fine.’
‘And our wee Caesar saved you,’ Angus said. ‘You might have been run over, lying there in the street unconscious, if he hadn’t brought help.’
‘Exactly,’ Charlie agreed. ‘In theory, Caesar saved my life that day.’
‘We all know that Caesar is a wonder dog, Grover,’ Duke Hazard said gruffly. ‘What’s your point?’
‘My point is, if Caesar is with someone he knows and trusts, and who understands him, he is capable of operating almost autonomously – whether I’m in a wheelchair or not.’
Liberty was nodding. ‘It all depends on whether there is a wheelchair in the Cleopatra’s sick bay,’ she said.
At that moment, as if on cue, the drill-hall door opened. A Coast Guard chief petty officer stuck his head in. ‘Sorry for interrupting, Captain Lee, ma’am,’ he called, ‘but I got a Captain Valenti here. Says he’s supposed to be advising you.’
Liberty looked at him blankly. ‘Captain Valenti?’
An olive-skinned officer wearing a peaked cap, white tunic, black trousers and highly polished shoes stepped into the drill hall. ‘Capitano Silvio Valenti, of the Kaiser Cruise Line, at your service,’ he said with a strong Italian accent. He snapped a salute. ‘I was ordered to report to you, to advise on the Cleopatra.’
A smile lit up Liberty’s face. ‘Of course. Please, Captain Valenti, come and join us.’
‘You’re just the man we need,’ Jinko remarked.
‘The man with the inside knowledge,’ Charlie said.
Valenti strode across the drill hall and introduced himself to everyone in the circle, shaking hands and giving a little click of his heels each time.
‘Pull up a chair,’ Jinko said.
‘We have several questions for you, Captain Valenti,’ Liberty began. ‘First, when the retractable roof over the smaller swimming pool on Deck 10 of the Cleopatra is in place over the pool, is it flat?’
Valenti nodded. ‘Yes, perfectly flat.’
‘Good,’ Jinko said. ‘If the roof is in place, we have a DZ for you and Caesar, Charlie.’
Captain Valenti looked at him, mystified. ‘Excuse me, what is a DZ?’
Liberty, focused on her second question, ignored his query. ‘We also need to know if there is a sick bay aboard the Cleopatra,’ she said.
‘Of course there is a sick bay on the ship, Capitano.’ Valenti seemed offended by the suggestion there wouldn’t be. ‘It is standard practice. It is on Deck 1 of the Cleopatra. There are also doctors and nurses to attend the sick persons.’
‘Are there wheelchairs in the sick bay?’ Charlie asked.
Valenti looked at him as if he were mad. ‘But of course! The sick bays of our ships are all very well equipped.’
‘The fold-up kind of wheelchair?’ Baz asked.
Valenti nodded in Baz’s direction. ‘They fold, yes, to save space when not being of use.’
‘Bingo!’ Baz said. ‘After the HALO, all Charlie has to do is get from the Pool Deck down to Deck 1 without being seen, to get the wheelchair out of the sick bay.’
Valenti frowned. ‘Is someone hurt? Why are you requiring a wheelchair, please?’
‘We’ll tell you what we have in mind a little further down the track, Captain,’ Jinko said.
Liberty’s phone began to buzz. Excusing herself, she lifted her mobile and looked at the screen. She didn’t recognise the caller’s number. On the off-chance it might be something important, she answered the phone. ‘Sergeant Fulton?’ she responded, when she recognised the caller’s voice, her own voice exhibiting a mixture of surprise and delight. ‘Are you and your family all right? We are discussing how to
help you at this very moment.’
At the mention of Ben’s name, all eyes in the room turned Liberty’s way and conversations ceased abruptly.
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Ben said in a hushed voice. The television could be heard in the background. Ben had deliberately turned it up so that anyone in the corridor wouldn’t be able to overhear his conversation. ‘Has GRRR been activated?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Liberty replied, running to grab a notepad and pen. ‘We are mounting an operation to secure the Cleopatra. Tell me all you know about the hijackers.’
‘The number of hostiles is unknown,’ Ben began. ‘To control a ship of this size, I would suggest there are at least a dozen of them, probably more. Those I’ve seen appear to be Hispanic. They’re armed with AKs, grenades and have plenty of extra ammo on them. They’re well disciplined – maybe ex-military. Their locations are unknown. All passengers and crew are confined to their quarters and are taken to the dining room in small groups throughout the day. No casualties as yet that I know of. The ship is underway at reduced speed.’
Liberty scribbled furiously, taking it all in. ‘Any indication from the hijackers about where they are taking the ship?’ she asked.
‘None, ma’am.’
‘Would you make a guess?’ Liberty pressed.
‘No, ma’am. Not enough information to work with.’
‘Have they threatened to kill passengers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have they informed you that they have set a deadline?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘They want the Cuban Government to step down and have demanded a ransom of two hundred million dollars to be delivered in roughly forty-eight hours.’
‘Is that all?’ Ben joked. ‘What are their chances?’
‘The Cuban Government has, of course, refused to step down. The cruise line is looking into raising the ransom money, but the Secretary-General is opposed to paying ransom to terrorists.’
‘How do the hijackers propose to get their hands on the money?’ Ben asked.
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