B00447820A EBOK

by Mack Maloney

  “We did see something weird out there,” Batman told him. “We’re just not sure whether it means anything or not. I mean, let’s face it: those woodcutters could be over on South Beach right now, paying for the boom-boom. Or maybe they’re sleeping with the fishes. Or living on Mars. Who knows? It’s strange.”

  Ramon took the bills, counted them out, and then put them in his pocket.

  “Like I tell you, mon, lots of things are like that out here,” he said after blowing out a lung full of smoke. “Some things more stranger than others.”

  “Like what?” Nolan asked him. He couldn’t resist.

  Ramon pushed back his dreadlocks and said, “Like that submarine I found.”

  25

  SEAL TEAM 616—plus one—had spent most of the daylight hours on a remote island at the end of the southern Exuma chain, not far from Cat Cay.

  They had dashed here under the protection of the rainsqualls after completing the Persian Breeze boarding. The perfect hiding spot for the Sea Shadow, the team had told Crash they’d used this place frequently during past ops in the Bahamas. The island held a sheltered inlet on its eastern side with lots of strangler figs on every bank. These overhanging trees provided enough camouflage to cover the stealth boat.

  Crash slept on the beach throughout the afternoon, exhausted after his recent adventures. The other team members napped as well, a typical upside-down day for them. The men of Team 616 were primarily creatures of the night; there was no doubt about that now. They moved silently, through the shadows, atop the waves, just another weird thing cruising around in the Bermuda Triangle these days.

  It wasn’t until the sun started to go down that the crew returned to the IX-529 and prepared to take to the seas again.

  In the ship’s control room, Commander Beaux unfurled a set of plans on the lighted table. They looked like designs for a skyscraper; in fact, Crash had to use the video camera’s wide-angle lens to capture it all. Only then did he realize he was looking at the drawings from the wrong angle. Once he scanned the designs horizontally, it dawned on him that he was looking at the schematics for a cruise ship. A gigantic one.

  “This is an actual ship?” Crash asked.

  He could see hundreds of cabins, restaurants, swimming pools, typical features of modern cruise liners. But this ship also had things like a pool where people could surf, a twelve-story rock-climbing wall, art galleries, movie theaters, huge casinos, a concert hall, even its own symphony orchestra.

  “It’s called the Queen of the Seas,” Commander Beaux said. “It just started cruising the Caribbean a few months ago. It can hold almost 4,500 passengers, and there’s about the same number of crew.”

  Crash was astonished the ship was so big.

  “Bigger than the Titanic,” Ghost said.

  Crash laughed. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

  “You’ll get a chance to judge for yourself,” Commander Beaux told him. “We all will.”

  Crash was confused. “You mean?”

  Beaux nodded. “It’s our next mission point,” he said. “This is the biggest target floating around the Caribbean at the moment. And from what we can tell, they have zero in the way of worthwhile security. There could be undesirables running all over that ship right now. Or, all it would take is one passenger, or better yet, one member of the crew to help four or five people aboard—and, boom, you’ve not only got a huge pirate problem, you’ve also got a huge hostage problem. Considering what’s happening out there right now, and the fact that this behemoth is fairly close by, I’d think we’d be remiss if we didn’t look into it.”

  Crash just shook his head.

  Wait ’til Whiskey hears about this.

  * * *

  LESS THAN AN hour later, the IX-529 was under way, beginning its pursuit of the massive cruise liner under a clear, star-filled sky.

  Crash was riding up top in the open hatch as the ship left its protected spot in the cay’s tiny inlet. He was serving as the vessel’s lookout; his job was to yell down to the control room should they have to avoid anything nearby, especially other vessels.

  Finding the Queen of the Seas wasn’t any harder than punching up Google on the Sea Shadow’s main computer. The massive cruise liner had just left its Fort Lauderdale base of operations two hours before, heading for an overnight cruise to Puerto Rico.

  The SEAL team was just forty miles to the north—and thus started a dash that got them up to nearly fifty knots, with the vessel’s power plants working full out for the first time since Crash had hooked on with 616. He thought the Dustboat could move well atop the water. With the Sea Shadow’s engines at all ahead full, he felt like a ghost flying above the water. Silent. Stealthy. Invisible.

  It might have been the most exciting half hour of Crash’s life.

  * * *

  THEY SPOTTED THE huge cruise liner just south of Hollywood, Florida, in the process of turning southeast, toward Puerto Rico.

  It was now almost 8 P.M., and with no moon, it was perfectly dark for 616 to do its thing.

  Ten minutes of intricate maneuvering followed, this while Crash kept lookout on top of the mast, Smash, Elvis and Ghost monitored the IX-529’s battery of exterior video monitors, and Beaux and Monkey steered the ship. All the pieces fell together, and they were soon riding in the cruise liner’s wake, heading to a particularly dark part of the seas.

  There was no need to use the SDV this time; in fact they’d left it behind, hidden in the small inlet. After Smash drew the short straw on who would have to stay onboard the Sea Shadow, the four remaining 616s, plus Crash, scrambled aboard the massive ship using their rope ladder hooked on to the service balcony at the bottom of the hull. They were all dressed in tourist wear, clothes that 616 for some reason already had on board. These duds were so bad—they all wore white belts and white loafers—they were guaranteed to mix in smoothly with the 4,500 passengers currently on the ship.

  Once aboard, Elvis volunteered to stay near the service balcony, a laser designator in hand. Using this device, he could stay in touch with the Sea Shadow, which was soon riding about a half-mile off the cruise ship’s massive stern, and signal it when it was time for the team to leave.

  The other four moved on, stealing into a hallway and then blending in beautifully with the other passengers. Crash was videotaping as always. Ghost, being the electronics wiz of the group, was carrying his small toolkit in a beach bag, along with a laptop.

  They walked the length of the ship, mostly on the sixth deck, which was the main deck. It was fantastic in all respects. It literally had neighborhoods—groups of stores, eateries, businesses and attractions, all claiming little corners of the massive concourse. There was a re-creation of New York City’s Central Park, with plants and trees and paths and a small lake, complete with rowboats. One restaurant could raise and lower itself three entire decks. There was a sports zone that included two surf simulators, a huge pool and a baseball field.

  A place called Boardwalk featured a carousel and dozens of restaurants, bars and shops. Crash even spotted a tattoo parlor, causing him to think: Who would get a tattoo while on a cruise ship? There was also a large outdoor theater and another enormous swimming pool.

  They finally reached the front of the ship and used an elevator to get all the way back down to the lower deck. From here, they took a stairway to the very bottom of the vessel, which was strictly a service deck. Following the plans Commander Beaux had secured from somewhere, they found a room marked “AV Central.”

  They picked the lock, slipped inside and secured the door behind them.

  The room inside was a jungle of wires, power cords and AV junction boxes. Crash continued videotaping as Ghost somehow picked out one huge control panel among many. With admirable dexterity, he unscrewed the panel cover to reveal a fantastic array of coaxial cable and tiny LED bulbs.

  It looked like an incredibly complex slot machine—all flashing lights and spinning numbers.

  “This s
hip’s got more TV monitors than Mission Control,” Ghost said. “But this is definitely the main buss. Everything branches out from here.”

  As Monkey watched the door, Ghost studied the spaghetti swirl of cables, located a thick yellow one and traced it down to the bottom of the panel. He took some clip connectors from his toolkit and, with the hand of a surgeon, squeezed them so the points would pierce the yellow cable. He waited a moment; when the power lines didn’t short circuit, he let out a whistle of relief.

  “Glad we didn’t blow a fuse here,” he said directly into the video camera. “Might be hard to explain.”

  For the next five minutes, Ghost fiddled with the small laptop, which he had interfaced with the clip connectors. He explained that the numbers flashing on the laptop’s screen represented every camera and monitor on the huge ship. He was collecting information on each one of them, letting it all drain into his laptop. Once this was done, he attached a small black box to the clip connectors and stuffed everything back into the panel.

  Then Ghost took out his BlackBerry, pushed a few buttons, made a few adjustments and showed the screen to Crash and the others. Incredibly, they were looking at a live video image from the Central Park section on the ship’s sixth deck. Ghost pushed another button, and now they were looking at the surf park. Another push and they were inside the ship’s casino. Another push and they were looking out on the bridge of the super ship, which looked like a Star Trek movie set.

  Just like that, Ghost had wired the entire ship so that 616 could see whatever the people running the cruise liner’s security cameras, all 1,722 of them, were seeing.

  “Now if anyone tries to take over this ship, we’ll be watching them?” Crash said.

  “And we’ll be here before they know it,” Ghost said. “Except for one thing.”

  He pulled out a small device that looked like a poker chip with a small blinking light.

  “The only thing we can’t control is where the ship is going,” he went on. “We need a way to keep an eye on its movements.”

  He held up the device. “This can intercept any signals coming and going from this ship via satellite transmission. It’s like tapping into their GPS system. With this in place, we’ll be able to monitor everything happening on-board, plus we’ll know where it is at any moment. But—”

  “But what?” Crash asked.

  “But it has to be installed,” Ghost said. “Near the navigation system’s satellite dish. At the very top of the ship.”

  Crash didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it,” he said.

  Ghost glanced at Commander Beaux and raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Beaux said. “If something goes wrong—”

  “Nothing will go wrong,” Crash insisted. “Remember, I haven’t been sitting on my thumbs since I left the job.”

  Commander Beaux looked at his watch. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before we have to leave,” he said.

  Crash snatched the device out of Ghost’s hand. “Then let’s stop wasting time,” he said. “Just tell me exactly where this thing goes and I’ll meet you back at the ingress point.”

  Commander Beaux looked at the others and just shrugged.

  “OK, then,” he said. “But while you’re at it, make sure you keep that camera rolling.”

  * * *

  CRASH MADE HIS way up the twelve decks, using the stairwells whenever the elevators were too crowded.

  He kept track of the time the whole way. Attaching the device would take but a few seconds. It had an adhesive on its back, and it didn’t have to be attached directly to the satellite dish. According to Ghost, anywhere within a few feet of it would do the trick.

  During his ascent, his brain was swirling with thoughts of what he’d done in just the past twenty-four hours. When he’d been part of the SEALs ten years before, he’d gone on black ops, been to exotic places, had some close scrapes and had seen things he never thought he’d see. Joining Delta only intensified these types of missions—right up until the disaster at Tora Bora. He’d done mercenary work after that nightmare was over, spending time in Sri Lanka and other places before Whiskey started up again—yet it was never the same.

  But now this? The short amount of time he’d spent with the 616 made him feel like he was in the middle of a real-life action movie, and everyone around him was an actor. The team itself was right out of Hollywood casting. They had no fear. They knew their way around all the latest gadgets. They were intelligent and not prone to doing stupid things in the middle of an adrenaline moment. Yet 616 had no compunction about doing what had to be done, either, including stealing aboard moving ships, friendly or not, in the dead of night or in the midst of a wild rainstorm.

  Crash never thought anything would be as good as his original SEAL deployment, or his time with Whiskey. But this? This was something else. This went above and beyond.

  In fact, there was almost subtle beauty to the way the 616 operated, more art than science. For instance, the huge cruise liner was not an American vessel. To impose the SEAL’s brand of security measures on it might cause political problems that no one needed at this point. Plus, the pending pirate attack was a highly classified matter, and it was important that it stay that way. The sight of SEALs running around the Queen of the Seas—or even reports of such activity—would definitely be bad for everyone.

  Yet, if this worked—if the big ship was the phantom pirates’ target, and if the 616 stopped the hijackers somehow—Crash was sure the United States would get the credit somewhere along the line. And he knew that’s exactly how it should be.

  He looked around at the crowds of passengers and was struck by the surreal aspect of all this. Here he was, among them, unseen, blending in. He was here to protect them, like a guardian angel. They all were.

  It felt good to play his part.

  * * *

  HE FINALLY REACHED the top deck and quickly located the so-called Pinnacle Chapel.

  He went inside and was glad to find it empty. He paused for a moment, taking in the religious surroundings.

  Guardian angel.

  Not a bad description.

  He went out a side door and found a service ladder that led to the top of the chapel. And sure enough, there was a sat dish here, just where Ghost said it would be.

  Crash quickly attached the device to its stand, as close as possible the dish itself. Once applied, it looked as if it had been part of the hardware all along.

  His job done, he turned to go, but was suddenly struck by his surroundings. He was at the top of this gigantic ship, at its highest point, under the stars, looking out on to the sea.

  It was magnificent.

  He resisted yelling out the famous line from Titanic.

  Instead, he just videotaped everything he could.

  Then he said to himself: Crash, old boy, you’re living quite the life.

  26

  THE HELICOPTER KNOWN as Bad Dawg One cut through the wind and spray of the rainstorm and began a shaky landing approach to the Dustboat.

  It was midnight. Batman was flying the copter; Nolan and Ramon were with him, though of the two, only Nolan was awake. They’d spent most of the past eight hours looking for an island where Ramon claimed that, during his Odysseus-like journey a few days before, he’d spotted what he thought was a submarine washed up on shore.

  But after searching through the late afternoon and most of the night, they’d found nothing even close to what he’d described. It was another wild goose chase, one that had nothing to do with suntan lotion and relaxing, and everything to do with wasting lots of aviation fuel.

  They really should have known better by now. Just like when they were looking for the island of trees earlier, Ramon had been barely coherent during most of the search. He’d indulged in so much of Batman’s inspiration between refuelings and liftoffs, he’d wound up with an old Rand McNally map on his knees, either mumbling or sound asleep as they flew over island after island after island, unti
l they all started to look the same. More than once, they wanted to just push the guy out the passenger door and let him swim home. That’s how frustrating it became.

  But there were two reasons Whiskey had stuck with him. First, the intelligence he’d given them on the missing woodcutters and Big Hole Cay had panned out in a way. Technically, his long, rambling story had been “pirated-related,” so the team had followed through on it, just as their mission statement said they should. Of course, what, if anything, they’d uncovered related to real pirates, or the phantom pirates everyone was looking for, they didn’t know. They’d simply followed the specs to the letter, which they would write up in a report and present to The Three Kings—along with their bill.

  But there was another, more mercenary reason they’d put their faith in Ramon again.

  It had to do with the Russians.

  Batman had laid it out for Nolan just before they took off on their long, crazy search mission.

  “Forget all about the ONI and the phantom pirate stuff and the UFOs for a moment,” he’d said. “The Russians are missing a submarine. That’s a fact. It might be old, it might be small, it might be an irrelevant training boat, but they probably want to know what happened to it. They’re probably looking for it right now with their spy satellites, but they can’t search for it for real until they get their own S&R units out here—and knowing the Russians, that will take a while. So, look at all the hassle, the money, the manpower we’ll save them if we locate it first. I think there’s a good chance the Russians will pay us big time if we wind up finding it for them.”

  Nolan knew exactly where Batman was coming from. It was always about the money with him, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But he had wondered if it was wise to spend any more time out here, while so much else was going on. They had already frittered away almost an entire day before Ramon finally got inspired and led them to Big Hole Cay.

  “But think about it,” Batman had continued. “If we find that sub, I’m convinced the Russians will not only pay us for the coordinates, I’ll bet we can get Bebe to drive our fee into the stratosphere. He’s got to have some pull with the Kremlin, right?”