by Cindy Dees
Aleesha waited until the next swell lifted them high and looked where Kat pointed. Sure enough, a bright speck of light blinked at them. It could have been a star were it not sitting right on the horizon. She remarked, “Based on the last position report I got from Bud, that should be the Grand Adventure.”
Everyone was abruptly alert.
Vanessa ordered quietly, “You know what to do, Aleesha.”
The problem was how to approach a speeding cruise ship without using a noisy engine to catch it. As quiet as the Zodiac’s muffled motor was, it could still attract the attention of someone standing on deck. Enter the grappling hook and rope coiled by her feet. Aleesha continued running toward the ship until it grew into a ship-shaped silhouette, several miles away from their current position. Then she turned to the left, paralleling the ship’s course at a range of about three miles.
When the ship was behind them, in roughly their five o’clock position, Vanessa nodded. “Let’s make the run, Mamba.”
It was interesting how, whenever they went into danger, they all fell naturally into using their snake handles. It was almost as if Mamba was her work persona and Aleesha was some other person who scuba dived and liked to cook and led a normal life.
With a last look over her shoulder at the speeding ship, she cut the Zodiac hard right and opened up the throttle all the way. They started a high-speed run directly across the path of the oncoming ship. When they were in front of the ship, Vanessa flashed a hand signal at Karen, who was manning the pile of rope coiled on the floor of the boat. As they sped along, Karen dropped a specially made, plastic polymer grappling hook over the side of the dinghy. It floated on the surface of the water behind them.
Karen fed out the rope, which was securely tied to the hook. The lightweight, black nylon line lay on the surface of the ocean, nearly invisible. It made a hundred-foot long, inevitable slash across the Grand Adventure’s path. When the ship hit the rope, the line would slide along its bow until the grappling hook snagged the sharp prow. Whatever was at the other end of the rope, namely their Zodiac, would be dragged beside the Grand Adventure like a piece of clinging seaweed.
Aleesha cut the throttle. The silence was deafening. They bobbed gently in the water, watching the mammoth ship grow bigger and bigger as it approached surprisingly quickly.
Karen checked the knots securing the floating line to four anchor points down the left side of the dinghy. The multiple knots would diffuse the tremendous strain on the Zodiac when the grappling hook caught and they went from floating still to twenty-five knots of forward speed in a single yank. Physics being what it was, the rope would swing them inward, toward the ship, in an arc at the end of the rope until the Zodiac was tucked close beside the ship’s hull, moving at exactly the same speed as the ship.
Once they’d survived that maneuver and stabilized, they’d pull themselves forward or let themselves slide back along the rope until they were opposite the forward crew service hatch on the right side of the ship. They’d climb up to the hatch, about twelve feet above the water line and enter the ship from there. No sweat.
Except a dozen things could go wrong. The nylon rope could break. The grappling hook could fail to catch the ship’s bow. The passage of the ship through the water could suck the Zodiac underneath the giant vessel and into its mighty diesel propellers. Or the hijackers could spot them or even their rope. And then, of course, there were the numerous perils of boarding the ship itself. But they’d cross that set of bridges when they got there.
The ship, rising a dozen stories above the water, bore down on them like a whale intent on swallowing Jonah. Aleesha fought the rudder to hold position barely five hundred feet from the path of the giant vessel as it sliced through the ocean toward them. It was moving as fast as a powerful speed boat might pull a water skier.
For all the world, it looked as if the prow of the ship was going to cut right through their flimsy dinghy. Concentrating fiercely on holding her ground and her nerve, she fixed her gaze on the vague outline of the rope, lying across the path of the oncoming behemoth. Just a couple hundred feet to go. A hundred.
“Hang on,” she called to her teammates over the roar of the ship’s grinding diesel engines.
The Grand Adventure ate up the last few feet of water. And hit the line dead-on. The rope went taut, and the Zodiac lurched forward as if it had been shot out of a cannon. She grunted as the back rim of the boat slammed into her rib cage, jerking her forward and snapping her head on her neck. And then the sideways swing began, as the rope trailed along the hull of the ship. That inward swing was surprisingly violent, and moments later she grunted again as the Zodiac hit the side of the ship and the rudder bar slammed into her right side.
The wild ride was over as quickly as it began. The Zodiac’s course and speed stabilized quickly, and it rode along smoothly in the calm waters inside the big ship’s wake.
“I’m stable back here,” she reported quietly to Vanessa. “Clear to reposition.”
Aleesha watched as the other five women grabbed the black rope tied to the dinghy and hauled on it with all their might. Hand over struggling hand, they pulled the craft forward against the current pulling at them. People always underestimated water, but she knew it to be one of the mightiest forces of nature.
Vanessa grunted at her. “Give me a position report relative to the hatch.”
Aleesha shifted quickly to the right side of the rudder stick and leaned out over the right rim of the dinghy. The ship’s black hull swelled outward in a graceful curve overhead, making it difficult to spot the thin outline of the hatch they sought.
The ship had two crew hatches through which the crew embarked and disembarked during ports of call. Both were on the second deck, only a dozen feet or so above the waterline, and more to the point, both had a small, surveillance camera–blind entryway directly inside each of them. It was through the starboard one of these hatches that they planned to gain entry to the ship. Because of the pervasive cameras throughout the Grand Adventure, they’d had to toss out easier methods of boarding like climbing over a railing onto a deck or dropping in by parasail from above.
Aleesha announced, “Got visual on it. Thirty feet or so forward of our current position.”
She continued to give distance calls as the other women laboriously inched the Zodiac forward until it was about fifteen feet behind the hatch. They had to stop here because a security camera looked back along the forward portion of the ship’s hull. But, the Grand Adventure’s chief engineer had assured them this afternoon that this particular spot was camera blind. And she’d bet he’d be installing more cameras in his company’s ships to fix that little oversight as soon as this fiasco was over.
Karen tied off the rope in preparation for the next step of this tricky operation.
Aleesha helped Kat, by far the smallest member of the team, don a set of rubber climbing cleats over her boots. Attached to each cleat was a dinner-plate-size suction cup positioned over the inside of her ankle. Then, Misty passed Kat a pair of fist-size handles with suction cups attached to each of them, as well. Aleesha didn’t envy Kat the next part of the job. She got to free climb the outward sloping steel hull of the ship up to the hatch they’d use to board the Grand Adventure.
“Go get ’em, Spiderwoman,” Aleesha encouraged her.
Kat smiled back jauntily. “I’ve always wanted to be a cat burglar. Tonight’s my chance.”
Aleesha held her breath as her teammate scaled the ship, hanging from the suction cups like a leech clinging tenaciously to the curving hull. Kat worked her way forward until she was well in front of the Zodiac’s blunt prow. If Kat fell now, she’d hit the water just in time to be run over by her own teammates. A couple more pull-ups and foot plants later, Kat was parked beside the hatch. Aleesha breathed a sigh of relief.
Another tricky moment was upcoming. They had to open a one-foot square panel beside the main hatch to gain access to an electronic lock that opened the hatch from the outside
—all without blowing up the locking mechanism itself. Aleesha leaned hard to the right in the dinghy, craning her neck to watch Kat plant a small shape charge. It was a fist-size cone of peppermint-pink putty, a low-order explosive that looked like a cheerful little unicorn horn stuck to the side of the hull. Perfect. Kat had put it exactly where Aleesha’d told her to, right over the latch that held the panel shut. She slapped a hand over her eyes as Kat jammed a detonator into the putty and mashed the button on the remote controller at her waist to set it off.
The pink cone blew up with a quiet thump, and when Aleesha uncovered her eyes to look up, the small access door hung open, still on its hinges. Hah! And Bud Lipton had been skeptical that they could blow the cover panel without damaging the keypad beneath. She hadn’t been trained in explosive ordinance handling by Delta’s best for nothing! Of course, the pad had yet to work.
She held her breath as Kat keyed in the override codes provided by the Adventure Cruise Line’s chief engineer. A crack of light appeared around the edges of a man-size rectangle. Bingo. They were in! And now they had to move like lightning to get on the ship and away from that door before an alarm on the bridge called down an armed investigation to a suddenly and inexplicably open hatch.
While Aleesha manned the rudder to stabilize the dinghy, the others hauled the dinghy forward, positioning it directly under the hatch. Meanwhile, Kat muscled the hatch open and stepped inside, rapidly unfurling a rope ladder from her back. She hooked it over the raised lip of the hatch, and tossed it down. Vanessa caught the bottom of the ladder to steady it. Quickly the other women went up, straddling one of the rope supports between their thighs and inserting their feet on the rubber rungs from front and back as they climbed the side of the ladder. It was the only way to keep a rope ladder from swinging out from under a person if the bottom of the ladder wasn’t tied down.
Aleesha would go last, cutting loose the Zodiac at the last possible moment. They wanted to leave themselves an escape route for as long as they could during this critical first stage. Vanessa stepped onto the ladder next to last, and it jerked with her quick movements as she disappeared into the darkness overhead.
Then it was Aleesha’s turn. She shouldered her heavy pack and slung her MP-5 over that. The weapon was a light submachine gun that had become practically an extension of her arm in the last six months of training. Aleesha moved to the front of the Zodiac beside the rope ladder. The dinghy slid sideways ominously with nobody tending the tiller. She set her foot on the first rung, and the ladder swung away from her weight. Without anyone steadying the bottom, it was even more vital that she climb the side of it and not try to use it like a traditional wooden ladder. Clinging precariously, one foot on a slippery rung and her left hand grasping the wet rope, she leaned down. The heavy pack at her back nearly overset her balance, and she checked hard to keep herself from tumbling into the ocean.
Damn, that was close. A fall now could very well send her under the ship and kill her. Her field knife grasped tightly in her right hand, she leaned down again—carefully—and sawed at the rope attaching the Zodiac to the grappling hook.
Her scalpel-sharp blade bit through the wet nylon in just a few strokes, and the Zodiac leaped backward, abruptly free of the line dragging it forward. She ducked as the dinghy’s nose skipped into the air and flipped over. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see it go under, caught in the pull of the ship’s propellers. A shudder rippled down her spine at the sight. So much for any evidence of their boarding.
She looked up at the square of light above and climbed the slippery ladder as quickly as she could.
They were committed now. Their only escape route had just been shredded to ribbons. They were stranded on the Grand Adventure with a team of violent terrorists, fifteen hundred innocents, the equipment on their backs and the skills at their disposal.
Just another day in paradise.
Chapter 9
Hands reached down to help pull Aleesha up the last few feet, and, as she landed on her belly on the floor of the entranceway, Kat hauled in the rope ladder behind her and closed the hatch.
“Let’s go,” Vanessa signaled. Aleesha waited as her boss eased around the corner and sprinted to the first security camera. She reached up and covered the lens with her hand. As the rest of the team came up behind Vanessa, Karen leapfrogged ahead and blocked the next camera. They moved to the first crossing hallway and ducked into it, pausing for a moment in the camera’s blind spot. They figured they had sixty seconds to move before anyone would spot them on the ship’s cameras. Aleesha glanced at her watch. Twenty seconds left.
Vanessa poked a hand-held periscope around the corner and signaled that the coast was clear. They’d duck into the first available crew quarters and lay low for now. Vanessa pointed out the order of movement, and Aleesha fell into line last. Rear guard was a high-risk position, but somebody had to do it. Truth be told, there was no safe place for any of them right now.
The ship was warm after the sea spray and cold night air. She settled her MP-5 in the crook of her arm and prepared to cover their rear as they moved out fast, heading for their first and most crucial hide aboard the Grand Adventure.
When the forward hatch alarm went off, Inger Johannson reached over to turn it off and then told Michael it was nothing, merely a bell indicating a momentary drop in oil pressure in one of the engines. She pointed out one of the gauges and showed him how the oil pressure was already back to normal. He nodded as if he bought her explanation, hook, line and sinker.
Good girl. A plausible lie he could pass on to Viktor and the others if one of them had heard the alarm. The thing was, in preparation for this mission, he’d studied the workings of the Grand Adventure’s bridge in excruciating detail, and he knew damn good and well that particular warning light and bell meant a hatch had opened. That could mean only one thing. Someone had just boarded the ship.
One of the American hijackers moved to the instrument panel beside Inger. “What was that noise?”
Michael shrugged. “You heard the woman. There was a momentary drop in oil pressure.”
The guy swung around to glare at Inger. “What caused it?”
She gazed back at the American steadily while Michael held his breath. C’mon, Inger. Keep your wits about you.
The Norwegian woman answered, “An oil filter was probably momentarily blocked by something in the oil. It’s not uncommon. The next time that engine is shut down, maintenance will need to check the filters.”
Nicely done.
The American frowned. “That sounded like a hatch alarm to me.”
Michael managed not to stare in dismay. Damn. The guy must have some naval training. Quickly, he feigned surprise at the American’s announcement. “Have you got a patrol out? By all means, send them to check all the hatches.”
The American nodded and spoke tersely into his microphone.
Michael glanced down at the now silent alarm. Who had just come aboard? Damn, the reaction to the hijacking had been fast! Viktor wasn’t expecting a response for at least another day. The Basque team leader had figured it would take at least a day of political wrangling to figure out who’d be in charge of the response, and another full day to get a team into position. Frankly, Michael had thought Viktor’s assessment of the response time was on the fast side, but he’d lost that argument during one of their planning sessions.
How in the hell had anybody gotten a Special Forces team out here in a scant twenty-four hours? It was a truly impressive reaction time. He only hoped the team’s skill was equally impressive.
Moving fast, but feigning casualness, he slipped into the security office to have a look at what was going on at that hatch. He sat down at the desk and punched the right buttons to call up the bank of cameras in that section of the ship. He scanned through the camera shots quickly, looking for the intruders. Nada. Whoever’d boarded the ship had moved too fast and gotten under cover before anyone could spot them. Thank God.
Where
would he go if he were in their shoes? He’d probably duck into a crew cabin, make contact with the crew members and try to hide in the warren of back passages the crew used to service the ship.
For the next hour he hunched over the television screen intently, studying it urgently, praying for a glimpse of the rescuers, for some way to find them so he could make contact with them. But they were too good. They’d gone to ground.
“Hey, Mike! It’s two o’clock. You can go catch some zzz’s now.”
Michael jerked violently at the voice behind him. Paulo. One of the Basques. Quiet guy. Easy to overlook.
“Relax, man. No need to be so jumpy,” Paulo said.
Michael forced the tension out of his body and a grin to his mouth. “Sorry. You startled me. Guess I’m a trifle on edge.”
“Yeah, well, go get some rest. It’ll help.”
Crap. He couldn’t go. Not yet. He turned away from the console and said with desperate calm, “There are a couple of things I want to check on before I leave. Why don’t you go take a piss and get yourself a cup of coffee before you take over?”
Paulo grinned. “You sound like my mother, old man.”
Michael winced. He was only thirty-eight. Too young to be acting like an old woman. He retorted, “Hey. I’ve lived to be an old man. Listen to the wisdom of your elders and never pass up a chance to piss.”
Paulo laughed and backed out of the room. As soon as he disappeared, Michael turned back to the cameras. Dammit! As much as he wished it, there was no sign of whoever’d sneaked aboard. He’d lost them.
They’d made it. They’d lain low in an empty crew stateroom for the rest of the night, crammed into its tight confines and on high alert. Several patrols had rushed past for the first hour after they boarded the ship, but gradually the hijackers had calmed down. At 7:00 a.m. female crew members moved past their door. The Medusas changed into civilian clothes and packed the gear they’d be needing soon into canvas totes. They hid the rest of their equipment in the room’s closets for now. They would come back for it later when the coast was clear.