by Cindy Dees
This time she was silent because she was too shocked to speak. He’d hit the nail exactly on the head.
“You’re not talking, so I assume verification of who I am hasn’t come down to you yet.”
Enough was enough. She blurted out, “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
He rolled over her denial, hardly bothering to acknowledge it. “Whatever. I’ll answer all the questions tonight, then.”
Eyes narrowed, she assessed his facial features. They were open, relaxed. He looked as if he was telling the truth. But that was an easy enough trick to master. No, this man would have to prove himself with actions, and real information, not empty words. “Why did you come to me tonight?”
“Because you have a whole lot of things you want to ask me. Or rather your superiors do.”
Damn, he was direct. What questions would a regular passenger ask a guy like this? She thought fast.
But not fast enough because he swore quietly under his breath. “So, it’s more cat and mouse games until you know you can trust me. Look, we don’t have time to waste while the politicians piss in each other’s Wheaties. Tell you what. I’ll talk and you listen.”
She strolled over to the sofa and sat down on it. Isabella had planted an audio mike under the cushion at her elbow. Might as well put the man the Medusas wanted to hear right beside it. She lounged casually, but her body thrummed with tension, revved up from the fight. Would Michael pan out as a contact or turn out to be a bust? Had he been worth the risk? “I’m listening,” she announced.
He parked on the other end of the sofa, tense. “There are twenty-four terrorists, comprised of two groups of twelve. One is a group of Basque separatists led by Viktor Dupont. They call themselves the Alliance de la Liberté. This whole insanity is Viktor’s brainchild. He recruited the second group of terrorists to give him the manpower he’d need to actually pull off the hijacking. I don’t know a lot about the second bunch. They’re American and say very little. They’re highly competent, and look to be U.S. military-trained. They’re the greater threat of the two groups when it comes to a shootout. The Basques have passion on their side, but the Americans are skilled warriors.”
Aleesha interrupted, trying hard to sound like an appalled civilian. “You say they’re trained by the military. Are the Americans ex-military themselves?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. They may have been trained by someone ex-military. Either way, they’re damned good. Tell your people to be very cautious of them.”
“And there are twelve of them you say? Does the group have a name?”
“No. They only refer to themselves by code names and they’ve never called their group by a name. Not once. And Viktor’s been in contact with them for well over a year.”
That did smack of excellent discipline. That was a long time not to slip up. Aloud she asked, “Where are the terrorists on the ship?”
“Two on the bridge at all times. One monitoring the security cameras, one keeping an eye on the ship’s controls. Four on the kids at all times, four to six more doing roving patrols of the ship. We work twelve-hour shifts, so there are twelve of us on duty at any given time. If a man wakes up early or isn’t tired yet, he may stay on duty for a couple extra hours. So there can be up to eighteen or so active gunmen.”
“Are the children being moved around?”
Michael shook his head in the negative. “Not yet. Doesn’t mean Viktor won’t decide to, but so far he’s had them sit tight. And to anticipate your next question, he’s been keeping them together for ease of control. And that, too, could change at any time. If he felt an attack from outside was imminent, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him split the kids up and make multiple targets of them.”
If the Medusas could verify this information, or verify that Michael was who he said he was, he’d just saved the team a good twenty-four hours of surveillance.
“I want inside,” she announced.
He sat bolt upright in alarm. “Inside what?”
“Inside the organization. I want a firsthand look.”
“Impossible.”
“Not impossible. Just difficult.”
“Too dangerous,” he snapped.
“Tough.” She shrugged. “You want me to work with you, that’s the condition. Get me inside. I’ll even pretend to be your girlfriend.”
His eyes blazed at that, but he made no comment. She sat back to let him think on it, which he did. Ferociously.
Finally he heaved an unhappy sigh. “All right. I’ll get you in. Watch out for Viktor, though. He’s a suspicious bastard. Not to mention a sociopath. Tell your people he won’t hesitate to shoot children by the dozens. And don’t push your luck with him like you did this afternoon.” He grinned. “I never thought I’d see the day when someone dressed him down and lived to tell about it.”
“I won’t,” she promised grimly, intentionally not acknowledging the reference to “her people.”
They stared at each other in the dark in silence, the weight of the disaster they were trying to avert heavy between them. If this guy was faking, he was the best actor she’d ever seen.
She spoke quietly. “And the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Michael. What in the hell is Viktor planning to do with this ship now that he’s got it?”
Michael nodded. “Yes, that would be the question of the hour, wouldn’t it?”
He opened his mouth to say more, but an electronic ringing noise erupted in the quiet room. Aleesha jumped, violently startled, and Michael reacted no less strongly. Well, both of their reflexes were in fine shape.
Michael swore under his breath and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a cell phone, looked at the caller’s ID and answered it quickly. “Yes, Viktor. What do you need?”
She couldn’t make out the exact words from the terrorist leader, but from the noise emanating from the phone, it was clear the guy was agitated.
Michael spoke soothingly, “I’ll be right there and we’ll talk about it some more. We’ll figure something out.”
He disconnected the call and stowed the phone inside his jacket as he stood up. “Gotta go. The boss is calling.”
Aleesha asked quickly, “Everything okay? What’s he so worked up about?”
Michael grimaced. “It has been twenty-four hours since the last life boat was dumped in the ocean and there’s no publicity on the news yet. Viktor’s freaked out that he’s not the lead story on CNN.”
Aleesha pressed her lips together. And she knew why, too. Wittenauer’s decision to isolate and sequester the male passengers and crew on the Teddy Roosevelt had been a great move.
Michael walked swiftly to the door, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. “Bring me breakfast in the suite I took you to yesterday at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. And wear those sexy white shorts you had on this afternoon.”
He stepped outside before she could reply, the door clicking softly shut behind him. She gaped at the panel in shock. He’d noticed her shorts, huh? Whod’ve thunk? Her mind snapped back to business. What in the hell was taking him breakfast all about? She wasn’t his maid! And then it hit her. She was, indeed, about to be his serving girl. That would be the cover he used to get her inside the terrorist ring. Good plan. Brilliant, in fact.
Belatedly, she spoke to the hidden microphones in the sofa cushion. “I hope you caught all that, because it looks like I’m going to be busy during tomorrow morning’s check-in with the TOC.”
She slept in the wired stateroom just in case Michael decided to come back and pay her another visit in the wee hours. Vanessa and Kat were in the room next door, one the TOC had verified had been occupied by a couple of men and was now empty. Misty was acting as lookout for Karen and Isabella, the three of them down in the crew quarters with the TV monitor. They were keeping an eye on the cameras in the corridors leading up to this part of the ship. They’d radio Vanessa and Kat if there was a problem headed their way, and in turn, those two would knock on the wall
to warn her to take cover. It was a clumsy system at best, but she couldn’t afford to wear a wire. The consequences of a microphone discovered on her would be catastrophic, not only to her, but potentially to the hostages.
She slept lightly, one ear cocked for a noise through the wall, and she was mildly surprised when she opened her eyes to sunlight at nearly nine o’clock the next morning. Six hours of sleep, even light sleep, in a real bed in the middle of an op was a heck of a luxury, and she was grateful for it. She went into the bathroom and took a quick shower, then dressed in the required white shorts. They did hug her rear end rather nicely, if she did say so herself. She pulled on a pale blue T-shirt—nothing to draw undue attention to herself. She was about to be the hired help, after all.
She headed to the ship’s restaurant and gulped down a quick breakfast of her own. Then she went through the buffet line again and heaped a fresh plate with a traditional English breakfast of steak, eggs, stewed tomatoes and a rasher of undercooked bacon. She liked hers American style—brown and crispy—but she’d bet Michael was a purist and preferred the limp, pale version. She topped off the plate with fresh pineapple and mangoes. She juggled a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and headed for the exit.
One of the hijackers, a giant, baby-faced man she’d heard another hijacker call Montfort, dropped the muzzle of his AK-47 in her path and growled, “Where do you think you’re going?”
She smiled up at him. “Michael asked me to bring him breakfast.”
The big man’s gaze narrowed. “Michael who?”
“I think he said his name was Somerset or something like that. He’s in Room 9137. He told me to bring him breakfast this morning. He’ll be very grouchy if it gets cold, don’t you think?”
The guy’s gaze flickered at that. So. Michael intimidated this guy, huh? Interesting.
The AK-47 muzzle lifted out of the way. Gaze downcast, she hurried from the restaurant and made a beeline for Michael’s suite. If she didn’t miss her guess, he wouldn’t be alone in there today.
Sure enough, when she knocked on the door, a dark-haired man she’d never seen before opened the door. A long scar deformed the left side of his mouth and ran under his chin. He looked down at the plate in her hands, and his mouth twisted into a sardonic grimace that might pass for a smile. He said over his shoulder, “Your Lordship, your breakfast has arrived.”
Aleesha catalogued as many details about the guy as she could. Spanish accent. Five foot nine. A hundred and sixty pounds or so. Left-handed. And, of course, that scar.
“Go to hell, Paulo,” she heard Michael respond mildly from the living room.
Thank you, Michael. She attached the name Paulo to the Spaniard in her memory for relay to the TOC. He moved back from the door and she stepped into the room. Oh my God. She did a quick head count. Sixteen of the terrorists were here! Were they having some sort of staff meeting or something? She schooled her facial expression to one of submissive disinterest as she spotted Michael sitting at the round table near the picture window. She set his meal down, unfolded the linen napkin wrapped around his silverware and quickly laid a place setting in front of him. He took the napkin from her without comment. Were it not for their conversation last night, she’d swear he thought she was little better than dust on the furniture.
“Stick around,” he ordered her casually. “You can take my plate when I’m through.”
She nodded and stepped back, trying to fade into the curtains.
Michael was about half his leisurely way through the steak when Viktor walked in. The tension level in the room shot from zero to sixty in an instant. The guy was wired so tight he was about to explode, his face was flushed and his eyes were snapping. Something had him good and worked up.
She was surprised when Viktor spoke in rapid French, giving a few desultory instructions about who was covering what duty this afternoon. According to Michael, there were only twelve Basques aboard. That meant something like six to eight of these men were American. And apparently, all of them spoke French. Fluently. Unusual American terrorists, indeed.
And then her attention was drawn back to Viktor as he stormed over to the television and turned it to an all-news channel. He whipped around to face the roomful of men. “We have no coverage. Nobody knows what we have done! This must change, immediately. They must grovel before us. Beg for mercy. But that cannot happen until the entire world knows of our feat.”
Aleesha managed not to roll her eyes. He sounded as loony as Hitler giving one of his pulpit-pounding tirades.
Viktor’s voice changed abruptly. It dropped in volume and shifted to a businesslike tone. Whoa. That sounded like an almost schizophrenic personality shift, there. Not that something like that surprised her about this guy.
“Michael and I have devised a plan. One sure to rectify the lack of publicity for our accomplishment. We are going to dock this afternoon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Ostensibly, we’ll be there to take on fresh food, water and fuel.”
One of the Americans, judging by the bad French accent, spoke up. “How’s that going to get the word out?”
Viktor smiled, the insanity from before shining in his eyes. “We’ll pay for the supplies with hostages. That’ll make quite a fuss, don’t you think? There are buckets of journalists in Haiti covering the political problems there. They’ll catch the story and it’ll go all over the world. By tonight we’ll be the most famous men on the planet.”
It made a certain sick sense. Would no doubt work, too.
Viktor spent the next few minutes talking about who would be stationed where on the ship when it came into port and how they would go about handing over the hostages. He’d already decided to kick off the elderly, the sick and all the children under the age of three.
As Aleesha listened to Viktor spell out the details of the maneuver, it was amazing how thorough the guy’s planning had been, especially given that glimpse of madness. She started as Michael caught her gaze and pointed at his plate. He jerked his thumb at the door. Kicking her out, was he? Well, he’d done great. She’d gotten a thorough look at the hijackers and would be able to give complete descriptions to the TOC of several more of the men. At this rate they’d have the whole shipboard picture for the SEALs in no time.
She took Michael’s plate back to the ship’s galley and then headed for Isabella and the comm link to the TOC. Time for an unscheduled call-in to report everything she’d just seen and heard.
Jack was standing over a schematic of the Grand Adventure, running possible attack plans, when a tech sergeant across the room let out a shout. Jack jumped and looked up quickly. That was the guy manning the link to the Medusas. But they weren’t scheduled to call in for another couple of hours.
“Mamba’s on the horn,” the sergeant called out.
Crap. Something big must’ve gone down for the team to break radio discipline. Jack hustled to the comm console and slapped on one of the extra headsets. He motioned the tech sergeant to get out of the hot seat. “Is the line clear?” he asked the guy.
The tech sergeant nodded as he vacated his post.
Jack sat down quickly. He verified that the tape recorder was turning and picked up a pencil. “Go ahead, Mamba.”
“I just got out of the Tangos’ morning staff meeting. Thought you might be interested in their itinerary for today.”
Jack about swallowed his microphone. Holy shit. How had she pulled that off? “Lay it on me.”
“Viktor’s upset that they’re not getting press coverage. He’s going to dock in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, this afternoon to trade hostages for food, fuel and water. I also have descriptions of four more Tangos for you. I think that makes twenty we’ve identified, now. It is almost certain that the only men on this ship are terrorists.”
Jack nodded. Assuming that Somerset guy’s information was legit, they only had four more Tangos to identify. A rescue team would have no trouble IDing all the Tangos on the ship. If it was adult, male and not a rescue team member, it was a bad guy. H
is mind rolled back to the first piece of information Aleesha had relayed. “Did you get a time frame for when they plan to dock?”
“Three o’clock local to give news crews time to pull together a story for the evening news.”
“Considerate bastard,” Jack growled. “Any other information?”
“Yeah. The Americans all speak French.”
“You’re kidding.” Americans were notorious for not speaking other languages, and it was one of the bugaboos of the Special Forces community that it needed to bring its soldiers up to speed on operating in multiple foreign languages. Yet, this cell of American terrorists spoke French? They were sounding more and more like a military unit. A spec-ops-trained military unit. Not good.
Aleesha replied, “The meeting was conducted entirely in French.”
“Copy. Anything else?”
“Negative. I’ve got to notify the women Viktor’s planning to kick off the ship. Gonna brief them on what to do so they don’t blow this chance.”
“Roger.” Jack reached over to save the recording of the transmission. It would be played back several times to harvest all possible information.
Wittenauer stormed into the ops center just as Jack was cueing up the tape to run it again. “Good timing, sir. Mamba had some interesting news for us.”
Wittenauer listened to the tape in silence, his focus intense. The SEALs trickled into the room over the next few minutes, and Jack played the tape for them, as well. When everyone was satisfied they’d gotten everything Aleesha said, Wittenauer stared at the map of the Caribbean for a long time. Finally he said over his shoulder, “Too bad we can’t keep the lid on this any longer.”
Jack frowned. “There might be a way.…”
Wittenauer whirled around and barked, “Talk.”
Jack glanced over at Bud Lipton. “Am I reading that chart correctly? Is that green pin in the map just north of Haiti one of our tender ships?”