Medusa Rising

by Cindy Dees

  She hustled to the kitchens where she knew close to a hundred women toiled, making supper for the ship. She burst into the tight, stainless-steel area and called out, “Quickly. It’s time for anyone over sixty, anyone sick and any mother with a child under the age of three to come with me. You’re getting off the ship now. Head down to Deck 3 and meet me in the forward lobby. I need to get word throughout the ship immediately to both groups of women. Anyone got any ideas?”

  One of the women wearing a chef’s hat stepped forward. “Tell housekeeping. They move all over the ship and are tracking where everyone is.”

  Housekeeping, huh? Who’d have guessed the maids would have already organized themselves into a spy network? Good for them!

  She hurried out into a hallway full of staterooms and snagged the first cleaning lady she saw. She relayed her message and then hurried onward, telling every maid she ran into to get the mothers of the youngsters and the oldest female passengers down to Deck 3 right away.

  She raced through the ship for ten minutes—all the time she dared take. It was the best she could do, but it should be enough. They all knew to be standing by for the call. She made her way to the third deck, where a murmuring mob of women was milling around. She glanced up at the security camera, praying that Michael was still manning the screens.

  “Quiet, everyone. I’ve only got time to say this once. Your lives and your children’s lives may depend on it. All of you who are over sixty years old need to make a point of showing your faces to the bridge of the ship as you leave it, and if you have gray hair, be sure to leave it uncovered. Got it?

  “For the mothers. You’re not supposed to be getting off the ship. Only the old and sick adults are supposed to be leaving. You’ll need to act sick. Pick eight or ten of you to do a lot of coughing as you walk away from the ship. And here’s the most important part. Do not in any way acknowledge your own children.”

  “Our children?” several of them cried out.

  “Silence,” Aleesha hissed. “Listen to me. All the kids below the age of three are waiting at the Deck 2 hatch right now. As you leave the ship, I want each one of you to grab a child until there are no more kids to be carried out. There are more adults than kids so you won’t all have a child to carry. Don’t worry about sorting the kids out or finding yours. They’re all there. Just take the children and walk away from the ship. Do you understand me?” she directed with terrible urgency.

  She was taking a huge risk. If Viktor found out what she’d done, he’d kill her first and then kill a whole lot of hostages, as well.

  “There’s one last thing. Three of the hijackers are downstairs. If you’re not old, act sick as you walk past them. If one of them stops you, pretend like you’re about to throw up all over him. I’ll do my best to keep them occupied. Got it?”

  Murmurs of assent sounded. Here went nothing. She waded through the women to the stairwell leading to the forward passageway and freedom for over a hundred women and some fifty children. She walked down the stairs, gesturing the women to follow her.

  “Ahh, there you are gentlemen,” she said loudly. “This is all the women I could round up on such short notice. Turns out the stress of this whole situation has taken a real toll on the ladies. I imagine you’ll want to scan everyone’s passenger ID card as they step off the ship, and you can keep an eye on the orange shirts to make sure none of them sneak out.”

  She barged over to where the dumbest looking Montfort stood by the end of the gangplank. “Let’s go, ladies,” she called out. “We don’t have all day, here.”

  A mass of women pressed forward, and the Montforts actually took a step back from the rush. Perfect. Michael had sent down the three least competent terrorists. As the women started streaming past, Aleesha fussed around the guy who was trying to scan the ID card of each woman. She tried to keep him just distracted enough that he wasn’t really paying attention to the women pushing past or the fact that so many of their names matched those of the children getting off the ship.

  How Michael was going to hide the fact that all the “sick” women who’d left were the mothers of the children who’d also left, she didn’t know. He’d just have to figure out a way.

  One of the Montforts grabbed a woman by the arm and snarled at her in French. Something about her not looking very sick to him.

  Aleesha jumped to his side, placing a solicitous hand on the arm of the terrified looking young woman. “Good grief, you look terrible,” Aleesha gushed. “Is it the flu that’s going around the ship? I hear you puke your guts out for three or four days, have terrible diarrhea the whole time and run a nasty fever.” She glanced up at the terrorist looming beside her. “Careful not to get too close to this one or you’ll catch the same bug she’s got.”

  The guy frowned but waved the woman onward. “They all got the flu?” he growled.

  “These are just the sickest ones,” Aleesha shrugged. Time to trade in some of that credibility. “I thought Viktor might appreciate it if the passengers didn’t barf all over his ship. With that hurricane coming, everyone’s going to get seasick enough. You don’t need ill pukers on top of that.”

  For some reason the mention of a hurricane distracted the guy. Maybe he was afraid of the idea of sailing into one. He moved closer to the exit where his brother was still scanning IDs. Within another minute the women and children were all off the ship. She looked outside and saw a trail of women all but running down the dock away from the ship. She held her breath, waiting for the sound of gunfire from above. But none was forthcoming. Praise the Lord.

  She looked up at the security camera and nodded her gratitude to the man at the other end. Then she lurched as one of the Montforts growled, “Michael says you’s to go to his room. Pronto. And he sounds plenty mad.”

  Chapter 14

  “What in the name of God did you think you were doing, sneaking those extra women off the ship?” It was obvious Michael wanted to shout at her but dared not for fear of being overheard. “You could’ve gotten hundreds of hostages killed, not to mention yourself.”

  Gee, he actually sounded genuinely worried by the prospect of her getting her head blown off. Normally she’d stop to examine how that made her feel, but now was not the time. Aloud, she retorted, “They’re mothers. How much more panicked would they have been if they’d been left behind on the ship and were separated from their children by an even greater distance? I did Viktor a favor getting those women off the ship with their kids.”

  Michael ran an exasperated hand through his thick, dark hair. “Jesus, that was a huge risk to take.”

  “Yeah, but it worked. With your help, of course. Great idea sending down those dimwit Montforts.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “No more foolish stunts, eh? I might not be able to cover your ass the next time. As it is I had to scramble like mad to cancel the exit records of half those women in the ship’s database. And now we just have to pray that Viktor doesn’t call for any more head counts or he’ll figure out a whole lot more women got off this ship than were recorded.”

  She shrugged. It had been dangerous, but she didn’t think it had been foolish. And whether or not he wanted to admit it, he’d consciously or unconsciously set up a situation where she could do exactly what she’d done. She and Michael would just have to agree to disagree over her taking advantage of the opportunity he’d handed her. Time to change the subject. “You’ve got another problem, Michael. A big one.”

  He sat down heavily on the sofa. “Now what?”

  “Once we pull out of Haiti and the rest of the hostages figure out they’re not getting cut loose, morale’s going to nosedive.”

  Michael frowned. “Viktor doesn’t care about the morale of the hostages, and, frankly, I don’t see how it matters. As long as they don’t do anything stupid, we’ll all be fine.”

  “That’s the thing. They’re going to do something colossally stupid.”

  He leaped to his feet, striding toward her until she found herself back
ing up against the wall in the face of his advance. “What have you done?” he asked menacingly.

  Aleesha stared up at him, his physical closeness overwhelming. His eyelashes were thick and dark, his eyes black with barely contained fury. This man might be one of the good guys, but he was still capable of violence if pushed too far, and he was lethally trained.

  She answered quickly, “I haven’t done anything. But I’m telling you, the mood on this ship’s going to get ugly. There’s this phenomenon among women prisoners. You see, women don’t back down well. They have this nasty tendency, particularly once their protective, mothering instincts are triggered, to draw a line in the sand and tell their captors to bring it on. If you don’t want to have a revolt on your hands, you’ve got to get Viktor to give them something.”

  “A bribe, you mean?”

  “Something like that. Something that will calm them down. Placate them.”

  “And I suppose you have something in mind.”

  She nodded. “I do. Visits by all the mothers to their children. Say, ten moms and kids at a time for, I don’t know, fifteen minutes per day. It would do a lot to calm the mothers and the kids to see each other.”

  Michael spun away from her. “Viktor would never go for it.”

  She stared at the back of his head. “Then brace yourself for violence from the passengers very soon. You and I both know that quantity usually beats quality in a fight, if the numbers are overwhelming enough. I’ll have a thousand royally pissed-off women fighting for the lives of their children to throw against your twenty-four terrorists. Who’s going to win at those kinds of odds, Michael?”

  He spun to face her, his hands going to the wall on either side of her head. His gaze burned into her like a laser. “It would be a blood bath,” he snarled.

  She looked him dead in the eye. “Yes, it would. And the women would attack anyway. They’ve got nothing to lose at this point. If this ship sails out of port and they’re still aboard, all bets may very well be off in their minds. Nobody likes to see a safe port in their rearview mirror.”

  He stared at her for a long time. How she didn’t disintegrate beneath the intensity of his stare, she had no idea. Finally, with a quick, powerful bunching of muscles, he pushed away from the wall. “Get out of here and I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises, though.”

  She spoke quietly to his back as he reached for the doorknob. “That’s all I can ask of you.”

  He cursed violently and then stepped out of the room. She followed thoughtfully.

  Jack waded through the mass of sobbing women and children filling the warehouse. Debriefers were already questioning them urgently, and he did his best to stay out of the way of that process. He spotted General Wittenauer, decked out in a harbormaster’s uniform.

  The Grand Adventure was still outside, refueling. Crates of food had just arrived beside her and were being loaded via the rear service hatch, and the ship’s freshwater tanks were already topped off, with the exception of one that was down for maintenance. Lord, it was tempting to storm her now. But there weren’t enough assets in place. If only they’d had another twelve hours’ notice.

  Four more spec ops teams were en route to assist with the takeover of the ship, ETAs all within the next twenty-four hours. And until the good guys could get someone between those kids and the machine guns, nobody dared make any threatening moves against the Grand Adventure.

  Jack was just approaching Wittenauer when a runner reported to the general, “Refueling and resupply are complete, sir. The Grand Adventure appears to be powering up and should be backing out soon. Do you have any further instructions?”

  “Yeah. Send out those guys we dressed up as reporters and have them mill around the dock like they’re taking pictures of the ship.”

  The runner nodded and sprinted across the warehouse.

  Wittenauer turned to Jack. “That was a master stroke to suggest we come up with some fake reporters, too.”

  Jack shrugged. “I wasn’t sure we’d have the warm bodies to do it after we emptied out the tender ship.” It had taken almost the entire crew, hastily shuttled ashore, to man the large docks of Port-au-Prince’s main shipping facility. But they’d pulled it off. Barely. The port bustled with activity, and to all appearances a normal day at the docks was in progress. It had been vital to get people into place who could actually do the jobs of port workers and look convincing. According to the Medusas, the terrorist leader was paranoid in the extreme and had a hair trigger when it came to killing his hostages.

  The Grand Adventure had given them all a scare when she showed up more than an hour before she was due. Fortunately, the ship had loitered offshore long enough for them to get the last Haitian dockworkers out of the area and the tender ship’s crew in their places. The Grand Adventure would never know about the substitution. The only thing its hijackers would realize—some hours from now—was that they hadn’t managed to get the press coverage they sought.

  And in the meantime, Aleesha had somehow managed to get more than 150 women and children off the ship unharmed. It was a drop in the bucket, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. The bomb was still ticking for the other women and children aboard.

  He stepped out onto the dock to watch the giant white silhouette of the Grand Adventure as it backed up slowly, turned ponderously and headed back out to sea. It was hard to fathom letting it go like this, but it wasn’t like they had any choice in the matter. As long as Viktor Dupont had machine guns pointed at kids, there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do to stop the ship.

  Aleesha was in her wired-for-sound stateroom, alone, in case Michael came to visit, when she was startled by a knock on her door. She glanced at the bedside clock. Midnight. Michael wouldn’t knock at this time of night. He would let himself in with a master key. She threw a heavy, terry cloth man’s robe—owned by the former occupant of this room—over her shorts and T-shirt and cautiously opened the door.

  One of the Americans stood there, looking disgusted. “Michael told me to bring you up to him.”

  No wonder the guy was disgusted. He didn’t like fetching the boss’s mistress. Probably disapproved of her, too, since she wasn’t Caucasian. Poor Nazi baby. She stepped out into the hall, barefoot, and followed the guy up one deck and down the hall to Michael’s suite. Her escort looked at her as if she was a complete slut. Which was just as well. All part and parcel of establishing herself as someone who was on their side. Even if the thought of sleeping with any enemy for the purposes of defeating him turned her stomach.

  She knocked on the door of the suite, and the American made no move to go in with her when Michael opened the door. She stepped inside. Michael had a glass of whiskey in one hand and was shirtless, wearing only a pair of camo fatigue pants and his boots.

  She closed the door and followed him into the living room. “Having a tough night, are we?” she asked quietly in doctor-patient mode.

  Michael whirled as fast as a snake, dispelling any impression of drunkenness whatsoever. “I got him to agree to it, but I don’t know how much it cost me. I may have just revealed myself as the snitch.”

  Aleesha took a step closer to him. “What snitch? What are you talking about?”

  “Viktor got a tip before this cruise from hell started that there’s an informer inside his French team. That’s why he turned this rehearsal into the real thing. I overheard the Americans talking about it. If he figures out who I am, I’m a dead man. And all those damned officers will have died in vain.”

  Aleesha frowned as Michael paced a lap around the room, agitated. The pressure got to everyone now and then. And this man had been undercover for two years nonstop, infiltrating Viktor’s network. But right now was a really inconvenient time for him to snap. What officers was he talking about? The ship’s officers? “Why will they have died in vain?” she asked.

  He whirled and snarled at her, “Don’t you get it? I sat on that bridge and did nothing while thirty good men were execu
ted. I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve shot my own men on the way to the bridge and maybe stopped the hijacking from ever happening. But I had to choose. The kids or the officers. Christ, I let those men die.”

  The light dawned in her head. He’d known the ship’s officers were going to be executed, but had chosen to do nothing to stop it because he thought it was more important to save the hundreds of children. She went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Lord, he was tense. “You made the right choice. Sacrificing thirty officers was worth it if you can save five hundred children and a thousand women.”

  “I don’t know if I can save them or not. Viktor’s a madman.”

  She stepped in front of him and got right in his face, forcing him to make eye contact with her. She said resolutely, “We can do it. Together. You’ve got to keep believing that.”

  He stared back at her bleakly. “I don’t believe in a goddamned thing anymore.”

  Bull. His remorse was real; nobody was that good an actor.

  “You believe in saving those kids’ lives. Some part of you still believes in good and bad. Right and wrong.”

  “Don’t be deceived because I’m helping you. Hell, I had to kill a couple guys to get inside this organization. I’m no saint.”

  That gave her pause. It was typically the policy of governments that their undercover agents were not allowed to commit crimes in order to infiltrate criminal organizations. Particularly when the required entrance crime was murder. “Tell me about it,” she said more calmly than she felt.

  Michael shook his head. “Not much to tell. They were punks and wanna-be terrorists and got into a turf war with Viktor. He told me to kill them and I did. They never had a chance. I shot them with a silenced sniper rifle at close range as they came out of a pub. They never knew what hit them, and I got into the Alliance.”