“Okay,” he told the doctor, “here’s what we’re going to do. My partner and I will clear the terrorists off the deck for you. When we’ve thinned them out, I’ll give you the go. Run straight out, dive off the deck and start swimming. The guards along the sides will try to shoot at you, so stay under water as long as you can. Got it?”
The doctor nodded. “Let me get out of these shoes,” he said.
After stripping down to his pants, he picked up his AK again. “Let’s do it.”
“You remember the contact name I gave you?”
“Hal Brognola, Department of Justice.”
“Okay,” Bolan said. “On my count.” He flashed his fingers out. “One…two…three!”
Bolan’s first silenced 9 mm round sang right past a hostage and drilled a guard in the side of the head. Changing his aim point before the Cuban even had time to fall to the deck, he fired again.
Spellman’s H&K was thumbed down to 3-round burst as the commando had told him to do and he took careful aim at a terrorist standing well away from the passengers. Of the three rounds of the short burst, the first one took his target in the lower back, the second high in the chest and the third went over his head.
Spellman froze for a second as he watched the Cuban collapse to the deck. Before, he had been a spectator when he’d watched the commando’s back. Now he’d proved that he, too, could do what had to be done. It was a strange feeling, but he liked it.
Even the designated swimmer managed to get off a couple of well-aimed single shots before Bolan slapped him on the butt and shouted, “Go!”
The doctor dropped his AK and sprinted for the railing at the stern. He barely slowed as he hit the rail, vaulted over it and twisted into a swan dive into the harbor.
As soon as he was over the side, Bolan and Spellman retreated back into the ship.
THE FLURRY of full autofire on deck sent Diego Garcia racing for the bridge. “What’s going on out there!” he shouted.
Nguyen Cao Nguyen had a portable radio to his ear and held his hand up to silence his commander so he could hear.
“There’s been some kind of revolt among the prisoners,” he said at the end of the call. “Apparently one of them managed to get an AK and shoot his way free. After killing several of our men, he jumped off the ship.”
Garcia glared. “Did he get to shore?”
“They do not know,” Nguyen replied. “He was under fire, but they have not seen a body.”
“Get more of my fighters up on deck,” the Cuban said. “And tell them that they are to shoot to kill at the slightest provocation. I will not have incidents like that happening right now. My plan is working, and I will not have it disrupted for any reason.”
“If the passengers are all killed,” Nguyen carefully pointed out, “we will lose our shield and the Yankees will storm the ship.”
“You are right, of course, Comrade. And, to keep that from happening, gather all of the women and children together in the main dining room and put them under guard.”
Nguyen hesitated. Americans were sensitive enough about hostage taking without segregating the women and children from the men. That would drive them into a frenzy and make it even more difficult for him to escape when this was over. His only chance was to have most of the hostages still alive after the rockets were launched. It would take the Yankees a while to discover what was in the warheads, and he planned to use that confusion to cover his escape.
“May I ask what you plan to do with them after the attack?” he asked.
Garcia’s eyes narrowed and his hand went to the side of his head. “What do I plan to do with them? Is that what you want to know?” His hands waved in the air. “They are going to die along with the rest of the Yankees. I want all of these animals out there dead, and I’m not going to exempt the females so they can breed even more enemies of the people. The motherland has too many enemies as it is.”
These was absolutely no doubt in Nguyen’s mind now that Garcia was totally, completely irrational and a clear danger to everyone around him. Rather than stick around to see the rockets launched as he had originally intended to do so he could report their effectiveness to Beijing, he needed to get off the ship as soon he could.
“Of course, Comrade.” He smiled. “That is the only fitting punishment for Yankee Imperialists.”
NOW THAT THE Stony Man tent was fully rigged and the floor laid, Hal Brognola found himself hanging around the com center. The fact that they had the best coffeepot made it a prime location. Until he’d had his first cup of radio room coffee, he hadn’t realized how much he really loathed the foul brew that Kurtzman made in the Farm’s Computer Room where he usually filled his cup. When he got back, he was going to assign one of the com techs the responsibility for coffee service.
“There’s been firing on the ship.” One of the com techs turned to Brognola. “After a firefight on the stern, someone dived overboard.”
“Jumped, not fell?” Brognola asked.
“That’s the report,” the blacksuit replied. “The bad guys were firing into the water after him, but no word yet if he was able to swim free.”
Brognola was certain that whoever it was who had tried to escape hadn’t been Bolan. Striker didn’t run when there was work still to be done. Exactly what that work was, however, remained unclear this time. Radio communications with the ship had been established, but the terrorists weren’t talking beyond making the usual threats against the hostages. He always felt better about a hostage situation when the perps were talking. It didn’t matter what kind of hysterical, irrational garbage they were spewing just as long as they were talking and not killing their captives.
“Let me know when he’s recovered, dead or alive.”
“Yes, sir,” the com tech replied. “I’ll put in a call to the medical units and the people down on the docks to give us an immediate call back.”
“Do that.”
Brognola walked back to the coffeepot for a refill. It was going to be a long wait.
AFTER THE SHOOT-OUT, Bolan and Spellman managed to get back to one of their hiding places without being spotted. Needless to say, the terrorists were swarming the open deck now, their casual attitude in the wind. Their AKs were in their hands, and several passengers took a butt in a kidney to hurry them along.
“It looks like they’re taking the women back inside,” Spellman reported, taking his turn at the porthole.
Bolan joined him and saw half a dozen women being herded inside by a pair of Cubans, the guards had their weapons on them. If the women were being taken away from the human shield wall, it could be a reaction to their little action that got the doctor off the ship. That changed the location of the pieces on the battle board, but it might work to their advantage as it might be taking the women out of the direct line of fire.
LEAVING THE SHIP’S bridge in charge of the helmsman, Nguyen headed belowdecks to look for a way out while he still could.
As with all commercial vessels, the cruise ship was equipped with the mandatory lifeboats. But a large, slow-moving life boat wasn’t his first choice for making a quick getaway. As a last resort, he’d simply jump ship and, if he was caught, he would shed his uniform and pretend to be one of the ex-hostages who had somehow managed to escape. That would only last long enough for his name to be checked on the passenger manifest, but it should be easy enough for him to slip away during the process. The problem was that he wasn’t a very good swimmer, so a boat of some kind was his first choice.
He remembered seeing a flyer on the bulletin board outside the main dining room announcing that the ship now had personal watercraft rentals available in the recreation equipment area. One of those swift, small craft would be a perfect solution to his problem.
The recreational equipment storage area was on D Deck, back in the stern, and he made it there without running into any of the fighters on guard. The door was unlocked, so he slipped inside to find a dozen two-man Jet Skis lined up along one wall. If he could ge
t one of them down to the excursion platform on the stern, he’d be home free.
Leaning over one of the craft on the rack, taking the cap off of the gas tank to check the fuel level, he heard a voice behind him. “What do you think you are doing in here, Comrade?”
The Vietnamese turned to see one of the Cuban fighters holding an AK on him. He was old enough to be one of the Army veterans, and that wasn’t good.
Nguyen looked surprised. “Comrade Garcia asked me to look into the availability of these small craft in case we might need them to make our escape.”
“That’s not what he told me.” The Cuban frowned. “He sent me down here to keep anyone from using them.”
Nguyen looked honestly puzzled. “When did you last talk to him?” he asked.
When the Cuban glanced down at his watch, the Vietnamese drew his Makarov and shot him while his head was turned. The shot echoed in the empty compartment like a shotgun blast.
Nguyen put his pistol back in his holster and looked around to see where he could hide the body for a couple of hours. Spotting a pile of table canopies, he reached down to take the corpse by the legs when he heard boots pounding down the passageway. Realizing that he hadn’t locked the compartment door behind him, he dropped the body.
A fighter slammed the door open and charged into the compartment, his AK at the ready.
“He was trying to escape,” Nguyen said.
“Pablo was doing that?” The fighter frowned. “That is not like him, and we have been comrades since Angola.”
“He said that Comrade Garcia has been acting irrational and he no longer had faith in him.”
“I want to see the Comrade Colonel about this.” The fighter shifted his AK to cover Nguyen. “Pablo was the most faithful fighter I have ever known, and I can’t believe that he lost his nerve.”
“I don’t think that we need to bother the leader with something as trivial as this,” the Vietnamese said smoothly. “This is the hour of his greatest triumph over the Yankees, and he needs to keep his mind clear.”
When the Cuban backed away a couple of steps, but still kept his weapon trained, Nguyen knew that he might not be able to talk his way out of this one. One of the biggest problems he’d had working with the Cubans had been trying to overcome the pervasive racism of Hispanic culture. While the Cubans always loudly accused the Americans of being racists, they were inbred racists to the bone themselves. The color of a Cuban’s skin often determined how high he could rise in the “People’s” government. The real power always rested with the lighter skinned Cubans.
When it came to their relations with their so-called Asian comrades, the Cubans could be openly and brutally racist. Since this was another of the older fighters, he wasn’t likely to cut him any slack in the name of international socialism.
“Take your pistol out carefully, Comrade,” the Cuban said, “and drop it on the deck.”
Watching the unwavering muzzle of the AK, Nguyen carefully removed the Makarov with two fingers and let it fall to the deck.
“Put your hands behind your head and march.” The Cuban motioned with the muzzle of this AK.
Nguyen obeyed and headed for the door.
BOLAN AND SPELLMAN had gone down to D Deck to get out of the way of the increased traffic on the upper levels. Even so, there was no great hue and cry or pounding of booted feet searching passageways for them. That meant that they hadn’t been spotted when they’d cleared the decks for their swimming messenger and could continue picking off the Cubans one by one.
They were heading toward the stern when they heard the thudding of boots. The two men ducked into a darkened stairwell. Bolan was surprised to see one man in Cuban uniform with his hands on his head being herded by a terrorist with his AK in his prisoner’s back.
This was his day for rescuing prisoners so, as soon as the pair passed, he simply put a bullet in the trailing Cuban’s head.
Nguyen heard the faint chug of the silenced pistol and the impact in his captor’s head and the thud of his body hitting the deck. When he turned, he saw two men in black step out. He had no idea where these two had come from, but it looked as if he had gone from the fire into maybe just the cook pot. Garcia would have killed him on the spot when he learned where he had been, but he might be able to get past these two.
“Man, am I glad to see you guys,” he said in American English. His years working for USAID in Saigon and his subsequent years as a “refugee” in the States gave him a perfect California accent.
Bolan wasn’t impressed by this Asian’s English. The fact that he was wearing Cuban black fatigues and had an empty Makarov holster on his officer’s-style belt belied his smile. The muzzle of the Executioner’s silenced H&K didn’t waver from its target, this guy’s center body mass.
“He’s one of them,” Spellman said softly from behind him. “I saw him on the dock in Cancun.”
“Who are you?” Bolan asked.
“I’m Jim Wong,” Nguyen replied, “from the Directorate of Operations at Langley, working out of CTC opcon to the Cuban Desk.”
This guy had the jargon down pat, but anyone could get the Company buzz words from any spy thriller. He’d always been surprised that the CIA didn’t scrap their in-house language and start all over.
“Who has the Cuban Desk now?”
“Winston Clarington,” Nguyen answered without hesitation. “He came over from DEA liaison in Bogotá last year.”
With Bolan not having his com link to the Farm, he took the answer as being true. No one would make up a name like Clarington on a moment’s notice. However, he was well aware that the Cuban DGI also knew who their “opposite number” was at Langley. Even so, there was a faint chance that this guy was legit, so he’d play out a little more line.
“And you’re undercover with these people, right?”
Nguyen nodded. “I got ‘sheep dipped’ as a Vietnamese refugee unsatisfied with life in the States and worked my way into the DGI in Florida.”
That was a plausible story, so Bolan continued. “What’s Garcia planning to do with these people he’s holding?”
Thinking that he was getting away with his “cover” story, Nguyen continued. “To be honest, I don’t really know. He keeps his plans to himself and we don’t usually know what’s happening next until he gives us our orders.”
“What were your orders when you came here?”
Nguyen shrugged. “Only that we were coming here and that we would strike a great blow against the Yankees.”
Bolan had been expecting that was the plan, but he still didn’t like it. “What kind of blow?”
Now that these two Yankees seemed to be buying his story, Nguyen had the time to notice that they didn’t seem to have any kind of communications gear on them. That they didn’t told him that they weren’t exactly who they seemed to be. Without communications, they wouldn’t be able to call in any information they got from him or call for reinforcements.
“All I know is that he’s got Russian artillery rockets fitted with some kind of modified warhead,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re biological or what, but he’s got a dozen or so of them.”
Deep in his mind, Bolan knew that statement was the truth and it was the last piece of the puzzle needed to click everything into place. Miami’s size and population density made it a perfect place to attack with a “weapon of mass destruction.” Also since the city was the home of the anti-Castro Cuban exiles, there was an emotional reason, as well, for it being picked as a target.
The media always talked about the cunning and sophistication of terrorists’ attacks as if they had been planned to purposefully inflict the greatest damage to their targets. But nothing could be further from the truth. Almost without exception, like all amateurs, terrorists of all stripes planned their attacks for purely symbolic or emotional impacts. The body count was always a secondary consideration. He didn’t mind, though. If the religious and political fanatics ever stopped being hysterically crazed and actually trie
d to win their ideological wars, men like him would have a much harder job on their hands.
“Where does he have these rockets with the modified war heads set up?” Bolan asked.
“He drained the main pool on the top deck,” Nguyen replied, “and plans to launch them from there. Right now the weather cover is on place over the pool so the police helicopters can’t spot them.”
“When’s he going to launch?”
“He hasn’t said, but I think he wants to suck as many Feds in as he can before he kicks off.”
“What’s his move going to be after he launches?”
Nguyen shrugged. “That’s the problem, he hasn’t said anything about that yet.”
That also had the ring of truth to it, but Bolan knew that it wasn’t the whole story. Something was dead wrong here. If Garcia hadn’t planned for a withdrawal, he was planning a suicide attack on a grand scale.
“I can take you up there,” Nguyen offered, “and show you where the rockets are. Now that you guys’re here, you can help me stop him.”
“Let’s go,” Bolan said.
“Do you believe that bullshit story?” Spellman whispered.
“We’ll see how it plays out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Hal,” Barbara Price said as she walked up to Brognola with a hard copy in her hand, “we just got a message from the trauma unit. The medics down at the dock pulled a guy out of the water carrying medical ID, and they think he’s the one who jumped off the Princess.”
“Is he dead?”
“Almost,” she said. “He took a couple rounds and he’s in the ICU, so we won’t be talking to him for a while.”
“Damn!”
Whoever this man was, Brognola had a hunch that Striker had had a hand in getting him off the ship. From the reports, there had been too much firing right before the man jumped for him to have done it all by himself. That evidence was so circumstantial that it would never even make it up the courthouse steps, much less in front of the judge. But it was all he had to work with and he was counting on it being true.
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