Blacke shrugged. “It was the safest place for everyone, international waters and all that.”
Steel nodded and poured another drink—this one was for Blacke. He slid it across to Blacke, who just shot him a look of contempt. “What?” Steel demanded. “Are you upset because there’s no straw in the glass?” he joked. Blacke bent forwards and drank the nasty tasting spirit.
“So why the bombs on the lifeboats?” Steel asked the other man, then watched as Blacke suddenly looked completely shocked. Steel smiled. “Someone set you up, mate. You didn’t know what the plan was, you just brought the stuff on board.” He shook his head and laughed slightly at the irony of his situation.
“I swear I didn't know,” Steel’s adversary protested. “Look, someone arranged this whole thing. I was to bring the stuff on board and it gets sold off. It was meant to be a fifty-fifty split, they said it was okay and nothing could go wrong.”
Steel looked over at Blacke, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Who arranged everything?”
Blacke swallowed hard at the question. “Look, they are on board, you have already met them. I am sure they had no idea that all this would happen.”
Steel felt the rage build up within him. “Give me the name! Who was your contact?”
Blacke opened his mouth but before he could speak there was a roar of thunder as eight shots rang out, each round hitting Blacke and the bar. Steel brought up the machine pistol and opened up, locking on to where the flashes had come from. The firing stopped and Steel leapt over the bar and headed outside to see if anyone had been hit. As he approached a small group of plant pots, Steel found the empty 9mm automatic pistol and a small blood trail: it appeared that he’d scored some hits, but none of them fatal, as the killer had gone.
Steel rushed back to find Blacke dead, hanging by his hands that were attached to the bar rail. Several of the shots had been lucky, hitting him squarely in the chest. Whoever the killer was, it seemed that they were a bad shot and desperate. Steel headed out towards the stairwell. He had to get to the bridge to see if the lifeboats could be released from there. If that was possible, he’d be able to prevent the deadly devices from reaching the City of New York, and also he’d be able to prevent the deaths of the sleeping passengers. Time grew shorter by the minute and so did the distance.
Steel made his way to the bridge, hoping to find the release mechanism for the lifeboats there. He used the elevator. As it travelled towards the nineteenth deck it gave him time to think and to take stock of his equipment. He looked over to the brightly lit LED display and noticed he was approaching his destination and he had to be ready.
He crouched behind the wall next to the door and awaited automatic fire as the doors opened, but only silence greeted him. He slowly peered round to see an empty floor, and as he slid out of the elevator he hugged the walls, making for the bridge. The corridors were quiet and barren, as though he was the only person on the ship, and only the soft rattle from his gear broke the lingering stillness.
The door to the bridge was a heavy looking wooden one with a brass plaque that had the word bridge inscribed into the highly polished metal. The way in was through a digital keypad to the right of it, however he didn’t have the code, but he did have his own rudimentary ‘key’. Steel stood back and aimed his gun at where the hinges would be and opened up on the door. Splinters of wood filled the air as the .45 calibre rounds shredded the timber. He stood back and kicked what was left of it crashing to the floor.
The room was almost dark but the illumination from the monitors and flashing lights from the computers lit up the faces of the unconscious crew. Steel looked round and found a panel near the pilot’s console that read Autopilot engaged. The console had been smashed so the command couldn’t be disengaged. He rushed around the room looking for the controls for the lifeboats and was not surprised that the captain wasn’t there.
Searching the back wall, Steel eventually found the emergency release control for the lifeboats; a small monitor above the control just read Error in heavy red font. Someone had made sure that the ship would remain on course and deliver its deadly cargo. Steel cursed the situation and pulled the cell phone from his vest. He only had one bar of battery power left, which wasn’t enough to get a message to McCall.
But he had to find a way.
McCall sat with the electrician, who was still looking at the blueprint trying to figure out what use the set-up would be for.
“It appears there are several devices that are using a set signal from a singular device.” As he spoke the technical expert pointed to two rows of ten blocks—in the centre was one smaller box. “This could be controlled by infrared or Bluetooth, or even Wi-Fi. But in any case this is a central hub, this is the control unit.”
Sam McCall nodded, then looked down as she felt her pocket vibrate. Extracting her phone, she checked the caller ID, which simply told her it was an unknown caller. She paused and pressed the green ‘accept’ button, saying, “McCall, Homicide.” There was a crackling noise coming from the speaker of her cell phone, then his voice came through clearly:
“McCall, it’s Steel. Look, there’s a slight problem with this ship.”
She smiled happily. “So what’s up? No gangsters there for you to take down?” She waited for him to laugh but he didn’t.
“No, I was thinking more of the explosive devices hidden in the lifeboats. Look, I am calling from the bridge and it’s been smashed up pretty bad. I’ll try and find a way to stop or at least slow this ship down.”
McCall’s face fell as she ran into the captain’s office. “McCall, what the—” Brant yelled as she barged in without knocking.
“Sorry, sir, but I have Steel on the phone, you need to hear this.” Brant looked up, concerned. “Steel, you’re on speaker. The captain is here as well.”
There was a pause before he spoke: “Hi, Captain, look there are some bombs hidden in the lifeboats on this ship. It’s due to get into the city at around four o’clock. You have to somehow stop this ship if I cannot get the lifeboats away. Sir, this ship can’t be allowed to get into port.”
Brant looked at McCall, seemingly confused, before continuing, “How bad a device are we talking here, Steel?”
McCall could sense the tension in Steel’s voice as he replied, “Sir, the devices are red mercury, that stuff was used in fusion bombs in the former Soviet states. Each one has a thousand times greater explosive power than normal explosives.”
Brant looked over to McCall. Sweat began to form on his massive head. “How many are we talking about?” He was fearful of the answer, and he closed his eyes as Steel spoke:
“Twenty, sir, there are twenty. Look, I have a plan, I am going to try and get the lifeboats off, but if I can’t...” The English agent didn’t need to say anything else, there would be no other option.
“Understood, good luck,” Brant told him.
McCall looked over to the electrician in the next room and, realising what the plans were for, she said urgently: “Steel, we have some blueprints from one of the cases. The tech here who has been studying them says that there is a central unit that is controlling everything, like a relay or something. You need to find that and you should be fine. And don’t get yourself killed. Okay?”
There was no reply, just the sound of static. He had hung up on them, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Brant picked up the receiver of his desk phone and dialled a number as he spoke quickly: “McCall, get next door, try and figure this thing out. I have got to call in the Feds and the Commissioner.”
McCall nodded sternly and ran out, closing the door behind her. Brant watched her leave and frowned until a voice on the other end greeted him with a “Hello”. Brant sat down, preparing himself for the news he was about to share. “Commissioner, it’s Captain Brant. Sir, we may have a situation.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Captain Tobias Long sat at the desk in his room. The only illumination was from the bright sunshine that beamed through the two porthole
s. He was leaning on his elbows as he stared at the picture of his family while he cradled a bottle of Jack Daniels and a crystal cut glass. Tears of remorse flowed freely down his rose-red cheeks and collected on his white whiskers.
“I am so sorry, please forgive me.” He cried into his glass as he took another hit of the golden liquid.
“Sorry for what, Captain?” Tobias spun round at the sound of the voice, brandishing a 9mm pistol that had been beside the photograph.
He pointed the gun at Steel, who had just come into the room. “How the hell did you get in here?” Long asked, shocked that he had not heard the man enter.
“Sorry for what, Captain?” Even though Steel wore his sunglasses, the captain could feel the anger in his eyes burning at him. “Are you sorry you have put everyone in danger? Sorry you sold out and got a kid killed?”
Long looked puzzled for a moment. “What do you mean, put everyone in danger? I was just meant to cause an accident on the ship, run it aground or something. The passengers would never have known the truth.” Steel nodded as he looked round the room, noticing that there were no air vents, just an air-conditioning unit attached to the outer wall. “They would never know because they would be asleep. That was the plan.”
Steel looked at him with a curious glare. “Whose plan was it? And who designed your room, Captain?”
Long shook his head in confusion—the mix of questions and alcohol were not going well together. He raised the weapon and pointed it at Steel. “What do you mean, put everyone in danger?”
Steel smiled and in one swift movement snatched the automatic out of Long’s grasp and threw it out of one of the open portholes. “My dear captain, this boat is a floating bomb. When we get to New York a lot of people are going to die. So tell me what you know.”
The captain stared into nothingness as the shock of what he had been a part of became painfully clear. “I was told just to take the ship to New York and scuttle it. Apparently some people would be making a lot of money if the ship failed. I was given the box to hold by one of the men, and he said it was to be kept safe. The man had designed the room so he knew of the secret compartment that you had seen earlier, he never said what it was for, just that it should be hidden well until he asked for it.” Long looked at the photograph that showed a woman and two girls standing side by side. The picture looked a couple of years old, judging from the faded quality of the paper. “I just wanted them to be proud of me, to think I was a hero.” He looked back at Steel and straightened his back. “Okay, Mr Black, tell me, how do we stop this thing?”
Steel smiled. For the first time, the captain looked like the man of integrity he purported to want to be. “Can you slow the ship down? When I was on the bridge I noticed it was on autopilot, but the controls had been disabled.”
Long nodded with relief. “That I can do, no problem. Look, lad, you go sort out those damned bombs and I’ll handle the ship.”
John Steel turned to walk out but stopped suddenly without turning back to look at Long. “The lifeboats, can they be deployed manually?”
Long thought for a moment, his head still cloudy from the recent drinking bout. “Yes, on the support arm there is a lever, a sort of emergency brake release. But it is on top of the arm under a panel.”
Steel nodded in appreciation and walked out of the door.
As Steel walked towards the stairwell, he knew what he needed to get the job done. The hardest part would be to tell everyone what had happened. The situation was volatile and he needed them to trust him, but that was going to be difficult. So far everyone had lied, including him. As he headed down, he planned his route that would have to take him past the Irish Bar, since the elevator was too dangerous. Moving along the corridors, he moved quickly but cautiously, knowing that there were still mercenaries on board and he didn’t have time for a fire-fight.
He reached the entrance doors to the fifth floor and peered through the entranceway into the quiet area. Steel rushed forwards, taking care to use as much cover as possible. He stopped by an entranceway to catch his breath. He was tired, the last hours had taken their toll on him, and he hadn’t slept or eaten anything for hours. Looking through one of the pouches on his combat vest he found a candy bar he had put in there just in case. Ripping open the package with his teeth he spat out the loose end and feasted on the sugar bomb, and felt the sugar rush surge through his body, making him slightly giddy for a moment.
Then he stood up and got ready to move. The room started to spin, he presumed due to the sudden influx of glucose into his system, and he thought he had imagined music playing. He steadied himself until everything stopped moving, then he heard it. From the Irish Bar, someone was playing music. Steel gripped his weapon and moved towards the sound like a moth to a flame.
Inside the bar area was dark and the music played softly in the background. Steel walked in past the body of Blacke, who was still tied to the bar’s brass railing. When he looked closer, Steel could see that someone had pushed cocktail umbrellas into the flesh of the man’s face. He stood up without a wince and carried on towards the back of the room, where he had noticed someone who was wearing a large fedora hat sitting in a corner booth.
“Good afternoon, Mr Steel,” the fedora hat man said. “So glad to see you again.” The man looked up slowly and Steel felt an unbridled rage as he recognized Steven Brooks, a man he had encountered months before. He was a cold calculated killer but this ship incident wasn’t his usual type of work. Sure, Steel wanted to put a bullet into the man, but he also wanted answers.
“Please sit, drink something,” Brooks invited. A goon dressed in black placed a bottle of water and two glasses on the table then left. Steel took no notice of the hired muscle, but he registered the noise of his heavy footsteps and ascertained where he was going before he sat down.
The thin man in the hat opened the bottle and poured out two glasses of the gas-filled water, and Steel looked at the glass then back at Brooks. The latter smiled as he went to take a sip from his own glass and stopped before doing so. “What, really!” he said in exasperation, then deliberately put down his own glass, grabbed for the glass set before Steel, and took a sip before placing it back down. “See? I drank from your glass and I haven’t been poisoned.”
Then Brooks grabbed his throat and pretended to choke, grasping his throat with both hands then falling sideways on to the bench’s long leather seat. Steel just sat there and watched as the clown got back up again.
“I see you haven’t lost your sense of drama,” Steel noted as he drank from the glass.
“I see you still haven’t found your sense of humour.”
Steel’s eyes were fixed on the man and he wondered how he was involved in all of this. “So what do you want?”
Brooks clapped excitedly, his broad grin almost reaching both ears. His face was long and pale, and his blue eyes looked cold and full of madness. “You see, John, that’s what I’ve always liked about you, straight to the point. No dilly-dallying around.”
Steel nodded in some sort of appreciation of the madman’s comment.
“John, I would like my explosives back.”
Steel sat back in the chair, all the while the machine pistol was pointing at the man’s middle. “They’re on the lifeboats, be my guest, they’re all yours for the taking.”
Brooks smiled. “See, John? You have got a sense of humour. No, no, you see I would rather they were intact and not about to vaporize Manhattan. Bad for business, you see, call me picky if you will.”
The Englishman laughed as he realised why he was still talking to this lunatic. “You want me to bring you the devices?” he said in amazement. “You have got to be joking.”
Brooks smiled but with a childish look on his face that made him look even more menacing. “Look, it’s simple. You bring me the devices and I tell you who arranged everything, after I have properly thanked them of course.”
Steel took another sip from the glass. From having no choices at all it seemed h
e was being offered one. Either way he had to disarm the bombs if he could. What happened to them after that wasn’t his concern. “Tell me, why is everyone on board? This business could have been done anywhere, so why here?”
Brooks sat back and crossed his arms. He could see that Steel was tired, tired of the whole damned business. “Tell you what, John, you have a guess and I will fill in the blanks if you’re close.”
John didn’t have time for guessing games, but he knew it was his only chance of getting any answers. “Okay. Whoever arranged this heard about the red mercury and thought the only way of getting it on board was the deal.”
Brooks smiled with delight. “Go on.”
Steel looked round the room as if searching for some sort of inspiration. “Both the Americans and the Russians said they had no idea what was in the cases. I believe it was a ‘need to know’ basis. Their governments set them up, probably told them their orders were just to retrieve the items.”
Brooks sat back in his seat and revelled in Steel’s detection skills. Then Steel looked up, a startled look on his face. “Whoever did this needed both parties because it could be blamed on either side if any remains were found. They also needed you on board so if anyone connected to your organization was found that would be it, your organization would be discovered and made public. Someone is after the organization.”
Brooks’s face scowled at the very idea. Then he started to clap. “Well done, all you need is the name of that person and their partner in New York.”
Steel looked up at Brooks and growled, “What partner?”
The fedora hat man stretched out a hand. “The devices for the information. Oh, I have files if you wanted to go down that road. Personally I would take them to a pig farm or something.”
John began to reach out to him but stopped halfway. “Okay then. I deactivate them. The rest is up to you.”
Operation:UNITY (John Steel series Book 2) Page 38