The Informant

by James Grippando

  “Who?” said Victoria.

  “Hannon.”

  “My God,” said Victoria. “You didn’t tell him we’re here, I hope.”

  “He’s knows you’re here. He asked for you by name. And he wants to speak to you. Immediately.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yeah. All calls to security display the cabin number automatically. He’s in nine-twenty-one, Tropical Deck. Says he has a hostage.”

  “Dammit!” said Shapiro.

  Victoria stayed focused. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

  “Basically, ‘This is Frank Hannon, I got a hostage. Put on Victoria Santos, or the hostage is gonna scream.’”

  She and Shapiro exchanged glances, as if they knew Hannon was a man of his word. “Let’s go,” she said.

  The tiny, windowless office for the chief of security was down just one flight, next to the purser’s office. Odoms led the way with Victoria and Shapiro on his heels. The three of them gathered around the phone on the desk. The orange HOLD button was blinking like a warning light.

  Victoria took a deep breath as she reached for the phone, then stopped. “We need this on tape,”

  The men looked at each other and shrugged. Odoms rifled through the desk drawer and came up with a pocket Dictaphone. He laid it on the table beside the telephone.

  “I don’t want to talk on speaker,” she said. “It might inhibit him.”

  “Just hit the SPEAKER button and then the star sign,” said Odoms. “That’ll put him on speaker, but you can talk normal into the receiver, so he won’t know it.”

  Odoms laid the Dictaphone on the desk beside the phone, then clicked the RECORD button. Victoria picked up the receiver and hit the right buttons to activate the special speaker.

  She took a deep breath, then answered in a cordial tone. “Hello, Frank.”

  There was a brief pause. “I told you I’d call. You really shouldn’t give your phone number to strangers at airports.”

  “I guess you’re just irresistible, Frank. I wish you’d called sooner.”

  “Well, I’ve been kinda busy.”

  “Really? Why don’t you tell me about it, Frank?”

  He chuckled to himself, but his tone suddenly sharpened. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

  “There’s no need to get nasty, Frank. We got on pretty well last time, I thought.”

  “Cut the small talk, and stop using my first name in every sentence, like you’re some kind of FBI hostage negotiating genius. Here’s what I want. One: Pull the ship away from the dock and out to sea. Nobody boards, nobody leaves. I’m sure you’ve got enough law enforcement onboard already. Two: Stay by the phone, and stay away from my cabin. I’ll be in touch. You got ten minutes.”

  “Wait,” she said. “I can’t just agree to anything like that. These things take time. I have to check, get clearance.”

  “Clearance, my ass. I know how the FBI works. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Just do it, Santos. I want this ship moving.”

  “Who’s your hostage, Frank?”

  “Who said I only have one?”

  “How many do you have?”

  “More than enough.”

  “I need names.”

  Hannon grunted. “For now, just one name—Mr. Coolidge.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “He ain’t talking.”

  “I need to know he’s alive.”

  “I said he ain’t talking. None of my guests are talking till I say so. Now quit stalling!”

  She glanced at Shapiro, as if wondering how far to push it. She suddenly remembered the meeting in the linen room. “Ask Leddy what everybody calls him,” she said. “His nickname.”

  There was a muffled sound, as if Hannon were covering the receiver. He was quickly back on the line. “They call him ‘Cool,’” he said.

  Victoria sighed—Hannon had himself a hostage all right. She wondered how many others might be involved. “I want to talk to Cool.”

  “Keep it up, and you’re gonna turn Cool into one cold corpse. Now float the boat. You’re down to nine minutes.”

  “Wait—” she said, but the line clicked. The room went silent. She laid the phone in the cradle and clicked off the recorder. She glanced at Shapiro. His face was ashen.

  “Put the snipers on notice,” she said.

  “Snipers?” balked Odoms. “Not yet. I told you the cruise line wouldn’t authorize a gunfight.”

  “That’s not what we’re doing,” said Victoria. “We just need them on notice. Not a shot will be fired until we’ve exhausted all efforts at negotiation.”

  “Wrong,” snapped Odoms. “Not a shot will be fired until we get every last passenger off this boat. Most have already gone ashore for the day, but my company is legally if not morally responsible for the lives of nine hundred passengers and crew who are still onboard.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Hannon gave us nine minutes to be at sea. We don’t have time for everyone to disembark.”

  “Stall him.”

  She looked at Shapiro, as if appealing. “We can’t stall. It’s not like he asked for a million dollars in diamonds or political asylum in some third-world nation. He made a very simple demand, but that demand is so important to him that he called us on the phone, knowing it would reveal his position. He would never have done that if he weren’t convinced that more and more law enforcement is flooding onto the ship with every passing minute, and that he has to put a stop to it. If we try to stall, he’ll know we’re stalling. That’s where hostage negotiations turn fatal—especially when dealing with a man who’s already butchered ten people. It won’t take much to provoke number eleven.”

  Shapiro rubbed his fingers through his hair, sighing heavily. “What do you propose, Victoria?”

  “He’s in cabin nine-twenty-one, Tropical Deck. That’s in the bow. This ship has two double-deck dining rooms and six lounges in the stern. Let’s get the ship sailing, and move everyone aft.”

  Odoms shook his head. “It’ll be pandemonium. You’ll have nine hundred people trying to dive overboard.”

  “If we need to unload them, we can board them in the starboard lifeboats. Hannon’s cabin is portside. He won’t even know it’s happening, so long as we keep the ship moving.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Odoms. “I don’t mean to be mercenary, but Coolidge is a crew member. No one wants to see him killed, of course. But frankly it’s a bigger disaster for this cruise line if one of our passengers turns an ankle stepping into the lifeboat.”

  Victoria just glared. “That’s not the way the FBI operates, sir. Plus, you’re assuming Hannon’s lying about having other hostages.”

  Odoms’s face showed irritation. He seemed about to say something, then reconsidered it.

  “How about it, Odoms?” Shapiro interjected. “Are you willing to risk the possibility that our serial killer actually has a passenger locked in that cabin?”

  Victoria and Odoms locked eyes in a tense, silent pause. Seconds passed slowly, but neither said a word. Finally, Shapiro spoke up again.

  “Move the ship, Mr. Odoms. Now.”

  Chapter 53

  the sea was up as the MS Fantasy sailed out of Nassau Harbor, with nine-foot swells that tested even the most seasoned of sea legs. A strong northwest wind blowing across the Gulf Stream off the Florida coast was kicking up a blustery tropical disturbance. At ten knots the megaship was cruising at less than half its normal cruising speed, but the gusts on the Pool Deck were nearly twice that strong. The ship’s course, however, remained steady: south-by-southwest, toward the Florida Keys.

  Fifteen additional members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team had managed to board at Prince George’s Wharf, all in plainclothes, each with his gear and weapons concealed in his luggage. Posing as ship employees, they immediately went door to door, rousing passengers from their cabins and directing them toward the aft dining room and lounges. On eleven of twelve passenger decks, th
e halls echoed with cries of protest from angry and confused passengers. Some had left friends behind in the Bahamas. Most just wanted to know what was going on. An old couple from Iowa wondered about afternoon bingo. The team worked quickly, allowing passengers no time to gather up their belongings.

  The mood was entirely different on the forward half of the Tropical Deck. Cabin 921 was nine doors from the forward end of a straight and narrow hall that stretched half the length of a football field. At one end of the hall was the auxiliary stairwell; at the other, the main stairwell leading to the seven-story atrium lobby at midship. Nautical art was fastened to the walls, above a polished teak handrail that stretched the entire length of the hall. Cabin doors were evenly spaced at fifteen feet apart.

  Special Agent McCabe and two other members of the Hostage Rescue Team lay crouched in the main stairwell at midship, like soldiers in a foxhole. Another team of three lay in the auxiliary stairwell at the bow. They wore full SWAT regalia, including helmets and flak jackets. Their eyes were at floor level as they peered down the empty hallway. Their M16 rifles seemed trained on each other, as the enemy hid between them.

  McCabe kept an eye fixed on the door to cabin 921 as he switched on the headset inside his Kevlar helmet and spoke into the microphone.

  “Team one in position,” he said.

  “Copy,” said Victoria. She was back in the ship’s communications center with Shapiro and Odoms. The three of them were watching live shots of both teams on the black-and-white security monitors positioned on the control panel.

  “What’s the head count so far?” said McCabe.

  “We believe he has at least two hostages,” said Victoria. “Both crew. In addition to Coolidge, there’s one housekeeper we can’t account for. Shelly Greene, nineteen years old. We still don’t know if he has any passengers.”

  “What’s the passenger status on the Tropical Deck?

  “We’ve made contact by telephone with every passenger between you and team two. All those on the starboard side are being evacuated off their private verandas, down to the Lido Deck directly below them. Portside passengers have been instructed to lock themselves in the bathroom and not to venture out of their cabin under any circumstances.”

  “We need everyone out,” said McCabe.

  “It’s too risky to have passengers climbing off balconies on the same side of the ship as Hannon. We have team three watching his veranda from inside a lifeboat on the Lido Deck, but they can’t guarantee he won’t get a shot off from behind the curtain. The safest thing is for portside passengers to stay put. I’m sending down a list of which cabins are occupied.”

  “I can get them out.”

  “You could get them killed.”

  “Or worse,” he scoffed, “I could get Hannon killed. Then you and your brain trust up in Quantico wouldn’t have any sickos to interview. What a pity that would be.”

  “Kiss off, McCabe. We’re doing this my way. Understand?”

  “Sure,” he said as he trained his sights on the cabin door. “Just let me know when you want it done the right way.”

  The double-deck dining room was already filled to capacity as still more passengers were streaming in. Tables that were designed for parties of eight, four and two were filled with ten, six and four, respectively. People were carrying in deck chairs just to have someplace to sit. FBI agents disguised as crew directed traffic at both the port and starboard side entrances. Most of the waiters and busboys had gone ashore in Nassau, but a skeletal crew was hustling back and forth from the kitchen with platters of cold cuts and appetizers to appease a contentious crowd.

  A few lucky passengers had spilled over to the Luna Lounge, just down the hall from the dining room. It was one of the ship’s “after-hours” hot spots, complete with a disco ball suspended above the dance floor. The ceiling was painted like the Milky Way, and the wallpaper displayed a bad astrological motif, as if the entire lounge were built around the worst pickup line ever, What’s your sign?

  Mike Posten was sitting on a barstool munching peanuts. CNN was on the television behind the bar, but he had his nose in his notepad, frantically scribbling down details of what he’d been observing. At the moment, he was trying to figure out which members of the so-called crew were FBI agents, and who would be the most likely to talk to him.

  Drinks were on the house, as a matter of public relations, and the crowd was getting louder. Mike was half listening to the television and half listening to little clusters of conversations at the tables around him, as people speculated about what was going on. Suddenly, videotape of the MS Fantasy appeared on the television screen.

  “Quiet!” the bartender shouted.

  Mike and everyone else in the room turned quickly toward the television.

  “This just in,” said the anchor. “Foul play is suspected as hundreds of passengers on the cruise ship Fantasy were left stranded in the Bahamas. With absolutely no explanation from the cruise line, the megaship left port more than eight hours before its scheduled departure with most of its crew and nearly eleven hundred of its two thousand passengers still ashore. In this video footage obtained exclusively by CNN from a fishing charter boat, the outer decks of the ship appear completely empty, and a handful of men can be seen preparing lifeboats. So far, the cruise line has refused comment. Stay tuned for further details.”

  The room fell completely silent. Mike swiveled on his barstool and looked into scores of stunned faces. Finally, a man with a Budweiser broke the spell. “They know more off the damn boat than we do on it!”

  “That’s right!” said another, belting back his drink. Others joined with similar complaints, each a little louder than the last. In fifteen seconds the raucous din had returned to its previous level.

  Mike turned away and looked back at the television. It angered him that the hecklers were right. People off the ship did seem to know more than those who were on it. Except that he was convinced he knew who was behind it.

  The CNN anchor was back on the screen, closing down Headline News for the half hour. “More on that cruise ship in the Bahamas just as soon as we receive it,” he said.

  Mike just shook his head and muttered sarcastically into his Coke: “Nice going, CNN. I’m sure you’ve got Hannon glued to his TV set.”

  Suddenly, his whole expression changed as a thought occurred to him. He grabbed his travel bag from the bar, spilling a bowl of peanuts as he jumped off the stool and rushed from the lounge.

  In cabin 921 Hannon sat on the edge of the bed, staring angrily at the television. He hit the MUTE button on the remote control, got up and turned toward Coolidge, who was still gagged and bound to the chair.

  Leddy cowered, as if fearing that Hannon would take it out on him.

  “It’s your job to watch the screen,” he said. “The second anything comes on about us, grunt. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Got it?”

  Leddy nodded.

  Hannon pulled the pistol from his belt and stepped toward the glass door to the veranda. The mattresses and box springs from both beds were standing on end, braced up against the door by the couch. Hannon pulled back the couch and slid the mattresses a few inches to one side. With his back to the wall, he peered outside, through the half-inch crack of daylight between the doorframe and the hem of the blackout drapes. Straight out was the blue but choppy Atlantic. He pressed his face flat against the wall for a side view of the ship. Because his cabin was in the bow, the curve of the ship allowed him to see all the way back to midship. Directly above were the bottoms of verandas from the state-suite cabins. On his own deck, he could see into the verandas for every cabin between him and midship. When he closed one eye and flattened his cheek against the wall, he could see down to the Lido Deck directly below. It was a little wider than the Tropical Deck, so as to accommodate the storage of the ship’s lifeboats. Looking back toward midship, Hannon counted nine lifeboats, but he saw none of the preparations going on that CNN had just reported.

  M
ust be on the starboard, he thought.

  Just then, the lights and television blinked off, and the mini-bar hummed to a halt. Hannon froze and listened in the darkness. A shaft of sunlight streamed in behind the curtain’s edge. He jumped up on a chair and stuck his hand in front of the air-conditioning vent. Nothing.

  He rushed to the bathroom and swung open the door. Shelly Greene flinched at the sudden noise. She was lying in the tub, blindfolded and tied to the shower safety rail.

  “Don’t make a sound!” he shouted. In the darkness he fumbled for the faucet and turned it. It made a gurgling sound, spit out a few drops, then went dry. “Those bastards!”

  He untied her and pulled her from the tub, leaving her blindfolded with hands tied behind her back. He pushed her on the bed and snatched up the phone. There was still a dial tone. He angrily dialed security.

  The phone rang once in the main security office, then transferred automatically to the communications center. Victoria, Shapiro and Odoms jumped at the ring. The display on the telephone showed it was from cabin 921. She hit the speaker and star button so the men could overhear, then picked up.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Get away from the lifeboats,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  Victoria paused. The CNN report had prompted them to cut off the power, but she’d hoped Hannon had missed the broadcast. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. But if anyone’s out there, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Someone is out there. Starboard side. I just saw it on CNN.”

  She glanced at Shapiro, as if to curse the media.

  “And put the power back on—including the television. Or Coolidge dies. I’ve got another hostage. I don’t need his ass.”

  He yanked the gag from Shelly’s mouth and stuck the phone in front of her. “Say something!”

  “Please,” she whimpered, “don’t hurt me.”

  He cinched up the gag and took back the phone. “You hear that, Santos? Don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m listening, Frank. But you’re not telling us something we don’t already know. Her name’s Shelly Greene. She’s a housekeeper. We know everything. You can’t make a move, Frank. The ship’s loaded with FBI agents. Come on now, you’re a smart guy. Let’s talk about this.”