Esterhauser sighed. "It's designed to banter with the customers," he said. "The program's smart enough to identify if someone is male or female — it reads the tonal qualities of your voice, actually — and to respond to a few hundred different words, phrases, and movements we've programmed into its operating system. It says that in response to four or five different risque comments it might hear, or if a man tries to touch its… its chest. Right at the moment, though, it's stuck in a loop, and I can't… Hang on. Wait just a sec… "
He typed in two more lines of code and hit enter. Rosie's arms came down to the ready position, hands slightly flexed just above the tabletop before her. "Awaiting input," she said in her sexiest voice.
"I'll just bet you are, girl," Markham said, and she laughed again.
"That's obscene," the security officer said, though whether he was referring to Rosie or to Markham's bawdy comment Esterhausen couldn't tell. The man shook his head as he walked off.
Esterhausen typed in "Run Program 1" and hit enter. The hands flexed, stretched in an eerily human way, then picked up a deck of cards nearby. The hands began moving, shuffling the cards too fast for the eye to follow. "That's more like it," Esterhausen said.
"When your lot gets one of these to do the housework," Markham said, "give me a call, okay?"
"When one of these does the housework, Sandy, we'll all be obsolete!" He began packing up the keyboard and the scattered items of testing equipment on the table.
"May I give you a hand with this, then?" Markham offered.
She was holding Rosie's body, a female mannequin torso, complete with generous breasts, and draped in the top of a black ball gown that left the shoulders bare. "Sure," Esterhausen said. "It opens here… snaps shut like this."
The unit closed around the robot's central pylon, creating a bizarre mix of human and machine — a woman's body with mechanical arms and hands and a TV monitor for a head.
"Please, sir!" Rosie said as he straightened the hang of the gown, displaying her plastic cleavage. The monitor swiveled so that the camera and the woman's face peered directly at him. "I'm not that kind of girl!"
"What kind of girl are you, then?" Markham asked, grinning.
"Expensive, ma'am," Rosie told her, rotating her monitor to face Markham with a mechanical hum and a click. "So please keep your hands to yourself!"
Esterhausen felt a wave of relief. Maybe this cruise wasn't going to be so bad after all. When Rosie worked properly, she could utterly charm her audience, holding them spellbound.
Through the broad windows of the Pyramid Casino, he saw the sun dance off the waters of the Solent, the straits tucked in between Southampton Water and the Isle of Wight. Off the aft port quarter, he noticed the towering gray cliff of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier anchored in Stokes Bay, off Gosport and Spithead.
The ship raised some unexpected memories. Damned Navy bastards, he thought.
Atlantean Grotto Lounge, Atlantis Queen
The Solent 50deg 46' N, 1deg 43' W
Friday, 1022 hours GMT
Carolyn Howorth sat at one of the tables in the elegant Atlantean Club, her laptop before her. The words Charlie: So how's it feel to be a rich bitch now? appeared on her screen.
She grinned, and typed back her response. I could get used to this. I feel pampered. Where R you?
Charlie: Back in my hotel getting ready to check out.
Can't get them to let U stay a few days?
Charlie: It would take that long to fill out the paperwork.
The server brought her the tea she'd ordered. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Will there be anything else?"
"If I think of anything, I'll give 3 yell."
The club offered broad, high windows looking out to both port and starboard. In front of her was the coast of southern England and the city of Portsmouth. Several Navy ships were at anchor off Stokes Bay, and the Solent Express, a hovercraft ferry, made its way across the open water in a haze of spray. From here she could make out the white point of the Spinnaker, the modern-art tower. Rising from the Portsmouth waterfront, designed to look like a mast supporting a billowing spinnaker sail.
Carolyn snuggled back in her padded seat and wiggled her bare toes in the carpet. Yes, she could definitely get used to this.
The ship maintained its own Internet service, connected to the Net by satellite, allowing Carolyn to get her e-mail, exchange text messages with Charlie, and also check in with Peters at work. Vacation this might be, but it was a working vacation, and Carolyn was expected to log in each day to keep up with things. Her laptop ran its own encryption program, so she could use it as a secure link with GCHQ at Menwith Hill — not that she expected to be beaming top secret messages back and forth with the home office. Her job was strictly one of light reconnaissance, checking out the Atlantis Queen's security systems and looking for ways that GCHQ or the American NSA could use them to good advantage.
So when R U leaving? she typed.
Charlie: Flight out of Heathrow at 2115. Red-eye to BWI.
It was an unfamiliar expression. Red-eye?
Charlie: Means I'll be up all night.
Well, make Rubens give you some time off tomorrow.
Charlie: VERY unlikely! Got to run. You enjoy your cruise! I intend to!
Carolyn broke the connection, checked her tea, then poured herself a cup. The lounge was almost deserted at this hour of the morning, but she was aware of the small dark plastic domes worked inconspicuously into the ceiling at various points — surveillance cameras connected with the Ship's Security Office.
That, she decided, would be her first order of business — talking with the head security officer and seeing if she could get a tour.
Carolyn Howorth began typing, opening up the ship's home page and searching the menu for ship's officers.
There he was. David Llewellyn, Director Shipboard Security. She began composing an e-mail to him.
Chapter 7
Atlantis Queen English Channel 50deg 30' N, 1deg 05' W Friday, 1400 hours GMT
Under way at last, she was magnificent and she was glorious. Rounding the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, the Atlantis Queen steadily picked up speed as flocks of sailboats, speedboats, yachts, and other pleasure craft scattered before her. A bright, carnival atmosphere infused each deck, though most of her passengers were either still on the broad outside promenade around the Third Deck or, if they were wealthy enough to afford it, on the private balconies outside their luxurious staterooms, leaning on the railings and, if they were in a sufficiently generous mood, waving to the lesser mortals bobbing in their cockleshells and toy boats far below.
Like all cruise ships, the Atlantis Queen adhered to a particular theme, in this case the fabulous lost city of Atlantis. Each of the various nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, bars, and other popular gathering spots on board was named for some icon or myth connected with either Atlantis or, with an exclusively Atlantean mythology being a bit sparse, the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and with just a sprinkling of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica thrown in as well.
The twelve passenger decks, for instance, were named for the twelve gods of Olympus, with two notable exceptions made in the name of good public relations. The First Deck, where passengers came aboard in the Grand Atrium with its myriad shops, tour offices, and computer center, was called the Neptune Deck. The ship's owners had substituted the Roman Neptune for the Greek Poseidon, fearing that the Greek version would conjure unsettling images of the doomed ship of the popular adventure movie. And there was no Ares Deck, again for obvious PR reasons, there being no need for a god of warfare, battle, and strife on a vacation cruise ship. Instead, the uppermost Twelfth Deck was called the Ouranos Deck, that predecessor of the classical deities of ancient Greece having been promoted to Olympian status because of his traditional association with astronomy and the sky. The view of the night sky from the Atlantean Grotto Terrace while the ship was at sea, far from smog and the light pollution of citi
es, was fantastic.
Hades wasn't included, in part because he'd not been one of the traditional Olympian twelve and, again, due to PR reasons. The Greek god of the underworld was remembered in the Hades Hot Spot, however, a bar and nightclub on the Aphrodite Deck featuring a DJ, loud music, and the raucously energetic Santorini Dancers, who, after ten in the evening, performed topless.
The ship was luxuriously appointed throughout — plenty of rich wood paneling, thick carpeting, and expensively modern furnishings. Many of the windows and skylights were stained glass with intricate patterns; some decks were laid out in highly polished mosaic tiles instead of carpet, with traditional marine scenes from Greek, Roman, or Cretan artistic traditions, showing octopi, dolphins, and other sea creatures. The Grand Atrium was a cavernous circular mall with huge aquaria built into the bulkheads between the shops, and deck-to-overhead tube-pillars filled with bubbling water, the whole subtly lit to create a shifting, eerie, deep-sea feel to the place. The Cayce Library was small but well appointed, with an emphasis on books about Greece, Atlantis, mythology, history, and travel books about Mediterranean countries. The Pyramid Club Casino went for the ultra-modern look — lots of chrome, lots of flashing lights, lots of electronic gambling machines, and, of course, the newly installed Blackjack Rosie, who promised to be quite a hit with the techno-geek crowd.
The Queen could manage a passenger complement of three thousand. With the world economy in its current shaky state, Royal Sky Line had been hard pressed to book that many guests. Even a last-minute sales blitz offering the cruise at 40 percent off the usual ticket price hadn't been as successful as the corporate office had hoped, and during the final week they'd been offering staterooms for less than half price.
As it was, there were 2,442 paying passengers on board, enough for the company to turn a profit for this cruise, but only just. If anything went wrong — a delay due to weather, excessive fuel consumption, mechanical difficulties, an outbreak of food poisoning, rowdy guests getting out of hand and generating lawsuits, anything — then the voyage could well end up showing a loss, which would reflect badly on Royal Sky Line's credit, which was already stretched beyond acceptable limits. Failure to get another loan at the end of the year might well force the company into bankruptcy.
Kleito's Temple, Atlantis Queen English Channel 49deg 2V N, 8deg 13' W Friday, 1905 hours GMT
Carolyn Howorth had been waiting in Kleito's Temple for less than ten minutes, and she'd been early to begin with.
Located on the Tenth Deck — the Demeter Deck — all the way forward and two levels down from the bridge, the club bar and restaurant had been lavishly decorated to resemble a Greek or, presumably, an Atlantean temple, complete with massive marble columns, marble tables and countertops, and a bigger-than-life-sized gilded statue of a gracefully nude woman. Smaller statues, all male, occupied niches in the bulkheads to either side, and an elaborate waterfall burbled and splashed happily down rugged faux rocks into a large central pool half-shrouded in vegetation.
Legend had it that the god Poseidon had taken a human woman, Kleito, as his wife and that she'd born him five sets of twins who'd become the kings of Atlantis. A temple had been erected on the spot, or so claimed the philosopher Plato in his telling of the tale, and that temple had become the exact center of the city of Atlantis.
This club, Howorth decided, was a worthy successor to the temple described by Plato. It was a bit flamboyant for her tastes, but the broad sweep of the windows across the forward wall gave an absolutely staggering, gorgeous view of the water ahead. At the moment, the Atlantis Queen was sailing almost exactly due west, and the sunset — a blaze of flaming oranges, reds, and coral pinks, with cooler blues, greens, and ambers — flooded the sky with colored light.
"Ms. Carroll?" a man's voice said behind her.
"I'm Judith Carroll," Carolyn Howorth said, standing and extending her hand. "You must be David."
"David Llewellyn," he said, shaking her hand. "Director of Security. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Carroll."
"Call me Judy," Howorth said. "Everyone else does."
"Judy," he said, waiting for her to sit again, then seating himself. "Charming. A gorgeous sunset."
"Absolutely spectacular," she agreed. 'Tm surprised everybody on board the ship isn't crowded in here to see it."
"It is a bit more crowded than it usually is," Llewellyn agreed. "And a lot of people are on the decks outside."
"I don't blame them. Thank you for agreeing to see me, David."
"My pleasure. Ah… your e-mail said something about you being with British law enforcement?"
Carolyn pulled her wallet out of her handbag and let it fall casually open to her ID. At least, it was one of her IDs, one provided for her for this specific mission. "SOCA, actually," she said.
SOCA was a relatively new agency within British law enforcement. The Serious Organised Crime Agency had been created in 2006 specifically to combat drug trafficking, money laundering, people smuggling, and organized crime, a product of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. Some called it Britain's answer to the American FBI, though any comparison was superficial at best. If anything, SOCA was closer in the nature of its work to the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Unlike MI5, certain designated SOCA agents had the authority to arrest suspects. Unlike MI5, SOCA had no role in either counterterrorism or national security.
So far as Howorth or her Menwith Hill colleagues could tell, it was a political figurehead agency as much as anything else, a means of looking as though the government was doing something about the nation's drug and crime problems, without having to actually do anything about them.
But most people wouldn't be aware of that particular twist in the government's knickers. It did provide a convenient cover for Howorth. Like the American NSA, GCHQ didn't care to advertise its presence. Ever.
"Thank you, Judy," Llewellyn said, studying the ID carefully before meeting her eyes again. "I've heard of SOCA, of course. I gather lots of you are former MI5, MI6?"
"A lot of us are," she said. It sounded like a test question, something to perhaps catch her in an inconsistency. She'd already planned to be as noncommittal — and therefore as hard to pin down — as possible.
SOCA did draw many of its members from the existing British MI5, which handled domestic security issues, and from MI6, which handled foreign security and intelligence work, like America's CIA. SOCA's current head was a former head of MI5, and there was a lot of traffic between the two.
"I was wondering if you might know a Mr. Thomas Mitchell?"
"No, can't say that I do."
"Or a Mr. Samuel Franks?"
"Nope. Should I?"
Llewellyn shrugged. "Tom Mitchell is MI5. And Mr. Franks is MI5, but currently seconded, I understand, to SOCA. I suppose I was wondering why we have so many of you people running around on board!"
Howorth kept her smile in place. "They're passengers?"
"Of a sort. Are you aware of the.. incident on the docks yesterday afternoon?"
"No. Should I be?"
Llewellyn seemed to relax a little. "So you're not with Mitchell or Franks?"
"No, Mr. Llewellyn. I'm not. I know neither of the gentlemen. SOCA has about forty-two hundred employees and operates out of over forty offices scattered all over the UK. It's impossible to meet or to remember everyone in the firm." Time to change the subject, she thought. Despite what she'd just said, the last thing she wanted was a face-to-face introduction to Mitchell or Franks, especially Franks, who might ask her questions only a real SOCA agent could answer. "Why? What happened on the docks?"
"Nothing important," Llewellyn told her. "And if you didn't ask to see me about that, why did you ask to see me?" His smile broadened. "Not that I at all mind meeting a beautiful woman on a romantic cruise."
"Why, Mr. Llewellyn," she said. "I didn't think ship's crew was allowed to fraternize with the paying passengers!"
"Strictly speaking, no… though officers have
a bit more leeway than the housekeeping staff, say. And it is after hours. I'm off-duty. May I buy you a drink?"
"That would be great. Thank you." Her glass was empty.
"What are you having?"
"Coke."
"Nothing stronger?"
"Coke is fine. My God, will you just look at that sky?" The colors, if anything, were becoming more intense. The sky appeared to be on fire. "What is it they say… 'red sky at night, sailor's delight'?"
"That's what they say. Never having been a sailor, I couldn't tell you." He flagged down a server, ordered two soft drinks, and turned back to face her. "Now, you were telling me what you wanted to talk to Security about?"
"Actually, David, I was hoping to get a private tour of your security facilities on the ship. See how they work, day-to-day."
"Indeed? Why?"
"Because SOCA is concerned with smuggling into the United Kingdom. Drugs. Also people."
Llewellyn's eyebrows rose. "People?"
"Twenty-first-century slaves, David. People who answer ads for work in the United Kingdom in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Pakistan. They're brought in by professional smugglers — usually by the Italian Mafia or other Mediterranean organized-crime groups, though we've been seeing a bit of activity from Russia lately, as well. The Russian mafiya. Men are brought in and put to work in illegal sweatshops, sometimes drug factories. Same for women and children, except they're also exploited sexually, often. They end up in brothels, or working for almost nothing as housekeepers or servants for people who abuse them. They're required to pay for their passage from their wages and, of course, somehow they never manage to get enough to buy their freedom."
"And what does all this have to do with the Atlantis Queen!"
She shrugged. "Nothing directly. My boss wants me to have a look at the security arrangements on board your ships. How do you know you don't have a few hundred stowaways? How do you control access to sensitive areas of your ship, such as the computers? We hope to build an intelligence network that includes all methods of entry through our borders — airlines, the Chunnel, Channel ferries, passenger liners — to help us monitor the people who come into the UK every day."
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