"Rumour has it you survived your mission," Mac said to Joe, ordering a diet cola from the bartender. "But it looks to me like you extracted without a pulse or a sense of humour. Am I right or are you still alive over there, son?"
"Well, gee whiz, Admiral," Joe said, staring morosely into his beer. "We can't all be a barrel of laughs all the time."
Mac nodded seriously. "No, no, you're right. We can't." He nodded to the bartender as the man put a tall glass of soda on the bar. "Thanks." He glanced down the bar and nodded to Blue McCoy, who was sitting on Joe's right. "Lieutenant."
Blue nodded back. "Good to see you, Admiral."
Forrest turned back to Joe. "Hear you and some of your boys had a run-in with Saiustiano Vargas two days ago."
Joe nodded, glancing up at the older man. "Yes, sir."
"Also hear from the Intel grapevine that the rumour is, Vargas was disassociated from Diosdado and the Cloud of Death some time ago."
Joe shrugged, drawing wet lines with the condensation from his mug on the surface of the bar. He exchanged a look with Blue. "Vargas wasn't able to verify FInCOM's information after we had it out with him. He was too dead to talk."
Admiral Forrest nodded. "I heard that, too," he said. He took a long sip of his soda, then set it carefully back down on the bar. "What I can't figure out is, if Salustiano Vargas was not working with Diosdado, why did earlier FInCOM reports state that members of the Cloud of Death were unusually interested in Prince Tedric's tour schedule?"
"FInCOM isn't known for their flawless operations," Joe said, one eyebrow raised. "Someone made a mistake."
"I don't know, Joe." Mac scratched his head through his thick white hair. "I've got this gut feeling that the mistake is in assuming the reports are true about this rift between Vargas and Diosdado. I think there's still some connection between them. Those two were too close for too long." He shook his head again. "What I can't figure out is why Salustiano Vargas— Diosdadp's number-one sharpshooter—would set himself up as a suicide assassin. He didn't stand a chance at getting out of there. And he didn't even hit his target."
Joe took another slug of his beer. "He had the opportunity," he said. "I was on that stage, with my back to the bastard when he fired his first shot. It wasn't until the second shot went into the stage next to me that I realized he was shooting from behind me and—"
Joe froze, his glass a quarter of an inch from his lips. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph." He put his beer back on the counter and looked from Blue to the admiral. "Why would a sharpshooter of Vargas's calibre miss an easy target in broad daylight?"
"Luck," Blue suggested. "You moved out of the way of the bullet at the right split second."
"I didn't," Joe said. "I didn't move at all. He deliberately missed me." He stood, knocking his barstool over. "I need the telephone," he said to the bartender. "Now."
The bartender moved fast and placed the phone in front of Joe. Joe pushed it in front of the admiral.
"Who am I calling?" Forrest asked dryly. "Why am I calling?"
''Why would Salustiano Vargas deliberately miss his assassination target?" Joe asked. He answered his own question. "Because the assassination attempt was only a diversion, set up to make FInCOM's security force relax. Which they immediately did, right? I'm out of the picture. The rest of Alpha Squad is out of the picture. Mac, how many FInCOM agents are with Prince Tedric's tour now that the alleged danger has passed?"
Mac shrugged. "Two. I think." He leaned forward. "Joe, what are you saying?"
"That the real terrorist attack hasn't happened yet. Damn, at least I hope it hasn't happened yet."
Mac Forrest's mouth dropped open. "Jumping Jesse," he said. "The cruise ship?"
Joe nodded. "With only two FInCOM agents onboard, that cruise ship is a terrorist's dream come true." He picked up the telephone receiver and handed it to the admiral. "Contact them, sir. Warn them."
Forrest dialled a number and waited, his blue eyes steely in his weathered face.
Joe waited, too. Waited, and prayed. Veronica was on that ship.
Blue stood. "I'm gonna page the squad," he said quietly to Joe.
Joe nodded. "Better make it all of Team Ten," he told Blue in a low voice. "If this is going down, it's going to be big. We're going to need all the manpower we've got. While you're at it, get on the horn with the commander of Team Six. Let's put in a request to put them on standby, too."
Blue nodded and vanished in the direction of the door and the outside pay phone.
Please, God, keep Veronica safe, Joe prayed. Please, God, let him be really, really wrong about the situation. Please God...
Forrest put his hand over the receiver. "I got through to the naval base in Washington State," he said to Joe. "They're hailing the cruise ship now." He lifted his hand from the mouthpiece. "Yes?" he said into the telephone. "They're not?" He looked up at Joe, his eyes dark with concern. "The ship's not responding. Apparently, their radio's down. The base has them on radar, and they've gone seriously off course." He shook his head, his mouth tight with anger and frustration. "I believe we've got ourselves a crisis situation."
Veronica watched a second helicopter land on the sundeck.
This couldn't be happening. Five hours ago, she'd been having lunch with Ambassador Freder and his staff. Five hours ago, everything had been perfectly normal aboard the cruise ship Majestic. Tedric had been sleeping in, as was his habit. She'd been forcing down a salad even though she wasn't hungry, even though her stomach hurt from missing Joe. Lord, she didn't think it was possible to miss another person that badly. She felt hollow, empty, and hopelessly devoid of life.
And then a dozen men, dressed in black and carrying automatic rifles and submachine guns, jumped out of one helicopter and swarmed across the deck of the cruise ship, declaring that the Majestic was now in their control, and all her passengers were their hostages.
It seemed unreal, like some sort of strange movie that she was somehow involved in making.
There were fewer than sixty people aboard the small cruise ship, including the crew. They were all on deck, watching and waiting as the second helicopter's blades slowed and then stopped.
No one made a sound as the doors opened and several men stepped out.
One of them, a man with a pronounced limp who was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, smiled a greeting to the silent crowd. He had a wide, friendly, white-toothed smile set off by a thick salt-and-pepper beard. Without saying a word, he gestured to one of the other terrorists, who pulled the two FInCOM agents out in front of them all.
The terrorists had cuffed the two security agents' hands behind them, and now, as they were pushed to their knees in front of the bearded man, they fought to keep their balance.
"Who are you?" one of the agents, a woman named Maggie Forte demanded. "What is this—"
"Silence," the bearded man said. And then he pulled a revolver from his belt and shot both agents in the head.
Senator McKinley's wife screamed and started to cry.
"Just so you know our guns are quite real," the bearded man said to the rest of them in his softly accented voice, "and that we mean business. My name is Diosdado." He gestured to the other terrorists around him. "These men and women all work for me. Do as they say, and you will all be fine." He smiled again. "Of course, there are no guarantees."
Veronica stared at the bright red blood pooling beneath the FlnCOM agents' bodies. They were dead. Just like that, a man and a woman were dead. The man—Charlie Griswold, he'd said his name was—had just had a new baby. He'd shown Veronica pictures. He'd been so proud, so in love with his pretty young wife. And now...
God forgive her, but all she could think was Thank God it wasn't Joe. Thank God Joe wasn't here. Thank God that wasn't Joe's blood spreading across the deck.
Diosdado limped toward Prince Tedric, who was standing slightly apart from the rest of them.
"So we finally meet again," the terrorist said. He used his submachine gun to knock the Stetson cow
boy hat Tedric was wearing off his head.
Tedric looked as if he might be ill.
"Did you really think I'd forget about the agreement we made?" Diosdado asked.
Tedric glanced toward the two dead agents lying on the deck. "No," he whispered.
"Then where are my long-range missiles?" Diosdado demanded. "I've been waiting and waiting for you to come through on your part of the deal."
Veronica couldn't believe what she was hearing. Prince Tedric, involved in arms smuggling? She wouldn't have believed he had the nerve.
"I said I'd try," Tedric hissed. "I made no promises."
Diosdado made tsking sounds. "Then it was very bad form for you to keep the money," he said.
Tedric straightened in shock. "I sent the money back," he retorted. "I wouldn't have kept it. Mon Dieu, I wouldn't have...dared."
Diosdado stared at him. Then he laughed. "You know, I actually believe you. It seems my good friend Salustiano intervened more than once. No wonder he wanted you dead. He'd intercepted two million of my dollars that you were returning to me." He laughed again. "Isn't this an interesting twist?" He turned to his men. "Take the other hostages below, and His Highness to the bridge. Let's see what a crown prince is worth these days. I may get my long-range missiles yet."
Navy SEAL Team Ten was airborne less than thirty minutes after Admiral Forrest contacted the naval base in Washington State. Joe sat in the air-force jet with his men, receiving nearly continuous reports from a Blackbird SR-71 spy plane that was circling at eighty-five thousand feet above the hijacked cruise ship, over the northern Pacific Ocean. The Blackbird was flying so high the terrorists and hostages on board the Majestic couldn't have seen it even with high-powered binoculars.
But with the Blackbird's high-tech equipment, Joe could see the cruise ship. The pictures that were coming in were very sharp and clear.
There were two bodies on the deck near two high-speed attack helicopters.
Two bodies, two pools of blood.
More detailed reports showed that one of the bodies was wearing a skirt, her legs angled awkwardly on the deck.
One man, one woman. Both dead.
Joe studied the picture, unable to see the woman's features for all the blood. Please, God, don't let it be Veronica! He glanced up to find Blue looking over his shoulder.
Blue shook his head. "I don't think it's her," he said. "I don't think it's Veronica."
Joe didn't say anything at first. "It could be," he finally said, his voice low.
"Yeah." Blue nodded. "Could be. And if it's not, it's someone that somebody else loves. It's already a no-win situation, Cat. Don't let it interfere with what we've got to do."
"I won't," he said. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "That bastard Diosdado isn't gonna know what hit him."
Veronica sat in the dining room with the other hostages, wondering what was going to come next.
Tedric sat apart from the others, staring at the walls, his jaw clenched tightly, his arms crossed in front of him.
It was funny, so many people had seen Joe and thought that he was Tedric. But to Veronica, their physical differences were so clearly obvious. Joe's eyes were bigger and darker, his lashes longer. Joe's chin was stronger, more square. Tedric's nose was narrower, and slightly pinched looking at the end.
Sure, they both had dark hair and dark eyes, but Tedric's eyes shifted as he spoke, never settling on any one thing. Veronica had worked for hours and hours, trying to teach the prince to look steadily into the TV cameras. Joe, on the other hand, always looked everyone straight in the eye. Tedric was in constant motion—fingers tapping, a foot jiggling, crossing and uncrossing his legs. Joe's energy was carefully contained. He could sit absolutely still, but one could feel his leashed power. He nearly throbbed with it, but it didn't distract—at least, not all the time.
Veronica closed her eyes.
Was she ever going to see Joe again? What she would give to put her arms around him, to feel his arms holding her.
But he was in Virginia. It was very likely that he hadn't even heard about the hijacking yet. And what would he think when he found out? Would he even care? He'd been so cold, so formal, so distant during their last conversation.
Diosdado had opened communications with both the U.S. and the Ustanzian governments. Ustanzia was ready to ship out the missiles the terrorists wanted, but the U.S. was against that. Now the two governments were in disagreement, with the U.S. threatening to drop all future aid if Ustanzia gave in to the terrorists' demands. But Senator McKinley was on board the Majestic, too. So between the senator and Crown Prince Tedric, Diosdado had hit a jackpot.
But jackpot or not, Diosdado was losing patience.
He limped into the room now, and all of the hostages tensed.
"Men on one side, and women on the other," said the leader of the Cloud of Death, drawing an imaginary line down the centre of the room with his arm.
Everybody stared. No one moved.
"Now!" he commanded quite softly, lifting his gun for emphasis.
They all moved. Veronica stood on the right side of the imaginary line with the rest of the women. There were only fourteen women on board, compared to the forty men on the other side of the dining room.
Mrs. McKinley was shivering, and Veronica reached down and took the older woman's icy fingers.
"Here's how it's going to work," Diosdado said pleasantly. "We're going to start with the women. You're going to go up to the bridge, to the radio room, and talk to your government. You're going to convince them to give us what we want, and to keep their distance. And you're going to tell them that starting in one hour, we're going to begin eliminating our hostages, one each hour, on the hour."
There was a murmur in the crowd, and Mrs. McKinley clung more tightly to Veronica's hand.
"And," Diosdado said, "you may tell them that once again we're going to start with the women."
"No!" one of the men cried.
Diosdado turned and fired his gun, shooting the man in the head. Several people screamed, many dove for cover.
Veronica turned away, sickened. Just like that, another man was dead.
"Anyone else have any objections?" Diosdado asked pleasantly.
Except for the sound of quiet sobbing, the hostages were silent.
"You and you," the terrorist said, and it was several moments before Veronica realized he was talking to her and Mrs. McKinley. "To the radio room."
Veronica looked up into the glittering chill of Diosdado's dark eyes, and she knew. She was going to be the first. She had only one more hour to live.
One very short hour.
Even if Joe knew, even if Joe cared, there was nothing he could do to save her. He was on the other side of the country. There was no way he could reach her within an hour.
She was going to die.
Chapter 21
Joe stood in the briefing room of the USS Watkins, and tried to work out a plan to get SEAL Team Ten onto the Majestic, and the hostages off.
"Infrared surveillance shows the majority of the hostages are in the ship's dining hall,” Blue reported. He pointed to the location on a cutaway schematic of the cruise ship that was spread out on the table among all the other maps and charts and photographs. "We can approach at dusk, going under their radar with inflatable boats, climb up the sides of the Majestic, and bring the hostages out without the terrorists even knowing."
"Once everyone's clear of the cruise ship," Harvard said with a hard smile, "we kick their butts all the way to hell."
"We'll need air support," Joe said. "At the first sign of trouble, Diosdado is going to split in one of those choppers he's got on the deck. I want to make sure we've got some fighters standing by, ready to shoot him down if necessary."
"What you need,” Admiral Forrest said, coming into the room, "is a go-ahead from the president. And right now, he wants to sit tight, wait and see what the terrorists do next."
The intercom from the bridge crackled on. "We
have a report from the Majestic,” a voice said over the loudspeaker. "Another hostage is dead. The terrorists say they'll kill one hostage every hour until they get either twenty million dollars or a shipment of long-range missiles."
Another hostage was dead. Joe couldn't breathe. God help Diosdado if he so much as touched Veronica. He looked around the room at the grim faces of his men. God help that bastard, anyway. SEAL Team Ten was after him now.
The telephone rang, and Cowboy picked it up. "Jones," he said. He held the receiver out to the admiral. "Sir, it's for you." He swallowed. "It's the president."
Forrest took the phone. "Yes, sir?" He nodded, listening hard, then looked up at Joe. He spoke only one word, but it was the word Joe had been waiting for.
"Go."
As the sun began to set, Mrs. McKinley was taken back to the dining room, leaving Veronica alone with Diosdado and one of his followers.
"Right about now, you're wondering how you ever got into this mess," Diosdado said to Veronica, offering her one of the cigarettes from his pack.
She shook her head.
"It's okay," he said. "You can smoke if you want." He laughed. "After all, you don't have to worry about dying from lung cancer, right?"
"Right about now," Veronica said with forced calm, "I'm wondering what your head would look like—on a pike."
Diosdado laughed, and touched her on the cheek. "You Brits are so bloodthirsty."
She pulled her head away, repulsed. He just laughed again.
"They're all going to die," he said. "All of the hostages. You should be thankful your death is going to be painless."
Joe met Blue's eyes in the dimness of the corridor outside the dining hall. They both wore headsets and mikes, but at this proximity to the terrorists, they were silent. Joe nodded once and Blue nodded back.
They were going in.
The door was open a crack, and they knew from looking in that both guards had their backs to them. Both guards were holding Uzis, but their stances were relaxed, unsuspecting of trouble.
Joe smiled grimly. Well, here came trouble with a capital T. He pointed to Blue and then to the guard on the left. Blue nodded. Joe held up three fingers, two fingers, one...
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