“Not until we make damned sure that none of the bastards is holed up somewhere,” Herring said.
McGarvey picked up the cell phone and removed its battery. “I’m taking this with me. It’s probably the detonator, and there might be some numbers in its memory.”
The helicopter came into view in the bridge’s windows with a tremendous roar and settled on the deck just forward of the superstructure.
“Whatever you want,” Herring said. “I’m going to take the pilot down to the chopper. Are you staying here?”
“I’ll be right behind you,” McGarvey said.
It was obvious to Graham that something was bothering the civilian; the man knew that everything wasn’t as it seemed to be.
McGarvey used the cell phone’s battery cover to scoop up some of the dead man’s blood, and then replaced the cover on back of the phone.
Herring stopped and looked at him.
McGarvey glanced up. “I want his DNA.”
“Good idea,” Herring said. He held on to Graham. “We’ll take it nice and easy,” he said.
Graham thought that the young man’s death would be eminently satisfying. But the civilian’s death would be more important.
TWENTY-ONE
McGarvey pocketed the cell phone and battery, and holstered his pistol as he followed Herring and the Panamanian pilot from the bridge. He stopped for a moment one deck down and looked back the way he’d come, his gray-green eyes narrowed in thought.
Maybe he was getting old, but he knew damn well that something hadn’t been right up there. Some little thing had been out of place. But for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on what was bothering him.
Besides the two terrorists he’d taken down on deck four, and the two just inside the companionway on deck one, there would be bodies scattered throughout the ship. The ones he’d seen so far were dressed either in deck crew coveralls, or in civilian clothes that most merchant marine officers wore.
Nothing unusual. The terrorists had either come aboard dressed as crew or officers, or, after they’d killed the real crew and officers, had switched clothes.
Herring pulled up short at the hatch to the open deck, and keyed his lapel mike. “Baker leader at the hatch.” He waited a moment, then helped the wounded pilot out of the superstructure.
McGarvey stopped again for a moment to listen to the sounds of the ship, although it was difficult to hear much of anything over the roar of the helicopter’s engines and rotors. But he could feel in the soles of his shoes that the Apurto Devlán’s engines were not running. There was no vibration in the deck plating that was always present when a large vessel’s power plant was up and running.
The terrorists had meant for the ship never to leave this lock. The explosion of the twelve oil tanks would have taken out not only all the locks, but probably would have destroyed the cruise ship in the front lock, with a major loss of life.
It would have been another 9/11; a spectacular blow not only against the United States, but this time against the entire world.
Again he looked up the stairs he’d just come down. Graham’s plan was to destroy this ship and the Gatun locks. But he’d not been the kind of man to commit suicide for the cause. According to Otto’s research, the ex — British Royal Navy officer had had plenty of opportunities to do so over the past years. This time was to have unfolded in the same way for Graham as had so many of his other operations; he would walk away moments before the killing and destruction so that he could live to fight another day.
What had happened in the last moments up on the bridge? Why had the terrorists apparently gone berserk and shot one another to death?
He could think of any number of possible reasons — maybe Graham had a last-minute change of heart, maybe one of his people somehow found out that Graham had no intention of staying aboard — but none of them struck the right note for McGarvey. His intuition was telling him that there was another explanation.
He stepped outside. The main deck was awash in lights from the ship as well as from stanchions along either side of the lock.
Marchetti and the other SEALs who’d helped secure the engineering spaces and sweep the ship were on deck, but Kulbacki and his team that had disarmed the explosives had apparently shifted their search to the bilges.
Herring was leading the wounded pilot across to the helicopter, which had touched down one-third of the way forward from the superstructure.
McGarvey’s eyes were momentarily drawn to the stern of the cruise ship looming twenty-five feet above the bow of the Apurto Devlán. It was moving away. Camera flashes were still coming almost continuously. None of the passengers, however, could realize how close they had come to being incinerated.
Herring had reached the helicopter. A crewman jumped down from the open hatch and helped the canal pilot up into the machine. They didn’t have a medic aboard, though all the Rapid Response Team operators, including the helicopter crew, were trained in battlefield first aid. But it would be only a matter of a few minutes before the pilot reached the hospital in nearby Colón.
The man had been understandably confused on the bridge. He’d nearly lost his life, he knew that much, but it might be until tomorrow before he came out of shock and could talk about what happened.
The pilot had walked awkwardly. Probably because he was hurting.
Climbing up into the helicopter he’d moved stiffly, almost as if his trousers were too tight, restricting his movements.
McGarvey stared at him.
The ship’s engines had been shut down. Graham had been finished with them because the Apurto Devlán wasn’t supposed to move out of the center lock. Then why hadn’t he killed the pilot, whose services were no longer needed?
Herring said something to the crewman, then stepped back. A moment later the helicopter roared into the sky, banked to the right, and took off toward the northwest to Colón.
The answer was up on the bridge. Rupert Graham’s body.
McGarvey ducked back through the hatch and sprinted up the stairs, careful to avoid the pools of blood where the terrorists had gone down. The SEALs were mopping up the last of the terrorists as well as searching for and disarming any other explosives. The ship was all but secure. Nevertheless McGarvey had his pistol out, the safety catch off. He did not want to be caught flat-footed by one of the bad guys who might have been hiding.
On the top deck he held up at the door to the bridge and listened for several seconds. Now that the helicopter was gone, the ship was ultra-quiet.
He looked over his shoulder, the way he had come up, then slipped through the door, sweeping his pistol left to right.
Nothing had changed. The three bodies lay where they had fallen.
Once again he was struck by an odd feeling between his shoulder blades, as if someone were aiming a laser sight on his back.
Rupert Graham’s trousers were too long.
McGarvey holstered his pistol and carefully eased the body over on its back. The man’s eyes were dark, as was his hair and his complexion.
But Graham was an Englishman. Not dark.
There was a look of surprise and perhaps fear on his features. He hadn’t been expecting this to happen to him.
When the U.S. Navy helicopter had suddenly roared over the Apurto Devlán’s bows it must have been a shock. But Graham was a professional killer. He’d known the risks. He would have known how to instantly improvise when something went wrong in mid-mission.
It suddenly came together.