“His skills are way beyond that,” said Thomas, recognition of their adversary flooding his face as he painfully sat upright and rubbed his own swollen jaw.
The rumble of the QE2’s engines filled the background with a wall of sound, and Thomas realized dial they were underway once more. “I sure hope the SEALs made it.”
“And if they didn’t?” Tuff asked.
Thomas answered while reaching up to grab the shaft cowling and standing. “Then we’re going to have to take this ship ourselves.
Stopping again won’t do us any good. It would take them hours to ready themselves again, then it would be too light out to be safe. Where did our movie star go?”
“Though I was still in never-never land, seeing visions of sugar plums dancing before my eyes, I heard his two way activate. It was a woman’s voice, saying something or other about the broadcasting of some bloody codes in the Radio Room.”
“The Chinese nuclear-weapons release codes!” exclaimed Thomas, his return to the land of the living now complete. “Tuff, we’ve got to get up to Radio and stop him from transmitting, or millions could die!”
“Alpha team, you’re clear to proceed,” directed the SEAL platoon leader into the miniature transmitter of his cranial headset.
Lawrence Laycob was kneeling close beside the individual responsible for this order. From the cover of a recessed anteroom, located outside one of the food lockers, Laycob peered down Six Deck’s working alleyway. He watched as the four SEALs comprising Alpha team emerged from their hiding places. With a smooth ballet like movement, they leapfrogged forward, from doorway to doorway, finally joining Laycob beside the closed steel locker.
“Lieutenant Colonel,” said the SEAL leader. “It looks like the crew has been pulled from this section of the ship. How should we proceed?”
“I suggest continuing forward to the Hospital,” said Laycob. “Then we can take the C Stairwell to Five Deck, where we can access the A Stairwell. This will provide a direct route to the Boat Deck, where the Bridge is only a short climb away.”
“Then let’s do it,” returned the SEAL team leader, glancing at his SBS associate and flashing him a supportive thumbs-up.
“I don’t understand it, Dennis. We had Red Star locked in clear as a bell,” revealed a very distraught and frustrated Monica Chang.
Dennis Liu stormed over to the radio console, where Ricky and the ship’s radio officer sat behind the transmitter. “This better not be caused by another one of your foolish games,” he threatened. “Because if it is, you’ll die right here.”
Ricky looked up and replied sheepishly. “In my hurry to input the frequency-hopping program, I must have hit the wrong key.”
“Then correct it!” ordered Liu while glancing up at the clock. “And rest assured that this time, a mistake will cost you your lives.”
To support this threat, he raised his gun, and when Ricky reached for Max’s notebook his hands were shaking.
“Would you mind lowering your weapon?” asked the radio officer. “The lad’s under enough pressure as it is.”
Liu’s reaction to this simple request was sure and swift. He cocked back his empty hand and hit the radio officer with a chop to the throat. The force of this unexpected blow was enough to crush the officer’s trachea.
He collapsed on the deck, vainly clutching at his neck and gasping for air.
Sheer horror filled Ricky’s expression as the officer’s face turned a brilliant blue. For a sickening second then glances met. The doomed Englishman struggled to breathe. With bloody spittle dripping from his purple lips, his oxygen-starved body convulsed in a series of seizures before death claimed him after a final mad spasm.
Ricky dared to look up at Liu, and was startled to find the terrorist smiling. There could be no missing the expression of shocked revulsion that filled Kristin’s drawn face behind him.
“You’ll be next if you don’t fine-tune that transmitter,” warned Liu.
Ricky fought back the sudden urge to retch. He closed his eyes to regather his composure before turning his attention back to the keyboard. Slowly at first, then with gathering speed, he began the tedious task of reprogramming the complicated Cobol sequence.
His persistence paid off when a constant, high-pitched tone sounded from the transmitter’s speaker. Liu wasted little time in grabbing the nearest handset. As he hit the transmit button, he began reading from the red leather notebook that Monica handed him.
“Delta … Delta … Sierra … Bravo … Zulu … Tango.”
He halted a moment to turn the page during this brief pause the door to the Radio Room burst open. Liu looked up in startled disbelief as the two men he had confronted in the Engine Room stormed in. The stocky ship’s officer who had been so proud of his former SBS service went directly to the compartment’s circuit breaker, while his associate covered him with his pistol. Undeterred, Liu hit the transmit button and spoke urgently into the transmitter.
“Bravo … Sierra … Zulu … Tango … Alpha …”
One tantalizing code word short of completing the final sequence, Thomas fired two rounds into the transmitter, killing the line. Then he drew a bead on Monica before she could get her weapon up.
“No!” Liu bellowed. He threw down the handset, grabbed the Sterling out of Monica’s hands, and taking little time to aim, pulled the trigger.
Thomas and Tuff dove for cover behind the telex console. The exploding 9mm rounds tore into the laminated counter. Before they could put their own weapons into play, Liu’s voice rang out.
“Drop your guns and stand with your hands up. Or your young friend out here will pay the ultimate price for your spineless act of treachery.”
Thomas had caught a brief glimpse of Ricky as he took aim at the transmitter, and he knew this threat was a very real one. They thus had no choice but to obey.
“So it’s you two fools again,” Liu managed between heaving breaths. “How I’ll delight in watching all of you die.”
Liu grabbed Ricky by the collar, pulled him to his feet, and shoved him across the room. Thomas caught him, and together with Tuff, watched Liu ram a fresh clip into the submachine gun.
At the same time, Kristin pulled her own pistol from the folds of her coveralls. She disengaged the safety and pointed the barrel at her unsuspecting parent.
“Father!” she cried. “We’ve seen enough killing. Now that we’re unable to contact Red Star, it’s time to admit failure and surrender.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” countered Liu. “Lower your weapon this instant and come to your senses, girl.”
Kristin resolutely shook her head. “I have come to my senses, Father.
And that’s why I’m ordering you and Monica to drop your weapons.”
“I knew all along that the little brat didn’t have the stomach,” said Monica from her position at Liu’s side. “And now she’s gone and turned traitor.”
“Put down the gun, Kristin,” said Liu firmly.
Again she shook her head. This time Monica challenged her commitment by taking a threatening step forward. Kristin gripped the pistol with both hands and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening explosion, as a round whizzed by Monica’s head and embedded itself in the aft bulkhead.
“How could you betray us like this?” asked Liu, displaying no outward fear himself. “Put down the gun, before you go and do something that you’ll later regret.”
“My only regret is that I didn’t act earlier,” Kristin replied. “Too many innocent lives have already been lost. Ricky’s right, this isn’t the direction that China should take. It’s time to quit looking for salvation in the past, and focus instead on the great possibilities that the upcoming century promise.”