He couldn’t recall a Rachel. “Who?”
“Mr. Russert, several months ago you stopped in here and bought a raffle ticket for a Dogs for the Disabled benefit. Do you remember?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, congratulations, Mr. Scott Russert. You’re the lucky winner!”
Scott, a light sleeper, didn’t feel lucky now. Ever since the ship had docked at Civitavecchia, near Rome, they’d endured four nights of loud music and Middle Eastern-looking men coming and going from the room next door.
He wanted to sleep, relax, and enjoy the ship’s many amenities with his family-the theaters with live shows and movies, the AquaDunk thrill slide, Goofy’s Pool, the Oceaneer Club, and the full array of pubs and restaurants with an endless supply of food and drink.
Now he’d reached his limit. As he reached for the phone to call Security, the music suddenly stopped and he heard what sounded like chanting.
“What the bloody hell are they doing now?” he asked in a whisper.
“Sounds like they’re praying,” Karen answered. “Close your eyes, Scotty. Go to sleep.”
The chanting stopped, and he heard the door open and men leaving. “Rude wankers,” he muttered as he lowered his head to the pillow.
Speed, aggression, surprise were their watchwords as the twelve men spread throughout the ship. They moved according to a carefully rehearsed plan, four to take the security station that controlled the hundreds of video monitors, four to the engine room, four to the bridge. They carried grenades, gaffer’s tape, mags, ski masks, and fake beards in their pockets, and in the waistbands of their pants Vertex Standard VX-354 walkie-talkies with coverage of 350,000 square feet and a UV signal that could travel thirty stories through concrete and metal. They held suppressed automatic weapons under their long coats, the serial and model numbers scratched out.
No insignia, IDs, or uniforms. Nothing that could identify them in any way. They looked more like trained special operators than standard-issue terrorists. All were athletic, lean, and strong. Petras, in the lead, was hoping that the gentle rolling of the ship, the calm night, and the unreal beauty of the Aegean had lulled the ship’s security officers into a state of complacency.
He signaled the other three to wait behind him as he knocked on the door of the Security Office on Deck 4.
A man inside asked, “Who is it?”
“Johnny.”
As soon as the door opened, Petras and the others pushed their way in. He grabbed the man at the door by the throat so he couldn’t scream, pushed him against the wall, and shot him in the head. Three of the six officers on duty were asleep before one wall of monitors. The remaining two were so out of it, it took them a few seconds to realize what was happening and reach for their weapons. That was all the time the attackers needed.
A dozen shots, and half a minute later the terrorists were fully in charge of the Security Office. Already almost a third of the ship’s thirty-man security team had been taken out. Petras raised his left thumb to his three associates, left immediately, and climbed eight flights of stairs to the bridge. Once there and barely breathing hard, he texted Mrs. Girard.
She was standing with her hands on the ship’s wheel with First Officer Kalberg pressing into her from behind when the phone in her purse pinged. Turning toward him, she whispered, “I have to return to my cabin to make a call, but would like to see you later.”
“That sounds lovely. When?”
“Say fifteen minutes?”
“We can meet at the Keys piano bar on Deck 3, or I can come to your cabin.”
“I think my cabin will be more private. It’s 832.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” First Officer Kalberg said, leering at her breasts.
“I’ll be waiting.”
As he watched her walk away, fantasies unfolded in his head. He had no idea that her real purpose in leaving was to hold open the secure bridge door for Petras and the four terrorists waiting in the hallway.
They entered forcefully, fake beards, masks, and black headscarves in place. Kalberg saw them coming like a scene out of a horror movie. Before he could open his mouth to shout, a bullet entered his brain and his world turned dark.
The shots they fired were silenced, but when Kalberg spun and crashed against a radar console, one of the two security guards on duty whirled around, saw the masked men, and drew his Glock. The former Scottish Special Air Service operative managed to wound one of the terrorists in the foot before he was cut down in a hail of bullets.
The attackers continued to spray rounds everywhere, tearing up equipment, shattering one of the forward windows, catching the navigation officer in the throat. Bullets hit the first ship security officer in the groin near his femoral artery; multiple rounds ripped into the second security officer’s heart.
Blood and glass everywhere, the air clogged with cordite and smoke, Petras screamed, “Everyone down on the floor! Down on the floor! Hands over your heads!”
Those who didn’t comply immediately were shot. The rest of the crew members hit the floor facedown-two in the cockpit area, another two at the navigation station in the middle of the bridge, the last four near the computer monitors that measured air quality, electricity usage, radio signals, and so on. The two ship security men lay dead as the navigation and first security officers bled out. The remaining officers were seized with a combination of panic, horror, and disbelief.
At this moment Captain Ian Hutley stumbled out of his office, his tunic unbuttoned, his eyes bleary, and a TASER clutched in his right hand.
“What the hell is this?” he shouted, tasing the first armed man he saw. The probe flew twelve feet, pierced the terrorist’s nylon face mask, and entered the skin under his left eye, penetrating a quarter inch and releasing 50,000 volts of energy at 7 watts. The jolt shot through his system like lightning, causing the terrorist to scream and fall to his right, his head smashing against one of the instrument panels and his fully automatic AKM spinning in the air and crashing onto the deck. As he bled from his nose, his colleagues attacked the captain with their fists and rifles, smashing his teeth and destroying his right knee.
Then two of them dragged him to the ship’s PA station, sat him in the leather chair, and showed him the typed-out statement, which he seemed too stunned to read. One of the men pushed it into his bloody face.
“You read! Read now! Tell all passengers to stay in cabins.”
“I can’t fucking see it without my glasses!”
“You read, or I shoot you in the head.”
While this was taking place, Petras hurried to the cockpit and pushed a large red button that sent an electric signal to slow the liner. Then he turned a dial that lowered the speed from eight and a half to six knots. Because the ship was moving relatively slowly through the gentle Aegean Sea, only two of its five generators were engaged, each producing 20,000 pounds of horsepower.
Next he flipped a series of switches that shut off the ship’s fire, man overboard, abandon ship, and security alarms.
Petras knew that the ship’s planned destination for 0730 that morning was Mykonos, Greece. On one of the full-color computer screens in front of him, he saw that they were currently ten nautical miles off the coast of the island of Samos, famed since the time of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens for its muscat grapes.
Before he disabled the ship’s cell-phone repeater, he called a man on a launch waiting near the coast.
“Sinbad, this is Stavros.”
“Yes.”
“We won the tournament. The trophy is all ours.”
This was only partially true, because when the master mariner in the engine room tried to communicate with the bridge to ask why they were changing speeds and why he couldn’t activate any of the primary and secondary communication systems, he alerted the engineers on duty. Following security procedures, the nine men locked themselves in a secure room from which they immediately issued VHF voice, and DSC and Inmarsat distress signals. The DSC (digital selective calling) signal was programmed with the ship’s MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) and GPS coordinates.