Khalil had considered the problem of the satellite phone in the communications shack, and the likelihood that Shaw or his bodyguard would be carrying one. The comm center and the bodyguard were the main preliminary targets. They never guessed that the captain would have a satphone. They figured that they would catch him in the Grand Salon. Once they had control of him, the psychological effect on the crew and passengers would make their jobs much easier. But that was no longer likely.
“We will kill him,” Khalil said, the decision easy. Automatic weapons in the hands of a determined force were all the psychological effect they would need. He glanced at his watch. It was 10:10 P.M. They were dead on schedule.
“Shall I give the word?” Adani asked.
“No, I’ll do it,” Khalil said. “Go back to your station in the Grand Salon, and prepare your people. We strike in five minutes.”
Adani’s eyes were bright with excitement. He nodded to Khalil and the others. “Insha’allah,” he said, God’s will, and he headed forward.
One man would make his way to the communications shack and disable the radio gear; three would make a quick but thorough sweep of the crew’s quarters and kill any crewmen still in their bunks; and the last man would go with Khalil and Zahir to the bridge, where they would kill all the crew except for the helmsman and disable the captain’s satphone.
When the ship was secure, which Khalil estimated should take no more than four or five minutes, one man would remain on the bridge, one in the communications center, and two in engineering. Everyone else would converge on the Grand Salon and their final objective.
Khalil keyed his walkie-talkie. “Granger, phase one, five minutes.”
Pahlawan, in the engine room, came back at once: “Roger.”
Khalil pocketed his walkie-talkie, checked the load on his Steyr pistol, and looked up at his men, his dark eyes narrowed malevolently. “I want to be off this boat with our prisoner in H-plus-thirty minutes. Do not fail me.”
“Insha’allah,” they muttered and melted into the darkness.
Khalil led the way forward, past the Klondike Room where two of his operators had already gunned down the four steward’s assistants who’d been cleaning up after dinner. He held up just a moment at the door to the thwartships corridor adjacent to the galley. A man dressed in a steward’s uniform emerged from the intersecting corridor and went into the galley. He was one of Adani’s people. He carried a RAK machine pistol with a large suppressor attached to the end of the short barrel.
Already crewmen all over the ship were dying in their bunks or at their duty stations, while none of the passengers had any idea that the Spirit was under attack. Long before any alarm could be raised, it would be too late. Within a few minutes the ship would no longer be under Cruise West’s control, and Khalil was certain that no power on earth could change the inevitable outcome that was already set in motion.
The only sounds were those of the ship’s engines, the wind in the rigging, and the music and laughter coming from the Grand Salon.
Khalil and his two operators, their machine pistols at the ready, slipped into the corridor, hurried noiselessly to the stairway next to the elevator, and went up three flights to the bridge deck.
The covered area and the sundeck aft were empty, as were the passageways. Zahir quickly checked the owner’s suite to make sure that Shaw hadn’t come back to his cabin for some reason. He came out, shaking his head, and they proceeded down the starboard passageway and up the stairs to the bridge.
Khalil was first. He threw open the door, went inside, and stepped left to allow Zahir and Hasan to come in right behind him.
Captain Darling turned around, and seeing the weapons realized in a split instant that something was drastically wrong. He held a cup of hot coffee in his left hand. He tossed it at the intruders, hoping for a moment’s distraction, and sprang for the weapons locker.
Khalil easily sidestepped the cup and fired three shots, the first two hitting the captain in the shoulder, but the third plowing into the side of his head, killing him instantly.
Zahir put three shots into Abfalter’s chest, knocking the officer-intraining off his feet; he struggled to breathe for almost three seconds before he too died.
The young woman at the helm released the wheel and stepped back, her hands going to her face. She was shaking, and she appeared ready to faint. Khalil lowered his weapon and went to her. He took her arm and guided her back to the wheel.
“Someone has to steer the boat, my dear,” he said pleasantly. “It wouldn’t do to run us aground. Might upset the passengers.”
She was frightened out of her mind, but she did as she was told, bringing the Spirit, which had drifted only a few degrees to starboard, back on course.
“The captain’s satphone,” Khalil reminded Zahir. He keyed his walkie-talkie. “One is secure,” he radioed.
SIX
Shortly after ten Katy realized that she’d lost an earring, and she leaned over to her husband. “Could you fetch something for me from our cabin, like a good boy?” They were having after-dinner drinks at one of the tables at the edge of the dance floor. It was the second night out, and most of the ninety-six passengers were enjoying themselves in the Gay Nineties, plush, floral-upholstered, and hand-carved-wood ambiance of the Spirit’s Grand Salon.
They were tablemates with Don Shaw and his wife, Karen. The two couples had agreed at the boarding cocktail reception not to talk shop, and the ship’s crew had been instructed not to recognize the former secretary. He and his wife were to be treated as ordinary passengers.
“I hope it’s nothing heavy,” McGarvey told his wife under his breath. “It’s been a long day and I’m tired.”
“Would you believe an earring?”
McGarvey gave her a smile. “I don’t suppose it would do me any good to say that you look beautiful without it.”
“You’d earn points, but other than that—” She gave him a contented, warm smile. “Small, blue velvet, zippered pouch in one of the pockets of my brown leather hanging bag.”
Their drink order arrived, and their steward seemed a bit nervous. He spilled some of Shaw’s martini on the napkin and clumsily started to wipe it up, but the former SecDef waved him off. “It’s all right.”
Captain Darling had been seated with them, but he’d been called away by the chief steward a few minutes ago. “What happened to the captain?” Karen Shaw asked, pleasantly. Darling had been regaling them with hilarious stories about some of the gaffes he had committed with passengers when he was a young, inexperienced officer just out of the Merchant Marine Academy.
The steward, a young, dark-complexioned man with long, delicate fingers glanced across the dance floor toward the door. “He was called to the bridge, ma’am, though I’m sure I don’t know why.”
“Will he be long?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” the steward said, and he turned abruptly and hurried across to the service alcove, where he disappeared behind the screen.
The hairs at the base of McGarvey’s neck prickled, and his eyes narrowed. He resisted the urge to follow the steward and ask what was bothering him. This was supposed to be a vacation. It was the first one he and Katy had taken since the trouble, and they needed the time away from Washington. Jim Grassinger was seated at a table by the door with Shaw’s bodyguard, Tony Battaglia. Both of them sipped soda water. Their heads were on swivels, but turning slowly, as if they were nonchalantly people watching. Nothing could have been further from the truth. McGarvey caught Grassinger’s eye and nodded toward the door. Grassinger got to his feet, said something to Battaglia who surreptitiously glanced over at his boss’s table, and then Grassinger stepped out into the passageway.