“Duty calls,” McGarvey told the Shaws, and he got up.
The former SecDef looked up, questioningly, but McGarvey gave him a reassuring nod.
“Be just a minute,” he said, and he left the Grand Salon. Grassinger was waiting out in the passageway, very alert.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Mission of mercy. Katy lost an earring.” They headed to the starboard stairs one deck up and forward to the McGarveys’ inside-corridor deluxe stateroom. The wind was screaming outside now, but they were sailing in protected waters and the cruise liner rode easily.
This part of the ship seemed very quiet. They could hear music from downstairs, but nothing else in the inside passageway. There were no stewards, no crewmen, no engineers doing maintenance. But then perhaps nothing was broken and needed fixing.
McGarvey forced his dire feelings to the back of his mind. Pretty soon he would be looking for bogeymen under his bed. It was just a case of overwrought nerves brought on by the constant pressures of the seventh floor at Langley and the events of the past year. He smiled, and chuckled to himself. Hell, considering the life he had led, the people he’d killed, and the ones who had made very serious efforts to kill him, it was a wonder he wasn’t a basket case.
“Something I said?” Grassinger asked.
“I’m going to give it another half hour or so, and then I’m going to pull the pin,” McGarvey said, stifling a yawn. “I’m so tired I’m starting to imagine all sorts of stuff.”
Grassinger reacted as if he had just sucked on a lemon. “Jeez, don’t say that, Mac; I’m already spooked as it is.”
“You too?”
“Yeah.”
McGarvey had to laugh. “It’s one of the perks of the business. Things will look up tomorrow.”
Khalil’s people finished their sweep of the upper deck, silently killing two crewmen — one on steward’s duty and one repairing a jammed door lock — and three passengers who had the misfortune to miss the night’s entertainment and retire early.
They assembled in the port stairwell that led down to the lounge deck, six operators plus Khalil, who keyed his walkie-talkie. “Engine room.”
“Secure,” Granger reported.
“Bridge.”
“Secure,” Karin replied.
“Communications.”
“Secure,” Muhamed came back.
“Abdul,” Khalil radioed.
For several seconds there was no reply, but then Adani finally came back. “Two of the male passengers left about three minutes ago. They took the stairs to the upper deck. Did you run into them?”
“No. Who are they?”
“I haven’t had time to check. But they must have cabins on that deck; there’s nothing else up there.”
“We just took care of three passengers up there,” Khalil said. “It must have been them.” He considered sending two of his people back to make sure, but in another four or five minutes they would have Shaw in custody and would be off this ship. “Is our target still there?”
“Yes.”
“What about the rest of our people?” Khalil asked. Besides Adani and two others on the steward’s staff in the Grand Salon, there were three from engineering.
“They’re in place on the bow viewing area, ready to strike on your command,” Adani said, and it was clear from his voice that he was excited.
“We’re coming down. The time is now T-minus-thirty seconds.”
“Insha’allah,” Adani radioed.
Yes, insha’allah, Khalil thought, and he led his people downstairs to the lounge deck, in the corridor just aft of the Grand Salon. The combo was doing a good job with “In the Mood,” and he could hear people talking and laughing, having a good time. After the events of this evening, however, the handful of passengers and crew who might survive, if they were lucky, would forever have second thoughts about the true meaning of happiness.
Of the sixteen operators, Khalil’s was the only face not in the photographic files of any intelligence or law enforcement agency somewhere in the world. One of his strengths was his anonymity. He pulled a black nylon mesh balaclava over his head, checked his RAK machine pistol’s silencer, and motioned for his people to do the same. They had made little or no noise to this point, and he wanted to keep it that way. There were still crewmen on duty in various parts of the ship. Alerting them at this stage would merely complicate things. They all would die in due course, but for the moment Khalil wanted to maintain his tight schedule. In approximately sixty minutes, the Spirit would be in range of one of the cell-phone towers that served the Ketchikan area. They had to be well away long before that time, because there was no possibility of finding all the cell phones that might be aboard.
Khalil watched the numerals of his digital watch count down the last five seconds to 22:15. He keyed his walkie-talkie, and spoke one word: “Now.”
The four men from engineering who waited on the bow were first inside the Grand Salon. Without warning they opened fire on the tiny stage, killing the four musicians. They quickly took positions along the starboard wall.
Adani and his two stewards snatched their weapons, hidden under towels on serving trolleys, and opened fire on the eight officers seated at various tables throughout the salon, moving in from the pantry and serving stations along the port wall.
Even before the first woman let out an ear-piercing scream, Khalil and his six operators stormed in from the aft corridor, and closed the watertight double doors, cutting off sounds from the rest of the ship.
The passengers reacted in stunned disbelief. Some of them ducked under their tables, while others shouted for the crew, for anyone, to do something.
Khalil’s men took up positions across the back wall, completing the encirclement of the Grand Salon. As the noise slowly began to subside, Khalil nonchalantly walked toward the front of the room, stopping next to the woman who was still crying and screaming, her eyes wide, her hands to her mouth. She was in her late sixties or early seventies, and frightened beyond control. Nothing like this had ever happened to her or any of her friends in Waterloo, Iowa.
She looked up into his eyes, suddenly rearing back as if she’d looked into the eyes of a hooded cobra ready to strike. “My God—”
Khalil raised his machine pistol and put one round in the middle of her forehead. She was shoved backward, onto the deck. An older man, probably her husband, dressed in a tuxedo, started to get to his feet, when Khalil calmly switched aim and fired one shot into his face at point-blank range, killing him instantly.
“The next person who utters a sound, any sound, will suffer the same fate,” Khalil told the passengers and those of the crew who were still alive.
A deathly silence descended upon the big room, as if someone had dropped a funeral shroud from the ceiling.
“Appreciate the gravity of the situation that you now find yourselves in,” Khalil told them. “You have my word as a gentleman that once we have accomplished our task this evening, we will leave the ship, and no further harm will come to any of you.”
“Just go away!” a teenaged girl seated with her parents cried, and her mother tried to hush her.
Khalil reached their table on three strides. “Which of your parents do you want me to kill, little girl?” he demanded.
The teenager looked up at him and shook her head, unable to speak.
“Make another sound, and I shall kill them both.” Khalil held her eye for several long moments, until the mother pulled her daughter away and protectively cradled her.
He looked at them with contempt. If it had been a defiant son who had made the challenge, he would have enjoyed the killing. But a daughter was not worth the effort of pulling the trigger.