Only five minutes had elapsed since they had come aboard, but already the cruise ship was under their control.
Khalil stepped back, then turned and walked to the tables in the front of the room at the edge of the dance floor. Shaw and his wife, plus another, very attractive, woman sat together. The seat next to the attractive woman was empty, as was the one at the head of the table.
“Mr. Secretary of Defense, what a pleasure to see you this evening,” Khalil said.
Shaw looked up over his glasses at Khalil, but said nothing.
Khalil motioned toward the empty chairs. “Where are the individuals who were seated with you?”
“They’re gone,” Kathleen answered quickly.
Khalil turned his bland, almost dreamy eyes to her. “One of them was your husband?”
“No. It was Captain Darling and one of his officers. The chief steward called them away a few minutes ago.”
Khalil considered her answer. The captain had come to the bridge, but he’d been alone. “Where is your husband?”
“I’m a widow.”
Khalil resisted the urge to tell her that she would soon be joining her husband. Instead he turned back to Shaw. “On your feet, Mr. Secretary, you are coming with us. Someone wishes to speak to you.”
Karen Shaw was clutching her husband’s arm. “Who?” the former SecDef asked.
“Why, Osama bin Laden, of course—”
An unsilenced pistol shot rang out at the back of the salon, immediately followed by the rapid putt-putting of at least two machine pistols. Khalil spun around in time to see that one of his operators was down, as was one of the male passengers. Blood was splattered all over the paneled wall, and was pooling under the two bodies.
“He had a gun,” one of the operators said.
Khalil turned again to Shaw. “Was he your bodyguard?”
The former SecDef nodded tightly. “However long it takes, we will hunt you down; you and the scum bastards you work with. Make no mistake.”
“It is you who have made a mistake by coming on this trip,” Khalil said, calming himself. “Get to your feet now, or I will kill your wife.”
Shaw stood up, disengaging himself from his wife’s grasp. “First Afghanistan, then Iraq. You and al-Quaida are next.”
“You will have plenty of time to practice your speech,” Khalil said. “Where we are going there will be many people most interested in your words.” He laughed. “Very interested indeed.”
He turned to his operators at the door. “The man has a satphone. Destroy it,” he ordered. Without warning, he slashed the machine pistol’s heavy butt across the side of Shaw’s head, nearly knocking the former SecDef off his feet, a six-inch gash opening from his cheek to the hairline above his ear.
SEVEN
McGarvey and Grassinger reached the inside corridor cabin assigned to Mr. and Mrs. James Garwood without seeing any other passenger or crewman. Once again the hairs at the back of McGarvey’s neck prickled, though he couldn’t say why. It was some inner sense, some inner earlywarning system kicking in. But like an overused smoke detector, he sometimes got false alarms.
He unlocked the door with his key, and eased it open with the toe of his shoe. They’d left one of the lights over the bed on, and it provided enough illumination for him to see that nothing had been disturbed.
Grassinger pulled his pistol, glanced both ways up the corridor, and then eased McGarvey to one side, and looked inside the cabin. “Okay, boss, what’s going on?”
“Probably nothing,” McGarvey said. He went to the closet, where he found Katy’s blue velvet zippered pouch in one of the side pockets.
“I don’t like that word probably,” Grassinger said. He looked inside the tiny bathroom tucked in the forward corner, then checked under the bed and took a look out the big window. But there was nothing to be seen except for the reflection of the ship’s running lights in the water rushing past.
“Like I said, I’m tired,” McGarvey answered absently. His mind was elsewhere. There was something he was missing. Something at some unconscious level of his awareness. Something he was hearing, or feeling, or even smelling that wasn’t registering. Yet it was there.
He found the gold hoop earrings Katy wanted, and slipped them into his jacket pocket.
Grassinger went to the door and looked out into the corridor. “It’s too quiet,” he said softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the silence by raising his voice.
“Everybody’s in the Grand Salon.”
“Most of the crew aren’t,” Grassinger said.
“That’s right. They’re on the bridge, in the radio room, down in the galley, or in engineering doing their jobs. The ones off duty are either in their bunks or in whatever common room they have aboard, not up here wandering around in the corridors.”
“Let’s stop by the bridge and see what’s holding up the captain.”
“He’s probably already back in the Grand Salon wondering what’s taking me so long,” McGarvey said. He opened one of the side pockets in his hanging bag where he’d stuffed his gun, holster, and spare magazines. He debated rearming himself, but then he had to ask why. He was supposed to be on vacation. He had an armed guard with him, and the CIA and DoD had vetted the crew and passengers.
“I can call and ask,” Grassinger suggested.
McGarvey zippered the side pocket, and shut the closet door. “This is only the second night out, Jim. And if we keep going like this, we’ll probably end up shooting each other.” He forced a grin. “We’re going to start having a good time around here, and that’s an order.”
Grassinger reluctantly put his gun away. “You’re right. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing my job.”
McGarvey looked at him. “I don’t expect that you will. But we have to ease up a little. And that goes for me as well as for you.”
Grassinger chuckled. “It’s a deal, boss, as long as you don’t use the word probably again. Gives me the creeps.”
“Right. Katy and I are going to have a last dance, and then we’re coming up to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“That it has,” Grassinger said.
Getting out of Washington unnoticed yesterday had been an exercise in subterfuge. Ever since McGarvey’s contentious Senate subcommittee hearings to confirm his appointment as director of Central Intelligence, the media had practically camped on the CIA’s doorstep, and down the block from his house in Chevy Chase when he was in residence. Every time his limousine made a move, the press was on his tail. It was almost as bad as being chased by the paparazzi. One of the security people drove Katy and their bags out to an Air Force VIP Gulfstream at Andrews, while McGarvey was taken to FBI headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. He transferred to an unmarked, windowless surveillance van and was finally driven out to Andrews, where he was given immediate clearance to take off.
The flight was bumpy all the way out to Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota, where they were forced to land in a blinding rainstorm with high winds because one of the control system’s trouble lights indicated they were losing hydraulic fluid. It turned out to be a false alarm, but they refueled and then took off again during a brief break in the weather. An hour out of Ellsworth, Katy got airsick, but refused to let them set down or turn back.
After that, the weather improved a little until they finally landed at Juneau in a cold drizzle, and Katy immediately perked up. She had looked forward to this trip for several months, and absolutely nothing was going to stop her from having a good time; once they got back to Washington, her obstetrician promised to be on her back 24/7, and she would have to start behaving herself.