Katy and Kirk would have to get a good night’s sleep, because they would be busy again the next day, hiking on glaciers, kayaking to chase whales, otter spotting, maybe salmon fishing or oyster hunting, whitewater rafting, and even hiking through the Sitka forests to see elaborately carved totem poles. They wanted to see and do as much as they possibly could while Katy was still in the earliest stages of her pregnancy. The toughest part would be complying with the strict order her doctor had given to Mac: “Slow her down, Mr. Director; she’s not a twenty-five-year-old girl.”
“Did you tell her that?” McGarvey asked.
Her doctor had smiled faintly. “All except the part about not being twenty-five. But she’ll be just fine as long as you don’t let her overdo it.”
McGarvey followed his bodyguard back down to the lounge deck. The doors to the Grand Salon were closed, but the corridor was ice cold, as if a hatch or something was open to the outside.
Grassinger shoved open the door and stepped inside, McGarvey right behind him. Almost immediately, Grassinger pivoted, danced to the left, and went for his gun.
McGarvey caught a snapshot glimpse of the passengers seated at their tables, a lot of bodies lying in pools of blood on the floor and up on the stage, and eight or ten men armed with what looked like compact submachine guns, big silencers on the ends of the barrels, positioned along the walls. Katy and Karen Shaw were seated at their table, but the former SecDef stood next to a man dressed in what could have been a ship’s officer’s white jacket, a black balaclava over his head.
Grassinger only just got his gun hand inside his jacket when he was violently cast sideways off his feet by a hail of gunfire from a silenced submachine gun, which stitched a half dozen or more wounds from the side of his head to his hip.
The man in the black balaclava next to Shaw started to turn toward the commotion, as did the other terrorists.
The passengers were slower to react, but already several of them had jumped up and were attempting to escape, while a few others were diving for the floor to get out of the line of fire.
Within the next few seconds the situation would get completely out of hand unless the terrorists were too busy dealing with an immediate threat to their own safety to take their rage out on the helpless passengers. It was obvious that they were here to take the former secretary of defense hostage. It meant that they might be open to some form of negotiation, especially if they weren’t sure that they were in total control.
All that went through McGarvey’s head at the speed of light, and to an observer it seemed as if he reacted the instant Grassinger reached for his pistol.
The shooter, just behind the door to the right, moved forward toward his target as he fired, as most shooters do. The silencer and muzzle of the RAK submachine pistol poked around the edge of the door. Mindless of the hot metal, McGarvey grabbed the barrel with his bare hand, and twisting it sharply to the left as he deflected it upward and away from himself as well as the passengers, he pulled the gunman half out into the corridor.
McGarvey’s instant impression was that the shooter was a young kid, maybe in his early twenties, most likely a Saudi or perhaps an Iranian or an Iraqi. He forced the muzzle of the silencer under the terrorist’s chin, and then yanked the gun upward, causing it to fire. The one round took the top of the shooter’s head off. His grip slackened as he went down. McGarvey snatched the RAK, and fired one controlled burst of three rounds over the heads of the panicking passengers.
The terrorists dove for cover, and before they could react Mac stepped back into the corridor and out of sight. He didn’t want to further endanger the passengers by drawing fire.
He could have taken out several of the terrorists, but they not only had the firepower advantage over him, they also had the passengers as shields. Katy was at the Shaws’ table, and although it didn’t appear as if the terrorists knew who she was, that might not last.
It was likely that the terrorists had already taken control of the ship. It’s why he and Grassinger had not bumped into anyone on the upper deck when they’d gone back for Katy’s earrings. The rest of the crew was probably dead, or incapacitated.
Grassinger’s blood was spreading through the doors out into the corridor, a shocking red against the pale green carpeting.
The entire Grand Salon could very well become a killing field soon unless McGarvey did something. Katy had turned toward the door when the firing started. She’d had just a split second to see what was going on, and to see who was there, before he ducked out of sight. She knew that he would not leave her there.
Hang on, Katy, he said to himself, as he turned and sprinted down the corridor to the starboard stairs, and took them two at a time up to the bridge deck.
First he would see if the radio room could be salvaged so that an SOS could be sent. Next he would check the bridge to see if the terrorists had put someone at the helm. And then he would start isolating them and taking them down, one or two at a time. Keep them so busy and so much on the defensive that they would be forced to forget about their primary mission.
They would pay, not only for killing Jim Grassinger and for placing the passengers in such great danger, but for putting Katy in harm’s way. After this night they would rue the day they ever heard of the Spirit of ’98.
EIGHT
Ernst Gertner’s call to the chalet did not come as a surprise.
Detective Ziegler held his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s the captain, and he doesn’t sound happy.” He handed the phone to Liese.This was supposed to be a stealthy surveillance, which in Swiss parlance meant that no one was to know anything about it; neither the prince’s family nor anyone official at Nidwalden HQ. When she’d called the Kanton operations officer for telephone records of the Thalwil Boarding School near Zurich, the ball had been sent up. Questions of an official nature were raised because they had to be raised. Wealthy, powerful men such as the prince were to be treated with extreme care. So long as they broke no Swiss laws, they were not to be interfered with under any circumstance. Now that was the official policy. In actuality men such as the prince simply could not be left entirely to their own devices. They had to be monitored. Especially in this day and age. But quietly, unofficially.
A lot of eyes at headquarters in Bern were looking at Liese as if under a microscope. If she continued to do her job with intelligence and self-control, she would be considered for promotion to lieutenant. She would be the first woman in the history of the Swiss Federal Police to hold such a lofty position. But if she made a mistake, any mistake, it would be blamed on her sex, and she would remain a sergeant until she finally got disgusted enough to resign, which is exactly what half of the force wanted to happen.
“Goodness gracious, why didn’t you call me first?” Gertner demanded angrily. “I could have made quiet inquiries.”
Liese bit her tongue to hold back a sharp retort. She had merely been doing her job. “It was five in the morning, captain. I didn’t think you wished to be disturbed at that hour.”
“I was disturbed twenty minutes later, from Bern.”
“I don’t see the point—”
“Bad news travels fast,” Gertner replied brusquely. “The president is scheduled to meet with the Saudi ambassador this noon. What would happen at that meeting if word got out of what you were doing down here?”
“What, spying on a member of the royal family?” Liese asked sharply. Who were they trying to kid? This assignment had not been her idea.