The young mother opened her mouth but made no sound, completely unable to comprehend what had just happened in front of her. She shook her head, and held her baby close to her breast. The older man’s jaw dropped, and he slowly sat down, the color draining from his face.
“I need to know the identity of the man who attacked us,” Khalil said.
“We don’t know who he is,” the older woman cried. “Please, can’t you have mercy on us?”
Shaw, realizing what would happen next if someone didn’t intervene, started to get to his feet, but his wife held him back, a look of terror on her face. Katy could not take her eyes away from the unfolding scene. The terrorist was going to kill the young woman and her child next. Katy could see it coming. Everyone in the room knew it was about to happen. But there was nothing any of them could do. If they moved, they would be shot down like the others.
Khalil pointed his machine pistol at the back of the baby’s head. If he fired, the shot would certainly kill the infant and most likely the mother as well. The young woman held her breath and closed her eyes.
“Who is the man who attacked us?” Khalil asked, patiently.
Katy got to her feet. She did not take her eyes off the terrorist pointing the gun at the mother and child, but she was aware that some of the others had swung their guns in her direction.
“He’s my husband,” she said, in a loud, clear voice. Karen Shaw reached over and gave Katy’s hand a squeeze.
Khalil turned toward her, hesitated just a moment, and then walked over to her. “Your husband?”
“Yes,” Katy said. She could see his eyes behind the mask. They were coal black and inhumanly emotionless, like those of a wild animal, a jungle animal.
“Who might you be?”
“I’m Kathleen McGarvey.”
For a brief instant the terrorist seemed to be taken aback, almost rocked on his heels. But he recovered immediately. “Your husband is Kirk McGarvey? The director of the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“That’s correct,” Katy said. She let that sink in for several seconds, and then she looked at the other terrorists positioned around the room. “If you want to live, I suggest that you get off this ship while you can,” she said in a loud, perfectly steady voice. “Otherwise my husband will kill you.” She turned back to the terrorist behind the balaclava. “Count on it,” she told him.
TEN
Moments after one of the terrorists had fired the short burst down the corridor, McGarvey had made his way up to the bridge deck taking the stairs two at a time. Except for the faint sounds of the powerful diesel engines in the distance, the ship was deathly quiet. Normally there would be passengers in the corridors, or stewards delivering room-service orders. But the Spirit seemed to be deserted.
It was out of the ordinary. He had picked up on it earlier, but he had put it off as nothing more than a combination of fatigue and the paranoia that accompanied his kind of work. He always listened to his inner voices. But this time he had ignored his instincts. He was supposed to be on vacation.
The ship was unnaturally quiet because the crew and passengers not in the Grand Salon were probably already dead. The terrorists had to be well organized. They’d probably masqueraded as crewmen, which meant they had a professional organization behind them; otherwise they couldn’t have passed the extensive background checks the DoD and CIA had carried out. Either that or they had transferred aboard from a smaller boat following in the Spirit’s wake. But even then it would have been necessary to have someone aboard to make sure the way was clear.
If they were professionals and not fanatics, it would make defeating them much more difficult, but on the plus side a professional understood logic. He would recognize when it was time to cut his losses and run, whereas a fanatic would rather die, taking everyone with him, than give up.
McGarvey was used to dealing with professionals. He had been in the business for more than twenty-five years, starting with the Office of Special Investigations in the Air Force before signing on with the CIA as a field officer. Most of his early career had been spent in black operations. He had been a killer. An assassin. It was a job that had very nearly destroyed him, and had caused the deaths of a number of people who had been very close to him.
His job had even destroyed his marriage, until he and Katy had both finally come to their senses and realized that they loved each other, and could deal with whatever was separating them. He’d risen quickly then from assistant deputy director of operations all the way up to his present appointment as director of the CIA. It was a position he’d promised the president that he would stick with for three years. But 9/11 had put everything on hold for him. And this attack now, which was directed at the former secretary of defense, was probably just the next step for bin Laden, a man McGarvey knew better than anyone in the West. If this were a bin Laden-directed operation, then it would have been exquisitely planned. And it would be ruthless.
He held up at the head of the stairs. The owner’s suite, which the Shaws had occupied, was directly across the corridor from him. Just aft was the funnel, and beyond it the open sundeck. Forward of the suite were the bridge, radio room, and captain’s sea quarters.
The weapon he’d taken from the terrorist was a Polish-made RAK PM-63 machine pistol that fired a 9mm Makarov cartridge at six hundred rounds per minute. A long suppressor was screwed to the end of the barrel, but even with the degradation of accuracy that most silencers caused, the Wz-63, in its Polish designation, was a deadly weapon. The trouble was its suppressor got very hot when the weapon was fired, and McGarvey’s right palm had a waffle-pattern burn from grabbing the gun out of the terrorist’s hands.
The RAK was the weapon of choice for many Eastern European terrorists, so it was taught to field officers at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility outside Williamsburg, and McGarvey knew it well. He released the catch at the bottom of the pistol grip, popping out the twenty-five-round magazine. Only six bullets remained.
Three-fourths of the bullets in the magazine had been fired. The kid had probably murdered one or more crewmen or passengers before he had gunned down Grassinger, and he would have almost certainly done more killing tonight unless he and the others were stopped.
There wasn’t time for McGarvey to return to his cabin for his pistol and spare magazines, so six rounds would have to be enough for now.
He drove the magazine home with the heel of his hand, then stepped out of the stairwell, ducked across to the owner’s suite, and sprinted down the corridor to the radio room.
The bridge itself was raised a few feet above the level of the main part of the uppermost deck. Access was gained up a short flight of stairs on each side of the ship. There was no other way up. From where he stood, poised next to the radio room door, he could not see up into the bridge. Nor could anyone up there see him unless they came out onto one of the lookout wings and peered through a window.
He felt guilty about leaving Katy in the hands of the terrorists and for allowing Jim Gassinger to be shot to death. In the old days he would have blamed himself for allowing people to get so close to him that their lives would be placed in danger. But now he felt bad because he wasn’t fast enough, not quick enough on the uptake to thwart the determined gunman. But this time the terrorists had made a mistake. They had failed to make a complete sweep of the ship before they took over the Grand Salon. They had missed him, and he was determined to bring the fight back to them in an up close and very personal way.
The radio-room door was ajar. Each time the ship yawed when a wave hit the starboard quarter, the door would swing open a few inches, then swing back almost but not quite hard enough to latch.