Assault on the Empress (15 page)

The armory door was locked. There were no signs of any other guards, nor was there a sign of Alvin Leeds, the man they were looking for. “What do we do about the lock? Shoot it off and let them know we're here?” Jenny Hall asked, almost rhetorically, her voice edged with frustration.

The armory door was located at the rear of the recreation equipment storage facility, Comstock on guard at the outer door overlooking the deck fore and aft with the Browning High Power expropriated from the man Cross had killed.

Jenny had exchanged her beaded evening bag for a leather purse about the size of a small saddlebag. “Got a lock-pick set in there or anything?”

“No. Do you know how to use one?”

“Not too well. I figured maybe you or Comstock could.”

“Well, I don't know about him. But anyway, there's nothing to use as a pick. I'm sorry I went all pale as a ghost on you. I could feel it when it happened. Kind of sick to my stomach.”

“You shouldn't have watched me kill the guy,” he told her, studying the hasp and the padlock, the hasp ordinary enough and the padlock of average size, the kind requiring a key rather than a combination. “You're just a gatherer and a courier. This violent crap isn't your kinda work, right?” and he looked at her.

“I'm sorry this turned out this way. I mean, that you had to find out this way. You know?”

“I know. If we get out of this alive, you wanna pick up where we left off?”

“Do you think we can?” she asked.

“We can try,” Cross told her, leaning down and kissing her lightly on the mouth. “We can try.”

She smiled, leaned her head against his chest for an instant. “I wasn't making it too badly singing. I mean, things weren't working out a hundred percent the way I wanted them to, but they were going okay. And I was nearly through college and I still figured I'd make it, once I'd graduated and didn't just have to look around for jobs close enough to the university that I could make classes. Mom and Dad gave me a trip to Europe for a graduation present and I thought if I took it, maybe I could even line up some jobs in Europe. Well, I did. I spent three months singing in England and Italy and Greece, little places but they were okay. I came back home and kept at it. About a year later, this guy came to my dressing room after the last show. I thought he was just some guy on the make, that he was kidding. But it turned out he wasn't. The government wanted me to go back to Europe and make a series of pickups for them. Nothing dangerous, they told me. And it sounded like fun and a good excuse to go back to Europe. I really liked it there, you know?” He nodded. “I did that for them. A few months after I got back, they asked me to do it again, only in the Far East. So I went. When I came back, they offered me a job, telling me I could do the same thing I always did. But they'd help book the tours for me. And the salary they'd pay me would just make my singing that much more profitable. They sent me through training and everything, they said, just in case. I've been doing this for five years, full-time. It hasn't always been as easy as they said. But appearing before the public every night, you spend a lot on dresses and things, and sometimes there's a place that is really good to appear in, carries some weight, you know? And I couldn't have gotten in those places without the Company arranging the bookings. And the money helps. And anyway, men don't have a monopoly on wanting to do something for their country.”

“I understand,” Cross told her.

He looked at the lock again, then started moving about the storage room. Shuffleboard equipment, childrens' pool toys, clubs for playing miniature golf—“Whoa.”

“What?”

“Wait a minute.” He wasn't into golf at all, but knew a putter when he saw one. “I wonder how sturdy these things are? Let's see.” He took a half dozen of the things out of what looked like an umbrella stand and started back to the locked door. The hasp was on the loose fitting side to begin with and the armory door was wooden, just a regular door. He reached under his shirt for the Gerber MKI boot knife. “This is short and stout enough it might work. Just don't stand anywhere near me in case some metal snaps. Get back.”

Cross started wedging the blade of the Gerber into the gap between the mating of door to doorjamb and the hasp plate, getting it down nearly to the crossguard of the knife's haft. He took one of the golf clubs and started wedging it between the knife handle and the door. “Now, watch your eyes!” He started prying slowly, getting the feel for it, the hasp starting to buckle a little. He closed his eyes, turned his face away and threw his weight down steadily but rapidly. There was a loud crack, but not loud enough to be heard beyond the confines of the room, he judged. And he felt something impacting his right upper arm. “Aww, shit.” But when he looked, he wasn't bleeding. His flesh stung. The hasp had broken off, just cheap metal. He freed the little Gerber and it looked scratched but largely undamaged. He resheathed it and dropped it in his hip pocket. There was an ordinary deadbolt lock on the door. He took a half-step back and then moved forward, his left leg snapping up and out as he pivoted on his right foot, a double kick to the door where lockplate joined doorframe. The door sprang open inwards and there was a clattering of brass parts to the floor.

“Very impressive.” Jenny smiled.

“I thought so.” Cross nodded.

By the light of their flashlights, they entered the armory, Cross more firmly securing the little Gerber knife. There was a single rack of a dozen shotguns, on closer inspection half of them 12-gauges and the other six of them 20s. They were all Remington 1100s. There was a cabinet with neatly stacked shelves, on the shelves boxes of shotgun shells. On the top shelf, there was an H&K flare pistol and an assortment of flares. “Find something for the shotgun shells. Put this flare gun and the flares in your purse in case we need them later.” He'd been hoping against hope for something more substantial, unless this wasn't the only arms lockers. But how often did a bunch of free-spending tourists turn into bloodthirsty mutineers these days, anyway? He took the 20-gauge guns from the rack, putting them in the comer. “These babies go over the side.” He started taking down the 12-gauges, pulling the magazine plugs in them one by one so he'd have full capacity. He threw the plugs away, loading one of the shotguns for himself and another for Comstock.

Jenny had a large sack, and she poured empty shell casings on the floor, loading 12-gauge boxed shotshells into it.

Cross started out, one of the loaded 12s and all six of the 20s with him. “Comstock!”

“Nothing happening. What took so much time?”

“It was a little challenging getting the door open. Have a shotgun. Magazine plug's out and it's loaded. Just trap loads. Best they got.”

“I can do some damage with this.”

“Start pitchin' these over the side. Just 20s and we can't haul 'em with us.”

“Agreed.”

Cross started back to the arms room for the rest of the shotguns and to help Jenny with the shotshells….

They went back the way they came, the body of the terrorist just as they had left it, each of them carrying two shotguns. Cross and Comstock alternating at each landing on the bag of shotshells, their pockets bulging with them.

“If Leeds hasn't been taken prisoner, I'd wager he's hidden below in the machinery spaces,” Comstock said, puffing a little as they reached the next landing and he handed off the bag of shells.

“You're right there,” Cross agreed.

They had been checking each deck as they came to it, to see if there were signs of the terrorists moving about the vessel, ransacking. On the two decks they had passed so far, there was no sign of anyone.

Jenny went to the watertight door—it wasn't sealed—and opened it, peering through, tucking back quickly. “I saw someone. I couldn't make out who he was, but he disappeared about halfway down the corridor, maybe into one of the cabins.”

“If he's a bad guy, we can use his weapons. If he's a good guy, maybe he can help. Jenny, you stay here. You stay with her, Comstock.”

“You had the last one, Cross,” Comstock began.

Cross smiled. “You're right,” and Cross slipped through the door before anything else could be said, the Mini-Tanto in his right fist along with the flashlight, the AKM slung under his left arm, his finger just outside the trigger guard. He moved slowly, keeping as flat against the corridor bulkhead as he could. It would take forever to carefully search each cabin, but there were linen and supply closets spaced along the corridor as well. He would check those.

Cross kept moving, stopping by the first of the closets, trying the door. It opened freely and he ran the flashlight beam from side to side, top to bottom. Nothing but mops and brooms and cleaning supplies. He closed the door, quietly, at the edge of his peripheral vision seeing something, standing stock still, not moving his head so he could place what he had seen. It had been a door opening or closing. He closed his eyes for an instant. Three doors down. He opened his eyes and stepped more fully into the corridor, picking the door. It was one of the cabins. He walked toward it, punching the AKM slightly forward, ready.

Cross passed the door and stopped, tapping on it lightly with the muzzle of the AKM. The door swung open, inward.

Cross hissed into the darkness beyond, “I know you're in there. Out. Or I come in shooting.” He had no intention of making all that noise, but there was no way for whoever it was inside to know that, and a strong gut feeling told him it wasn't one of the terrorist hijackers.

“All right,” a man's voice came back. Cross had heard the voice somewhere before.

A tall, thin-faced man with black hair and mustache wearing the uniform of a junior officer emerged, hands up over his head. “You bastards will never get away with this,” he announced in thickly German accented English, squinting against the beam of the flashlight behind which Cross stood.

“Who are you?”

“Hans Liedecker, recreation officer.”

‘You know much about trap shooting?”

“What?”

Cross lowered the beam of the flashlight. “I'm with the good guys. How'd you get away, or didn't they ever get you?”

“Mr. Cross? The piano player?”

“That's me. When I'm not ticklin' the ivories I'm fighting the forces of evil. What happened?”

“They brought all the senior officers to the bridge, handcuffed and hooded. They used the junior officers like myself to help them with the passenger lists. Even some of the crew were among them, the bastards. And some of the passengers, too. They had all the British passported passengers brought to the Seabreeze Lounge and all the rest of the passengers taken to the casino—aft. It was crowded in the casino, I was able to slip out using the dumbwaiter down to the kitchen below. I almost never got out of the thing”

“How are they treating the passengers? And, for God's sake, lower your hands. ”

“They have segregated the women and children from the men. They have the men staying on their knees with their hands behind their necks until their hands can be tied. I don't know what they plan next.”

“What about the British passengers?”

“I don't know, Mr. Cross. I thought maybe if I got away I could make it to the arms locker and do something.”

“Any other guns aboard the
Empress
besides those twelve shotguns?”

“Just a few flare pistols, Mr. Cross.”

“We threw the 20s overboard because they were too much to carry and I didn't want to leave them behind. We've got the six 12s and all the 12-gauge shotshells. And a few other weapons. Join us.”

The German nodded vigorously. “Yes. Of course. How many are you?”

“Four, now. We're down here by the stairwell.” And Cross, the German beside him, started back along the corridor toward the stairs. If the hijackers were segregating the passengers by nationality, they were setting up for hostage executions. Time was running down fast, too fast.

Hughes and Babcock stood, peering down across the illuminated map of the North Atlantic, at its boundaries Europe and West Africa, the eastern United States and the northeast coast of South America. The map and the huge, circular light table on which it was placed dominated the center of an otherwise sterile room approximately thirty by thirty and built with all the charm of a bomb shelter. Shipping lanes were lighted in red dashes and airline lanes in blue. There was a red plastic X set roughly equidistant from the Azores and Gibralter. No one was in the room but them and General Argus. The helicopter had ferried them to a farmer's field where two Harrier jets had awaited them. No location had been given, but Hughes judged they had been flown north and east. His guess was somewhere in Virginia and it hadn't been important enough to ask.

On the far wall were banks of television screens, monitoring the three major networks and CNN, regular programming on the three networks preempted for special coverage of the hostage crisis in the Atlantic. But nothing seemed to be happening. When Hughes and Babcock had reunited, they were driven for approximately ten minutes to what appeared, on the outside, to be an abandoned factory, simply told to wait then, while the driver and the man with him had pulled off. As soon as the car had disappeared, a uniformed military policeman had exited the side door of the factory and bidden them to follow him to a curious passenger elevator. On the outside, it looked old and in disrepair, but inside was spotless and new. There was only one button to push and Hughes had pushed it. General Robert Argus was waiting for them when the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

“The British are going to be hard pressed to mount any kind of major operation without the cooperation of either Portugal, Morocco or Spain. The logistics would kill them and any chance of surprise would be out of the question,” Argus said, breaking the long silence.

“The Azores are Portuguese, too, right?” Babcock asked.

“Yes. Spain and Great Britain aren't always exactly on the best of terms, Mr. Babcock, and we understand London has diplomatic traffic with both Rabat and Lisbon right now to set something up. But they're probably hoping for the cooperation of Portugal. The
Empress
is a little closer to the Azores and there'd be less coverage of what they're doing. Nothing definite yet, but we do know the Special Air Service has been put on alert and is ready to move. You've heard the demands made by this O'Fallon, the man calling himself the leader of the hijackers?”

Hughes said, “There wasn't time to catch anything more on the television or radio while we got ready for your chopper to pick us up. What are the demands, General?”

“Impossible. He wants the complete pullout of British forces from Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister to get on television and publicly denounce the government of Northern Ireland and pledge British noninvolvement in Irish affairs from now on. He wants the same statement read before a special session of the United Nations Security Council. O'Fallon's not going to get it. And he knows it unless he's a total imbecile. And there's evidence to suggest that this Seamus O'Fallon is just the opposite.”

“What do you mean, General?” Babcock asked. “You know him?”

“You have a dossier on him?” Hughes suggested.

“We do indeed. A lot of it we originally got from the British, but they're being mum on him now. Apparently the FBI was interested in him and so was the CIA. He made some illegal trips into the United States for arms and financial support. Still a lot of people in this country who think they're helping starving widows and orphans and all they're really doing is giving money to buy Communist-bloc weapons to promote more killing. Other things to worry about than O'Fallon's past, though. He's wanted for murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, almost any major crime you can think of. He's got a reputation for brutality that closed him off to a lot of the Irish movement. Things got so hot for him in British territory that he had to flee for about two years. Just been back for under a year is the best estimate.”

“Where did he spend his vacation?” Babcock asked.

“Good point, Mr. Babcock. No one is one hundred percent positive, but there is reason to believe he was working in Central America, based out of Cuba. We're not sure. There may be a Russian connection, too.”

“There usually is, isn't there?” Hughes observed.

“Well, in more ways than one.” Argus gestured toward a raised area to the right of the map table where there was a small conference table and a number of chairs. “Let's get a few things cleared up.” Argus started for the table. Babcock looked at Hughes. Hughes raised his eyebrows only, then nodded in Argus's direction.

Argus sat at the head of the table, Hughes and Babcock flanking him. There was a pitcher on the table and several glasses. Hughes watched as Babcock investigated it, poured water and gestured toward another of the glasses as he looked at Hughes.

Hughes shook his head “no thanks” and looked at Argus. “What's going on, over and above the obvious, General?”

“I can't brief you any further unless you both agree to accept the mission.”

“What's the mission?” Babcock asked. “You didn't fly us here to this place”—and Babcock gestured with his hands—“just so we could go after our friend Mr. Cross.”

“No.1 didn't. Certainly, Cross's life is important, as are the lives of all the hostages. But there's something vastly more important aboard that ship even the British don't know about, and we can only pray the hijackers haven't found.”

Hughes looked at Babcock. Babcock said, “I'll abide by your decision, Mr. Hughes.”

Hughes nodded, looked back at Argus and said, “We're in. Now. What the hell is going on?”

Argus closed his eyes, inhaled, opened them wide and began to speak. “The Russians have always been very interested in chemical and biological warfare. And they've done some things our scientists haven't been able to do.”

“What does biological warfare have to do with the hijacking of a ship on the high seas?”

“The Russians developed a new viral strain, Hughes, Babcock. We wanted it because its potential was so devastating. It was felt that if our scientists could duplicate it and the Russian production plans were delayed, its effectiveness would be neutralized with both sides having it. No one would use it. It was being produced at a laboratory in the mountains in a remote section of Albania, where it was nice and cold in case anything went wrong.”

“What do you mean, ‘nice and cold'?” Hughes snapped.

“No two viruses are exactly alike, they told me, and this one multiplies exceedingly rapidly with heat. The virus—in an ampule—was stolen and all the lab notes and tapes destroyed. The virus was smuggled out of Albania into Italy. It wasn't safe to fly it out. If something had gone wrong, like an explosion in mid-air, the virus would have been released and multiplied. And anyway, the intelligence agency handling it wanted first crack at it, didn't want the military involved and all the civilian airports and everything would have been watched by the KGB. It was decided that the best way to get it out was by ship, that no one would suspect that. The viral agent is on board the
Empress Britannia
and, if O'Fallon and his gang of hijackers don't get their demands, after they've executed some hostages, they'll carry out O'Fallon's major threat: to blow up the Empress. O'Fallon claims he's got the vessel mined with plastic explosives and napalm. The heat from such an explosion would trigger the virus. Airborne, it could go anywhere the winds carried it.”

“This virus, what does it do?” Babcock asked, his voice low.

“I had a hell of a time getting that information myself, Mr. Babcock. Nobody wanted to tell me. But I finally nailed it down. It's like an exceptionally virulent form of influenza at first. Once it reacts with certain enzymes in the human body, it mutates. The flu symptoms last for about twenty-four hours, but getting progressively worse. Then the virus attacks the cerebral cortex. The infected person would be dead-and most agonizingly—in under thirty-six hours. And there's no vaccine available to counteract it. One of the things our scientists would have done was to develop a vaccine in the event the Russians someday did use it.”

“How many casualties could be anticipated?” Hughes asked clinically.

“That's hard to say, I've been told. Depending on the amount of heat generated in the explosion, the altitude the plume from the blast would attain, prevailing winds. If the winds took it east, most of western Europe and North Africa would be covered, at the very least. That's what they told me. And this is all unofficial.”

“Can't the British be told?”

“I got a flat refusal on that, Hughes.”

“How many dead?” Hughes insisted.

“Millions. No one has an answer more specific.”

“Idiots!” Hughes exploded. “How can anyone with a conscience play around with something like that? Are we all mad? The Russians and us, too!?”

“We didn't develop it. We were trying to defend against it,” Argus insisted. Babcock's face went slightly grey.

Hughes stood up and began pacing the raised area around the table. “So, we have to get on board and kill everyone of the hijackers so there is no possibility in the slightest that the bombs can be detonated. We can possibly count on some help on the inside from Cross, if he's able and once he knows it's us.Then we have to find the ampule containing this god-awful thing. And all before the British send in the SAS for a full-scale assault which could result in the unintentional release of the virus.”

“It's the only hope we have,” Argus said softly.

Hughes turned around and looked at him. “Tell me about this O'Fallon. Would there be any chance we could…” He didn't even finish the question. It was too absurd to bother finishing.

“If we told O'Fallon, he'd use it. O'Fallon, according to the information we had on file, profiles out as a manic depressive with pronounced homicidal tendencies and some sort of Messianic complex. And then there's another factor. A specialist in neurosurgery contacted Scotland Yard about six months ago that he had treated a man matching O'Fallon's description. He'd seen the man's face again on a Wanted poster and felt obligated to call. If it was O'Fallon, he's been diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumor, at the time given less than a year to live. O'Fallon is an old hand at the terrorist game. He knows full well the British won't honor his demands and that they'll do the only thing they can do, hit him. But he's dying anyway. If it was O'Fallon, the man's got nothing to lose.”

“Except his immortal soul,” Hughes commented quietly, then sat down. “What's the British posture in terms of control of the area? And will the Russians be going into the area as well? We need to know that.”

“I'll get you whatever information we can come up with,” Argus promised.

“Why,” Babcock began, “are you sending us in? Not the SEALs? Because you can't make it official?”

“There are two CIA people aboard the hijacked vessel, Mr. Babcock. One is a man, black, like you—”

“You mean I'm black?! That's news to me,” Babcock interrupted in one of his rare attempts at humor. “And I'd always thought it was just that I tanned easily!” Hughes smiled, thinking the opportunity had probably been irresistible.

“—who's traveling under the name of Alvin Leeds,” Argus continued, as if Babcock had said nothing at all. “It's just a cover identity. He's traveling as a boiler wiper or something. He's the man who brought the ampule of the viral agent aboard the Empress and it's his job to protect it. A second CIA person was sent in at the last minute to cover Leeds, Leeds not even knowing about it. A woman named Jennifer Hall. She's a regular CIA courier and gatherer working under the cover of a singer.”

“She's actually singing aboard the
Empress
?” Hughes interrupted.

“That's right—” Argus began.

“Cross should know her, at least casually,” Babcock said, sounding as if he were thinking out loud. “She might turn to him for assistance if she knows anything about his background.”

“Were either Leeds or the woman—this Miss Hall—armed?”

“Both of them were, Hughes. Trouble is, Leeds will think he's all alone. He doesn't know anything about her.”

“What geniuses organized this thing to begin with?” Hughes asked.

“A few geniuses who may retire earlier than they've planned. That's the word from the White House,” Argus told them.

“There are two possibilities only, unless anyone can think of something else,” Hughes began. “And I'm open to suggestions, believe me. But, as I see it, we can do a high altitude, low opening drop near enough to the
Empress
to swim in—if weather, wind and sky conditions are right. Have to be under conditions of total darkness or the game'd be up. The only other option—and British or Russian presence, or both, could preclude that immediately—is go in by submarine and leave the vessel while it's submerged. If this O'Fallon and his gangster friends have installed any intruder alert systems on the hull or anywhere else we might bump into them. In either event, they'll make us as soon as we try getting aboard. And assuming we do get that far, how do we get the ampule off?”