“The only way we can in this situation.”
“What’s that?”
“From cigarette boats dropped in the water.”
“You’re kidding, right?” asked Grissom.
“No. We’ve done it before.”
“Where?” Grissom asked, hands on his hips, chest jutting out aggressively. “And where the hell are we going to find cigarette boats?”
Crocker turned to Anders and asked, “Any aircraft carriers in the vicinity with SEAL rescue teams attached?”
“I’ll find out.”
“I’m going to need six more SEALs. Guys who are experienced jumpers and swimmers, and have practiced underways.”
“Underways?” Anders asked.
“That’s what we call them. You’d better write all this down.”
Anders did, quickly. “Go ahead. What else?”
“We’re gonna need at least three cigarette boats on wooden pallets equipped with Vetus HD silencers. Three experienced steer-and-throttle men. Three telescopic poles equipped with cave-in ladders. And two planes-one to drop the boats and another that we can parachute from into the water.”
“Seas might be extremely rough.”
“We should expect to lose some men, but we’ll manage,” continued Crocker. “We’ll also need to get to the carrier or base that we’re going to deploy from. Once at the exfil point, I’ll need to huddle with the other six SEALs. All of us are going to need the complete package of weapons and gear-NVGs, comms, explosives, tear-gas grenades, percussion grenades, smoke grenades, et cetera, all waterproofed or in waterproof weapons bags.”
“Check.”
Grissom’s demeanor brightened. He said, “I’ll call the Station and have them put us in direct contact with Special Operations Command in Tampa.”
“Good,” answered Anders. “Focus first on the carrier with the appropriate resources-SEALs, cigarette boats, pallets, jump platforms.”
“Will do.”
As Grissom strode outside with his cell phone, Janice hurried back with news that HQ had already located an engineer who had worked on the design of the Disney Magic and knew the vessel inside and out.
“Excellent,” Anders said. “When can he talk?”
“He’s standing by now, ready to Skype.”
Anders looked at Crocker. “Chief Warrant, you’re driving this mission. What do you want to do first?”
Crocker considered quickly, then answered, “Ask Oz for a private room with a computer, then summon the rest of my men. I want them to hear this.”
“Okay. Will do.”
Scott Russert looked at the glowing green LED number on the nightstand, which read 9:53 p.m. He and his family had watched the movies Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty, played four games of Parcheesi, eaten most of the fruit, candy, and animal crackers, and consumed all the bottled water. They were exhausted and ravenous as a result of the relentless anxiety.
They had heard nothing further-no messages or announcements-since the warning from Captain Hutley that morning. Neither Scott’s nor Karen’s cell phone could pick up a signal, and the TV transmitter on the flat-screen wasn’t working.
The stateroom where they had laughed, played, planned activities, and sung silly songs together had become a prison cell. All he could tell from looking out the portholes, which were located about five feet above water level on the port side, was that the ship had turned around and was moving rapidly.
Karen lay on the bed suffering from heart palpitations and their sons were antsy and hungry. When he tried calling room service on the blue courtesy phone by the bed, no one answered.
“I’m hungry, Daddy,” Randy said. He was the more inquisitive and vocal of their two sons. “Can we try to see if Lumiere’s is open?”
“It isn’t, son.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the captain said all the dining rooms are closed.”
“But how can we know for sure, if we don’t try?”
“You have to trust me, son. The captain made an announcement.”
“Did he say when the dining rooms will open?”
“No.”
“Are we just going to sit here and starve?”
“Of course not. Don’t talk like that. I’ll set up the Wii for you and your brother.”
“What about the pizzeria? It’s not a dining room. We can have pizza, right Russell?”
Russell chimed in, “Yeah, let’s get pizza and Cokes!”
“The pizzeria is closed, too,” Scott answered.
“How do you know?”
“Listen, boys. The captain told us to stay in our rooms. We have to do as he says.”
Randy thought for a minute and said, “I want to get off this ship.”
“We’ll do that, son, as soon as we can.”
Scott flicked on the flat-screen again, activated Wii tennis, and handed the wands to the boys, who were soon slapping the virtual ball back and forth. Then he sat beside Karen, who looked hot and uncomfortable.
He wanted to help his family get through this and back to their lives in Putney. He wasn’t a churchgoing man, but found himself praying. Reciting a Hail Mary in his head, he retreated to the bathroom to get a wet towel for Karen. When he shut off the water, he heard muffled voices in the hallway.
Dear God! What now?
A door shut and a few seconds later he heard a knocking sound and more voices. They were moving closer.
This could go very badly.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he whispered, “Scott, you can do this. Think of your family. Stay calm.”
Three knocks sounded on their metal door, sending a jolt of panic down his spine. He waved the boys farther into the room, took three deep breaths, and answered.
Standing on the other side of the door were two crew members in white tunics beside two metal carts piled high with sandwiches and bottles of water. One of them had a large bruise on his face and swollen skin around his right eye. The other had spots of blood on his tunic and a cut across his lip. Standing behind them were two bearded men wearing black masks and holding automatic weapons.
The ferocity in their eyes unnerved him to the point that he wanted to scream or run. He fought to keep it together.
“Sir, sorry for the inconvenience,” said the porter with the swollen eye. “We have a limited number of cheese sandwiches and bottles of water. How many are there in your cabin?”
“F-f-four,” Scott stammered, holding onto the doorframe for support.
One of the porters handed him four sandwiches wrapped in plastic. The other placed four 16-ounce bottles of Evian on the floor just inside the room.
They had moved fast and were ready to leave.
Scott’s legs shook as he blurted out, “My wife isn’t feeling well. She suffers from high blood pressure.”
The porter with the swollen eye said, “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Does she have her medicine with her?”
“Uh, well…no. She ran out.”
One of the armed men leaned forward and grunted something into the ear of the steward, something Scott couldn’t make out.
The steward said, “Tell your wife to drink lots of water and try to rest. We’ll see what we can do.”
He swallowed the last word: “Okay.”
Janice, bleary-eyed, sat before a computer next to Colonel Oz, looking through passport and customs surveillance photos of passengers that had been collected by Interpol from immigration services in Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, and Turkey. To Janice it seemed like a useless exercise. She had petitioned to go with Anders, Davis, Akil, Mancini, and Crocker when they left forty minutes earlier to fly to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, currently positioned southwest of the island of Cyprus. It only added to her discomfort that Oz puffed on one Camel cigarette after another and occasionally glanced down the front of her blouse. With each cigarette he lit, he apologized and said, “For my nerves. I’m sorry.”
As much as she wanted to dislike him, she couldn’t. He was stressed out, too. None of them had ever faced a crisis of this magnitude.