"We can do that easy enough. Let me get some things rolling here, Navy. Stand by."
"A ship," the Prince said.
"It's gotta be," Ryan agreed. "The same way they did it when they rescued that Miller bastard… Robby, can you get the Coast Guard to give us a list of the ships in the harbor?"
Werner and both Hostage Rescue groups were already moving. He wondered what had gone wrong—and right—tonight, but that would be determined later. For the moment he had agents and police heading toward the Naval Academy to protect the people he was supposed to have rescued, and his men were split between an FBI Chevy Suburban and two State Police cars, all heading north on Ritchie Highway toward Baltimore. If only they could use helicopters, he thought, but the weather was too bad, and everyone had had enough of that for one night. They were back to being a SWAT team, a purpose for which they were well suited. Despite everything that had gone wrong tonight, they now had a large group of terrorists flushed and in the open…
"Here's the list of the ships in port," the Coast Guard Lieutenant said over the radio. "We had a lot of them leave Friday night, so the list isn't too long. I'll start off at the Dundalk Marine Terminal. Nissan Courier, Japanese registry, she's a car carrier out of Yokohama delivering a bunch of cars and trucks. Wilhelm Schorner, West German registry, a container boat out of Bremen with general cargo. Costanza, Cypriot registry, out of Valetta, Malta—"
"Bingo!" Ryan said.
"— scheduled to sail in about five hours, looks like. George McReady, American, arrived with a cargo of lumber from Portland, Oregon. That's the last one there."
"Tell me about the Costanza," Robby said, looking at Jack.
"She arrived in ballast and loaded up a cargo mainly of farm equipment and some other stuff. Sails before dawn, supposed to be headed back for Valetta."
"That's probably our boy," Jack said quietly.
"Stand by, Coast Guard." Robby turned away from the radio. "How do you know. Jack?"
"I don't know, but it's a solid guess. When these bastards pulled that rescue on Christmas Day, they were probably picked up in the Channel by a Cypriot-registered ship. We think their weapons get to them through a Maltese dealer who works with a South African, and a lot of terrorists move back and forth through Malta—the local government's tight with a certain country due south of there. The Maltese don't get their own hands dirty, but they're real good at looking the other way if the money's right." Robby nodded and keyed his mike.
"Coast Guard, have you gotten things straightened out with the local cops?"
"That's a rog, Navy."
"Tell them that we believe the target's objective is the Costanza."
"Roger that. We'll have our thirty-two boat stake her out and call in the cops."
"Don't let them see you, Coast Guard!"
"Understood, Navy. We can handle that part easy enough. Stand by… Navy, be advised that our forty-one boat reports radar contact with you and the target, rounding Bodkin Point. Is this correct? Over."
"Yes!" called the Quartermaster at the chart table. He was making a precise record of the course tracks from the radar plot.
"That's affirm, Coast Guard. Tell your boat to take station five hundred yards forward of the target. Acknowledge."
"Roger, five-zero-zero yards. Okay, let's see if we can get the cops moving. Stand by."
"We got 'em," Ryan thought aloud.
"Uh, Lieutenant, keep your hands still, sir." It was Breckenridge. He reached into Ryan's belt and extracted the Browning automatic. Jack was surprised to see that he'd stuck it in there with the hammer back and safety off. Breckenridge lowered the hammer and put the pistol back where it was. "Let's try to think 'safe, sir, okay? Otherwise you might lose something important."
Ryan nodded rather sheepishly. "Thanks, Gunny."
"Somebody has to protect the lieutenants." Breckenridge turned. "Okay, Marines—let's stay awake out there!"
"You got a man on the Prince?" Jack asked.
"Even before the Admiral said so." The Sergeant Major gestured to where a corporal was standing, rifle in hand, three feet from His Highness, with orders to stay between him and the gunfire.
Five minutes later a trio of State Police cars drove without lights to Berth Six of the Dundalk Marine Terminal. The cars were parked under one of the gantry cranes used for transferring cargo containers, and five officers walked quietly to the ship's accommodation ladder. A crewman stationed there stopped them—or tried to. A language barrier prevented proper communications. He found himself accompanying the troopers, with his hands cuffed behind his back. The senior police officer bounded up three more ladders and arrived at the bridge.
"What is this!"
"And who might you be?" the cop inquired from behind a shotgun.
"I am the master of this ship!" Captain Nikolai Frenza proclaimed.
"Well, Captain, I am Sergeant William Powers of the Maryland State Police, and I have some questions for you."
"You have no authority on my ship!" Frenza answered. His accent was a mixture of Greek and some other tongue. "I will talk to the Coast Guard and no one else."
"I want to make this real clear." Powers walked the fifteen feet to the Captain, his hands tight around the Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun. "That shore you're tied to is the State of Maryland, and this shotgun says I got all the authority I need. Now we have information that a boatload of terrorists is coming here, and the word is they've killed a bunch of people, including three state troopers." He planted the muzzle against Frenza's chest. "Captain, if they do come here, or if you fuck with me any more tonight, you are in a whole shitpot full of trouble—do you understand me!"
The man wilted before his eyes. Powers saw. So the information is correct. Good.
"You would be well advised to cooperate, 'cause pretty soon we're going to have more cops here 'n you ever saw. You just might need some friends, mister. If you have something to tell me, I want to hear it right now."
Frenza hesitated, his eyes shifting toward the bow and back. He was in deep trouble, more than his advance payment would ever cover. "There are four of them aboard. They are forward, starboard side, near the bow. We didn't know—"
"Shut up." Powers nodded to a corporal, who got on his portable radio. "What about your crew?"
"The crew is below, preparing to take the ship to sea."
"Sarge, the Coast Guard says they're three miles off and heading in."
"All right." Powers pulled a set of handcuffs from his belt. He and his men took the four men standing bridge watch and secured them to the ship's wheel and two other fittings. "Captain, if you or your people make any noise at all, I'll come back here and splatter you all over this ship. I am not kidding."
Powers took his men down to the main deck and forward on the port side. The Costanza's superstructure was all aft. Forward of it, the deck was a mass of cargo containers, each the size of a truck-trailer, piled three- and four-high. Between each pile was an artificial alleyway, perhaps three feet wide, which allowed them to approach the bow unobserved. The Sergeant had no SWAT experience, but all of his men had shotguns and he did know something of infantry tactics.
It was like walking alongside a building, except that the street was made of rusty steel. The rain had abated, finally, but it still made noise, clattering on the metal container boxes. They passed the last of these to find that the ship's forward hold was open and a crane was hanging over the starboard side. Powers peeked around the corner and saw two men standing at the far side of the deck. They appeared to be looking southeast, toward the entrance to the harbor. There was no easy way to approach. He and his men crouched and went straight toward them. They'd gotten halfway when one turned.