The Queen could manage a passenger complement of three thousand. With the world economy in its current shaky state, Royal Sky Line had been hard pressed to book that many guests. Even a last-minute sales blitz offering the cruise at 40 percent off the usual ticket price hadn't been as successful as the corporate office had hoped, and during the final week they'd been offering staterooms for less than half price.
As it was, there were 2,442 paying passengers on board, enough for the company to turn a profit for this cruise, but only just. If anything went wrong — a delay due to weather, excessive fuel consumption, mechanical difficulties, an outbreak of food poisoning, rowdy guests getting out of hand and generating lawsuits, anything — then the voyage could well end up showing a loss, which would reflect badly on Royal Sky Line's credit, which was already stretched beyond acceptable limits. Failure to get another loan at the end of the year might well force the company into bankruptcy.
Carolyn Howorth had been waiting in Kleito's Temple for less than ten minutes, and she'd been early to begin with.
Located on the Tenth Deck — the Demeter Deck — all the way forward and two levels down from the bridge, the club bar and restaurant had been lavishly decorated to resemble a Greek or, presumably, an Atlantean temple, complete with massive marble columns, marble tables and countertops, and a bigger-than-life-sized gilded statue of a gracefully nude woman. Smaller statues, all male, occupied niches in the bulkheads to either side, and an elaborate waterfall burbled and splashed happily down rugged faux rocks into a large central pool half-shrouded in vegetation.
Legend had it that the god Poseidon had taken a human woman, Kleito, as his wife and that she'd born him five sets of twins who'd become the kings of Atlantis. A temple had been erected on the spot, or so claimed the philosopher Plato in his telling of the tale, and that temple had become the exact center of the city of Atlantis.
This club, Howorth decided, was a worthy successor to the temple described by Plato. It was a bit flamboyant for her tastes, but the broad sweep of the windows across the forward wall gave an absolutely staggering, gorgeous view of the water ahead. At the moment, the Atlantis Queen was sailing almost exactly due west, and the sunset — a blaze of flaming oranges, reds, and coral pinks, with cooler blues, greens, and ambers — flooded the sky with colored light.
"Ms. Carroll?" a man's voice said behind her.
"I'm Judith Carroll," Carolyn Howorth said, standing and extending her hand. "You must be David."
"David Llewellyn," he said, shaking her hand. "Director of Security. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Carroll."
"Call me Judy," Howorth said. "Everyone else does."
"Judy," he said, waiting for her to sit again, then seating himself. "Charming. A gorgeous sunset."
"Absolutely spectacular," she agreed. 'Tm surprised everybody on board the ship isn't crowded in here to see it."
"It is a bit more crowded than it usually is," Llewellyn agreed. "And a lot of people are on the decks outside."
"I don't blame them. Thank you for agreeing to see me, David."
"My pleasure. Ah… your e-mail said something about you being with British law enforcement?"
Carolyn pulled her wallet out of her handbag and let it fall casually open to her ID. At least, it was one of her IDs, one provided for her for this specific mission. "SOCA, actually," she said.
SOCA was a relatively new agency within British law enforcement. The Serious Organised Crime Agency had been created in 2006 specifically to combat drug trafficking, money laundering, people smuggling, and organized crime, a product of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. Some called it Britain's answer to the American FBI, though any comparison was superficial at best. If anything, SOCA was closer in the nature of its work to the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Unlike MI5, certain designated SOCA agents had the authority to arrest suspects. Unlike MI5, SOCA had no role in either counterterrorism or national security.
So far as Howorth or her Menwith Hill colleagues could tell, it was a political figurehead agency as much as anything else, a means of looking as though the government was doing something about the nation's drug and crime problems, without having to actually do anything about them.
But most people wouldn't be aware of that particular twist in the government's knickers. It did provide a convenient cover for Howorth. Like the American NSA, GCHQ didn't care to advertise its presence. Ever.
"Thank you, Judy," Llewellyn said, studying the ID carefully before meeting her eyes again. "I've heard of SOCA, of course. I gather lots of you are former MI5, MI6?"
"A lot of us are," she said. It sounded like a test question, something to perhaps catch her in an inconsistency. She'd already planned to be as noncommittal — and therefore as hard to pin down — as possible.
SOCA did draw many of its members from the existing British MI5, which handled domestic security issues, and from MI6, which handled foreign security and intelligence work, like America's CIA. SOCA's current head was a former head of MI5, and there was a lot of traffic between the two.
"I was wondering if you might know a Mr. Thomas Mitchell?"
"No, can't say that I do."
"Or a Mr. Samuel Franks?"
"Nope. Should I?"
Llewellyn shrugged. "Tom Mitchell is MI5. And Mr. Franks is MI5, but currently seconded, I understand, to SOCA. I suppose I was wondering why we have so many of you people running around on board!"
Howorth kept her smile in place. "They're passengers?"
"Of a sort. Are you aware of the.. incident on the docks yesterday afternoon?"
"No. Should I be?"
Llewellyn seemed to relax a little. "So you're not with Mitchell or Franks?"
"No, Mr. Llewellyn. I'm not. I know neither of the gentlemen. SOCA has about forty-two hundred employees and operates out of over forty offices scattered all over the UK. It's impossible to meet or to remember everyone in the firm." Time to change the subject, she thought. Despite what she'd just said, the last thing she wanted was a face-to-face introduction to Mitchell or Franks, especially Franks, who might ask her questions only a real SOCA agent could answer. "Why? What happened on the docks?"
"Nothing important," Llewellyn told her. "And if you didn't ask to see me about that, why did you ask to see me?" His smile broadened. "Not that I at all mind meeting a beautiful woman on a romantic cruise."
"Why, Mr. Llewellyn," she said. "I didn't think ship's crew was allowed to fraternize with the paying passengers!"
"Strictly speaking, no… though officers have a bit more leeway than the housekeeping staff, say. And it is after hours. I'm off-duty. May I buy you a drink?"
"That would be great. Thank you." Her glass was empty.
"What are you having?"
"Coke."
"Nothing stronger?"
"Coke is fine. My God, will you just look at that sky?" The colors, if anything, were becoming more intense. The sky appeared to be on fire. "What is it they say… 'red sky at night, sailor's delight'?"