"As soon as we can. Be patient."
"What if they're coming to kill us?" Howorth asked.
"We don't plan on letting them," Dean replied. "Your e-mails said they were probably taking people who got in the way to the theater, right?"
"That's right. Deck One, toward the bow."
"If that bunch of tangos coming aft don't find us, either they're going to herd you all forward to be with the rest, or…"
"Or what?"
"Or we'll take them down here," Dean said. He wouldn't admit to her that those tangos could be an execution squad. That was unlikely, though. The terrorists wouldn't start killing their hostages until they knew things were going bad.
Ten of the Black Cat team members vanished with weapons and gear into the bar area to one side of the casino, ducking low to stay out of sight. It wouldn't hide them if the tangos searched carefully, but Dean doubted that they would be in a patient mood.
The young man with glasses who'd been hovering near Howorth did something with his laptop, and the robot near the outside door opened its arms. Walters dragged the body to a spot near the door onto the deck and left it there with the AK beside it.
"Remember!" Dean told the quietly watching people. "Guys in black came in, you're not sure how many. Maybe five or six. They shot these three, then went up the outside stairs." According to the ship's deck plans he'd been studying, there were two sets of curving steps, port and starboard, leading from Deck Nine up to Deck Ten and an outside promenade running forward to the Kleito Bar. It would be a quick and immediate way to reach the bridge and the Security Office, an obvious attack route.
"They're coming your way," Rubens said in Dean's ear. "They're at the door"
Dean and Walters mixed in with the civilians, urging them to scatter more around the casino rather than provide a bunched-up target. The door at the back of the casino banged open, and six men in khaki with AK-47s burst inside.
They came in with their guns raised, ready to start shooting. "Everybody stay where you are!" one shouted, his voice shrill. "Everybody don't move!"
"Don't shoot!" Dean yelled. "They're not here!" This was the critical moment. If this was an execution squad, they could start shooting in an instant. Dean wanted to get them talking instead.
"Who is not here?" one of the gunmen yelled back. The others advanced cautiously, weapons up.
"A bunch of guys all in black parachuted down on the pool deck!" Howorth called out. "They… they shot your men!…"
"They're not here," the guy with the laptop added. "They all went back outside and up the stairs to Deck Ten!"
"How many?" the hijacker demanded. "How many were there?"
"I'm not sure," an elderly woman on the other side of the room said. "Maybe five or six?"
The tangos advanced, then, some moving among the passengers, roughly shoving them aside, others making for the door leading outside. One checked the dead terrorist inside; another checked the two on the deck. One of them had a small, handheld radio and was talking into it in rapid-fire Arabic.
Dean watched as the terrorists gave the room a cursory check, though they never even approached the bar. The one with the radio began gesturing and shouting. "All of you! We move you to safe location."
"Wait!" Howorth said. "Where are you taking us?"
"We take you someplace safe. Now move! Move!"
Dean allowed himself to be herded along, one of the passengers. The skinny guy started to pick up his laptop, but one of the gunmen jabbed the muzzle of his AK against the guy's side. "No! You leave it!"
"But that's my computer!"
"Leave it, Jerry!" Howorth said. "Damn it, you can get it later!…"
The crowd of civilians began moving out into the passageway, hurried along by their captors.
A group of eighteen or twenty of the civilians in the casino were older people, in their sixties or seventies or even older. One was a man in a wheelchair. Several of the women had walkers, and more were leaning on canes. As the gunmen hurried the mob forward toward the door, the group swiftly fell behind, unable to keep up. One of the gunmen shoved an elderly woman and knocked her down. The gunman snarled something and raised his rifle as if he was going to strike her with it.
Dean whirled and caught the terrorist's arm, stopping him. The man gaped at him, eyes wide.
"Don't," Dean said in a firm voice. "Don't. They're old; they can't hurt you."
The gunman wrenched his arm free, then swung the butt of his rifle at Dean's face. Dean sidestepped, but the stick grazed the side of his head, knocking him back a step. The gunman hovered there, as though trying to decide who to kill, Dean or the old woman.
" 'Do no harm to the elderly, and do not strike the infirm, for it is hateful in the eyes of Allah,'" Dean said, touching the wound on his scalp with his fingertips. They came away slick with blood. "Isn't that what your Qur'an says?"
"You… you know the holy book, the words of the Prophet?"
"A little. I know it teaches you that if you kill the innocent, you burn in Hell!"
The man's eyes widened a bit more. "Leave them, Rashid!" another gunman said.
Turning suddenly, he waved the elderly group away. "Go back!" he said. "All of you! Go back! Stay here!"
Dean helped the woman up off the deck. "Thank you, young man," she said. "Just like Bruce Willis!"
A passenger, an older man, took her hand. "Come along, Ms. Jordan. Let's stay out of their way."
One of the gunmen was left behind to collect the three dropped AK assault rifles. The others urged the younger captives forward. One nudged Dean in the ribs with his rifle. "Now move! Quick! Yallah!"
Dean let himself be nudged along.
"That was very brave," Howorth said quietly, moving close beside him as they moved into the passageway. "Do you really know the Qur'an?"
Dean glanced around to make sure none of the terrorists was within earshot. "No," he whispered, "and neither do they. Most of them, anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"In my experience, most Christians don't know the Bible very well. My guess is that most Muslims are the same with the Qur'an. The fundamentalists like to pick and choose which verses they'll use, and argue about interpretations… but only the scholars know the book well. Just like with most Christians."
"And my guess is that you're damned lucky!"
The group hurried forward through the ship.
"Very well," Khalid said, speaking into the radio handset. "Hurry!"
He handed the microphone back to Fakhet, then stepped back out onto the bridge. The Pacific Sandpiper was a mile away, and it would take her time to complete her turn.
Khalid considered keeping the Adantis Queen on the same heading, due north. The coast of Massachusetts was out there, the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. If he ran the Queen aground there, it would create an appropriately spectacular disaster.
But not, perhaps, spectacular enough. Al-Qaeda's message would be so much sharper, so much more to the point, if it was delivered to Manhattan. "Bring us back to the left," he told the man at the helm. "And reduce speed to ten knots." Khalid wanted the Pacific Sandpiper to catch up with them.
Aziz had reported in moments before. Passengers in the casino said they'd seen black-clad men parachute onto the pool deck — probably SAS. They'd apparently killed three guards back there and now were on Deck Ten, moving forward.
Khalid retrieved his AKM assault rifle from the electronic chart table and checked the action. Let them come. He was ready for them.
As for the passengers, he'd ordered them moved to the Neptune Theater. If there was going to be a firelight, he wanted them in a controlled place, where he could have his men begin shooting them if the attackers got too close.