No way out for their quarry.
No way in for them except down that ladder.
Richard held up his fingers, just visible in the dim, yellow light. THREE…TWO…ONE…
Both torches blazed their powerful beams down into the darkness. The stub barrels of the machine pistols clashed against the ladder.
“All right,” called Richard. “We have you covered. Come out with your hands up!”
“Is that you, Richard?” replied a woman’s voice, hoarse with fatigue but rich and familiar. “Thank God! I thought you were those bloody terrorists coming back!”
And out into the pool of light stepped Asha Quartermaine, supporting the fainting, blood-drenched figure of Captain John Higgins.
“Help me get him back up to the surgery, would you? If I don’t stitch him up again soon, he’s going to bleed to death.”
Chapter Eighteen
As the body of First Officer Cecil Smyke collapsed onto the deck, Captain John Higgins strode forward, totally overcome by rage. The moment he moved, there was a series of sharp clicks as the terrorists across his deck cocked their weapons, and a hoarse, icy voice called out in English, “It won’t be you, Captain. It will be your crew, one by one, like the lieutenant.”
John froze at the threat, looking suspiciously around. Which of the anonymous figures had spoken? It was impossible to tell.
“What do you want here?” John demanded.
“At the moment, nothing more than your cooperation. Order your crew below, please. They seem reluctant to move without your permission.”
“Where below?”
“The ship’s gymnasium, please. All of them. Now!” The final word rang out like the crack of a whip. John was about to tell him to drop dead, but a sense of his own ultimate responsibility overcame his hot head. Whoever these people were, they had not boarded without a plan. They knew what they were doing and were ruthlessly willing to enforce their orders. The death of Smyke proved that. “Very well,” he said quietly. “All of you, please go below at the direction of these gentlemen.”
In the gymnasium, they were at once split into work parties. One began to empty the big room of its sporting equipment. Another brought in bedding. A third carried in tables and chairs. Throughout this bustle, John, Asha Quartermaine, and Bob Stark stood restively under the guns of two men assigned to watch them alone. Both the captain and his American chief engineer were active, dominant men and they reacted to this situation uneasily. They were not alone in this. Asha was pale with outrage and every line of her, from deep red hair to ill-laced shoes, loudly signaled her defiance. Among the crew, Chief Petty Officer Kerem Khalil and Chief Steward Twelve Toes Ho both moved with surly obedience, looking to the senior officers for confirmation before obeying any orders. The atmosphere was tense. Dangerous.
But at last the tasks were completed to the satisfaction of the anonymous terrorist leader. “Sit down,” he snapped. They sat. The terrorists ranged themselves shoulder to shoulder across the room. There were eight of them here, though John suspected there would be more in strategic positions elsewhere about the ship. They all looked similar — in many ways identical. They were all wiry men, thin but strong looking. From the way they moved, they seemed fit. Battle trained. They all wore the same uniform — camouflage fatigues and checked kaffiyah headdresses. The kaffiyahs were folded across their faces so that only their eyes were visible. The skin color on their hands varied slightly, but they all had fierce dark eyes.
Standing all together like that, with seven of them silent, it soon became obvious which one of them was speaking. He could not quite disguise the movements of his lips and jaw behind his kaffiyah. He could not control the tiny gestures of his hands. And the instant he gave himself away he became their target. Unnumbered eyes within the room searched that speaker’s body for any sign that would single him out for special attention later.
At first sight, there was nothing to distinguish him from the others apart from the fact that he spoke English with an English accent in a hoarse, broken voice, but eventually Asha’s quick, trained eye noticed a thin scar that writhed across the back of his left hand to disappear under his sleeve, and so, even as he threatened them he was marked.
“You will all spend most of your time in here for the next few days. There will be at least two guards here with you at all times. If you fail to obey them they will shoot. If you even so much as threaten them, they will shoot. I have no doubt that forty intrepid men and women could overcome two guards, even if they are armed with automatic weapons, so remember this: beyond the doors will be more guards and beyond them, more still. If you try to escape you will all die like your first officer.
“Now, as to the next few days, the routine is simple. You will remain in here. You may sleep, sit, or walk about. But you may not talk. Anyone who talks will be locked in one of the cabins and will receive no food or water for two days. In this heat, they will suffer greatly, I promise you. You all will, in fact, for to make this punishment effective I will be forced to switch off the ship’s air-conditioning. You will be taken out to the ship’s toilet facilities in small groups twice a day. You will be fed twice a day. Teams of cooks and stewards will prepare food, serve, and clear away under our direction. That is all you need to know.”
“Now look here,” John began.
“Captain Higgins,” said the terrorist leader, crossing to him on swift, silent feet, “I just knew the first one would be you!” and he hit him with his rifle butt on the side of the head.
John came to in the ship’s surgery with Asha by his side. “You did that on purpose,” she whispered.
“Well, I’m no use cooped up in there.”
“Not so loud! There’s a guard outside the door.”
“Where do you think they’ll put me?”
“Don’t count on them putting you anywhere. As we were carrying you out of the gym I heard him say that you got one chance — they got none.”
“Damn! Well, we’ll just have to see what happens next, I suppose. Ouch! That stings.”
“Iodine. When you’ve got a plan worked out, let me know.”
“You’ll be part of any plan.”
“Yes, but I won’t be in there with you. They’re moving me out. Keeping me apart.”
“That’s nasty.”
“Logical. I’m the only woman.”
“Yes, but…”
“Don’t worry about me.”
The door slammed open and the two of them whirled guiltily. One of the terrorists stood frozen in the doorway. Something in the room seemed to have come as a great shock. The gun dangled in limp hands. The kaffiyah mask moved from side to side as the terrorist’s head shook. Both John and Asha tensed, sensing a chance. But they were too slow. The gun snapped up again to point unwaveringly at the captain. Then the barrel gestured: move.
Back in the silent gym, John considered that last terrorist. A slighter figure than the rest. A different way of walking. A woman? He filed the thought away for future consideration.
During the days that followed, beneath the stultifying boredom of the routine a kind of war was fought. It was the type of war a class of schoolboys might declare on a hated teacher — but it was no less serious or deadly for being so. In the enforced silence, observed to break down communication, communication flourished. Notes were passed until all paper and writing implements were confiscated. Sign language developed. Codes. And every message successfully passed bolstered the crew’s morale and undermined the guards’ authority. These games centered around John and Bob Stark. There was no situation that these two could not turn to some subversive advantage, to the delight of their men and the discomfiture of their captors. They became past masters in the art of dumb insolence. They time-wasted in a thousand ways. They became stupid, clumsy, disruptive.