still on the broad outside promenade around the Third Deck or, if they were wealthy enough to afford it, on the private balconies outside their luxurious staterooms, leaning on the railings and, if they were in a sufficiently generous mood, waving to the lesser mortals bobbing in their cockleshells and toy boats far below.
Like all cruise ships, the Atlantis Queen adhered to a particular theme, in this case the fabulous lost city of Atlantis. Each of the various nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, bars, and other popular gathering spots on board was named for some icon or myth connected with either Atlantis or, with an exclusively Atlantean mythology being a bit sparse, the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and with just a sprinkling of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica thrown in as well.
The twelve passenger decks, for instance, were named for the twelve gods of Olympus, with two notable exceptions made in the name of good public relations. The First Deck, where passengers came aboard in the Grand Atrium with its myriad shops, tour offices, and computer center, was called the Neptune Deck. The ship's owners had substituted the Roman Neptune for the Greek Poseidon, fearing that the Greek version would conjure unsettling images of the doomed ship of the popular adventure movie. And there was no Ares Deck, again for obvious PR reasons, there being no need for a god of warfare, battle, and strife on a vacation cruise ship. Instead, the uppermost Twelfth Deck was called the Ouranos Deck, that predecessor of the classical deities of ancient Greece having been promoted to Olympian status because of his traditional association with astronomy and the sky. The view of the night sky from the Atlantean Grotto Terrace while the ship was at sea, far from smog and the light pollution of cities, was fantastic.
Hades wasn't included, in part because he'd not been one of the traditional Olympian twelve and, again, due to PR reasons. The Greek god of the underworld was remembered in the Hades Hot Spot, however, a bar and nightclub on the Aphrodite Deck featuring a DJ, loud music, and the raucously energetic Santorini Dancers, who, after ten in the evening, performed topless.
The ship was luxuriously appointed throughout — plenty of rich wood paneling, thick carpeting, and expensively modern furnishings. Many of the windows and skylights were stained glass with intricate patterns; some decks were laid out in highly polished mosaic tiles instead of carpet, with traditional marine scenes from Greek, Roman, or Cretan artistic traditions, showing octopi, dolphins, and other sea creatures. The Grand Atrium was a cavernous circular mall with huge aquaria built into the bulkheads between the shops, and deck-to-overhead tube-pillars filled with bubbling water, the whole subtly lit to create a shifting, eerie, deep-sea feel to the place. The Cayce Library was small but well appointed, with an emphasis on books about Greece, Atlantis, mythology, history, and travel books about Mediterranean countries. The Pyramid Club Casino went for the ultra-modern look — lots of chrome, lots of flashing lights, lots of electronic gambling machines, and, of course, the newly installed Blackjack Rosie, who promised to be quite a hit with the techno-geek crowd.
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?'
