Rawlston started crawling toward it, staying on his belly as the chain gun continued to fire bursts, sometimes at him, sometimes at other survivors taking shelter on the blood-spattered deck.
The helicopter was hovering now, just above the center of the long forward deck between Rawlston and the ship's deckhouse. The portside gun wasn't firing at what should have been an easy target, so Rawlston had to assume that his mates on the number 1 gun were dead… the number 2 gun as well, come to think of it, since neither Marty nor George would have opened fire on their own people.
The helicopter slowly descended toward the deck, and men were jumping out of the open side doors even before the wheels kissed steel. Armed men, lots of them. Men in kaffiyehs and combat vests, men with AK-47 assault rifles and two, Rawlston saw, with longer, heavier RPGs.
They leaped onto the deck and began spreading out, bending low beneath the still-turning rotors of the helicopter. Two headed straight for him, their rifles up to their shoulders, the muzzles aimed at his head as they screamed orders at him. He couldn't hear what they were saying over the thunderous pound of the aircraft's rotors, but he rolled onto his back with his hands up beside his head.
The impossible, Rawlston realized, had just happened.
Terrorists had just seized the Pacific Sandpiper
Chapter 10
Captain Jorgenson trembled with shock and horror as the man who called himself Wanibuchi ordered him and Kinsley, the helmsman, to their feet. Mathers, the navigator, was on his knees in the corner, hands behind his head, with Wanibuchi's pistol pressed up against the back of his neck. Dunsmore was still whimpering on the deck, badly wounded.
'You, helmsman,' Wanibuchi said. 'Take the wheel.' Kinsley looked at the captain for confirmation. 'Go to hell, Wanibuchi, or whatever your name is,' Jorgenson growled.
Wanibuchi shifted his aim from Mathers' head to Dunsmore, several feet away, and fired a single, hissing shot. Dunsmore jerked once, then lay still. The pistol whipped back to cover Mathers.
'Captain Jorgenson, we are not going to play games with you. Your helmsman will take the wheel and you will order half ahead to the engine room. If you do not, this man dies.'
Mathers flinched as Wanibuchi bumped his skull with the sound suppressor screwed to the muzzle of the pistol. 'Captain, please!' Mathers screamed. 'For the love of God!…'
The port wing door opened, and three of the terrorists off the helicopter strode in. They were armed with AK-47 assault rifles; the two with beards wore kaffiyehs, making them look like desert sheiks in olive-drab utilities. The third, with a mustache and dangerous eyes, wore a black leather beret. He said something to Wanibuchi in a language that sounded Arabic; Wanibuchi replied in the same language.
'My compatriot,' Wanibuchi said, 'tells me they have eighteen prisoners. You can see them out the bridge window.'
Jorgenson stepped closer to the window and looked down. Along the starboard railing, between the helicopter and the deckhouse, eighteen of his men were being prodded into line, hands behind their heads, facing away from the ship and out over the water. Arab terrorists paraded back and forth, shoving and prodding men into position, shouting orders. Several of the prisoners were obviously badly hurt; their friends to either side were allowed to hold them upright.
'I am going to give you several orders, Captain,' Wanibuchi said. 'Each time you refuse, each time you hesitate, one of your men on the deck will be shot. Do you understand me?'
'I… I…' Jorgenson shook his head, stepping back from the window. 'Listen, there's no way I — '
Wanibuchi snapped something, and the man in the beret stepped back onto the bridge wing and raised his right arm. Instantly there was a crack, a puff of smoke, and the Sandpiper crewman standing farthest in the line from the deckhouse pitched forward over the railing and into the sea.
'Do you understand me?' Wanibuchi asked again.
'I… understand.'
'Good. We will leave this area. Order half speed ahead.'
The Pacific Sandpiper was almost at a halt, her engines churning at full astern to stop her ponderous forward momentum. Jorgenson grasped the engine telegraph lever and moved it to half ahead. The device was electronic these days, rather than the manual lever of the older days of seafaring, but the idea was the same. They ran the engines from down in engineering.
'What about the people in the water?' Jorgenson asked.
'I'm sure this area will be filled with rescue vessels in short order,' Wanibuchi said.
The other Japanese liaison, Kitagawa, entered the bridge and said something to Wanibuchi in Japanese.
'Perhaps I was too hasty,' he said. 'Order the engines stopped.'
Jorgenson moved the lever again.
'Now order the appropriate people in your crew to bring your small boat onto your ship. I'm told some of our friends are on board.'
Realization struck Jorgenson like a fist in the gut. There must have been Japanese terrorists on board the Ishikari, moles or plants or sleepers or whatever the appropriate spy term would be, men who'd sabotaged the vessel and blown her up.
The scope of this attack, the planning and the detail that must have gone into it, was staggering.
He reached for the telephone handset that would connect him with the shipboard boat crew aft. Wanibuchi gestured with his pistol. 'While you're at it, Captain… after ordering the boat brought back on board, you will pass the word over the ship's intercom, telling all personnel to surrender themselves to us. We estimate that there are still ten to fifteen of your people on board, including those in the aft 30mm cannon housing, in engineering, and in the ship's crew's quarters. We know you have twenty-eight crewmen and thirty security personnel… a total of fifty- eight men aboard. A number of those are dead, now, and seventeen are still lined up at the railing outside. We will be checking to make certain that everyone is accounted for. Do you understand me?'
'Yes.'
'Very good. Cooperate with us, and no more of your men will die.'
'Aren't you going to kill us all anyway?'
Wanibuchi looked surprised. 'Of course not, Captain! We intend to make a certain strong demonstration that will result in an end to the use of nuclear power in Japan, and an end to these plutonium shipments. When our demands are met, you and this ship will be released. You have my word on that.'
Jorgenson said nothing, but his dark eyebrows rose high on his forehead at that. This man had just ruthlessly killed a large number of his own crewmen, and the people working with him had killed many more on the Ishikari and were leaving the survivors to their own devices in the open ocean.
Wanibuchi's word, Jorgenson knew, was worth nothing but more blood.
David Llewellyn stepped onto the Atlas Pool deck, located at the extreme aft end of Deck Nine, and looked around. He'd gotten the day off by logging in on-duty the night before, though as head of security he had a lot of leeway in the hours he actually spent in uniform. Technically, he was always on-duty. His passkey was in the mesh-net inside pocket of his swim trunks; they could find him if they needed him.
At the moment, though, things were quiet, the passengers settling into the routine of their first day at sea. The south coast of England was a gray-green smear low on the northern horizon. And according to his check of ID chips, the delicious Miss Johnson had come up to the Atlas Pool a few moments before.
David Llewellyn was on the prowl. His hopes for the evening before with that sweet young SOCA bird hadn't panned out the way he'd hoped, but he still had the files on Miss Tricia Johnson. He'd had her spotted ever since he'd seen her walk through the X-Star scanner at Southampton.. and that prig of an MI5 bastard be damned.
He looked up. The morning was overcast, with only a few scattered patches of blue showing through, and the breeze was quite cool. Not exactly sunbathing weather, but…
