What are you up to?
The records people at Langley had already pulled a fat dossier on Yusef Khalid, or, rather, on Rahid Sayed as-Saadi, which appeared to be his real name. As Yusef Khalid, he'd been hired by Royal Sky Line three months earlier. He'd claimed to be Egyptian, born and raised in Alexandria, and had come with sterling references, of course, including a letter from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. His excellent English — he also spoke fair German and Turkish besides both the Egyptian and Syrian dialects of Arabic — had recommended him to the cruise ship company first as a translator. His training and his first shipboard assignment, however, had been with ship's security. That was an odd anomaly that would need to be investigated.
So much for the man's legend — the intelligence community's word for his fictitious background and identity. Royal Sky Line and MI5, it seemed, simply hadn't dug deep enough.
The man whose bearded face had appeared on all of the news channels this morning had been positively matched by the CIA's Office of Image Analysis with another identity entirely — Rahid Sayed as-Saadi. Like Osama bin Laden, he was Saudi, a native of Riyadh. He might have known bin Laden at the King Abdulaziz University. He'd fought with bin Laden and other mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan and probably been in on the formation of al-Qaeda in the early 1990s. He was still wanted for questioning in regards to the first World Trade Center bombing back in 1993; he'd been photographed by the FBI in several meetings with Ramzi Yousef, who'd masterminded that attack. After 9/11, Rahid had gone first to Afghanistan, where he'd been captured by American forces at Tora Bora and questioned by the CIA… before being mysteriously released by Afghan Northern Alliance troops.
After that, he'd gone to Iraq, where he'd helped Abu Musab al-Zarqawi create the Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, better known as AQI — al-Qaeda in Iraq.
He'd been with al-Qaeda from the beginning, a member of bin Laden's inner circle. The CIA's best guess was that this Islamic Jihad International was a new operations arm for al-Qaeda.
If Rahid Sayed as-Saadi was running this show, it was very big, and very deadly.
What are you really up to, you bastard? Rubens asked again.
'So we're agreed?' Andrew McKay said.
The others sitting around the table with him nodded. Most of them looked scared. Some looked defiant. A few — like the Hollywood agent Jake Levy — looked numb.
'Not all of us,' Dr. Barnes replied.
'I knew we'd been hijacked as soon as those men came to our stateroom yesterday,' Adrian Bollinger said, grim. Tabitha Sandberg, sitting next to him and holding his hand, nodded. 'They were looking for that woman who came in over our balcony, and they meant business. They hit me in the face with a rifle butt when I told them to get the hell out of my cabin, and they threatened to rape Tabby. If there's any way off of this hell-ship…'
'Yeah, well, we all heard the PA announcement from the bridge yesterday,' Reggie Carmichael said. 'We all know the score, right? We know we're all gonna die if we don't do something!'
'They have Gillian,' Levy said, 'and they have Bernie… '
'Gillian and Bernie? Who are they?' Donald Myers wanted to know.
'Arnold Bernstein and Gillian Harper,' Carmichael said. 'Bernie is her manager.' When Myers looked blank and gave a slight negative shake to his head, Carmichael added, 'Gillian Harper? The hottest MTV star ever?
'Livin' Large'? Platinum labels and music video hits out the ass?'
'Sorry,' Myers said. 'Never heard of her.'
'Jesus! Where've you been, man? Kansas?'
'Baltimore.'
'Enough!' McKay said. 'Keep it down, all of you!' He glanced around the room, trying to peer past the clumps of tropical vegetation and faux Mayan ruins. There didn't appear to be any of them in the Deck Eleven lounge, but he didn't want to take the chance of being overheard, or of attracting attention. Too much was at stake.
Barnes, the ship's doctor, took a sip of his drink. 'The ship has been taken by terrorists,' he said. 'They are well armed, and preparing to fight off any attempt by the military to retake the ship. But it still might be that our best bet is to hunker down and wait this out.'
'I am getting my wife and child off of this ship, Doctor,' McKay said. 'The sooner the better!'
He'd left Nina with Melissa back in the stateroom. He looked at the others around the table, trying to assess their spirit.
'How about a show of hands?' Stephen Penrose asked. 'Everyone who thinks we should steal a lifeboat and get the hell off this ship, raise your hand!'
Of the fourteen people around the large table, eleven voted yes.
'We can't decide something like this democratically,' Barnes said. He'd not raised his hand. 'My duty is here, looking after the passengers and crew. But I'll help you if I can.'
'I can't go,' Levy said. 'They have Gillian!'
'Yeah, Jake? And maybe you want to join the bitch, wherever she is,' Carmichael said.
'Listen,' Donald Myers said. He'd not voted, either, but he seemed unsure. 'I've got a whole bunch of people in my tour group. Can we bring them?'
'How many?' McKay asked.
'Nineteen total,' Myers replied. 'Fourteen women, four men… and myself.'
'That's the Baltimore tour group?' Barnes asked him.
'Yes.'
Barnes shook his head. 'Most of them are elderly,' he said. 'One's using a walker, isn't she? I think their chances are better here, not bobbing around in a rough ocean for God knows how long before a ship picks you up.'
'I don't think that's a good idea,' McKay said. 'The fewer people in our party, the better, y'know? And we don't want to be held back by walkers and arthritis.'
Myers nodded. 'I understand.'
'You're welcome to come.'
He shook his head. 'No. I need to stay with my people.'
'It'll just be the eleven of us, then,' McKay said. 'That's a good number. Johnny, here, can use his key to lower one of the lifeboats. We pile in, lower away, and let the ship sail over the horizon. Then we use the emergency transmitter on board to call for help. You know the military's going to be listening to every frequency.'
'It'll be rough,' Berger warned. He was a ship's steward whom McKay had met and talked with several days ago. Berger had been instrumental in helping get this group of men and women together, passing messages and cell-phone numbers and getting them into the Kleito Lounge for this meeting. 'Lifeboats aren't supposed to be dropped into the water when we're moving.'
'How fast are we moving?' Penrose asked.
'I'm not sure,' Berger said. 'Eighteen, maybe twenty knots. Our top speed is closer to twenty-five, but we're dragging the Sandpiper alongside, so we haven't been going at our absolute max.'
'We'll have to chance it,' Bollinger said.
'If we release the davits just before we hit the water,' Berger added, 'it'll be a jolt, but it shouldn't be any rougher than an amusement park water ride, right?'
'We'll do what we have to do,' McKay said. 'This is about survival.'
'How long will we have to wait before someone picks us up?' Sandberg asked.
'Probably not too long,' Barnes told her. 'My guess is that the military will be putting together a takedown as we speak. You'll be spotted pretty quick.'
'If they get us soon enough, we can tell them what we know about the terrorists,' Carmichael suggested. 'They'll have us all on TV!'
'First things first,' McKay said. 'First we get off the ship. We worry about press conferences later.'
And in hushed voices, they began to discuss the details of their escape.
