So far as Rubens was concerned, the people spreading those conspiracy theories on the Internet and even in video documentaries were little better than traitors, dishonoring the memories of the thousands of Americans who'd died in those attacks and the brave Americans who'd gone on to take the war to the enemy. By blaming the recent and unpopular Bush Administration with ignorance, distortions, and outright lies, they'd given aid and comfort to the real enemy, apparently for nothing better than political point-making.
It was still a free country, and free speech was still the law of the land, but that kind of domestic political propaganda was damnably close to shouting, 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. Oliver Wendell Holmes would not have been amused.
'You're saying we're playing into Khalid's hands,' Bing said.
'As I said, Dr. Bing, they've been keeping just ahead of us right along, ever since before the crisis started. I think they're using misdirection now in order to delay, that they have no intention of taking the money even if we give in. They want to offer us a choice of two and only two options — they sail into New York Harbor and set off a dirty bomb that will kill thousands of people and contaminate the entire city, or they force us to sink those ships ourselves, be seen by the world killing three thousand civilians, and possibly contaminating the European shoreline, everything from Ireland to Spain and Portugal.'
'So what are you suggesting, Mr. Rubens?' Prendergast asked. 'Your military insertion option?'
'I would suggest, first, that you negotiate. Tell them that we will give them the money and the prisoners. See if they'll halt those ships mid-ocean if we make that promise. If they do, then I'm wrong. We can continue to negotiate… or launch a military option, whatever you and the President think best.'
'That seems reasonable,' General Barton said.
'With an important cavealf,' Rubens said. 'They could still blow those ships up out there even while we're in the middle of negotiating with them, and claim we did it. There would be plenty of people who would believe them. And radioactive contamination of western Europe and the poisoning of fish throughout the North Atlantic would still kill thousands, and result in tens of billions of dollars of damage. It would give al-Qaeda the propaganda victory it's looking for.
'So while we talk, I do still think we need to get a team on board those ships.'
'To launch an assault?' Bing asked. 'Or for reconnaissance?'
'For reconnaissance first,' Rubens said. 'We have to have decent intel. How many terrorists are there? Where are they? What is the situation of the hostages, and where are they? Are there explosives in place? We need to know.'
'Your last report said that you were again in contact with one of your agents on board,' Wehrum said.
'Carrousel, yes,' Rubens said. 'She sent a message through confirming that she's okay, and suggesting some electronic options we might be able to take.'
'Then she can get us the intel we need,' Barton said.
'No, unfortunately. She can't. We need to see places that passengers aren't allowed to go. The bridge. The cargo hold. She would be picked up by the ship's sensors, and an alarm would sound in Security.
'What we have in mind is to put two teams on board, one on each ship. They could check areas closed to passengers, and give us a picture of just where the bad guys are. They would then be in position when a full-scale assault is launched. Our working plan so far is to have them take down terrorist leaders before they can order the detonation of any explosives in the ships' holds. An alternate possibility is to send the recon teams to those holds and have them disarm any explosives before the actual assault begins.'
'And you think this operation could be kept low-key?' Bing asked him. 'The President still wants to downplay any American involvement.'
Politics again. 'Yes, Dr. Bing,' Rubens replied. 'In fact, what we would recommend is that the SAS get another crack at those ships. As you said the other day, it's their ship, their responsibility. And a success here would go a long way to repairing their public image. And it would keep our people out of the public eye.'
'I'm not so sure this is a good idea,' Wehrum said, looking at Bing. 'If the assault force screws up, the ships could be destroyed anyway. And it would look like it was our fault.'
'Doing nothing guarantees failure,' Rubens pointed out.
'I'll take this up with the President,' Bing said. 'No promises… but have your Black Cat unit positioned and ready to go. How long will it take to get them in position?'
'They're ready now,' Rubens said. When Bing raised her eyebrows at that, he grinned. 'It seemed a worthwhile precaution to put our team in place for an op, just in case. They're on board the Eisenhower now. We also have a SEAL team on the USS Ohio, shadowing the hijacked ships.'
'We'll still need Presidential approval,' she said.
'Of course,' Rubens said. 'There's one thing more, though.'
'What is it?'
'Met reports from that part of the ocean are not encouraging right now. The wind is up to ten knots with gusts at fifteen, the sea state is at three, and there's a storm front moving down on those ships from the north. Weather conditions are expected to deteriorate dramatically over the next ten to twelve hours.'
'What does that mean?'
'That we are not going to be able to launch a parachute insertion onto those ships with winds over about ten to twelve knots. And SEALs on board an ASDS trying to come alongside will not be able to board them if the seas are higher than about sea state three to four. We need to go now, within the next few hours… or we'll need to wait until the storm passes.'
'Tell your team to stand ready,' Bing said, standing suddenly. 'I'll get back to you with the President's decision.'
'At last report, the Atlantis Queen was one hundred and eleven miles southeast of Mistaken Point, Newfoundland,' Rubens said. 'That's a bit over five hundred miles from New York. We don't have much time.'
The meeting was over.
'I need to know I can still trust you,' Khalid said.
'I told you… I didn't tell them anything! They… they grabbed me and Rawasdeh so quickly, and then Rawasdeh was knocked down the stairs. I didn't have a gun — '
'Yes, yes, we have been over all of that,' Khalid said, placing a fatherly hand on the man's shoulder. 'It wasn't your fault.'
Ghailiani's right arm was in a sling, heavily bandaged, and he had another bandage wrapped around his torso beneath his open Ship's Security shirt. The ship's doctor had patched him up after Aziz and Nehim had shot him in the woman's stateroom.
It would, Khalid thought, be safest to shoot GhaUiani right now. The problem was that Khalid's personnel assets were stretched to the limit right now. He needed technical people — people who knew computers — in the IT department and in the ship's Security Office.
Things had been tight before with twenty-four Brigade fighters on board each of the two captured vessels, a total of forty-eight. Now Rawasdeh was dead. So was Wahidi, transferred to the Sandpiper on Saturday to work with Bekkali and Moritomi in the special technical unit.
Wahidi's death had been.. horrible, a three-day agony of vomiting and diarrhea as the radiation poisoning he'd received had eaten away his guts. Bekkali was dead as well, the same way, and two other fighters soon would be. The KKD atomic expert, Moritomi, had shot himself when the first radiation poisoning symptoms had set in hours after the transfer of nuclear material to the Atlantis Queen. And two more men had died in the Sandpiper's stern gun position, when the British helicopter had blasted it with a wire-guided missile.
Eight dead so far. Counting himself, then, there were twenty-nine Brigade fighters remaining on board the Atlantis Queen, eighteen on the Pacific Sandpiper. Khalid had expected to take losses, of course; the sacrifice of the special technical unit had been expected, a part of the operational plan.
But Khalid had just five men on board the Atlantis Queen with the training and experience to operate both the ship's computers and the security monitors — and that number included himself. They were working now in staggered eighteen-hour shifts, with one man catching a few hours' sleep at a time. He needed Ghailiani to help fill in, because he'd been trained in the Atlantis Queen's security systems. With some minor changes to the programming of the computer running the ship's security section, Khalid would need fewer men as guards, would be able to control all of the thousands of people on board this ship watching through cameras and the ship's sensors,
