instead of with armed men standing at specific points like the fantail, the Promenade Deck, and up on Deck Eleven.
With the repulse of the helicopter strike, Khalid was sure that they would have at least a day or two before another attempt was made. According to the colored symbols on the electronic chart table, the enemy ships were keeping well back, none closer than about 250 kilometers.
His big concern now was controlling the ship's thirty-three hundred passengers and crew.
Ghailiani trembled under Khalid's hand.
'Have you seen your e-mail yet today?' Khalid asked, dropping his hand.
The man, his eyes screwed tightly shut, managed a jerky nod.
'Then you know your wife and daughter remain safe. Our original bargain still stands. You help us to the full extent to which you are capable. And your wife and daughter will not be harmed.'
'I will do anything you command, Amir. Anything.'
'I know you will. And soon this mission will be over, and you will rejoin your family as a very wealthy man. For now, though, I need your help in security. I know this ship has sensors to monitor when people have wandered into areas where they should not go, yes?'
Ghailiani nodded again.
'Good. And I would like you to… extend the list of such places, so that we can know immediately when one of the free passengers wanders into a stairwell, say, or the deck outside.'
'I can do that, Amir.'
'Good. Do it, then.'
A sudden blast of wind struck the bridge windows as Ghailiani departed, followed by a rattle of rain. The weather was turning ugly, the sky turbulent and overcast.
Good. That meant even less likelihood of an enemy attack.
High up next to the ceiling of the ship's bridge, a TV monitor was displaying CNN, via a satellite feed. A woman was talking earnestly into the camera, telling of a rumored deal being struck between the U. S. government and the Atlantis Queen hijackers.
Khalid smiled.
The Americans had fallen all over themselves in transmitting a radio message accepting the IJI Brigade's terms. The promise of $2 billion and the release of several hundred Islamic prisoners… that in itself was a sweet victory, almost victory enough to leave Yusef Khalid believing in a beneficent and all-powerful Allah.
Almost. This victory had been won with daring, imagination, sacrifice, and a great deal of money from al- Qaeda's financial backers in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. It wasn't necessary to drag God into the equation.
Still, knowing that the Americans had capitulated filled Khalid with a surging sense of power, of purpose. A handful of fighters willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of Allah had brought the world's so-called sole superpower to its knees.
It was a shame, really, that he wouldn't be accepting the American offer. He'd given orders to maintain radio silence, to refuse to respond to any signal from the Americans or the British.
Later, when they were closer to New York City, he would begin to negotiate, but only to drag things out and give them the opportunity to take these vessels and their radioactive cargos all the way into the port and cram them up America's ass.
Khalid wasn't interested in money or in freed prisoners.
He was interested solely in revenge.
'Another delay?' Charlie Dean asked.
'I'm afraid so,' Rubens' voice replied in his head, speaking over his communications implants. 'But this time it's the weather.'
Around him stretched the gray recesses of the Eisenhower's hangar deck, a high-ceilinged cavern filled with the crouching forms of aircraft, wings folded, quiescent. The two Black Cat assault teams crouched nearby in front of Lieutenant Richard Taylor, who was drawing with a black marker on a large whiteboard with side-by-side deck schematics of the two ships printed on it.
'Conditions are still decent here,' Dean said. He'd just come down from the ship's Met Office.
'But your target is sailing through a squall line right now. They're telling us to expect high winds and unfavorable sea states along the Queen's course for the next twelve hours at least.'
And by the time the bad weather had passed, dawn would be approaching. The insertion had to take place at night to have any chance at all of success.
'So we're looking going in at sometime tomorrow night,' Dean said.
'Use the time to study those deck plans and photos,' Rubens told him. 'And we'll be developing our contact with Carrousel.'
'Tell her to keep her head down,' Dean said.
'Rubens out.'
'What the hell is that noise?' Khalid demanded.
Phillips, the ship's captain, stood before him between two armed men. 'What noise would that be?'
'You can't have not heard it.'
Khalid had ordered Phillips brought to the bridge. Much of the time, he and the other bridge officers were kept confined in a watch room down the passageway behind the bridge. One or another of them could be brought to the bridge any time there was a need for their advice. Khalid didn't like the look in Phillips' eyes, however, and since he and a few trusted Brigade soldiers could handle the ship's wheel, watch the compass, and keep an eye on the electronic chart table and radar, there was no need for the regular ship's officers on the bridge at all.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Phillips replied.
As if on cue, then, a long, low, grinding rumble sounded, transmitted through the steel deck of the bridge. The ship itself gave a lurching shudder.
'That noise,' Khalid growled. 'Will you tell me what it is, or shall I put several of your passengers overboard?'
The threat seemed to batter down Phillips' defenses. 'The sea is getting rougher,' he said. 'The two ships, this one and the Sandpiper, are of different lengths, and different drafts, so they ride the waves differently from one another.'
Khalid walked to the port bridge wing and looked aft. It was dark and raining, but in the haze of glowing mist illuminated by the Pacific Sandpiper's deck lights, he could see the smaller ship grinding unevenly against the Adantis Queen's side.
'Are we in danger?'
'I don't know. It's hard to tell. If the sea gets any rougher, the Sandpiper could stove us in, I suppose.'
'What can we do about it?'
Phillips gave a halfhearted shrug. 'You could bring both ships about into the wind,' he said. 'Cut our speed until we're just barely making way, and ride out the storm.'
'We do not need the delay,' Khalid said. 'We have a schedule to keep.' He gestured toward the officer. 'Take him back to his quarters.'
As Phillips was led away, Khalid called the radio watch. 'Sadeeq! Raise the Pacific Sandpiper'
'Yes, sir.'
'Tell them we are going to separate the ships. Our time together is over.'
The two would proceed to their respective targets separately from here on out.
Chapter 23
