'Inside!' Rashid Abdul Aziz said, nudging one of the Westerners with the muzzle of his AK-47. 'Sit down and no make trouble!'
The twelve captives meekly filed through the door and into the theater, escorted by Nejmuddin and Sadeeq, one of them, the black one, still clutching his forehead where Baqr's rifle butt had clipped him.
Stopping in the hallway outside the theater entrance, Aziz pulled out his radio and called the bridge.
'What is it?' Fakhet's voice replied.
'This is Aziz. We've caught them all,' Aziz told him. 'We're putting them inside the theater now.'
'Any trouble?'
'None at all.'
'Good. The Amir wants you to — ' The voice broke off.
'Bridge? Are you there?'
There was a moment's silence, and then Fakhet's voice sounded from the radio again. 'There is a… problem,' he said. 'Listen. Take all of your men to Deck Nine, then aft to the casino. The Amir wants all of the people gathered there to be rounded up and moved to the theater as well!'
'Why?' Aziz asked. 'There must be fifty or sixty — '
'Just do it, Aziz! All of our security cameras have just switched off! The Amir says there may be an attack coming at any moment!'
Victor Jeffery Walters was an old hand. Forty-Height years old, now, he'd joined the Army Special Forces as soon as he'd made sergeant and eight years later had been selected for Delta Force. He'd seen action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, been promoted to staff sergeant, and finally retired after twenty-two years.
His retirement had been illusory, however… or, at best, in name only. An NSA recruiter had approached him last year, and he'd volunteered for paramilitary service with the Deep Black program and Desk Three. Since then, he'd been training with the Cougars, keeping up his weapons skills, keeping up his jump certification.
And now it all was paying off.
Not that this jump was an easy one. He'd done it time after time in training, and his heart still felt like it was trying to climb up out of his throat. He'd once heard a Navy aviator friend talk about the difficulties of landing at night on an aircraft carrier… a huge vessel that during the approach appeared to be about the same size as a postage stamp, and it was moving.
His friend, he thought, had nothing on him. This was a lot worse.
Through the NVG monocular he could clearly see the Atlas Pool and the large deck around it, positioned at the rounded back end of the Atlantis Queen. Light spilling from the casino inside made the deck area as bright as day; he could see the two hijackers clearly. They appeared to be relaxed, weapons slung, the red star of a burning cigarette in the mouth of each.
Thirty feet from the Queen's taffrail, he hauled back on the brake toggles of his parachute, spilling air and speed. As he drifted forward at the uncertain edge of a stall, he pulled his H&K, which he'd released during the jump to hang by its straps from the right side of his body, up to his shoulder.
The touch of a gloved thumb switched on the infrared laser targeting system; through his monocular, he saw the ruby-bright point of light, invisible to the naked eye, dancing across the torso of the terrorist on the right.
'Cougar One,' he whispered. 'Target right.'
'Two. Target left.'
'Take 'em!'
It was tricky taking a shot while trying to control a parachute just thirty feet from touchdown, especially with some turbulence kicking up as he flew through the cruise ship's slipstream. He had to release the parachute control toggles while in a sustained near-stall, raise his weapon, aim, and fire, all before he stalled completely and lost control. The IR laser made aiming simpler; as the red dot slipped swiftly up the tango's body, from left hip to right shoulder, Walters began squeezing off shots, the H&K's integral sound suppressor muffling each shot to a loud, hissing snap.
The terrorist jerked backward, chin going up, hands clawing at his chest as he slammed into the glass at his back. Walters managed five shots before he dropped his weapon and grabbed the control toggles again, allowing himself to pick up airspeed once more and glide toward the open deck. To his left, Dave Yancey seemed to hover motionless in mid-air for a second or two as he continued pumping near-silent rounds into his target, then dropped his weapon as well and continued his glide in for a landing.
The deck came up to meet Walters' booted feet. He misjudged his speed, though, which was a little high. He touched down running, dragging down the toggles and collapsing the ram-air chute behind him, then slammed full body into the glass doors leading into the brightly lit casino.
Jerry Esterhausen jumped at the slam of something heavy hitting the door leading out to the Atlas Pool. Howorth stood and turned, trying to see, but it was dark outside and the lighting, though low, had wrecked her night vision. She thought she saw movement out there, however, a shadow in the blackness.
And she saw the two outside guards as well, crumpled on the deck.
The hijacker guard who'd remained inside the casino had been sitting at a chair up against the aft-starboard bulkhead. He'd started at the thump as well, and was moving toward the door to investigate.
He was five feet from Rosie, Esterhausen's card-playing robot.
'Jerry!' Howorth hissed. 'We need a distraction! Fast!'
'Huh?'
'Your robot!…'
Jerry typed a command into his computer, then dragged his fingertip across the touchpad. Rosie, who'd been sitting lifelessly in her kiosk, awoke suddenly, her metal arms snapping up and out, her torso spinning to face the hijacker.
Behind Walters, David Yancey stepped onto the deck alongside the swimming pool at a gentle walk, his forward velocity perfectly matched to the speed of the ship.
'Army klutz,' Yancey said. David Yancey was a former U. S. Navy SEAL.
'Fuck you, squid!'
Walters struggled to unhook the harnesses holding the parachute to his body As he looked up, however, he saw movement… and the flash of a weapon. Their last briefing had mentioned a tango inside the casino.
And suddenly a man screamed, and Walters heard the sharp clatter of a weapon firing full auto.
Chapter 25
The terrorist had turned at the noise, looking up to see Jerry Esterhausen's robot leaning toward him, arms outstretched.
The man panicked. He screamed and the AK in his hand went off; he was holding the weapon one-handed, and the muzzle climbed sharply with the recoil, out of control. People in the club screamed, some diving for the floor as stray rounds slammed into bulkheads and the ceiling. Bullets cracked and whined, some shattering the plastic woman-shaped torso shell of the robot, some ricocheting from tooled steel. The monitor at the top of the unit exploded in flying glass.
But as Jerry Esterhausen had pointed out on another occasion, the robot's computer brain was located in the machine's base. From across the room the engineer pressed a key and swiped his finger across the touchpad once again, and the machine's arms snapped closed like a trap, moving with mind-numbing speed, gathering in the terrified hijacker and his weapon and smashing him close against its torso in a metal embrace.
