He wondered if he and Nina could make things work. He honestly wasn't sure he wanted to go back. So much had been said, so much had not been said… and so much trust had been lost.
He'd always thought of himself as able to make things work. Everything but his marriage, apparently. And his life. But they had been given a second chance.
And it was certainly worth exploring.
'No, I don't think you understand,' Fred Doherty said, angry now. 'Do you people have any idea who I am?'
'We know who you are, sir,' the man in the dark suit said. 'But your equipment has been impounded.'
'That's, like, a hundred, a hundred-twenty thou worth of gear, man!' Petrovich cried. 'Counting the computers and the transmitter! And it'll come out of my salary if I don't turn it back in!'
'We've already given you a receipt for your equipment, Mr. Petrovich. And your people can pick it up after we've had a chance to go through your recordings.' 'To do what?' Doherty demanded. 'To determine whether or not there is material there that could be prejudicial to national security,' the man said.
'Everything we shot has already been broadcast,' Doherty said, trying to keep his voice patient and reasonable. 'Including the terrorists' demands. The people already know al-Qaeda was trying to blackmail us. What else could we release that they haven't already seen?'
'I am not going to comment on that, Mr. Doherty. But I will ask you for your cooperation. So far as the government of the United States is concerned, this story is over.'
Doherty looked around the mall concourse. It was becoming crowded as more and more passengers and crew members were released by the government officials who'd been questioning them. 'Come on, Jim,' he said. 'We won't get anywhere here.'
'But…'
'Come on.'
Sandra Ames was waiting for them at a cafe table in front of the shipboard Starbucks. She still looked pale and withdrawn, and had said little since they'd witnessed the brutal execution of Arnold Bernstein. 'No luck?' she asked, looking up from her espresso.
'It's a cover-up,' Doherty said. 'I can smell it.'
'A cover-up of what?' Petrovich wanted to know. 'And how? They can't silence all of these people on board. And everyone knows the ship was hijacked.'
'Yeah,' Doherty added. 'And there was Khalid's ultimatum. We broadcast it!'
'Fuckin'-A!' Petrovich was becoming more wound up by the moment. Without a camera on his shoulder, he could become quite animated at times. 'Everyone knows about the plutonium!'
'I think they don't want Americans to know just how close we came to losing New York City,' Doherty said. 'It took us, what? Another nine or ten hours to reach port after the commandos took down the ship this morning? I don't know what that translates to in miles, but we had to be pretty damned close to Massachusetts and Connecticut to be able to make it the rest of the way here that quick. That's the story, I think.'
'I wish we'd been able to uplink the footage we got this morning,' Petrovich said. 'You know they're not going to release those shots of the hostage-rescue people coming in. Shit, you'd think they'd want people to see that stuff!'
'Let them have their damned secrets,' Sandra Ames said, sagging back in her chair. 'I just want to go home.'
Doherty looked at her in surprise. 'You don't want to follow up the story?'
'I don't want to follow up any story. I'm going home. To Elk Grove, Illinois. And I don't ever want to set foot on a boat again in my life.'
'It's a ship, Sandra,' Doherty said. He started to say something more, something to make her change her mind… and then changed his own. Her experience on the Atlantis Queen's forward deck seemed to have sucked the life out of her. Hell, they taught you in journalism school that you were supposed to be objective as a reporter. Unfortunately, there were things, experiences, about which it was impossible to remain objective.
'I took a job with CNE to interview stars and celebrities,' Ames added. 'To gossip about which airhead was dating which fool in Hollywood, whose movies were getting rave reviews, and whose career or marriage was on the rocks! Not to… not to…' She couldn't continue.
'I hear you, Sandy,' Doherty said.
No matter. There were plenty of talking heads in the biz who could tell the story on-camera.
And he thought he knew where to go to start digging. If the authorities were clamping down on the story on this side of the pond, there was always the British. When he'd checked the Internet news services that morning, they'd been full of the story of how the British SAS had taken down the pirated cruise ship and the plutonium transport. An interview with someone at Royal Sky Line might be productive… especially if he could talk to members of the crew.
Khalid's ultimatum had threatened to blow up the two ships, no more. But what if that madman had planned on blowing them up right here, on the Hudson River next to Manhattan's West Side? Or a few miles south, alongside the Statue of Liberty, for instance? How much plutonium had been involved? How far would the radioactive cloud have traveled up the New England coast? How badly, and for how long, would the fallout from a dirty bomb of that size have crippled American trade and business at a time when her economy was already teetering on the brink?
Just how close had the Queen and the Sandpiper come to that particular Ground Zero? And why was the presence of American commandos in the rescue being covered up? Doherty had heard one of the men on Deck Ten shout, 'He's American.' And Doherty knew he'd seen American helicopters in the sky that morning.
God, there was a story here, a huge story! If he couldn't sell the story to someone at one of the major news networks, then he would write a book.
The hell with entertainment. And the hell with government suits.
The people had the right to know…
Tabitha Sandberg walked down the gangway, unseeing, unfeeling. New York City was her home — she'd met Adrian here at that party at her sister's place just a few blocks uptown, on 67th Street — but right now Tabitha didn't feel like she would ever be home again. God, Ade, I miss you!
It had happened so damnably fast. She and Adrian had been in the ship's theater, where the terrorists had led them at gunpoint last night. There'd been that burst of noise from up in the rear balcony… and then gunfire, people screaming, people running. She'd been sitting with Adrian in one of the theater seats, had jumped up when the shooting had exploded and started to run.
Adrian had jumped up, launched himself at her, and knocked her down.
And when she'd rolled him off of her, he'd been dead.
Damn it, it was so senseless!
They'd been talking about a new life together, a new chance, a new start. She had relatives, her sister included, who hadn't cared for the May-December relationship thing, and there were relatives on his side who'd thought Tabitha was just after his money.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. They didn't know. Couldn't know. Adrian had loved her and she'd loved him, and he'd died trying to protect her.
Just like he'd stood up to those terrorists who'd broken into their stateroom Monday night, looking for the young woman who'd come in over the outside balcony. He'd tried to protect Tabitha then and gotten clubbed in the face.
She shuddered at the memory, wrapping her arms tight across her chest.
Alone, she started walking up the pier. The massed skyscrapers rose like a cliff face beyond the massed throng of New Yorkers packed onto Twelfth Avenue behind the police barricades.
They'd offered her professional counseling. Therapy. The doctor on the ship had been especially sympathetic, had suggested that she seek help for post-traumatic stress disorder.
But that would mean having to talk about it, and Tabitha didn't know if she would ever be able to face that.
