breathing. Once he was above the kitchen, he lowered himself to a more comfortable position — the ceiling was hardened to make it flame-proof and could support his weight. His chest pumped like a bellows, and long minutes passed before his hands stopped quivering.
“Too damned old by half,” he muttered quietly.
It took another hour of crawling, worming, and squeezing through the tanker’s numerous mechanicals spaces for him to reach a ventilator shaft and outside hatch. The cool sea breeze drawn in by the air conditioners blew across his face. It was a welcome relief to the smoke, dust, and heat he’d just endured, but the trip had been well worth it. He knew that Patroni would find a way to disable the bridge indicators when he launched the raft and make sure that no one was blamed. That was the key. Make sure the terrorists didn’t suspect that anyone had escaped.
Although his contribution to the Vietnam War had been running oil and cargo to Southeast Asia, Hauser had met enough soldiers to know that anyone with a gun in his hand suspected everything and everyone. Anything out of the ordinary meant trouble, and the only logical reaction was to open up with automatic fire. If the terrorists became suspicious, Hauser knew that some of his crew were going to die.
Easing the ventilator grid from its clamps, Hauser slid from the shaft and dropped lightly to the deck. He was near the tanker’s fantail, no more than fifteen feet from the life raft on its launching rail. As he’d hoped, he was alone. There were too few terrorists and too much ship for them to patrol effectively.
He allowed himself the luxury of watching the sea hiss past the vessel for a moment before undogging the waterproof hatch of the fiberglass lifeboat and jumping inside the claustrophobic craft. While the tanker carried a crew of thirty, as a safety precaution, each of her three life rafts could hold twenty men. Each boat carried emergency locator beacons and a two-way marine transceiver. A stay in one was never meant to last more than a day or two, especially in the busy shipping lanes that tankers ply, but they carried enough food and water to last a week.
Sitting on one of the plastic bench seats, Hauser checked that the few Plexiglas portholes were covered with blankets taken from the boat’s stores before allowing himself to relax. In a few hours, Patroni would cover for him while he launched the boat. He would motor away until some other vessel or shore-based radio picked up his broadcast. Until then, he had to wait, painfully watching the hours tick away. He turned to the question that had plagued him since he’d overheard two terrorists talking while he hung in a crawl space above a cabin.
Seattle. What was Riggs planning to do in Seattle?
Thoughts and ideas rumbled through his head, but nothing solidified enough to give him an answer. Even as he drew together every scrap of information he’d learned about the ship and the terrorists, nothing made Washington State’s port city seem important. He tried to remember which system Patroni had said was so crucial to Riggs. Tank control, that was it. She wanted to be able to shift the tanker’s cargo from hold to hold. The system was normally used to keep the vessel trimmed in rough seas or if she unloaded part of her cargo and then moved to another port to discharge the remainder. Maintaining equilibrium was significant for normal ship’s operation, but it should not be such a high priority.
It didn’t make any sense.
The continental United States’ northernmost port and the ability to shift oil within the monstrous hull… what was the connection? Suddenly Hauser knew. And fear and horror almost made him gag.
“Oh, dear God, they wouldn’t do it. No one would.”
London, England
There are two options for London’s weather in the midfall: warm and rainy with a heavy overcast, or cold and rainy with an even darker overcast. In the few moments it took him to duck from a limousine to the lobby of a discreet Belgravia hotel, Khalid Khuddari was chilled almost to the bone, the heavy rain forming camouflage splashes on his Burberry overcoat. He shivered in the marble and gilt lobby for a second, wringing water from his thick hair with one flattened hand. The doorman watched him gravely, taking Khalid’s rush into the lobby as a personal affront, for the umbrella in his hand could shield a family of four.
A concierge led Khalid to the registration counter, actually an eighteenth-century ormolu and teak desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl along its delicate recurved legs and bordering its broad, glossy top. An exact replica of the table shimmered up from the white Carrara marble floor. The receptionist’s smile was almost warm enough to make Khalid forget the miserable weather. “Good afternoon, Minister Khuddari. I apologize about the weather. The telly said it should have cleared by now.”
Khalid wasn’t surprised that she knew his name; hotels such as this knew everything about a guest. “I’ll be sure to take it up with the management.” He grinned boyishly. “I specifically requested no rain for my entire stay.”
“I’ll pass on your request to the BBC weather bureau and see what can be done about it.” She mirrored his smile.
Like the older and more discriminating banks of Switzerland, which looked nothing like a place of business from the outside, the St. James Belgravia didn’t look like a hotel at all. It more resembled a large well-kept private home. Georgian in style with leaded casement windows and stone walls thick enough to turn away cannon fire, it even lacked a sign at the front advertising its presence. The lobby felt more like a grand entrance hall, with the desk and three oxblood wing chairs around a low cherry table. A sideboard hugging one wall under a giltwood mirror held crystal decanters, matching glassware, and the distinctive green neck of a Dom Perignon bottle in a sterling ice bucket.
One had to have money to even know that such hotels existed and even more to actually stay.
Khalid smiled tightly, knowing that Siri had not only booked the first-class flight from the UAE but also arranged for the hotel and the limo from the airport. It was her way of teasing him and demonstrating her affection, of which he was not unaware.
“Minister, I normally wouldn’t ask this of you,” the receptionist said almost apologetically. “However, you have never stayed with us before. I must see your passport for just a moment.”
He slid the document from his breast pocket, laying it open for her. She copied what she needed onto a guest card and handed back the diplomatic passport with another smile. “Thank you very much, Minister. The bellman will have brought your luggage to your room by now and will see to it that it’s unpacked if that is what you wish. You’re in room number seven. Alfred will take you.”
In his suite, Khalid dismissed the two bellmen without letting them unpack his bags. He noted that they didn’t wait for a tip, and he smiled again. Hotels like this never bothered their guests with such plebeian tasks as paying gratuities, but he was certain that having the men lead him to his room probably cost more than his grandfather made during his entire life. After a quick shower and shave to rid himself of the flight from the Gulf, he was back out of his room. The limo was waiting for him, as he had instructed earlier.
“The Savoy,” he told the West Indian driver as he eased into the plush leather of the black stretch Daimler.
Remarkably for such a big car, they managed to bull through the snarled city traffic in record time and were soon edging down the alley that led to perhaps the most famous hotel in the world.
Given his natural good looks and the fact that he could recite ten thousand lines of romantic poetry, it was little surprise that Trevor James-Price was talking to the most attractive woman in the Savoy’s American Bar. James-Price and the woman sat at the long bar angled toward each other with the intimate and exclusionary attitude of illicit lovers. Even as he approached, Khalid heard the woman’s laughter, sweet and clear with a hint of sexual throatiness.
“Ah, there you are, Trevor. The other warders have been looking for you all over town when we discovered you’d left the asylum without your medication.” With Trevor, Khalid could let his long-suppressed schoolboy humor flow.
James-Price looked up quickly, the sandy cowlick hanging over his forehead lifting and falling like a bird’s wing. His eyes sparkled with pleasure. They shook hands warmly.
“Khalid, please meet Millicent Gray. Millie, this is the Thief of Baghdad, Khalid Khuddari.” Trevor paused for a beat while Khalid shook the woman’s hand. “Now, if you will excuse us, I’ve got to talk him out of blowing up
