Assault on the Empress (16 page)

Argus studied the tent he'd made of his fingers for a moment, then said, “Just a thought, but the hijackers have a yacht pulled alongside the
Empress
. Presumably how they got aboard. Probably the old routine of letting the vessel lie dead in the water and when the
Empress
stopped to assist, they came aboard with their guns. But maybe you can utilize the yacht to get the ampule off.”

“Too easy to be stopped. If I were this O'Faiton—and thank God I'm not—I'd have the yacht rigged with explosives that could be radio detonated in case any of the passengers or crew tried making a break for it. No. The yacht's out.”

“Helicopter,” Babcock said absently.

Hughes bit his lower lip. “Wait a minute. When I was a little boy, I saw it done once. They used to pick up mail that way.”

“What are you talking about?” Babcock asked him.

“All right. In the early days of airmail. To speed up the pickup process and sometimes because they'd pick up where there wasn't really an airfield, they utilized a system originally developed to pick up mail at railway stations where the train wasn't scheduled to stop. Modified, of course. They'd have a pouch on a tensioned line, but a little slack in it. The old biplane would come through, flying low and slow and it had a hook out at the bottom of the fuselage. The hook would snatch the pouch off the line and then the pilot would draw it up into the cockpit at his leisure and go on to the next pickup point. We could use that same system if we can set up the rig and find a pilot good enough.”

“One of those guys who lands on aircraft carriers,” Babcock suggested.

“Better still,” Argus supplied, “the guys who take off and land from smaller vessels—they do it in the Med a lot—with observation planes. Electronic surveillance equipment aircraft.”

“All right!” Hughes clapped his hands together. “Forget about the submarine option unless the moon will be too bright or the winds too high. We airdrop off the
Empress
and swim up to her. Then we get aboard. We'll need a picture of this Leeds fellow and the woman CIA op. We find them and Cross, then start liquidating the hijackers until we can reach whatever area of the ship we settle on for the pickup. We erect whatever gadget it is we need and call in the aircraft by radio, then finish the wetwork.”

“Sketch out what you need,” Argus said.

“Lewis and I'll need diagrams, photos, everything you can get on the
Empress.
And we've got to go in quickly. This madman O'Fallon will start executing hostages if he hasn't already and the SAS won't be left waiting around forever once he does. We'll need some special weapons. I can make you a list. What you can't get immediately, you might be able to hit up one of the SEAL Teams stationed around the District of Columbia for as a loan.”

“How'd you know about them?” Argus asked him.

“I helped train them,” Hughes answered.

Argus had left the room to gather what information he could pertaining to weather in the predawn hours of the next day in the area where the
Empress
was being held, and to ascertain what information he could concerning British and Soviet submarine traffic in the area as well, in case weather precluded the preferred of the two options.

Hughes had been making a list, Babcock pacing the floor, stopping to stare occasionally at the same rerun newsreel footage of the
Empress Britannia
in happier days, before all of this, footage of the bombing of the Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks, which was linked to Seamus O'Fallon, footage of other terrorist atrocities in Northern Ireland.

Babcock turned away from the television screens in disgust. “I think people like this stuff.”

“It's like a soap opera to some people, only the characters are real; but, in a way, they're not real at all. They see something that disgusts them and they say, ‘Oh my God, that's horrible,' and then they flip channels and there's ‘The Honeymooners' or ‘I Love Lucy' and they're laughing again. And all the while, they're on the road to oblivion.”

“You sound like a pessimist, Mr. Hughes.”

“I'm certainly not an optimist. Optimists rarely study violence, Lewis, because in their world, violence isn't something that happens. It only happens to other people and if it ever does involve them, they sincerely expect that the rest of society will say ‘Oh my God, that's horrible,' and really mean it. But of course, very few people really mean it because very few people are ready to do anything about it if it happens to someone else, let alone themselves. When a confrontational situation occurs, they are willing to sacrifice the higher good they've always preached about for a good that's even higher, their own self-preservation. And afterwards, if they've made it through alive, they congratulate themselves that they're still around to help make the world a better place. True pacifists act out of dedication to principle, right or wrong, and because of that, are at least deserving of respect. But too many people are totally lacking in principle, lacking in anything that at all gives any depth or purpose to their lives. They just live; and, when death finally comes, they feel cheated. And, of course, they have been. But they weren't cheated by death, only cheated by their lack of perception of life, cheated by themselves. Like baseball, Lewis. They missed their chance at a base hit simply because they were waiting to make a home run on a perfect pitch that on one level of consciousness they hoped would never come; and they were waiting so long, they only wound up being walked.”

Slowly, Babcock said, “You're a cynic.”

“You're observant. Tell me how you can do what we do even once, let alone more than that, without being a cynic? But yet, I'm not a true cynic; because, if I were, I'd say the hell with it and walk away from it, wouldn't I? You and I, and Cross if we can get him back—we're the fellows with the buckets put in charge of bailing out the boat after so many leaks have sprung, it's impossible. And, just to make it interesting, we aren't given buckets to use at all, just sieves. And, depending on our ingenuity and endurance, we can find ways of plugging up the holes in our sieves or work faster and faster. The result will be the same. The only advantage we have is that we can say we tried to slow it down a bit. Which brings us back to the concept of optimism. Each of us doing this sort of thing feels somewhere inside himself that maybe, just maybe, with the little extra time we buy before the ship of civilization sinks, mankind may figure out how to keep it from sinking entirely. And it sounds so much nicer to say you're looking forward to the future optimistically than to just admit to all and sundry that you're an asshole.”

The weapons on the equipment list Hughes had ready for General Argus were what Hughes considered bare bones, all necessities. Hughes would bring the Magnum Tanto for Cross, so only two knives were needed, Gerber BMFs, Gerber MKIIs or Benchmark TAC Ils his first choices. He allowed for no second choices. There were many fine custom-makers, his own personal favorite the blades of Weatherford, Texas, knifemaker Jack Crain, and not just because the man was a fellow Texan. But anything handmade, unless it were crafted in some yurt in Inner Mongolia, could be traced to the maker these days. And that could trace back to the man who used it.

Three Beretta 92F military pistols, eight spare fifteen-round magazines for each pistol and two twenty-round extension magazines for each pistol. The availability of the pistols he wasn't worried about. To holster the pistols and carry the spare magazines, he wanted Bianchi UM-84 rigs, the civilian version of the M-12 holster and its concurrent accessories. He needed the civilian version because he needed black. Black BDUs were already packed, for himself and for Babcock, but they'd likely do the entire operation in wetsuits since either way they went in they would get a dousing.

Assault rifles would be unnecessary considering the battleground, but H&K MP5 SD A3 integral suppressor 9mm submachine guns would be essential, each to be fitted with an Aimpoint Electronic sight. Not only were the H&K subguns reliable and efficient and silent, but they were deadly accurate for a weapon of their type.

A silent weapon of smaller overall size might be needed and, for this, Hughes opted for a Walther PP in .22 Long Rifle. There would be no time to have a pistol fitted with a slide lock or to have one gunsmithed so it would work properly with subsonic ammunition, so it wouldn't be quite as silent as it could have been. But silent enough if used with discretion.

Argus returned, sheafs of computer paper in his hands, Hughes saying to him, “Here's the list. I don't really want to accept substitutions. For the Walther .22, if you have to, get Bob Magee at Interarms on the phone and tell him it's for me. He's an old friend and it won't be the first time Bob's helped the federal government get the equipment it needed in a pinch.”

“There's something you have to know,” Argus interrupted, his voice oddly subdued as he almost threw the computer printouts down on the table. “There's a new factor to consider. It may be critical.”

“A deadline for the demands to be met?” Babcock asked.

“No, not yet. Feeling is this O'Fallon wants to prolong the thing as much as possible for maximum media attention. No. It has to do with one of the passengers. I just got word from the CIA that their man—they didn't give me his name—their man who got the ampule out of Albania and into Italy. After he handed it over to this other agent going under the name Alvin Leeds, he was captured by the KGB. They gave him some kind of truth serum and the best guess is he spilled everything he knew about who he gave the ampule to. He didn't know the name of the vessel, but he would have been able to give an accurate enough description of Leeds that if the KGB had somebody clever working for them on this they might have found Leeds in time to get aboard the
Empress.
And that's just what probably happened. The CIA man that was drugged—he remembered the name of the KGB officer in charge. The name was Ephraim Vols. Used to be Volshinsky. Vols or Volshinsky or whatever he calls himself is one of their best people they tell me. Very efficient and imaginative. A bad combination for us. His name has popped up as being wholly or partially responsible for some of their most successful operations in the last several years. There's reason to believe he has passed himself off as an Englishman on several occasions. It's quite possible Vols is aboard the
Empress
traveling under an assumed identity and using a British passport. He'd know exactly what that ampule contains.”

Hughes said nothing for a moment, then, “That could conceivably work to our advantage. I doubt the Russians are eager for this viral agent to be released over Europe and North Africa if they don't have any way of innoculating against it. Vols might realize the danger, if he's as sharp as you imply, and take steps to obviate it. Could be to our advantage that he's there.”

“But if he is,” Babcock interjected, “he's not going to be too eager to see us take it off the
Empress
and hand it over to the CIA. Just gives us something else to worry about at our backs while we're trying to get the job done.”

“No, but if he is able to operate, he may be the first person we should look for after Cross. Before we go after Leeds. Vols might already have gotten his hands on it,” Hughes told Babcock and Argus. “And if he did, his primary concern will be getting it off as fast as possible. If he doesn't think to second-guess this O'Fallon, Vols might go after the yacht as his means of escape. But at least he's a professional, and in his own interests to stay alive and retake the ampule, he might do us some good.”

“I hope you're right.” Babcock nodded sombrely.

“Only one way to find out, isn't there, Lewis?” Hughes said cheerfully. “Now, about that weather report,” Hughes began again….

The weather was beautiful, the breeze strong and cool and the sun bright. And Seamus O'Fallon was able to hold the headache back for now, the pill having taken effect. But the pills seemed to work less and less well each time he used them. And he used them with greater frequency. Maybe the British doctor had been right and he was living on borrowed time; and the debt was about to be collected.

“Line them up over there now, lads, would ya.” He gestured toward the portside edge of what his diagram told him should be properly called the Beach Deck, the line removed and the guardrail taken down so there was nothing to prevent an incautious step plunging one into the whitecapped sea below. An incautious step or a moderately vigorous push.

A British battle cruiser had taken up position off the port bow and he was certain their binoculars would be trained on the deck and that they wouldn't miss what was about to transpire.

He didn't want them to miss any of it.

Six men with their wrists and ankles tied and their eyes blindfolded, each man wearing a Mae West. The irony of the concept of a life preserver did not escape him.

They would have parabolic microphones aimed at the
Empress
; but, just in case, he took up the blue and white plastic battery-operated loud hailer and squeezed the trigger handle tight in his fist. “This is Seamus O'Fallon speaking, leader of this stalwart group of freedom fighters combatting, in their own humble way, the dirty heel of British oppression in Ireland. We have asked that in the interests of promoting peace and harmony in Ireland, the British Prime Minister denounce the puppet regime of so-called Northern Ireland in the electronic media, and take oath that all ties with so-called Northern Ireland are henceforth abolished, all military aid ceased and a complete withdrawal of all British forces, both overt and covert, be begun immediately. We have asked that such a declaration be repeated before a special session of the United Nations Security Council. But, alas, the warmongering British government, in a sad attempt to hold to their last vestiges of Empire by whatever means they can, however sadistic, have refused to lift the yoke of oppression. No announcement has been made. It is with great personal sadness, peace-lovin' man that I am, that this further step must be taken to show the British people and people everywhere how vile and heartless the British Government is. Lad!” And he called to Paddy and Jack and some of the others. “Shoot the poor people—and be merciful when ya do it, now. Then push their bodies over the side, will ya, now.”

He kept the loud hailer fisted tight so that it would aid the Brits on their warship in hearing the screams as the six men he had selected at random from among the holders of British passports were shot to death, the submachine guns Paddy, Jack and the others had roaring for the briefest instant, the bodies collapsing, all but two of them falling over the side of their own accord, the last two helped along by some of the lads.

Seamus O'Fallon shouted through his loud hailer, “ 'Tis a sad day, it is, when the British Government value wealth and power over the lives of their subjects.”

He put down the loud hailer and stared over the side.

The six bodies, despite a few bullet holes in the Mae Wests, floated nicely, bobbing up and down on the whitecaps. He wanted them there as a reminder.

The headache was starting to come stronger.