Assault on the Empress (20 page)

“Damn!” Hughes hissed under his breath. It was an impossible shot with a handgun, at least for him. He drew back deeper into the shadows, then more quickly made his way aft.

There was no sophisticated signal between them. He simply leaned over the stern rail and hissed into the darkness, “Lewis!”

“Here, Mr. Hughes.”

“Company on the portside rail of the Empress. Mum's the word,” Hughes hissed back as he worked the hammer-drop safety and put the Walther away. “By the anchor, Lewis. Keep low.”

He caught the line Babcock flipped up, caught it on the first try, then began to pull.

There was a clanging sound and Hughes ducked, drawing the Walther from beneath his wetsuit again. It was the cargo package hitting the hull. Hughes licked his lips, worked the safety on again and put the Walther onto the deck beside his feet, then kept pulling. In a moment, Babcock was pulling beside him.

“Two here, two gone. Safe as church except for the five hundred gallons of napalm. Keep pulling, Lewis!”

“Napalm?”

“That and the plastic explosives with the hidden detonator. Keep pulling!” They had it up, only the weight of a man or so, but awkward, especially to do in silence. “Into the wheelhouse, lad.” They carried it between them, through the door, dropping to their knees as they lowered it. Hughes had his knife out, slashing away the lashings over the watertight case. They pried open the lid, each man reaching for one of the Aimpoint-fitted MP5 SD A3s. “Stand guard while I gear up. Won't be a moment. Watch the man on the deck of the
Empress
. Stay aft. Go on!” And Babcock was through the door.

He took the battle vest with the magazine pouches for the subgun and the extension magazines for the Beretta. He zipped it closed. Hughes took his own pistol belt—they had marked each with tape—and cinched it around his waist, checking the magazine and Swiss Army Knife and mini-Maglite pouches by feel. He took the sheath from his leg and pulled away the lashings, opened the Bianchi fastener and closed it over his belt, then resheathed the knife. The hood from his wetsuit. He stripped it away with a snapping sound, then opened the small utility pouch on the battle vest, pulling out first the other hood then the earplugs. They would not prohibit sound, but only serve to break it up. Hughes put the plugs into his ears, then pulled the mask/hood over his head and down along his throat, adjusting it to line up the eye holes, for an instant feeling as though it were going to smother him. He ignored the feeling. He stripped away his diving boots and pulled on boot socks, then stuffed his feet into his combat boots and speed-laced them.

To his feet, the H&K submachine gun in his right fist. And then he bent over the open waterproof container and took out one other object. It was a stock Cold Steel Magnum Tanto. He'd promised himself he'd deliver it to a friend. He slipped it into the loops at the front of his battle vest—he'd sewn them in on board the aircraft—and secured them. He caught up his gas mask bag and slung it, then his musette bag with the stun grenades and the smoke and gas grenades.

Hughes stepped out of the wheelhouse. “Lewis—you take Cross's things. Then we take out our friend on the rail of the
Empress
.”

Babcock nodded, disappearing into the wheelhouse.

Slowly, silently as he could, Hughes drew back the bolt of the H&K, then eased it forward, stripping the top round from the magazine and chambering it. His thumb played with the safety.

In just over a minute as he ticked it off mentally, Babcock was out of the wheelhouse, the second pistol belt strapped across his chest, the pistol beneath his left arm, the second submachine gun slung across his back.

Hughes looked at him. Babcock nodded. Hughes wondered if he looked as unearthly with the hood pulled over his face as Babcock did? He suspected that he did.

Quickly, silently, they moved forward along the starboard side, keeping in low crouches, hugging against the superstructure as they neared the bow rail.

The man Hughes had seen before lounged there still, a cigarette glowing in his fingers.

Hughes already had the H&K's stock retracted and he shouldered the weapon now, set to semiauto. The light was poor, but he trained often with poor light intentionally. He held over a little because of the extreme angle and fired, aiming for the head.

There was the tiniest plop, the body rocking, collapsing over the rail. “We live right—if he'd fallen to the deck here or into the water, only a deaf man couldn't have heard it. Come on!” And they started for the gangplank lowered from the
Empress
to the level of the yacht's deck….

Thomas Griffeth pushed up the edge of the tarp which covered the lifeboat. He saw no one. The military pistol in his fist, he pushed the tarp up further and swung one leg over, the lifeboat swaying in its berth. Then he swung his other leg out and dropped. He was instantly chilled, sweating under the tarp which prevented any sort of air circulation, and now the cold predawn air making him shiver. He started aft toward the companionway steps. First get the cases for it, then the ampule itself, then back topside and down to the yacht.

Griffeth started moving. A voice came out of the shadows. “Faith now, blackie. You wouldn't be this Leeds feller we been lookin' after findin', would ya now?”

Griffeth had already turned toward the voice, saw no one. And then he felt the thing, colder than the sweat which bathed him or the night air which cocooned him, so cold as it penetrated into the very heart of his being. He fumbled for the safety, but the strength was all gone from his hand.

“Looks like we won't be needin' to look for you no more, blackie. ”

Griffeth felt an emptiness and he suddenly realized he was dying….

Abe Cross moved quickly down the corridor toward the casino's main entrance, nervous-sounding chatter coming through the open doors, the nervous chatter of people consumed with fear. He'd heard it before. He looked across the corridor to the opposite side, Comstock moving as he did, flat against the bulkhead, an Uzi submachine gun in each fist, a pistol stuffed in his belt.

They stopped just before the doors.

He looked back down the corridor.

She stood there, waiting. Cross nodded to her. She started walking, on the balls of her feet as if she were wearing high heels, hips swaying an imaginary skirt, head high, hair tossed back. He'd asked her, “Will you? It's the only diversion we've got. We need something.”

Naked except for her bra and panties, Jenny Hall walked past him straight through the open doorway, Comstock's expression half arousal and half amusement.

There were shouts. There was a whistle. A catcall. A scream, he assumed from one of the women passengers.

Cross nodded to Comstock.

They stepped through the doorway.

Jenny Hall, standing in the middle of a crap table, tore off her bra and threw it into the knot of terrorist gunmen around her. Cross shouted, “Hostages down!” And the first fingers of each hand touched the triggers of the Uzi submachine guns. A heavier roar came from his right. It would be Liedecker with one of the AKMs. Terrorists, shock registering in their faces, fear in their eyes, were wheeling toward them. A flash of pink bare flesh as Jenny dove off the table to cover. Cross tracked his subguns toward the crap table now. She knew the chances. He kept firing, the one in his right fist out, chunks of furniture and ceiling fixtures flying around the room, pieces of wall and ceiling tile disintegrating, the dust spraying everywhere. His second Uzi was gone and he let them drop at his side and drew the Colt Officers ACP that was cocked and locked in his waistband. He extended his right hand, fired, acquired a new target, fired, his left hand grasping the liberated Smith & Wesson M&P .38, thumb-cocking it, firing, acquiring another target, firing. He shot one of the terrorists in the mouth with the .45, another twice in the throat with the .38, another one gutshot with the .45. Liedecker fired on the terrorist too, the already dying man's body flopping back as the round from the AKM hit. Cross looked right. Comstock, a Browning High Power in each hand, fired point-blank into the chest of a man charging at him with just bare hands, then wheeled, firing into the head of a terrorist crawling across the floor toward his assault rifle.

Cross looked toward the center of the casino floor. There were whimpering sounds, and children cried, and there were murmurs of “Oh, my God,” and Jenny Hall stood there, nothing on but her panties, her arms folded across her to cover her bare breasts. He saw her bra and told Liedecker, “Get that for her, huh?” And he started around the room, checking bodies. Comstock was doing the same, a grim set to his features like nothing Cross had ever seen before. Cross had decided: Any who weren't dead would get that way. With the arms and ammunition from these men, he had the rounds to waste. And there would not be enough medical personnel or lifeboat room for the terrorists anyway. They had stepped out of the human community when they had become terrorists.

One of the terrorists moved, reached up, clawed at his trouser leg. Cross turned toward him and moved the muzzle of the revolver on line with the man's forehead. “Die.” Cross pulled the trigger. Sometimes, he thought, a person really did get what he earned….

They had crossed up onto the
Empress,
dragged the body of the man he had shot off the rail, putting it inside the darkened doorway of the snack shop.

There was gunfire aft, Hughes signaling Babcock. “The casino. Either they're executing hostages or someone's doing some rescuing of his own. We go to the Seabreeze Lounge—hurry!” There were steps leading up to the decks above, Hughes running toward them, dodging left as he heard the racking of a submachine-gun bolt, but tripping on something as he moved deeper into the shadows. “Company!” Hughes dropped to one knee, punching the H&K toward the steps as soon as he saw a target, firing, the ones from the steps returning fire, chunks of the bulkhead beside Hughes blasting away, Hughes drawing back.

He looked down in the darkness to find what he'd tripped over. It was the body of a man.

Hughes stabbed the H&K round the edge of his cover and fired a short burst.

They had rehearsed the responses to specific situations with predetermined, numbered routines. “Alpha!” Hughes shouted. “Number Three!” Hughes called again, reaching to his musette bag, taking one of the sound and light grenades from it, pulling the pin. As he hurtled it, he closed his eyes, turning his face away, the palms of his hands cupping over his ears, his shoulders hunching.

Despite the plugs in his ears and his hands shielding them, he could hear the high-pitched whine, almost deafeningly loud. It was deafening to unprotected ears, the flash of light from the grenade blindingly bright, the effect wearing off in a few hours totally. But these people would never be alive long enough for that. There was sporadic submachine-gunfire audible as Hughes started forward in a dead run, Babcock right beside him, both men spraying their weapons into the writhing bodies of the three terrorists. “Toss their weapons over the side. Something I have to do.” Hughes ran back, to where he had tripped over the body. From the pouch at his belt, he took the mini-Maglite, twisting the flashlight's head and shining it over up along the body and toward the face. There was a huge, open wound in the abdomen, as though a long knife had gutted the man, the man's hands clasped over it in death. And the face.

Hughes dropped to his knees and detail-searched the body.

“Damn!” He rose to his feet, twisting off the flashlight, running to rejoin Lewis Babcock. Babcock was already halfway up the steps, Hughes picking his way over the bodies to join him. “That was our friend Alvin Leeds. Dead. No ampule. Nothing. Which means unless somebody else has it, the blasted thing's hidden aboard the
Empress.”

“We scuttle her?”

“We scuttle her.” Hughes nodded.

He reached the head of the steps just behind Babcock. It took only a second to orient himself, then he rasped, “Follow me and be ready with the gas but don't use it unless I say so. We can't load hundreds of unconscious passengers into lifeboats.” He broke into a run for the Seabreeze Lounge….

Nineteen of the men and two of the women from among the passengers who had been held captive in the casino had some type of military experience. Cross ordered Liedecker to parcel out the captured weapons and the shotguns taken earlier as best he could. He stepped up onto the crap table. “This is gonna be short, so listen. There are passengers and crew—the ones with British passports, it appears—and the ship's officers held in the Seabreeze Lounge. We're going after them now. This vessel is mined with high explosives and there doesn't seem to be any way to defuse them.” There were screams, cries. Cross shouted over them. “Listen. There are plenty of lifeboats. You can't go to your cabins for your life vests so you're just going to have to be a little more careful. Mr. Liedecker, as a ship's officer, is in complete command. Anyone who doesn't cooperate or panics he has authority to shoot. Now, under Mr. Liedecker, move quietly and safely toward the lifeboats. He will direct you. Mr. Liedecker!”

“Here.” And Liedecker stepped up onto a roulette table. “Everyone was given a lifeboat assignment when they came aboard. We will have to alter that procedure. Families whose last names beginning with the letters A through M will assemble on the portside of the casino—to my left,” and he began gesturing to his left.