Soldier of God (9 page)
Authors: David Hagberg
Moments after one of the terrorists had fired the short burst down the corridor, McGarvey had made his way up to the bridge deck taking the stairs two at a time. Except for the faint sounds of the powerful diesel engines in the distance, the ship was deathly quiet. Normally there would be passengers in the corridors, or stewards delivering room-service orders. But the Spirit seemed to be deserted.
It was out of the ordinary. He had picked up on it earlier, but he had put it off as nothing more than a combination of fatigue and the paranoia that accompanied his kind of work. He always listened to his inner voices. But this time he had ignored his instincts. He was supposed to be on vacation.
The ship was unnaturally quiet because the crew and passengers not in the Grand Salon were probably already dead. The terrorists had to be well organized. They’d probably masqueraded as crewmen, which meant they had a professional organization behind them; otherwise they couldn’t have passed the extensive background checks the DoD and CIA had carried out. Either that or they had transferred aboard from a smaller boat following in the Spirit’s wake. But even then it would have been necessary to have someone aboard to make sure the way was clear.
If they were professionals and not fanatics, it would make defeating them much more difficult, but on the plus side a professional understood logic. He would recognize when it was time to cut his losses and run, whereas a fanatic would rather die, taking everyone with him, than give up.
McGarvey was used to dealing with professionals. He had been in the business for more than twenty-five years, starting with the Office of Special Investigations in the Air Force before signing on with the CIA as a field officer. Most of his early career had been spent in black operations. He had been a killer. An assassin. It was a job that had very nearly destroyed
him, and had caused the deaths of a number of people who had been very close to him.
him, and had caused the deaths of a number of people who had been very close to him.
His job had even destroyed his marriage, until he and Katy had both finally come to their senses and realized that they loved each other, and could deal with whatever was separating them. He’d risen quickly then from assistant deputy director of operations all the way up to his present appointment as director of the CIA. It was a position he’d promised the president that he would stick with for three years. But 9/11 had put everything on hold for him. And this attack now, which was directed at the former secretary of defense, was probably just the next step for bin Laden, a man McGarvey knew better than anyone in the West. If this were a bin Laden-directed operation, then it would have been exquisitely planned. And it would be ruthless.
He held up at the head of the stairs. The owner’s suite, which the Shaws had occupied, was directly across the corridor from him. Just aft was the funnel, and beyond it the open sundeck. Forward of the suite were the bridge, radio room, and captain’s sea quarters.
The weapon he’d taken from the terrorist was a Polish-made RAK PM-63 machine pistol that fired a 9mm Makarov cartridge at six hundred rounds per minute. A long suppressor was screwed to the end of the barrel, but even with the degradation of accuracy that most silencers caused, the Wz-63, in its Polish designation, was a deadly weapon. The trouble was its suppressor got very hot when the weapon was fired, and McGarvey’s right palm had a waffle-pattern burn from grabbing the gun out of the terrorist’s hands.
The RAK was the weapon of choice for many Eastern European terrorists, so it was taught to field officers at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility outside Williamsburg, and McGarvey knew it well. He released the catch at the bottom of the pistol grip, popping out the twenty-five-round magazine. Only six bullets remained.
Three-fourths of the bullets in the magazine had been fired. The kid had probably murdered one or more crewmen or passengers before he had gunned down Grassinger, and he would have almost certainly done more killing tonight unless he and the others were stopped.
There wasn’t time for McGarvey to return to his cabin for his pistol and spare magazines, so six rounds would have to be enough for now.
He drove the magazine home with the heel of his hand, then stepped out of the stairwell, ducked across to the owner’s suite, and sprinted down the corridor to the radio room.
The bridge itself was raised a few feet above the level of the main part of the uppermost deck. Access was gained up a short flight of stairs on each side of the ship. There was no other way up. From where he stood, poised next to the radio room door, he could not see up into the bridge. Nor could anyone up there see him unless they came out onto one of the lookout wings and peered through a window.
He felt guilty about leaving Katy in the hands of the terrorists and for allowing Jim Gassinger to be shot to death. In the old days he would have blamed himself for allowing people to get so close to him that their lives would be placed in danger. But now he felt bad because he wasn’t fast enough, not quick enough on the uptake to thwart the determined gunman. But this time the terrorists had made a mistake. They had failed to make a complete sweep of the ship before they took over the Grand Salon. They had missed him, and he was determined to bring the fight back to them in an up close and very personal way.
The radio-room door was ajar. Each time the ship yawed when a wave hit the starboard quarter, the door would swing open a few inches, then swing back almost but not quite hard enough to latch.
From where he stood, McGarvey could see a young man with short cropped black hair and narrow shoulders, his back to the door, seated in front of a rack of radio equipment, most of which had been shot up or smashed beyond repair. The man was dressed as a ship’s officer, but an RAK machine pistol was at his elbow on the desk. He was listening to a portable VHF transceiver of the kind used for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications. Probably the U.S. Coast Guard channel to make sure that no one from the Spirit had managed to send a distress signal.
McGarvey waited until the door started to swing out, then yanked it all the way open and stepped inside. “I’d like to send a message, if you don’t mind.”
The terrorist was startled. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes going wide at the sight of one of the passengers standing there with a weapon in hand. He shouted something in Arabic, wildly flung the VHF radio, and snatched his gun.
McGarvey reached for the radio with one hand, but missed it. The transceiver smashed against the steel door frame as the terrorist brought his gun up over his shoulder and started to fire even before he was on target, spraying the overhead with bullets, deadly shrapnel flying all over the place.
The terrorist had left him no choice. McGarvey brought his weapon up and squeezed off two shots, one catching the young man in his left shoulder and the second in the side of his head just behind his ear, sending him sprawling across the desk in a bloody heap.
McGarvey ducked back out into the corridor to make sure no one had heard the commotion and was coming to investigate; then he stooped down and picked up the VHF radio. A big piece of the plastic case had cracked open and fell off, exposing the main circuit board, which had also broken in two. The radio was as useless as the ship’s communications equipment. Whatever happened aboard now was up to him.
The terrorist carried no wallet or identification or anything else in his pockets except for a 9mm Steyr GB self-loading pistol, with one eighteen-round magazine, plus two extra twenty-five-round magazines for the RAK. A digital watch was strapped to his right wrist, but he wore no rings or other jewelry.
McGarvey took off his dinner jacket and tossed it aside, then stuffed the pistol in his belt, ejected the nearly spent magazine from his RAK, replacing it with one of the spares. Then he pocketed the second, all the while listening for someone to come up the corridor.
The bridge crew was probably dead, but the ship was still moving, which meant that someone had to be at the helm because running on autopilot in these confined waters would be a dicey business. The same was likely true down in the engine room. The regular crew was probably dead, and one or more of the terrorists were taking care of business.
He cycled the RAK’s slide to cock the weapon and turned to go, but then stopped. Something bothered him. Something about the terrorist’s wristwatch. He went back to the body and lifted the kid’s lifeless arm. The watch was in countdown mode with a few seconds more than seventeen minutes left. But seventeen minutes until what? Until they got off the ship? Or was it something else? McGarvey had a very bad feeling that he was missing something important. He took the watch.
The wind was screaming when McGarvey stepped outside and quickly made his way forward and mounted the port stairs up to the bridge. He flattened himself against the upright and cautiously took a brief peek in the window. A slightly built young woman was at the big wheel. Captain Darling lay on his side by the starboard door in a pool of blood, his eyes open and sightless. Two other officers were down and presumably dead, one at the radar and navigation position to the left of the helm and the other in a crumpled heap beside the chart table aft of the helm.
The woman was frightened. That was obvious from the grimace on her face and the stiff way she stood. But there was no one on the bridge to threaten her, to force her to remain at her post. Unless she was one of the terrorists. For some reason he didn’t think that was the case. The terrorists were almost certainly Muslims, and most Islamic fundamentalist operational cells did not send women out on missions. The major exception was the military wing of Hamas, which sometimes sent women as suicide bombers to Israeli-occupied areas. But this was not a Hamas operation; it wasn’t the organization’s style.
McGarvey looked through the window again. Nothing had changed, and there was no place for anyone to hide. Even if the girl was one of the terrorists, she didn’t appear to be armed. And time was running short. Every second Katy was under the terrorists’ control in the Grand Salon increased her chances of getting shot to death.
He yanked the door open and stepped onto the bridge. The girl at the helm practically jumped out of her skin.
“I’m a friend,” McGarvey said. “Are you okay?”
The girl urgently looked over her shoulder toward the officer lying next to the chart table, at the same time a walkie-talkie lying on a shelf beneath one of the forward windows hissed.
“Achmed, keyf heh’lik?”
McGarvey turned toward the sound, and almost immediately he realized he’d been set up, and that the young helmsman had tried to warn him. He dove for the deck as he swiveled in his tracks and brought his gun to bear on the man dressed as a ship’s officer lying in a heap beside the chart table. The terrorist opened fire with his Steyr GB, the heavy 9mm Makarov rounds starring the forward windows, smashing one of the digital radar displays, striking the already destroyed SSB radio, and
plowing into the overhead before McGarvey got three shots off, all of them hitting the man in the back below his left shoulder blade, knocking him down.
plowing into the overhead before McGarvey got three shots off, all of them hitting the man in the back below his left shoulder blade, knocking him down.
McGarvey picked himself up, keeping his weapon trained on the terrorist, but the man was dead. And so was the young woman at the helm, the back of her head a bloody mess where she’d taken one round.
He went to her, but there was nothing he could do. She was gone, and no power on earth could bring her back. He wanted to go over to the bastard he’d just shot and kick his body down the stairs to the Grand Salon and dump it at the feet of whoever was leading this attack.
If it was death they wanted, he was going to give it to them in a very large, and very personal, way.
With fifteen minutes remaining to zero hour, Khalil was forced to consider his options. Although he had never come face-to-face with Kirk McGarvey, the man was a legend in the intelligence business. No one on the outside would ever know the full extent of the former CIA assassin’s entire career, but there were so many stories about him that if even onetenth of them were true, McGarvey would have to be a superman.
The one story that was absolutely true was his encounter with Osama bin Laden. Khalil knew it was a fact because he got it from bin Laden himself, and Osama never lied. McGarvey had actually come to Afghanistan to seek out bin Laden a couple of years before 9/11. Al-Quaida had managed to purchase a one-kiloton nuclear suitcase demolitions device that was to be used in a strike on the U.S. McGarvey had come to make a trade: the bomb for American concessions in the region, especially on the Saudi Arabian peninsula.
Khalil had met with bin Laden one month before 9/11 to discuss the probable reaction from the U.S., and Mac’s name had come up.
“I looked into his eyes, and what I saw made me wish that he was a friend and not an enemy,” bin Laden said.
“An infidel?” Khalil suggested, testing bin Laden’s depth of respect for the American.
McGarvey had stopped the nuclear attack two years earlier, and there was some concern among bin Laden’s advisers that he might somehow get wind of the plans for the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and White House.
Bin Laden nodded. “Kirk McGarvey is a man among men. If you ever come up against him, kill him immediately. Doing so will be your only chance of survival.”
Khalil stared at Kathleen McGarvey as if he could see through her skin and bone right into her brain, and into her soul. He wanted to have a real measure of her before he ended her life. One bullet into her head, or one quick slash of his knife across her throat, severing not only her windpipe, but both of her carotid arteries, and he would see whatever that measure was.
It wasn’t the mechanical act of killing that enticed Khalil; he’d had his fill of those kinds of thrills, and he was no longer satisfied by simple body counts. Now he had the insane idea that if he were quick enough, his perceptions agile enough, he would be able to catch the exact moment when a person’s soul actually left the body.
It would be just like the green flash on the horizon at sunset, a sight never to be forgotten.
But that pleasure would have to wait. Kirk McGarvey was loose aboard the ship, and he could interfere with their plans if he was allowed to continue unabated. Shaw would come back with them to Pakistan, but so would Kathleen McGarvey.
He stepped back and took the walkie-talkie from his pocket. Everyone in the lounge was looking at him—the passengers waiting for him to make a mistake, his operators waiting for his next order. Everyone wanted to get off the ship, and he was going to accommodate all of them.
There were fourteen minutes left.
He keyed the walkie-talkie. “Bridge, report.” The ship had not altered its course, so far as Khalil could tell, so whatever else McGarvey had tried he’d not gotten there.
But there was no answer.
“Bridge, what is your situation? Report now.”
A slight smile came to Kathleen McGarvey’s lips. Kahlil resisted the nearly overpowering urge to shoot her.
“Radio room, what is your situation?”
Some woman across the lounge started to cry, a moist snuffling that grated Khalil’s nerves, raising his gorge. If McGarvey had already taken out his operators on the bridge and in the radio room, he would still be up there. There wouldn’t have been enough time to reach the third vital point on the ship—the engine room—yet, but that’s where he was probably heading.
“Purser’s office, report.”
“Here,” the operator radioed back immediately. “The passenger manifest was on the desk. But there’s no listing for Kirk McGarvey.”
“Never mind the list,” Khalil ordered, relieved that at least one of his people was answering. “He’s taken out the bridge and radio room, so he’ll probably try for the engine room next, which means he’ll have to come past you. “If you see him, kill him.”
“Yes, sir.”
The woman’s sobs were getting louder. Khalil was having trouble hearing much of anything else. He keyed the walkie-talkie, and called the engine room. “Granger, what is your situation?”
“The crew has been neutralized, and we’re just about set here. Give me five minutes.”
Khalil breathed a silent thanks to Allah. “You may have some trouble coming your way. One of the passengers is on the loose, and he’s armed.”
Pahlawan chuckled. “We’ll give him a warm reception if he pokes his nose down here.”
“Listen, you idiot,” Khalil practically shouted. “This one is a professional. He is dangerous, so don’t take any chances. Post a lookout.”
“Very well,” Pahlawan said. He was a veteran of numerous terrorist operations in Afghanistan and India. He was a fearless mujahideen.
“You’re forgetting something,” Kathleen interjected, softly.
Khalil turned his gaze to her. He was fascinated despite himself. She was an extraordinary woman of very great courage. “What is that?” he
asked, mildly, though he wanted to lash out at something, at anyone. At the stupid woman making all the noise on the other side of the lounge.
asked, mildly, though he wanted to lash out at something, at anyone. At the stupid woman making all the noise on the other side of the lounge.
“My husband has already killed your men in the radio room and on the bridge. At the very least it means that he has already taken partial control of this ship.”
“Make your point.”
Kathleen’s smile turned vicious, as if she were a shark coming in for the kill. “He has one of the walkie-talkies. He’s heard everything that you told your men.”
Khalil’s rage spiked, but he caught himself before he raised his pistol and put a round into her face. He wanted to take her back to Pakistan, to personally teach her the true meaning of humility. But more importantly for the moment, there was a very good chance that he would need her as an additional hostage.
He keyed the walkie-talkie. “Mr. McGarvey, I would like to propose a truce.”
There was no answer. The sobbing woman was getting louder.
“I know that you can hear me, Mr. McGarvey. We don’t want to hurt anyone else aboard this ship. Our operation is a political one. We have come to arrest Mr. Shaw and take him to the World Court at The Hague, where he will be put on trial for crimes against humanity. You know that there have been calls for just such a trial. We are merely acting as the policemen.”
Khalil figured that there were two possibilities: Either McGarvey was not listening, or he was ignoring them.
They were running out of time.
“Your bodyguard is dead, as is the secretary’s bodyguard. They were brave men, but their only chance would have been to lay down their weapons. It’s your only chance. You are outnumbered and outgunned. Come down to the passageway aft of the lounge, unarmed and with your hands in plain sight. Once you have been secured, we will leave with Shaw.”
There was no answer.
Khalil stuffed his pistol in his jacket, walked over to Kathleen, grabbed her by the arm, keyed the walkie-talkie, and shoved it in her face. “Tell your husband to give himself up or we will kill you.”
Kathleen did not hesitate. “There are at least seven here, all armed with submachine guns—”
Khalil shoved Kathleen aside. He yanked out his pistol, strode across the room, and fired five shots into the head of the woman who was crying, driving her backward off her chair and onto the deck in a spray of blood.
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