Sea Of Terror

Chapter 29

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to New York City."

Captain Phillips hesitated, uncertain as to what to say. He exchanged glances with Charlie Vandergrift, who shrugged and looked away. Behind him, the man in the business suit, a "Mr. Johnson" of the State Department according to the ID card he'd flashed, stood listening as well.

Outside, the armada of boats and small craft that had descended on the Queen as she made her way north into the mouth of the Hudson River continued to circle and hover; horns, bells, whistles, and a cacophony of noise continued to sound from the fleet. The entire city, it seemed, had shut down in order to welcome the Atlantis Queen to her unexpected berthing at the city's passenger ship docks — Luxury Liner Row, as they were known to the crews of the ships that used them. Nearly all major transatlantic liners had docked here over the years, including the RMS Queen Mary 2 and the MS Freedom of the Seas.

"The nightmare is over," Phillips said at last. "As you can tell from all of the commotion outside, we're being given a truly magnificent welcome to the United States. For those of you who wish to debark, our agents ashore will see to it that you make the appropriate travel connections. Those who wish to remain aboard are welcome to do so. We expect to remain in New York City for approximately one week for maintenance and service, before returning to Southampton.

"Arrangements have been made with several major hotels in New York City for those of you who wish to stay. Transportation will be provided at the head of the pier, and your luggage will be sent along to your rooms later.

"I'm sure all of us join together in giving thanks to the brave British commandos who carried off an unprecedented, truly incredible rescue of this ship, and of all of us aboard… while we were hundreds of miles out at sea." He glanced again at Mr. Johnson, who nodded. "As I'm sure you all can imagine, the press will be eager to interview anyone who was aboard the Atlantis Queen during the hijacking. Remember that you have the right not to speak with the press. You've all been through an extraordinarily trying week. You don't need to face that particular gauntlet unless you so wish.

"Royal Sky Line deeply regrets the circumstances of this past week. Our representatives will be in contact with you in regard to any and all monetary or legal claims that may have arisen as a result of this… incident.

"Thank you. All of you."

He hung up the intercom handset. "Satisfied?" he asked Johnson.

"You did fine, Captain Phillips. Our government thanks you."

"I do not like lying."

The man shrugged. "It's necessary, sometimes. As are oaths of secrecy."

Phillips hadn't liked that part, either. He and his bridge crew had been required to sign documents promising not to divulge certain pieces of information, under penalty of twenty years in prison and a one-hundred-thousand-dollar fine. He still wasn't sure of the legality of that. Phillips was, after all, a British subject, not a citizen of the United States, and he wasn't sure the U. S. State Department could require him to sign such an oath. A phone call to the British consulate in New York City that morning for clarification had ended with instructions to sign… and that the legal work would all be sorted out later.

Frowning, he walked over to the bridge window and looked down on the surging mass of cheering, waving people gathered at the head of the pier. It looked like Twelfth Avenue had been blocked off to accommodate the crowds.

He suspected that some sort of fix was already in the works. Two hours after his conversation with the British consulate, he'd received a phone call from another cruise ship line, one of Royal Sky's competitors… and the offer of a new command.

And what a command! Late last year, the first of a new class of cruise ship had been launched — the magnificent Oasis of the Seas. She was bigger and more luxurious than anything yet afloat: 360 meters long, with a displacement of over one hundred thousand tonnes, sixteen passenger decks, and a capacity of 5,400 passengers, with a crew of 1,500. She had a five-deck-high area in the center of the ship called Central Park, open to the sky and filled with lush tropical vegetation, shops, and upscale restaurants, and featuring the Rising Tide Bar, which would actually travel up and down through three decks. Arched glass domes in Central Park called the Crystal Canopies would channel sunlight into the ship's public areas below. The Oasis of the Seas and her sister vessel were astounding triumphs of marine architecture and art.

And Eric Phillips was being offered her captaincy.

Apparently, both the Ministry of Trade and Sir Charles Mayhew expected Royal Sky Line to file for bankruptcy. The company had been running close to the wire to begin with, and the company's solicitors were expecting a storm of lawsuits engendered by the hijacking, not to mention the loss of tens of millions of pounds in returned fares. The company, after all, had not made good on its promise of a luxury cruise through the eastern Mediterranean.

And that despite all of the new state-of-the-art security systems.

It would be quite an honor to command the Oasis of the Seas… but Phillips wasn't sure he would accept. During the hijacking, he'd been forced to choose between the safety of his passengers and the safety of those thousands of people down there on Twelfth Avenue. His attempt to ground the Queen and the Sandpiper off Newfoundland had failed, and he'd spent the rest of the voyage locked up in the wardroom area until those commandos — American commandos — had freed him that morning.

Eric Phillips felt… broken.

He wasn't sure he could ever face the responsibility for almost seven thousand souls. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to retire and never go to sea again.

But he also knew that once the sea was in your blood, it never let go. Now was too soon to make anything like a final decision. He needed time..

But he did know that he would not accept his next command as a bribe for his silence.

Andrew, Nina, and Melissa McKay walked down the starboard gangway together, stepping onto the passenger ship pier off of West 48th Street in west Manhattan. It was a brilliant, clear, crisp September afternoon. Seagulls wheeled and shrilled overhead, and the air smelled of mingled salt and big city. In the distance, a roar like heavy surf echoed back from a wall of skyscrapers.

As Nina stepped onto the concrete of the pier, her knees almost gave way. God, it was so good to be home.

"Look, Mommy!" Melissa cried, pointing excitedly to a massive, looming gray shape alongside the pier directly ahead, just beyond a quay converted into a park. The park was filled with cheering, waving people, as was the deck of the ship behind it. "An aircraft carrier! Maybe it's the one that rescued us!"

"No, I don't think so, sweetheart," Andrew replied. "That's the USS Intrepid, and she's a part of a naval museum now. The ships that helped us are still out at sea."

He started pointing out to her two other exhibits at the Intrepid Museum — a submarine tied up at the near side of the Intrepid pier and the bizarrely out-of-place droop-snooted bird shape of a Concord SST, rising on its raft next to the dock.

Nina smiled. By all rights, Melissa should have been somewhere between exhausted and unconscious, but she was showing no signs of running down. Andrew had taken her to the ship's library that morning to look at a book about aircraft carriers when she learned that their black-clad rescuers had flown in off of a British carrier called the Ark Royal

After the dramatic rescue of the passengers and crew of the Atlantis Queen early that morning, there'd been neither time nor inclination for sleep. The three of them had been interviewed by some men in conservative dark suits while the ship was still cruising west past Long Island. Apparently, everyone on board was going through a thorough debriefing before they could go ashore; the McKays and the other passengers who'd been held in the ship's theater had gone through the screening first, so they were among the first to be allowed to leave… thank God.

A polite but very serious gentleman from the U. S. State Department had asked the questions, but the men standing behind him, Nina thought, were from a different government agency. FBI? CIA? There'd also been several armed soldiers present. She wasn't positive, but she was pretty sure that the purpose of the interview was to make sure none of the surviving al-Qaeda terrorists walked off the ship pretending to be legitimate passengers.

Nina watched Andrew take Melissa's hand as they walked across the pier for a closer look at the Intrepid, and wondered — yet again — what the future held for them.

Andrew, Nina thought, had been uncharacteristically subdued since they'd been caught by the terrorists at the lifeboat early that morning. The memory sent a small shudder through her; the small group of passengers had been herded forward at gunpoint, and their captors had argued loudly with one another in Arabic. She'd thought they were trying to decide whether or not to kill the would-be escapees then and there.

Instead, they'd been roughly shoved into the theater with dozens of other captives and told they'd be "dealt with" later.

Nina had watched Andrew struggle with the situation. The man had always been so damnably competent, so frustratingly right about everything… a white knight convinced he could handle any situation, and who always knew the right way to do it. During the hijacking, though, he'd been helpless — they'd all been helpless — and she'd seen that knowledge torture him. He'd wanted to gallop in on his charger and save her and Melissa from the bad guys, and his best attempt to do so had only made things much, much worse, had almost gotten them all killed. It hadn't been his fault, certainly; apparently the terrorists had set the Ship's Security system in such a way to alert them to just such an attempt by the hostages, and there was no way any of them could have known that.

But since their capture Andrew had been taking his helplessness badly.

Trying and failing might even have been good for him.

Nina walked up beside him and took his free hand. "Will you have dinner with us tonight?"

Andrew looked down at her, surprised. "Sure," he said, the word a mumble. "If you want."

"No promises," she said. "But I really do want to talk."

"No promises," he agreed. "But… hell. We've just been given a new chance at life, right? At living?"

"We'll see where it takes us," she told him. And she squeezed his hand.

Andrew McKay felt the squeeze of Nina's hand and squeezed back. He was still sorting through what needed to be done. They'd told them on the ship that hotel rooms were being reserved for all of the liberated passengers off the Queen — and how many tax dollars had that cost? he wondered. Still, it would give him and Nina a chance to talk.

They hadn't done much of that on the Queen. Things had been moving too quickly, too desperately, for that.

Just like the past six months.

A soldier in full combat gear and holding a rifle was standing a few yards down the pier, waving them along, so Andrew tugged gently at Melissa's hand. "We've got to move along, honey," he told her. "Mommy and I are talking about having dinner tonight together. Do you think you'd like that? Or do you want us to go to the hotel and let you sleep?"

"How can I be sleepy, Daddy?" Melissa said. "We're home\ Well… almost. But we're in New York\ And we didn't get to see New York when we flew out to England!"

That seemed to explain everything.

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.

She knew a lot of the passengers were taking Dr. Barnes up on that offer, though. There was the young woman she'd met while they'd been prisoners in the theater… Tricia Johnson. The twit had actually fallen for one of the terrorists… and she'd been in hysterics when she learned the kid had been killed.

Stockholm syndrome. Tabitha had heard about it. People held prisoner in hostage situations for more than a few days often developed deep feelings for their captors. After all, the terrorists literally held the power of life and death over their prisoners, and when you were consumed by feelings of helplessness your mind could get pretty messed up. The guy standing over you with a gun became a strong figure of stability and of protection… not a sick bastard who might rape or kill you in the next few seconds.

Tabitha was, she knew, in absolutely no danger of falling in love with those… those monsters.

Even her hatred and her bitterness, though, seemed.. distant. More than anything else, she was numb.

God, Ade, what am I going to do?

They'd offered to ship her luggage to one of the hotels where they were putting up the passengers off the Atlantis Queen, but she'd opted to go to her sister's place instead. She'd be able to get a cab right over there at West 48th and Twelfth.

She'd survived this city for twenty-five years before she'd met Adrian.

She would survive this.

Somehow.

"What do you think, Reggie?" Jake Levy asked. "Dunno, man. She's… different, that's for sure." "Arnie Bernstein's death really hit her bad, I guess." "I know she had a thing for him. Bossed him around like nobody's business, but she kind of loved him, I think."

"Ah, you know he was just about the only guy in the group who wasn't banging her, right?"

Carmichael shrugged. "No big deal either way, right? That's just banging. Not love."

Levy suppressed a wry smile. Carmichael had been Harper's current boyfriend for all of… what? Two months? But he'd never seemed jealous of the woman's dalliances with other men in her entourage. An open relationship, she'd called it.

It took all kinds.

They were watching Gillian Harper leaning against the railing, watching the crowds. They'd expected her to want to leave the ship immediately; she'd always been drawn to crowds and seemed to have a special fascination for press conferences. Anything that would give her exposure and media attention.

But not, it appeared, this time.

"I think it did hit her, Arnie's death, I mean," Levy said. "And I think she was damned scared. Maybe for the first time in her life. She told me this morning she didn't want to go through with 'Livin' Large.'"

"Shit no, man! She's under contract!"

"Maybe she's just thinking about someone other than herself for a change." Levy hesitated. It sounded like Carmichael was more worried about the money than about Harper's affections. "We'll see how it works out. Maybe we can interest her in a new project."

"Just so long as it doesn't have to do with boats, man," Carmichael said. "I ain't never gonna get on one of these things again!"

"How's the wrist, Ms. Caruthers?" Donald Myers asked.

Elsie Caruthers was sitting up in the hospital bed, her right arm encased in a lightweight plastic cast extending almost to her elbow. Anne Jordan hovered nearby. They'd flown all of the injured off of the Atlantis Queen early that morning, flying them by helicopter to New York Pres on Manhattan's West Side.

"I keep telling them I'm fine," Caruthers said, petulant. "That young doctor on the ship fixed me up just fine."

"Well, they wanted to make sure everything was okay," Myers said.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"You managed to break your wrist!"

"Just a crack. Hairline fracture, the radiologist called it." Caruthers' mouth worked in what might have been a smile. "I'd have whacked that young son of a bitch harder if I could've!"

"Now, Elsie, you don't mean that!" Jordan said.

"I do mean it. This wasn't a damned movie, Anne. It was real, and those men would have killed us if they could've. Or killed those girls… or worse." She shook her head. "I'd do it again!"

"Well, you won't have to, will you?" Myers said. "No more cruises for you!"

"Who says?" She looked up at him sharply. "I signed on for a tour of the Mediterranean, and I intend to have it! God knows I may not have that many more years, and I'm going to go there before I die! Greece. Turkey. Egypt. I'm going to see them!"

"Well, I'm sure that can be arranged," Myers said, startled. "Another Walters tour group, maybe."

"Exactly! And you'll take us, Mr. Myers, won't you? As our guide?"

"Ah… er..

"Because, you know, I've always loved your lectures, even when you got the facts a little confused, sometimes."

"Of course, Ms. Caruthers," Myers said. He felt an odd mix of resignation and enthusiasm. "I'd be happy to."

Jerry Esterhausen walked down the gangplank with Janet Carroll. "So… will I be able to see you again, Janet?"

Carolyn Howorth gave him a sidelong look. "Jerry, you don't even know my real name!"

"Because you won't tell me!" he said. "Or who you really work for!"

She laughed. "My friends call me CJ," she told him. "That's all you need to know."

"Okay, am I your friend?"

"Of course!"

"Then… CJ, will you have dinner with me tonight?"

She didn't answer immediately, and he must have taken her hesitation as a negative. "I mean, just dinner! I've just never known a girl who knows her way around a computer like you! And… and what you did to crack the ship's computer system was just brilliant! I'd just like to — "

"It's okay, Jerry," she said. "Yes."

" — be able to talk. And it calls for a celebration, y'know? Rosie's gonna be famous, y'know, and I had a call this morning from the company about how someone wants to put her on a new cruise ship that's operating out of Florida, a real giant named the Oasis of the Seas, and… huh?"

"I said 'Yes.' I'd love to have dinner with you."

"Uh… oh!" He swallowed and adjusted his glasses. "Gee, great!"

She laughed. He was such a stereotypical geek. "No promises," she told him. "I have to be in Washington tomorrow."

"Uh, sure! No promises! I just… uh… well… I don't know what to say!" He frowned. "I guess I'm better at talking to robots than I am to girls."

"You do just fine, Jerry," she told him. She took his hand as they turned to walk down the pier toward the waiting crowd. "You do just fine."