Payback

9

Susie Jamison relaxed in the chaise longue on the promenade deck of the Princess Royal, one of the new limited-sized luxury cruise ships on its maiden voyage heading around the world. She was Dutch-registered and crewed by a majority of Filipinos and Italians. She carried only 1200 passengers, and every cabin was in the luxury class. The staterooms were fifty percent larger than anything else on the water, and with amenities found only in the highest-priced spas and five-star hotels.

The Princess Royal had sailed only the day before out of San Diego, and was working her way up the coast. Then she would stop in Seattle for a two-day port call. From there she would ply the inland passage to Alaska, making stops at Ketchikan, Sitka, Skagway, and Juneau along the way. When she was in port at Seward, there would be three days of excursions through Anchorage to see even more of Alaska. The Princess Royal was in no rush in making her way around the world.

Susie Jamison and her husband Allegro were on their first world cruise, and she was determined to make the best of it. Susie had married her husband when he was stationed in Korea well after the Korean War, and had come to the States with him and watched him get in on the floor of the computer-chip world and quickly surge to the top of the industry. His company had expanded again and again. Just before the big financial shakedown of the computer industry in late 2000, he had sold out for over twelve billion dollars.

Allegro, known to the world as Chip Al, was celebrated for having had the insight to know which way the market and the chip industry would be going. Not so, Al would tell anyone who would listen. His wife had wanted him to quit working and do some traveling. She’d said they had too much money already. She’d wanted to go back to Korea and look up some of her family whom she hadn’t seen in thirty years. She’d wanted him to sell, so he’d sold.

Now he had money in a hundred different industries. He had become such a widespread player in the international market that he lost less than three percent during the bust of 2001, when some firms skidded by sixty percent.

Susie was a small woman, slender, with light brown skin and definite Korean features. Her three children looked more like their blond father, but they had the slightly tipped Oriental eyes, giving them an exotic look that fascinated photographers. The two girls were both models, and her son had taken to the chip industry, and now had a large chip firm of his own that he had spun off from one of his father’s firms.

That morning Susie had been the first to go to the spa, where she was in the middle of a facial to be followed by a full body mud bath. She luxuriated in the attention and the consideration the staff gave to each of the passengers.

Al sat in the salon, pumping gold Sacajawea dollars into the slot machine. The big ship sailed along at sixteen knots, not in a rush to get anywhere. Al looked out the broad window, and saw a school of more than a hundred small Pacific dolphins skipping through the water, the whole pack moving close to the big ship, then angling away, satisfying their curiosity and giving the passengers a seldom-seen sight.

Al tired of the machine. Slots were fun only if you could win, and these were set so tight they squealed when they paid out ten dollars. He went to the fantail, bought a bucket of golf balls, and set up on the driving turf. It was real grass, and would have to be resodded every six weeks. He set up the first ball. The balls were real. He took out a power driver with the slightly larger head, and slammed a dozen straight down the ship’s wake. On a good solid course that was a little dry, the drives would carry at least 260 feet. Not bad for a guy in his early sixties.

He switched to a five iron, and drove four straight and true, then pretended he had to slice around a tree in the edge of the course to get to the pin behind a short dogleg. The slices were tougher to control. At last he gave up and sent the last ball in the bucket straight and true. One of his small goals was to play golf in every nation in the world.

Ten miles behind the luxury liner and two miles seaward, a Panamanian freighter picked up speed and slashed through the water at twenty-four knots. On board, her skipper looked at the radar report of the location of the luxury liner and smiled. He wore the uniform of a captain in the North Korean Navy, and he watched his crack Navy crew at work in the ship’s combat control center. The ship had not changed from its camouflage as a freighter. Before long the main antennas would be lifted from their bent-down positions. The radars would be raised and the fake wooden sides of the “freighter” would be pushed overboard to reveal the North Korean Navy Frigate Najin 531. It had fired all nine of the Scud missiles it had mounted on board. Now it had only its six SSM-1 missiles left in the tubes and ready to fire. But they were defensive hardware for homing on enemy ships with a range up to twenty-five miles.

It had two one-hundred-millimeter guns with a range of eight miles, and four fifty-seven-millimeter guns that would reach out two and a half miles. Scattered around the deck were sixteen quad- .50-caliber machine guns for close-in work.

Captain Kim Seng Ho was thirty-seven years old, young to be a full captain, and eager to get his stars. He had volunteered for this raid, even though he knew it could well be a suicide mission. He’d decided that he never would surrender. He would fight until every man on board was killed and he would go down with his ship. His name would live in Korean history for centuries, showing honor and bravery and the ability to slap a powerful enemy in the face and then fight to the death.

“How far now from the big ship?” he asked his radar man from his position on the bridge.

“Eight miles and closing. We should be within range a little under an hour.”

“Sound general quarters. Prepare for the attack. Have the boarding party ready with ropes and grappling hooks to go up the side of the liner if we need to.”

Captain Kim watched ahead as they came up on the luxury liner. His major mission was accomplished. He had started the attack on the hated America. His orders after that were a bit unclear. In essence they said he was to “return to home port at the first opportunity when all pursuit has ended.” His senior admiral had bowed deeply when he gave the orders. Both knew that there would be no return. His craft would be discovered and it would be blown out of the water by American missiles. So he was on his own. If he captured the American cruise ship, and put all his men on board, the United States would not be able to attack her. He would have three thousand hostages. Perhaps he could sail the cruise ship all the way to North Korea. Perhaps. It was the only chance he saw. The camouflage of his ship as a merchantman had worked well. That phase was over. He was surprised he had not been discovered before now.

“Sir, we are within range of our guns,” the radar man said.

“Continue on course. We want to come within five hundred meters of her. Then we will fire.”

He would use the 57mm guns. He decided eight rounds into the cabin areas would be sufficient to bring the big ship to a standstill. He didn’t want to harm her sailing ability.

“Stand by on the 57mm weapons,” Captain Kim said in the public speaker system. “You will have the honor of firing two rounds each into the cabin areas. Space your shots along the entire length of the big ship. Fire on my command.”

The captain watched as the big white ship came into view, and then soon they were closing on her. He felt his heart racing, his eyes widening as he watched the luxury liner Royal Princess continue to steam along at a leisurely sixteen knots.

“Range one thousand meters, Captain,” the radar officer said.

“Stand by.”

The huge white ship seemed to grow in size as they came closer.

“Range five hundred meters, Captain.”

“All four guns two rounds each. Fire.”

He heard the immediate reports as his weapons fired. He had out his big binoculars watching the white ship. The first round hit near the bow about halfway up the side and exploded with a muffled roar. Then, in rapid succession, the seven other rounds slammed into the side of the big ship. She cut power at once and coasted through the azure sea, letting the sixteen knots of forward motion reduce slowly until she was dead in the water.

The North Korean Navy Frigate Najin 531 had pushed most of the shielding and camouflage overboard, and now cruised up close to the Royal Princess. Captain Kim used a bullhorn from the bridge wing and called to the liner.

“Captain of the Royal Princess, you are to consider yourself captured by the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea Naval Forces. You will not resist our boarding party. You will treat your wounded and keep all activities on as normal a course as possible. We are coming alongside and will put a boarding party in the water. Open your dockside hatch so my men may board. Any resistance will be treated with the utmost severity. If you hear and understand my orders, respond through an amplified horn.”

Moments later the men on the frigate heard a reply.

“We hear you and for the moment will allow you to board if you guarantee the safety of the rest of my passengers and crew. We are in a turmoil from your savage attack. Already we have found twelve passengers and four crewmen dead. We don’t understand your sudden and vicious attack.”

Captain Kim signaled, and four small boats pulled away from his frigate and angled toward the dockside hatch that had just opened on the port side of the big ship. It was barely three feet off the Pacific swells. He smiled as sixty men came off the small boats and surged into the big pleasure craft. He would join the men shortly. His XO would be in command of the frigate and would complete the conversion from freighter to man-of-war.

He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do next. The frigate would shadow the big boat, staying within two hundred meters of it as a form of protection. He was sure that the ship’s radio had sent out a Mayday call for help as soon as the first round hit. By now the U.S. military would have figured out where the missiles came from and would have aircraft on the way. He moved his ship closer to the big liner, nudging up to within fifty yards of her side. Then he transferred to the luxury cruise ship and went directly to see the captain.

The cruise liner’s captain was Wilhein Van Derhorn, 57, at the top of his trade and furious at the wanton attack on his ship. His face was still red from screeching at his workers to locate all of the injured and dead and get help for the dying. He had blood on his pure white uniform from helping lift two elderly women out of their shattered cabin and putting them down on a mattress in the corridor.

He had seen the armed men on board, but ignored them as he rushed around trying to save as many of the wounded as he and the two doctors on board could.

When Captain Kim found Captain Van Derhorn, he was kneeling on the carpet next to the elevators where six wounded lay. He had just watched a woman in her forties die. He closed her eyelids and turned to a man who had shrapnel wounds on his neck and head. The captain didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Beside the man sat a small Korean woman whose face was smudged with tears and blood from the man. She looked around in fury.

“Who did this? Who has killed my wonderful husband? Whoever ordered those shots fired is a madman. I’ll gladly tear his eyes out if I can find him.” She looked up at the strange uniform in front of the cruise ship’s captain.

“You,” she shrilled. “You are the bastard, and you’re Korean. You bastard!” She leaped up, ducked under Captain Van Derhorn’s outstretched arms, and sprang on the startled Captain Kim. His guards were slow reacting and her fingernails clawed at his eyes, missed, and two fingernails dug deep furrows down his right cheek, bringing a trickle of blood. Kim jumped back, pushed the woman to the floor, and his guards grabbed her.

“You bastard, no-good fucking bastard. You killed my Al, you shot him with a big gun. You are a coward and a demon. You don’t deserve to be called a Korean. You are a dishonor to your mother and your grandparents. May your shriveled-up soul forever roam the planets of the universe searching for a resting place.”

Kim held a white handkerchief to his bloody check and scowled at Susie Jamison. He was surprised to see she was Korean, and stunned when she tried to put a curse on him against his ancestors. He recovered his wits quickly. “Madam, I am sorry for your loss, but in war people are killed. We are at war with the United States.”

One of his officers just behind him spoke. “Captain, do you want me to lock this troublemaker in a cabin?”

Captain Kim thought for a moment, rubbed his chin, then shook his head. “She will calm down. Have one of our doctors give her a sedative.”

He turned to the luxury liner’s captain. “Now, Captain, we need to talk. There are several changes that must be made in your routines. Get the damage cleaned up as quickly as you can. I would suggest a quick burial at sea for the dead. My two doctors will come and help with your wounded.”

Captain Van Derhorn stared at the man in front of him in a strange naval uniform. Then he stood, and his bloody hands reached out toward Captain Kim. “Blood. Look what you have done. There was no reason to fire on us. We would have had to surrender after a shot across our bow. Are you an animal? No, you’re worse than an animal. Look at the dead and dying. How can you call yourself an officer?” Two North Korean guards stepped in front of their captain, holding rifles and blocking the cruise ship captain’s way. “Why have you killed all of these innocent people?” he shouted.

Captain Kim pushed the guards in front of him aside. “I have declared war on the United States. Your ship is a prize of war and I claim it. You will get your vessel under way at once and steer a westerly course.”

“Impossible, you idiot. We would run out of fuel in mid-Pacific. We have fuel enough only to reach Seattle. We have food enough to feed our guests and crew only until we reach Seattle. If we sail west you will have a dead ship in four days.”

Captain Kim frowned. He had not considered the fuel problem. He had a tanker positioned four thousand miles from his home port where he had refueled on the way east. He would stop there on his return trip. He couldn’t refuel two ships.

“For now, continue north on your regular course. Cut speed to ten knots. Now take me to your bridge. We have more matters to discuss.” Captain Kim took out a handheld radio. He spoke in Korean so few could understand him. He ordered his ship’s medical staff of doctors and corpsmen to get a small boat, report to the cruise ship at once, and aid in any way possible the civilian wounded. Then he and Captain Van Derhorn went to the bridge.

The liner captain saw several uniformed Korean sailors with submachine guns on the way, but he didn’t comment. He was surprised to find two Korean officers with automatic weapons guarding the bridge.

“All ahead fifty percent,” Captain Van Derhorn said. “Adjust the speed to ten knots, steer the regular course for Seattle.” The Korean officers looked at their captain, who nodded. The big ship began to stir and slowly to move forward.

Captain Kim sat in the captain’s chair and smiled. “This is much more comfortable than my chair on the frigate.”

“So your ship sent the Scud missiles on San Francisco,” Captain Van Derhorn said.

“Yes, and no one knew. Now they will. Did you send out a Mayday call just after we shelled you?”

“Our radioman did. He contacted the local Coast Guard and our headquarters. Everyone knows that you attacked an unarmed ship and that you are not a freighter. We watched you come out of your merchantman shell. We realized that no freighter could make twenty-four knots. Your speed gave you away. We had reported your transformation before you fired on us.”

“Then we should be seeing some visiting aircraft within a few minutes,” Captain Kim said. “When they arrive, my ship will come within a few paint thicknesses of this fine vessel. The aircraft will not be able to fire their missiles for fear of striking your ship. Or if our frigate explodes from their missiles, it also will severely damage the Royal Princess.”

“I was worried about that.”

“Captain, sir. I have six blips on the radar coming from the east at a high rate of speed. Estimated at twelve hundred miles an hour.”

“The glorious U.S. Air Force has arrived,” Captain Kim said. “Can you get their frequency so we can talk to them?”

Captain Van Derhorn picked up the phone, called his communications center, and gave the order. A moment later the radio chatter by the pilots came through a loudspeaker in the Bridge. The radar officer handed Captain Van Derhorn a microphone on a long cord. The pilot’s voices sounded clearly.

“This is Blue Leader. We do a flyover first and inform Senora about the situation.”

“Roger that, Blue Leader. This is Blue Four. How low are we going?”

“This is Blue Leader. We drop down to five hundred for the flyover. Don’t want to upset any china down there.”

“You sure we have two ships below, Blue Leader? This is Blue Six and I have only one blip on my radar.”

“We’re still ten miles off,” Blue Leader said. “Could be he’s hiding behind the cruise ship.”

“We have confirm that it’s a frigate?” Blue Six asked.

“The report from the liner said it was disguised as a freighter. The same ship we saw earlier. They did some fancy concealment.”

“Coming up on the target, Blue Leader. Less than a mile off.”

“Blue second half, after the flyover, do a turnaround to the left, we’ll take the right. We come back low and slow for a better look,” Blue Leader said. “Here we go.”

The men in the bridge ducked instinctively as the blasting roar of the six F-18’s slammed overhead and vanished into the blue sky.

Captain Kim took the mike, keyed the talk button. “Blue Leader, this is Captain Kim of the North Korean Frigate Najin 531. You will not engage my craft. If there is any hostile military action, I will personally kill ten passengers on board this liner. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“What the hell….”

“Who is that bitch on the air…”

“Captain Kim. This is Blue Leader. We can blow your frigate out of the water and not touch the Royal Princess. Then what would you do?”

Before the Korean captain could answer, another voice came on the air.

“Blue Leader, this is Senora. You are restricted to observation only. You do not have guns free. I repeat, you do not have guns free. Confirmation?”

“This is Blue Leader coming in low and slow. The frigate is about forty yards from the luxury liner. We could take her out.”

“Blue Leader, this is Senora. You do not have guns free. Do another flyby, obtain any data possible, and return to base.”

“Senora, that’s a Roger. Negative on free guns. Making flyover now. Returning to base.”

The roaring, grinding, thundering sound of six F-18’s in a tight formation made the men in the bridge duck again, even though they knew the planes were coming.

When the sound died, the cruise ship’s captain looked at the modern pirate in uniform.

“Captain Kim. What are you going to do now?”

“First you are going to order up captain’s dinners for me and my two men here. Then I’ll go on the promenade deck and pick at random the first ten victims I will kill. Your men will use your digital cameras and take pictures of the faces of the ten, and you will then transmit them on the Internet and explain what fate awaits them if there is any action against this ship.”