Sea Of Terror

Chapter 7

Under way at last, she was magnificent and she was glorious. Rounding the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, the Atlantis Queen steadily picked up speed as flocks of sailboats, speedboats, yachts, and other pleasure craft scattered before her. A bright, carnival atmosphere infused each deck, though most of her passengers were either still on the broad outside promenade around the Third Deck or, if they were wealthy enough to afford it, on the private balconies outside their luxurious staterooms, leaning on the railings and, if they were in a sufficiently generous mood, waving to the lesser mortals bobbing in their cockleshells and toy boats far below.

Like all cruise ships, the Atlantis Queen adhered to a particular theme, in this case the fabulous lost city of Atlantis. Each of the various nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, bars, and other popular gathering spots on board was named for some icon or myth connected with either Atlantis or, with an exclusively Atlantean mythology being a bit sparse, the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and with just a sprinkling of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica thrown in as well.

The twelve passenger decks, for instance, were named for the twelve gods of Olympus, with two notable exceptions made in the name of good public relations. The First Deck, where passengers came aboard in the Grand Atrium with its myriad shops, tour offices, and computer center, was called the Neptune Deck. The ship's owners had substituted the Roman Neptune for the Greek Poseidon, fearing that the Greek version would conjure unsettling images of the doomed ship of the popular adventure movie. And there was no Ares Deck, again for obvious PR reasons, there being no need for a god of warfare, battle, and strife on a vacation cruise ship. Instead, the uppermost Twelfth Deck was called the Ouranos Deck, that predecessor of the classical deities of ancient Greece having been promoted to Olympian status because of his traditional association with astronomy and the sky. The view of the night sky from the Atlantean Grotto Terrace while the ship was at sea, far from smog and the light pollution of cities, was fantastic.

Hades wasn't included, in part because he'd not been one of the traditional Olympian twelve and, again, due to PR reasons. The Greek god of the underworld was remembered in the Hades Hot Spot, however, a bar and nightclub on the Aphrodite Deck featuring a DJ, loud music, and the raucously energetic Santorini Dancers, who, after ten in the evening, performed topless.

The ship was luxuriously appointed throughout — plenty of rich wood paneling, thick carpeting, and expensively modern furnishings. Many of the windows and skylights were stained glass with intricate patterns; some decks were laid out in highly polished mosaic tiles instead of carpet, with traditional marine scenes from Greek, Roman, or Cretan artistic traditions, showing octopi, dolphins, and other sea creatures. The Grand Atrium was a cavernous circular mall with huge aquaria built into the bulkheads between the shops, and deck-to-overhead tube-pillars filled with bubbling water, the whole subtly lit to create a shifting, eerie, deep-sea feel to the place. The Cayce Library was small but well appointed, with an emphasis on books about Greece, Atlantis, mythology, history, and travel books about Mediterranean countries. The Pyramid Club Casino went for the ultra-modern look — lots of chrome, lots of flashing lights, lots of electronic gambling machines, and, of course, the newly installed Blackjack Rosie, who promised to be quite a hit with the techno-geek crowd.

The Queen could manage a passenger complement of three thousand. With the world economy in its current shaky state, Royal Sky Line had been hard pressed to book that many guests. Even a last-minute sales blitz offering the cruise at 40 percent off the usual ticket price hadn't been as successful as the corporate office had hoped, and during the final week they'd been offering staterooms for less than half price.

As it was, there were 2,442 paying passengers on board, enough for the company to turn a profit for this cruise, but only just. If anything went wrong — a delay due to weather, excessive fuel consumption, mechanical difficulties, an outbreak of food poisoning, rowdy guests getting out of hand and generating lawsuits, anything — then the voyage could well end up showing a loss, which would reflect badly on Royal Sky Line's credit, which was already stretched beyond acceptable limits. Failure to get another loan at the end of the year might well force the company into bankruptcy.

Carolyn Howorth had been waiting in Kleito's Temple for less than ten minutes, and she'd been early to begin with.

Located on the Tenth Deck — the Demeter Deck — all the way forward and two levels down from the bridge, the club bar and restaurant had been lavishly decorated to resemble a Greek or, presumably, an Atlantean temple, complete with massive marble columns, marble tables and countertops, and a bigger-than-life-sized gilded statue of a gracefully nude woman. Smaller statues, all male, occupied niches in the bulkheads to either side, and an elaborate waterfall burbled and splashed happily down rugged faux rocks into a large central pool half-shrouded in vegetation.

Legend had it that the god Poseidon had taken a human woman, Kleito, as his wife and that she'd born him five sets of twins who'd become the kings of Atlantis. A temple had been erected on the spot, or so claimed the philosopher Plato in his telling of the tale, and that temple had become the exact center of the city of Atlantis.

This club, Howorth decided, was a worthy successor to the temple described by Plato. It was a bit flamboyant for her tastes, but the broad sweep of the windows across the forward wall gave an absolutely staggering, gorgeous view of the water ahead. At the moment, the Atlantis Queen was sailing almost exactly due west, and the sunset — a blaze of flaming oranges, reds, and coral pinks, with cooler blues, greens, and ambers — flooded the sky with colored light.

"Ms. Carroll?" a man's voice said behind her.

"I'm Judith Carroll," Carolyn Howorth said, standing and extending her hand. "You must be David."

"David Llewellyn," he said, shaking her hand. "Director of Security. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Carroll."

"Call me Judy," Howorth said. "Everyone else does."

"Judy," he said, waiting for her to sit again, then seating himself. "Charming. A gorgeous sunset."

"Absolutely spectacular," she agreed. 'Tm surprised everybody on board the ship isn't crowded in here to see it."

"It is a bit more crowded than it usually is," Llewellyn agreed. "And a lot of people are on the decks outside."

"I don't blame them. Thank you for agreeing to see me, David."

"My pleasure. Ah… your e-mail said something about you being with British law enforcement?"

Carolyn pulled her wallet out of her handbag and let it fall casually open to her ID. At least, it was one of her IDs, one provided for her for this specific mission. "SOCA, actually," she said.

SOCA was a relatively new agency within British law enforcement. The Serious Organised Crime Agency had been created in 2006 specifically to combat drug trafficking, money laundering, people smuggling, and organized crime, a product of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. Some called it Britain's answer to the American FBI, though any comparison was superficial at best. If anything, SOCA was closer in the nature of its work to the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Unlike MI5, certain designated SOCA agents had the authority to arrest suspects. Unlike MI5, SOCA had no role in either counterterrorism or national security.

So far as Howorth or her Menwith Hill colleagues could tell, it was a political figurehead agency as much as anything else, a means of looking as though the government was doing something about the nation's drug and crime problems, without having to actually do anything about them.

But most people wouldn't be aware of that particular twist in the government's knickers. It did provide a convenient cover for Howorth. Like the American NSA, GCHQ didn't care to advertise its presence. Ever.

"Thank you, Judy," Llewellyn said, studying the ID carefully before meeting her eyes again. "I've heard of SOCA, of course. I gather lots of you are former MI5, MI6?"

"A lot of us are," she said. It sounded like a test question, something to perhaps catch her in an inconsistency. She'd already planned to be as noncommittal — and therefore as hard to pin down — as possible.

SOCA did draw many of its members from the existing British MI5, which handled domestic security issues, and from MI6, which handled foreign security and intelligence work, like America's CIA. SOCA's current head was a former head of MI5, and there was a lot of traffic between the two.

"I was wondering if you might know a Mr. Thomas Mitchell?"

"No, can't say that I do."

"Or a Mr. Samuel Franks?"

"Nope. Should I?"

Llewellyn shrugged. "Tom Mitchell is MI5. And Mr. Franks is MI5, but currently seconded, I understand, to SOCA. I suppose I was wondering why we have so many of you people running around on board!"

Howorth kept her smile in place. "They're passengers?"

"Of a sort. Are you aware of the.. incident on the docks yesterday afternoon?"

"No. Should I be?"

Llewellyn seemed to relax a little. "So you're not with Mitchell or Franks?"

"No, Mr. Llewellyn. I'm not. I know neither of the gentlemen. SOCA has about forty-two hundred employees and operates out of over forty offices scattered all over the UK. It's impossible to meet or to remember everyone in the firm." Time to change the subject, she thought. Despite what she'd just said, the last thing she wanted was a face-to-face introduction to Mitchell or Franks, especially Franks, who might ask her questions only a real SOCA agent could answer. "Why? What happened on the docks?"

"Nothing important," Llewellyn told her. "And if you didn't ask to see me about that, why did you ask to see me?" His smile broadened. "Not that I at all mind meeting a beautiful woman on a romantic cruise."

"Why, Mr. Llewellyn," she said. "I didn't think ship's crew was allowed to fraternize with the paying passengers!"

"Strictly speaking, no… though officers have a bit more leeway than the housekeeping staff, say. And it is after hours. I'm off-duty. May I buy you a drink?"

"That would be great. Thank you." Her glass was empty.

"What are you having?"

"Coke."

"Nothing stronger?"

"Coke is fine. My God, will you just look at that sky?" The colors, if anything, were becoming more intense. The sky appeared to be on fire. "What is it they say… 'red sky at night, sailor's delight'?"

"That's what they say. Never having been a sailor, I couldn't tell you." He flagged down a server, ordered two soft drinks, and turned back to face her. "Now, you were telling me what you wanted to talk to Security about?"

"Actually, David, I was hoping to get a private tour of your security facilities on the ship. See how they work, day-to-day."

"Indeed? Why?"

"Because SOCA is concerned with smuggling into the United Kingdom. Drugs. Also people."

Llewellyn's eyebrows rose. "People?"

"Twenty-first-century slaves, David. People who answer ads for work in the United Kingdom in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Pakistan. They're brought in by professional smugglers — usually by the Italian Mafia or other Mediterranean organized-crime groups, though we've been seeing a bit of activity from Russia lately, as well. The Russian mafiya. Men are brought in and put to work in illegal sweatshops, sometimes drug factories. Same for women and children, except they're also exploited sexually, often. They end up in brothels, or working for almost nothing as housekeepers or servants for people who abuse them. They're required to pay for their passage from their wages and, of course, somehow they never manage to get enough to buy their freedom."

"And what does all this have to do with the Atlantis Queen!"

She shrugged. "Nothing directly. My boss wants me to have a look at the security arrangements on board your ships. How do you know you don't have a few hundred stowaways? How do you control access to sensitive areas of your ship, such as the computers? We hope to build an intelligence network that includes all methods of entry through our borders — airlines, the Chunnel, Channel ferries, passenger liners — to help us monitor the people who come into the UK every day."

"I… see. It all seems rather comprehensive."

"It's also low-key and off the record, David. I can show you a letter from my boss authorizing me to see your system. If you'd rather not go that route, I'll let him know and SOCA can make a more… formal request of Royal Sky's board of directors."

Howorth could almost see the wheels turning in Llewellyn's mind. If he turned down her informal request, he might soon be dealing with a formal order — and questions from his own boss as to why he'd not been more cooperative with the government.

"If I say no," Llewellyn said, "do we have to send you home?"

She grinned. "Technically," she said, "I'm on vacation.

This is informal."

"And if I say yes.. will you let me buy you dinner first?"

"Plying me with food? I think I could manage that."

"Then let me see what I can do," he told her.

Rosie, bless her little Intel chip of a heart, was an unqualified success.

Jerry Esterhausen leaned against the bar, turned on his stool so he could watch the activity at the blackjack table. On the bar in front of him, his laptop was open, the screen showing the feed from Rosie's camera as she dealt out another hand.

The Atlantis Queen's onboard casino was doing a fair business this evening. Men in formal black and women in colorful gowns and plunging decolletage mingled with men and women in more casual attire, feeding coins to electronic slot machines, sitting around green-felt tables studying fans of playing cards, or hanging out at the bar. By far the largest group, though, had clustered around Rosie at her station in front of the broad, glass doors leading out to the after pool deck. Only three were playing; the rest kibitzed with raucous good humor. But when one human player decided he or she had had enough and stood up, another would slip into the vacated seat.

Esterhausen was flanked at the bar by Sharon Reilly, the Queen's CD, or Cruise Director, and by William Paulson, the Hotel Manager — or "hotman," in cruise ship parlance. The CD was in charge of the staff devoted to the care and entertainment of the ship's passengers — hostesses, entertainers, stage managers, fitness instructors, teen counselors, and all the rest who provided recreation for the guests. The hotman, in turn, was a ship's officer and the CD's boss, reporting directly to the staff captain, who was the ship's second in command. The hotman ran the immense floating hotel that was the Atlantis Queen.

"That," Paulson said, leaning over to peer at Esterhausen's screen, "is impressive."

The screen showed a Rosie's-eye view of her hands as she shuffled a deck of cards, jointed fingers coated in a thin vinyl skin that stretched and grabbed and manipulated as skillfully as the fingers of any human dealer. The earlier programming glitch appeared to have cleared up completely.

"So, can you operate the robot from your computer?" Reilly asked him.

"Sort of," Esterhausen said. "I can type in code to make changes to the programming, and I can control some of the gross motor movements with this " He tapped the tiny, rubber-capped controller in the center of his keyboard, a miniature joystick. "I can make her turn, make her move her arms, that sort of thing. But to do that I would have to use the t-gloves."

On the screen the cards were almost magically scooting off the deck in Rosie's hand as her thumb flicked back and forth.

"T-gloves?" Paulson asked.

"Teleoperational gloves. They look like thin rubber gloves. You put them on, plug them into a USB port, and they sense your hand positions and finger movements, transmitting them to the robot hands. That's how we trained them to do stuff like shuffle, cut, and deal in the first place. That's just for emergencies, though." He shook his head. "I can't deal as slick as Rosie's doing there. We actually had a professional gambler come into our labs to train her with the gloves. Those are his hand movements she's using, stored in her hard drive."

"Hey, Rosie!" a young man in the audience called out. "I think I'm in love with you!"

The robot's monitor turned to face the speaker, the female face appearing to look him up and down. "If I weren't bolted to the floor," she said in her provocatively sultry voice, "I'd take you up to your stateroom and let you prove it!"

The audience laughed, and a few clapped their hands. They seemed as entranced by Rosie's banter as by her manual dexterity.

"Fascinating," Reilly said. "But that means, if something went wrong, you could kind of take over for her? Work her like an electronic puppet?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Of course, what we'd probably have to do is hook up a black-box shuffler."

"I've seen those," Paulson said, frowning. "You put a deck in the top, it shuffles them inside and spits cards out one at a time. Not nearly as impressive as that"

"But we have one along as backup," Esterhausen told him. "Just in case there's a glitch."

"Hey, Rosie!" another young man called out. "Are those hooters of yours real, or is that where you keep your batteries?"

"Please, sir," Rosie replied. "You're making me blush!"

"Rowdy crowd tonight," Reilly said.

"I've seen worse," Paulson said, sliding off his bar stool. "Mr. Esterhausen? An impressive show. I think I can promise that Royal Sky Line will be doing more business with CyberAge in future."

"That's good to hear, sir."

Paulson walked off through the crowd.

"The house wins," Rosie announced as the blackjack hands were revealed. Rosie held a 19; one player had a 17, while the others all were over 21.

"I think I've just been screwed by a machine," one of the players said, laughing as he stood up.

Rosie held up one mechanical arm, the fingers working back and forth. "I'm sorry, sir. All I can manage tonight is a hand job."

That one brought down the house.

David Llewellyn led Carolyn Howorth up the steps and into a passageway on the Eleventh Deck, one level up from Kleito's Temple.

He'd fed her lobster bisque and shrimp scampi as the last of the sunset colors faded from the sky ahead, and talked about his job as head of shipboard security. After a phone call to clear things with someone — she suspected that the call was to Vandergrift, the staff captain — Llewellyn told her that he'd obtained clearance to take her to the Security Office. A handprint scanner mounted on the bulkhead next to the door admitted them. "You have these throughout the ship?" she asked.

"Only the most secure compartments," he said. "Security. The bridge. Engineering. The Purser's Office. Places like that. And only a few key personnel have handprint records on file." He pointed up at a familiar glassy black hemisphere mounted on the ceiling. "Smile," he said. "Big Brother is watching."

Inside, the Security Office consisted of a long room with security monitors lined up along one bulkhead. Four men and two women sat at the monitors, watching them as, occasionally, the view shifted to a different camera. Most of the monitors, Howorth saw, looked down onto passageways. A few showed decks outside, or places like the restaurant they'd just left. One of the men was watching an alcove beneath a ship's ladder, somewhere outside. The light was poor, but there was enough to see a man in a jacket and a woman in a blue gown in close embrace, kissing. The man's hand was roving at the base of her spine.

Llewellyn cleared his throat. "I don't think we have any terrorists there, Jenkins."

"Yes, sir!" the man said, starting. "No, sir! Sorry, sir!" He typed an entry on his keyboard, and the scene changed to the Atlantean Grotto Restaurant on the Eleventh Deck.

"The computer cycles from camera to camera every thirty seconds," Llewellyn explained. "Or the operators can deliberately override the system and look at what they want."

"Privacy issues?" Howorth asked.

"No security cams inside staterooms, crew's quarters, dressing rooms, or public toilets, of course," Llewellyn told her. "But everything else is pretty well covered twenty-four hours a day. Yes, there are privacy issues. But it's a tradeoff. If we see drunks in a stateroom passageway, or someone locked out of their room, or an ugly confrontation, we can have security people there in a minute or two."

"How many security personnel do you have?"

"Enough," he said.

"Computer network security," she said. "You use Netguardz?"

His eyebrows rose. "Yes, we do. And how did you know that?"

"SOCA has its ways, David." She nodded toward a closed door at the end of the compartment. "What's back there?"

"Computers, and our magnetic keying machines."

"Where you create key cards for passenger's staterooms?"

"And every other door on the ship. Just like in a hotel."

She'd seen and heard enough. "Thank you, David. This has been most enlightening."

"So what will your report say?"

"Report?"

"You didn't con me into giving you this tour just because you like security cams," Llewellyn told her. "You intimated that SOCA wants to know about how we handle security on board."

"At some point, SOCA will want to establish a single security computer network, something embracing MI5 and 6, Scotland Yard, and a number of other agencies. It looks as if they could add you to the network with a minimum of fuss." She saw the look on his face and smiled. "Don't worry. It won't happen for years… not with funding at the levels it's been lately!"

She allowed him to take her for an evening stroll on deck, carefully avoiding the spot where the two lovers were kissing.

And in the locked IT room at the back of the Ship's Security Office, Mohamed Ghailiani pulled the last of a stack of plastic key cards from the magnetic imprinting machine and then typed in a keyboard command that erased the log record of his having made these copies. He'd gotten the password for that access from a friend in IT, Danny Smith, claiming he needed an extra master key for a rendezvous in a secure area with a very special lady friend who wanted to see how the ship really worked. Smith had only grinned and given Ghailani his personal password; the computer tech was known to have a weak spot for willing women, too.

There would be a record of Ghailani's computer access kept in permanent storage, and he could do nothing about that, not now. When this was all over, an investigation would note that Danny Smith had printed out twenty-five unauthorized master keys and Smith would point the investigators to Ghailiani. Khalid had promised him that the hard drive could be destroyed once he and his friends took over the ship, and that would ensure Ghailiani's anonymity.

The stack contained thirty-one master keys, key cards that gained admission to every locked room, every secure area, every stateroom, on the ship. With these, Khalid and the people he'd snuck on board the ship would have access to every compartment on the Queen. And he'd made the operation possible for them. Ghailiani scarcely cared anymore. All he could think of was Zahra and Nouzha, and whether he would ever see them alive again.