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.“You see that island right there? The crescent-shaped one? Sail this ship exactly three miles off the tip of it at a heading of 270 degrees.When you get to this point here,” he stabbed at the radar screen, “you will turn due north and cut forward speed to five knots.Understood?”The girl looked perplexed but nodded.She didn’t need to understand.Nobody did but him.Only he, of all his men aboard this ship, knew that there was a deadly string of mines planted under the surface of the ocean a half-dozen miles off the tip of that crescent island.The divers who’d planted the mines were another terrorist cell he ran—they had no connection to the teams aboard the Grand Adventure.The Americans would have to make their strike tonight.The hurricane was due tomorrow.The course he’d just described to the Norwegian girl would put that line of submerged mines squarely between the Grand Adventure and the carrier task force tailing him so steadily and predictably.He had utter confidence that the predictable Americans would send a team of commandos in small boats to board the Grand Adventure.And when they hit his underwater gauntlet of death, the last laugh would be his.When Aleesha walked into the Medusas’ staging room, controlled chaos was the order of the day.The other women were just finishing gathering into bags the same gear they’d come aboard the ship wearing—Kevlar utility vests, radios, knives and MP-5s.They already wore their gray all-terrain body suits under their clothes.For a moment she saw her team as an outsider might see them and had to admit they were an imposing bunch.She sure as heck wouldn’t want to mess with them in a dark alley.Once the rescue got underway, they’d wear their full military gear so the SEALs who came aboard could identify them quickly among all the other women on the ship.That way if one of the Medusas called out an instruction or gave a signal to one of the SEALs, he’d know it for a legitimate military communication.Aleesha leaned over Isabella’s shoulder, peering at a readout on a laptop sitting beside the intel analyst.She noticed her teammate was wearing the radio Aleesha had stolen from Michael, its pink earpiece in her left ear.“They saying anything interesting?”“Not yet.Give it a few minutes, eh?” Isabella fiddled with the laptop computer.Aleesha glanced down at what the intel analyst was working on.A program to overlay the radio signals from the twenty-two microburrs on top of a schematic of the ship.It wasn’t three dimensional, but it was a darn sight better than nothing.Fortunately, the hand-held units each of the Medusas had in their utility vests would give a 3-D image up to a range of a hundred feet or so.Isabella asked, “Who did you miss?”“The woman…” She hesitated and then answered candidly, “And Michael.I was worried the SEALs would kill him out of hand if he were marked.”Isabella threw a penetrating look over her shoulder.Finally the intel analyst murmured, “Your call.”Aleesha sagged in relief.They might not understand why she felt so strongly about Michael’s allegiances, but her teammates trusted her judgment.God bless them.“Better suit up,” Isabella said.Right.It was almost time for the big show.Aleesha stripped to her skivvies and donned her sea-land suit.She doubted she’d need its wet suit function today, but it was comfortable, durable and gave her an unrestricted range of movement.The suits even helped control bleeding if one of them got shot or otherwise injured.Over the top of the suit, she pulled on a pair of pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.She tucked the suit’s hood inside her shirt for now.They needed to hide their distinctive outfits until they reached the kids’ adventure area so whoever was manning the security cameras wouldn’t spot them and send up an alarm too quickly.The mood in the room was calm and focused.They knew what they had to do, and it was well within their capabilities.All in all, she had a good gut feel about today.And it was always nice not to be going against grandmama’s voodoo intuitions.Vanessa came over to Aleesha.“Sync your watch to mine.I got a time hack off the SEALs about an hour ago.”Aleesha nodded and set her watch forward to the next new minute with the second hand at twelve o’clock.Vanessa counted quietly, “Thirty-two past eleven in five…four…three…two…one…hack.”Aleesha mashed the start button on her watch exactly as Vanessa called the hack.In this business, a second or two either way could mean the difference between life and death.“Ammo check,” Vanessa ordered everyone.Aleesha checked the clip in her MP-5.Full.Two spare clips—both full—in the left-front pocket of her utility vest, ready at hand.Four more clips in her utility belt.And she sincerely hoped she didn’t need any of them.In addition, as the team’s demolitions specialist, she carried det cord, detonators and C-4 in two-pound miniblocks around her waist.And then, of course, she carried the usual contingent of grenades, wire cutters, mirrors and other doodads that might come in useful in a pinch.“Everyone ready?” Vanessa asked.“All clear on the plan?”The plan was pretty simple.A group of maids was going to stage a major argument with some of the kitchen staff.It would involve a lot of screaming in several languages and should momentarily draw the attention of whoever was manning the security cameras.Meanwhile, the Medusas were going to burst in on the kids’ adventure area, take down the guards fast and hard, then move the children out.Isabella would stay here with the camera monitors and guide them to whichever one of the hidey-holes had no terrorists along the route.And if there were terrorists between the kids and all the hidey-holes, she’d send them on the route with the fewest Tangos and they’d clear it as they went.The Medusas left the room over the next several minutes singly and in pairs.They made their way through the ship by different routes, all arriving in the middle of Deck 4, where the kids’area was located, at roughly the same time.Vanessa and Misty would take the front door.Aleesha, Karen and Kat would take the fire exits.One last time check.Forty seconds until 11:40.The ruckus in the Safari Lounge should have just broken out.She slowed down slightly and reached the doors just as her second hand swept up to the top of her watch.Time to rock and roll.Jack pulled the yellow rubber rain slicker more tightly about him as the launch bay door opened and salt spray battered him.The seas were kicking up fifteen-foot waves in front of a freshening breeze compliments of Hurricane Evangeline.Not ideal conditions to make a twenty-five-mile run in fast boats, but then, SEALs weren’t paid to operate under perfect conditions.They earned their stripes on days like this.He heard the team leaders behind him barking out the final equipment checks and lining their guys up to board the boats.Five sleek, black speedboats rested in their sliding launch ramps, quiet now, but ready to devour the waves before them.Static sounded in his ear, and he pressed his hand against the earpiece to hear better over the noise of the ship’s diesel engines.Isabella Torres’s voice announced crisply, “Medusas in motion.Proceeding to Task Alpha.”“Roger,” he transmitted back.“We are a go.”He looked up at the men behind him and stuck his right forefinger up in the air.He twirled it several times over his head and then pointed at the open launch bay.Forty SEALs moved as one, leaping into place on the boats as crewmen converged from both sides to release the vessels and shove them into the frothing surf [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]