Hughes and Babcock stood, peering down across the illuminated map of the North Atlantic, at its boundaries Europe and West Africa, the eastern United States and the northeast coast of South America. The map and the huge, circular light table on which it was placed dominated the center of an otherwise sterile room approximately thirty by thirty and built with all the charm of a bomb shelter. Shipping lanes were lighted in red dashes and airline lanes in blue. There was a red plastic X set roughly equidistant from the Azores and Gibralter. No one was in the room but them and General Argus. The helicopter had ferried them to a farmer’s field where two Harrier jets had awaited them. No location had been given, but Hughes judged they had been flown north and east. His guess was somewhere in Virginia and it hadn’t been important enough to ask.
On the far wall were banks of television screens, monitoring the three major networks and CNN, regular programming on the three networks preempted for special coverage of the hostage crisis in the Atlantic. But nothing seemed to be happening. When Hughes and Babcock had reunited, they were driven for approximately ten minutes to what appeared, on the outside, to be an abandoned factory, simply told to wait then, while the driver and the man with him had pulled off. As soon as the car had disappeared, a uniformed military policeman had exited the side door of the factory and bidden them to follow him to a curious passenger elevator. On the outside, it looked old and in disrepair, but inside was spotless and new. There was only one button to push and Hughes had pushed it. General Robert Argus was waiting for them when the elevator stopped and the doors opened.
“The British are going to be hard pressed to mount any kind of major operation without the cooperation of either Portugal, Morocco or Spain. The logistics would kill them and any chance of surprise would be out of the question,” Argus said, breaking the long silence.
“The Azores are Portuguese, too, right?” Babcock asked.
“Yes. Spain and Great Britain aren’t always exactly on the best of terms, Mr. Babcock, and we understand London has diplomatic traffic with both Rabat and Lisbon right now to set something up. But they’re probably hoping for the cooperation of Portugal. The Empress is a little closer to the Azores and there’d be less coverage of what they’re doing. Nothing definite yet, but we do know the Special Air Service has been put on alert and is ready to move. You’ve heard the demands made by this O’Fallon, the man calling himself the leader of the hijackers?”
Hughes said, “There wasn’t time to catch anything more on the television or radio while we got ready for your chopper to pick us up. What are the demands, General?”
“Impossible. He wants the complete pullout of British forces from Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister to get on television and publicly denounce the government of Northern Ireland and pledge British noninvolvement in Irish affairs from now on. He wants the same statement read before a special session of the United Nations Security Council. O’Fallon’s not going to get it. And he knows it unless he’s a total imbecile. And there’s evidence to suggest that this Seamus O’Fallon is just the opposite.”
“What do you mean, General?” Babcock asked. “You know him?”
“You have a dossier on him?” Hughes suggested.
“We do indeed. A lot of it we originally got from the British, but they’re being mum on him now. Apparently the FBI was interested in him and so was the CIA. He made some illegal trips into the United States for arms and financial support. Still a lot of people in this country who think they’re helping starving widows and orphans and all they’re really doing is giving money to buy Communist-bloc weapons to promote more killing. Other things to worry about than O’Fallon’s past, though. He’s wanted for murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, almost any major crime you can think of. He’s got a reputation for brutality that closed him off to a lot of the Irish movement. Things got so hot for him in British territory that he had to flee for about two years. Just been back for under a year is the best estimate.”
“Where did he spend his vacation?” Babcock asked.
“Good point, Mr. Babcock. No one is one hundred percent positive, but there is reason to believe he was working in Central America, based out of Cuba. We’re not sure. There may be a Russian connection, too.”
“There usually is, isn’t there?” Hughes observed.
“Well, in more ways than one.” Argus gestured toward a raised area to the right of the map table where there was a small conference table and a number of chairs. “Let’s get a few things cleared up.” Argus started for the table. Babcock looked at Hughes. Hughes raised his eyebrows only, then nodded in Argus’s direction.
Argus sat at the head of the table, Hughes and Babcock flanking him. There was a pitcher on the table and several glasses. Hughes watched as Babcock investigated it, poured water and gestured toward another of the glasses as he looked at Hughes.
Hughes shook his head “no thanks” and looked at Argus. “What’s going on, over and above the obvious, General?”
“I can’t brief you any further unless you both agree to accept the mission.”
“What’s the mission?” Babcock asked. “You didn’t fly us here to this place”—and Babcock gestured with his hands—“just so we could go after our friend Mr. Cross.”
“No.1 didn’t. Certainly, Cross’s life is important, as are the lives of all the hostages. But there’s something vastly more important aboard that ship even the British don’t know about, and we can only pray the hijackers haven’t found.”
Hughes looked at Babcock. Babcock said, “I’ll abide by your decision, Mr. Hughes.”
Hughes nodded, looked back at Argus and said, “We’re in. Now. What the hell is going on?”
Argus closed his eyes, inhaled, opened them wide and began to speak. “The Russians have always been very interested in chemical and biological warfare. And they’ve done some things our scientists haven’t been able to do.”
“What does biological warfare have to do with the hijacking of a ship on the high seas?”
“The Russians developed a new viral strain, Hughes, Babcock. We wanted it because its potential was so devastating. It was felt that if our scientists could duplicate it and the Russian production plans were delayed, its effectiveness would be neutralized with both sides having it. No one would use it. It was being produced at a laboratory in the mountains in a remote section of Albania, where it was nice and cold in case anything went wrong.”
“What do you mean, ‘nice and cold’?” Hughes snapped.
“No two viruses are exactly alike, they told me, and this one multiplies exceedingly rapidly with heat. The virus—in an ampule—was stolen and all the lab notes and tapes destroyed. The virus was smuggled out of Albania into Italy. It wasn’t safe to fly it out. If something had gone wrong, like an explosion in mid-air, the virus would have been released and multiplied. And anyway, the intelligence agency handling it wanted first crack at it, didn’t want the military involved and all the civilian airports and everything would have been watched by the KGB. It was decided that the best way to get it out was by ship, that no one would suspect that. The viral agent is on board the Empress Britannia and, if O’Fallon and his gang of hijackers don’t get their demands, after they’ve executed some hostages, they’ll carry out O’Fallon’s major threat: to blow up the Empress. O’Fallon claims he’s got the vessel mined with plastic explosives and napalm. The heat from such an explosion would trigger the virus. Airborne, it could go anywhere the winds carried it.”
“This virus, what does it do?” Babcock asked, his voice low.
“I had a hell of a time getting that information myself, Mr. Babcock. Nobody wanted to tell me. But I finally nailed it down. It’s like an exceptionally virulent form of influenza at first. Once it reacts with certain enzymes in the human body, it mutates. The flu symptoms last for about twenty-four hours, but getting progressively worse. Then the virus attacks the cerebral cortex. The infected person would be dead-and most agonizingly—in under thirty-six hours. And there’s no vaccine available to counteract it. One of the things our scientists would have done was to develop a vaccine in the event the Russians someday did use it.”
“How many casualties could be anticipated?” Hughes asked clinically.
“That’s hard to say, I’ve been told. Depending on the amount of heat generated in the explosion, the altitude the plume from the blast would attain, prevailing winds. If the winds took it east, most of western Europe and North Africa would be covered, at the very least. That’s what they told me. And this is all unofficial.”
“Can’t the British be told?”
“I got a flat refusal on that, Hughes.”
“How many dead?” Hughes insisted.
“Millions. No one has an answer more specific.”
“Idiots!” Hughes exploded. “How can anyone with a conscience play around with something like that? Are we all mad? The Russians and us, too!?”
“We didn’t develop it. We were trying to defend against it,” Argus insisted. Babcock’s face went slightly grey.
Hughes stood up and began pacing the raised area around the table. “So, we have to get on board and kill everyone of the hijackers so there is no possibility in the slightest that the bombs can be detonated. We can possibly count on some help on the inside from Cross, if he’s able and once he knows it’s us.Then we have to find the ampule containing this god-awful thing. And all before the British send in the SAS for a full-scale assault which could result in the unintentional release of the virus.”
“It’s the only hope we have,” Argus said softly.
Hughes turned around and looked at him. “Tell me about this O’Fallon. Would there be any chance we could…” He didn’t even finish the question. It was too absurd to bother finishing.
“If we told O’Fallon, he’d use it. O’Fallon, according to the information we had on file, profiles out as a manic depressive with pronounced homicidal tendencies and some sort of Messianic complex. And then there’s another factor. A specialist in neurosurgery contacted Scotland Yard about six months ago that he had treated a man matching O’Fallon’s description. He’d seen the man’s face again on a Wanted poster and felt obligated to call. If it was O’Fallon, he’s been diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumor, at the time given less than a year to live. O’Fallon is an old hand at the terrorist game. He knows full well the British won’t honor his demands and that they’ll do the only thing they can do, hit him. But he’s dying anyway. If it was O’Fallon, the man’s got nothing to lose.”
“Except his immortal soul,” Hughes commented quietly, then sat down. “What’s the British posture in terms of control of the area? And will the Russians be going into the area as well? We need to know that.”
“I’ll get you whatever information we can come up with,” Argus promised.
“Why,” Babcock began, “are you sending us in? Not the SEALs? Because you can’t make it official?”
“There are two CIA people aboard the hijacked vessel, Mr. Babcock. One is a man, black, like you—”
“You mean I’m black?! That’s news to me,” Babcock interrupted in one of his rare attempts at humor. “And I’d always thought it was just that I tanned easily!” Hughes smiled, thinking the opportunity had probably been irresistible.
“—who’s traveling under the name of Alvin Leeds,” Argus continued, as if Babcock had said nothing at all. “It’s just a cover identity. He’s traveling as a boiler wiper or something. He’s the man who brought the ampule of the viral agent aboard the Empress and it’s his job to protect it. A second CIA person was sent in at the last minute to cover Leeds, Leeds not even knowing about it. A woman named Jennifer Hall. She’s a regular CIA courier and gatherer working under the cover of a singer.”
“She’s actually singing aboard the Empress?” Hughes interrupted.
“That’s right—” Argus began.
“Cross should know her, at least casually,” Babcock said, sounding as if he were thinking out loud. “She might turn to him for assistance if she knows anything about his background.”
“Were either Leeds or the woman—this Miss Hall—armed?”
“Both of them were, Hughes. Trouble is, Leeds will think he’s all alone. He doesn’t know anything about her.”
“What geniuses organized this thing to begin with?” Hughes asked.
“A few geniuses who may retire earlier than they’ve planned. That’s the word from the White House,” Argus told them.
“There are two possibilities only, unless anyone can think of something else,” Hughes began. “And I’m open to suggestions, believe me. But, as I see it, we can do a high altitude, low opening drop near enough to the Empress to swim in—if weather, wind and sky conditions are right. Have to be under conditions of total darkness or the game’d be up. The only other option—and British or Russian presence, or both, could preclude that immediately—is go in by submarine and leave the vessel while it’s submerged. If this O’Fallon and his gangster friends have installed any intruder alert systems on the hull or anywhere else we might bump into them. In either event, they’ll make us as soon as we try getting aboard. And assuming we do get that far, how do we get the ampule off?”
Argus studied the tent he’d made of his fingers for a moment, then said, “Just a thought, but the hijackers have a yacht pulled alongside the Empress. Presumably how they got aboard. Probably the old routine of letting the vessel lie dead in the water and when the Empress stopped to assist, they came aboard with their guns. But maybe you can utilize the yacht to get the ampule off.”
“Too easy to be stopped. If I were this O’Faiton—and thank God I’m not—I’d have the yacht rigged with explosives that could be radio detonated in case any of the passengers or crew tried making a break for it. No. The yacht’s out.”
“Helicopter,” Babcock said absently.
Hughes bit his lower lip. “Wait a minute. When I was a little boy, I saw it done once. They used to pick up mail that way.”
“What are you talking about?” Babcock asked him.
“All right. In the early days of airmail. To speed up the pickup process and sometimes because they’d pick up where there wasn’t really an airfield, they utilized a system originally developed to pick up mail at railway stations where the train wasn’t scheduled to stop. Modified, of course. They’d have a pouch on a tensioned line, but a little slack in it. The old biplane would come through, flying low and slow and it had a hook out at the bottom of the fuselage. The hook would snatch the pouch off the line and then the pilot would draw it up into the cockpit at his leisure and go on to the next pickup point. We could use that same system if we can set up the rig and find a pilot good enough.”
“One of those guys who lands on aircraft carriers,” Babcock suggested.
“Better still,” Argus supplied, “the guys who take off and land from smaller vessels—they do it in the Med a lot—with observation planes. Electronic surveillance equipment aircraft.”
“All right!” Hughes clapped his hands together. “Forget about the submarine option unless the moon will be too bright or the winds too high. We airdrop off the Empress and swim up to her. Then we get aboard. We’ll need a picture of this Leeds fellow and the woman CIA op. We find them and Cross, then start liquidating the hijackers until we can reach whatever area of the ship we settle on for the pickup. We erect whatever gadget it is we need and call in the aircraft by radio, then finish the wetwork.”
“Sketch out what you need,” Argus said.
“Lewis and I’ll need diagrams, photos, everything you can get on the Empress. And we’ve got to go in quickly. This madman O’Fallon will start executing hostages if he hasn’t already and the SAS won’t be left waiting around forever once he does. We’ll need some special weapons. I can make you a list. What you can’t get immediately, you might be able to hit up one of the SEAL Teams stationed around the District of Columbia for as a loan.”
“How’d you know about them?” Argus asked him.
“I helped train them,” Hughes answered.