Sabotage (32 page)

“Jacob,” Fawkes said in a low hiss. “You've been gone too long. Don't scare me like that.”

“I've kept safe. Now, can you be brave?”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Inside this bucket are bottles of ammonia and bleach, along with a handful of sealed plastic bags. Help me empty chemicals into the bags without mixing them. We want to stuff this bucket full of concentrated ammonia and bleach.”

“Why?”

“Together they produce noxious fumes—chloramine and chlorine, among others. We're improvising a chlorine bomb.”

“Chlorine bomb?”

“Yes. Germans used the gas during World War One by releasing cylinders in trenches.”

“We're mixing poisonous fumes in my room?”

“For later use.”

“I didn't think this was what you had in mind,” Fawkes muttered, “when you told your steward you wanted to develop a friendly chemistry.”

*   *   *

Red blemishes in the sky signaled the arrival of morning. A Marauder on patrol shut off his flashlight. He no longer wore the tuxedo, but the diamond ring remained on his middle finger.

Numb with boredom, he rounded a corner and entered the deck fifteen foyer, wondering whether it was necessary to police every hallway while passengers stayed in their cabins. Couldn't they have wired weapons to motion detectors or surveillance cameras? No, he finally decided: There were too many decks, too many corridors. Patrolling was the only way to ensure every passenger's eventual death.

The tedium was broken by an opening door. The patroller crouched low and aimed the AK-47 at a stateroom entrance ten yards down the hall.

“Don't move!” he bellowed.

“Please, no shooting,” came a weak voice, choked by sobs. Her accent was Dutch. “We need food and water.”

“You got your daily ration, lady. Get back in your cabin.”

“Please, please, I have a baby,” said the woman. “She's crying. She needs soft foods.”

“You've had enough.”

He could hear the infant's crying in the background.

“You … I recognize you,” said the mother. “You're supposed to be a waiter. You're one of the pirates?”

“Get back inside. Close the door.”

“You don't understand,” she begged. “Can't you please bring us just a bit more food and water? Some custard or applesauce? We've gotten so little.”

He mounted the rifle on his shoulder and took aim, astonished when the mother didn't move or even flinch. “No, lady. Shut up.”

“Sir, I'm begging. Please. It's not for me. It's for my child. I'm pleading for my child.”

“I don't want to hear anything, lady.”

“If you can't provide food, then a blanket? With the heat gone, she's—”

“Get inside and close the door!”

She didn't move.

He fired a shot and deliberately missed. A piece of her door blew off. Her scream, following the explosion, became trapped in a series of suffocated sobs. The infant shrieked. The patroller kicked the wall at waist level and let out a whooping laugh from the bottom of his throat. He hadn't lost control of himself, nor did he find the situation amusing; he merely wanted to frighten her.

“Shut yourself and your baby up!” he said, approaching the closing door. He lowered his voice, certain she could still hear. “I'm not supposed to tell you this, lady. But you complained, so I will. It won't be long before this whole ship is sitting at the icy bottom, three kilometers below the surface. Sinking the ship is faster than shooting three thousand passengers. We need you alive for now, at least while the man in charge negotiates. Then, we need you dead. The food, the water … it's just a courtesy. This cabin will soon fill with water, lady.”

He kicked the wall again and fired a shot through the hole he'd made in the door, blasting out their stateroom's window and inviting in a harsh wind.

“That will make it easier,” he said, “if your baby's crying starts to wear you down. In the long run, it won't make a difference what you do.”

His rifle stood vertical, parallel to the line of his body as he strode back to the elevator foyer. He reached for his radio device to report the incident.

“Come in, Lido Deck.”

No response.

“Lido, come in.”

Still nothing.

It was only one flight up. He climbed the stairs and shouted for his fellow patrolmen. There was no reply. Noting the scarcity of his colleagues, he returned to deck fifteen and leaned his head into the adjacent corridor. At least one patrolman should have been there.

His boot pivoted on the carpet, squeaking. He bent to the floor and touched it, then touched the wall. The carpet was moist, his fingers stained. He looked at a wall that should have been a spotless white. The vermilion streaks were faint.

*   *   *

Fawkes removed his spectacles and folded them on a box of aluminum foil. Carefully he unscrewed the lid of a bleach bottle and poured the liquid into a plastic Ziploc. With steady fingers he sealed the bag and placed it in the bucket. He did the same with four more bags.

There were sheets of crumpled foil on Fawkes's nightstand, as if he had done some heavy wrapping. Rove wondered if the man had been hoarding food rations.

“Be
very
careful,” Rove advised. “Don't let them mix prematurely.”

“How exactly are you going to release the ammonia into the bleach, mate?”

“I'd considered creating a divider using tape and your aluminum foil, then pulling out the divider at the right moment. But that's too risky. Foil is weak. If the divider broke too early, we'd have a problem. Plastic bags are better. They puncture easily. If one breaks, it's okay. If two break, we're still safe half the time. The bucket is more controlled this way, and when I want to release the fumes, all I have to do is slash my knife around a few times, then get out.”

“Makes sense,” Fawkes said, pouring bleach into another bag.

“Try not to get any of this on your fingers, either. With no running water to wash it off…”

Rove stopped. One of the bags he'd set aside had begun to inflate. He reached for it, but before he could throw it over the balcony, the plastic burst and the chemicals soaked into the carpet. A painful smell wafted, causing Rove and Fawkes to clamp their nostrils.

“Damn.”

“What happened?”

“My mistake,” Rove said. “I was opening a new bottle and accidentally mixed the two. We'd better get out of here. Grab your things and come over to my room. We'll finish the gas bomb on the other side of the wall.”

“Can't we just open the sliding glass doors for a breeze? It wasn't much.”

“Enough to cause lung damage. Grab your essentials and move.”

*   *   *

“Come in, Captain,” crackled a voice through Ragnar's radio, speaking Norwegian.

He held the device to his mouth. “I hear you, Gunnar.”

“I believe someone is working against us. Possibly a renegade Marauder, but more likely a passenger with combat training.”

“Why do you say that?”

“One soldier on the lido deck and four on deck fifteen have gone missing.”

“How do you know?”

“They don't answer my radio calls, and I found bloodstains on the walls. I've alerted the others. They will notify me if they find any missing bodies. That's not the most telling sign, either, Captain. Someone found Jorgen and Sigurd tied up in the flagship with no sign of Oskar. Oskar was our only diver.”

Ragnar grumbled, “Make an announcement to all soldiers. Tell them to keep a lookout for defectors or defiant passengers. If you find him and he's one of ours, bring him to me. If it's a passenger, shoot him.”

“And if we don't track this person?”

“We'll have to search room to room, knocking on doors—knocking
down
doors. We question passengers and offer them sanctuary in return for information. If we find empty cabins, we comb through drawers and closets, looking for personal effects that might tip us.”

*   *   *

“At least I can enjoy a nicer room now,” Fawkes said halfheartedly. “Though the amenities are moot without electricity.”

“Doesn't matter,” Rove said. “You'll keep busy here.”

“More work?”

“Letter writing. We're going to teach Mr. Stahl a game of reverse hostage.”

“What exactly will I write?”

“Use the stationery by the nightstand to write the following message: ‘Every hour, if the hijackers have not lowered and filled an entire lifeboat with passengers, you will find five more of your men dead.'”

“What if he turns that plan on its head? For every one of his men you kill, he could threaten to kill even more passengers. There are more of us than there are guards.”

“He has no way of communicating a threat to me. He doesn't know who I am or which cabin I stay in. I, on the other hand, can write to him anonymously. With the public announcement system down, he can't respond. It's time to turn up the heat on him.”

“How will I deliver the note?”

“I'll be back to pick it up soon. Start writing.”

Rove left through the front door, carrying the rifle in one hand and dragging the bucket of chemicals with the other. With his scuba mask, spare cylinder, and knife at his belt, he proceeded to the forward elevators. He paused in the foyer to check the ship map. Then he turned a corner and entered a corridor leading to the bridge. At the sound of footsteps he withdrew into an alcove, opened a closet door, and hid. Two Marauders approached from his rear, snickering about some kind of payoff. They stopped near the closet. Rove peeked through a crack for a better look. They were listening to a new announcement sputtering through their portable radios:
All soldiers continue patrol, scout for possible defector or rebel passenger …

The announcement finished, and the guards walked on. When they'd passed, Rove opened the closet and proceeded toward the bridge entrance. He came to the door, crouched low, and listened.

“We take over a vessel while the Viking relaxes,” he heard someone say. “Captain, he carries no gun. He talks. We deserve a larger share.”

“Be patient, Sverre.” The voice belonged to Ragnar. As he listened, Rove removed his knife, punctured the plastic bags, and allowed the ammonia to mix with the bleach. He opened the bridge door and slid the bucket inside, already choreographing his next moves. “I agree with you,” Ragnar went on. “But we can't speak of this till we sail home. Our legion has many ears.”

“They will listen favorably.”

“All it takes is one to ruin everything.”

“You know your crew is loyal to you. And this isn't about treachery,” another responded. “It's about merit. We've earned more than the Viking's pledge. If any extorter were to understand, it would be him—that turnabout's fair play.”

Ragnar' reply was short and dutiful. “The Marauders will be rewarded.”

“We know you feel a certain allegiance to the man who helped you avenge Benedikt,” Sverre said. “Don't let that soften you.”

“Spare me your griping,” Ragnar said. “As soon as we sail, we'll find the Viking defenseless. That will be our … chance to…” He trailed off, sniffing. “What is that stench? My nostrils ache.”

“I smell it, too,” said another. “Pungent.”

“A gas leak?” Sverre suggested.

The portal slammed open with a loud crack. Rove stood in the doorway, eyes protected by his dive mask. His finger clamped the trigger. A steady stream of bullets discharged, shattering the glass panels. Splinters from the wood of the walls flew off with the exposed wind. Ragnar dove for cover, as did Sverre. The other men rushed for their guns, but they were too late, caught in Rove's broadside. Five hijackers fell in a tableau of carnage.

A yellow-green fog seeped into every corner of the room. Rove inhaled through his handheld cylinder and tried to avoid the rolling creep of the fumes. The others coughed, choking as asphyxiation took effect. He knew what it must have been like for them; little razors were slicing at their throats as they breathed.

“Grab the bucket!” Ragnar roared. “Stop the gas!”

Sverre ran out from behind the center island of computers, his submachine gun firing. The monitors smashed into pieces as a row of bullets chased him. Before he could reach the source of the fumes, three rounds impaled his ribs. Pain exploded throughout his upper body, coupled with a sudden, crippling weakness, and he lost his balance. He landed hard, and Rove finished him with a round through the skull.

“It's just me and you in here, Ragnar,” Rove shouted. “I'm protected from the fumes. You'd better get moving.”

Gas continued to leach out.

Squatting behind an overturned table in the port-side wing, Rove heard: “My men will kill you.”

“They have yet to put up a fight.”

Ragnar emptied one of his rifles into the ceiling over Rove. A cloud of dust and debris fell around him, the bullets causing infinitely more damage to the ship than to Rove.

Ragnar asked, “Who are you?”

“I could ask the same question, but I'd prefer to start with why you're here. Whatever you say, do it fast. Unless you start running, you don't have much time to live.”

The arms of the haze had begun to reach for Ragnar. He sputtered, resisting the chemical's strangle on him. He grabbed another rifle and fired at the table through obscured vision, kicking up a few more splinters. When his salvo failed, Ragnar reached for his radio and barked into it, “He's in the bridge. Send reinforcements. Beware the chlorine gas.” His message in Norwegian was hacked by coughs.

Rove unleashed another volley. Ragnar yelled in agony when a bullet ricocheted and struck his elbow, splitting bone. Sensing an opportunity, Rove held his breath, ran for the bucket, and lobbed the full pail of cleaning chemicals. The liquids splashed over the island of computers and doused Ragnar, who wailed louder when the fluid spilled into his open gash. The wound festered, ammonium hydroxide mixing with his blood.