Final Resort

And none of them would be afraid to crack it open, given half a chance.

2

Straits of Florida

“Full speed ahead,” Captain Arnold Bateman said, peering through his binoculars at open sea before the Tropic Princess. From the giant cruise ship’s bridge, he had the vantage of a man standing atop a twelve-story hotel, with no clouds overhead and nothing to obstruct his view to eastward.

In fact, the Tropic Princess looked like a hotel that had been set adrift somehow, as if by magic, floating on the sea when it should logically be squatting on a corner of Park Avenue or the Las Vegas Strip. The ship measured 960 feet from bow to stern and weighed 115,000 tons. Beneath the captain’s feet, three thousand passengers were anxiously awaiting the vacation of a lifetime, while twelve hundred crew members and entertainers worked around the clock to meet the needs of paying customers—and to keep the behemoth afloat.

During a classic two-week cruise, the British captain’s passengers were treated to a taste of Cuba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela and Jamaica. Shore excursions granted them the opportunity to browse and carouse in each port.

It was not all island-hopping, though. For those who truly loved to cruise, the ship was self-contained, permitting them to pass the full two weeks in luxury without ever setting foot on dry land. The ship featured seven restaurants, three swimming pools and seven spas, a dinner theater and cabaret, a discotheque, a first-run cinema, three gymnasiums, a fully staffed infirmary and a casino.

Most days, the captain liked his job. Granted, some passengers were no better than spoiled children, posing as adults, but Bateman managed to avoid them for the most part, choosing only a select few for the honored nightly ritual of dining at the captain’s table. Minors were excluded, and his steward had an eye for younger women, well endowed, whose husbands or companions didn’t mind the captain peering at their cleavage over cocktails and filet mignon.

On balance, Bateman worried more about his crew than any of his passengers. Despite the smiling photos the cruise line printed in its various brochures, some of the employees were a surly lot, uneducated, and the screening process left a lot to be desired. Substance abuse and petty theft were more or less routine. Some members of the crew engaged in smuggling; others moonlighted as prostitutes or gigolos.

So far, the present cruise had been smooth sailing, both in terms of weather and the human element. There’d been no quarrels among the passengers or crew, no incidents ashore demanding Bateman’s intervention. If his luck held, they could all relax and—

Bateman lowered his binoculars and turned, facing two new arrivals on the bridge. He sometimes welcomed passengers topside, by invitation only, but the swarthy men who stood before him now were strangers, neither members of his crew nor anyone whom Bateman would’ve chosen to observe the inner workings of the ship.

Wearing a corporate smile, he asked, “How may I help you, gentlemen?”

The guns seemed to appear from nowhere, one of them pointed at Bateman’s face.

“If you cooperate with us,” its owner said, “perhaps no one aboard this ship will die today.”

SOHRAB CASPARI THOUGHT, It almost seems too easy. After all the planning, all the risk, the bloody skirmish at Guantanamo, the capture of the Tropic Princess struck him almost as an anticlimax, disappointing in its stark simplicity.

But it was done.

Beside him, Osman Zarghona, his Afghani second in command, covered the bridge crew with his AKSU assault rifle, while Caspari kept his Uzi submachine gun leveled at the gray-haired captain. In addition to their main automatic weapons, both hijackers also carried pistols, hand grenades and knives.

“Is this some kind of joke?” the captain asked.

“Perhaps I should kill one of your men, to see if we are joking. Yes?” Caspari answered.

“No. That won’t be necessary,” the captain said. “What, exactly, do you want?”

“Before we speak of that,” Caspari said, “know that we aren’t alone. I have more men aboard your ship, with weapons and enough explosives to destroy it.”

“I see.” The captain frowned and said, “How many gunmen—”

“Freedom fighters!” Zarghona snapped.

“Yes, of course. How many freedom fighters are there, may I ask?”

“Enough to do the job,” Caspari told him. Fishing in his left-hand pocket for a cell phone, he explained, “I keep in touch through this. The marvels of technology. You only see them—hear them—if and when I say. Follow instructions, and your passengers may suffer no disturbance.”

“As to these instructions,” Captain Bateman said, “what might they be?”

“We have demands,” Caspari answered, “which you will broadcast over your radio. Freedom for comrades wrongfully imprisoned. Reparation payments. Other things. If the Americans defy us, then we will be forced to execute your passengers and crew.”

“Don’t take offense, old chap,” the captain said, “but you’ve been misinformed. This ship is not American. Its owners are Italians, Greeks—one Saudi, I believe. It’s registered in Panama. I doubt that Washington will care what happens to the Tropic Princess. Certainly, they won’t negotiate with…freedom fighters, like yourselves.”

“You think me foolish, yes?” Caspari said, sneering. “That is a serious mistake. We know that half your passengers are from the U.S.A. They cannot visit Cuba from America, so rich pigs fly to Mexico and board your ship. All this is public knowledge. Glory to the Internet.”

“I grant you that we have Americans aboard,” Bateman replied. “I’m simply saying that—”

“You say too much!” Caspari snapped. “Is time for you to listen, now. You will broadcast our very fair and just demands, or face the consequences of defiance. Must I demonstrate by executing someone here and now? That one, perhaps?”

Caspari swung his Uzi toward a young man standing frozen, several paces to the captain’s left. The target blanched and trembled in his crisp white uniform.

“No, please!” the captain blurted. “I’m simply trying to prepare you for the disappointment you will face in bargaining with the Americans.”

“I fear no disappointment,” Caspari said. “I and all my men are quite prepared to die. Your passengers and crew, I think, value their lives and comfort more than principle.”

The captain’s shoulders slumped. “You have a list, for my communications officer?”

“His services are not required,” Caspari said. “Prepare the radio and stand aside, while I address the world.”

“Of course,” Bateman said. “As you wish. About your other men…”

Caspari checked his wristwatch. “I must speak to them in nineteen minutes, and at each half hour after that.” He nodded toward Zarghona and explained, “Should either of us fail to make contact on schedule, it means the destruction of your ship.”

“I understand,” Bateman replied. “We pose no threat to you. Which one of you will follow me to the communications room?”

Washington, D.C.

NABI ULMALHAMA HELD A wooden match precisely one inch below the square-cut tip of his Cuban cigar. He spent a moment savoring the taste of rum-soaked tobacco leaves, then reached out for his glass of twenty-year-old scotch.

Strict Muslim teachings barred the use of alcoholic beverages, but Ulmalhama reckoned that God granted dispensation for selected, special servants of His cause.

Listening to early-evening traffic rumble past his posh Georgetown apartment, Ulmalhama nearly missed the deferential knocking on his study door.

“Enter,” he said.

His houseman crossed the thick carpet silently, half-bowed to Ulmalhama as he said, “Sir, if you care to watch the news?”

“Of course.”

Waiting until the houseman left him, Ulmalhama picked up the remote control and switched on his giant flat-screen television, flicking through the channels until he found CNN. A blond reporter stood before a cruise ship, speaking urgently into a handheld microphone. The dateline banner covering her breasts told Ulmalhama she was in Miami. He pressed another button to increase the volume.

“The ship is much like the one behind me, only somewhat larger. Now, we understand the Tropic Princess is the flagship of the Argos Cruise Line, launched in June 2006. It can accommodate three thousand passengers. And I’m told the ship is booked to full capacity this evening, after taking on new passengers in Cuba. With the crew, we make it four thousand two hundred people presently aboard the Tropic Princess, hijacked in the Straits of Florida.”

The station cut away to a grim-looking anchorman. The newsman said, “We now have audio from the hijackers on the Argos cruise ship, broadcasting a list of their demands over an open frequency. This signal was recorded ten minutes ago, from the Tropic Princess in international waters. We air it now, for the first time.”

Ulmalhama sat and listened, with his eyes closed, to the gruff, familiar voice.