He couldn't hear anything, and he couldn't see anything. He slipped outside, duckwalked aft, and pulled himself hand over hand headfirst down the flight of stairs to the small deck that gave off his quarters. He got the door open and ran for the phone.

He cursed and slammed the receiver down. "Dead." He keyed his radio. Dead. He went for the computer. Access denied.

Hijacked two miles off the coast of goddamn Florida. What the hell did they want? What justified this big an operation?

He felt a sudden chill. The space shuttle.

The 76mm. They were going to use it to bring down the shuttle.

They must have been on board that freighter. They took the small boat when Mun 1 did the ROA. He spared an agonized thought for the boat crew, but he knew there was nothing he could do for them right now. The pirates, no, these weren't pirates, they were terrorists. Call the sons of bitches what they were. The terrorists had pretended the radio went bust and brought the small boat back to the cutter.

"Son of a bitch," he said out loud. "We actually brought them on board."

They had the bridge, CIC, and the 76mm for sure. Probably Main Control. They had to have Main Control if they wanted to maneuver the ship. They'd want control of the ship so he couldn't take it back and screw with their aim.

The gun locker. Forward of the hangar deck, just off the boat deck. One deck down from his cabin.

He cracked open his door and listened. The interior of the ship was as quiet as he'd ever heard it, the online diesel muted. He slipped into the passageway and moved quickly into Chief's Country. He opened every door he came to. No one was home, they were all out on deck watching the launch, on duty, or on liberty.

He kept moving.

CIC

"How far offshore are we?" Two miles.

"Range is what, six miles?"

"About."

"Good."

OS2 Riley's hands worked the controls nimbly, although they were shaking. "There. Target is acquired, and the automatic tracking is engaged."

When Akil didn't reply, Riley said more insistently, "We're done here. So long as your guys got the ammunition in the right holes, it's all up to the machines."

"Yes," Akil said, "it is. Stand away from the controls, please."

Riley rose to his feet, a sickly expression on his face. "I've done everything you want, everything you asked me to do."

"And you were well paid for your efforts," Akil said. "At least your family will suffer no needless privation from your death," and he shot him, once. A third eye appeared between Riley's eyebrows. He fell back without another sound, eyes wide open and staring at the bulkhead above.

"I'm sorry, but I never trust a traitor," Akil told him, and left CIC without haste, disabling the lock before he pulled the door shut behind him.

MIAMI

Patrick was almost weeping. "Sir, I am telling you. Isa is at this moment attempting to hijack a United States Coast Guard cutter off the coast of Florida."

It had taken an interminable half an hour to track down Kallendorf's location, and another ten minutes to pry the phone number out of directory assistance. For a spy agency, Patrick thought bitterly, we're just not very damn good, are we?

Melanie was a warm presence against his side, her hand cupping the back of his neck, her eyes loving and concerned. While he'd been waiting on Kallendorf, he'd used the hotel phone to call the local authorities. The problem was he didn't have a working relationship with anyone in Miami, except for a bored third-class detective down at Metro Dade who had long since packed it in for the night. He'd called the Pentagon. They'd promised to call him back right away. He was still waiting.

He'd woken Melanie in the mad scrabble for his cell phone. He couldn't use the hotel phone, not for something like this, it wasn't secure. He'd finally found his cell behind the nightstand when he called the number on the hotel phone and it went off. He must have kicked it there when he and Melanie-

"Patrick, what have you been smoking? I haven't heard of anything like this in the wind, and you just admitted, neither have you. Do you really think even your pet terrorist could pull something like this off without leaking a whisper of it to someone?"

"If anyone could, Isa could, sir."

"Patrick, look, I think maybe you've been working a little too hard. Why don't you take some time, catch some sun and sand and-"

"Goddammit!" Patrick said, surging to his feet.

Melanie flinched away from the bellow, crouched on the bed, staring up at him in alarm and not a little wonder.

"Why, Patrick," Kallendorf said, "I didn't know you had it in you."

"Sir, this is no time for your adolescent jokes. If you don't call the Coast Guard right now, I swear to God I'm calling the White House! I'll go over your head, sir, I sure as hell will! I'm telling you Isa is hijacking a Coast Guard cutter even as we speak, so he can use one of its weapons to take down the space shuttle! They're minutes away from launching, sir, minutes! Do you really want to go down in history as the CIA director who fiddled while the enemy blew up the most iconic symbol of American might and power ever? Do you?"

24

ON BOARD SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR

"T minus ten."

Ten minutes to launch. Still wearing dry pants. Still with her heart beating faster than any human heart ever had. In twenty minutes she could be in space. Correction. In twenty minutes she would be in space.

ON BOARD USCG CUTTER MUNRO

There couldn't be that many of them if they'd all fit into Mun 1 on the way over. He could raise a hue and cry and alert his crew.

But none of his crew were at present armed. He thought of Myers. The terrorists were.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to launch. Nine.

He swung around the foot of the stairs and diverted momentarily to put his head into the chief's mess. No one there, either. He wanted GMC and he wanted him now, but GMC was on liberty. He stepped back and turned to head for the door to the main deck and crashed into someone coming from the opposite direction.

There was a clang of metal dropped on metal followed by a curse not spoken in English. Going on instinct Cal hit out blindly, his right hand connecting with someone's belly. He shoved him out of the way and went scrabbling about the floor looking for what the man had dropped. A foot connected solidly with his side and he grunted. His hand touched the butt of a pistol and he snatched it up and brought it to bear. His finger was squeezing the trigger when the same foot came out of nowhere and kicked it out of his hand.

His hand went instantly numb. He dropped the weapon.

The pistol clanged off down the passageway. The other man went after it. Cal went for the door, got it open in record time, and tumbled out on the main deck. He hotfooted it to the forward stairs and pelted up to the boat deck. Behind him he heard running footsteps. They hit the stairs. He ran aft, making sure his own footsteps hit the deck loudly enough to be heard, ducking out of the way of the Darwin sorter.

As he had hoped, his pursuer was not so lucky. He hit the Darwin sorter at full throttle and from the sound of it laid himself flat out on the deck. Cal didn't stop to check, didn't try to find the pistol in the dark, he kept going until he got to the forward door of the hangar, worked the lever, and got inside, pulling it shut behind him.

"Captain?"

He jumped about a foot. "Jesus!" he said, peering through the dark. "Who's that?"

"Noyes."

The aviator. "What are you doing here?"