Sea of Terror by Stephen Coonts & William H. Keith

Author:Stephen Coonts & William H. Keith [Coonts, Stephen & Keith, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Suspense, Espionage, Action & Adventure, Political, Intelligence Officers, Undercover Operations, Terrorists, Government Investigators, Cyberterrorism, National Security, Nuclear Terrorism, Hijacking of Ships
ISBN: 9780312946968
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2003-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Neptune Theater, Atlantis Queen North Atlantic Ocean 47deg 40' N, 10deg 09' W Saturday, 1823 hours GMT

david llewellyn sat in one of the plush theater seats, his wrists tightly strapped together at the small of his back, another zip strip binding his ankles, a strip of cloth tightly cinched between his teeth and tied at the back of his head. An entire afternoon of cautious struggle had done nothing but chafe the skin of his wrists raw.

He glanced to his right, where Tricia Johnson was slumped in the theater seat next to his. At least the bastards had let them get dressed before hauling them down here; she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Llewellyn, though, was distinctly chilly. All he'd had available to put on in Tricia's stateroom was his swim trunks.

She met his gaze, and he saw her eyes darken with anger before she sharply turned her head away. They hadn't been able to talk much since the intruders had broken into her stateroom and hauled them out of bed. Clearly, though, she knew he was Ship's Security and not a rich passenger who'd known her at Penn State. Presumably she was also angry that he'd not done anything to stop this . .. this invasion.

He looked around the theater, an enormous bowl-shaped auditorium located at the extreme forward part of the ship's superstructure, occupying Decks One, Two, and Three. With two levels of balcony above the main floor, the theater was large enough to hold a thousand people or more. At the moment, however, it held perhaps a hundred or so--a few passengers but mostly men and women wearing Royal Sky uniforms. Perhaps twenty or thirty wore security uniforms; clearly, the hijackers had spent the afternoon rounding up shipboard security personnel and anyone else who might pose a problem. All of them, like him and Tricia, were bound hand and foot, and gagged, and all were clustered in the front-center few rows of seats, just below the stage. There were four men in khaki uniforms and carrying AK-47 assault rifles stationed in the balconies, giving them a perfect view of their prisoners.

Llewellyn was trying to think the situation through. This was a hijacking, obviously enough. Their captors looked Middle Eastern, and the Russian-made weapons suggested they were from one or several of the old Soviet Union's Arab clientele. Al-Qaeda, perhaps? Or Hamas? There was no way to tell. Whoever they were, they continued to bring people into the theater, singly or in small groups.

He heard a door bang far up the aisle behind him and turned in his seat, trying to see. A soldier was walking down the aisle, guiding a woman with a grip on her upper arm. Llewellyn's eyes widened slightly when he recognized her as Sharon Reilly, the ship's Cruise Director, her normally perfectly coiffed blond hair in disarray, her expression one of sheer fury. She struggled against the man's grip, her hands bound behind her back, but the guard forced her along quickly, bringing her down the aisle to the row where Llewellyn was sitting.

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