“Who the hell are you?” one of the Marshals snarled. “Being an army officer doesn’t give you authority in this airport. This man is our prisoner. He’s under arrest for breaking Federal rules. There’s nothing you can do about that, so stand aside and let us do our work, or we’ll put you in the cell with him.”

  Kelly stepped forward until his face was six inches away from the Marshal’s flabby cheeks.

  “I’ve come from a meeting with your boss. That’s the President of the United States, in case you didn’t realize. Would you like me to explain to him how you behaved here? I watched you men ignore an obvious threat and then stand aside while this officer dealt with it for you. And then you arrest him! I’m not sure whether to report you for dereliction of duty or a lack of basic mental faculties. But either way, you will release that man immediately, or I’ll see to it that you spend the next twenty years inside a Federal penitentiary for failing to do your jobs and respond to a threat of clear and present danger.”

  “But I was only doing my…”

  “No! There are only two possible outcomes here. Either way, this man will be released. The question is, do you leave this terminal in handcuffs or not?”

  With bad grace, he nodded to the other men, and they freed Talley. Kelly watched them and gave a satisfied nod.

  “Lieutenant, come with me. You men,” he turned to the Marshals, “I suggest you start preparing your report. I promise you a request will be made from the White House before the end of the day. They’ll want to see everything that happened here, the security videos, as well as an individual report from each of you. You’d better believe that your testimony may yet be used in court when people start asking questions about your failures. Now get about your business and secure this terminal. Move!”

  They scattered, astonished that their petty authority had been trumped so readily. Kelly turned to Talley. “Come back to the VIP room, son. I’d like a word with you. And by the way, I owe you my thanks. I guess they were after me.”

  “No need for thanks, Sir. But yes, it seems you were the target.”

  They walked through the door into the quiet luxury of the VIP lounge. Kelly’s aides had emptied it of passengers. There was only General Kelly, his officers, and Talley.

  “Which branch are you, Lieutenant?”

  “Navy Seals, Sir. Coronado.”

  Kelly nodded. “So I presume you were here in Washington for NATFOR.”

  Talley nodded. “Something like that, yes, Sir.”

  Old security habits died hard. But then again, this was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Maybe he should lighten up.

  “I assume you were accepted?”

  “Yes, Sir, I was. Echo Six, I’ll be joining them at Bragg in a couple of weeks for training.”

  “It’s an intensive course, and I had some input into some of the challenges you guys will have to face. I don’t envy you. But when you graduate, you’ll be ready for anything.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “They got a commander yet, this Echo Six?”

  “No, Sir. It’s a new unit, and we’ll be shaking down together before they make a decision.”

  “But they’ll choose this guy from inside the squad?”

  “Yes, Sir, I believe so.”

  Kelly nodded again. “My thanks again, Lieutenant. I gather a couple of civilians were shot during that fracas. Those Marshals ought to be hung out to dry. They sure will if anyone listens to what I have to say. Maybe we’ll meet again, Lieutenant. Let’s hope it’s under happier circumstances. Good luck with your new assignment.”

  He took the General’s offered hand, and an aide showed him out. There may just be time to catch his flight back to San Diego. It was a forlorn hope. When he reached the gate, the flight attendant gave him a stern look.

  “You’re too late, I’m afraid, the gate closed three minutes ago. If you’d like to go to the United counter, you can enquire about a later flight if there are any spare seats. You’ll have to pay, of course.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

  Christ, what a day! He handed over three hundred dollars more for a later flight to San Diego, then sat down to wait. He’d almost been killed here in Washington, and he was still trying to work out who was the greater threat, the Arabs or the Marshals. Now he was returning to a cold, empty home in San Diego.

  What the hell is happening to me? If there’s such a thing as luck, I’m fresh out of it.

  “Fuck it,” he said quietly to himself. “All they’ve gotta do now is hijack the flight to really make this the day from hell.”

  An elderly woman was sitting nearby. She was fiddling with a deaf aid, but whatever she’d done to the volume, she turned fast to stare at him.

  “What? What was that about a hijack? You should watch what you say, Mister, or I’ll report you to the Federal Air Marshals.”

  He gave her a tired smile. “You’re right, Ma’am. It was my mistake. Please accept my apologies.”

  “I should think so too!” Her frosty glance lingered a while, then she got to her feet and moved to a seat in the next row.

  Talley sat quietly on his own, doing his best to emulate three wise monkeys. From this moment on, he’d see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. He heard a voice intrude on his self-imposed solitude.

  “Hey, that’s my seat, Buster. I was sitting there.”

  He looked up at a large woman squeezed into a voluminous, belted trench coat, carrying a heavy purse in one hand and a fire bucket sized carton of popcorn in the other. He sighed and got to his feet.

  “My mistake, sorry, Ma’am.”

  * * *

  There was hardly a breath of wind, and Sam Meers, former ROTC with the coastguards, decided to leave the kids at the helm. Below decks on the forty-foot ketch, there was still plenty to do, he mused. First things first, he moved across to the chart table and checked their course, comparing it with the overhead GPS repeater. He frowned. They were too far to the northwest, and these were dangerous waters; pirate waters. Sailing around the world out of their home city of Boston, they’d crossed the Atlantic and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa. Now they were heading across the Indian Ocean to Goa, the former Portuguese colony off the west coast of India. They’d spent a couple of nights in Port Elizabeth, which allowed time for sightseeing and replenishing supplies, and they’d put out to sea again. The plan was to hug the coast of Africa, sail up the Mozambique Channel, and then head east across the ocean to Goa, with a stop in the Seychelles along the way. He remembered the advice from the police post in Port Elizabeth.

  “As soon as you clear the island of Mozambique, immediately head due east. If you keep heading north, that’s Somali waters, pirate waters. Very dangerous.”

  He’d explained it all to his fifteen-year-old son Toby. How the maneuver to the east was so critically important. The boy was young to steer the craft through the night, that was true, but there were so many navigational aids, the boat almost steered itself. But in this case, almost didn’t cut it.

  He’d repeated himself at least three times. “As soon as we’re two miles clear of Mozambique, put the wheel over and head due east. Got it?”

  “Sure, I’ve got it, Dad. No sweat. I’ll take care of it.”

  According to his chart, they were now almost sixty miles north of Mozambique. Toby had been on watch since just after midnight. The boy had insisted he was old enough to handle it. Sam had woken several times in the night to check on him, and Suzy, his daughter and Toby’s younger sister, had joined her brother at dawn.

  Did the boy fall asleep at the wheel?

  He called out to Judith, who was still dressing in the forward cabin. “I’m going up top, darling. We’re off course. I need to check with Toby.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll finish dressing, and then I’ll cook breakfast, so take your time. Tell the kids chow’s up in thirty minutes.”

  But he was already running up the short companionway ladder that led to the cockpit. Something was wrong. The boat had slowed, and there was no good reason for it to slow. He reached the cockpit, and to his relief, Toby and Suzy were safe.

  “Why are you slowing down, son?”

  “Those guys in the boat, Dad, they’re waving at us. I guess they might need our help. Or something, I’m not sure,” he added uncertainly.

  Sam stared across the flat sea. Fifty yards off their starboard side, a big inflatable RIB was keeping pace with them. The boat was crammed with men, armed men. He counted eight of them, six armed with AK47 rifles. The other two carried shoulder launched RPG missiles. Several of them were waving, that was true. Waving at them to heave to and stop. He had no choice, so he hit the button under the control panel to stop the engine and waited for them to come aboard.

  The Meers family watched with dismay as the laughing, leering Somalis rampaged through their boat, ripping out closets, drawers, snatching anything of value. Sam watched from the rear of the cockpit, standing in front of his family, keeping himself between them and the pirates, but knowing it was a futile gesture. Judith stormed at one of the Somalis when he came out of the cabin carrying the part of the contents of her closet, an evening dress she’d treasured for the few occasions when they could dine ashore.

  “Hey, you, leave that alone! I paid a fortune for that dress.”

  The man laughed at her, and they recoiled. His face was brutish, thick lips, black teeth drawn back in a snarl, and a face that bore the scars of repeated knife wounds. He stared at her for a long moment; an expression of longing on his face. Another pirate, who appeared to be in in command, shouted something to him. The man laughed and carried on throwing the spoils into the RIB. The leader walked across to the Meers family.

  “Everything on this boat has been confiscated,” he said with a smile. “So it is useless to tell my men to stop. None of this belongs to you, not anymore.”

  His English was almost perfect, his voice calm. He was about twenty-five years old and short, perhaps five feet four inches tall, and an inch shorter than Judith. But he had the body of an athlete, with smooth ebony skin and hard well-defined muscles, and the confident air of a man who commanded other men.

  “In fact, the boat has been confiscated too.”

  He chuckled, inviting the family to join in the joke. After college, Sam had served his early years on a Coastguard patrol vessel. He’d learned about weapons, despite spending most of his time learning about ships and the sea, rather than guns and ammo. He studied the weapon in the man’s holster. It was something he hadn’t come across before, and without doubt the largest handgun he’d even seen. The man noticed the direction of his gaze and proudly drew the weapon, a revolver.

  “You like my gun, do you? It’s a Smith & Wesson Model 500. She’s a five-shot, double-action revolver, firing the .500 S&W Magnum cartridges. When I shoot someone with this little toy, they’re dead. Bang, bang! Know what I mean?”

  He grinned, but Sam got the point.

  He nodded. “I know what you mean. What are you planning to do with us? Will you put us ashore?”

  The man exploded into laughter. He called out to his men and told them what Sam had asked. They grinned, pointing at him in derision as they continued searching the yacht for valuables.

  “You may as well know what I have planned for you. My name is Joshua Nkebe, and I am the leader of this group. We will take you ashore, certainly, but you will be held captive until your ransom is paid.”

  “Ransom? What are you talking about? We don’t have any money! Every penny we owned was put into buying this boat.”

  Nkebe laughed. “You must have family who care about you. They will find a way to pay. Perhaps they will sell some property, cash in some stocks, whatever. It’s immaterial. What is important is that you understand the only way you leave Somalia, is after the ransom’s paid.”

  “You motherfucker!” Judith flared. “You want to bankrupt our families to pay for your filthy lifestyle? They’ll never go for it. We’re not rich.”

  He shrugged, ignoring the insult. “They’ll find the money. They always do.”

  “And if they don’t?” Sam asked him.

  He laughed again. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, we do, Mister,” Judith shouted. “Tell us. What are the alternatives?”

  “Alternatives? There is only one. If the ransom is not paid, we kill you. We have no choice. We have to show people that we mean business.”

  “You got the yacht. You can sell that,” Sam insisted.

  “Oh, we will, we will. But the ransom is what we need. I would guess we’d be looking at about five million for the four of you.”

  “Five million! That’s crazy. We don’t know anyone who can raise that kind of money.”

  The man shrugged. “Then we kill you. It serves a purpose, you see. When people see your bodies, it encourages the other families to somehow find the money. But you shouldn’t worry, not yet. They usually pay up.”

  ‘Usually’ didn’t cut it, not where a man’s family was concerned. Sam Meers had only one slight hope, something that might help them in their current predicament. He’d activated the hijack beacon, and someone may notice. If not, they were dead.

  * * *

  He should have stayed with the Navy Seals, but his new job had required him to quit the US Navy to sign up for NATFOR. Lieutenant Abe Talley was leading a team of men up an almost sheer rockface in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They’d been transported by helo the two hundred miles from Fort Bragg, where they’d trained to exhaustion for the past two months. This was an exercise designed to push them to the limits; an assault up a hundred meter cliff to a prepared position at the top, manned by a squad of Bragg’s instructors. If they were successful, they went on to complete the final month of training before assignment to operations. They were not joining an ordinary unit. The President and Secretary General of the United Nations, together with the NATO members, had decided to respond to the mounting terrorist threat by putting together a combined force, NATFOR, using exclusively men drawn from the Special Forces of six nations that had agreed to participate. Not everyone was in favor of the new unit, especially some of the senior United Nations people. Only the intervention of Ban Ki-Moon had overridden their objections and given them the mandate to extend the fight against Islamic terrorism to the whole of the globe. Some crazy staff officer had designated the twenty man squads ‘Sixes’, a nod to the six nations that would be represented in each unit. They’d given Talley leadership of Echo Six, following a word to the NATO commanders from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It had been well meant, following his action at Reagan National Airport, but what should have been an honor, the peak of his military career to date, was in retrospect more of a millstone. His squad had the orneriest, most awkward, egotistical men he’d ever encountered. Maybe it was because they were from different elite units that they followed the urge to compete, to be the best, to the bitter end. It meant they were not easy to lead. Like right now, when he’d told them to follow him up the cliff face. Already, he could see two of his men ten meters above him, climbing the sheer rockface as if they had suckers attached to their hands and feet. Sous Lieutenant Michel Dubois, a French paratrooper from the 2nd Regiment, Etranger de Parachutistes, or Foreign Legionnaires, the 11th Parachute Brigade. He was a man born with an inbuilt sense of Gallic superiority. And Sergeant Karl Brenner of the German KSK Kommando Spezialkräfte; determined to show there was no fighting man in the world to compete with the best that Germany could offer. They’d almost flown up the cliff face, ignoring every precaution that he’d insisted on to prevent unnecessary casualties. He wanted them to understand that getting to a mission in one piece was almost as important as fighting it with bravery and skill. Yet he knew there was nothing he could do to rein them in. If he tried to make them follow his orders, they pretended not to understand English, despite all of them having been chosen for their fluency. Men like that lived on the edge. They thrived on danger, on challenge, and competition; as long as they stayed alive.

  “A bunch of crazy assholes, Lieutenant.”

  He looked across and down, the Britisher was three meters from him, Sergeant Guy Welland from the British 22 SAS Regiment. As tough and hard as they come, and with a background in the kind of black operations the secretive English unit was famous for; and rarely ever spoke about. Welland looked to be in his late twenties, medium-build, and the only giveaway that inside the compact body was something exceptional were the straight, wide shoulders, like granite shelves jutting out either side of his head. Everything else about him was compact, hard, and neat. The determined jaw, short jet black hair combed straight back, and deep dark eyes that normally looked out at the world with a dreamy, thousand-yard stare. Except when he concentrated, then they focused like powerful twin headlights. He looked like a man who never sweated anything. He was both competent and hard, the very essence of a British SAS NCO. Despite opposition, Talley had made him his number two, over the heads of other members of the unit who were more senior. So far, Welland had done nothing to suggest he’d made a wrong decision.

  “You’re probably right, Guy. But as long as they don’t make any noise when they fall, I’ve no complaints.”

  He knew they wouldn’t fall, for they were perfectionists. If they ever left the military, they’d make a fortune in the mountain climbing business.

  Welland nodded. They were all carrying full equipment for the assault. Their SCAR rifles, a new development, weighed almost eight pounds, and the 5.56mm ammunition they carried in clips festooned around their webbing added substantially to the weight. Over their MTP camouflage, the multi-pattern design that enabled a soldier to almost disappear into most terrains, they wore armored vests, and on their heads the useful CGF Gallet Half Head Helmet. Added to the weight of their assault rifles and armor, each man carried a heavy pack, containing amongst other things spare ammunition for the SAW M249, the Squad Automatic Rifle, the unit’s machine gun; as well as grenades and explosive charges for the final assault on the target. Every man carried the sidearm of his choice, and like most of them, Talley carried his 9mm Sig Sauer P226, a weapon that had saved his life on several occasions during his service in the Seals. They carried no climbing ropes and no pitons or other climbing aids. This was free climbing, a test to demonstrate the almost superhuman abilities these men would need when they went into action. He smiled as he remembered the safety question the Italian had asked Captain Killian. Lieutenant Domenico Rovere was Italian Special Operations Airborne, a former member of the 4th Alpini Parachutist Regiment ‘Monte Cervino’. He was dark like most Italians, dark haired, olive skinned, and dark eyed. He was well built, more muscled than Guy Welland, with a baby face made him appear much younger than his twenty-five years. Rovere’s specialty was chasing the ladies, when he wasn’t playing practical jokes on other members of the unit or quoting poetry. They were wary of him now, and apart from new recruits, he’d given up the jokes for the most part. Maybe it was to have more time and energy to spend on his main pastime. Women. He also had a secondary pastime, quoting Shakespeare and romantic poetry. It was a close call whether it was harder to bear than the jokes.