"Is there a particular reason you want her there?" he asked.

"No, no, it's just..." The woman trailed off.

"Go on."

"It's just that Major Stromeyer is so good at requisitions."

Banner slid on a pair of pants and sat on the bed to put on his socks. "Major Stromeyer is great at requisitions," he said. "I've often thought that Major Stromeyer could requisition a trip to the moon and do it in a way so that no one in the government would complain."

The nervous a.s.sistant heaved a sigh. "I always get my paperwork wrong."

Banner felt sorry for the young woman. Especially since she probably wouldn't survive another month in the job.

"I'll bring Major Stromeyer." He rang off and called Stromeyer. When she answered in a voice filled with sleep, he almost regretted his promise. "Meeting at the DOD as soon as you can."

She gave a small groan. "Is my presence required?"

"The a.s.sistant asked for you specifically. I forget her name. The mousy one."

"Susan Plower."

By now Banner had his shoes on, and one sleeve of his shirt. He headed to the door with the rest of the shirt hanging off him. He snagged his car keys from a leather tray that sat on a credenza near the front door of his town house.

"She says she's bad at paperwork."

"She's terrible at paperwork. We'll finish the meeting, and she'll get it wrong, and then Darkview won't get paid for an additional six months while I straighten it all out. I'll see you in twenty-five minutes."

Banner walked into a DOD conference room populated with various personnel. They all looked relieved to see him, which should have made him feel good about himself but somehow only made him wary. Since Darkview specialized in missions to "hot" spots around the world, he wished someone would tell him which area had blown up. He didn't have long to wait. He watched Stromeyer enter the room and, directly behind her, the new undersecretary for international security policy and procedure, Jonathan Rickell.

Banner didn't know much about Rickell except that he'd been hired when the new administration took office and that he had a degree in international studies from the same Ivy League school the president had attended. About fifty years old, fit and balding, with shrewd eyes and a reputation for having an explosive temper, Rickell had been polite but distant the few times Banner had met him. Banner couldn't get a handle on him.

Rickell waved them all into their seats. The Plower woman sat at his right. She glanced at Stromeyer before giving Banner a look filled with grat.i.tude.

Rickell cleared his throat. "We've learned that the situation in Somalia has taken a sudden turn for the worse."

Banner wanted to groan out loud. He hated Somalia. He currently had ten security contracts for shipping companies plying the Gulf of Aden trade route, but none for security within Somalia. It was one of the few places he tried to avoid sending Darkview personnel, despite the fact that Somali operations allowed for premium pricing based upon the extreme danger. There were two other companies in the contract security business that routinely handled matters there and made great profits doing so. Banner wondered why they weren't represented at this meeting.

"Banner, I understand that you've been hired to protect some of the ships using the trade route and may have an operative in the Indian Ocean as we speak."

Stromeyer gave a little jerk next to Banner, revealing her surprise. Banner held still, but he felt the dread rising in him. No one, not even Rickell, should have known that Sumner was in the Indian Ocean. Whoever was tapping them must have leaked the information.

"I'm surprised to hear you say that. Where did you hear this?" Banner responded.

Rickell shrugged and turned to Plower. "Who told us that?"

Plower's face took on a frantic look while she shuffled through a stack of papers in front of her. After an awkward silence, when it became clear to everyone in the room that she was unable to divine the answer from the doc.u.mentation, Stromeyer reached across the table.

"Ms. Plower, why don't you hand me the forms and I'll look for the information while Secretary Rickell continues with the meeting." Plower gave Stromeyer a relieved nod and shoved the papers at her.

"Well? Do you have an operative there?" Rickell asked.

"I may." Banner wasn't prepared to tell Rickell everything until he knew what had occurred.

"You may? If you don't, I'll use Synocorp. Your company is far too controversial at the moment. Last thing I need is Cooley questioning my choices."

Banner kept his voice neutral. "Why don't you tell me what's happening, and I'll tell you if Darkview can help."

Rickell looked annoyed. "Here's what's happening: Three hours ago the USS Redoubtable answered a distress signal from a cruise ship headed to the Seych.e.l.les Islands. Seems they were under attack by pirates. While we are of course concerned about people on this ship, we are also deeply concerned about the international ramifications of intercepting the pirates without proper authority. As you know, the insurgents control most of Somalia as of last month, and they have inst.i.tuted patrols along the edge of Somali territorial waters."

"Who owns the ship?" Banner asked.

"It's registered in Liberia, flies the Liberian flag, is operated by a German shipping conglomerate, and is owned by the Bermudan subsidiary of an American holding company. The pa.s.sengers are tourists from ten different countries, including the U.S."

"So who's the lucky country that gets to intercept?"

Rickell shrugged. "None, or all of the above. The UN coalition forces have taken over patrolling the Gulf of Aden trade route, so the UN is first in line."

"What have they done?"

Ms. Plower spoke up. "They've sent a strongly worded letter demanding the pirates cease and desist."

"That'll work." Banner's voice was dry.

"CTG 600 is in the area but under attack by another pirate cell, so it will be at least eighteen hours before they can address the problem."

"Who insures the ship?" Stromeyer said.

"A Bermudan insurance company. They've indicated that they will pay a ransom immediately should the pirates successfully take the ship and pa.s.sengers. They feel quite strongly that the pirates should not be provoked into escalating violence. Deaths would only result in lawsuits. But we need to mount some action, because we're concerned about the cargo they're carrying."

"I thought you said it was a cruise ship, not a cargo ship," Banner said.

"It's both at the moment. It's carrying both tourists and cargo."

Rickell hesitated. Banner could see that he was weighing how much to tell about the incident. Banner decided to nudge him along.

"So what's the cargo?"

Rickell sighed. "It's carrying pharmaceutical supplies and vaccines."

Stromeyer looked up from the paper in front of her. "Sounds harmless enough."

Rickell shook his head. "We just received an intelligence report claiming that hidden within the boxes marked *vaccines' are two vials of ricin."

Banner watched Plower's mouth drop open.

"Is that a bomb?" she asked.

"It's poison derived from the beans of a castor plant. Introduce it into the food supply and thousands could die."

"And the boxes marked *pharmaceuticals'?" Stromeyer's voice was shocked.

Rickell shifted in his seat. "We're told they contain something more dangerous than ricin, but we were not informed of the exact nature of what's inside. Seems no one, not even our source, is sure what's in there."

"Which company manufactured the vaccines?"

"Price Pharmaceuticals," Plower said.

"Can they get us any closer? Is it chemical, mineral, explosive?" Banner asked.

"We think chemical. After all, chemical weapons are the future-everybody knows this."

Banner was already planning the rescue. "You said the Redoubtable received the call. Can they intervene?"

Rickell shook his head. "They're under attack from a small group of militants. I say small, but they're well armed. The Redoubtable is holding its own, of course, but there's no time to fight this battle and then get to the cruise ship."

"Don't you have some military in Djibouti? Why not have a guy parachute onto the ship?" Banner said.

"Our Djibouti team is training the African Union forces. When training's done, it's our hope that they will secure Mogadishu for the transitional government there."

"How much of Mogadishu does the transitional government control? I thought it was quite small," Stromeyer said.

"Three blocks," Rickell replied. He sighed. "I know it sounds like an impossible task."

Stromeyer shook her head. "Three blocks is more than most have been able to accomplish. Somalia's government was too failed for even bin Laden to control. He left within a month. And that guy thinks living out of a cave is normal."

"Where's the cruise liner?" Banner said.

"Their radar is out. We're not able to pinpoint their current location, but we think they were driven into Somali waters one hour ago, so we can't fly into that area."

Stromeyer's head snapped up from the doc.u.mentation in front of her. "Oh, yes, we can. We have a UN resolution that allows any rescue ship to continue pursuit into territorial waters. Somalia welcomed the help."

Banner kept quiet and let Stromeyer handle the conversation. His men on Gulf of Aden security details were ordered to apprehend any crews that attempted to take one of his clients' ships no matter where they were. They relied on the resolution when they chased pirates into the zone. Banner wasn't about to let the criminals off simply because they crossed some invisible line.

Plower spoke up. "That was last month. Now the insurgents control entire swaths of Somalia. They just sent us a demand that the resolution be suspended. They've informed us that any ships crossing into their territory will be considered to be trespa.s.sers and fired upon."

Banner snorted. "Tell them to go to h.e.l.l. Make them back off long enough to get us to the cruise liner. If they knew what's on it..."

"Under no circ.u.mstances must anyone in Somalia know what's on that ship!" Rickell said. "If they did, it would be overrun with criminals all looking to get at the ricin. We must maintain complete silence on this and continue on as we would in any other similar situation. Follow usual channels."

"And if the pirates successfully take the ship hostage?"

"Then we must guard the secret even more closely."

Banner saw Rickell's point. There was a good chance that even if the pirates were successful, they might never give the vaccines a second look. Generally when attacking a ship, they took it to a nearby port, docked it, and offloaded the pa.s.sengers. If the ship was still functioning, they used it until a ransom was paid. If not, they stripped it for parts and left it to rot. "What's the name of the ship?" Banner slid a notepad closer to take the information. He'd break radio silence and let Sumner know to keep as far away as possible.

"It's the Kaiser Franz out of Hamburg."

This time Stromeyer stayed absolutely still. It was Banner who jerked in surprise.

14.

"GIVE ME ALL THE FACTS YOU HAVE," BANNER SAID TO RICKELL.

Rickell nodded at Plower. "Go ahead."

"About an hour ago, the pirates attempted a standoff attack on the Kaiser Franz with rocket-propelled grenades. They managed to hit the ship twice before they were repelled."

"Repelled? How?" Stromeyer had stopped messing with the paper in front of her and was writing notes on a nearby notepad.

"That's the funny part. The pa.s.sengers heard sonic blasts coming from the upper decks. We a.s.sume that this was the sound of the Long Range Acoustic Device that's part of the Kaiser Franz's security equipment. But another pa.s.senger called his father in England and claimed that he heard gunfire coming from the ship as well."

"Why is that strange?"

"Guns are illegal on a cruise ship. It is unlikely that the Kaiser Franz has any."

"Could the pa.s.senger have mistaken the sound of the LRAD for gunfire?" Banner said.

Plower shook her head. "I thought that, too, but after the explosions erupted, the pa.s.senger said that the pirates manning the ships sustained obvious bullet wounds. They turned away immediately."

Banner kept quiet. He had a sneaking suspicion who was responsible for the shots. It was all he could do not to glance at Stromeyer. She took a deep breath, but before she could speak, Plower continued.

"Apparently the pa.s.senger's father spent some time in the English Royal Navy. He told the son that only a highly trained sniper could have delivered such accurate hits. I checked with our experts here, and they agree. We immediately pulled the manifest."

"May I see it?" Banner kept his voice mild.

Plower slid a piece of paper across to him. The manifest listed all the pa.s.sengers in alphabetical order. Sumner wasn't on it. Banner moved the list over to Stromeyer, who scanned it as well. She said nothing as she handed it back to Plower.

"Does it matter, really? Whatever was done saved the pa.s.sengers and crew."

Rickell waved a hand in the air. "It matters a lot to the insurgents. They're claiming that the boat is a decoy for the U.S."

"Decoy for what?" Banner said.

"They believe that the boat is actually dumping nuclear waste into the waters off Somalia."

Banner rubbed his forehead. "Oh, great."

"Relax, Banner, we're not dumping nuclear waste. Although some countries are, and that's another problem we'll have to address soon. Whatever is in that hold is far more dangerous than some nuclear waste. We need to save that ship, and soon."

"Any aircraft carriers in the area? You could arrange for air surveillance and security while the ship heads to port."