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.Hand over struggling hand, they pulled the craft forward against the current pulling at them.People always underestimated water, but she knew it to be one of the mightiest forces of nature.Vanessa grunted at her.“Give me a position report relative to the hatch.”Aleesha shifted quickly to the right side of the rudder stick and leaned out over the right rim of the dinghy.The ship’s black hull swelled outward in a graceful curve overhead, making it difficult to spot the thin outline of the hatch they sought.The ship had two crew hatches through which the crew embarked and disembarked during ports of call.Both were on the second deck, only a dozen feet or so above the waterline, and more to the point, both had a small, surveillance camera–blind entryway directly inside each of them.It was through the starboard one of these hatches that they planned to gain entry to the ship.Because of the pervasive cameras throughout the Grand Adventure, they’d had to toss out easier methods of boarding like climbing over a railing onto a deck or dropping in by parasail from above.Aleesha announced, “Got visual on it.Thirty feet or so forward of our current position.”She continued to give distance calls as the other women laboriously inched the Zodiac forward until it was about fifteen feet behind the hatch.They had to stop here because a security camera looked back along the forward portion of the ship’s hull.But, the Grand Adventure’s chief engineer had assured them this afternoon that this particular spot was camera blind.And she’d bet he’d be installing more cameras in his company’s ships to fix that little oversight as soon as this fiasco was over.Karen tied off the rope in preparation for the next step of this tricky operation.Aleesha helped Kat, by far the smallest member of the team, don a set of rubber climbing cleats over her boots.Attached to each cleat was a dinner-plate-size suction cup positioned over the inside of her ankle.Then, Misty passed Kat a pair of fist-size handles with suction cups attached to each of them, as well.Aleesha didn’t envy Kat the next part of the job.She got to free climb the outward sloping steel hull of the ship up to the hatch they’d use to board the Grand Adventure.“Go get ’em, Spiderwoman,” Aleesha encouraged her.Kat smiled back jauntily.“I’ve always wanted to be a cat burglar.Tonight’s my chance.”Aleesha held her breath as her teammate scaled the ship, hanging from the suction cups like a leech clinging tenaciously to the curving hull.Kat worked her way forward until she was well in front of the Zodiac’s blunt prow.If Kat fell now, she’d hit the water just in time to be run over by her own teammates.A couple more pull-ups and foot plants later, Kat was parked beside the hatch.Aleesha breathed a sigh of relief.Another tricky moment was upcoming.They had to open a one-foot square panel beside the main hatch to gain access to an electronic lock that opened the hatch from the outside—all without blowing up the locking mechanism itself.Aleesha leaned hard to the right in the dinghy, craning her neck to watch Kat plant a small shape charge.It was a fist-size cone of peppermint-pink putty, a low-order explosive that looked like a cheerful little unicorn horn stuck to the side of the hull.Perfect.Kat had put it exactly where Aleesha’d told her to, right over the latch that held the panel shut.She slapped a hand over her eyes as Kat jammed a detonator into the putty and mashed the button on the remote controller at her waist to set it off.The pink cone blew up with a quiet thump, and when Aleesha uncovered her eyes to look up, the small access door hung open, still on its hinges.Hah! And Bud Lipton had been skeptical that they could blow the cover panel without damaging the keypad beneath.She hadn’t been trained in explosive ordinance handling by Delta’s best for nothing! Of course, the pad had yet to work.She held her breath as Kat keyed in the override codes provided by the Adventure Cruise Line’s chief engineer.A crack of light appeared around the edges of a man-size rectangle.Bingo.They were in! And now they had to move like lightning to get on the ship and away from that door before an alarm on the bridge called down an armed investigation to a suddenly and inexplicably open hatch.While Aleesha manned the rudder to stabilize the dinghy, the others hauled the dinghy forward, positioning it directly under the hatch.Meanwhile, Kat muscled the hatch open and stepped inside, rapidly unfurling a rope ladder from her back.She hooked it over the raised lip of the hatch, and tossed it down.Vanessa caught the bottom of the ladder to steady it.Quickly the other women went up, straddling one of the rope supports between their thighs and inserting their feet on the rubber rungs from front and back as they climbed the side of the ladder.It was the only way to keep a rope ladder from swinging out from under a person if the bottom of the ladder wasn’t tied down.Aleesha would go last, cutting loose the Zodiac at the last possible moment.They wanted to leave themselves an escape route for as long as they could during this critical first stage.Vanessa stepped onto the ladder next to last, and it jerked with her quick movements as she disappeared into the darkness overhead.Then it was Aleesha’s turn.She shouldered her heavy pack and slung her MP-5 over that.The weapon was a light submachine gun that had become practically an extension of her arm in the last six months of training.Aleesha moved to the front of the Zodiac beside the rope ladder.The dinghy slid sideways ominously with nobody tending the tiller.She set her foot on the first rung, and the ladder swung away from her weight.Without anyone steadying the bottom, it was even more vital that she climb the side of it and not try to use it like a traditional wooden ladder.Clinging precariously, one foot on a slippery rung and her left hand grasping the wet rope, she leaned down.The heavy pack at her back nearly overset her balance, and she checked hard to keep herself from tumbling into the ocean.Damn, that was close.A fall now could very well send her under the ship and kill her.Her field knife grasped tightly in her right hand, she leaned down again—carefully—and sawed at the rope attaching the Zodiac to the grappling hook.Her scalpel-sharp blade bit through the wet nylon in just a few strokes, and the Zodiac leaped backward, abruptly free of the line dragging it forward.She ducked as the dinghy’s nose skipped into the air and flipped over.She glanced over her shoulder in time to see it go under, caught in the pull of the ship’s propellers.A shudder rippled down her spine at the sight.So much for any evidence of their boarding.She looked up at the square of light above and climbed the slippery ladder as quickly as she could.They were committed now.Their only escape route had just been shredded to ribbons.They were stranded on the Grand Adventure with a team of violent terrorists, fifteen hundred innocents, the equipment on their backs and the skills at their disposal.Just another day in paradise.Chapter 9Hands reached down to help pull Aleesha up the last few feet, and, as she landed on her belly on the floor of the entranceway, Kat hauled in the rope ladder behind her and closed the hatch.“Let’s go,” Vanessa signaled.Aleesha waited as her boss eased around the corner and sprinted to the first security camera.She reached up and covered the lens with her hand.As the rest of the team came up behind Vanessa, Karen leapfrogged ahead and blocked the next camera [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Hand over struggling hand, they pulled the craft forward against the current pulling at them.People always underestimated water, but she knew it to be one of the mightiest forces of nature.Vanessa grunted at her.“Give me a position report relative to the hatch.”Aleesha shifted quickly to the right side of the rudder stick and leaned out over the right rim of the dinghy.The ship’s black hull swelled outward in a graceful curve overhead, making it difficult to spot the thin outline of the hatch they sought.The ship had two crew hatches through which the crew embarked and disembarked during ports of call.Both were on the second deck, only a dozen feet or so above the waterline, and more to the point, both had a small, surveillance camera–blind entryway directly inside each of them.It was through the starboard one of these hatches that they planned to gain entry to the ship.Because of the pervasive cameras throughout the Grand Adventure, they’d had to toss out easier methods of boarding like climbing over a railing onto a deck or dropping in by parasail from above.Aleesha announced, “Got visual on it.Thirty feet or so forward of our current position.”She continued to give distance calls as the other women laboriously inched the Zodiac forward until it was about fifteen feet behind the hatch.They had to stop here because a security camera looked back along the forward portion of the ship’s hull.But, the Grand Adventure’s chief engineer had assured them this afternoon that this particular spot was camera blind.And she’d bet he’d be installing more cameras in his company’s ships to fix that little oversight as soon as this fiasco was over.Karen tied off the rope in preparation for the next step of this tricky operation.Aleesha helped Kat, by far the smallest member of the team, don a set of rubber climbing cleats over her boots.Attached to each cleat was a dinner-plate-size suction cup positioned over the inside of her ankle.Then, Misty passed Kat a pair of fist-size handles with suction cups attached to each of them, as well.Aleesha didn’t envy Kat the next part of the job.She got to free climb the outward sloping steel hull of the ship up to the hatch they’d use to board the Grand Adventure.“Go get ’em, Spiderwoman,” Aleesha encouraged her.Kat smiled back jauntily.“I’ve always wanted to be a cat burglar.Tonight’s my chance.”Aleesha held her breath as her teammate scaled the ship, hanging from the suction cups like a leech clinging tenaciously to the curving hull.Kat worked her way forward until she was well in front of the Zodiac’s blunt prow.If Kat fell now, she’d hit the water just in time to be run over by her own teammates.A couple more pull-ups and foot plants later, Kat was parked beside the hatch.Aleesha breathed a sigh of relief.Another tricky moment was upcoming.They had to open a one-foot square panel beside the main hatch to gain access to an electronic lock that opened the hatch from the outside—all without blowing up the locking mechanism itself.Aleesha leaned hard to the right in the dinghy, craning her neck to watch Kat plant a small shape charge.It was a fist-size cone of peppermint-pink putty, a low-order explosive that looked like a cheerful little unicorn horn stuck to the side of the hull.Perfect.Kat had put it exactly where Aleesha’d told her to, right over the latch that held the panel shut.She slapped a hand over her eyes as Kat jammed a detonator into the putty and mashed the button on the remote controller at her waist to set it off.The pink cone blew up with a quiet thump, and when Aleesha uncovered her eyes to look up, the small access door hung open, still on its hinges.Hah! And Bud Lipton had been skeptical that they could blow the cover panel without damaging the keypad beneath.She hadn’t been trained in explosive ordinance handling by Delta’s best for nothing! Of course, the pad had yet to work.She held her breath as Kat keyed in the override codes provided by the Adventure Cruise Line’s chief engineer.A crack of light appeared around the edges of a man-size rectangle.Bingo.They were in! And now they had to move like lightning to get on the ship and away from that door before an alarm on the bridge called down an armed investigation to a suddenly and inexplicably open hatch.While Aleesha manned the rudder to stabilize the dinghy, the others hauled the dinghy forward, positioning it directly under the hatch.Meanwhile, Kat muscled the hatch open and stepped inside, rapidly unfurling a rope ladder from her back.She hooked it over the raised lip of the hatch, and tossed it down.Vanessa caught the bottom of the ladder to steady it.Quickly the other women went up, straddling one of the rope supports between their thighs and inserting their feet on the rubber rungs from front and back as they climbed the side of the ladder.It was the only way to keep a rope ladder from swinging out from under a person if the bottom of the ladder wasn’t tied down.Aleesha would go last, cutting loose the Zodiac at the last possible moment.They wanted to leave themselves an escape route for as long as they could during this critical first stage.Vanessa stepped onto the ladder next to last, and it jerked with her quick movements as she disappeared into the darkness overhead.Then it was Aleesha’s turn.She shouldered her heavy pack and slung her MP-5 over that.The weapon was a light submachine gun that had become practically an extension of her arm in the last six months of training.Aleesha moved to the front of the Zodiac beside the rope ladder.The dinghy slid sideways ominously with nobody tending the tiller.She set her foot on the first rung, and the ladder swung away from her weight.Without anyone steadying the bottom, it was even more vital that she climb the side of it and not try to use it like a traditional wooden ladder.Clinging precariously, one foot on a slippery rung and her left hand grasping the wet rope, she leaned down.The heavy pack at her back nearly overset her balance, and she checked hard to keep herself from tumbling into the ocean.Damn, that was close.A fall now could very well send her under the ship and kill her.Her field knife grasped tightly in her right hand, she leaned down again—carefully—and sawed at the rope attaching the Zodiac to the grappling hook.Her scalpel-sharp blade bit through the wet nylon in just a few strokes, and the Zodiac leaped backward, abruptly free of the line dragging it forward.She ducked as the dinghy’s nose skipped into the air and flipped over.She glanced over her shoulder in time to see it go under, caught in the pull of the ship’s propellers.A shudder rippled down her spine at the sight.So much for any evidence of their boarding.She looked up at the square of light above and climbed the slippery ladder as quickly as she could.They were committed now.Their only escape route had just been shredded to ribbons.They were stranded on the Grand Adventure with a team of violent terrorists, fifteen hundred innocents, the equipment on their backs and the skills at their disposal.Just another day in paradise.Chapter 9Hands reached down to help pull Aleesha up the last few feet, and, as she landed on her belly on the floor of the entranceway, Kat hauled in the rope ladder behind her and closed the hatch.“Let’s go,” Vanessa signaled.Aleesha waited as her boss eased around the corner and sprinted to the first security camera.She reached up and covered the lens with her hand.As the rest of the team came up behind Vanessa, Karen leapfrogged ahead and blocked the next camera [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]