Sea of Terror by Stephen Coonts

were unexpected repercussions. But this op had been a walk in the park with no hostile contact and no complications. There was almost zero chance that she'd been spotted, or that any of her covers had been blown. According to the op plan, she would be going home*on a commercial flight sometime tomorrow. That would give her the evening free, at least. And if Rubens wanted her to stay on for a while ...
    "Negative," Rubens told her. "Ankara. There's a company jet waiting for you at Beirut International."
    So much, she thought, for a free evening in exotic Beirut.
    "On my way," she told him.
    Office of Sir Charles Mayhew Atlantis Queen terminal complex Southampton, England Thursday, 1610 hours GMT
    Sir Charles Mayhew was a vice president of Royal Sky Line, Ltd., chief operations officer, and member of the corporate board of directors. He was also the company board member nearest to hand when Thomas Mitchell and MI5 needed a high-ranking corporate officer to give him some answers.
    They gathered in a small meeting room adjoining Sir Charles' office, which was located on the tenth floor of the ultra-modern green glass tower adjoining the Atlantis Queen's passenger terminal. The tower also housed a hotel and a ground-floor gallery of shops and travel agencies, but the penthouse had been reserved for Royal Sky bigwigs, most of whom weren't available at the moment.
    Typical, Mitchell thought. But unimportant. Sir Charles would do just fine. Mayhew was an obese man, heavy-faced but with nervous, active eyes. He was scared, Mitchell thought, scared that his company was about to be dealt a financial body blow.
    That fear could be useful.
    Also present were the ship's captain, Phillips, his second in command, Staff Captain Vandergrift, a solicitor for Royal Sky Line named James Alcock, and David Llewellyn, the chief of security on board the Atlantis Queen.
    "I take it," Mitchell said, placing a photograph on the table before them, "that none of you have ever seen this man before." It was a color shot of Nayim Erbakan, an eight-by-ten blow-up of the wallet-sized photo found on Chester Darrow's body.
    "Sure," Llewellyn said, grinning. "A little while ago, when they arrested him. Caught him with his pants down, as it were, in the backscatter scanner."
    "I know," Mitchell said dryly. "I was there, too, remember? But how about any of you? Captain?"
    "Never seen him before," Captain Phillips said. "Should we have?"
    "Not really . .. but you have to admit that there are some puzzling facts about this case." Mitchell glanced at his notebook. "A Turkish national, caught smuggling one half kilogram of cocaine onto a luxury cruise ship ... bound from England to the eastern Mediterranean. That's not one of the usual smuggling routes, you" know. Erbakan has a legitimate ticket for a mid-priced stateroom, booked by a travel agency in Le Havre five days ago.
    "An hour or so after Erbakan is taken into custody, your fourth officer is murdered on the dock by persons unknown," Mitchell continued. "Three shots to the chest from a handgun at point-blank range. No one hears the shots, though there are plenty of dockworkers in the area, including just inside the ship's cargo hold forty or fifty feet away. That suggests Darrow was killed by a silenced weapon, a professional hit.
    "On Darrow's body, we find a small version of this photo. And in the Dumpster next to the body, right on top of the garbage as though it had just been tossed in, we find a briefcase containing thirty thousand euros. Coincidental^, that is the approximate street value of one half kilogram of cocaine . . . which is also, coincidentally, the amount of cocaine Erbakan was carrying. Anyone here want to connect the dots for me?"
    None of the others replied. Sir Charles shifted uncomfortably in his seat, which creaked as he moved. The solicitor, Alcock, wrote something down in a small notebook. Mitchell shrugged and continued.
    "I'll tell you how / see it. Erbakan was a small-time operator.