feet.
But she didn’t pay attention to the cramped quarters. She wasn’t going to be spending a whole lot of time in here anyway. What really mattered was under the bed.
She got down on her hands and knees and said a silent prayer what she needed was actually there.
It was.
Secured to the underside of the bed with duct tape she found three nylon gun cases, one large and two smaller ones. She removed them all and put them on the bed. First, she unzipped the largest of the three. Inside was a German-made .40 caliber Heckler & Koch MP5, one of her personal favorites, and enough ammunition to fill the six thirty-round magazines tucked into the case’s pockets. One of the other gun cases contained a pair of Glock 22 .40 caliber pistols and three fifteen-round magazines for each gun. Pilar was pleased with the setup. The fact that both the machine gun and the pistols used the same ammunition would give her some added flexibility when things started to get crazy.
Which was another thing.
These weapons were one of the two packages the porter down at the terminal had promised her were in place. The other was the perfringens and lactobacillus bacteria that Ramon’s people had introduced into the deli meats and butter supply in the Gulf Queen ’s kitchens. If everything moved according to schedule, and based on what she’d seen so far she saw no reason to believe that it wouldn’t, by the early morning hours the first victims of the necrotizing fasciitis would start to turn. The models she’d seen indicated that the rest of the nearly 7,000 passengers and crew would be dead or dying by nightfall of their first full day at sea. And by the time they reached Cozumel, the Gulf Queen would be nothing but a nightmare that the Americans would be forced to shoot out of the water.
But before that could happen, Pilar had a lot to do, and that was where the third gun case came in. She opened it and found a credit card–style pass key that was supposed to open every door on the ship; a small plastic envelope containing two remote omnidirectional listening devices that looked a lot like lithium watch batteries, but were in fact sensitive enough to pick up even whispered conversations all the way on the other side of a stateroom; and, of course, the small white paper sack she’d been promised. She took a deep breath that didn’t make her feel any easier. This was real. This was actually happening. She’d done major operations for Ramon Medina before, many of them, in fact. She’d killed perhaps as many as a hundred men and maybe a dozen women, simply because he’d asked her to. But this was the biggest thing she’d ever had a hand in, and the idea that it was all coming together left her with a mix of dread and excitement that caused her stomach to turn like it hadn’t done since those early days back in Ciudad Juarez. She was about to murder 7,000 men, women, and children in the grisliest display of terror the world had ever seen, and for a second, she nearly ran to the bathroom to vomit from the enormity of it.
She forced herself to calm down. She couldn’t function like this, and she was running out of time. Pilar closed her eyes, took in and released a few deep breaths, and then opened her eyes. Calmer now, she put the paper sack into her purse, scooped up her big floppy hat and sunglasses and pass key, then made her way to the senator’s stateroom on Deck 7.
It was time to get busy.
C H A PTER 7
Tess was up late the night before, talking with Juan. And she was up early that morning to meet Paul Godwin and the senator and her husband for the trip down to Galveston. She was exhausted, and her first-class seat on the plane was so deep and comfortable she felt like she might melt into it. She’d been looking forward to sleeping a little on the ride down, because planes always put her to sleep. Instead, she’d been forced to listen to Sutton and her husband argue.
It started when he asked the flight attendant for the
But she didn’t pay attention to the cramped quarters. She wasn’t going to be spending a whole lot of time in here anyway. What really mattered was under the bed.
She got down on her hands and knees and said a silent prayer what she needed was actually there.
It was.
Secured to the underside of the bed with duct tape she found three nylon gun cases, one large and two smaller ones. She removed them all and put them on the bed. First, she unzipped the largest of the three. Inside was a German-made .40 caliber Heckler & Koch MP5, one of her personal favorites, and enough ammunition to fill the six thirty-round magazines tucked into the case’s pockets. One of the other gun cases contained a pair of Glock 22 .40 caliber pistols and three fifteen-round magazines for each gun. Pilar was pleased with the setup. The fact that both the machine gun and the pistols used the same ammunition would give her some added flexibility when things started to get crazy.
Which was another thing.
These weapons were one of the two packages the porter down at the terminal had promised her were in place. The other was the perfringens and lactobacillus bacteria that Ramon’s people had introduced into the deli meats and butter supply in the Gulf Queen ’s kitchens. If everything moved according to schedule, and based on what she’d seen so far she saw no reason to believe that it wouldn’t, by the early morning hours the first victims of the necrotizing fasciitis would start to turn. The models she’d seen indicated that the rest of the nearly 7,000 passengers and crew would be dead or dying by nightfall of their first full day at sea. And by the time they reached Cozumel, the Gulf Queen would be nothing but a nightmare that the Americans would be forced to shoot out of the water.
But before that could happen, Pilar had a lot to do, and that was where the third gun case came in. She opened it and found a credit card–style pass key that was supposed to open every door on the ship; a small plastic envelope containing two remote omnidirectional listening devices that looked a lot like lithium watch batteries, but were in fact sensitive enough to pick up even whispered conversations all the way on the other side of a stateroom; and, of course, the small white paper sack she’d been promised. She took a deep breath that didn’t make her feel any easier. This was real. This was actually happening. She’d done major operations for Ramon Medina before, many of them, in fact. She’d killed perhaps as many as a hundred men and maybe a dozen women, simply because he’d asked her to. But this was the biggest thing she’d ever had a hand in, and the idea that it was all coming together left her with a mix of dread and excitement that caused her stomach to turn like it hadn’t done since those early days back in Ciudad Juarez. She was about to murder 7,000 men, women, and children in the grisliest display of terror the world had ever seen, and for a second, she nearly ran to the bathroom to vomit from the enormity of it.
She forced herself to calm down. She couldn’t function like this, and she was running out of time. Pilar closed her eyes, took in and released a few deep breaths, and then opened her eyes. Calmer now, she put the paper sack into her purse, scooped up her big floppy hat and sunglasses and pass key, then made her way to the senator’s stateroom on Deck 7.
It was time to get busy.
C H A PTER 7
Tess was up late the night before, talking with Juan. And she was up early that morning to meet Paul Godwin and the senator and her husband for the trip down to Galveston. She was exhausted, and her first-class seat on the plane was so deep and comfortable she felt like she might melt into it. She’d been looking forward to sleeping a little on the ride down, because planes always put her to sleep. Instead, she’d been forced to listen to Sutton and her husband argue.
It started when he asked the flight attendant for the
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