Jerry nodded and, weapon ready, stacked on Peña.Peña held the handle with his finger and thumb, then raised the remaining three fingers.He dropped one finger at a time, and when he had made a fist on three, he opened the door.Jerry did a quick look, confirmed no one hid inside, then slipped into the stairwell and cleared the corners, Ibrahim and Swanson close behind.They silently maneuvered down the single flight to the deck below and looked through the porthole.Nothing and no one moved.
They made their way back up the stairs.Anderson disabled the cameras in the stairwell while they thoroughly cleared the bodies, grabbing phones, radios, knives, and anything that might prove useful.At Agent Lewis’s body, Jerry pulled out the satellite phone and held it up to Fisher.He frowned at the bullet hole in it.
They returned slowly back into the chapel, crouching the entire way, leaving Waller and Brock guarding the open door.
Osbourne had the agent’s shirt and vest off and examined the bullet wound under his arm.He looked over at the ship’s Captain, a man named Ege, who hovered near the judge and the Marshal.“Is there a first aid kit here?”
Captain Ege ran his hand over his smooth head.He spoke with a shaky, weak voice.“Uh, yeah, yeah,” he said, his Norwegian accent more pronounced than before.
The chaplain’s assistant, Sergeant Blackwell, stepped forward.“Think I saw it in the back.”
Osbourne pressed the agent’s shirt to the wound.“Is there a table back there?”
“Yeah.A table and counters all around.A sink and a small fridge, too.”
Osbourne looked at Melissa’s uncle.“It’s not good.Help us get him back there.I can work better on a table.”
“Any other entrances to this room?”Norton asked Captain Ege.
Ege shook his head.“No.Just those double doors.What is it?Pirates?”
“Maybe,” Peña said.
Emma looked out the window and waved Peña forward.“Jorge, look.”
They risked going to the wall of windows to look out.A large nondescript cargo vessel had navigated next to the cruise ship and appeared to have rafted up alongside on the cruise ship’s port side out of view of the island.Peña turned to Ege.“Can you get us to the bridge?”
Captain Ege shook his head.“Protocol would have the bridge locked down.There’s no way we can get in there until the threat is over.”He gestured at the foreign ship.“Until that is no longer attached to my ship.”
Jerry forced his mind to focus on the situation.“Chinese and Haitian.Could be a false flag, but doesn’t feel like it.Their weapons are all PRC manufacture.”He quickly inspected his procured rifle.On a hunch, he pulled a magazine from the bandolier and examined the case head of the topmost round.“No serial numbers or identifying marks on the weapons.No manufacturer engravings on the rounds.Ghost guns.Ideas?”
While they spoke, two men on the deck of the cargo ship took a crowbar to a wooden crate.They reached inside and each pulled out what looked like QBZ-191 rifles.
Norton whistled under his breath.“If all of those crates on that cargo ship are filled with weapons, that’s a heck of a lot of firepower.”
Lynda, an FBI analyst with a hyper-organized brain, got to work.She rubbed the back of her neck and kicked her heels off.She paced from the window to the pew and turned, then came back.“There’s buzz about China funding Haitian militants.These weapons are new and as untraceable as they come.Without anything to go on, I’m going to guess some sort of collaboration with the two nations.But what’s the point of this?Like, here, now?”
Cynthia came out of the back with her arms full of water bottles.“Hydrate.Everyone.”
Rick snorted but took the water.Jerry absently drank while he studied the foreign vessel.“We’re docking in Haiti tomorrow.”
“Yes.”Lynda snapped her fingers.“They’re using the cruise ship as a Trojan horse to transport weapons onto the island, maybe?”
Peña shook his head.“Why go through all this?”
Lynda paced back and forth again, then answered her own question instead of Peña’s.“That’s probably it.If they load the ship here and unload it there, no one is the wiser until it’s all done.Too much security at the cargo ports.There’s been a weapons embargo on Haiti for years.”She pivoted, paced, not even looking at them.“Before any word about today gets out, those weapons are already in Haiti.”
“To feed an uprising?”Bill asked.
“Exactly.”She turned and put her hands on her hips.“Then China has the gratitude of the new regime and is that much closer to American sovereign soil.”
“Think this was just the first wave of a larger ongoing attack?”Jerry asked.
“No.”She shook her head.“I think they’re just putting pieces together so the first wave can happen.”She paused.“In theory, of course.”
Bill squeezed the back of her neck and then hugged her to him.
Marshal Stalling said, “Public ports closed down weeks ago.Government’s in chaos.Rival gangs are warring on the streets.But the port where the ship docks is privately owned.Security to and from the resort is always tight.Maybe they’ve compromised it.”
