Warren Murphy - Ship Of Death

An Egyptian cultural attaché spotted three men in black with bloody swords and let loose a burst from his M-16. A Libyan choreographer, hearing the shot, threw a hand grenade into the passageway. The Iraqi singers poked Kalishnikovs from their outer doorway and fired at everything, especially the Syrian doorway. The Saudis stuffed American hundred-dollar bills and large Swedish kroner into wastebaskets and threw that out into the blazing fury of the Middle East corridor.

Accidentally, the cross fire proved immensely effective against the band of night raiders. It forced them to huddle in a large cleaning closet, their hands over their ears and their heads tucked into their chests in some small attempt to escape injury. Only Mr. Scyth remained calm.

"We've got to run for it," one said, but Mr. Scyth touched his cheek and said calmly that there was nothing to fear.

"We'll be trapped here," said the man. "They'll close us in. We're in a closet. There is no escape." And those who had just minutes before taken delight in rolling heads suddenly did not like killing anymore.

The Lebanese delegation, just arrived from Beirut, slept through the exploding din for it was much like their homeland. It was also the Lebanese delegation that picked up the phone in the morning to get in touch with other Arab delegations in the Middle East corridor.

"Look, old boy," said Pierre Haloub, deputy consul of the Lebanese mission, "I'm hearing Kalishnikovs down the hallway and heavy Bren action about twenty yards past that and back aways, maybe sixty or sixty-one yards, is M-16 activity, and one of them has a small defect in its recoil that should cause the Egyptian some trouble in about eleven minutes if he continues his firing pace."

"Holy Allah," said the Syrian at the other end of the telephone. "How can you tell?"

"The sounds, old boy. Now, are you firing at anything in particular?"

"We are being attacked and we are firing to defend ourselves."

"It doesn't sound like it," said the Lebanese. "Too random. Now what you've got to do is phone around, find out who fired the first shot and what he fired at, and give me a buzz back in a few minutes. All right, old boy?"

Haloub finished his juice and unpacked his shaving kit.

"Anything?" asked another delegate coming out of the lavish main bathroom.

Haloub shook his head. When he finished shaving, he telephoned the Syrian again.

"Well?" he asked.

"No one started it," said the Syrian.

"That's ridiculous."

"Zionists," said the Syrian.

"This isn't a UN debate so stop the nonsense. We've got to get the shooting stopped so we can all go out this morning. Now who defended himself first?"

In two minutes an Egyptian was on the phone. He said he had seen men clothed in black with bloody blades and shot at them.

"What sort of weapons did they have?"

"Bloody knives for murder."

"What sort of guns?"

"I didn't see any."

"Aha. All right. You stop shooting and I'll phone the other delegations. I think we may have just gotten ourselves something."

The ensuing symphony of silence woke up the rest of the Lebanese delegation.

"What? What? What?" they said, stumbling sleepy eyed into the main chamber of their UN consulate.

"Nothing. A cease-fire," said Haloub.

"I can't sleep with all this quiet," said one of the Lebanese. "I never should have left Beirut."

Haloub, who really was a cultural attaché but had picked up a fine knowledge of firearms and street warfare just by growing up in Lebanon, unpacked his .357 Magnum, a very large pistol that made very large holes in people, and an ashtray. He opened the outer door into the corridor and threw the ashtray out onto the thick carpet. No one fired, so he stepped out into the hallway. He had seen walls like this before after intense cross fire. It looked as if someone had gone through the hallway with a McCormick reaper, whipping away chunks of the walls and ceilings, gouging out large pieces of the carpets.

"Take your hands off your triggers and everyone come out into the hallway. C'mon," he coaxed. A door opened. Someone poked out his head. Another door opened. Finally all the embassies along the broad hallway had people out in the middle of the corridor, with guns and silly grins.

"All right, everybody," said Halouh, "we're going to find the men in dark suits with bloody blades. I don't see any bodies so they must be in a room somewhere. Where's the Egyptian who saw them first? Don't be afraid. Come to the front. It's just the cease-fire of the morning. I'm sure we'll have hundreds before this cruise is over."

A dark man in a white silk bathrobe with an M-16 pointed up the hallway, behind a mass of Syrians in long nightgowns who carried Russian Kalishnikovs.

Haloub calculated what the cross fire had been and knew he had not seen a body, and therefore the only living place the intruders could be was behind some closed door.

"Find a door that's closed and don't open it."

The door was found immediately and identified as a large cleaning storage area, checked out the day before by Syrian security. The Egyptians said that was a lie; it had been checked out by Egyptian security.

A Libyan accused both of lying and said the closet had never been checked out by anyone and was probably part of a CIA, American-racist and Zionist plot. By saying it was checked out, the Egyptians and Syrians were now in collusion to sell out the revolution of the Arab peoples.

"Quiet," yelled Haloub.

"Racist," screamed the Libyan.

"We can all be killed if we don't do this right," Haloub said.

The Libyan was quiet. Haloub went to the closet door. He made everyone get on either side of the door and keep quiet. He pointed to the carpeting. There was fresh wet blood at the door. Obviously one of the intruders had been wounded.

Haloub stepped to the side of the door. With his back pressed against the wall and all the delegates out of danger, he scraped the barrel of his Magnum against the door. Often in cases like that, the occupants would start shooting. No one shot.

"All right. We know you're in there. Throw out your weapons and you'll be all right," said Haloub.

"You have the word of an Arab," yelled the Iraqi.

The Egyptian giggled.

The Iraqi said he didn't think that was funny.

"I don't think there's anyone in there," said Haloub.

"There's got to be. There's no exit," said a Syrian security man, listed as a linguist.

"I don't think so. I've been through this before. I just have a feeling."

"But I have the plans to the ship," said the Syrian.

"He's right," said the Egyptian, and everyone agreed. Everyone except Haloub, who for the last two years had lived in Lebanon, where you had to shoot your way to Sunday mass.

Someone returned to his consulate and brought back one of the eighteen volumes of the ship's plans. It was a gigantic condensed blueprint. They found the corridor and Haloub isolated the large closet. It was more like a small storage room.

"What's the material of the closet's walls and ceiling?" Haloub asked.

"Reinforced steel."

"Then there is absolutely no theoretical way in which that band is not trapped inside the closet," said Haloub.

Everyone agreed.

From a far corridor, several guards clad in United Nations blue ran up asking what had happened. Was everyone all right? Yes, they were, Haloub said. The guards told them they were lucky. Some madmen had gotten aboard the ship and were cutting off heads.

"We have them trapped in that closet," said someone.

The United Nations force asked to take over. But Haloub refused. Of all the men in the corridor, he had the most battle hours. He simply turned the handle of the closet door and opened it as everyone else ducked for cover.

The closet was empty. There was some blood on the floor but it was empty. The hallway became a din of charges and countercharges. Haloub retreated from the center of the crowd and returned to his consulate aboard the great ship.