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Just then, two men wearing dark, unmarked military uniforms and carrying rifles appeared from behind a bulkhead twenty meters away. As they leveled their guns at the group, Alex dropped into a low crouch and fired two shots past Street, dropping the lead tango. The head of security pushed Celeste and Valtteri to cover as the second tango fired a burst that struck the door to the stairs behind them. Alex dove out of the way, coming out of her somersault behind a steel pillar and returning fire. Her first shot missed, but the next two found their mark, and the second tango dropped like a heavy sack next to his companion.

She covered left, right, then to her rear to ensure there were no more surprises.

"Street?"

"We're good," he said.

She glanced over her shoulder at him while keeping the gun trained to her front. "Give me more, Street. What's happening?"

He hacked again from the smoke he had taken in. "We counted four Zodiac RHIBs. Not sure where they came from." He spoke with a pronounced accent—Scottish, she thought. "By the time we picked them up on the ship's radar, it was too late to establish their origin before the fireworks began."

"These aren't your men, I take it?"

"That pair of numpty ballbags? No way."

Yup, Scottish for sure. "How many tangos?"

"Thermal showed four badgers in each boat—three assaulters and a driver."

"Badgers?" Alex asked.

"Badgers and doves, Alex. Old SAS terminology for bad guys and their hostages or victims."

So, out of sixteen men attacking the ship, there could be as many as twelve already onboard, minus these two.

"And then there were ten," she mumbled.

"Are these pirates?" asked Celeste.

"Once upon a time, maybe," she answered. "But here and now on the Mediterranean Sea, kitted out like that? These are no Barbary Coast privateers, ma'am." Then to Street, "What about your men?"

"Down to eight, including myself. They're engaging the ones that boarded." The sound of muted gunfire from somewhere else on the ship punctuated the air. "But I'm afraid we're outnumbered and probably outgunned."

She nodded, handing him back his pistol.

"I'll get these two to the panic room," he added. "You good for now?"

"I will be."

"Good."

"Go," she said.

Valtteri's arm was already around Celeste's shoulders, steering her toward the stairwell.

"Wait," Celeste said, pulling free. "Alex, what are you going to do?"

She shrugged.

"No, Alex. You don't even have any shoes, let alone your gun. And look, you're bleeding!"

Alex glanced at her feet, where a small puddle of blood had formed. She had kicked off her boat shoes earlier and been padding around barefoot since the ship came under attack.

"I'll be fine," she said. She tore a long strip of material off the bottom of her dress, wound it around her foot, and tied it off with a square knot.

"Street, get them to safety. Do you have comms?"

He nodded. "Take this." He was about to throw her his radio.

"No, keep it. You'll need it to coordinate with your men."

"If you get to the bridge," he said, "there's a room at the back, behind the charting table. Grab a radio from there." He turned and herded the couple toward the stairs. "We declared a Mayday and activated our ship security alert system, including the multi-frequency EPIRB—the emergency position-indicating radio beacon," he called over his shoulder.

"But out here, it could take twenty, thirty minutes at least for someone to get to us, if at all."

She glanced at the Rolex Submariner on her wrist: 9:52 p.m.

The three disappeared down the stairs as Alex stepped to the corpses she had created, relieving the first of his rifle, an FN SCAR-L. She rolled the fallen assailant onto his back with her knee and took two spare mags from the load-bearing vest he wore over his body armor, slipping one into a slash pocket in her dress. She'd have preferred to take the whole vest, but prying it off him would have left her defenseless and exposed for too long, validating her maxim that a dress without pockets was about as useful as retroreflective camo.