greeting the grand seaplane. Cruise ships and nearby mega-yachts sounded their horns in welcome. Fireworks were shot off. Somewhere a band was playing.
“Is all this for us?” Twitch asked the Shin-2’s pilots. Unlike the people flying Shin-1, they were civilian pilots from the U.S.
“My guess it’s more for who people think is aboard,” the first pilot replied.
“The Ice Princess, you mean?” Batman asked him.
“More like Ice Bitch,” Twitch said.
The cockpit erupted in laughter.
At that point, a formation of police helicopters went overhead trailing long red and blue streamers. More fireworks went off.
“Or, maybe this is how every flying boat is greeted here,” the copilot mused. “After all, Monte Carlo is a very special place.”
The Shin-2 glided through the inner harbor. Its destination was a specially appointed dock that housed a bevy of smaller, but no less impressive amphibian aircraft.
Gazing out on all this, Batman whispered to Twitch: “This is an unlikely place for a bunch of pirates.”
“There’s more than one kind of pirate in the world,” Twitch replied.
* * *
WHILE MONTE CARLO was famous as a place to see and be seen, Batman and Twitch were here mostly to listen.
Twitch was Whiskey’s computer whiz. His laptop contained an assortment of intelligence-gathering software that he’d been carrying around since the team was reassembled. One program was a patch he’d hacked from an NSA site. It allowed him to track and isolate dozens, even hundreds, of phone conversations by intercepting key words or phrases. In this case, words such as “pirates” “Z-box” and so on would be keyed in. Once identified, the software could not only narrow down who was making the call and to whom, it could also pinpoint their location.
Beta’s plan was to use this technology to set up a listening post somewhere in Monte Carlo. The pirates had made at least five phone calls to someone in the city shortly after they’d seized the Pacific Star. To Whiskey’s thinking, they, or their confederates, would probably be making more calls to someone here, just on a different phone. Twitch’s special software would allow them to identify these people and move in on them, up close and personal. And if some sort of interrogation was needed? That would not be a problem. In their Delta Force days, both Batman and Twitch had learned how to be very persuasive.
But no sooner had the Shin-2 reached the inner harbor than Batman and Twitch realized they had a big problem on their hands.
They’d passed a sign hanging above a dock that announced the upcoming Monte Carlo Grand Prix, the famous Formula One car race. In fact, the town was wallpapered with these signs, as the beginning of the four-day event was just forty-eight hours away. An elaborate photo shoot was taking place on the dock beneath this particular banner featuring a dozen of the powerful and sexy Formula One cars, each one draped in a couple of bikini-clad models.
As they continued into the inner harbor, the Shin-2 passed another banner display. This one was trumpeting the first annual Trans-Atlantic Grand Prix. The banner indicated this was a competition pitting heavily modified high-speed yachts in a race from Monte Carlo to New York City. Below this banner were the two participating vessels. Both looked like overgrown speedboats on steroids.
A yacht race across an entire ocean?
“How fast can those things possibly go?” Batman asked, studying the souped-up racing yachts.
“A year ago, the fastest yacht in the world could go seventy miles an hour,” one of the pilots said. “These days, they can go almost eighty miles an hour, day in and out. They are powered by gas turbines and they have plenty of fuel. They’re like jet fighters, except they fly on water.”
Batman tried some quick calculations. By sea, New York City was about 4,400 miles away from Monte Carlo, give or take. At eighty miles an hour, and favorable weather, a racing yacht could make it in …
But Twitch already had the answer for him. “About fifty-five hours,” he said.
“That’s the record they’re going for this year,” the pilot told them. “The Big Apple in a little more than two days.”
Batman was amazed.
But that’s when it hit him. They’d spent the entire flight here formulating their eavesdropping plan and going over a list of actions they would take if indeed they found out who the pirates were talking to. But, with not just one, but two Grand Prix races in town this week, he realized Monte Carlo would be absolutely mobbed and all its lodging