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passageway wall, or bulkhead, or whatever they called it. Irene joined her on the deck but kept her legs tucked under her. Suzanne was not limber enough and let hers stick out straight. Actually, she thought, for a woman of my age, they aren’t bad legs.
    “Hawaii,” Suzanne grumped. “Egypt is filthy, the Egyptians are filthy, Aqaba is a dump. No human in his right mind would pay money to ride that damn bus across the desert to Luxor. I still can’t believe we did it. See Aqaba was number nine thousand and twelve on my Before-I-Die Bucket List.”
    “Scratch it off.”
    “You won’t admit it, but this is the worst cruise we’ve ever been on. Pirates, no less!”
    Irene sighed. “Next time, Kaanapali Beach.”
    “You bet your ass,” Suzanne shot back.
    *   *   *
    Sultan ’s turn seaward, into his little squadron of onrushing boats, gave Mustafa al-Said a bad moment. The ship kept turning, and he tried to turn away, then buttonhook back and come alongside, but the constantly changing course made that impossible. Now the ship was doing at least thirty knots. Mustafa’s engine was howling at the red line, and the skiff seemed to leap from swell to swell. Two of the boats couldn’t make this speed, but the turn into them had given them a chance.
    Finally Sultan steadied up on a southeasterly course, directly away from the land. The captain instinctively went for sea room, Mustafa realized, although that would do him no good. The four pirate boats in front of him converged.
    Mustafa S-turned once and then bore in for a rendezvous on the liner’s starboard side. He well knew if he fell astern he could never catch Sultan. He swept in, turning hard to parallel, keeping his boat closing. Another boat was ahead of him and went in fearlessly against the side of the ship.
    Then he heard the noise. High-pitched, a scream, rising in volume. He put on his sound-supressor headset, a simple set of mufflers, one over each ear, as the other men in the boat hastily pulled theirs on, too.
    Mustafa could hear the wail anyway. It was insanely loud.
    The men began shooting at the LRAD installations. A sailor stood behind each unit, aiming it at the nearest pirate skiff.
    “Kill them, kill them,” Mustafa screamed, but no one heard it.
    Nuri was manning the machine gun, and he bent down and tried to aim, which was difficult in the bucking, heaving boat. He began firing bursts at the LRAD units.
    The sailors manning the LRAD units disappeared. Probably down behind the railings. Two more long bursts, then the sound stopped.
    The skiff nearest the ship was not under control. The helm wandered; the boat nosed in against the towering side of the Sultan, was caught in the wash and overturned instantly.
    Mustafa ignored the pirates in the water. If they drowned, they drowned. They were in it for the money, just as he and his men were. If Mustafa didn’t press the attack, there would be no money for anyone.
    “The bridge,” he shouted to his men and pointed. Three of them fired AK-47s at the bridge.
    *   *   *
    Radio talk-show host Mike Rosen was not huddled in a passageway inside the ship. He didn’t have it in him. He was on the eighth-deck gallery, and from his vantage point he could see the sailor manning the amidships LRAD transmitter. He heard the wail, of course, but it was focused on the pirate boats, so it was merely unpleasant.
    Rosen saw the machine-gun bullets striking around the unit, saw the sparks, felt the impacts, and he saw the sailor, an officer apparently, fall heavily to the deck.
    More bullets. The sound stopped.
    The man on the deck wasn’t moving. Staying below the railing, Rosen hurried to him in the classic combat waddle. Bullet holes everywhere. He turned the officer over. He had been hit at least four times. Some blood, but not much. The officer’s eyes were frozen, focused on nothing at all.
    At least one of the machine-gun bullets had hit the main transmitter.
    Rosen abandoned it and waddled