The Last Passenger (23 page)

XLI

Carter stumbled into the darkness of the shop, muttering something under his breath that Kate couldn’t make out. Although she couldn’t see him clearly, she imagined that his shirtfront was covered in blood and he had that far-off zombie look. He was now one of them.

Without taking her eyes off Carter, Kate groped blindly around on the floor. Her fingers scratched over pieces of plastic and dust bunnies that had accumulated under the table. Then, her hands closed over a hard cardboard tube likely left behind by one of the decorators.

Kate gripped it tightly. Six feet in length, it was like a bat, and she waited patiently as Carter got closer to her. As he passed by her, she popped out from beneath the table and let out a shriek of fury, holding the makeshift weapon above her head. With all of her might, she struck Carter with the tube. The physicist screamed in shock, turned around, and instinctively raised his hands. Kate stepped back and raised up the tube again, but she bumped against the wall, which gave Carter enough time to jump back and put the table between the two of them.

“Kate, for the love of God,” he bellowed. “Have you gone crazy? It’s me, Carter.”

Kate stood motionless upon hearing his voice. He recognized her. He spoke to her in English, not German. Her relief was so intense that she dropped the tube and felt on the verge of tears.

“Carter. Is it really you?”

“Of course,” he assured her, rubbing his back. “Or at least what’s left of me after you hit me.”

The scientist limped toward the porthole and stood beneath the fading light. Kate could see he hadn’t shaved for several days and he was wearing a simple white shirt. Huge dark bags drooped beneath his bloodshot eyes. But otherwise he seemed very much the same. He had no sign of blood on his nose or his clothes. What he really looked like was someone suffering a terrible hangover.

“Do you recognize me?” he said after a few moments, sounding skeptical. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Carter, the physicist. You work for the University of Georgia. You’re a vegetarian, and two days ago at dinner you told me you hate baseball and that you prefer football,” Kate reeled off. She felt comforted by saying everything out loud. It was like reciting an incantation that was able to break past the cloak of darkness surrounding them.

Carter nodded in satisfaction. He groped around in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit one and took a long drag before coughing out a large cloud.

“You’re Kate Kilroy,” he said in turn as he rubbed his throat in pain. “You’re the reporter from that English newspaper. You hate peas, and you were wearing a beautiful blue dress two nights ago. You’re also the only person on board who does not seem to have lost her mind.”

Overwhelmed by a rush of relief, Kate hugged the scientist, to which Carter responded with a couple of awkward pats on her back.

Pulling back from the embrace, Kate pointed at the swastika pin gleaming wickedly on Carter’s shirt. “What’s that about?”

Confused, Carter looked down at his chest and passed his hand over the pin, frowning. “I can’t remember very well. My memory has been all muddled up the last few hours. My head feels like someone jammed a ton of cotton into my ears. The lack of sleep is killing me.”

“Lack of sleep?”

“That’s the only way of avoiding what’s happening,” Carter said, sitting down and ripping off the pin. “Either way, I think I probably fell asleep for a little while during the last twenty-four hours. I don’t recall putting on these clothes. I have no idea where I picked up the stupid little pin.”

“You haven’t slept for how long?”

“Seventy-two hours, more or less,” the physicist answered, passing a hand over his stubble. “In the laboratory we detected a surge in the electromagnetic field that was interfering with the alpha waves, which in turn—” He stopped himself and made a dismissive motion. “Bah! That doesn’t matter anymore. To put it bluntly, the human brain is no more than an electric field. My theory is that these conditions have been enough to interfere with human brain functions. I told Cherenkov, but the bastard wouldn’t listen to me. He was far too obsessed with being able to empirically demonstrate the existence of his Singularity. Now the idiot has found what he was looking for.”

“But what do dreams have to do with all this?”

“I can’t explain it,” Carter said, the extreme fatigue weighing down on his words. “It wouldn’t even be simple to explain it under normal conditions.”

“How did you find me?”

“The floor is covered in dust. You left a trail even a blind man could follow. I passed through the doors to the great gallery and noticed that they were open, and so I came looking to see who was here. I’m looking for Feldman. He’s the only one who can help us out of this insanity.”

“Feldman’s no longer able to stop anything,” Kate replied bitterly, relaying what she’d been through the past few days.

Carter listened attentively. When she got to the part about Senka’s arrest, he shook his head.

“I can’t believe that woman would be a neo-Nazi. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree. That’s why I’m looking for her. Something tells me she’s the only one able to stop this ship.”

“Seriously? How do you know?”

Kate didn’t want to tell Carter about Robert. She didn’t care if he thought her to be a lunatic, but she desperately needed his help, and if she brought up phantom lovers, he would think she was completely off her rocker. “I just know. Trust me, Carter, I beg of you. I need your help.”

Carter sighed and raised his arms up.

“I suppose I have no other choice. You’re the only person on board that isn’t bat-shit crazy and still remains aware of the fact that we aren’t a part of some fucking Nazi parliament.”

“Will you help me look for Senka, then?” Kate felt hope burgeoning inside.

“I can do you one better.” The physicist gave a wry smile. “I know where she is this very moment.”

XLII

Richard Moore was confused. Confused and angry. Sitting on a stool in one of the ship’s bars—the only one fully stocked—he was looking at himself in the bar mirror with severe irritation. A thirty-year-old bottle of Talisker whiskey stood before him. The bottle was already half-empty, and Moore felt more than a little tipsy. He was drunk and enraged.

Everything had happened so fast. He did not know when this simple job had transformed into an endless nightmare.

Or when he’d lost control of the situation.

Moore was a worldly man. Approaching forty, he had the hardened body of a football player with muscles like pistons and without an ounce of fat. He’d joined the Black Rats, the infamous British army brigade, when he was only eighteen, and he’d quickly climbed the ranks. Year after year he strengthened his reputation as a hard-nosed, irritable soldier who held a fierce reverence for the hierarchy of power. Moore was happy with the military discipline imposed by Her Majesty’s army. He’d found a home there that an alcoholic father and an ex-prostitute mother hadn’t been able to offer.

If it had been up to him, he never would have left the Black Rats. That was his home. But one hot day in the summer of 2005, everything went to hell twelve miles outside of Kandahar.

It was a routine checkpoint on a dusty road near a handful of smelly villages made of adobe and donkey shit. Their mission was to perform random checks to fish out Taliban sympathizers. Moore was there with five men under his command, all behind two heavy machine guns and sweating nonstop. The wind made things worse as it swept down from the mountains carrying dust and sand. All that, on top of a full day in the sun wearing a Kevlar helmet, had given Moore a severe headache. It could have happened to anyone.

Anyone except him,
he kept telling himself as he poured another shot. He took down the expensive single malt in one gulp and let his mind wander back to that horrible day.

The motorcycle that arrived at the checkpoint carried two men and a boy. Someone must have stopped them, but the subsequent investigation found that none of his men remembered doing so. When Moore saw that the motorcycle was only six feet from his armored vehicle, his training kicked in like clockwork. Before he could even see the face of the little boy, who couldn’t have been more than three, he had already shouted “fire” three times.

Nearly eight hundred bullets were fired at the boy, the two men, and the motorcycle. Rationalizing later, he realized it had been hard to stop pulling the trigger after the tensions of such a long day. Somehow, it had been liberating, and for that he was ashamed. But Moore realized that sometimes monsters dwell within everyone, undetected, only to manifest themselves in the most unsuspecting moments. No matter the exact reason, one thing was certain: after Moore gave the command to cease fire, the Afghans and their motorcycle were no more than a mash of steel and shredded flesh.

One month later Moore faced a court-martial. Two weeks later, dressed in civilian clothes, with his memories of a life gone by tucked away in his bag, he walked out the door of the Black Rats’ barracks without knowing where to go next.

That’s when Feldman had entered his life. Just like in the army, Moore rose through the ranks of the business magnate’s organization, moving from his first job as a bouncer in one of his casinos to finally winning Feldman’s confidence and being named chief of security.

Everything had been progressing smoothly since then. During the past two years, Moore felt like he’d found a new home. That is, until they had boarded the
Valkyrie
. Now everything had gone to shit once more.

You have not done well,
Richard,
the voice whispered.
But you can still fix things.

Moore shook his head and looked all around. He was alone in the bar, and the only light was right above his head. The rest of the bar was in shadows. The tables and chairs that supposedly would one day seat passengers were all covered in darkness.

“Who’s there?” he said, standing up.

Someone loves you, Richard.

Moore looked around and stumbled to the back of the room. His headache raged so severely that he was unsure of himself, but he could have sworn that the darkest area in the shadows had just moved to another corner, running away from him like it wanted to play hide-and-seek. He walked to the other side, but he only managed to trip on a table and bump his shin.

“Fuck,” he bellowed, grabbing his leg in pain.

He remained doubled over for a long while. He felt completely disgraced. For once in his life, he was giving into self-pity. “Stress is starting to drive you mad, Richard,” he said out loud to himself.

He walked back to the bar and continued to rub his shin but stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t believe what was waiting for him. The glass he had just drained moments ago was now full again, with two cubes of ice floating lazily on top.

Moore scanned the room suspiciously, placing his hand on the pistol holstered under his arm. “Where are you?” he shouted, his speech slurring. “Kam oot madafuka!”

The pistol danced wildly in his hand, and large beads of sweat began sliding down his temples and back. As if he’d been punched in the gut, Moore leaned forward and threw up on the floor until there was nothing left. Panting, he stood up straight and went around to the other side of the bar and found the ice machine. With a single shot he blew it open. It was empty and off.

Looking at the perfect drink, he felt even more confused. He took it in his hands and meditated on the matter for some time before hurling it against the back wall and shouting. The glass shattered, and the wall was streaked with his drink.

Moore was huffing and could not stop sweating. Exerting a great effort, he turned back to the bar and sat down again. That was when an uncontrollable shaking overtook him. Hysterical laughter climbed up his throat, and muffled sounds began escaping his mouth, unable to hold them back.

Beside the bottle stood a new glass filled again with scotch and ice.

Don’t be stupid, Richard. I only want to help you. Do me a favor and drink.

Hands trembling, Moore grabbed the glass and lifted it to his mouth. He took a deep, prolonged swig. It tasted good, fresh. The liquor went down his throat until it felt like a burning punch in his stomach.

You need to redeem yourself, Richard. You can’t let those bloody saboteurs get the best of you.

Moore shook his head and took another sip. The voice was right.

Until now they’ve been one step ahead, but now you’ve got one of the women locked up. Now’s your chance to go on the attack. To look good in front of your superiors.

Moore nodded with a grunt of satisfaction. The voice was right. Now was the time to take action.

If he’d not been so blinded by worry, or so drunk, he would have realized that the voice had said “superiors” instead of Feldman. But he took no notice. His mind beat to its own rhythm as the voices screeched in unison in his head and tried to outdo one another.

You’re the head security officer on board this ship. Your men look up to you. You’re a role model. Don’t fail them.

“No, no, I won’t.”

He poured himself another drink and emptied it in a single swallow. He was feeling better, and his thoughts were becoming clearer.

Who do you think they’ll follow if you fail, Otto? Who will stop those Communist spies from taking over the ship?

Otto? A part of his mind realized that detail was out of place, but he could do no more. Before the alarms began sounding within his mind, a dark dizziness began demolishing his brain. As he drained the glass, his training with the Black Rats was systematically wiped out, along with everything else except her voice.

I’m sure she’s a Jew, Otto. A Communist Jew. A dirty rat. An enemy of the Reich.

“Of course,” Moore said, slamming a fist against the bar. Thunderous clairvoyance had suddenly replaced his horrible headache. He could see it all so clearly. The bar had begun to swirl with intensely vivid colors. Even his skin seemed to sparkle before his eyes.

There’s another agent on board the ship, Otto. She’s English and dangerous. You have to stop her. You have to do it now.

Moore stood up, holstered his gun, and rubbed his face vigorously. When he finished, the blood now running from his nose had been wiped up his forehead, giving him a demonic and savage look.

He’d been given a mission. There was work to do.

Another thing, Otto. There’s a crazy old man and a younger man dressed in a cream-colored suit. Don’t touch them. They’re mine. I will take care of them personally.

Moore, fueled by inexplicable hatred, stretched his hand toward a peaked cap that hadn’t been there moments before and placed it on his head.

Anyone who saw him at that moment would have cringed in fright. As he caressed his gun maniacally, he whistled something that sounded like the Nazi national anthem, “Horst Wessel Lied.” The man who had once been Richard Moore stumbled out of the bar, transformed into
Oberfeldwebel
Otto Dittmar, as blood ran down his face. Around him the shadows were much denser than those in the rest of the ship. They moved ceaselessly, voraciously.

Waiting for those events that would inevitably come to pass.