The Last Passenger (24 page)

XLIII

Kate looked at Carter as if he had just stepped out of a flying saucer.

“How could you possibly know where they’re keeping Senka?” she asked slowly.

“The brig has to be close to where Moore’s men are staying,” Carter answered and shrugged. “Forty-eight hours ago, give or take, I passed by that area. I was falling asleep, and I needed something to do to stay awake.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t smoke,” he said, holding up a wrinkled pack of cigarettes. “At least two days ago I didn’t. Nicotine helps keep me awake despite the fact that it’s tearing up my throat. The closest thing to a smoke shop on board is that goddamn guards’ quarters. I got them to sell me half a carton for a hundred dollars. They’re a bunch of miserable thieves.”

“So what happened when you were there?”

“There are two rooms at the end of the hall beside the armory that are locked. There are also bars on the door. I’d bet what’s left of my sanity that Senka is being held there.”

“We’ll never be able to get her out from there,” Kate said, feeling like her world was collapsing. “If that’s where she is, at least two guards will be on duty. We can’t just stroll up and say, ‘Hey, what’s up? Would you mind opening up that jail cell and looking the other way for about fifteen minutes?’”

“There are other ways,” answered Carter with a puzzling grin.

“What ways?”

The physicist stood up and motioned for Kate to follow him. They left the great gallery without saying another word and went back to the main deck of first class near the balustrade staircase. Before reaching the staircase, they stopped at one of the elevators and went up two floors to a hallway Kate had yet to see.

“This is where the laboratories are,” Carter said through a frown as they walked down the hall. “Or at least this is where they were yesterday.”

The room was dark and filled with shifting shadows. Carter turned the light on, and the fluorescent bulbs blinked to life to reveal long tables covered with scientific reports. It was cold and damp, as if nobody had been there for many hours.

“What are we doing here?”

“Grabbing a few things. Help me out,” Carter said, handing her a pair of scissors. “You see that tinfoil bowl?”

“The one that has old meatballs covered in mold?” Kate wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Carter nodded. “You’d be surprised how careless scientists can be about certain things. But I need you to cut that bowl into small pieces. As small as you can make them.”

Kate nodded, emptied the bowl, and began cutting. Meanwhile, Carter searched through the cabinets where the chemicals were stored. Kate suddenly recalled the Finnish man that hadn’t recognized her on the dance floor, and she felt a chill. She knew that man would probably never again put on a lab coat.

“Got it,” said Carter, holding two glass bottles filled with a clear liquid. Then, he grabbed a thick pair of gloves, two protective masks, and an empty five-quart plastic jar. He placed it all in a bag, wearing a confident smile. “We’re set. Let’s go get Senka back.”

“What are we going to do,” asked Kate, hands full of tiny pieces of aluminum foil, “throw confetti on them and spray them with water?”

“More or less,” Carter said. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

Five minutes later, after passing through the service halls, they reached the deck where the guards’ quarters were located. They could hear quiet conversing. Then, chilling laughter echoed from the cabin. It was a strange sort of cackle, dissonant like a poorly tuned piano.

One of the elevators was only thirty feet in front of them. Carter dragged Kate inside, and they both crouched down. Carter opened his bag, set the jar on the floor, pulled on the gloves, and filled the jar with a pungent-smelling liquid.

“This is hydrochloric acid,” he explained as he added the aluminum shreds into the jar and closed the lid tightly. “It’s very corrosive and has the bad habit of exploding when mixed with certain metals like—”

“Aluminum,” Kate finished with a smile.

Carter nodded mischievously and then shook the jar. It started gurgling. The physicist bolted up and pushed Kate out of the elevator but not before pressing a button to close the door.

They hurried into a nearby hall closet and waited. Just when it felt to Kate that time had stopped, a deafening explosion shook the elevator well accompanied by a huge fire and a billowing column of thick smoke that stung their nostrils.

It was like kicking over an anthill. Security guards ran from their station, guns in hand, looking distressed. Kate caught a glimpse of them and was horrified to see that they no longer wore their usual blue fatigues but rather the KDF uniform with an eagle emblem sewn over the jacket pocket. All three men were pallid with dried blood on their faces. One of them was bleeding from his ear, which he did not seem to notice or mind.

Two of the guards ran up to the elevator door and tried to open it, but it was useless. They talked on their walkie-talkies and then climbed the service stairs as the third, perplexed, turned back to his station. Stumbling, he moved as if he had bad arthritis.

“We still have to deal with him.”

“Yeah, but I have an ace up my sleeve,” Carter said as he took out the other bottle from his shoulder bag. He also took out the two gas masks and handed one to Kate. “Put this on.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Concentrated ammonia. Even the poorest lab in the world carries it. It’s nontoxic, but you should never breathe in its fumes. Now watch and learn. You’re going to love this.”

Carter raised his arm and launched the bottle toward the guards’ room as if he were playing football in the backyard. The bottle spun through the air a few times before disappearing through the open door and breaking against the floor. Not fifteen seconds later the guard ran out coughing and rubbing his eyes.

Kate stepped toward the guard, confidently holding a bronze lamp ornamented with two little Valkyries. She lifted it up and smashed it over the man’s head, knocking him out cold.

Without exchanging a word, they filed into the guards’ room. The room was empty and had sustained no apparent damage, although the walls seemed to hum with a life of their own. It was as if the entire ship was angry and shocked that someone would interfere with the master plan. Kate suspected that the dark shadow would soon arrive. If she wasn’t already there.

“Where are the fucking keys?” Kate circled her hands like a windmill over the table in the middle of the room and knocked over empty beer bottles, an ashtray, a pile of magazines, and a stack of radio transmitters. Even with the mask, some of the fumes had sneaked into her nose and throat. It was like breathing fire. “Where are they? Where the fuck are they?”

“I don’t know.” Carter’s voice was muffled by his mask.

The fumes had gotten to him, too, and he doubled over and began coughing violently. He tripped over a few chairs that were strewn about and managed to get out of the room.

Anger once again boiled up in Kate. It could not be. So close and yet so far. But then, she looked to the door and resisted the urge to burst out laughing like a lunatic. The keys were hanging from the door lock like a handful of ripe grapes, ready to be picked. They had been in plain sight the whole time.

She opened the door. First, she saw long, shapely legs. Then, cotton panties and a shirt stained with blood. Finally, clumped blonde hair around the bruised face of Senka Simovic, who was looking out the door, baffled.

“Wer bist du?”
Senka’s voice sounded distant, as if she’d been drugged. Blood had begun to drip from one of her nostrils.

Shit. It’s too late. She’s completely deranged,
Kate thought.

She dragged Senka out of the room in fits and starts. She stopped a moment and grabbed a pair of sweat pants from the top of a locker. They were about three sizes too large, but it was better than carrying around Senka in just her underwear.

The fumes were beginning to diffuse, and they were able to cross the guards’ room without a hitch. Carter was outside. He was panting, and his hands were on his knees. He looked like he was about to collapse.

“We have to get out of here,” he gasped, massaging his temples in pain. “They’ll be back any minute.”

“Come on, we need to get down to the cargo holds,” Kate said.

She began walking and holding up Senka with an arm, but the Serbian woman stamped her foot on the floor and refused to budge.

“Nein! Ich will nicht mitgehen. Ich weiß nicht, wer du bist.”

“What the hell did she say?”

“She said she doesn’t want to come with us,” Kate murmured. “I don’t think she knows who we are.”

“She’s lost, Kate,” Carter said, unenthusiastically. “We should just leave her here. In her condition she won’t be of any help.”

Kate was trying to think of some way to bring Senka back to the present. Violence would accomplish nothing. They could beat her to death, but her mind would remain detached from reality. She looked at Carter, whose skin was turning an ugly sallow color. He’d avoided the ship’s curse by staying awake all that time, but what had saved her?

Robert.

She blinked a few times and fought off tears, tears other than the ones caused by the ammonia fumes.

Robert.

Passion had turned into dull pain and then into something tangible.

Kate’s love for a dead man had allowed her to keep sane in a world of madness.

Passion.

Without fully thinking it through, she held Senka’s head between her hands and looked into her eyes.

What the fuck am I doing?

Kate tilted her head, closed her eyes, parted her lips, and softly kissed Senka Simovic.

Senka resisted as if a pack of wolves were attacking her, but she was far too weak to do much. She began to relax and kiss Kate back. Suddenly, the young redhead felt Senka’s tongue playing in her mouth.

Kate pulled away from Senka and looked at her expectantly.

As Senka slowly opened her eyes, a radiant smile filled her face. Not even Senka could have known that the last time she’d smiled like that had been when she was seven years old, only hours before her village was razed.

“Hi, Kate,” she whispered hoarsely. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to save our lives. We need to go. Now. Senka, I need you to—”

A muted thump cut her off. She turned around, and her blood turned to ice. The lobby was full of black shadows moving all about. Shadows that devoured the light.

She was there.

Carter was kneeling in the hall, bleeding profusely from his nose, and shaking uncontrollably as he stared blankly at Senka and Kate.

She had gotten him, too.

XLIV

Richard Moore, or the person formerly known as Richard Moore, climbed the stairs with footsteps like a metronome and lungs like two bellows. A strange, vibrant energy carried him forward with the force of a supercharged engine. He passed through the center of the hall of eagles. He approached the hidden door that led to the bridge. As he turned the handle, the first great wave from the storm slammed forcefully against the side of the
Valkyrie
. If the stabilizing engines had still been operational, the ship’s balance would have been corrected automatically by the control board on the bridge. But none of that existed anymore. The wave’s impact rocked the ship enough to cause Moore to lose his balance and fall with his full weight against the door he was opening.

Go to the bridge, Otto. The captain is waiting. It’s urgent.

The voice.

The voice was seductive, intense, and powerful, and it filled every crevice of his mind while muffling all the other noises. Moore didn’t like those noises—they scared him. They were telling him that everything was going horribly wrong. He preferred not to listen.

He entered the bridge. Captain Kuss, handsomely dressed in his finest uniform, was watching him with cobalt blue eyes.
Harper, his name is Harper. Harper, Harper, Harper,
the other voices corrected him before she drowned them out.

Don’t listen to them, Otto.

Harper stared at Moore with disgust and then glanced at his watch.

“You’re late,
Oberfeldwebel
Dittmar.”

“I know, sir,” answered Moore as he clicked his heels and saluted automatically. “I’ve been busy until now.”

Harper brushed a speck of dust from his jacket sleeve before continuing. “I’ve been informed a blast was heard near boiler room number two. Something like an explosion, although there are no injuries. Go see what’s going on, and then report to me. But hurry. I have that damned gala dinner in less than fifteen minutes. I don’t want to waste any time.”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”
Moore clicked his heels again and ran off the bridge like a bolt of lightning. But he hadn’t left because of the captain’s orders. Her voice had returned, uttering only one word.

Run.

He rushed to the elevator that directly connected the bridge to the lower decks of the ship. It was the fastest way to move about the ship. Three of his men had been waiting for him, leisurely smoking cigarettes. Without saying a word they saluted him, and they all piled into the elevator.

A strange image materialized in front of Moore for a split second: two sheets of steel welded together before him that blocked his path and a huge red sticker on the obstruction with something written in English. Moore shook his head and reached out toward the steel, but his hand passed right through it. Then, the image disappeared.

He felt a slight throbbing in his temples, and his expression twisted. He could sense his headache was about to return.

The elevator rattled down for a very long time until finally arriving at the level where the boilers were located. The
Valkyrie
’s engines roared like a monotonous, loud buzz that drowned out all other sounds. The temperature was sweltering and stifling. Moore began sweating profusely.

He headed toward the chief engine operator, a fat, bald man close to sixty whose skin was glistening with sweat. He had a Prussian mustache that filled his entire face. As soon as he saw Moore, he stood formally, wiping his hands on a rag in an effort to clean them.

“There you are,” he yelled, competing with the deafening sound of the engines. “We heard an explosion about an hour ago on lower deck three. At first we thought a mine had gone off or something because that area was deserted. Or it should have been. Anyway, we found them, and well, we didn’t quite kno
w . . .
We thought it would be best if security checked it out.”

Moore stared at him, and it happened again. It was like one moving picture on top of another. Moore looked at the chief operator with the
Valkyrie
’s enormous engines behind him. But the colors of that image began dissolving and swirling into each other. For a few brief seconds, the background became fuzzy and transformed into something else as it gained clarity again. Atop the broken gauges of the control panel, Moore could see a spattering of blood and guts and the broken bodies of three engineers lying on the floor, riddled with hundreds of tiny pieces of shrapnel. The vision was so real that Moore stepped back in horror. He opened his mouth to scream, but the image vanished like a soap bubble bursting. Everything was normal again. The indicator lights and valves were in perfect condition, shiny, lustrous, and without the slightest trace of human carnage.

It was only an illusion, Otto. You’re very tired. The sooner you finish, the sooner we can go back to the bar for another drink.

“Where was the explosion?” Moore asked.

“Over there,” said the chief engine operator, pointing obediently. “On the other side of that door.”

They passed through the door and came into an empty, cavernous room. In 1938 the
Valkyrie
had been designed with coal engines in mind. This room would have been a huge storage hold for coal. Eventually, they installed more efficient diesel engines, leaving this space empty.

Moore blinked several times—what his eyes saw did not match with what his brain processed. In front of him, two ultramodern engines were smoking from damage, with their metallic, twisted remains scattered across the rest of the room. He closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them again, it had all disappeared. The room was completely empty except for a group of people sitting in a corner. Moore’s headache got worse. He felt ill, the heat was making him dizzy, and he wanted to throw up. He would have killed for a stiff drink.

“You’re bleeding, sir,” said one of his men quietly, offering Moore a handkerchief.

Moore took it without a word and wiped his nose, breathing in the thick, metallic smell of the
Valkyrie
’s diesel engines. Anything that came down to this area inevitably returned smelling like the engine room. He walked through the empty room, afraid the visions would return at any moment. Perhaps he should visit the ship’s doctor. It was not normal to see things that weren’t there, things he couldn’t understand. But the idea vanished from his mind, only to be replaced by bafflement as soon as he saw a group of people seated on a girder. They were watching him fearfully.

It was a family, or at least they appeared to be. There were five of them: two men, a woman, a girl, and a baby only a few weeks old, crying faintly as his mother rocked him.

Moore gazed at them. The young man and woman looked like a married couple. He was somewhat short with fair skin, some early gray patches of hair, metal-rimmed glasses, and intelligent-looking green eyes. He held his wife’s hand. She was thin, with frightened dark eyes. Her oval-shaped face was framed by dark, curly hair. Every now and again she leaned over the baby, trying to soothe him. At her feet was a girl, who was maybe six or seven years old and dressed in a plain gray cloth dress and slippers that were too large for her feet.

They were frightened, weak, and hungry. Their panic was as palpable as the diesel smell. Moore instinctively realized they were afraid of him, and, suddenly, endorphins began surging through him like lightning. The sensation was so gratifying that he became addicted.

They were scared of him.

Of
him
.

Their lives were in his hands. He was like a god of the underworld. He swallowed and was almost unable to breathe. At last, his eyes paused on the last family member, and his euphoria turned to rage.

The man must have been nearly eighty years old. He looked feeble and wore a black suit that had begun to fray at the elbows. He had a thick gray beard. A few traditional ringlets fell from beneath his yarmulke and over his ears. His shoulders were covered with a blue-and-white-striped shawl.

A fucking rabbi,
thought Moore.

A rabbi on board the
Valkyrie
.

The old man was the only one in the family who didn’t appear to be scared. His granite eyes looked through Moore like fireballs. They were scrutinizing the deepest pits of his soul. A sardonic smile began to creep to the corners of the man’s lips, as if he had noticed something very humorous about the head of security.

That was too much for Moore. As if launched from a catapult, he smashed his fist into the old man’s cheek. The man fell back hard, his mouth bleeding profusely. The woman and her daughter screamed and tried to help the elder, but the husband held them back and glared at Moore. The husband knew that they couldn’t win this battle.

The rabbi got slowly to his feet. He picked up his cap from the floor and dusted it off before putting it back on his head. Then, he walked toward Moore with the look of a man resigned to his fate. But there was something else, something fleeting, that rippled beneath his face that Moore was unable to put his finger on. A threat perhaps?

“What are those bottles of water?” Moore pointed to a pair of carafes on the floor. The little girl held another in her hands.

“We gave them water,” the engine operator sputtered. “Here below it’s so hot that you can easily become dehydrated. They must have been hiding down here when we set off from Hamburg. They could have died if we hadn’t—”

Without letting him finish, Moore screamed in rage and kicked over the carafes. As the water spilled out, he grabbed the little girl’s arm with one of his enormous hands. His brutal grip made the girl drop the bottle and cry out in agony. Moore picked her up and shook her in the air like a lion playing with its prey.

“Dirty Jews,” he spat, continuing to shake the girl, who was writhing in pain. “You sick commie rats! You have no right to be on board a ship of the Reich! You sons of bitches!”

As he uttered the last word, he tossed the girl to her father’s feet. The man reached out in an effort to cushion her fall. Moore, who was expecting that, took advantage and unleashed a brutal kick straight to the man’s face as he leaned forward. The cracking of the bones in his nose could be heard above all else. His glasses lay shattered by his side on the floor and were soon surrounded by a puddle of blood.

The engine operator looked both uncomfortable and alarmed. “You can’t do that here,” he said. “Sure, they’re Jews, but they don’t deserve such brutality. They’re human beings after all, aren’t they?”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” Moore spun around and put his nose inches from the other man’s. “You just worry about your own fucking problems. This is a matter of ship security, and no goddamn machinist is going to tell me what to do. I’ll decide if they’re human or not. Don’t even think about giving this trash another drop of water until I have spoken with the captain. Got it?”

The engine operator puffed his chest up and looked defiantly at Moore. He was a man who was used to being in charge of his terrain, and that was where they were. He wouldn’t tolerate such insolence there. Nevertheless, the gun hanging from Moore’s waist and the rifles his men were carrying were enough to make him shrug. “Go to hell,” the machinist growled and spat on the floor. “It’s not my problem. We’ll see what the captain says.”

With a smile of cruel satisfaction, Moore walked out of the room without looking back at the family. They had all crowded around the bruised girl and her crippled father. The old man had closed his eyes and rocked back and forth while mumbling under his breath in Hebrew. Around him the air seemed to condense and thicken.

Fifteen minutes later, when he returned to the
Valkyrie
’s bridge, Moore felt peaceful. His sweat had dried, and he’d buttoned up his jacket again. He informed the captain about the stowaways below. Harper, with his gala jacket and white gloves on, was about to leave for the great hall. Even from the bridge, the distant buzz of passengers who had already arrived at the dining hall could be heard.

The captain listened to Moore’s report idly, more interested in checking himself using a small hand mirror. He seemed to have some problem with his mustache. Finally, he sighed with exasperation and turned to Moore.

“My God, that’s enough! There are Jews on board. So what? I’m busy, Dittmar. I have two hundred people waiting for me in the dining hall. So do something about it. After all, you are the head of security.”

Moore felt a heady, dark sensation wash over him. He exerted a superhuman effort not to let his emotions shine through.

You have to take care of this yourself, Otto. Teach those dogs a lesson. Finish them.

Moore nodded without realizing it.

Show them who’s boss around here, Otto. Show them who’s in charge of the new order.

“Yes,” he murmured with a dry mouth. “Yes.”

The captain opened up the logbook. In angular handwriting he noted the time and date of the important events that had taken place since the last changing of the guard. When he heard Moore mumbling, he looked up and a drop of ink fell to the page. He blew on it, clearly annoyed, and passed a fingertip over it, but all it did was smudge the paper and stain his glove.

The captain had no idea that his entry would be the logbook’s last and that before he wrote it, someone else had already read it in another reality that was slowly fusing with his own. But the
Valkyrie
knew well how to keep secrets.

“Let’s go, Dittmar.” The captain gestured to the door. “What are you waiting for? Make up your mind once and for all.”

Moore nodded and saluted before he left. As he went down the stairs, an alarming grin possessed his face without him even realizing it.

A terrible, chilling notion had erupted from some black hole in his head. And he was going to act on it.