Titanic 2012

“What’s going on here?” demanded Swigart.

“We thought Alandale might be ill,” Kelly blurted out.

“That he might need help, sir,” added David, shrugging, “you know when he didn’t respond or show when you called him on the PA.”

“So where in Sam Hill is he?” Swigart bellowed, his eyes steaming. “Confound it!”

“Not here,” muttered Kelly, sighing heavily.

“We called for him but no answer.” David looked about at the other six faces standing about here and in the corridor. “When he failed to answer, we stepped in to make sure he hadn’t collapsed.”

Kelly added, “We feared a heart attack or something.”

“My God, did we lose two men overboard?” Lou asked. “What the hell is going on around here?”

Swigart expected no answers, and no one provided any.

“I’ve got to report this to Forbes; we need to turn around, find those men in the water, and pray they’re treading water by the time we locate ’em.”

Swigart turned to go back the way he came. Bowman passed by the other divers, all of whom stared at David and Kelly. Finally, David said, “What?”

“This expedition’s already feeling cursed,” replied Bowman.

“What’re you suggesting?”

“Nothing,” muttered Bowman.

“Look, I don’t like the idea of losing men overboard or turning the ship around anymore than you do, Will,” replied David. “But what choice do we have?”

“Two men just don’t go over the side,” said Lena. “One maybe, but two?” Lena looked around and added, “Something definitely smells about all of it—the screwed up machinery and now this.”

“And you two getting so chummy,” added Steve Jens.

“What about Bowman and Lena!” countered Mendenhall.

“That’s our business and none of yours,” Lena defended, staring down anyone who might challenge her.

“And it’s got nothing to do with missing men,” added David.

“You sure of that?” asked Mendenhall, eyeing David as she spoke. “Tell me, Dr. Irvin, was Ingles here perhaps defending your honor the other night when he got into it with the missing crewman? Then Alandale maybe tries to break it up, and he gets tossed over the side as well? All an accident of course?”

“God, Jacob, you’ve got an imagination after all!” said Kelly, smiling.

David agreed, facing Jacob and saying, “The first time you open your mouth beyond a grunt, and you write a soap opera.” David stepped back. “Hell of an imagination. Too bad it’s confused. I’m going to sack out for awhile.”

Lena Gambio snickered and said, “You need company in that sack?”

“Later,” he said, “as in another life!”

“You could do a lot worse, Davey boy,” she countered, flashing her big eyes before she broke into derisive laughter.

This made Bowman laugh and the tension was broken. The other divers dispersed, grumbling, upset at the prospect of turning the ship around and losing valuable time.

Kelly watched as the passageway was cleared. Once everyone else had disappeared and she was alone, she ducked her head into David’s compartment and saw that he’d gone back to reading the journal again. “Good,” she said, making him start. “Read on! You must know the whole story… the whole truth.”

FIFTEEN

Private Investigator Alastair Ransom stood before Titanic, now sitting in her slipway at 401. Aside from the enormity of the ship which made him feel the size of an ant, there was the gaping cargo hold looking like the mouth of Poseidon himself.

Ransom studied her graceful and gigantic contours, and he watched workmen at her open cargo bay this evening going in and out with coal cars, filling the lower depths with tons of the black rock. The giant’s needs, like those of her sister ship before her, had kept hundreds of miners working the mines in and around Belfast. Coal to fuel the huge boilers to turn the turbines and give Titanic her power.

But Ransom’s eye was trained on the workmen—miners like McAffey and O’Toole. Not a single workman appeared the least bit sick or wobbly. No one bent over, no one complaining of illness, no one vomiting. Working late due to a push on to launch Titanic as soon as possible, this bunch paid no heed to Alastair or the man suddenly behind him.

Without turning, Alastair spoke to the man at his back, “No doubt it’s a huge expense to have Pinkerton agents being paid each day.”

“Likely as not bleeding the shipping company dry.”

“Atop all the other expenses incurred, you mean?”

Ransom shrugged. “Cost millions to build this monster alone; imagine three.”

Back of Ransom, Chief Constable Ian Reahall watched the man’s manner, the way he looked the ship over, the way he took in every detail, and the timber of his voice. Not the least shaky. Nor had this Wyland fellow made an attempt to flee Reahall’s jurisdiction.

As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Ransom said to the Belfast constable, “She’s a wonder, isn’t she, Constable?”

“That she is.”

“What a target for anarchists, eh?”

Reahall came to stand alongside the man he suspected of being a fugitive from the US. The two career detectives stood silent for a time, rocking their heels, studying the monster ship now, side-by-side. “I am giving you fair warning, Wyland… or Ransom… whatever your name is. Leave Belfast before I get reports back from Chicago.”

Ransom looked at the other man, realizing it was indeed a fair warning he was being given—and that if he did run from Reahall’s jurisdiction there would be no chasing him after a point. It was an alluring option.

The fact was that Ransom had used the alias Wakely in London during his time there. “Still fishing, Constable? You’ll find nothing on me in Chicago. Boston, yes, Chicago no,” he lied with a slight chuckle. “But I admire your tenacity.”

“With the Marconi wireless and Morse code at my disposal, you do realize that I will have information in my hands in a matter of hours—sometime tomorrow. Best get out ahead of it.”

“I’m impressed, Constable; I didn’t know you’d gotten the wireless. Smart of you.”

“One must keep up with technology.”

“Protective of your city; you remind me of someone.”

“I’m no fool, Ransom; I know it’s you, and I know your crime, but I’m Protestant, you know.”

“Whatever does being an Orangeman to do with it?” Ransom had to ask.

“The murder of a priest, of course! Look, I’ve no love lost for that faith or their bloody priests, so why should I care that you dismembered one in Chicago?”

“I’ve done no such thing to no man ever.”

“I know about the Catholic priest you killed there in Chicago.”

“Priest killed? Dismembered? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about and my only name is Wyland. I know no Ransom.”

“What was it you called yourself while in Edinburgh? Cameron was it? Like Smith in America. Not awfully original. As for the rest, we shall see… we shall see—unless you should heed me and disappear.”

It was an old game. All Ransom had to say was yes to Reahall’s suggestion, run, and he’d be giving himself away—admitting guilt. Once he did so, in word or deed, Reahall would by God chase him down like a dog, regardless of whom he had killed. As for the priest, he died of his wounds when someone shadowing Ransom that night finished what Ransom had started, doing what Ransom wanted to accomplish that night the priest was making his escape, but he hadn’t followed through. At the last moment, he’d stopped himself. Someone else had