Mission Titanic

by Jude Watson

  Normally, Nellie would be all over this kind of festivity. She’d be searching out the perfect empanada, chatting with a local, buying an ice cream from a vendor, sipping a tamarind soda. Gazing into the soulful eyes of her gorgeous boyfriend. But now she just shifted impatiently as she searched the crowd. They had stopped at Fiske’s house, but the housekeeper had only told them that he was at the festival at the Jardín, which was what everyone called the central square of the town. It seemed impossible to locate him in this crush.

  “Let’s keep moving,” Nellie said to Sammy. When she turned, Sammy was putting away his phone, an anxious look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach my parents,” he said. “It’s weird that I haven’t heard from them. Especially since I told them I was flying to Mexico with you.”

  “Don’t they work all the time? Maybe they’re involved in some big experiment.” The Mourads were basically geniuses. Sammy’s mother was a physicist, and his father was some kind of biochemical trailblazer. Nellie wasn’t quite sure. One night in his lab, Sammy had described their studies, and Nellie had fallen asleep in his armchair. She had been too embarrassed to ask him to repeat it.

  “Yeah. But they usually check in. Like, right now they should be saying, ‘Sammy, you need to study, not run off to Mexico with your girlfriend.’” He smiled, but the worried look didn’t leave his face.

  Sammy was a graduate student in biochemistry who, until he met her, stayed in his lab to work all hours of the night, studying through holidays and school breaks. Nellie was relieved that his parents seemed to like her, even though she was a Mexican-American part-time college student with platinum streaks in her dark hair, whose aspiration was to run her own pan-global tapas restaurant and who had pulled their son into Cahill family intrigue and, worst of all, was a Red Sox fan.

  Suddenly, the crowd began to chant. “El Coyote! El Coyote!”

  “Who is that?” Nellie wondered.

  The woman standing next to her overheard. “You haven’t heard of El Coyote, the great Mexican dancer?”

  Just then a blare of trumpets announced the new dancer. A slender figure appeared in the middle of the dancers, as though he’d materialized out of thin air. He was dressed in white pants and a flowing white shirt, and wore a beautifully carved coyote mask over his face.

  “El Coyote!” the crowd roared.

  Guitars hummed in a menacing tune as he stalked the women, dancing gracefully around them as they pretended to run, leaping and twirling. The trumpets burst forth as the dancer joined the women, pretending to flick his nonexistent skirts at them and copying their movements so expertly that the spectators gave hoots of laughter and applauded again. The dance became a blur of white and yellow as he twirled with the dancers, faster and faster, until they were like flowers in a whirlwind. The crowd around the Jardín roared their approval and more cries of El Coyote! thundered through the square.

  Nellie shook her head. “He’s amazing,” she murmured.

  “Un guerrero formidable,” the woman next to her agreed.

  The music ended. The dancers bowed. Laughing, Fiske Cahill removed his coyote mask. His gaze met Nellie’s across the square, and his grin slowly faded.

  Fiske’s rented house was up a twisting cobblestone street from the colonial town. Below them, they could glimpse the pink spire of the church. Sunlight splashed on the charming buildings painted in shades of mango, ocher, and avocado. They sought shelter from the afternoon sun in the courtyard, underneath a spreading laurel tree. Blasts of blooming purple bougainvillea tumbled down the walls of the hacienda. The air was sweet and scented with blossoms.

  Trouble seemed very far away.

  But trouble darkened Fiske’s expression as he watched the video on Nellie’s tablet. He tapped on his glass of limeade, his fingers beating a rhythm of anxiety.

  “I didn’t expect a power grab like this,” he said, his gaze far away as he looked over the town. “I thought we’d seen enough calamity for one lifetime. What do we know about this Outcast?”

  “We know he’s a Cahill, but we can’t find out any information on his background,” Nellie said. “He’s been recruiting for a while, we think.”

  “I know Magnus,” Fiske said. “He was always power hungry. And Patricia is just like her great-uncle.”

  “What about him?” Nellie asked, zooming in to the man they couldn’t identify. “We don’t have a clear shot of his face.”

  Fiske tilted the tablet toward himself. He zoomed in to the man’s hand. “Bad news. See that missing finger joint on his pinkie? That’s Irina Spasky’s brother, Aleksander. Irina was a cupcake compared to him.”

  “I didn’t know she even had a brother,” Nellie said.

  “He was never an active Lucian. All photos of him mysteriously vanished shortly after his disappearance.” Fiske clasped his hands together and bent forward, his face creased in anxiety. “He was an assassin for the KGB.”

  Nellie felt a chill move through her, despite the sun on her shoulders. “What about the Outcast? Amy thought that since we can’t access the digital archives, you might have some idea of who he could be. We know when you were younger, you left the operation of the family to Grace, but we figure this guy is in his eighties, and you might have met him long ago.”

  “He doesn’t look familiar,” Fiske said. “He looks as though he’s had surgery, though.”

  “Definitely,” Nellie agreed. “What about when he quotes Grace — If your best instincts are your worst enemies, take your hands off the controls. Find someone else to fly the plane. Amy thinks it might be significant. Does that sound familiar?”

  Fiske shook his head. “No.”

  Nellie knew Fiske well enough to know that something was troubling him, something more than receiving the news of the takeover. All she had to do was wait.

  “It’s the name,” Fiske said. “Outcast. The name … It has a history.” Fiske hesitated. “Grace was my sister and I loved her, but she could be … ruthless. If she felt someone was undermining the family or putting it at risk, she gave them that label. They were cast out from the family. No contact, no resources. Anyone caught helping them was punished.” Fiske hesitated, a pained expression suddenly constricting his features. “They had to leave their immediate family. A complete break with parents, husbands, wives … even children. There weren’t many Outcasts, but for those it happened to, it was devastating.”

  Nellie felt as though the world had tilted. She shook her head, unwilling to believe the picture Fiske had just painted. “That doesn’t sound like the Grace Amy and Dan talk about,” she said. “She sounds … cruel.”

  “There were many sides to Grace,” Fiske said. He stirred restlessly. “I always thought it was better not to ask too many questions.”

  “Do you know who the Outcasts were?” Sammy asked.

  “I only knew one.”

  Nellie leaned forward. “Great! Who?”

  Fiske poured himself more limeade. “Me.”

  “You? But …”

  “It was my official designation. When I told Grace I wanted nothing to do with the family anymore — after we stayed up all night arguing — she finally conceded. But she wouldn’t just let me go. She had to protect me. So she suggested that she make me an Outcast, and I agreed.”

  “But other Cahills probably assumed that you’d done something terrible,” Nellie said.

  “That was the price I paid for freedom,” Fiske said. “I was glad to pay it. Others were not. If they fought her, they had to suffer retribution.”

  Slowly, Nellie sank back in her chair. This was a new portrait of Grace. She couldn’t reconcile it with the woman who gave so much love to Amy and Dan, who was still a source of guidance in their lives.

  “Grace was my sister and I loved her,” Fiske said. “But I refuse to idealize her. She felt she had the fate of the world on her shoulders. She knew the serum could be devastating if it got out. I am sure there are things she did that
she regretted.” Fiske took a gulp of his drink. “She didn’t ask my advice. She didn’t ask anybody. And she didn’t let anyone or anything interfere with what she thought was right.”

  “What she thought was right,” Nellie said.

  Fiske gave a small, sad smile. “In those days, I didn’t approve of some of her methods. Today, when I see what’s happened to us since the thirty-nine clues were found … today I have more understanding of what she feared.”

  “So in order to find the Outcast, we need deep background,” Sammy said. “Until Cara can hack back into the system, we have nowhere to go.”

  Fiske nodded. “What you need is someone who was around then, someone with a talent for ferreting out feuds and secrets and who is malicious enough to remember all the details. In other words, the worst person I know.”

  Nellie almost choked on her limeade. “No. Don’t tell me. I can’t.”

  Sammy stirred in alarm. “Who? Another assassin?”

  “Worse,” Nellie whispered. “Aunt Beatrice.”

  Halifax, Nova Scotia

  Dan held a huge bouquet of balloons. Amy had two enormous boxes of candy. They stood outside the door of the Port Authority.

  “Ready?” Ian asked. “Go.”

  They pushed through the door, crowding in with the balloons. A woman at a reception desk looked up, smiling but confused.

  Outside the picture window, ten stories down, massive freighters moved in and out of the harbor and docked at the piers. Tall orange cranes extended hundreds of feet in the air. In the distance, lacy curls of foam danced on the water as a blue-and-white ferry chugged across the harbor.

  “Can I help you?”

  “We came to see our parents off at the ship!” Amy said. “They’re sailing today, and we need to catch them. It’s a second honeymoon! We’re not too late, are we?”

  “The cruise ships are farther down the pier,” the woman said. “You’re in the harbormaster’s office.”

  “Told you!” Amy said to Dan.

  Dan spoke to the woman. “Can you hold my balloons while I check my phone? I just want to send a text.”

  “I hardly think —”

  The door opened and Cara hurried in.

  “We’re here to pick up some bulk cargo? My dad’s waiting in the truck outside,” Cara said breathlessly. “Can you help us?”

  “You’re in the wrong place … if you’ll just wait a moment. We’re terribly busy today. Winter storm approaching, and we have to get the ships into port …”

  Dan let the balloons go. They bounced and twirled, twining around each other, and one bopped the woman in the head. “Whoa, cowboy!” she called good-naturedly. “Can you corral those?”

  “Sure,” Dan said. He leaped up, trying to grab a fistful of strings. The balloons jiggled and jounced. Dan kept leaping.

  “This isn’t where you pick up bulk cargo,” the woman said to Cara. “It’s the next building over.”

  “Can you show me? I’m directionally challenged!”

  The door opened again and Jonah walked in.

  Everyone froze.

  Cara shrieked, “OMG! Jonah WIZARD!”

  Employees suddenly spilled out from inner offices. They crowded around Jonah, thrusting pads at him to autograph. Balloons popped. Amy distributed candy. Someone called, “Hey, Mr. Hannigan, get in here!” and a man in a gray suit and a yellow tie hurried out with a great deal of authority.

  He stopped dead when he saw Jonah. “This — this is an honor. I’m your biggest fan. Can I take a selfie of us?”

  Cara slipped past the barrier and down the back corridor. Amy positioned herself as lookout.

  So far, Ian’s plan was working.

  “Let’s keep it quiet, homies,” Jonah said in that confiding tone that always melted resistance. “I’m in town because I just signed for a new movie called HARBORMASTER! That’s with an exclamation point, bro! It’s an action-adventure thriller, and I play a young harbormaster learning the tricks of the trade from the old guy who’s retiring. Plus, I have a little sister who needs an operation! Conflict, heartbreak, a terrorist plot to blow up the harbor … it’s got it all.”

  “Thrilling!” the woman at the reception desk exclaimed.

  “Nobody appreciates how interesting it is at a harbor,” a man said. “Right, Mr. Hannigan?”

  “The tonnage we’ve got coming in and out every day, it’s a big responsibility,” Mr. Hannigan said. “It’s got to go like clockwork.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m doing this movie!” Jonah widened his eyes. “You guys are heroes, keeping track of all those boats.”

  “We call them ships,” Mr. Hannigan said.

  “You see? There’s so much I have to learn!”

  Soon everyone competed to fill Jonah in on the workings of the port. Out of the buzz of conversation, Amy only caught snatches. “Container gantries,” “straddle carriers,” and “transtainers” met with respectful “whoas” from Jonah. Amy felt time ticking by as though it was a physical dance on her nerves. There were only two people left in line to take selfies with Jonah. Hurry up, Cara!

  She let out a breath of relief when Cara came up behind her. “Got it,” she whispered. Amy signaled Jonah.

  “This has been supremely enlightening and a huge mondo help,” Jonah said. “But I have an interview with Vanity Fair, and I’ve got to roll.”

  Ignoring the cold wind whipping in from the water, the gang climbed the fence marked NO ADMITTANCE and wove their way through the cranes and trucks and giant containers to the pier. Towering over them was a massive cargo container ship as big as a building.

  Amy shivered in the icy wind off the harbor. She had to crane her neck to see the top of the bow of the ship, maybe fifty feet up. The ship was as long as a football field, and she couldn’t imagine what incredible feat of engineering kept it upright in the water. If it tipped over, it seemed as though it would smash them into the center of the earth.

  They shrank against the tall metal container, keeping close. Around them, men strode by in hard hats, heading to cranes, talking on walkie-talkies, consulting clipboards and tablets. Tall orange cranes bristled in the sky like gigantic, clever insects with enormous claws. Various smaller cranes, forklifts, and cargo gear sat next to row upon row of metal containers as big as railroad cars.

  Rows and rows, stacks and stacks, hundreds of containers, stretching from one end of the yard to the other.

  “They’re filled with machine parts,” Cara said, reading from the list.

  “Nothing that would blow up,” Dan said.

  “My good man Hannigan said that the containers are sealed at the port of origin,” Jonah said. “They don’t get opened until the destination. It’s all coded and scanned. The crew usually doesn’t know what’s in those containers — they could be toys from China or sweaters from Thailand or faucets or pipes…. The goal is to unload the ship in twenty-four hours. Just load those babies onto trucks and railroad cars.”

  “So getting inside them would be a problem,” Ian said.

  “There’s nothing on this list that is potentially explosive,” Cara said, frowning at her tablet. “Just tractor parts and lumber and things like that. No fertilizer, even. There’s another pier that handles cars, and another with bulk cargo, like wheat and grains and soybeans. In other words, nothing on the list looks dangerous.”

  “Even if we could get into the containers, we’d never be able to open them all,” Hamilton said.

  “Plus, there’ll be inspectors and foremen all over the place when the joint really gets jumping,” Jonah said.

  “How do we know that the ship we’re looking for will even dock?” Amy asked. “What if it’s going to blow up out in the harbor like the one in 1917?”

  The questions hung in the salty, cold air. The ship looming over their heads seemed to slam down on them, boxing them in.

  Amy glanced at Ian. He was staring at the pier, and she could tell he was shuffling through his options. She knew what her nex
t move would be, and she itched to say something.

  “Four days left,” Cara said. “Well, three and a half, since it’s midafternoon.”

  “Wait a second,” Dan said. “Did you hear what the woman said in the harbormaster’s office? There’s a storm brewing, and they’re trying to get all the ships into port. That means that the timeline could speed up.”

  “Not good news, dude,” Hamilton said.

  “We need some reconnaissance work,” Ian said. “Talk to the dockworkers. Get a sense of the process of unloading, and how tight the security is and how it works. Let’s find out if the storm is changing the schedule. Look, there’s a bunch of them sitting over there having lunch.” He knotted his cashmere scarf more securely around his neck. “I’ll stroll over and see what I can find out.”

  The rest of them exchanged dubious glances.

  “Bro, if you think you can pass for a dockworker, you are insane,” Jonah said. “You’re wearing cashmere.”

  “Lucians have marvelous powers of deception,” Ian said.

  “I can hear you now,” Dan said. He mimicked Ian’s posh accent. “‘Good day, chaps, I merely strolled down here to have a spot of chat.’ They’ll keelhaul you and feed you to the oysters.”

  Ian tried to look annoyed, but he shrugged. “I can’t help it if I have class and sophistication. What we really need is some brawny fellow who will fit in.”

  Everyone looked at Hamilton.

  “Hey!” Hamilton protested. “I have class, too!”

  “We should split up,” Ian said. “Hamilton, you pretend to be looking for work. I’ll pretend to be a clueless guy looking for a way to ship something or other. Meanwhile, Jonah and Dan can try to get aboard a ship. Jonah, just keep talking about the movie you’re going to make. See how far you can get.” Ian glanced at Amy and Cara. “As for you two …”

  “We’d be too conspicuous,” Amy said. “There doesn’t seem to be a female contingent on the piers. We can walk down to the cruise ship piers. Check them out.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. Let’s meet back at the motel,” Ian said. He checked his watch. “In two hours.”