by Sean Rowe
I sat and finally stood in the collapsed crook of the rung that had saved me, and after what seemed like a long time, I started up the rope, arming it out to the next rung, the next standing spot, shaking badly. I got beyond where the ladder had broken and watched Fontana rising hand over hand through the place I had come from, across the void in the ladder between the shadows and the intact upper rungs. I wondered if this was what he had had in mind.
As soon as I brought my head over the railing I heard music from somewhere inside the ship. The silhouettes I had seen belonged to three frat boys. They were leaning on the railing, not saying anything now, just grinning and trying to look relaxed. I stood there, breathing hard and shaking off the feeling of a dream.
Fontana was still ten yards down the ladder. I took the flashlight from Krystal and held it on him, and he looked up at me for a moment before he went back to climbing. He had thrown up down the front of his flak vest.
I could tell one of the frat boys was trying to say something. He cleared his throat. “Uh. What are you guys doing?” All three of them wore clean T-shirts and baseball caps over short haircuts. Krystal was looking at them from behind her Wonder Woman mask. I kept the light on Fontana. The boy tried again. “I mean, do you need any help?”
Fontana’s hand reached up and connected with mine. I could see blood on the front of his vest. So could the college boys. They didn’t say anything. I held and held, drawing him up the ladder rungs, and saw it then inside me, the rest of what had happened in the tree house forty years ago: saw myself take the knife out of the trembling air and cut across my palm in moonlight and take Jack’s hand, joining with the fox’s blood, and his.
He took it slow coming over the rail. I gripped him by the arm, and then when he was steady on his feet, I took my hand away and we looked at each other through our masks.
He unclipped the Jacob’s ladder and let it fall away down the side of the ship into darkness. The frat boys looked over the side and so did I. The lobster boat was still there, dimly, the nylon line white in the white light, anchoring the boat to the hinge on the ship’s cargo door.
And then we were moving. We walked quickly, Fontana leading, Krystal next. The deck on this part of the ship was narrow. A lifeboat hung nearby. Farther toward the bow was a young couple holding hands who turned and watched us pass by, not saying anything. Very fast, we turned into a doorway and moved through a carpeted lobby, going toward a broad stairway with brass rails. Near the bottom of the stairway was a reception desk like in a hotel, but no one was behind it. As I started up the stairs I glanced through the double doors of a ballroom where music was blaring. I could see small, round tables lit with candle lanterns, shapes of people on a dance floor.
Bryant was waiting at the top of the stairway. We followed him down a short corridor and up some steps to the bridge. He knocked and said, “It’s me,” and Kip unlocked the door. We walked into the pilothouse.
The radio officer and chief mate lay on the floor, hog-tied with riot strips. The captain, looking serious, was over on the left, standing with his hands behind his back. His hair was ruffled up into a rooster tail. Kip sat in the big padded pilot’s chair with his AR-14 on the captain.
“Key to the holding cell,” Fontana said. He sounded calm under the mask.
The captain brought his hands out from behind his back and raised them to his side, palms up, and started to say something, maybe something about international laws against locking up crew members. Fontana’s rifle butt caught him in the stomach, and he went down on the floor with a squawk. Fontana rolled him onto his side and got his hand in his pocket, coming up with a key ring. He held it in front of the old man’s face. The captain was starting to cry, but he reached out and showed Fontana the key, a little silver one.
Bryant took one of the riot strips from his belt and fastened the captain’s hands behind his back and then used his knife to cut the plastic from around the ankles of the other officers. We got them on their feet.
“Mate’s sidearm?” Fontana asked.
“Over the side,” Kip said.
Fontana looked past him to where he must have thrown it: the compass bridge beyond a storm door.
“You realize that our unexplained stop has by now been reported to the Coast Guard.” It was the chief mate. Fontana ignored him. We knew we had time. Or some time.
Kip, Krystal, and I took the rear, behind the handcuffed officers. Fontana and Bryant led the way down a steep service stairway, five flights, as fast as they could go. Halfway down I heard a shout, and when I could see past Fontana to the next landing, a stocky man in a white uniform was lying on his side. Bryant had set his Taser on the landing and was going through the guy’s wallet.
“First engineer,” he told Fontana.
Bryant handcuffed the man, who was coming to. It took him only a few seconds, and while he worked he kept an eye on the chief mate. We had both figured out he was the one to watch. The engineer struggled to his feet and stumbled down the stairs to the next level, Bryant holding him by the back of the collar and nearly running with him.
The door we were after was down a hallway that split off along a bulkhead. Bryant opened it using the captain’s key.
Inside the room there was a little black man sitting on the edge of a bunk. He wore tan coveralls and had been reading a book that looked like some sort of religious text written in a foreign language. A wreath of handcuffs and leg irons hung from the corner of the top bunk, but the little man wasn’t wearing any restraints. He looked puzzled but got up quickly and moved out into the corridor when we motioned for him.
After the officers filed inside the room, Fontana closed the door and locked it, testing the door handle. Kip had pulled off his mask.
“Put that back on,” Fontana ordered. He was already moving down the hallway, the short rifle slung under his arm. “Go get the others,” he said as he brushed past Bryant. The others meant the purser, the chief steward, the second engineer, and the executive chef, who had been a combat marine. One or two others. Then he looked at me and said, “Let’s go find Menoyo.” He glanced at his watch, shaking his head.
14
MENOYO WAS SITTING next to a dough mixer in the middle of the galley. When we took off our masks, he laughed.
“Scary monsters,” he said. “Look, after you tie me up, don’t put me in the cooler, OK? It’s freezing in there. I frostbit both my hands when I was a kid, and they still give me fits.”
“Let’s take a look at the money,” said Fontana.
Menoyo walked with us through the galley and pulled open the door of a stockroom. Inside were three shipping pallets. Each pallet held about forty cases of what looked like powdered milk. Fontana motioned to me, and I cut through the polyurethane that covered the boxes and tore one of them open. It was powdered milk.
“Try the next one down,” Menoyo said, a little nervous.
I did, and inside was currency, jammed and mashed together into a big brick sealed in thick plastic.
Fontana lit a cigar and walked out to the galley loading bay, taking a moment to figure out how the cargo doors opened. He looked pale. Overhead was a retractable hoist designed to stick out over the side of the ship and winch materials up and through the cargo doors. Fontana was leaning against a prep counter. He had put out the cigar.
“You’re going to have to do this,” he said without turning his head.
I got the cargo doors unlocked and swung them back against the side of the ship. The lobster boat was off to the right, ten feet down and running along on its mooring line, snug against the bumpers. The chop had picked up, and some of the swells almost reached the lower edge of the doors.
Menoyo was using a pallet jack to bring the first pallet across the galley. I spotted a boat hook hanging by a cord and used it to get hold of the mooring line fastened to the hinge outside.
“Don’t try to untie it,” Fontana directed. “Just cut it. We need to pick up the pace.”
I cut the line an
d started hauling on it, bracing against the doorway. It came easier than I expected, and soon I had the bow of the lobster boat snugged up to the door.
“Tie it off and get on board,” Fontana said, “then connect the winch cable.”
“To the Dumpster?”
“No. To the welders. Bring the welders up first, both at once if you can. Then hand up one of the machine guns. After that we’ll work on the Dumpster.”
I got the hoist boom out over the side of the ship, positioned above the lobster boat, and then found the cable release for the winch and dragged the steel hook down from the ceiling. When the next swell brought the bow up to the edge of the doorway, I eased myself quickly onto the wet deck of the lobster boat. The cable kept unspooling as I went down.
I got on all fours and crawled back to the cockpit and hooked the cable through the handle of one arc welder and then through the handle of the other. I felt a thrill of excitement then. We were making it work. I could see Fontana in the doorway. He turned the switch on the hoist, and the cable ran taut and started lifting the welders. They dragged out of the cockpit and up over the gunwale of the lobster boat, hung in the air, and kept going. Fontana fiddled with the control box, and then the welders started moving on runners until they passed through the galley cargo doors. He unhooked them and rolled them to the side, out of sight. Then he hit the cable release and spooled out slack until he could hand me down the hook.
I made my way back along the deck from the bow of the lobster boat and got the plastic tarp off the Dumpster. It had started to rain. I looked up, expecting to see heads peering down from the quarterdeck, but nobody was there. I uncoupled the chains that held the empty Dumpster in place. As soon as I got the last chain free and attached the cable, I motioned, and the cable started reeling in. The sound changed when the weight caught, but the hoist kept lifting the Dumpster evenly off the deck. It banged the gunwale, tearing off a section of the rub rail as it dragged over the side, then swung hard, its bottom hitting the water. But it kept rising.
I dragged the .50 caliber machine gun behind me toward the bow, and when I looked, Bryant and Krystal were standing in the doorway guiding the Dumpster into the cargo bay. Bryant reached out and got hold of the gun and pulled it through the doorway. The bow of the lobster boat reared and slammed against the side of the ship, and I grabbed the edge of the doorway and got through it in one motion.
When I stood up, I was looking past Kip and Fontana at Neal Atlee walking toward us down the length of the galley. He looked at me and stopped. His mouth opened to say something, but then he began moving again.
He looked terrified. His eyes were wide open.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Fontana said.
Atlee didn’t say anything for a moment. He glanced at me and started rubbing one hand against his shoulder as though worrying an old injury. “She’s here,” he said. “On board.”
No one said anything. Then Fontana asked: “Who is on board?”
“Who the fuck do you think?” Atlee almost screamed. “Miriam Benages!”
15
IT DOESN’T MATTER,” Fontana said, not looking at Atlee. Then he glanced at him. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
“You’re fucking goddamn right I’m afraid,” Atlee yelled. “This wasn’t part of the plan. She’ll take one look at me and know I’m involved. She could roll in here any second to check on that shit.” He cut his eyes toward the pallets. Menoyo had brought the third one over and was leaning against the pallet jack, watching.
“And see you standing here,” Fontana said. “Where you aren’t supposed to be.”
“Uh,” Menoyo interrupted, “can I get tied up now? If you don’t tie me up, they’ll know I was in on it.”
“No,” Fontana said. “Start loading the boxes into the Dumpster.” He was still looking at Atlee. “Wait a minute. I want you to see something. Both of you.”
Fontana walked over to the open cargo doors. Atlee followed, then Menoyo.
“Neal. Who does she have with her?” Fontana said.
Atlee laughed. “Three guys. They all have mustaches.”
After a moment Fontana asked: “What do you see out there?”
“Out there?”
“Yes. Out there.”
“You mean the boat?” Atlee was looking down at Kip’s lobster boat, keeping his distance from the edge of the doorway.
“No, not the boat. Just out there in general.”
Atlee took his time looking out the cargo doors. When he spoke he sounded annoyed, but also nervous. “I don’t see anything out there. I see nothing. Darkness.”
“Right,” Fontana said. “It’s the way I imagine heaven to be.”
I felt sick then. Fontana brought the pistol up from his side very quickly and put it next to Atlee’s head. Then he pulled the trigger. My ears rang. Atlee was lying in the doorway then, and Menoyo was screaming. He had fallen on top of Atlee, but he got up fast. Fontana put the gun in his shoulder holster and looked around. He took the boat hook off the wall and untied the cord it hung from. Then he bent down and tied one end of the cord around Atlee’s left ankle. He carried a meat slicer over from the counter nearby, set it on the floor, and then tied the other end of the cord around the slicer and pushed it through the doorway with his foot. Atlee flopped over and dragged through the doorway and disappeared into the darkness. Menoyo had stopped screaming. Part of Atlee was on his shirt.
“Get started with the welders,” Fontana said.
WE BEGAN AT THE STERN and hit the movie theater first. I peeked inside and saw Jamie Lee Curtis on the screen trying to scramble out a basement window that was too small for her. The theater wasn’t even half full. I had taken off one mask and put on another: a welder’s mask. I plugged the arc welder into a socket and put a fresh rod in the clamp. It took about thirty seconds to get a good bead most of the way down the double doors and weld them shut. There wasn’t much for Bryant to do while I worked at sealing up the theater. Kip and Krystal were four decks down, using the other welder to seal the hallways leading to the crew quarters. Fontana had said he would check the engine room and the holding cell, giving us notice on the radio before he moved on.
The ship had only one passenger elevator, one elevator shaft. The doors opened and inside was an elderly couple, all dressed up. I got in. Bryant wheeled the welder in. The doors closed. I could feel the old man looking at me. I was dripping with sweat.
“We’ve stopped moving, haven’t we?” the old lady said. “The ship?”
I didn’t say anything. Bryant said, “We’ll be under way shortly, ma’am. Just a minor mechanical problem involving the starboard turbine. Here.” He had dug in his pocket and come up with a pair of tablets. “Dramamine. Are you feeling seasick from the swells?”
She nodded. “It’s worse when we’re not moving, isn’t it?” She took the tablets from Bryant.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you part of the comedy troupe?”
Bryant nodded. He bent forward and brought his hand up to his lips, speaking in a stage whisper. “We’re the understudies.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “May I have your autograph?”
“Most certainly,” Bryant said.
She handed him a playbill, and he signed it. When he gave it back to her, she handed it to me. I wrote John Smith in big cursive.
“We’re going to lie down in our cabin,” the old man said. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. I hit the red toggle.
“Happy Halloween!” Bryant called out.
When the couple was thirty feet away, he closed the hallway fire doors behind them, and I started welding. We kept going, doing the same thing to the fire doors on each side of the elevator shaft on every level, sealing off the passengers and crew, anyone who wasn’t awake and moving around in the public places of the ship. It was necessary, and it went pretty quickly, but still not fast enough, I thought. The amount of time it was taking worried me, even as my heart pounded, even a
s I caught myself smiling just a bit behind the mask, excited and going with it.
From the bottom of the ship we rode the elevator back to the quarterdeck. I got the control box open with a pry bar, removed the plate, and tore out the wiring. The light went out in the top of the elevator, and the doors stopped trying to close. We were four minutes behind schedule.
16
I WAS MOVING down one side of the ballroom heading for the back wall when I saw her. She had both hands on the armrests of a wheelchair, and lots of jewelry adorned those hands. Her face had no expression, none at all, and it was hard to imagine it ever having one. It looked like a face I had seen one time in a museum—a stone face that didn’t move, black eyes in a pale, round, white stone face, the eyes too dark to see into. She wasn’t exactly fat, just sort of round and compact, sitting there in the wheelchair without moving, watching Fontana up on the stage. Two men were seated on her right, and a third, smaller guy on her left. The smaller guy wasn’t actually small, just in comparison to the other two. All three had mustaches, like Menoyo had said, and good haircuts and suits. The two on her right folded their arms and sat up straight in their chairs.
“Damas y caballeros,” Fontana said, the microphone squealing. “Ladies and gentlemen. Please do not be alarmed, and please remain in your seats. Your ship has been temporarily appropriated by members of”—here he paused, and a flourish came from the drummer nearby—“the October Twenty-eighth Brigade!”
