Titanic 2020 t2-1 Read online

  Jeffers told his crewmen to keep him covered then walked forward to the gate. Claire tried to stand up to take a photo, but was hauled back down. The man on the other side was heavily built, with a short black beard, and he wore a T-shirt which had once been white. He nodded at Jeffers then snapped, 'We want the girl.'

  'Why?'

  'We know who she is. You give us the girl, we let you go. Otherwise, we come in and take her.'

  'You can try.'

  They locked eyes. 'OK, sailor boy, if you want. But I tell you this, we raided the city armoury. We have weapons here that will blow you to pieces, man.'

  The man behind him nodded. Jeffers saw someone else step out from the cover of one of the cars carrying some kind of missile launcher. He wasn't really sure what type — he was First Officer on a cruise ship. There wasn't much demand for heavy weapons there.

  Behind the Jeep, Jimmy glanced at Claire. She looked very pale indeed.

  'How would they know who you are?' Jimmy whispered.

  Claire shook her head.

  Back at the gate, Jeffers asked the bearded man why they wanted Claire.

  'Why you think? Her daddy owns the ship. We have her, they'll bring it back. You have food, you have medical supplies, you can take us somewhere that's not dying.'

  Jeffers shook his head. 'We have the plague on board as well.'

  'Anything's better than here. We want off this island. So you give her up now or we'll blast you.'

  'If you fire that thing, you will kill her as well.'

  The man shrugged. 'Then we're no worse off. So you hand her over, now.'

  Jeffers glanced at his watch. 'We need to talk. Give us one hour.'

  'Fifteen minutes.'

  'Thirty.'

  'This ain't no car showroom, man! No bargains. Fifteen, or we start shooting.' As he finished speaking, three more cars, full of heavily-armed men, drove up.

  Jeffers looked at them warily, then slowly backed away.

  ***

  Claire immediately said, 'Please don't give me up.'

  'How did they know?' Jeffers asked.

  Claire looked at the ground. Benson looked down as well.

  'OK, let's have it. One of you.'

  'It's my fault,' said Claire. 'When we were at the City Hall I asked Mr Benson if I could use the radio. He said not without permission. But I told him my daddy owned the ship, which meant that I had permission. So he let me. I just wanted to know how my daddy was, but the radio operator on board didn't want to check for me because he'd been told to keep the frequencies clear for emergency signals, so I had to explain to him just exactly how important I was and . . . well, I suppose those guys . . . maybe were listening for radio signals and . . . well . . .'

  Jeffers sighed. Then he looked at Benson. 'Not having a real good day, are you, Benson?'

  'No, sir.'

  'And you know you're going to pay for it, don't you?'

  'Yes, sir.' He cleared his throat. 'Ahm — how?'

  Jeffers smiled.

  ***

  The gunmen watched as the crew from the Titanic argued loudly amongst themselves. At one point they began to place bets as two sailors exchanged punches and wrestled each other to the ground. They didn't notice Jimmy dart from one bush to the next up the high bank, and then disappear down the other side. They weren't aware that he was running as fast as he could towards the rum factory, while crouched down, undercover.

  He had less than ten minutes to find what he was looking for. He had been given clear instructions. It was a massive factory. It stank not only of fermenting alcohol, but also of death. He passed six bodies, horrendously bloated and blue. He charged along corridors, bursting through doors; through a museum, a tourist cafe, then across a courtyard.

  Bingo!

  A warehouse full of bottles of Bacardi.

  OK. Now — in Jeffers' exact words: 'Choose a battlefield.'

  First Officer Jeffers may not have been familiar with heavy weapons, but he knew a thing or two about strategy. This wasn't due to any military training. It was due to a misspent youth playing with toy soldiers and organizing war games amongst his friends. There was hardly a campaign in the history of warfare that he hadn't recreated in his garage at home, from the grandest battle involving hundreds of thousands of men to tiny exchanges involving guerrilla fighters.

  So he had been able to explain to Jimmy very quickly and in precise detail exactly what was needed. They were only a small unit with few weapons, facing a heavily-armed, numerically superior force. They had to adapt. They needed the element of surprise, the advantage of high ground and the ability to lure their enemy into the trap.

  Jimmy spotted what he thought would be the best place to make their stand. There was a narrow alley running between the museum and one of the warehouses, which led on to a courtyard. It was a dead end, with walls on three sides and first- and second-floor windows overlooking it.

  Jimmy hurried to the end of the alley. The Jeep, with Claire and the crew still gathered behind it, was about three hundred metres away. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Jeffers heard it immediately and waved back.

  ***

  The leader of the gunmen was called Mendoza. He had already lost three sisters and two nephews to the plague. Before you start feeling particularly sorry for him, though, you should realize that before the plague came to Puerto Rico he was a gangster and a drug dealer. That is not to say he deserved to lose family members he loved, just that he was not a particularly nice man to start with. Even before the plague, if there was profit in it, he would happily have held hostage the daughter of a wealthy ship owner. His idea of charity was to give the sailors sixteen minutes to give the girl up, rather than fifteen.

  Just as the second hand on his expensive watch — stolen from the dead wrist of a plague victim — came round to complete the sixteenth minute, the Jeep behind the gates suddenly started up, the crew crowded on to it and it took off at speed towards the factory buildings.

  Mendoza and his gang — now twenty strong — immediately fired off a fusillade of shots after it, but to no effect. They sprang towards their vehicles and crashed through the gates after them.

  The Jeep was built for rough terrain, not for speed: while Mendoza had had the pick of the city's abandoned sports cars, so his expensive little convoy was soon gaining ground. The Jeep turned off to the right and disappeared down an alley between two of the factory buildings. Mendoza smiled. He lived nearby and was familiar with the layout of the complex. He knew that this was a dead end; that the Jeep was trapped.

  Good. He would enjoy this.

  Mendoza led his cars up the alley and out into the courtyard. He saw the Jeep straight ahead — abandoned. The men — the cowards! — had clearly run away, but the girl he was after was standing in front of the vehicle, her head bowed in submission, her face hidden by a baseball cap and her skirt blowing in the cool breeze.

  The cars pulled up a dozen metres short of the girl and the gangsters piled out, bristling with weapons. Mendoza signalled for them to stay back.

  'She is for me!' he shouted.

  All around his followers clapped and wolf-whistled as he fixed his hair and licked his lips and pretended to wipe the worst of the dirt off his clothes. He tucked his gun into his belt and swaggered forward. He had heard her voice on the radio and found it sweet and attractive; then he had glimpsed her through the gates and thought how pretty she was. He had every intention of using her to bargain his way on to the mighty ship, but there was nothing to stop him having a little fun first.

  'Hey, pretty rich girl,' he said huskily, reaching out to gently lift Claire's chin, 'what about a little kiss?'

  Mendoza's mouth moved towards her as the brim of Claire's baseball cap came up — but it was not Claire's face. It was a man. With a moustache.

  'Kiss this,' said Benson, producing a gun from behind his skirt.

  For several moments the other gangsters didn't realize what was going on, so busy were they whoop
ing and yelling as their boss went into action, but then Benson's baseball cap fell off and they saw something they couldn't quite believe.

  'Drop your weapons or I'll blow his head off!' Benson shouted.

  Then they realized.

  But they didn't drop their guns.

  'Drop them!' Benson shouted. Sweat cascaded down his brow. He was a radio operator. The most dangerous thing he'd done in his life before this was to wire a plug. 'Tell them!' he said.

  Mendoza turned his head slightly. But he didn't — or couldn't — speak, not with a gun pointing at him.

  And the others hesitated.

  They were survivors of the plague and had banded together to increase their chances of surviving. They were teachers and bakers and tailors and civil servants. Most of them had never picked up a gun before. They had been drunk for most of the past four days. None of them particularly liked Mendoza. He was a bully, and mean, but he was also a leader and made decisions when all they could do was argue amongst themselves.

  Behind, one of their vehicles suddenly exploded in a ball of fire and they cowered down.

  They looked up and saw the sailors standing at windows on every side of them, brandishing bottles of Bacardi with a piece of torn cloth wrapped around the neck. Once lit and thrown, the glass would smash and the alcohol would ignite explosively. It was a lethal mix.

  'Drop your weapons and get out of here!' Jeffers shouted from a window on the left of the square courtyard. 'Now!' He pulled his arm back, threatening to throw another bomb.

  It was enough.

  If they'd been anything other than a drunken mob they might have put up a fight — they had much superior weapons — but they were confused and suddenly in fear for their lives. One man dropped his weapon and backed away; then he started running. Another followed, and another, and soon they were all in flight.

  Benson lowered the gun and whispered huskily in Mendoza's ear. 'Are you sure you don't want that kiss?'

  Mendoza shook his head violently.

  'Then get the hell out of here!' Mendoza didn't need a second invitation. As he fled down the alley the crewmen, together with Jimmy and Claire, stood in the windows on three sides of the square and cheered.

  26

  The Pizza Incident

  The next issue of the Titanic Times included a thrilling account of their adventures on the island of Puerto Rico, but was noticeably short of photographs of Mr Benson in a skirt. There were other photographs however: the funeral pyre; official documents scattered around the deserted City Hall; the Titanic, three-quarters hidden by smoke; and finally the pleasure boat they had commandeered from the harbour at Dorado and piloted back to the ship.

  Claire took the first copy off the printer up to her father in the hospital that evening, but they wouldn't let her in. He was too ill. Her mother was showing the first symptoms of the plague as well, and was now sharing a room with him. On her way out of the hospital she saw Ty lying on a bed. When she tried to speak to him she was chased away.

  Jimmy was busy printing off two thousand copies, with the delivery team waiting impatiently out in the corridor, when Claire returned, glum-faced. She sat at her desk and began to turn her camera over in her hands.

  'Not good?'

  'Not good. Ty's there as well.' She kicked at a desk leg. 'Today was incredible and the paper's fantastic, but when it's all said and done we're still on a plague ship and we're all going to die.'

  'Speak for yourself.' He lifted the first bundle of papers and went to the door. 'Deck Four,' he told the first boy in line, 'and this time knock on the door and make sure there's someone in. We're wasting too many copies on empty rooms. Leave the rest in the library.'

  As Jimmy returned to the printer, Claire took his photograph. 'What's that for?'

  'In case something happens to you, so I'll have a picture to put in the paper. Here, take one of me.'

  She handed him the camera. He took a head and shoulders shot.

  'It's funny,' said Jimmy. 'Scoop told me that every newspaper keeps a collection of photos of people, so that they'll have one handy if they need it. You know what they call it? The morgue. This whole bloody ship is a morgue.'

  Claire shook her head sadly. 'They're all dying up there. They're screaming and burning with fever and they just want someone to put them out of their misery. Jimmy — if I catch it, I don't want to be hanging around for days. Will you just push me overboard or something, so I can drown, or the sharks can have me?'

  'No,' said Jimmy.

  'Why not?'

  'Just because.'

  'I'd push you overboard. Even if you weren't sick.'

  Jimmy smiled at that. He lifted another stack of papers. 'Come on, give me a hand with these.'

  ***

  The paper also contained interviews with several of the Puerto Ricans who'd been allowed on board by Captain Smith. There were forty of them in all. They had nervously approached Jonas Jones as he supervised the refuelling. They were starving and ragged, their children crying and wailing, and he couldn't help but feel sorry for them. But what had seemed like a simple act of charity had quickly gotten out of hand, with thousands streaming out of the city and trying to fight their way on board. Realizing that control of the ship could quickly be lost, Captain Smith had been forced to order Jonas Jones back on board before the refuelling was completed and the Titanic had sailed out under gunfire.

  Dr Hill had examined the new arrivals and found none to be suffering from the Red Death. Yet. They were the lucky ones. Tens of thousands had died. Those few Government officials who were still alive had ordered the bodies to be taken to the fortress to be burned in an attempt to stop the plague spreading. Those who were left alive in the city had to fight for every scrap of food. The water was bad; the electricity was off; gangs roamed the streets, smashing and stealing and killing. To those who had made it on board, the Titanic was like a mighty white angel arriving to take them to heaven.

  The newspaper also contained information about the next port of call, the tiny island of St Thomas. It was just forty miles to the east of Puerto Rico and had a population of 56,000 — or at least it had before the plague. It had proved impossible to make radio contact with the island. They suspected the picture would be the same as in Puerto Rico, but Captain Smith was determined to stick to the itinerary, not least because he hoped they'd be able to complete the refuelling that had been interrupted in San Juan. The capital was called Charlotte Amalie, but Magens Bay on the opposite side of the island had been described by National Geographic magazine as having one of the world's ten most beautiful beaches. Jimmy had written optimistically that perhaps they could all stop off there for a swim.

  It didn't seem very likely.

  ***

  When the newspaper distribution was finished, Jimmy and Claire rounded up their delivery team and took them up to the twenty-four-hour buffet restaurant on Deck Eleven for a midnight feast. Although the team was still being paid, they too had begun to realize that their dollars were more or less worthless now and as a result they were becoming restless and less inclined to turn up for work. This was to be an attempt by Jimmy and Claire to build a team spirit. Jimmy had a speech all prepared about how important it was to keep a record of everything that happened, the role the paper played in keeping people informed and how they too could get involved in reporting stories and taking photos.

  The speech was actually going down quite well, as they tore into pizza after pizza, and Jimmy was just getting to a rather more bloodthirsty version of what had happened at the fortress of San Cristobal when he was interrupted by Kitty Calhoon. She had Franklin in her arms and wanted to know if it was possible for dogs to catch the Red Death. Someone at the table said, 'Hope so,' and they all dissolved into hysterical laughter.

  Miss Calhoon, who was partially deaf, didn't catch on. Jimmy, struggling to keep his face straight, was trying to put a coherent answer together when he was saved by a sudden crashing from behind. They all turned to see First Off
icer Jeffers getting involved in a shouting match between chef Pedroza and a group of the new Puerto Rican passengers. There were several smashed plates already on the floor. As they watched Pedroza picked up another and threw it down.

  Jimmy sensed a story. Claire wordlessly lifted her camera and together they crossed the floor of the restaurant just in time to observe Pedroza jab a finger into Jeffers' chest.

  'Touch me again, Mr Pedroza, and I will have you locked up.'

  'Then you get them out of here!'

  'They have as much right to be here as you have, sir.'

  'No! They eat our food, there is less left for us. We don't know how long we'll be on this ship! We have no food to spare!'

  He jabbed at the First Officer again.

  'Mr Pedroza! I'm warning you!'

  Dozens of other diners had gotten up from their tables and were now gathering around. One, an overweight man in a too-tight T-shirt, shouted: 'He's right! We paid for that food — it should be kept for us, not given to some refugees!'

  Other passengers nodded in agreement.

  'There is more than enough food to spare. You know that, Mr Pedroza.'

  'Not for long! Not if we keep feeding these people!'

  'Do you want us to starve them?'

  'I want you to send them back where they came from!'

  This drew a round of applause from some of the passengers.

  'Mr Pedroza, this is a direct order from Captain Smith. These people are guests on this ship and are to be treated as such. Now, you will feed them!'

  Pedroza glared at Jeffers, then turned on his heel and stormed back into the kitchens. Jeffers stared after him for a moment before addressing the other passengers. 'If you'll all just go back to your seats. . .'

  Some of them did; others walked out of the restaurant, muttering and casting filthy looks towards the nervous Puerto Ricans. Jeffers turned to the buffet table, lifted a slice of pizza, put it on a plate, then knelt down before one of the refugee kids. 'There you go, son,' he said.

  'No like pizza,' said the boy.

  ***

  Jimmy couldn't sleep. The incident in the restaurant had disturbed him. When they'd been stranded on Puerto Rico, getting back to the ship had been the most important thing because it represented safety, and home. Even though people were sick and dying on board there was something tremendously comforting about the Titanic — not just its size and the fact that it dominated everything; it was the way the crew and passengers looked upon it as their best hope in a ruined world. He had thought that after the public meeting in the theatre everything had been resolved, that they would face whatever problems there were together. The argument over the pizza had shown how wrong he was. People could turn on each other very quickly. The ship was just like Puerto Rico — it was an island, and once order was lost it could very quickly descend into anarchy.