“Thank you. I didn’t know that. You did, but you went down with Kent-Jermyn anyway.”
“Yes, sir. A raiding party of a few men can get a lot done sometimes. You and the skipper didn’t know the setup down there, for one thing. We found out.”
“I think I understand.” Skip sipped his beer and set it back down. “What I started out to say was that Achille came with a list of the captives. The hijackers had gotten all of you to write down your names.”
“Yes, sir, except for the ones who were hurt too bad to write. We wrote theirs for them.”
“I see. I believe that was before Angel Mendoza escaped?”
“Yes, sir. We wouldn’t have put down his name if he hadn’t been there.”
“I see.” For a few seconds, Skip paced in silence. “I’ve been assuming that he had a similar list. And of course he may have—he could have written such a list himself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think he did. When we found Chelle, she told me she needed a psychiatrist. She was joking, I’m sure; but many a truth is told in jest. As we took her up to J Deck, I asked what she’d meant by it; and she told me that when she’d read your names she felt compelled to get you men back, and that her compulsion to do it overrode every other consideration.”
“I don’t think I’ve got this yet, sir.”
“I think I do,” Skip said, “and right now that’s what matters. It involves Jane Sims and a note Chelle wrote once. It may also involve my secretary in some way, and I admit I don’t understand that yet. Perhaps I never will, but…” He smiled. “But we may get to the bottom of it today, Corporal Miles. I dare hope so.”
“Then so do I, sir.”
“Good! I want to take you to the infirmary to talk to Chelle. I want you to tell her about Jane Sims, in much more detail than you told me. And I want you to tell her how Jane Sims died. Did you see her body?”
“Yes, sir. Not for long, because the medics grabbed it and froze it. They use them for organ replacements, sir. Then the parts they can’t use—whatever’s chewed up too bad—get shipped home in a sealed coffin. People here don’t seem to understand that, but that’s how it is.”
“I see. Do you happen to know whether Jane Sims’s family has received such a coffin?”
“No, sir. I don’t, and I’d like to.”
Skip nodded, mostly to himself. “I have a man in Boswash, which is where I live, who’ll look into things like that for me. I’ll have him find out, and I’ll tell you what he learns.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“In return, I’d like you to talk to Chelle. Tell her what you’ve told me about Jane Sims, and about seeing her body. Describe it. Give her as much detail as you can remember.”
“I will, sir.”
Skip took a deep breath. “It may work, and it’s certainly worth trying; I’ll be indebted to you whether it works or not. A moment ago I said I liked to pay my debts. Are you going to stay in the Army?”
Miles nodded. “I’ll have to, sir. It’s damned hard to get a civilian job, sir. That’s what everybody says. I qualify for a pension—they say I’ve got twenty years’ service—but for a corporal that’s not much.”
“Suppose you could get a civilian job, a good one?”
“Then I’d put in for a discharge, sir. I’d have the salary, whatever it was, and my pension, too. I’d be set.”
“Do this for me, and I’ll get you one.”
Miles swallowed the last drop of his beer, and paused as though afraid to speak. At last he said, “Really, sir?”
“Yes. I’ve got connections. Let’s go see Chelle.”
* * *
Someone was shouting in the infirmary, his hoarse voice audible far down the corridor: “Hey! Hey! Anybody! Come here!”
The middle-aged woman who had sat at the desk when Skip and Susan had come to see Chelle was dead, her body slumped across the desk, her white cotton blouse bullet-torn and scarlet with her blood. Chelle’s bed was empty, her pillow on the floor, her sheets tangled.
The man in the big room next to hers stopped shouting as they came through its door. “Don! What the hell’s going on?”
“That’s what we want to know, sir,” Don said; Skip felt that he spoke for both of them.
Five minutes later, they found Dr. Prescott’s body behind his desk in his consulting room.
* * *
Hours later, Skip told the captain, “He had been dragged there. He’d heard them shoot his nurse and had come out of his office. The gunman shot him three times and dragged him back inside. I don’t know why.”
“We’ll find him,” Captain Kain promised.
“Will we? We’ve spent three hours looking without finding him.” Skip took a long swallow of a vodka-and-tonic he felt sure he should not have asked for. “Can he get off the ship?”
“No.”
Skip raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”
“Yes, just like that. You’re going to suggest that he could escape in a lifeboat.”
“Couldn’t he?”
“No. It takes two people to launch one, one at each davit—two able-bodied men with strong arms. If they were going to ride in the boat themselves, they’d have to jump into the sea after they had it down. That’s how it would be done if we were sinking. Do you want to hear more?”
Skip nodded.
“Very well. That wouldn’t be possible if it’s only one man. He could threaten Ms. Blue with death and force her to help, agreed. He could also force her to jump before he did. But you say she has a broken arm. I doubt that the strongest man in my crew could operate one of those davits without two sound arms. No doubt Ms. Blue is strong for a woman, but with her right arm broken? There’s not a chance.”
“Suppose—”
“That there are more than one. Exactly. That’s the chance we cannot take. Here’s another, one you may not have thought of. Suppose he’s got a great deal of money. He finds a couple of my sailors and offers them … Oh, ten thousand noras to let down a lifeboat for him. Some of my men wouldn’t take it, I know. Others might. I’ve got patrols on the Boat Deck watching the boats for just that reason.”
“An inflatable raft,” Skip suggested. “He forces her to jump, jumps in after her, and inflates his raft. She’d have to climb aboard or drown.”
“Normally, we have only one lookout, a man who looks forward. Now I’ve stationed a man aft to watch for that, or a suicide attempt.” The captain sighed. “For a raft or dinghy of some kind, or a body overboard.”
“You think he might kill her.”
“Of course I do. Who is he? Why does he want her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we can’t even begin to guess—”
The captain was interrupted by his phone. When he hung up, he told Skip, “That was Dr. Ueda. She’s a passenger, but she’s agreed to fill in for Dr. Prescott until we reach port. There are a lot of wounded in the infirmary, and she’s found women with medical backgrounds to help her take care of them.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Skip said.
“Naturally not. But it was my duty to find somebody, and I did. While we were searching she’s been looking at bodies, Dr. Prescott’s and Nurse Eagan’s, and those poor girls who used to work for Virginia.” The captain paused. “If I weren’t so damned tired I could probably think of their names.”
“Amelia was one,” Skip told him. “The other was Polly, I think. Or Paula. I don’t remember the last names.”
“Amelia Nelson, I believe, and Polly Lutz. They were both killed by the explosion. No bullets.”
“I’d assumed that.”
“You were right,” the captain said, “but now we know. Eagan was shot once through the heart. Prescott was shot three times.” The captain paused.