'I have a tape recorder.'
'OK, Brian. You go for it. Good luck.'
He smiled, without once raising his eyes to Claire, and turned to the door. As he passed Debs' desk she gave him the thumbs-up. When he was gone Ty looked across at Claire.
'Are you sure he's up to it?'
'We'll soon find out.'
Ty shrugged. 'I just thought he was stupid.'
Debs tutted.
'He's just shy. He has an IQ of 140. That means he's a genius.'
'How do you know he has an IQ of 140?'
'He told me.'
'And you believed him? Well I'm pretty sure you haven't an IQ of 140, if you fell for that. Anyway, if he was that smart he'd know how to make a decent cup of tea.'
'Well who knows, maybe Einstein couldn't make tea either.'
'Any idiot can make tea.'
'Well I don't see you making it, Ty.'
'Well, I'm not any idiot.'
'No, you're in a class of your own.'
Claire left them to it. She had her replacement camera with her, and a telescopic lens. She was both fascinated and repelled by Calvin Cleaver. She wanted to get close to him, but also remain at a distance. She would take his photo and study it. She would study Brian's interview and learn from it. There was something about Cleaver that was just plain wrong.
17
The Punishment
It was safe to say that Jimmy was not the most popular member of the troop. In fact, it was also inaccurate to say that he was the least popular, because any sentence containing the words 'Jimmy' and 'popular' should be regarded as unsatisfactory, such were the negative feelings engendered by his behaviour. Simple words like 'hatred' and 'loathing' would fit much more neatly into any sentence you could care to construct in reference to Lucky Jimmy Armstrong. Most of this had to do with hunger. When you've been worked into the ground in the morning, then missed your lunch, then trained even further into the ground in the afternoon, then missed your dinner and spent an evening lying about, exhausted and starving — well, one can understand just how you might feel about the boy responsible. One would also understand why you hurled him out of the barracks — incidentally, showing splendid teamwork in the process — so that he landed face down in the mud, and why you slammed and locked the door behind him so that he had to spend the next six hours wandering miserably around the fort by himself, aware that he'd made a big fat idiot of himself and that he'd not only betrayed his new comrades but also his old comrades on the Titanic as well. Even Rain Man joined in, and they hated him only marginally less than they did Jimmy.
Jimmy was still tramping around the camp as darkness fell and the floodlights snapped on. Searchlights began to rove across the plain and up into the hills surrounding Fort Hope. The guards in the watchtowers changed shift; those coming off duty appeared relieved, those going on looked nervous. Jimmy remembered Mohican's warning to be quiet as they'd approached the fort the previous night and wondered what could possibly be out there to cause such fear amongst those defending Fort Hope.
It was only as Jimmy wandered between the barracks that he began to fully appreciate the scale of what the President was undertaking — there were literally thousands of soldiers here, all undergoing similar training. There were armoured vehicles, missile launchers, even several tanks. It was an army. But what he didn't quite understand was what it was for. An army represents the citizens of a country; it defends that country, or attacks on its behalf. But there were no ordinary 'citizens' here — there were no mothers, wives, children: no bankers, carpenters or newspapers to protect, there was just the army. Everyone was in the army.
Fort Hope was completely different to any of the other settlements Jimmy had seen — as pathetic and disorganised as they had been, they'd also been determined attempts by survivors to put down fresh roots, safe havens where families could live together, start again. But Fort Hope felt. . . temporary. It was massive, but it wasn't permanent, it was more like a camp, somewhere you expect to move on from. It seemed clear to Jimmy that the President had a plan, and he was building an army with which to execute it. The Titanic now featured in that plan — although almost as an afterthought.
Guilt sat heavily on Jimmy's shoulders. He had more or less given up hope of ever returning to the Titanic. If he did see it again, it would most probably be as part of an army sent to capture it. He cursed himself for being such a big mouth. He must learn to keep his trap shut. He seethed inside. He would not be responsible for the Titanic falling into enemy hands — he would have to do something.
Jimmy stared at the perimeter fence. The chances of scaling it, cutting through it or digging under it without attracting the attention of the guards were minuscule. He had watched movies about prisoners of war escaping from camps like this — but such daring feats were always undertaken by large groups of inmates working in highly organised teams. Any individuals who tried to escape were usually discovered very quickly — and invariably shot.
But there had to be a way to escape.
Or to warn the Titanic.
In trying to keep as far away as possible from the delicious smells emanating from the mess hall, Jimmy found himself on the far side of the camp and outside a hut with a red cross marked on both sides of a slanting roof. As he wandered past it he could see through the open doors a dozen beds inside, with half of them filled. There was a nurse standing by one of the beds, and someone he supposed was a doctor sitting at a table, studying charts. As he moved around the back of the hut he saw that something like a picnic table had been set up in the fresh air. A girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen was sitting there, with a tray of food in front of her. She wasn't eating, just staring into thin air.
Jimmy wandered casually over. 'How's it going?' he asked.
The girl continued to focus on something invisible and far away.
Jimmy sat opposite her, directly in her line of sight. She stared straight through him. He might as well not have been there.
'I'm Jimmy,' he said.
She was very pale. Her eyes were green, but they were set in a face that looked sunken and starved. Her blond hair sat dank and tangled. Jimmy had often seen this vacant look in the settlements; it spoke of unseen horrors and tragic loss. Jimmy wasn't unsympathetic, his focus was just elsewhere.
'Jimmy Armstrong,' he said. 'Only arrived last night. You here long? What do you think of this place? What's wrong with you? Are you not eating your pie?'
His mouth was watering. It was a great big hunk of something pie. He didn't care what it was. There were potatoes and vegetables and a dessert bowl with custard swimming over a sponge cake. There was a can of Coke.
'Do you mind if I take a nibble? Just a teeny bit of crust? Been training all day and I'm absolutely...'
The girl didn't react at all.
Jimmy liberated a generous handful of pie and crammed it into his mouth. It was delicious. That said, he was so hungry that cardboard with gravy would also have qualified as delicious. The girl continued to stare right through him.
'What's that?' he said, playfully cupping a hand to his ear. 'Help yourself to some more? Don't mind if I do.'
He was just reaching across for a second helping when he saw the nurse glance out of the window behind her, then do a double take.