Claire kept an eye on Cleaver, sitting at a table by himself, the brim of his hat pulled down to leave the top half of his face hidden so that she couldn't tell whether he was reading the small Bible open before him or sleeping. As she watched, the man in the Hawaiian shirt, whose wife had disappeared earlier that morning, sat down opposite him. The minister's head scarcely moved up as the man began to speak. Within a few moments he abruptly jumped back up and stomped away. Cleaver's head remained bowed.
Claire slipped out of her seat and approached the Hawaiian man where he was leaning against a pillar on the far side of the food court. His cheeks were flushed and he kept firing angry glances towards the minister's table.
'Is everything OK?' Claire asked.
'What do you think?' the man snapped. He glared at her for a moment, before sighing and shaking his head. 'Sorry. It's just — I asked that. . . that reverend to say a prayer for my wife, and he just refused . . . he just said if she was gone it was the will of the Lord! You imagine that?'
Claire was trying her best to calm the man down when there was a sudden commotion as Jeffers reappeared with his gun out and one of his crewmen supporting the other, who now had a rough bandage around his arm. His white shirt was ripped and soaked in blood. Dr Hill hurried up to examine him as Jeffers helped ease the injured man on to the floor.
'He's been shot,' said Jeffers. 'There's a lot of people moving out there, coming this way.'
'Why're they shooting at us?' one of the passengers asked in panic.
Jeffers glanced at Dr Hill, but didn't immediately respond.
'Maybe they don't realise that we can help them,' said another passenger. 'If we just try and talk to them maybe—'
'No,'Jeffers said firmly, climbing back to his feet. 'It's not safe.'
'We have to at least try,' continued the passenger.
Jeffers took off his cap and wiped his brow. He looked around the passengers. 'Listen to me, all of you. Whatever survivors there are out there, they're not friendly. Whatever happened in this city after the plague has reduced them to cannibalism.'
He let it sit in the air. Claire already knew, but she still felt a shiver run through her.
'You're not serious...' said one of the passengers.
'Deadly serious. Dr Hill and I have both seen the evidence. We're not safe out there — which is why we're not going back out.' This set off a flurry of questions, but Jeffers quickly held his hand up for silence. 'Folks — you are here out of your own choice. We are here because we need to retrieve a vital part for the Titanic. If you wish to travel on to your homes in different parts of the city or beyond, if you wish to try and track down relatives, then I believe this station provides you with your best chance — perhaps your only chance of getting to your preferred destination safely. I'm going to split you up into small groups. You will use the underground rail tracks to traverse the city; we have a detailed map here, we have a supply of flashlights, and I am prepared to assign two armed guards to each group to get you as far as possible. But they may not be able to take you all of the way. After a while you're going to be on your own. That's a decision you have to make. What I will say is this — it's going to take us a full day to get to our objective and back. I plan to be at this exact location twenty-four hours from now. If you decide to return to the Titanic for whatever reason, I would suggest that you do your best to make it here for this time tomorrow and then we can escort you to the ship. But we're not going to hang around. Now, any questions?'
As with any large group of diverse people, there were loads of questions, some stupid, some bright. Jeffers answered them all as well as he could, but he was honest enough to answer, 'I don't know,' to many of them. There was a crushing lack of information about what the rest of the city was like — this cannibalism might well be confined to one small section, or there might be thousands of them. Yes, the railway tunnels could also be teaming with cannibals.
Eventually Jeffers called a halt to the discussion and gathered the passengers around a map of the station which showed the platforms and tunnels and routes, and then split them into groups according to their destinations and assigned guards to each. There were six groups in all — the smallest with four passengers, requiring only one guard: the largest with ten, which included Jeffers himself, Jonas Jones, Dr Hill, Claire, Ty, a husband and wife, the Robinsons, an elderly man on a walking stick called Morgan, the man with the Hawaiian shirt, whose name was Rodriguez — and the Rev. Calvin Cleaver. The three remaining crewmen, including Mr Benson and the wounded man, joined this group.
When they were all ready to set off, Jeffers addressed them all. 'On behalf of Captain Smith and myself,' he said, 'I want to wish you the best of luck with your journey. I hope you find what you're looking for, be it family or friends, or perhaps just a little bit of closure. Remember, you have twenty-four hours to make your minds up about returning to the Titanic.'
The groups began to move out. As they passed each other, they shook hands solemnly. Only Cleaver failed to partake. He sat by himself, waiting.
Ty nudged Claire. 'Looks like he's with us.'
'In a dark tunnel,' said Claire, shuddering.
'I'll watch your back,' said Ty, 'you watch mine.'
'I think I'd rather be caught by the cannibals than be stuck with him,' said Claire.
'Don't say that,' said Ty.
Jeffers came up to her. 'Claire — I don't want you wandering off to take photographs, OK?'
'I know,' said Claire, rolling her eyes.
Jeffers smiled, and was just about to move on when he suddenly remembered something. 'Oh, and Claire — when I was on the line with Captain Smith, I also spoke to your newspaper office . . .'
Claire immediately looked towards Cleaver. 'Have they found Brian?'
'Brian? No, it wasn't about that. As you know, the communications centre monitors radio traffic, and it seems they picked up some Morse code they thought might be of interest to you.'
Her brow furrowed. 'Morse . . . ? Why would—'
'Just two words — Babe lives, with an exclamation mark. Mean anything to you?'
25
The Plan
They were found clinging to a rock two miles downriver, frozen, unable to move, on the verge of passing out and slipping back in, two almost-drowned rats. They could not feel their arms or legs. They were hauled out by their comrades, with Mohican yelling commands, and then rushed away in an ambulance. In the back, drifting between lucidity and coma, Rain Man whispered, 'You saved my life. Why did you do that?'
'Because I'm stupid,' Jimmy whispered back.
He blacked out.
For a long time he wasn't sure where he was. Or if he was alive or dead. He kept thinking he was awake and he was talking coherently to Claire, but then she vanished, or grew trotters. And then he realised he was asleep — but if you realise you're asleep, are you really asleep? — that puzzled him, while he slept. When he did wake, he ached. He felt as if a dwarf with a very small sledge-hammer had whacked every single bone in his body. He didn't want to ever move again, but then the nurse brought in a tray of bacon and eggs and toast and he immediately sat up and ate everything.