For a few achingly long seconds they ran on, unobserved, but then the searchlights began to sweep back and forth. They passed in front, then behind, before finally converging on the escapees.
Without speaking or even looking at each other Jimmy and Ronni began to zigzag. The beams lost them for a moment, then caught up again. They let go of each other's hands; Jimmy veered left, Ronni right. There was blessed darkness for another ten seconds and then they were found again, and this time they couldn't shake them.
A shot rang out, then another and another, then the steady clatter of a machine gun. The soldiers of Fort Hope were not trying to capture them alive.
Jimmy threw himself the last few metres, crashing through undergrowth and rolling over three times before coming to a dead halt up against a gnarly stump. Although he was just a few metres into the trees it was suddenly absolutely black again, as if a giant wooden curtain had been pulled behind him.
'Ronni!' he shouted. 'Ronni . . . !'
There was only silence. For a moment he feared that she was still out on the plain, shot down as she ran, but then he heard a low groan.
'J-jimmy — are you . . . ?'
'I'm here!'
Jimmy scrambled sideways. 'Keep talking, I'm coming!'
He'd moved about a dozen metres when he collided with her.
'Are you OK?' he asked breathlessly.
'Sore . . . sore but fine. Just fine. We did it!' cried Ronni.
'We really did it!'
They hugged each other, jumping up and down — and then abruptly found themselves very embarrassed about it and separated. Just as they did they heard the unmistakable rumble of a diesel engine. They hurried to the edge of the woods and peered out. A truck laden with solders was roaring across the plain towards them.
They weren't done with running!
28
Captured
Claire ran and ran, but it was no good. Not long after the shooting stopped the horde caught up with them. She screamed as they pounced on her, screamed as they pinned her against the wall and prepared to rip her to pieces and devour every inch of her. Inside she prayed harder than she could ever have imagined that they would kill her quickly and eat her later, that she wouldn't suffer too much, or at all. But there was one image that stayed with her through all the horror. In the moments before she was overwhelmed she caught sight of Cleaver standing with his hands clasped before him like a martyr. As they surrounded him and grabbed at him his eyes fastened on to hers and if she hadn't been so concerned with her own impending death she might have sworn that she saw him smile.
Death was . . .
. . . not instantaneous. Instead, the horde, once it was certain that it was in control, quickly calmed itself. The prisoners were herded against one of the walls and counted. The Hawaiian-shirted Rodriguez was begging not to be eaten. They just laughed at him. Cleaver stood at the end of the line. He appeared unfazed. Ty, standing beside Claire, touching her shoulder, was physically shaking. Or maybe it was both of them. She tried to get her heart to stop racing. Steady breaths. She darted a glance up the line of prisoners and realised that Jonas Jones wasn't amongst them. Had they killed him? The last time she'd seen him he'd been struggling to keep up. She wondered whether he'd collapsed from a heart attack. Or could he possibly have escaped? He was the only one amongst them who knew what part was needed to save the Titanic — his duty was not to think of them but to try and retrieve it. She crossed her fingers.
'Just do what they tell you to do,' Dr Hill whispered. 'Keep calm. We're not done yet.'
They were marched down the tracks. They weren't restrained in any way, but with the cannibals walking on either side, prodding and pinching them, there was no hope of escape. When they reached the entrance to the service tunnel Claire was surprised to spot First Officer Jeffers and the two crewmen sitting on the ground with their hands clasped on their heads and a single guard watching over them.
'Mr Jeffers!' Claire gasped. 'I thought you were . . .'
'Ran out of bullets,' Jeffers replied. His voice was low and his face barren of emotion, but his eyes were darting back and forth. Even though their situation appeared totally hopeless she could tell that he was still thinking hard, planning, calculating; she knew that he would never give up hope.
They were herded forward again. It was difficult to establish who, if anyone, was in charge. After what felt like an eternity of walking in flickering shadows they began to move towards what was literally the light at the end of the tunnel. They emerged on to a station platform that in turn led them up a permanently-stopped escalator. They climbed over jammed ticket turnstiles and then blinked out into the late afternoon sunshine of downtown Manhattan. As they walked an amazing — but still very unsettling — thing happened. People began to emerge from the buildings — at first, just one or two ragged-looking individuals, but then more and more, lining the sides of the broad avenues and moving closer and closer until they were right up close against the prisoners. Then they began to cheer and clap as if it was some kind of a victory parade in Ancient Rome. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands.
'Where in hell did they all come from?' Ty whispered.
'There're not that many, if you think of the millions who lived here,' said Claire, trying to look on the bright side.
'Know what this reminds me of? The way they're looking at us? The all-you-can-eat buffet we had on the ship.'
'Thanks for that,' said Claire.
But Ty was right. It was exactly how people were looking at them. There were men and women and children; there were old men and little toddlers, there were teenagers with guns slung over their shoulders; ghetto blasters pumped out music. Everyone looked rough and dirty and undernourished; but they appeared comfortable in each other's company. They were a community surviving together. Claire thought that they probably didn't eat each other.
Maybe they just send out for dinner.
They came to the junction of Broadway and 7th Avenue and looked down into what once provided one of the most famous sights in the city: Times Square. Here garish, animated digital advertising displays decorated almost every building. Here were the theatres that had once drawn in tens of thousands of tourists. Here was where New Yorkers gathered in their millions to celebrate New Year's Eve. But now the neon signs hung lifelessly: a huge Coca-Cola legend, adverts for Panasonic and Budweiser and Pontiac, dead reminders of a different time.
Except for one sign.
In the very heart of the square a big pixilated cat leaped and roared above the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was dazzling, even in daylight. The Jungle King blazed above theatre doors which were open and a red-carpeted foyer which was swept clean. Two ushers in great coats and military-style hats stood, outside marshalling a queue which tailed back for several hundred metres.
'What the . . . ?' Ty whispered.
Claire could only shake her head. Jeffers, at the front of their column, was looking equally bewildered.
They were led past the queue and through the theatre doors. There was a concession stand directly in front where children crowded around and a woman in a green uniform was handing out buckets of popcorn. They moved up a short flight of stairs into the theatre proper. There were possibly a thousand seats inside — with half of them filled and more people coming in all the time.
'This is surreal,' said Ty.
They were guided down an aisle towards the stage, but then veered off to the left, through a door which hid them from the gawping audience and up into the backstage area. All around them there were men and women dressed in animal costumes or in native African outfits. A giraffe walked by, with a man on stilts inside. The sounds of an orchestra tuning up drifted towards them. They were kept there, surrounded by armed guards, while what appeared to be a full-scale theatrical production prepared to take to the stage.