Pedroza came up to Dolphin Arm and patted him on the shoulder. 'Good luck,' he said. 'If he starts to squirm, throw him off.'
'OK,' said Jimmy.
Pedroza scowled at him for a moment, then stepped back and shouted: 'Go!'
They were suddenly at the very edge; it was the very last moment when they could step back; Jimmy closed his eyes; Dolphin Arm whispered a prayer; then their feet lifted off the deck and they were pulled up and away from the ship. The wind caught them immediately and hurled them to one side. Jimmy could hear screaming and he knew it was him doing it. He was sure they were falling, yet he couldn't open his eyes.
Jimmy was sitting on a pirate's lap on a flimsy chair, strung on a rope between two ships which could at any moment clash together and squash them to a pulp, and yet . . . and yet . . . he was experiencing a huge rush of adrenaline. They had made slow, gut-wrenching progress at first, but now they were speeding up. Jimmy had never been to one of the big theme parks, but this had to be what it was like on one of those mad rides. The difference was that whereas they made you feel like you might die but were actually perfectly safe, you really could die on this one, and that multiplied both the terror and the excitement of it a thousand times.
As they raced towards the Olympic Jimmy screamed again, but this time with a mad kind of joy. Even Dolphin Arm joined in.
They were three-quarters of the way across, with their speed still increasing and the huge bulk of the Olympic looming before them, when the thought suddenly struck Jimmy that the emphasis had been put on getting them across quickly and safely, with no thought actually given to braking and landing. In fact, they both seemed to come to this conclusion at the same time. They were hurtling towards a crash landing.
'Ohhhhhhhh . . . shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit . . .!' Jimmy yelled. They cracked into the guard rail with considerable force, the security strap across the chair snapped and they were both hurled into the air before landing hard on the deck and tumbling head over heels several times before coming to rest flat on their backs. They lay there for half a minute, hardly sure if they were alive or dead.
Then Dolphin Arm said, 'You OK?'
'OK,' said Jimmy.
They sat up — aches and pains, but nothing broken. They almost gave each other high fives, but then remembered that they were enemies.
They had made it, and the line was still secure!
***
It took forty minutes to get everyone across. Dolphin Arm kept his gun trained on Jeffers, even though the First Officer managed to half concuss himself on landing. Pedroza fell heavily on top of Claire when they were thrown out of the chair on landing, then rolled off and stood without even looking at her. When Jimmy asked her if she was all right she just stared at the deck. She seemed to be trying to stop herself from crying. Jonas Jones was the only one to make a perfect landing. He stepped out of the chair, smiling broadly, as if he was just stepping out of an elevator.
'Fantastic!' he cried.
But his good mood soon faded.
The Olympic was so like their own ship and yet at the same time utterly different, and for just one reason: it was completely empty. There were no survivors, no putrid corpses. The corridors were clean, the kitchens freshly scrubbed. Even the hospital wing had neatly folded beds and cupboards full of untouched medicines. Eerily, muzak continued to play on an endless loop over the public address system as the little party moved along the corridors.
The Olympic was a ghost ship.
***
It was vital to get the transfer of fuel underway as quickly as possible. The hurricanes were getting stronger, buffeting the ships hard and making it increasingly difficult to keep them apart. But this wasn't like filling your car at a petrol station on a windy day. Hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel had to be moved from one ship to the other. It would, Jonas Jones confidently predicted, be 'an absolute nightmare'.
Pedroza stood guard over Jonas and Jeffers while they worked on the fuel problem. He ordered Dolphin Arm to lock Jimmy and Claire in a cabin, and to then search the rest of the ship for weapons.
Dolphin Arm warned them against causing trouble on the way up and gave them a filthy look as he thrust them into a cabin and locked the door from the outside. As soon as it closed, Claire whispered urgently: 'Pedroza tried to kill me again. On the bosun's chair the seat belt was broken so I had to hang on to him, but halfway across he started bending my fingers back — he was trying to make me fall . . .'
'God! But you didn't. . .'
'No — I hit him right in the . . .'
Jimmy winced. 'And he . . .'
'. . . he was in too much pain to throw me off, but he swore and swore, he said he was going to do all sorts of terrible things to me . . .'
'Claire — why didn't you tell Jeffers or—'
'I couldn't — don't you see? What could they do? Pedroza and Dolphin have the guns — what if there's a fight and Jonas and Jeffers get shot? There'll be no one else to get the fuel across, everyone will die.' Claire shook her head. 'Jimmy, I don't think we're going back. He's going to kill us.'
'Claire — you don't know that.'
'Yes I do! Why do you think he made such a big deal about bringing us across? Why us?'
'So Jeffers wouldn't try anything, because you're the owner's daughter . . .'
'Then why you?'
'Because . . .' Jimmy suddenly wasn't sure. Pedroza could have used any one of the many passengers or crew who didn't support his mutiny, but it was Jimmy and Claire he'd insisted on.
'See? He said he wanted revenge — and we thought he meant just making us take the chair, but then he tried to kill me, and now he's going to try again, I'm certain . . . That's why he locked us in here, so he knows exactly where to find us. He'll leave Dolphin in charge of the others and come up here and . . .'
Jimmy was suddenly convinced. 'He'll say we fell overboard by ourselves or we had an accident and got chewed up by the elevators or . . .'
'Then we don't give him that chance. Come on, Jimmy — we have to get out of here!'
***
Claire tried picking the lock with a straightened-out paperclip they found in a folder advertising future cruises, but failed. They tried kicking it, but it held firm. Jimmy opened the balcony doors and hurried across to the guard rail. He had to take a firm grip because of the howling wind and then he hung himself out just enough to be able to see around the dividing wall on to the balcony next door.
'What are you doing?' Claire shouted as she struggled out to join him.
'If we can get over here, their balcony doors mightn't be locked. Maybe we can get out that way.'
'You mean climb over the rail, without even the tiny amount of safety the bosun's chair gave us?'
'Exactly.'
'OK — but this time, let me go first.'
'OK.'
'Aren't you going to ask why?'
'No.'
'Because you took the risk last time with the chair. Now it's my turn.'
'OK. Whatever you say. Personally I just think you're trying to prove you're braver than me.'
'I don't have to prove that. I know I'm braver than you.'
In ordinary circumstances it would not have been that difficult a manoeuvre. It was, essentially, nipping over a neighbour's fence. But if you fell from a neighbour's fence you might graze your knee. If you fell from this one, you would lose your life. Jimmy took a firm hold of Claire, supporting her as she forced herself up the rail in the face of hundred mile an hour winds. She gripped the rail on her side and then felt around the corner for something to hold on to.