The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  He leaned into Elaine, and whispered in her ear.

  "I think you were right about these clothes."

  Elaine laughed and hugged him reassuringly, nuzzling into his neck.

  "I did warn you," she said with a smile. "We're probably the only people on this ship who don't live on a country estate or drive a Ferrari."

  "Yeah, but we're on holiday," Dan said with a mock-pout. "People are meant to relax on holiday, aren't they? Even wealthy people?"

  Elaine pecked him on the cheek.

  "Awww," she said with mock-sarcasm. "You're an artist, remember? Artists are meant to be scruffy."

  Dan looked dubious. He hadn’t sold a painting in two years, not since before the attack and the subsequent illness. It was starting to feel like his career was a sham, or a once-only, never-to-be-repeated sort of deal.

  "Not sure I can call myself an artist at the moment. You know, until I actually paint something else."

  Elaine rolled her eyes.

  "You will," she said brightly, "and it will be a masterpiece."

  "Yeah, maybe," Dan said dubiously. "That's not going to help me right now, though. I look like a tramp in the middle of this crowd."

  Elaine laughed, and pulled a handkerchief from her shoulder bag. She passed it to him, and laughed again at his confused expression.

  "What's this for?" Dan said.

  "That's to help you feel less conspicuous," she replied. "If you feel like people are staring at you, just, y'know, polish something."

  Elaine's eyes sparkled with mischief, and she let out a squeal that drew all eyes to her when Dan responded by affectionately slapping her backside.

  "Newlyweds?"

  Dan turned in surprise at the voice, and saw one of the staff moving along the line of people toward them. She carried a tray of champagne glasses, and offered it with a smile. Dan and Elaine both grabbed a glass, and Dan drained most of his in one gulp.

  Dutch courage, he told himself, and then immediately followed that thought with a bout of self-recrimination. Making small talk with a young woman whose job it was to be friendly should not feel as nerve-shredding as waiting for an important job interview to begin.

  He breathed deeply.

  You can do this, Dan. Just talk to her like a normal human being.

  "Uh...thanks," Dan said. "Yeah, married yesterday."

  "Oh, congratulations!" the young woman said cheerfully. "If you mention that at reception, we'll have a bottle of champagne sent to your cabin. Are you in one of our honeymoon suites?"

  Dan shook his head.

  "A little beyond our means, I'm afraid."

  The receptionist glanced at Dan's clothes and nodded, and Dan felt Elaine, who had wrapped her arm around him, begin to shake with suppressed laughter once more.

  The receptionist leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially.

  "I know, right? This ship is expensive. I think they'd charge for the air if they could get away with it."

  She winked, and Dan felt himself relax a little.

  "The only way I could ever get aboard is by serving the drinks! Not to worry though, the regular cabins are pretty amazing. I'm sure you'll have a great time."

  "Thanks," Dan said. "I'm sure we—"

  He stopped short when the floor began to shake.

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  "Don't worry," the young woman said. "That's just the engine heating up. We're setting off."

  Dan looked confused.

  "I thought I read that the Oceanus was so big the passengers couldn't even tell they were at sea," he said.

  "Oh, that's right. This is the worst part: they have to use a lot of power to get us moving, and that pushes the water against the harbour wall and creates a sort of tidal effect," the young woman said. "So I'm told."

  She rolled her eyes and smiled, placing a reassuring hand lightly on Dan’s arm.

  "Things feel a little choppy for the first few minutes, but once we're underway, you won't feel a thing. It was lovely to meet you both. Enjoy your trip."

  The young woman smiled broadly, moving down the line to hand out more glasses of champagne. Dan tuned out her cheerful chatter with the passengers waiting behind him.

  "She was totally checking you out, husband," Elaine whispered.

  Dan opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again when he saw the mischievous twinkle in Elaine's eyes.

  "You're right," he said in a mock-serious tone. "Can't blame her, really. I mean: these clothes, my obvious excitement at the prospect of free champagne. She probably figures I've sneaked aboard. Probably thinks I'm some sexy stowaway, you know? All the ladies love a bad boy, right?"

  He dropped his eyes sadly.

  "It's just a pity I've got the old ball-and-chain with me."

  "Oh, the 'old ball-and-chain,' am I? Just for that, you can get us checked in."

  Elaine thrust the tickets into Dan's hand, and walked away, turning back after a few steps to poke her tongue out at her husband.

  Dan laughed, and shuffled the suitcases at his feet toward the nearest reception desk, summoning up his courage to speak to yet another stranger.

  *

  Elaine watched for a moment as Dan headed toward the check-in desk, and told herself for the hundredth time not to worry about him.

  Dan's anxiety meant that he found it difficult to deal with people, and strangers especially. Ordinarily, if small talk with a stranger was necessary, Dan let Elaine do the talking while he hovered in the background looking uncomfortable.

  He had been improving, though; getting better with each passing month since he started therapy, and Elaine had taken to pushing him gently to deal with situations that other people navigated through without blinking, but which Dan had found overwhelming for the past couple of years.

  A year ago, he would have baulked at the prospect of a cruise, even with Elaine by his side for moral support. But things were looking up: he had actually started sitting in his studio again instead of just talking about it, and on a couple of occasions recently he had surprised her with gifts. Just little tokens of his affection, but Elaine knew how enormous the gifts truly were, because Dan had ventured out into the world alone to buy them. The gesture was, for him, monumental.

  Dan liked to joke that Elaine was his strength; that she was the reason he was slowly beginning to feel better, but Elaine wouldn't accept it. She had started the ball rolling, maybe, had given him that first motivational shove, but it was Dan that kept pushing.

  She smiled as she saw him reach the desk and begin to shuffle on the spot a little awkwardly, fussing with his hair. The assistant greeted him warmly, and even at this distance, Elaine saw Dan's shoulders relax a little. He would be fine. Elaine turned to check out the rest of the lobby.

  Beyond the array of reception desks, Elaine saw several glass elevator doors, opening and closing like hungry mouths to swallow the passengers and deliver them to their cabins on the upper decks.

  And beyond the elevators was a balcony that drew Elaine toward it like a magnet.

  Dan had been digging up trivia about the ship ever since they had finally agreed to book tickets; data mined from the depths of the internet. Most of the nuggets of information he unearthed had leaked away from Elaine's memory, but one fact had stuck, memorable because it seemed so damn bizarre: the Oceanus had its own park.

  When Dan had relayed that piece of information, breathless with excitement, Elaine had tried to visualise what the words meant, but hadn't been able to conjure up an image to match Dan's description. Most likely, she had decided, what the Oceanus' sleek website had labelled a park was in actual fact an area dedicated to a few potted plants, and maybe some tacky plastic water feature.

  When she left Dan at the reception area, the distant park was the first thing Elaine saw, and the sight of it stole her breath away. She walked slowly toward the balcony, moving as though in a dream, focused on the incredible sight beyond. She wasn't even really aware of moving, but suddenly she wa
s leaning over the railing, and her eyes widened in astonishment as the scale of the Oceanus fully revealed itself.

  The entire centre of the ship seemed to have been hollowed out, and an honest-to-God strip of parkland had been inserted into the resulting space. Elaine saw fully grown trees and small, perfectly manicured gardens, something that looked like a small bandstand; a row of gift shops and restaurants clustered under a sign that read Park Avenue. Toward the rear of the ship, far to Elaine's right, she saw a small fairground area, with a smattering of rides and carnival games.

  The tiny water feature she had expected to see turned out to be a small pond, criss-crossed with wooden bridges and walkways, and just large enough to hold a tiny pedal boat that Elaine immediately decided she wanted to try out. The pond was complete with actual ducks.

  All around the incredible splash of greenery, towering over the park, loomed the passenger decks. The ship had seventeen decks in total; twelve accommodating the passengers. For a ship claiming to be the largest in the world, twelve decks hadn't sounded to Elaine like a particularly huge number, but now that she could see just how vast each deck was, twelve seemed like plenty. From where she stood, she saw three of the top levels bustling with activity: balconies that led into what looked like plush apartments, and people getting settled in. The rest of the decks that she could see were dedicated to a dizzying array of entertainment areas.

  The vastness of the ship was amplified by the people she saw: for the first part of its journey, the Oceanus was only carrying a half-load: another three thousand passengers would board when the ship docked in Miami to bring the full complement to six thousand for the main part of the cruise around the Caribbean.

  The result was a sparsely-populated spaciousness that made the ship seem even more gigantic. From her vantage point, Elaine saw parts of the Oceanus that looked unused, almost abandoned: the less popular areas, she supposed. She had no doubt that once another three thousand passengers were added to the mix, even those places would feel crowded.

  Elaine had grown up in an almost-middle class suburb on the outskirts of London, with parents who worked hard and spent every penny on trying to live a life just beyond their means. When she graduated university, she worked as veterinary assistant, before working her way up to be a partner in a veterinary surgery at the edge of the city.

  The job was all she had ever dreamed of, and she couldn't be happier with the work, but it wasn't the type that paid well. At twenty-eight, she was still struggling under the weight of her student loans, and wondering if she would ever move beyond making ends meet.

  She had only ever been abroad once—on a holiday with her girlfriends to Greece when she was eighteen—and had spent most of those two weeks drunk and dancing.

  Elaine had never seen anything like the opulence that dripped from every surface of the Oceanus, and the first sight of the ship's interior was incredible and awe-inspiring.

  She stood there for a while, watching the tiny stick-figures scurrying about on the other side of the ship, and thinking that she already wished she could stay on board forever.

  "I wonder why they don't fly away."

  Elaine had been so lost in studying the ship that she hadn't noticed Dan moving alongside her at the balcony.

  She looked at him inquisitively.

  "The ducks," Dan said, and pointed at the distant pond. "What's to stop them just flying off?"

  "Take a look at this place," Elaine said in a voice light with breathless wonder. "Would you fly off?"

  Dan grinned.

  "You have a point, there, Mrs Bellamy. Now, let's go and find our cabin." He held up an electronic keycard with the number 217 stamped on it. "And then I think it might be time to try treating that addiction of yours."

  Dan exaggerated a wink, and Elaine giggled helplessly.

  5

  Security hadn't been a problem, despite Herb secretly hoping that the guards who waved them through the staff entrance and onto the ramp that boarded the ship might become suspicious.

  In the end, the guards had given a cursory inspection to the Rennick brothers' bags, and only one item piqued their interest: a small silver satchel that Edgar carried inside his larger workbag, and which the x-ray scanners had trouble with.

  The satchel was important to the mission; beyond vital, but when the guards opened it up they saw only safety goggles and a radio; nothing that looked out of place among the other tools and mechanical supplies that filled the brothers' bags.

  The Rennicks were dressed as engineering staff, after all, and bags full of tools were to be expected. Safety goggles and a radio probably didn't look suspicious in the slightest. Maybe, Herb thought, if their IDs hadn't checked out, the guards would have taken more than a glance at those tools, and might have spent a little time wondering just why that small silver satchel wouldn't scan properly, but Edgar had been right.

  Nobody gave the Rennick brothers a second glance.

  After all, their names and faces were on the list, and if the computer didn't have a problem with their presence, then why should anybody else?

  Extraordinary wealth gave Herb's father incredible reach: inserting four people who shouldn't be there into the database of a cruise ship was as easy as snapping his fingers and writing a cheque.

  They made it aboard, and Edgar led them directly to the target location, while Herb's faint hope that fate would intervene and somehow prevent them from boarding withered up and died.

  *

  The Climate Control Centre on deck three was just a large metal box; far less impressive than its name suggested. Lots of pipes, lots of exposed metal. Compared to the rest of the expensively-appointed ship, the control centre looked like a wound; like someone had peeled back the Oceanus’ perfect skin to reveal the steel skeleton underneath.

  All around the main room, metal veins snaked away, large and small. Vents that disappeared into the walls, delivering the purified, warm air to other parts of the ship.

  Even those who were familiar with the ship could get lost in the metal maze that comprised the Climate Control Centre, but Edgar had memorised the turns he needed to take to reach a secluded part of the deck, and he led the way unerringly.

  The target location had been Edgar's call, and Herb had to admit it was probably the right one. Remaining undiscovered on a ship like the Oceanus was difficult, but not impossible. The air conditioning system was the closest thing the ship possessed to a dead zone.

  Deep in one of the labyrinthine maintenance areas that clustered around the engine room like arterial fat, the spot Edgar had picked out, after many hours spent poring over blueprints and schematics, represented their best chance of avoiding people for long enough to get the job done.

  The job, Herb thought bitterly. It sounded so mundane. So ordinary. A job was exactly what Edgar thought of it as. The duty. Their oath. As necessary as breathing and eating.

  Yet Herb couldn't see beyond the horror of what they were about to do. It wasn't a fucking job. It was a life sentence. It seemed that Edgar was confident they'd get away clean, but Herb thought that even if they did escape the Oceanus after their work was done, none of them would ever be clean again.

  Edgar's choice of venue proved astute. After dropping into the guts of the ship following the security check, the brothers encountered very few staff, and when they reached climate control, it was so deserted that it was almost possible to believe they were the only people on the ship.

  Air con was one of those systems that people only paid attention to when it stopped working. There would be checks, but they would be infrequent. All the brothers knew the staffing patterns by heart, and the first routine check of the Climate Control Centre was scheduled for twelve hours after departure.

  By twelve hours in, Herb thought darkly, air conditioning would be the last thing on anyone's mind.

  The spot Edgar had picked was a junction room connecting several of the ducts that spread out like a web throughout the ship. The room itself was almost
featureless, save for the air con control units that dominated one wall. The room was small; Herb guessed it was probably no more than twelve by twelve, and the ceiling had to be six foot, max. Herb was the only one of the brothers that didn't have to stoop, but even at five-ten, he felt his hair grazing the ceiling when he stood up straight.

  Edgar nodded at the others, and slung his bag from his shoulder, beginning to unpack. Herb followed suit, but removing the bag from his shoulders didn't make him feel any less heavy.

  The weight of guilt, he thought. Or fear.

  Both.

  Getting aboard the ship—and then reaching the target location—had been the part of the mission that filled the brothers with the most apprehension, and now that they had made it, Herb felt the tension in his brothers dissipate, even as it continued to grow inside his own thoughts like a tumour.

  Edgar wore a satisfied expression, and Herb knew his brother was focused only on the completion of the task. The work began as soon as they slung the bags from their shoulders.

  This part, the team of brothers was good at; beyond professional. They had rehearsed the construction of the device a hundred times, maybe more. Their record for completion had been five hours, twenty-four minutes. It hadn’t taken them more than seven hours in their last thirty attempts, and the brothers had started to joke that they could build the damn thing with their eyes closed.

  Edgar was the lead in the construction of the device, just as he was the lead in everything else, but each of the brothers had their own set of tasks to complete.

  Herb's main job was to construct the detonator. Wiring and soldering work that required steady hands. Not for the first time, he considered deliberately making errors; dooming the device and the whole goddamned plan from the outset, but Edgar was thorough, and he would check every part of Herb’s work, just as he had on their trial runs. If Herb made mistakes, it would simply slow them down, and that could not be allowed.