While waiting for whatever came next, Hanna looked over at the guard. He held an assault rifle in his hand, but she wondered if he would actually shoot her. If she attacked, he no doubt would, but what if she ran? And if he did shoot, did she really care?
Hanna decided that no, she didn’t care.
Like a greyhound whose gate had just opened, she suddenly bolted to her feet and down the hallway. The guard began shouting at her, running after her, and threatening to shoot, but he never did. Hanna was used to moving down the narrow hallways while carrying a load of cleaning supplies, and found it easy to dodge around the people and other items that blocked them. She easily outpaced the guard, and began running down the stairs. Without a plan, Hanna was running on instinct. She had no idea where she intended to go.
After running for what seemed like a very long time, Hanna realized she had lost the guard a while ago. She was alone on another deck of the ship, near the rear, but still in an area with living quarters. Ducking into a supplies closet, she crunched herself down between a rack of linens and a mop and bucket.
What had she done? Why had she run away like that? With the disconnection she had set up between herself and her emotions, all she could feel was confusion.
An announcement came over the ship’s PA system, which wasn’t used often. It was muffled and hard to hear in the closet, but Hanna could guess that it was about her. They would be looking for her. If she had been wrong about the interview and came across as not guilty, she was certainly being branded as guilty now.
Why she ran didn’t matter. What she had done didn’t matter. All that mattered to Hanna now, was what came next. She accepted that she was branded as a traitor. So, what did traitors do when they were found out? Anything they had to, to survive.
Hanna would do whatever she had to.
II
Current
Private Winchester followed Commander Crichton and Captain Sigvard to the bridge of the ship. It was obvious now that the girl, Hanna Kaufmann, was in some way connected to the bomb that had gone off. Winchester and Crichton had agreed that something was off during the interview, but that it hadn’t been enough to accuse her. The fact that she ran, was.
“At least, we have somewhere to start,” Crichton muttered as he stood to one side of the bridge, “and I think we can safely cross off an underground following of Bill Castor as the culprits.” Bill had been a religious zealot who had tried to take over the ship in the early days. He and his followers had been banished to Ellis Island back when the Diana used to travel around more northern waters.
Captain Sigvard composed a speech quickly, and spoke over the Diana’s broadcast system. He didn’t say why they were looking for Hanna, just that if anyone knew her whereabouts, would they please inform a ship defender. As soon as he was done speaking, Crichton lifted his walkie-talkie to his lips, and called a meeting for all the heads of the ship defence watches. Winchester could tell that he would like to gather them right away, but knew that several were sleeping, or handling something else of importance. Outside of emergencies, instantly gathering any sized group of people was difficult.
“So, I think we can assume that Hanna planted the bomb.” Sigvard walked over to where Crichton and Winchester were standing.
“But why?” Crichton was always coming back to that question. “She doesn’t look like the kind of girl who would want to blow us up, and everyone we’ve talked to about her agrees. Hell, Misha even seems to think that she and Alec had a thing going. Why would she want him dead?”
“Maybe she thought he wasn’t there.”
“Then why plant it in his room?” Crichton sighed. “We still haven’t been able to find out what the bomb was made of. There are so many tools we’re lacking to properly investigate this matter. Private Winchester?”
Winchester stood up straighter as he was acknowledged.
“Go inform the other captains and Lieutenant Boyle about what has occurred.”
“Yes, sir.” Winchester was always one of the go-betweens for the ship’s heads. The use of their walkie-talkies to communicate was discouraged because it was far too easy for someone to listen in. Men like Winchester were used to run communications between them all the time.
Just before Winchester opened the door to leave the bridge, there came a knock. He looked back at Crichton and Sigvard; they nodded for him to open it. Winchester placed his hand on his holstered pistol, not taking any chances since the bombing, and then opened the door.
“It’s Lenny, sirs.” Winchester quickly checked behind the man, making sure he was alone.
“Lenny, we have no time for this again,” Crichton barked. “We are well aware of the concerns of you and the people you talk to. Unless you can tell me something I don’t already know, leave.”
“Sorry, Commander,” Lenny shuffled his feet, “it’s just that I heard over the PA that you were looking for Hanna.”
“Do you know where she is?” Sigvard asked. He was always the nicest of the heads, and the most willing to take people at their word.
“Sorry, but I don’t. I saw her earlier today, however. I don’t know why you’re looking for her, but I’m concerned. She told me that she was very worried, frightened even, but she wasn’t very clear about what was causing it. I thought it was because of the explosion, but maybe I’m wrong.”
“Are you sure it’s nothing you said or did?” Crichton knew that Hanna was part of Lenny’s group, which made all of them suspects.
“I don’t think so. If it is, she didn’t tell me. She seemed lost. I told her to talk to Brittany.”
Winchester couldn’t tell if Lenny was lying or not. He must have known that they were suspicious of him.
“Thank you for telling us,” Sigvard said to him honestly. “We’re very busy right now, however.”
“Right. Well, just thought you should know.” Lenny stepped back from the door. “People are thinking we should go back to land now more than ever. We’re worried about this happening again.”
“We know, Lenny.” Sigvard waved him off as Winchester closed the door again.
“Did he just threaten us?” Crichton’s eyes narrowed, thinking about Lenny’s final words.
“Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps he’s just trying to turn an unfortunate event to his advantage.” Sigvard walked over to where they kept a collection of paper maps. “Come. We should consider the option of landing anyway. We still haven’t gotten a full report on the Diana’s hull integrity, and it might turn out that we don’t have a choice.”
After waiting a few minutes to make sure Lenny was gone, Winchester left the bridge. He travelled through the ship at a light jog, stopping to ask a few people if they had recently seen either Captain Karsten or Bronislav, or Lieutenant Boyle.
Lieutenant Boyle turned out to be the easiest to find. He was hanging around the medical centre, waiting on word about the injured off-shipper’s condition. Winchester delivered the news about Hanna to him in hushed tones. Boyle nodded wearily.
“Thank you, Winchester. After you’ve found the submarine captains, I have some news for you to deliver back to Crichton and Sigvard.”
Boyle then went on to tell Winchester about the infection in Jon and the man they had brought aboard from the other cruise ship. He also gave him an update on the mute woman who had shown up with the two men. She was clean of infection, but under watch. They had also lost track of the boat on which the two men had left. Winchester agreed to deliver the news, and ran off to find the submarine captains.
While searching, Winchester ran into another message runner who was off-duty. Considering all that was going on, Winchester didn’t feel guilty pulling him back on duty. Repeating Boyle’s news to him, he got the other man to deliver it to the bridge. At least he got that off his plate.
He found Captain Karsten on the fourth deck gazing out at his submarine. The man looked just as tired as Lieutenant Boyle had, and Winchester couldn’t blame him. Just having knowledge of all these things was bad eno
ugh, but these men actually had to decide what to do with it. Winchester delivered his message as quickly and concisely as possible. Karsten acknowledged that he understood, and then sent Winchester back on his way. The captain clearly wanted a few minutes alone.
The Russian captain took the longest to find. After searching nearly half the ship, Winchester eventually located him near the library. He was panting as he delivered the news to Captain Bronislav. The man’s face was almost always set in a stony expression, but after working with him for so long, Winchester noted a subtle change in it. He thought that maybe the man was relieved. Maybe he was. The bombing concerned him just as much as it did everyone else, but unlike everyone else, he and his Russian sailors were suspects. Everyone in command knew there was something the Russians wouldn’t talk about, but no matter what they tried, they couldn’t drag the information out of them. It was always a concern, but after five and a half years with them, it had grown less important.
Finally done, Winchester thought it was time to take a short break. This thought was quickly abolished when he spotted four young children scurrying down the steps ahead of him. All the kids should still be in class at this time. He would have heard if there was a class trip.
Doubling back to the staircase on the other side, Winchester hurried down the steps until he knew he was ahead of the kids. Hiding around a corner, he then stepped out in front of the children just as they reached the deck.
“What do we have here?” he boomed as the kids squawked and back peddled at his sudden appearance. “Oh, no you don’t.”
One little girl had tried to get away, but Winchester grabbed her shirt, picked her up, and placed her with the others. Three of them looked shamefully down at their feet, while the fourth, the eldest wearing a cowboy hat, looked him right in the eye.
“Dakota, I should have guessed you’d be the leader of this great escape.” Winchester knew Dakota from back before the Diana. They had both been residents at a motel for a few weeks after the Day. The hat had been a permanent fixture on her head ever since they found the RV in which she and the other kids from her day-care had been hiding.
“We’re looking for Peter,” she told Winchester matter-of-factly.
“Are you now? And where has Peter gone?” Winchester knew Peter as well. He had been a little baby at the motel, and would be in the same class as these kids.
“Not sure. We were going to check where Shoes’ funeral was.”
“Is Peter alone?”
“No. He’s probably with his family.”
With the news that Winchester had gotten from Boyle, he put things together. Lauren was a good friend of his, so he knew her family well. If Jon had gotten a positive infection result, the whole family would be going to see him, which included young Peter. This also might explain how the kids escaped, if the school area was understaffed with Abby and Lauren absent.
“If he’s with his family, why are you looking for him?”
“We think he’s sad, and want to cheer him up.”
“A noble thought, but I think if he was sad, his family would know, wouldn’t they? Surely they would have brought you along if they thought you could help.”
Even Dakota fell silent, not entirely sure what to say.
“Come on. Let’s get you all back to class.” He turned the kids around and got them climbing the stairs.
“Please don’t tell my parents,” one of the little girls said.
“Well, you’re in luck, since I don’t know who your parents are.” Although Winchester knew most of the kids from the motel, there were a lot more he didn’t know. “I am going to tell Lauren though, about your little escapade.”
The little girl suddenly stopped on a landing and looked at Winchester. She stared especially long at his walkie-talkie.
“Are you a ship defender?” she asked out of the blue.
“Not really. I run messages for the ship’s leaders. Come on. Keep climbing.”
The little girl didn’t move but turned to Dakota instead. “Is he a good man?”
“He’s the best,” Dakota told her.
“Can I tell him a secret?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a secret to tell you,” the little girl looked at Winchester again.
Wondering what it might be, Winchester knelt down before her.
“I saw a secret meeting,” she whispered in his ear.
“You did? What was it about?”
“I don’t know. They were talking a funny language. I thought I should tell my dad, but I don’t want to get in trouble for being out of class. Can you tell him you heard it?”
“Sure. How do you know the meeting was a secret one?”
“They were hiding in the back of the library and whispering.”
“And you don’t know what language they were talking? Did you see them?”
“I don’t know the language. And I didn’t see them. I heard them though, I swear I did.” The girl suddenly turned to the other kids. “You heard them, too.”
“We did,” Dakota confirmed.
“Do any of you know what language they were speaking?”
All the kids shook their heads.
“It was gruff sounding,” Dakota added.
“All right. Did it sound like this?” Winchester cleared his throat and spoke a few words in German.
“Maybe,” Dakota shrugged.
“How about this.” Winchester then said a few things in Russian. Having worked so closely with the captains, he had picked up a few words and recognized the general cadence of the language. He couldn’t understand it, but he had learned to mimic the sounds.
“That sounds more like it,” the little girl nodded. The other three kids agreed that Russian sounded more like what they had heard than German.
So, it seemed the Russians were having a secret meeting in the library. Winchester sighed. Maybe the Russians were just talking about how they were going to deal with the suspicion placed upon them, but maybe it was something more sinister. There was a possibility that the relief Winchester thought he saw on Captain Bronislav’s face was actually due to them looking in the wrong direction.
“Thank you for telling me.” Winchester got back up on his feet. “I’ll be sure to inform the right people. Right now, we need to get you back to class. Come on, let’s go.”
They had started to climb the stairs again when a voice came over Winchester’s walkie-talkie.
“Private Winchester, please come to the bridge immediately.”
It sounded very important. Winchester wouldn’t have time to drop off the kids at class.
“Change of plans. You’re all going to follow me right now.” Hopefully, he could get the kids back to class after finding out what was happening. In fact, it might be good to have them with him when he told the leaders about the secret meeting they had overheard. Maybe they would have other questions for the kids.
The children were confused and a little excited as they followed Winchester toward the bridge. They were no longer dragging their feet, and he could hear them whispering excitedly behind him. When they reached the room in which the interrogations were being held, Winchester stuck his head inside to make sure it was empty. Other than a few dogs that probably belonged to the other men who were called up, there was no one in there.
“Okay, you’re all going to wait in here until I get back. Understood?”
“Understood.” Dakota saluted, which prompted the other kids to salute as well, as if Winchester were some important person.
“All right. Stay put.” Once the kids were inside, he shut the door. There was no way to lock it from the outside, so he was just going to have to trust them when they said they wouldn’t go anywhere.
Winchester turned and entered the bridge. All the leaders had already gathered there, as well as all the on duty runners, a few off-duty ones, and several high-ranking members of both the ship’s defence crew and off-shippers. Several people were out of breath, having clearly run to the bridge.
Winchester didn’t need to ask what was happening. Everyone was gathered around the radio listening to a broadcast that was coming over the airwaves. The voice spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent. It was a man, and he was clearly broadcasting to a specific group of people. It took Winchester a moment to figure out what he was saying, but his blood chilled when he did. The man was calling his people to war, and the enemy was the Diana.
“I think that’s Sher, the man we refused to let on board,” Boyle informed the room.
“Where’s the broadcast coming from?” Captain Sigvard asked his crew.
The radio operator didn’t bother to answer with words, and simply raised his hand and pointed out the window. He was pointing directly at the other cruise ship.
No one said a word, all of them coming to the same conclusion. Sher and his man must have boarded the ship after being sent away, and managed to get to the bridge. Normally, they would have been tracked after their departure and it would have been known that they had boarded the other ship, but with everything else going on, it had fallen by the wayside.
Winchester didn’t know what he should be more concerned by: the enemy summoning troops, the Russians’ secret meeting, the missing girl who may have planted the bomb, or the infection being carried by Jon and the strange man. No matter which way he looked at it, they were in for a rough time.
Section 2:
Found
8
Mathias Can’t Rest
Mathias had been off-duty at the time, but he heard the call to go to the bridge and obeyed it. He listened to the single-voiced radio broadcast along with all the others. Eventually, a second voice replied; Sher’s men had heard him and would be leaving immediately. Then the broadcast stopped. These men sounded more organized than the usual rabble of pirates they had run into previously. Mathias didn’t think it would be as easy to repel them, especially considering the fact that they wanted everyone dead, and not just wanting the supplies they had on board. Sher’s men could very well have rocket launchers and intend to sink the Diana.
Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Page 12