The Explorer's Code (18 page)

His mind drifted back to Cordelia. There was no doubt that she was magnificent. He was slowly and irrevocably falling for her. But what in
hell
was he doing? He drank his brandy and searched his mind for some kind of rational answer.

Suddenly he laughed into the wind. What an ass he was. A supermodel was bad enough, but Cordelia spent her days on a submarine. Talk about a pathological need to seek out unattainable women.

It was clear she was in a lot of pain. That crying on the dance floor nearly tore his heart out. Poor kid. He sighed again.

Hell, when it comes to pain, we’re all in that boat, baby.

Some nights he could barely get through. Three a.m. was the time he usually awoke, and from then on it was hell until dawn. He hated the dark almost as much as he hated the claustrophobia.

He had a theory that if he went back in his mind, over and over, to that horrible day of the accident, it would lose its power over him. He didn’t believe in shrinks. He knew he could heal himself. A few times a week, sometimes every day, for years now, he made himself go through the events one by one, allowing for the full impact of the emotion to come up. He hoped to diminish the power of the memory by pure repetition. It was a rough exercise, but he could take it.

First, he would picture loading the skis on the roof of the Volvo. He would snap the locks in place, stiff in the frigid Vermont afternoon. Their car had been the last to leave the parking lot at Killington. Beth was sitting in the front passenger seat and had opened the picnic basket and started to unpack their sandwiches.

“Do you want me to drive?” she had asked.

“Would you? I’m starving. I’ll take over after I eat,” he had said. How he regretted those words.

“OK, I need to warm up before I eat, anyway,” Beth had said.

He could see her sliding over to the driver’s seat, lifting her legs over the gearshift. She had been wearing a red Fair Isle sweater and black ski pants, and she had looked like the essence of Christmas. Her strawberry-blond hair was pushed back by her red knitted earmuffs. She had been beautiful.

In his mind, he made himself taste the ham sandwich and the coffee
from the thermos. He made himself watch the snowflakes in hypnotic swirls dancing across the interstate in the headlights. He made himself see the grille of the tractor trailer as it came toward their windshield, suddenly appearing out of the darkness. His muscles still remembered bracing for the blow. The truck had smashed full force into Beth’s side of the car. They had tumbled into the ditch, rolling over and over. He knew she wasn’t going to make it out; she could never survive the impact. He had let himself go limp, giving up, wishing to die. Then something had hit him and he had lost consciousness.

Sinclair took a taste of his brandy, but it turned sour in his mouth. He poured it over the rail into the ocean. Only a few more steps now and he would be finished with his self-imposed therapy.

That night, he had come to with a flashlight beam in his face. He was upside down and trapped. He couldn’t feel any part of his body, but he was conscious and could hear the squawking of radios as emergency workers moved around outside the car. Beth was moaning.

This was the hardest part to remember, and Sinclair decided he needed to walk around the deck—physically move, to be able to deal with the intense emotion.

“John,” she had been moaning. “John, it hurts. John, where are you? John, help me.”

He had shouted her name over and over. She was so hurt, she didn’t seem to hear him. He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t do a damn thing. Even his rudimentary training as a medical student for one year was useless. He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t even see her. He was encased in the twisted steel. He lay there, trapped, in the dark, listening to her bleed to death, and he lost his soul.

Cordelia sat in her beautiful white gown, curled up on the sofa in her stateroom reading the journal. She needed family now, especially after tonight. She found several entries that were written from the ship the
Mauretania
in 1908.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA
,
N
OVEMBER
2, 1908

I
AM BESIDE MYSELF WITH JOY AT THE DISCOVERY THAT
I
SABELLE
V.
IS ON BOARD THE
M
AURETANIA
AS WE DEPART
N
EW
Y
ORK
. I
T MUST BE
PROVIDENCE THAT CASTS SUCH TEMPTATION INTO MY PATH
. W
AS THIS MEETING ACCOMPLISHED BY ANGELS INTENT ON MY HAPPINESS, OR DEVILS ENGINEERING MY DESTRUCTION?

A few pages later she found

T
HE
M
AURETANIA
,
N
OVEMBER
3, 1908

M
ISS
I
SABELLE
V.
HAS RAPIDLY INVADED MY THOUGHTS AND CAUSES ME GREAT ANGUISH
. M
Y MARRIAGE HAS LONG BEEN OVER, YET
I
REMAIN BOUND BY LAW TO MY LOVELESS SITUATION
. I
S IT WRONG
I
SPEND SO MANY HOURS WITH
I
SABELLE?
S
HE EMBODIES ALL THAT IS VIRTUOUS
. S
HE HAS KINDNESS, INTELLIGENCE, AND SPIRIT
. I
AM AFRAID, ONCE HAVING VIEWED THIS PARAGON OF WOMANHOOD
, I
SHALL BE FOREVER DISCONTENTED WITH MY DOMESTIC LIFE
.

Fascinated, Cordelia kept going.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA
,
N
OVEMBER
4, 1908

M
ISS
I
SABELLE AND
I
WALKED ON THE DECK AFTER BREAKFAST.
S
HE HAS TOLD ME ABOUT HER WORK FOR THE IMMIGRANTS IN THE TENEMENTS OF
N
EW
Y
ORK, AND HER VIEWS ON THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.
I
CANNOT HELP ADMITTING THAT MY ADMIRATION FOR HER GROWS EVERY DAY, AND
I
REGRET THE PASSING OF EACH HOUR, FOR SOON
I
WILL BE DEPRIVED OF HER COMPANY.

Although Cordelia knew the end result of this courtship, she was hungry for the details. She skimmed ahead.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA,
N
OVEMBER 5, 1908

M
ISS
I
SABELLE
V.
CAUSED A SENSATION UPON HER ENTRANCE INTO THE FIRST-CLASS DINING SALON THIS EVENING.
A
FALL OF SILENCE DREW MY EYES TO HER STANDING ON THE STAIRS COSTUMED IN THE LATEST DARING FROCK FROM
F
ORTUNY.
V
ENUS HERSELF COULD NOT HAVE LOOKED SO ALLURING IN HER RISE FROM THE SEA.
I
IMMEDIATELY TOOK TO MY FEET TO ESCORT HER TO HER SEAT, MUCH TO THE DISAPPROVAL OF MANY OF THE LADIES PRESENT.

The romance turned serious.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA,
N
OVEMBER 6, 1908

I
AM STRICKEN WITH DEEP REMORSE OVER WHAT HAS HAPPENED THIS EVENING.
M
ISS
I
SABELLE
V.
APPEARED AT THE TEA DANCE THIS AFTERNOON.
I
AM AFRAID
I
LOST MY GOOD JUDGMENT.
I
URGED HER TO JOIN ME ON THE DECK AFTER TEA AND, THERE IN THE LEE OF A LIFEBOAT,
I
EMBRACED HER PASSIONATELY.

Cordelia couldn’t help but turn to the next page.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA,
N
OVEMBER 7, 1908

M
ISS
I
SABELLE
V.
APPEARED AT BREAKFAST, WAN AND SUBDUED.
I
BEGGED HER FOR A FEW MOMENTS IN THE
W
INTER
G
ARDEN, WHERE AT THAT EARLY HOUR
W
E COULD CONVERSE IN PRIVATE. WE SPENT A GOOD PORTION OF THE MORNING SITTING AMONG THE POTTED PALMS, WHERE
I
KNELT ON THE SPOT TO DECLARE MY LOVE TO HER.

When Cordelia turned to the next page, she read what she had known all along.

T
HE
M
AURETANIA,
N
OVEMBER 8, 1908

M
Y DEAREST
I
SABELLE AND
I
ARE LEAVING THIS SHIP AS NEAR TO THE STATE OF MAN AND WIFE AS NATURE PERMITS
. W
E PLAN TO MARRY ONCE
I
OBTAIN MY DIVORCE, AND WILL SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES IN THE COMFORT OF EACH OTHER’S COMPANY, NOT CARING FOR SOCIAL CONVENTIONS IN THE LEAST.

Cordelia closed the journal and looked out at the dark water, and thought about Sinclair.

P
aul Oakley woke at 3:00 a.m. in a panic. What if his package had been misplaced? It could break open and spread pandemic flu. What was happening to the patient in the Royal London Hospital? How did he get so sick?

The 1918 flu was arguably one of the most contagious diseases the world had ever known—as many as fifty million people died during the pandemic, as it made its deadly circuit around the globe. Some scientists argued that by the end, the disease had taken a hundred million lives. There was no way to know. Record keeping in 1918 was not what it is today.

But unlike any disease before it, the 1918 influenza targeted the young and healthy. One bizarre aspect of the disease was that once it struck, a person’s immune system was triggered to attack its
own
body. The younger and stronger you were, the harder it hit you.

That was also happening to the patient right now. If this was the 1918 virus, and it got loose again, the population of London would be decimated by millions. Oakley couldn’t bear to think about it.

He tried to sleep, but his head ached and his eyes were hot. The pillow was too hard, and the sheets suddenly felt like sandpaper. The alarm clock said 3:30 a.m. He thought he would go mad with anxiety. Why couldn’t he get Miles on the phone?

The flickering television painted a blue glow over his bed. He switched off the set with the remote and shuffled over to the closet to collect his clothes and shoes. Within moments he was dressed. It was cool when he stepped outside the front door. His Bentley was still in the shop, and a rental car stood in the drive. What a hell of a day yesterday had been, and today didn’t look much better.

There weren’t any cars on the road at the early hour, and the traffic lights were regulating the night with pointless colors. Nearer the hospital, the harsh glare of the emergency-room floodlights hit his eyes. He pulled in and parked. The lot was empty. All the way up to the ICU, Oakley didn’t meet a soul. The seventh floor had been evacuated of all patients except one. Even so, when the lift doors opened the hall was entirely too quiet. As he walked, his sneakers squeaked on the linoleum. A nurse was doing paperwork at the administrative station.

“Good evening,” Oakley said.

“Good evening, Doctor,” she said, barely looking up from her work. “I am afraid your patient expired at 1:26 a.m. They’ve taken him to the morgue. The Health Protection Agency doctor is there now.” She looked at him with curious eyes and professional silence.

“I’ll head down there now,” he said carefully, without emotion.

“Do you want to check the other patient first?” she asked. Oakley turned back in surprise.

“What other patient?”

“Seventy-year-old male. Indigent. No identity documents. He walked into Emergency this evening with the same symptoms. He’s in ICU now. Do you want to take a look?”

Oakley felt his heart start to pound in panic.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’d better.”

O
n deck 7 of the
Queen Victoria,
the cabin attendant had propped open the door to the suite and was stripping the bed linens. As Bob walked by, he could see clearly into Cordelia’s room. The journal was in plain sight, right on top of the coffee table. He suddenly got a great idea. If he could read the journal himself, he might be able to figure out where the deed was. That way he could beat Vlad and Anna out of the reward money.

Bob quickly tried to think of a trick to divert the room attendant’s attention. All he needed was to entice him to leave the suite for a moment. There was a laundry bin in the hallway, just outside the room. Bob rolled the bin down the corridor, then came back and knocked on the open door.

“Could I get you to change the towels in cabin seven fourteen? I noticed you haven’t done that yet.”

The steward came out, his arms full of sheets.

“Certainly, sir. As soon as I finish up here.” He looked around for the laundry bin and saw it at the other end of the corridor. He sighed and started down the hall to unload his laundry.

“How’d it get all the way down there?” Bob heard him grumble under his breath. Bob quickly stepped into Cordelia’s suite and slipped the journal under his jacket. He emerged from the stateroom seconds later. By the time the attendant turned around, Bob was waddling down the corridor behind him.

“Thanks again, son. Much appreciate it.”

“My pleasure, sir,” the attendant replied. “Have a good day.”