DOUBLE KNOT Page 18

  “Your mother.” Fantasy said it on the weariest laugh imaginable.

  “I know.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the world. Not one.

  “What I can’t believe is my father.”

  “He pulled a fast one on you, Davis. I doubt he meant for her to hurt you like that. I don’t think she meant to hurt you.”

  “She didn’t.” Much. “It’s been such a hard part of who I am for so long, to tell you the truth, Fantasy, it’s a relief.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have a choice, you know.” Fantasy was hogging the blanket. “You don’t have to act on the information.” She leaned in and spoke to the middle of me. “Your mommy’s already a mommy.”

  I took a swat at her. “Leave the boys alone.” She sat up and we tipped heads, hers so pillowy, and stayed there three seconds. “I’m barely older than her,” I said. “I don’t feel old enough to have an eighteen-year-old.”

  “That happens when you have a baby at sixteen.”

  “Mother’s mother had her when she was fifteen.”

  “I wonder if it’s too late for me and Reggie to have another baby,” Fantasy said. “Maybe we’d have a girl. Maybe we could start over.”

  We were discussing babies—past, present, and future—as if nothing else was happening in our world. I don’t know if we were avoiding what might be ahead or sharing what might be our last quiet moments before the deadly consequences. Because we had Poppy’s V2 and one way or another, we were on our way out the door. And one way or another, I was calling my husband. And one way or another, we were making a run for the submarine. Just as soon as we worked up the nerve to tackle Burnsworth’s room.

  Our time in 704 was up.

  “Are you going to see her?”

  “I can’t wait to see her,” I said. “If we ever get off this boat.”

  “Davis!” Fantasy took my half of the blanket when she bent over double laughing.

  “What?” I yanked the blanket.

  “It’s a ship!”

  * * *

  “I’ll go in,” Fantasy said. “You wait here.”

  “No. It’s just blood.” As I said the words I could hear my own blood roaring through my ears. “Let’s just do it.”

  “At least let me throw a blanket over it, Davis.” She had her hand on the door that led to Burnsworth’s bloody berth.

  “His blanket is at the bottom of the sea, Fantasy. Just go.” I gave her a little push.

  We stepped around it.

  I found the half door on the back wall of the small closet. I slid it open. It was barely wide enough to pull the inflatable lifeboat out, and the real treasure was hidden underneath. We found a skinny file with three surveillance shots of Maximillian DeLuna entering Banco de la Elima in Grand Cayman, opening the account in Bradley’s and Jessica’s names. At noon on Friday. Four hours before I boarded, seven hours before Probability left port. And that’s where the pilot came in. There’s no way he’d have been able to pull off that kind of timeline without a jet. It didn’t explain why Colby Mitchell was listed in The Compass as our stateroom attendant, but it did explain her role.

  Burnsworth knew. Which meant No Hair probably knew. DeLuna ran the clock so tight No Hair didn’t have time to act on the information before DeLuna took him out of the equation. And Poppy killed Burnsworth before he could do anything, and that meant, like Burnsworth said before he died, it was up to us.

  Me, he said. It was up to me.

  “Do we know Banco de la Elima?” I studied the photographs for information.

  “Elima is Hawaiian.”

  Which didn’t help a bit. Or maybe it did. “Isn’t Jess from Hawaii?”

  “What does that matter?” Fantasy asked. “DeLuna opened the account in the Caymans.”

  We closed Burnsworth’s door and stepped into the salon where Mother demanded to know where we’d been. “You went out one door and came back in another.”

  Fantasy looked to me for an explanation. “Old Irish superstition,” I said. “Mother thinks you should come and go through the same door.”

  Fantasy scratched her three feet of hair.

  “What is that?” Mother asked.

  “It’s a lifeboat,” Fantasy said.

  Arlinda whimpered.

  “Let’s get ready.” I pumped up my words with energy I didn’t have.

  Jess popped up from a sofa. “For what?”

  “We’re getting out of here,” I said. Arlinda collapsed with relief. “After we lock up Jessica’s husband.”

  Jess looked like someone had slapped her. “Not here. Don’t bring him here.”

  “How are we going to get him? Are we going to clobber him?” Mother threw an air punch.

  “Arlinda’s going to do it,” I said.

  “Clobber him?” Mother asked.

  “What?” Arlinda cried. “What? How?”

  “You’re going to tell him the truth, Arlinda. The truth.”

  * * *

  I could have stayed in the shower forever. I could have slept standing up in the shower. And as soon as I could talk to my husband and rescue No Hair, I would sleep. I might climb in my Probability bed and sleep until the babies were born. When I finally turned off the hot water, I’d been in the shower so long Fantasy had showered, dressed, and corralled her hair, and Mother had cleared the dressing room of the chicken picnic. She’d rifled through Hers and chosen clothes for me, and they were laid out on the ottoman between Jess and Arlinda, whose shoes were resting on her bouncing knees. Ready to go. My hair was pulled back in a wet Bianca blonde ponytail and I’d taken two seconds to swipe on mascara and lip gloss. No Hair had been through enough. I didn’t want to rescue him and simultaneously scare him to death.

  Mother chose a sleeveless Elizabeth and James ivory tunic and paired it with skinny black pants, skinny being relative, and when I dropped my towel to climb into them, Arlinda got her first peek at a Destination Maternity bra. The poor girl would be scarred for life from the events of the past hour and my pregnancy in her face might be the worst of it. Mother and Fantasy helped me dress and the question on everyone’s mind was, just how much bigger is she going to get?

  Maybe it wasn’t the exact question on everyone’s mind, but seeing myself in four huge mirrors, trust me, it flew through mine.

  “So,” Jessica said from the ottoman. “You need pearls.”

  Her husband had imprisoned her and implicated her in the heist he had going on above our heads, it would surely take a strong team of lawyers to untangle herself from this debacle, and in spite of it, she was accessorizing me.

  It could be, as my husband believed, there was a lot more to Jessica DeLuna than met the eye.

  Or maybe she just didn’t get it.

  Dressed and ready, I spoke to Arlinda. “It’s eleven thirty. There’s a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance Mr. DeLuna is in the casino waiting for it to open. It’s where he’s stealing his fortune. He’ll be there. Go back up the wall, find Mr. DeLuna, and tell him exactly what happened.”

  “Which is?” she asked.

  “Your V2 fell through the bottom of your locker and in the process of looking for it, you found people trapped on the floor below. Including his wife.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “He’ll want to see for himself.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Then what?”

  “You take him to your changing room.”

  “What do I do then?” she asked.

  “The locker is in the back of the changing room, right?”

  “Right,” she said.

  “He’ll want to see for himself. Let him ge
t all the way to the locker. When he does, close the door to your changing room, zap it with your V2, and walk away. He’ll be locked in. His V2 won’t open the door to your changing room.”

  NINETEEN

  Arts and Crafts were only mildly successful. We were working against the clock so it was a hack job. Because we only had two minutes. Then we had to rescue No Hair before DeLuna was out of the changing room and hot on our trail. My best guess was we’d have a half hour. If Arlinda managed to trap him.

  If.

  “Strips, you think?” Fantasy stood in the middle of the salon twirling one of the long-lost carving knives. “Like a turban?”

  “Hoods.” Mother had a butcher knife. “And then we’ll cut eye holes.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, “as long as we don’t suffocate.”

  We wouldn’t let Jess have a knife for fear she’d fall (asleep) on her own sword, so she and I stood back as Mother and Fantasy hacked through the lifeboat, leaving deep slices and slashes in the salon’s silver rug. Jess and I watched from the safe distance of a white linen sofa, where I was deep in The Compass. The ten-man raft being destroyed was made of a PVC-based synthetic rubber fabric encapsulated in polyurethane with a reflective Mylar coating. The Mylar coating would blind the cameras. We were fashioning hats from the lifeboat so the surveillance cameras would see a bright orb of unidentifiable light instead of people. With the exception of Mother, who the Probability system didn’t know, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that bells, whistles, and sirens would sound the minute we stepped out of 704 and we’d never get to No Hair. Unless the cameras couldn’t see us.

  “It’s actually a life raft,” I said. “Not a lifeboat.”

  Mother wielded her butcher knife. “What’s the difference?” She passed me a short cape of silver and white plastic. “Try this on.”

  I dropped it over my head. It wasn’t as large as a bath towel, but it weighed five times as much.

  “Bind your die moles, Dapith.”

  “WHAT?” I couldn’t hear her through the Mylar. But I could sure hear myself.

  “EYE HOLES!” she said. “FIND YOUR EYE HOLES!”

  We donned our hoods and felt our way to the door, Mother in the lead, because (she was the only one with all her faculties) we were incapacitated under our raft smokescreens. It didn’t help that I had a cat with me under mine. I expected Anderson Cooper to shriek in protest as soon as I put it on, and because there was no way for the sound to escape, we’d both be deaf.

  We came out from under the Mylar to reconsider. Getting out of 704 might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

  “Davis, leave your cat,” Fantasy said. “DeLuna can’t get in here. We have the only V2 that opens the door.”

  “We don’t know that,” I said. “He could have ten V2s that open the door. And how do we know he won’t come down the bulkhead? Mother and Arlinda got down it.”

  “He’s too big,” Mother said.

  “So, you know Max?” Jessica asked her.

  “No, but if he’s man-sized at all, he can’t get down the wall.”

  “He’s a slimy little bastard,” she said.

  “I’ll be dog,” Mother said. “Why in the world did you marry him?”

  Jess opened her mouth to answer, I interrupted. “Could we possibly talk about this later? Can we focus? Please? We’re on a rescue mission and Anderson Cooper goes where we go.” If something happened and we couldn’t get back in, I didn’t want my cat locked in 704 alone. “And we need to get going.”

  “Where are we going?” Fantasy was dabbing at her eyes with her sweater. “With Anderson Cooper.”

  “To the data center.”

  “Who?” Mother asked.

  “I’ll explain on the way. Put your hats on.” The Mylar headgear might or might not keep us alive. I couldn’t breathe, see, hear, or navigate again as soon as I flipped it over my (cat) head.

  “This present dong fork!”

  I think the words came from Fantasy. I couldn’t really tell, because just then, I bumped into the foyer wall. “WHAT?” I blasted my own eardrums to bits.

  Fantasy pulled off her hat. “THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK, DAVIS!”

  “Dough boy,” I barely heard Mother say.

  I heard a loud thump and tossed back my hood to see Jess sliding down the foyer wall.

  “It’s too dark under there for her,” Mother said. “Put her out like a light. And where are her clothes? Are we really going to let her walk around in her red underpants? I swear she had clothes on yesterday.”

  I was too tired to think.

  Mother wasn’t. “My sun hats.” She shuffled off in her Traveltime Cloggers. When she returned, we (woke up Jessica) draped our camo hoods over Mother’s big sun hats, which gave us air, audio, and much less limited vision. We stood at the door.

  “Go ahead,” Fantasy said.

  I pointed Poppy’s V2 at the door. I pushed the power button.

  It asked for Poppy’s thumbprint.

  “What?” Fantasy asked. “Go ahead. Open the door.”

  I looked at her from under my life-raft spy-hood sun hat. “I can’t. We have to have Poppy’s thumbprint.”

  In the end, it was Mother. She said, “Oh, good grief, you big babies. Where’s the butcher knife?”

  We were all going to hell. Me, Mother, Fantasy, and Jess. Straight to hell.

  As we ran toward the elevator bank I put the V2 in phone mode and dialed Bradley Cole’s cellphone from the safety of outside 704.

  Nothing. It didn’t even ring.

  In the elevator, I read the last message Poppy sent from her V2:

  Babe, we’re covered on this end. Everything is good here, except I’m going crazy. These people are so stupid I don’t know how they sit up and feed themselves. I’m going dark now. See you in George Town.

  I wondered if Jessica knew, or cared, about Poppy and Max, and I decided I wouldn’t waste one more second feeling bad for Poppy. Or her thumb.

  * * *

  Designed by a team of geniuses at Tufts University near Boston, Probability’s computer system was unmanned. An interdisciplinary squad of big brains designed, built, and installed the autonomous system that ran itself and Probability. In ten years, all computer systems will be run by computers instead of humans, and on this ship, the future was now. Somewhere—Boise or Bakersfield or Baton Rouge—a human sat at a desk insuring everything digital hummed along as it should aboard Probability, but the onsite system was not operated by nor did it recognize humans.

  The good news: It was almost midnight. When we made it to the Orlon Deck, the lowest level on the ship, storage and maintenance, where both the submarine holding No Hair and the unmanned computer system were housed, it was deserted. We didn’t have to go to the trouble of incapacitating anyone. We arrived, via a freight elevator, without incident. Lots of commentary and complaining, but no incidents.

  The bad news: Hacking a system like Probability’s would be about as easy as catching a shooting star, and Computer Services was fore, at the front of the ship, while the submarine, and No Hair, were aft. The back. A football field away. The Compass, for all the information it had, didn’t specify what lay between Computer Services and the submarine. It was either no man’s land or so boring the editors of The Compass didn’t think anyone needed or wanted to know.

  “Is this it?” Fantasy’s whispered words bounced off spooky dark walls.

  “It must be.” We were somewhere under the world, standing at dark glass double doors. Behind them, I could see multicolored lights racing up, down, and all over nine-foot-tall metal server cabinets. The cabinets went on forever. And ever.

  “Davis, we’re burning daylight,” Mother said.

  “My feet are so cold.”

  Mother turned to
Jess. “Whose fault is that? You need shoes, clothes, a hairbrush—”

  I put my hand on the door. “We need in and out of here as quickly as possible. Of the million things I’d like to do, we only have time for one.” Nods all around. “Everyone ready?” I pushed through.

  Probability’s computer system surely ran the world. For as far as we could see it was servers and routers and switches topped off with an intricate acrylic pipe cooling system. Computer Services was, like the rest of Probability, so far ahead of its time.

  “Keyboard, keyboard!” I called out. “A monitor, a station, a keyboard! Find me a keyboard!”

  We shot off in four different directions. Jess won. “So, over here!”

  We raced.

  I passed Anderson Cooper to Fantasy. Fantasy held Anderson at arm’s length like she was covered in spiders.

  The operating system was Linux. I went to the default Grub boot menu by holding down the shift key, then patched directly to a boot shell prompt from there. I was in. The time it took to pull up the facial recognition software from the system menu, because it was so extensive, was excruciating, made even more so because everyone was breathing down my neck. The surveillance software was digiCam, easy to navigate, and two minutes after I pulled it up I had myself, Fantasy, and Jess deleted from the system. Poof. We were gone. We had a way in and out of 704, we had guns and ammo, we had a phone, and now we had anonymous mobility all over the ship. To celebrate, I sailed my life-raft hat through the air.

  “Hey!” Mother snapped. “That’s my new sun hat.”

  “Are we done here?” Fantasy was ready to give Anderson back.

  “Not just yet.” I was still over the keyboard. I found Max DeLuna’s profile. I asked digiCam to find him to see how close he was. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind he was looking for us, but he wouldn’t find us in the system because I’d just wiped us from it and he’d never think to look for us on the Orlon Deck. But if he’d made it to 704, we wouldn’t be able to go back. We’d be sleeping between server cabinets in Computer Services. The system pinged his V2, found him, and my mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe it. “Look at this.”