Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“You know,” muttered Walter, “these mines here, they’ve always had a curse on ’em. But I’ve never seen the like of this.”

Ransom noticed that even in death, McAffey had coal dust raining down on his mummified remains, as it shook loose from Walter’s clothing and shaggy head of hair as Walter worked the tarp over the corpse.

“Where’s Thomas?” asked Declan, looking around.

“After he com’up ahead of you,” replied Walter, “said he’s going for the authorities,” replied Walter.

“I’d thought the coppers already here, Walter. Saw a couple of other men as we were returning.”

“Not cops. They were miners. Rushed off to spread the word about McAffey. He wasn’t always popular.”

“Could sure use a stiff drink,” Alastair said to no one in particular while studying the finger-nail moon and the stars; he worried about facing the authorities should they begin to place too much attention on him—should they learn his true identity, that he was in fact the one and only former Chicago Inspector Alastair Ransom.

Just as stealthily as the onset of night had come on while they were in the mine, a single suspicion about Private Investigator Alastair Wyland could send Inspector Alastair Ransom back to the US and Chicago as a fugitive from a murder indictment in the death of that damned priest. But I’m innocent of the charge, he told himself for the thousandth time, innocent—at least for the most part.

April 13, 2012, aboard Scorpio , one day out from port:

Against all reason and his better judgment, once Will Bowman had begun to snore, David Ingles slipped from their shared cabin to make his way to compartment number seven. The enticement had proven too powerful for several reasons, not the least being Kelly’s kiss.

Once he got to Kelly’s room, he noticed Jacob Mendenhall far back of him down the narrow corridor; he could not make out what Mendenhall was up to, but he feared the other diver was shadowing him.

Had Swigart already heard rumors about his and Kelly’s rendezvous on deck? Had Swigart put Mendenhall on him to keep him honest?

He instantly began a mock jogging, pretending to be getting his exercise by running the corridor, doing stretches, and he jogged back to his own room only to find Mendenhall gone, nowhere to be seen. He then jogged back to Kelly’s room, glanced about, saw no one in any shadows, and rapped at the hatchway to her quarters.

Kelly snatched open the door as if she’d been ready to do so the moment he knocked, and she snatched David by the arm and urged him inside. “We have to be discreet,” she said as she closed the door. They filled the small compartment made for one. “I’ve got something I must share with you.”

He thought of a snappy reply but thought better of it. “What is so important that we’re risking losing everything we’ve worked for, Doctor?”

“I need someone I can trust, Dave, when we’re down there tomorrow or day two—whenever we go into the interior.”

“What do you mean? We’ve trained for months to watch one another’s backs—to trust one another.”

“But they made that unusual request of us—to train separately and to remain aloof from one another—why? Don’t you want to know why? Don’t you think that’s an odd way to train?”

“Sounds like someone’s a bit paranoid.”

“This is not paranoia; this is fear, David—and for all I know, you could be the one who will want to kill me once I reveal why I’m really on board Scorpio .”

“My God, Kelly, your every sentence is a riddle.”

She put her hands up in a gesture that asked for patience. Then she reached into the otherwise empty duffel bag and came up with what looked to David at first to be his father’s scrimshaw pipe, but it was in fact no pipe.

“Is that a piece of ivory tusk?”

She held it up to his eyes, the smooth, tapered fang. “It’s the tooth of some kind of saber-toothed animal found in a mine shaft where the ore to make the steel plates and bulkheads for Titanic was mined.”

“I really don’t follow you, Kelly.” Still he wrapped his hand around the large tooth as if drawn to do so.

“It will become clear,” she said, reaching into the duffle again, this time coming up with an aged, leather-bound book with tattered edges and a metal clasp in the form of a lion’s head holding it together. “The journal I told you about—belonging to my great-great grandfather. A great man who died on Titanic not knowing he had a son, my grandfather.”

He put the huge tooth aside, stared at the book, and then up at her and shrugged. “You said nothing about any journal.”

“I didn’t?”

“No, you did not.”

“I could’ve sworn… well, at any rate, I meant to; it’s crucial to your understanding of what really happened that night on board Titanic .”

He took it from her hands as she pushed it toward him. The journal itself was a beautifully bound antique with a clasp and a lace bookmark peeking from the top. “I’ve marked some pages in particular that you must read.”

“You want me to have this on loan, I presume? To read?”

“We don’t have time to wait for the movie release,” she joked then glared at him as she undid the clasp even as the book remained in his hands. It opened onto pages brittle and yellowed with time. “You’ve got to read his account of things, David, please.”

“Tonight? Now?”

“Here and now, yes. There isn’t much time before we reach Titanic —what, two, two and a half days?”

“Present rate of speed, should make it Thursday AM.”

“Read,” she commanded. “It’s imperative.”

“It’ll explain the saber tooth and why the Titanic ’s captain scuttled his unsinkable monument to man’s greatest nautical achievement up ’til that point in time.”

“Sit, read… all of it will become clear.”

Frowning and giving in, David fell into the single chair at the desk protruding from one wall—everything here was shiny metal. “This book is why you think—or rather say that it was Captain Edward Smith who gave orders to—I can’t believe I am even saying this—ram the largest oceangoing vessel on the planet into an iceberg, and that his most trusted officers carried out Titanic ’s intentional sinking.” He laughed and shook his head.

“Read the book, David—it’s proof, evidence of the truth of my story!”

“I really suggest that you don’t repeat this ahhh… theory to anyone.”

“Dave, I know you haven’t had time to digest all this—and it’s a helluva lot to digest.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “All I ask is that you keep an open mind and take a look at the journal.”

“What could possibly prove such a notion?” He remained steadfastly skeptical. It seemed the only logical response to this unusual game she was running on him. He expected at any moment for her to burst out laughing and to admit that he was being set up—punk’d! He prayed she’d suddenly shout ‘Gotcha!’

“Start here then if it helps.” She turned the pages to a marker. “Start with the fact Captain Smith had seven Marconi messages in his pocket that warned of a huge ice field that was uncharacteristically floating out ahead of Titanic —directly in the shipping lanes. See right here.”

David read the words at the end of her fingertip: ‘Capt. Smith knowingly chose to remain in on the final solution—to remain firm with the cabal that we had unwittingly become—a cabal whose aim was the sudden end of Titanic and the god awful curse aboard her, like a worm within the folds of a flower.’

Despite his skepticism, qualms, and reservations, David read on to learn from the author of the journal what he could possibly mean by this marginal notation, this medical internist named Declan Irvin who then wrote: ‘ Capt. Smith’s features telegraph his internal battle with the horrible decision fate has placed in his hands. Looks as if he might fall from a stroke, he is that hurt.’