He realized with immense discomfort that they were looking to him for orders. The idea bothered him. Jonah was a natural, albeit reluctant leader. Dr. Nassiri didn’t want the role or the weight of command.
“They’re gone,” said Dr. Nassiri. Vitaly nodded gravely and Alexis buried her face in her hands. Fatima looked down and away, her face heavy with shame.
It wasn’t your fault, thought the doctor. There would be time to comfort her later.
“What happened?” asked Alexis.
“I don’t know,” said Dr. Nassiri. “There was a massive explosion aboard the Horizon. I doubt it was survivable. Complicating matters, the pirates are still in pursuit and we can’t match their speed without exposing ourselves.”
“The pirates told us they’d kill us if we tried to escape,” said Fatima.
“They could have been just threatening, bluffing—” began Alexis.
“And what exactly would you know about that?” interrupted Fatima. “It wasn’t just a threat. They only kept us alive because they believed Islam forbade the murder of Muslim women.”
“Klea deserved a better end to her sufferings.”
“So did Jonah Blackwell,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Your erstwhile rescuer.”
“If nobody ask,” said Vitaly. “I ask. Now what?”
Dr. Nassiri set his hand on Vitaly’s shoulder and glanced down. A large, angry splotch of red seeped from the Russian’s chest. He’d broken his stiches.
“Back to your bunk,” ordered Dr. Nassiri. “Now.”
“Chto za huy!” swore Vitaly, looking down at the spreading stain. “New shirt ruined.”
“Let’s find another one,” said Dr. Nassiri, helping him to his feet.
The doctor walked the Russian to the bunk beds in the compartment just forward of command and helped him lie down. Taking a pair of scissors from a side table, the doctor cut off the shirt, exposing the two wounds. Several of the stiches had indeed separated, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Vitaly was healing quite well, all things considered. The mere fact that he was no longer in danger of slipping into shock at any moment represented significant progress.
“We still do bracelets?” asked Vitaly, motioning towards the handcuffs on the side of the bunk.
“I’m sorry,” said Dr. Nassiri. “But you must wear the manacles when you’re in your bunk.”
Vitaly was getting stronger every day; the cuffs were no longer an unnoticed nuisance in the dreamlike twilight of medicated sleep.
They must be maddening to wear, thought Dr. Nassiri.
Time to give Vitaly his shot of painkillers. The doctor hoped they didn’t need a skilled navigator, at least not for the next four or five hours. Alexis was passable, but of course didn’t know the complicated array of systems to the same degree as Vitaly. It was just like medical school. Some used a scalpel like an artist’s brush, others like a child’s crayon. During her first few tries, Alexis “porpoised” the Scorpion, diving, pulling up, diving again, up, down, up, down until Jonah had finally relieved her of duty.
Dr. Nassiri filled his syringe from a tiny bottle of refrigerated painkiller. He tapped it and squeezed a little, freeing two tiny air pocket from the body of the instrument. He went to administer the shot but Vitaly caught his wrist to stop him.
“You must know,” he said. “I am in your debt. This very important for Russians.”
“And I’m in your debt,” said Dr. Nassiri in the same soft voice he reserved for all his patients. “You single-handedly saved this vessel.”
“Not same,” said Vitaly. “My comrades of the Scorpion. And myself. We came to kill you. I could lie, I could say Vitaly protest, Vitaly never know real mission. But none of this true. I must tell truth. We came to give you no chance to fight, no chance for life. You and your crew, you fight, you win. And you still save me.”
Dr. Nassiri didn’t know what to say. He let the silence hang over both men.
“I treated you because I needed you,” began Dr. Nassiri. “I needed you to pilot this vessel. Many men died that day. You almost died that day.”
“No!” Vitaly’s eyes were bright. “You save me because you save people. You save your mother. You save me. And I think you will save Jonah.”
“From prison?” asked Dr. Nassiri. “Because I helped him escape from prison?”
“No,” said Vitaly. “I think you save Jonah now.”
“He’s gone, Vitaly,” said Dr. Nassiri. “And I don’t understand why you’d say that. He nearly killed you.”
Vitaly scowled, growing frustrated with the doctor, trying to communicate a point that was simply not received.
“Shot now please,” Vitaly finally said. “Very much pain.”
Dr. Nassiri nodded and stuck him with the syringe, delivering the powerful painkillers deep into the Russian’s arm. Vitaly’s eyes fluttered and closed. The doctor sighed and placed his palm on the young man’s chest, willing healing energy into the Russian’s broken body.
Hearing a noise from behind, Dr. Nassiri turned away from the bunk to see his mother standing behind him, still holding her wrist. He vaguely remembered her reaching out with the same hand to brace herself as she slammed into the conning tower.
“I… I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said.
“Nonsense, let me take a look,” said Dr. Nassiri. He took his mother’s hand in his, and gently probed with his fingers. “Does this hurt?”
“Very badly,” said Fatima through gritted teeth.
“You have a fractured wrist,” he said. “Normally I would order an x-ray to make certain there are no misalignments. I’m afraid we do not have that luxury.”
Dr. Nassiri directed his mother to sit in a nearby chair as he dug through the medical kit to find an adjustable splint and bandages. It wouldn’t be a proper cast, but it’d have to serve as one for the foreseeable future.
“What have you uncovered?” asked Fatima. “What do you know about the red tide?”
“Too little,” admitted Dr. Nassiri. “We’ve been forced to react to circumstances as they arise. I thought you dead — we were attacked by this very submarine and forced to capture it to survive. It was only then I discovered your incarceration in the pirate encampment.”
“Charles Bettencourt is the key to everything,” said Fatima. “Who else could deploy an anti-aircraft missile in the middle of the ocean such as that? Too sophisticated for pirates, that much was certain. I believe I know why he wanted to silence me, wanted to kill us all.”
“You speak of your research?”
“I do,” said Fatima. “I have a theory on the Horn of Africa red tide, the de-oxygenated waters that have decimated sea life in this ocean. The spectrometer readings left little doubt. It’s such a shame that all that beautiful data is now rotting on the bottom of the ocean. I saw… something… before we were hit.”
“What did you see?”
“I don’t know for certain. But I think it was the first concrete evidence of the Dead Hand.”
“The what?”
The professor sighed. “A thing too terrible to exist,” she finally said.
Dr. Nassiri formed the metal and foam splint and carefully arranged it around his mother’s wrist, wrapping it with bandages. He finished his work by gently pinching the tips of her fingers, ensuring that he hadn’t inadvertently cut off any capillary blood flow.
“This is unfortunate,” said Dr. Nassiri. “But I believe your research is irretrievable at this time, perhaps forever. The transponder has stopped communicating and we have reason to believe the submerged crash site is guarded. To attempt to reach it would invite ambush. We are in no position to defend ourselves with Jonah gone.”