About ten minutes later, Morse met with Saks and his crew. It was not something he was particularly looking forward to. He met with them in the observation lounge and answered their questions. The observation lounge was a space generally reserved for the brass of the shipping company and assorted VIPs: politicians, privileged guests etc. It contained a wet-bar, marble fireplace, imported leather furniture, and gleaming walnut paneling. Morse hoped, maybe in some small way, that the lavish accoutrements would give Saks the impression that he was thought highly of by the crew and officers of the Mara Corday… and particularly, the captain himself.
Of course, it was all a ruse. Morse was no more impressed by the man than his First was, but he knew all about men like Saks. If you could control him, you could control his people.
“The sea can get a little freakish this time of year,” Morse told them. “I’ve seen fogs wrap up a ship for two, three days. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Saks nodded. “That’s what I figured. You idiots hear what the captain said?”
Fabrini just shook his head. “Yeah, we heard, we heard.”
“Good. Now you can quit with the ghost stories all ready.”
“There really is no reason for alarm,” Morse told them, maintaining his demeanor, just damn glad they couldn’t see him on the inside – the quivering, white-knuckled thing he had become.
“Shit,” Fabrini said. “Do you guys even know where we are?”
“We’re on course. But we’re moving slow. We don’t have a choice in this soup.”
Saks scowled at that. “How much of a delay are we talking here? I got a contract to fill, you know.”
“A day, maybe two. No more than that.”
Soltz shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His glasses reflected the fluorescents above. “What about the man who threw himself overboard?”
“A terrible business,” the captain said. “We’ll never know for sure what happened there. When we reach port there’ll be a formal investigation. But even then… who can say?”
Fabrini giggled dryly. “Who can say? What kind of bullshit is that?” he wanted to know. “We saw him. We all saw him. The guy was covered in blood screaming that something had him, something was inside him.”
Saks’s heavy brow furrowed. “Shut the hell up, Fabrini. You saw a guy with blood on him. A guy totally out of his mind for chrissake. If he said Jesus and Mary were chasing him down the hallway with chainsaws would you believe that too?”
Fabrini shook his head slowly from side to side. “You know, Saks, you’re really starting to piss me off here. What’s with you? What’s with all you guys?” He looked around at them with accusing eyes. “You know something’s totally fucked up here. This fog ain’t right. The captain here is serving up the bullshit on a platter and expecting us to chew and swallow and Saks? Saks is pretending nothing has happened. Well, I ain’t fucking buying it. No way. And neither are any of you.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Saks said in disgust.
Soltz just shook his head. “He’s right. Something’s wrong here.”
Cook and Menhaus kept silent, but their minds were going full tilt. Cook was the sort of guy who rarely said anything. Menhaus didn’t like confrontation; he would wait and see what the majority thought and then adopt this thinking himself.
The next one to speak was George Ryan. What he had to say was simple and to the point. “What is it you think is happening, Fabrini?”
Cushing nodded, smiling thinly, seeming to enjoy the anarchy. “Yes, tell us.”
All eyes were on Fabrini now. His dark face was somehow flushed, a vein at his temple throbbing. “I don’t know what happened. But it sure as hell wasn’t just some guy going nuts and jumping overboard. There’s more to it than that. Christ, look at that fog. I’ve seen fog before and it doesn’t fucking glow. And it doesn’t suck away the air.”
Captain Morse just stared, then cleared his throat. “I’ll be the first to admit we’ve experienced some strange phenomena here, but nothing that has happened is what I would call supernatural, gentlemen. I’ve been sailing the Atlantic for over thirty-five years and it still never fails to surprise me.”
“What is it you think happened, then?” Cushing said, amused by it all.
“I don’t know really. My guess is that we experienced some bizarre atmospheric anomaly. The fog is just the result of some strange weather pattern, maybe the sun acting on a cold sea. The lack of air and those gases that nearly suffocated us all, those could have came from a mile down… a bubble of methane, maybe. It’s happened before.”
“That’s right,” Saks said. “A day or so and we’ll be out of this, so all of you knock it off with the spooky stories here.”
Cushing and George looked at each other. Like Fabrini, they knew bullshit when they heard it. They knew when somebody was telling them something just to shut them up and that’s exactly what was going on here. The real ugly, unpleasant part of it all, they knew, was that nobody knew what was going on. And that was scary.
“This is pointless,” Fabrini said and stomped off.
Soltz followed suit.
There was nothing more to say.