Read Chapter 31: The Unseen Enemy

The boat deck was a cathedral of panic, steel ribs groaning under a weight they were never meant to bear. Jack's lungs burned as he shoved through a knot of steerage passengers clawing at a crewman who was chaining off a companionway. Behind him, Margaret's hand was a vice on his coat, her breath hot against his neck. He'd lost sight of the matron the moment they'd emerged from B-deck, her grey figure swallowed by the surge of bodies carrying her toward the forward boats. That was fine. She had the list. She had the name of every man who'd paid to keep his secrets buried, and she knew to find Loomis if Jack didn't come back.

He didn't plan on coming back.

"Starboard side!" Margaret shouted over the din. "They're loading number six!"

Jack nodded and cut left, dragging her past a collapsed deckchair, past a man in a silk dressing gown sobbing into his hands, past a steward who had given up directing anyone and was simply standing with his mouth open, watching the water crawl over the gunwale. The ship listed hard enough to make Jack stumble. Fifteen degrees, maybe more. The forward well deck was already awash, and from somewhere deep in the bowels came a sound like a dying animal—a long, shuddering metallic scream.

Then the pistol shot cracked the air, and every head within twenty feet turned.

A gap in the crowd opened like a wound. The man standing in it wore a heavy wool overcoat and a bowler hat too new for the circumstances, as if he'd dressed for a board meeting and found himself at an execution. He held a Webley revolver in a steady hand, and his face was the kind that belonged on a wanted poster in a banker's office: calm, bloodless, utterly certain. Behind him, two men in dark suits had fanned out, blocking the passage to the lifeboats.

"Mr. O'Leary," the man said, pleasantly. "Or should I say, Mr. Jack Sparrow, late of the Five Points, presently of nowhere at all."

Margaret's grip tightened. Jack stepped in front of her.

"Depends who's asking."

The man smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "You have something that belongs to me. A ledger of names. I'd like it back."

"Let me guess," Jack said, buying time. He could feel the ship tilting under his feet, a slow, inexorable roll to port. "You're the one who put the price on Moran's head. The man with the Boston accent and the fake paintings."

The banker inclined his head, acknowledging the hit. "Elihu Crane. You wouldn't know the name. I made sure of that. And you wouldn't have known it if you hadn't been foolish enough to open safe seventeen." He took a step closer, the revolver level with Jack's chest. "Where is it?"

"Gone," Jack said. "On its way to a newspaper office as we speak."

Crane's smile didn't waver. "You sent it with the matron. I know. My men saw her board the boat deck. They'll intercept her before she reaches the rail." He paused, letting that land. "You see, Mr. O'Leary, I didn't survive five years of fraud by leaving loose ends. I have twenty men on this ship. Some of them in uniform. Some of them not. And I have the only lifeboat on this deck that isn't already booked solid." He gestured with the revolver toward the dark water beyond the rail. "So I'll ask once more. Where is the list?"

"I destroyed it," Margaret said.

Crane's eyes flicked to her, then back to Jack. "A schoolteacher with a gambler's nerve. Charming." He tilted his head. "But you didn't destroy it, miss. You're not the type to burn evidence. You're the type to hide it. And I'll find it, one way or another." He stepped closer until the muzzle of the revolver was pressing against Jack's sternum. "My original instructions were to ensure Mr. Vance retrieved the registry pages and disposed of anyone who might connect them to me. But Vance has gone quiet. I suspect he's dead." He said it the way another man might note a broken shoelace. "So now I'm doing the work myself. The list, Mr. O'Leary. Or I put a bullet in you, take the girl as leverage, and let the sea decide the rest."

Jack stared down the barrel. His mouth was dry, his heart hammering, but his mind was cold as the water rising below. "You're not going to shoot me."

"No?"

"No. Because if you do, you'll have every officer on this deck over you before you can reload. They're desperate for someone to blame, and a man with a gun in the middle of a sinking ship is a convenient target."

Crane laughed, a dry, papery sound. "You think they'd choose me over a pickpocket with a gun?" He nodded to one of his men, who stepped forward and pressed the muzzle of his own revolver against Margaret's temple. "I've arranged it so that when you die, the story will be that a stowaway panicked and tried to take a lady hostage. I'll be the hero who stopped you. The authorities in New York will pin a medal on me. The list, Mr. O'Leary. Now."

Jack looked at Margaret. Her face was pale, but her jaw was set, and she shook her head, once, almost imperceptibly. Don't give it to him.

Except he didn't have it. The matron had taken it. And Crane knew that. Which meant his only card was the truth, and the truth was a losing hand.

"You're too late," Jack said. "Even if you kill us both, even if you stop the matron, there's a crewman in the strongroom who saw the list. He's got my instructions. He'll deliver it."

Crane's smile flickered, just for a moment. "The crewman. Yes. Wallace. We found him floating in the corridor and relieved him of his burden." He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded sheaf of papers, dark at the edges with water. "This, I believe, is yours."

Jack's stomach dropped. The list. The names. Fifty-three families of the dead and the ruined, their secrets laid out in neat columns of ink. And Crane was holding it like a dinner menu.

"How—"

"He was trying to reach the boat deck. My men intercepted him." Crane pocketed the papers with a satisfied smile. "You see, Mr. O'Leary, you've been running all night against an enemy you couldn't see. I've been on this ship since Southampton, traveling as 'Mr. Atherton,' a widower with a taste for solitude. I've had the run of the place. And you—" he let the revolver drop from Jack's chest, satisfied now, "you've been nothing more than an inconvenience. Now. The question is what to do with you."

The ship groaned again, a deep, resonant note that vibrated up through the deck. Somewhere below, water was hammering at bulkheads that couldn't hold much longer. The bow was visibly lower now, the sea lapping at the forward rail. A lifeboat crashed into the water nearby, half-empty, the screams of its occupants swallowed by the dark.

"Mr. Atherton," Jack repeated, the name clicking into place. "You're the one who booked the suite next to Margaret's."

"An observation, not a question. Yes. I was there to ensure Vance completed his work. He failed." Crane shrugged. "So be it. The ship will sink. The list will be lost with it, or recovered from a man who drowned with his pockets full of another man's secrets. Either way, I survive." He turned to his men. "Take them to the port side. Make it look like they were caught in the crush."

The men moved. Jack felt hands seize his arms, and he twisted, but there were too many, and the deck was too slick, and Margaret was cursing in a way that would have impressed the dockhands of the Bowery. Crane watched, unmoved, as they dragged Jack toward the rail.

"Wait," Jack said. "You want the whole story kept quiet. But there's a code. On the registry pages. You're missing the code."

Crane raised a hand. His men stopped. "What code?"

"Vance's registry. It's a key. It decodes the list. Without it, the names are gibberish to anyone but a cryptographer." Jack forced a grin through the rising tide of panic. "And I made sure the matron didn't have the only copy. I've got the code memorized. You kill me, and the list becomes worthless to you. You'll never be able to prove who paid who, and there's a certain Boston Globe editor who's going to be very interested in a dead banker with a pocketful of undecipherable names."

Crane's eyes narrowed. For a long moment, the only sounds were the cries of the drowning and the rumble of a ship shaking itself apart.

"You're lying," he said at last.

"Am I? Margaret." He turned to her. "What was the first name on the list?"

Margaret's voice was steady. "William H. Ashcroft. Second line: two dozen industrial accidents at his mills in Lowell, covered up by a string of bribes."

Crane's expression didn't change, but Jack saw the flicker of calculation cross his face. The code. He wanted it.

"You'll give it to me," Crane said. "And in exchange, I'll let the girl live."

"No," Jack said. "You'll let us both live. You'll put us on your lifeboat, and when we reach the Carpathia, I'll give you the code. But if you try anything—if you so much as put a hand on her—I swear I'll forget every damn digit, and your whole scheme goes down with this ship."

Crane studied him for a long moment. Then he laughed, a cold, appreciative sound. "You're a resourceful little thief, aren't you? Fine. A deal." He nodded to his men. "Get them to the boat. But they'll be in the hold with the other passengers of my choosing. And if they so much as breathe wrong, you have my permission to shoot them both." He turned and walked away, the blackmail list tucked inside his coat, as calmly as if he were heading to breakfast.

Jack let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Beside him, Margaret gripped his arm so hard it would bruise.

"Jack," she whispered. "You don't know the code."

"No," he said, watching Crane disappear into the crowd. "But he doesn't know that."