“They’re all yours!” Jack muttered under his breath as he let Walter drag him away. “Frankly, I’m about as interested in those crates as I am in your sister!”
The man ignored Jack’s taunt. He simply closed the porthole, checked that the door to the hold was locked, and returned to the deck. When he had gone, Walter stood in front of Jack.
“Have you lost your mind? Do you want to make us enemies of the Russians before we’ve set foot on Soviet soil?”
“Did you see what that guy did to me? I was just looking, and he pulled me away like I was a dog pissing on his boots.”
“Then put up with it, for Christ’s sake! After everything we’ve been through, I’m not going to let you get us sent straight back to America because of your pride.”
“Those crates were from Ford.”
“Huh?”
“I’m telling you, those massive containers were from the Ford Motor Company. It was printed on them in red ink: ‘Ford Motor Company. Dearborn, Michigan, USA.’”
“So what? What does it matter if they were from Ford or General Motors? Some American engineer probably ordered a couple of cars to take his girl for a ride.”
“That’s what that Soviet operative wanted me to believe, but those crates don’t contain cars. I worked at Ford for nine years, and I promise you that no car from that company is as big as a bus.”
“Then whoever’s bought them must have a lot of girls, and needs a bus to take them out. What does it matter?”
Suddenly, a large wave hit the side of the ship, making it lean. Jack managed to grab a bunk bed to keep his balance, but Walter rolled off along the floor. An alarm on deck announced the storm’s arrival.
Jack helped Walter get back to his bunk. Gradually, the persistent pitching of the SS Cliffwood grew more severe until it became an eruption of creaks, lurches, and shudders. Before long, luggage was scattered across the floor, its owners able to do little more than scramble after it and cry out in fear. Jack realized how dangerous the situation was when one of the passengers lost his balance and hit his head against a pillar. The people around him screamed. He quickly took off his belt and used it to secure Sue to her bunk. Walter copied him and did the same with his own belt. Jack, meanwhile, gripped the bars, trusting in the strength of his muscles, while the storm battered the ship mercilessly.
Amid the chaos, passengers called out for help to the crew members who had come down from the deck to secure the cargo in the hold. But before they could do anything, a violent wave made the ship’s bow rear up, and after a few eternal seconds suspended in the void, the liner smacked down against the surface of the ocean with a great crash.
Jack lost his grip and was thrown from the bunk, stumbling forward until he crashed against the door to the hold. When he managed to sit up, he saw how the ship’s lurches were tossing passengers and luggage around like rag dolls. A trickle of blood from a cut over his eyebrow blinded him. He wiped his eyes as well as he could and looked around, searching for a way to get back to his friends, when he heard a piercing scream behind him. He turned around. It was coming from the hold. Through the porthole, he could make out a crowd of men trying desperately to move an upturned container. Someone appeared to be hurt. Another scream made his blood run cold. Without a thought, he opened the door and went in, finding himself in front of a group of Russian workers frantically trying to pull away the remains of the container and extract the screaming man, who, he now saw, was trapped under a huge machine. Jack recognized the contraption as a Cleveland press, a steel monster that must have weighed more than thirty tons. Through the mass of workmen, he saw that the machine had crushed the man’s left arm, so that in order to free him, it had to be lifted. But in the manner they were attempting it, they would never pull it off him.
He was trying to think of a solution, when he heard the Soviet he had argued with moments before suggesting they amputate the man’s arm.
“If we do not, he will die,” he said in his heavily accented English.
The trapped man shook his head and screamed at them to keep trying to lift the machine. The workers obeyed, but another big wave hit the ship, pushing the machine onto the man’s elbow. He bellowed as if he’d been split in half. The workers froze, but one bent down to pick up a rusty saw. Seeing this, the injured man found his voice and yelled like a lunatic.
“If anyone so much as tickles a muscle, I swear I’ll kill him,” he said in perfect English.
The workmen looked at one another, hesitating, but the one with the saw approached the man.
“Wait!” Jack broke in. “I think I know how to get him out!”
They all stood motionless, except for the white-haired Soviet.
“Busybody American! Get out of hold, right now!” He shoved Jack violently back.
“I’m telling you, I know how to move the machine! I know the Cleveland like it was my own child!” he countered.
The Soviet made as if to strike Jack, but the trapped man’s commanding voice stopped him. “Damn it, Sergei! Let him approach,” he bellowed.
The white-bearded Soviet mumbled something in Russian before stepping aside, and Jack was able to kneel by the injured man. He didn’t seem Slavic. His features, dripping with sweat, were a picture of despair. Jack guessed he was well into his fifties.
“You really think you can free me?” the man asked.
“I believe so, sir.” Jack assessed the position of the trapped man in relation to the position of the machine. “I’ll need a couple of hex keys and a hammer.”
“Yeah? OK, kid. I hope you know what you’re doing. Didn’t you hear him?” he screamed. “Give him what he wants! Quickly!”
Once Jack had the tools in his hands, he set about the machine with feline agility. He began unscrewing some thick bolts, removed a cam, and gained access to a hatch, through which he inserted another hex key. He worked as quickly as possible, but the hold’s constant jolting in the storm made progress difficult.
“Shit!” complained Jack when one of the keys escaped his grasp. “I need someone to help me. You! Come here!” he called to the Soviet workers surrounding him, but they merely looked at him in a daze. Jack repeated his request, but nobody responded. “You damned morons!” he bellowed in Russian. “Don’t just stand there watching. Give me a hand!”
Hearing the order in their own language, the workers gave a start, and, ignoring the creaking bulkheads, they rushed to help Jack. He grabbed the hex key again and continued barking out instructions in Russian to the astonishment of the trapped man, who watched their attempt to save him through a face disfigured by pain. A final screw popped out, and the machine divided into two blocks, as if it had been decapitated.
Jack took a deep breath before turning to the workmen.