Sea of Greed

The doctor asked him several questions, which he responded to almost inaudibly. It was enough to satisfy her. She turned to Kurt. “You can speak with him now. I’m not sure you’re going to learn much. This kind of head trauma normally leads to memory loss and incoherence.”

Kurt placed a digital recorder beside Millard and switched it on. Leaning in, he got Millard’s attention. “Can you hear me?”

The scientist didn’t respond. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. Without warning, he began thrashing around again, not in a seizing motion but as if he were trying to climb free of the bed. “The ship is going to explode,” he said. “We have to get out.”

“We are out,” Kurt said. “You’re in a hospital. We swam free, remember?”

Millard relaxed for several seconds and then began thrashing around once more. This time, he spoke in French. Kurt didn’t understand — and wasn’t all that certain the words would have been comprehensible if he did — but at least they were on the tape.

“Look at me,” Kurt said. “Do you recognize me?”

The French monologue ceased. As Millard focused on Kurt, he switched back to English. “Hold on… Breathe through this… Don’t… Don’t…”

Kurt recognized the words he’d spoken to Millard aboard the submerged ship. “That’s right,” he said. “Don’t panic or I’ll leave you here. That’s what I told you when we swam out.”

Millard jerked upward suddenly. “We have to get out. The ship is going to explode.”

“We’re already out,” Kurt insisted. “You’re safe.”

“It’s going to explode,” Millard repeated. “It’s going to explode.”

Despite Kurt’s efforts, Millard would come out of his panic only momentarily and then go right back into it. He responded to any question Kurt asked by repeating that they needed to get off the ship and then moving his arms as if he were trying to swim.

Kurt turned to the doctor. “What’s happening to him?”

“The head trauma,” the doctor said. “It often affects short-term memory. I’ve had patients from car crashes say the same thing over and over for hours. In the simplest terms, his brain isn’t recording the fact that he got off the ship. You tell him that he’s safe. He accepts that, relaxes and then instantly forgets. As soon as that happens, he reverts to the last thing he can recall and then he’s right back on the ship. It’s like a record with a scratch on it. His thoughts keep skipping back to the same groove.”

“What about his long-term memory?”

The doctor adjusted her glasses. “I can’t say it’ll be sharp, but things that happened before the trauma are usually safe from this type of recall error. The further back they happened, the more likely they are to be unaffected.”

Kurt leaned back down toward Millard and clutched him by the shoulders. “Hold on to me,” he said. “I’ll get you off the ship. But you need to stop thrashing around.”

Millard held on to Kurt with a weak grip but this time remained calm. The doctor looked on.

“I need you to tell me about the bacteria,” Kurt said.

“It devours the oil,” Millard replied.

“I know that,” Kurt said. “How do we stop it?”

“Stop it?”

“There has to be a weakness we can exploit. A way to counteract it.”

Millard looked off into the distance. “It wasn’t there… They must have… We didn’t find it…” After this, Millard coughed, said something unintelligible and began to drift.

“Stay with me,” Kurt said, “or I’ll leave you here on the ship.”

“No,” Millard said, grasping onto Kurt with renewed energy. “The ship is going to explode. We have to get off.”

The doctor put her hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Mr. Austin, you must finish quickly.”

Kurt nodded. “I’ll get you out. Tell me about the bacteria. Tell me how to destroy it.”

Millard shook his head from side to side. “They knew how… but they’re gone… poor souls… drowned… They never got out…”

More rambling followed. Kurt decided to ask something simpler. “Where can I find Tessa?”

“She never comes to see us anymore… not down here…”

“She left Bermuda in the Monarch

,” Kurt said. “Where does she go when she’s not in Bermuda?”

“No one knows,” Millard said. “She’s always gone, these days. And we never see the daylight.”

Millard’s condition made it difficult to know what to ask. “Is there another lab? Another production facility? Someplace where we might find records of how you created the bacteria?”

“Pas moi,” Millard whispered, gulping at the dry air and shaking his head. “Le Dakar…”

“Dakar?” Kurt replied.

Millard nodded weakly. “Les Français,” he added. “They were there. They never got out… Pour souls, they all drowned.” With that, he clutched at Kurt again. “We have to get off the ship… It’s going to explode.” The next words caught in his throat and Millard sank back into a coma.

The doctor turned on Kurt. “That’s it,” she said. “No more. He’s staying under until the swelling in his brain has subsided.”

Kurt picked up the recorder, switched it off and put it in his pocket.

“Who is he?” she asked.