The Einstein Prophecy Read Online Free PDF

in acknowledgment, and Simone, still in her slicker, left the cabin. She briefly considered a detour to the cargo hold, but even if she could talk her way past the guard, what would she see? A large wooden crate with iron hasps, three padlocks the size of fists, and a bill of lading that she’d give her eyeteeth to read. She’d watched as it had been loaded on board days before.
    “Look out, lady,” a sailor warned, clattering down the metal stairs with a stack of crisp white folded sheets in his arms. “Coming through!”
    Simone flattened herself against the wall and stayed there as two more sailors, also burdened with bedding, barreled down after him. She could feel the ever-present vibration of the engines rumbling through the steel walls, and though the Seward had only left Le Havre two days before, she had grown so accustomed to the sound that she’d have missed it if it stopped.
    Once she was sure the coast was clear, she started up the stairs again, past several areas that had been set aside for surgical procedures, where she could hear the cries of agonized soldiers going in or out of the operating bays. She continued up toward the canteen. The smell of pea soup and bologna sandwiches wafted along the corridor, but she was hungry enough that she found even these aromas tempting.
    She had just loaded up a tin tray with some food, and was scanning the canteen for hot tea, when the alarms went off. A shrill blast, followed by the crackle of loudspeakers. “All hands on deck! This is not a drill!”
    That damn ensign had been telling the truth. She tossed the tray into a garbage can, whipped around, and headed back toward the cabin.
    “All hands on deck!”
    The alarms shrieked so loudly and incessantly that she pressed her hands over her ears. The lights flickered on and off, the decks reverberated with the trampling of a thousand running feet, and the whole ship suddenly felt to Simone like a beehive that had been swatted with a stick.
    Bucking the tide of sailors racing up the stairs was nearly impossible. By the time she reached their cabin, even her father had been roused to doff his dressing gown and throw on some clothes. He was holding a bulging leather valise stuffed with books and papers under his arm, and leaning on his ebony walking stick.
    “What are we meant to do now?” he said, over the screaming of the siren.
    “For starters,” she said, snatching a life preserver from under the cot bolted to the wall, “you can put this on!” Beyond that, even she had no idea what to do next—though she glimpsed an opportunity. “Don’t leave the cabin unless you’re instructed to. I’ll be right back!”
    “No.” He clutched at the sleeve of her slicker. He always could read her mind. “You can’t go down there now. What if we’re torpedoed?”
    If that happened, she thought, it wouldn’t much matter where she was. The ship would sink. “I won’t stay there any longer than I have to.”
    The sirens on board the Seward had stopped, mercifully, as everyone on the ship manned his battle station. In all the commotion, she was able to race down toward the hold while everyone else was heading in the opposite direction. On the way, she had the presence of mind to snag a clipboard stuffed with papers from a hook outside an officer’s quarters, but twice, she was detained by doctors who mistook her for a nurse and tried to dragoon her into helping with the patients. Each time she broke away and continued heading down. “I’ll remember you,” the second one, wearing a badge that said D R. J AMISON, C HIEF OF S URGERY , shouted. “When this is over, I will personally make sure you get a dishonorable discharge!”
    By the time Simone had made it down to the very bowels of the ship, there was only one young, and very nervous, guard still dithering in front of the hold.
    “Who are you?” he said, when Simone emerged from the dimly lit corridor.
    “Your relief.”
    “What relief?”
    “I’m in