The Wheel of Darkness

“Forgive me for raising the subject again, but have there been any more discussions about diverting to St. John’s?”

A very long silence followed this question, stretching to almost a minute. Finally, Mason answered. “No official discussions, Mr. LeSeur.”

“Would it be forward of me, sir, to ask why not?”

LeSeur could see Mason thinking carefully how to formulate her response. “The commodore has already expressed his firm orders on that point,” she said at last.

“But what if this missing girl . . . is another victim?”

“Commodore Cutter shows no evidence of changing his mind.”

LeSeur felt a swell of anger. “Excuse me for speaking frankly, Captain, but we’ve got a brutal murderer roaming on board this ship. If this Pendergast is to be believed, the man’s killed three people already. The passengers are freaking out, half of them are hiding in their cabins, and the rest are getting drunk in the lounges and casinos. And now it seems we’ve got some kind of mass hysteria building, talk of an apparition roaming the ship. Our security director has as much as admitted the situation is beyond his control. Under the circumstances, don’t you think we should seriously consider diversion?”

“Diverting the ship would take us deeper into the storm.”

“I know that. But I’d rather weather a nor’easter than deal with an out-of-control mob—of passengers

and

crew.”

“What you and I think is irrelevant,” said Mason coldly.

Despite her tone, LeSeur could see this last point of his had struck home. Ship’s officers were acutely aware of just how relatively small their numbers were. Along with fire at sea, passenger unrest—or worse than unrest—was always a great fear.

“You’re the staff captain,” he pressed. “The second in command. You’re in the best position to influence him. We can’t go on like this—you’ve

got

to persuade him to divert.”

Mason turned to him, her eyes dead tired. “Mr. LeSeur, don’t you realize? Nobody can change Commodore Cutter’s mind.

It’s that simple.

”

LeSeur stared at her, breathing hard. It was incredible, an unbelievable situation. He peered down the wing and into the main bridge. Cutter was still pacing about, immersed in his own private world, his face an unreadable mask. LeSeur was reminded of Captain Queeg inThe Caine Mutiny , locked in denial while the ship descended inexorably into chaos. “Sir, if there’s another killing . . .” His voice trailed off.

Mason said, “Mr. LeSeur, if there’s another killing—God forbid—we will revisit this issue.”

“

Revisit

the issue? In all frankness, sir, what’s the point of more talk? If there’s another—”

“I’m not alluding to more idle talk. I’m alluding to an Article V action.”

LeSeur stared. Article V dealt with the removal of a captain on the high seas for dereliction of duty.

“You aren’t suggesting—?”

“That will be all, Mr. LeSeur.”

LeSeur watched Mason turn and walk back to the center of the bridge, pausing to confer with the navigator at the con as coolly as if nothing had happened.

Article V.

Mason had guts. If it came down to that, so be it. This was quickly becoming a struggle—not just for safe operation of the

Britannia

, but for survival itself.

40

KEMPER WALKED OUT OF THE CENTRAL COMPUTER AND DATA processing complex on Deck B, headed for the nearest elevator bank. It had taken him the better part of the night to arrange the false alarm. It had been a bitch resetting the ship’s safety management systems without leaving a trail, and it had been especially difficult to disable the sprinkler system. It wasn’t so long ago, he reflected grimly, that the only electronic systems on an ocean liner had been radar and communications. Now it seemed that the whole damn ship had been turned into a giant, networked system. It was like some massive floating computer.

The elevator arrived and Kemper entered, pressing the button for Deck 9. It was close to madness to set off a false alarm in the middle of an already nervous ship, with a master who was in denial at best, or deranged at worst, in a storm in the mid-atlantic. If this ever came out, he’d not only lose his job, he’d probably rot in jail. He wondered how Pendergast had managed to talk him into it.

And then he thought of Corporate, and remembered why.

The elevator doors opened onto Deck 9. He stepped out and checked his watch: nine-fifty. Clasping his hands behind his back, clamping a fresh smile onto his face, he strolled down the starboard corridor, nodding and smiling at the passengers returning from breakfast. Deck 9 was one of the ritziest on the ship, and he hoped to God the sprinklers wouldn’t go off after all his careful work. That would be an expensive disaster for North Star, given that some of the staterooms and suites had been decorated by the passengers themselves, with costly objets d’art, paintings, and sculpture.

Not the least of which was Blackburn’s own triplex.

He casually checked his watch again. Nine fifty-eight. Hentoff should be at the far end of the Deck 9 corridor with a security guard, ready to spring into action.

Eeeeeeeee!

The fire alarm ripped like a screeching crow down the elegant corridor, followed by a recorded voice in a plummy English accent:

“Attention: this is a fire alarm. All passengers must evacuate the area immediately. Ship’s personnel to their muster stations. Please follow the instructions posted on the inside stateroom doors or the orders of fire safety officers. Attention: this is a fire alarm. All passengers . . .”

Up and down the corridor, doors were flung open. People crowded out, some dressed, others in nightgowns or T-shirts. It was remarkable, Kemper thought, how quickly they reacted; it was almost as if they’d all been waiting for something.

“What’s happening?” somebody asked. “What is it?”

“Fire?” came another voice, breathless, close to panic. “Where?” “Folks!” cried Kemper, hustling down the hall. “There is no need for alarm! Please leave your staterooms and move forward! Gather in the forward lounge! There is nothing to worry about, no reason to panic, everybody please head forward . . .”

“. . .

Attention: this is a fire alarm . . .”

A large woman in a billowing nightgown came charging out of a stateroom and clutched at him with hammy arms. “Fire? Oh my God,

where

?”

“It’s all right, ma’am. Please proceed to the forward lounge. Everything’s going to be fine.”

More people crowded around him. “Where do we go? Where’s the fire?”

“Move forward to the end of the corridor and gather in the lounge!” Kemper forced his way past. Nobody had yet emerged from Blackburn’s triplex. He saw Hentoff and the security guard hustling down the hall, pushing past people.

“Pepys! My Pepys!” A woman, jiggling against the flow of the crowd, careened off Kemper and disappeared back into her suite. The guard began to stop her but Kemper shook his head. The woman popped out a moment later with a dog.

“Pepys! Thank goodness!”

Kemper glanced at the casino manager. “The Penshurst Triplex,” he murmured. “We have to make sure it’s empty.”

Hentoff took position on one side of the door while the security guard pounded on the gleaming wood. “Fire evacuation! Everyone get out!”

Nothing. Hentoff glanced to Kemper, who nodded. The guard whipped out a master key card and swiped it. The door popped open and the two went inside.

Kemper waited by the door. A moment later, he heard raised voices from inside. A woman in a maid’s uniform ran out of the triplex and down the hall. Then Blackburn appeared at the door, handled bodily by the security guard.

“Get your greasy hands off me, you bastard!” he cried.

“I’m sorry, sir, it’s the rules,” said the guard.

“There’s no bloody fire! I don’t even smell smoke!”

“It’s the rules, sir,” Kemper echoed.

“At least lock my door, for chrissakes!”

“Fire regulations state that all doors must remain open in a fire emergency. Now, could you please move to the forward lounge, where the other passengers are gathered?”

“I won’t leave my stateroom unlocked!” Blackburn wrenched free and tried to push back toward his room.

“Sir,” said Hentoff, seizing him by the coat, “if you don’t come with us, we’ll have to detain you.”

“Detain me, my ass!” Blackburn took a swing at Hentoff, who ducked aside. He lunged for the door and Hentoff instinctively tackled him, and they rolled on the floor, two men in suits, grappling. There was the sound of tearing fabric.

Kemper rushed over. “Cuff him!”

The security guard whipped out a pair of PlastiCuffs and, as Blackburn rolled on top of Hentoff and tried to rise, skillfully threw him to the floor, pinned his hands, and cuffed them behind his back.

Blackburn jerked and quivered with rage. “Do you know who I am? You’ll pay for this—!” He struggled to sit up.

Kemper moved in. “Mr. Blackburn, we’re well aware of who you are. Now, please listen to me carefully: if you don’t move peaceably to the forward lounge, I’ll send you straight to the brig, where you will remain until disembarkation, at which time you will be turned over to local law enforcement and charged with assault.”

Blackburn stared at him, nostrils dilated, blowing hard.

“Or, if you calm down and follow orders, I’ll remove those handcuffs now and we’ll forget all about your unprovoked attack on ship’s personnel. If it’s a false alarm, you’ll be back in your suite in thirty minutes. Now, which is it going to be?”

A few more heaving breaths, and then Blackburn bowed his head.

Kemper gestured to the security guard, who removed the cuffs.

“Take him to the lounge. Don’t let anybody leave for half an hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, if the all-clear has sounded, they can return to their suites.”

“Very good, sir.”

The guard escorted Blackburn down the now empty hall, leaving Kemper and Hentoff alone in the echoing corridor. Thank God: the sprinklers had stayed off. All his preparatory work hadn’t been in vain. Firefighters were arriving, dragging out hoses and gear, entering staterooms looking for the fire, closing each stateroom door after they left. Although it was already becoming evident it was probably a false alarm, they had to go through the paces.

Kemper glanced at Hentoff and said, in a low voice, “We’d better go, too. We don’t want to be here when Pendergast . . .”

“Don’t even say it.” And Hentoff hustled down the hall as if he couldn’t get out of the area fast enough.

41

AT THE OTHER END OF THE SHIP, SEVEN DECKS BELOW, EMILY Dahlberg exited the Café Soho after a light breakfast of tea and scones and made her way toward the nearby shopping corridor known as Regent Street. She preferred this upscale arcade to the other, St. James’s, on Deck 6. The corridor had been tricked up to look like the real Regent Street of a hundred years before, and they’d done an amazing job: streetlamps with real gas jets, cobbled alleys with small, elegant clothing boutiques lining both sides. She’d arrived just in time: unlike the casinos and clubs that were open all day and night, Regent Street kept more regular hours. It was ten o’clock and the shops were just now opening, the lights coming on, the metal grates being pulled back by staff.

Ten o’clock. Ninety minutes to kill until it was time to meet up again with Gavin Bruce and plan their next move.

Dahlberg drifted by the first shop, eyeing the goods in the window. She knew the real Regent Street well, and the stores here were even more expensive than the real thing. Imagine, she mused as she looked through the shop window, paying eleven hundred pounds for an oyster puffball cocktail dress that you could get in London for a third as much. There was something about being on an ocean liner that put one’s rational mind to slumber.

She smiled vaguely as she made her way down the faux avenue, her mind wandering. Strangely, despite all the panic and confusion and apprehension that hung in the air like a pall, she found herself thinking of the elegant Mr. Pendergast. She hadn’t seen him since that First Night dinner, except passing him once in the casino, but she found her thoughts returning to him again and again. She had lived fifty-one years and run through three husbands, each wealthier than the last, but she had never in her entire life met a man as intriguing as Aloysius Pendergast. And the strangest thing was, she couldn’t even begin to articulate just what it was about him. But she’d known it; known it from the first moment they’d made eye contact, from the first honeyed words that had left his lips . . .

She paused to admire a sequined Cornelli jersey top, her mind wandering down various vaguely delicious and sensuous avenues before returning to the present. Her first two husbands had been English nobility, landed gentry of the old-fashioned kind, and her competence and independence had ultimately scared them away. In her third husband, an American meatpacking baron, she had finally found an equal—only to see him die of a stroke during a particularly vigorous copulation. She had hoped to meet a suitable fourth husband on the cruise—life was short, and she had a mortal fear of spending her old age alone with her horses—but now, with the uproar over this awful killing, the prospects looked poor indeed.

No matter. Once in New York, there would be the Guggenheim party, the Elle magazine bash, the Metropolitan Club dinner, and any number of other venues for meeting a suitable man. Perhaps, she thought, she might even be forced to lower her standards . . . but only slightly.

Then again, perhaps not. She was certain, for example, that Mr. Pendergast would not require a lowering of standards. At least, as certain as she could be without taking off the man’s clothes.

She glanced over the slow-moving crowd. It was sparser than usual, no doubt due to the heavy seas, the disappearances and murder. Or perhaps everyone had hangovers—the amount of liquor she’d seen consumed in the restaurants, clubs, and lounges the previous evening had quite astonished her.

She approached another elegant shop, the last in the arcade, which was just opening its shutters. She stood idly as the metal rolled up with a hideous noise—what was charming on Regent Street was merely obnoxious on board ship—and was pleasantly surprised to see revealed the plate glass of a small fur shop. She didn’t go in for wearing fur herself, but she could nevertheless appreciate a beautiful piece of couture when she saw it. One of the store clerks was in the front window, fussily adjusting a full-length Zuki basarick fur coat that had become somewhat disheveled on its old-fashioned wicker mannequin. She paused to admire the coat, which was tiered with fringe in a very full-cut style.Thick enough to keep you warm in a Siberian gulag , she thought with a smile.

As she watched, the clerk tugged and fussed with increasing irritation, and then realized the coat had been buttoned up crookedly. With an exaggerated rolling of the eyes he unbuttoned the coat and flicked it open. A splattering of syrupy liquid fell from the mannequin, followed by what looked like a length of reddish-white rope. The clerk, evidently feeling wetness on his hands, raised them up to his face. They were red—covered in a viscous red that could only be blood.

Blood . . .

Emily Dahlberg placed her hand over her mouth. The clerk reacted more violently, jerking back, slipping on the now bloody floor and losing his footing. He flailed, shouted, grabbed at the mannequin; and then clerk, coat, and mannequin fell heavily to the ground, the coat flying open to reveal a corpse.

But no, Emily Dahlberg realized; it was not a corpse, at least not a whole corpse, but instead a tangle of organs, red and white and yellow, streaming and dangling from a ragged hole cut into the wickerwork torso of the mannequin. She stared in open-mouthed shock and disbelief, temporarily unable to move. She had witnessed enough sanguinary scenes at the family meatpacking plant, on the arm of her third husband, to know that these organs did not belong to cattle. No—cattle viscera was larger. This was something else entirely . . .

All of a sudden, she realized her limbs were working again. And as she turned and began walking back down the Regent Street alley, her pace slightly unsteady, screams began to echo over her shoulder. But Emily Dahlberg did not look back, not even once.

42

AT THREE MINUTES AFTER TEN O’CLOCK, THE DOOR TO A DECK 9 electrical port cracked open onto an utterly deserted corridor. The shriek of the fire alarm had ceased, and all that remained was an officious emergency message, repeating over and over from the ship’s internal sound system. From one direction came the receding voices of fire control officers; from the other, a faint Babel of noise from the forward lounge. After a brief hesitation, Pendergast emerged from the darkness of the electrical port like a spider from its lair. He glanced first one direction, then the other, peering intently down the plushly carpeted and wallpapered corridor. Then, with feline quickness, he darted forward, opened the front door of the Penshurst Triplex, ducked inside, and—shutting the door behind him—slid home the heavy-duty lock.

For a moment he stood motionless in the muted entryway. Beyond, in the salon, the curtains were drawn against the dark and stormy morning, allowing only a faint light to filter into the hushed interior. He could hear the faint throbbing of the ship, the sound of rain and wind lashing the windows. He inhaled, all senses on high alert. Very faintly, he detected the same waxy, smoky, resinous smell the cab driver had described; the scent he knew from the inner monastery of Gsalrig Chongg.

He glanced at his watch: twenty-four minutes. The Penshurst Triplex was one of the two largest suites on the ship, more like an elegant town house than a ship’s stateroom, with three bedrooms and an exercise room on the upper floors and a salon, kitchen, dining area, and balcony down, connected by a spiral staircase. He moved out of the entryway and into the dark salon. Silver, gold, turquoise, and varnish gleamed dully from the shadows. Pendergast flicked on the lights and was momentarily dazzled by the extraordinary and eclectic collection of art that greeted his eyes: early cubist paintings by Braque and Picasso, mingled indiscriminately with masterpieces of Asian painting and sculpture from India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and China. There were other treasures as well: a table displaying an array of early English repoussé silver and gold snuffboxes; several cases containing ancient Greek gold coins; an odd collection of what looked like Roman toga pins and ceintures.

The collection as a whole betrayed a collector with a fine eye, impeccable taste, and immensely deep pockets. But even more, it was the work of a man of true culture and discernment, a man with interests and knowledge that went far beyond mere business.

Was this, Pendergast wondered, the same man who had so gratuitously and sadistically mutilated Jordan Ambrose after death? He thought again of how Ambrose’s murder had been psychologically inconsistent in every conceivable way.

He went straight to the large teak cabinet at the far end of the room that, Constance had explained, housed the suite’s safe. Opening the cabinet, he pulled out the magnetic passcard Kemper had supplied him with, slipped it into the slot. A moment later, the safe door sprang ajar with a faint click.

He pulled it wide and peered inside. As he did so, a strong smell of resin and smoke wafted outward. The safe was empty except for one thing: a long, rectangular wooden box covered with faded Tibetan script.

He withdrew it with exquisite care, noting its lightness. It was so riddled with insect holes that it was like a desiccated sponge, crumbling and shedding dust at the slightest touch. He unlatched the old brass keeper and gingerly opened the lid, which fell apart in his hands. Carefully, he pulled away the pieces and stared into the box’s interior.

It was empty.

43

THE BRIDGE SECURITY BUZZER SOUNDED, INDICATING SOMEONE was entering the bridge. A moment later Kemper appeared in the hatchway. LeSeur was taken immediately aback by the man’s appearance: his face was gray, his hair limp, his clothes disheveled. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“What is it, Mr. Kemper?” he asked, glancing involuntarily at Commodore Cutter, still on the bridge. The man had gone back to his pacing. The ship was on autopilot—a marriage of software, mechanics, and satellite technology that was nothing short of a marvel of naval engineering, able to keep the ship on course better than any human navigator, saving significant amounts of fuel. The problem, LeSeur thought, was the autopilot was still following a course for New York City.

“They found the missing girl,” Kemper said, his voice low. “Or, at least, part of her.” There was a brief silence. LeSeur felt a sudden wave of horror as he tried to process this information.

“Part of her,” he repeated at last. His throat seemed to have gone dry.

“Portions of a human body—entrails, viscera—were found stuffed into a mannequin in one of the Regent Street shops. At about the same time, streaks of blood, a half-crushed bracelet, and . . . gore, other things . . . were located by one of my search parties on the port aft railing of Deck 1.”

“So the rest was thrown overboard,” LeSeur said, very quietly. This was a bad dream—a nightmare. It had to be.

“It would seem so, sir. The girl’s iPod was located on Deck B, outside the hatch leading to the engineering spaces. It appears she was accosted down there, led or carried up to Deck 1, then killed and butchered on the weather deck and thrown overboard—with a few, ah, trophies retained. Those in turn were brought up to the Regent Street fur shop and left on a mannequin.”

“Do the passengers know yet?”

“Yes. Word seems to be spreading quickly. They’re taking it badly.”

“How badly?”

“I’ve witnessed numerous scenes of hysteria. A man in the Covent Garden casino had to be restrained. I’ve warned you about how dangerous hysteria can become—my recommendation is that the commodore declare an ISPS Code Level One and that you take steps to increase security on the bridge immediately.”

LeSeur turned to a second officer. “Activate security hatches on all bridge approaches. No one passes without authorization.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned back to the security chief. “I will discuss the ISPS Code with the commodore. Any leads on the killing?”

“None. Except the killer seems to have remarkable access to the ship, including a key to Engineering and the Regent Street fur shop.”

“Pendergast said the killer had somehow managed to get a security passcard.”

“Or a master key,” said Kemper. “Dozens have been issued.”

“Motive?”

“It could be the work of a raving sociopath. Or it might be someone with a specific goal in mind.”

“A goal? Such as?”

Kemper shrugged. “I don’t know. Sow panic on board, maybe?” “But why?”

When the security chief had no answer, LeSeur nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Kemper. Would you please accompany me while I report this to the commodore?”

Kemper swallowed, nodded. LeSeur strode over to the center bridge, placing himself in the path of the commodore’s walk. “Commodore Cutter?”

Cutter stopped pacing, slowly raised his massive head. “What is it, Mr. LeSeur?”

“Mr. Kemper has just reported another killing on board. A young girl.”

At this, Cutter’s eyes flashed briefly before going dull again. He glanced over at the security chief. “Mr. Kemper?”

“Sir. A sixteen-year-old girl was murdered early this morning on Deck 1. Certain body parts were placed on a mannequin in one of the Regent Street shops; it was discovered when the shop opened this morning. The story is spreading over the ship and passengers are panicking.”

“Is your staff conducting an investigation?”

“My staff, sir, is strained to the maximum just trying to keep order, answer reports of disappearances, and reassure passengers. With all due respect, we are not in any position to gather evidence, question suspects, or conduct an investigation.”

Cutter continued gazing at him. “Anything else, Mr. Kemper?”

“I would recommend declaring an ISPS Code Level One on the ship.”

The eyes focused briefly on LeSeur before swiveling toward the officer of the watch. “Mr. Worthington?” Cutter called out. “Estimated time to New York?”

“At current speed and heading, sixty-six hours, sir.”

“St. John’s?”

“Twenty-three hours, sir, again if we maintain speed.”

A long silence enveloped the bridge. Cutter’s eyes gleamed in the dim light from the electronics. He turned back to the security director.

“Mr. Kemper, declare a Code One. I want you to close two of the casinos and half of the nightclubs. In addition, select the shops and lounges that have been doing the least amount of business. Reassign those employees to the maintenance of order on board this ship, as far as their skills and capabilities will allow. Close the game rooms, health clubs, theaters, and spas—and again reassign the staff to security duties, whenever possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seal any areas that may contain forensic evidence of this and the other crimes. I don’t want any entry by anyone to those areas, even you.”

“Already done, sir.”

He turned. “Mr. LeSeur, a ten P.M. to eight A.M. curfew will remain in effect until we land. All passengers will be confined to their staterooms during those periods. Move up the restaurant dinner seatings so the last one concludes at nine-thirty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All room service and other passenger services are to be canceled. All waitstaff will follow a minimal cleaning schedule. All crew are to be confined to quarters when not on duty or at mess. No exceptions. Mr. LeSeur, you will take appropriate steps to cut down on the movement of nonessential personnel about the ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will make an appropriate announcement to the passengers declaring an International Ship and Port Security nautical emergency on board ship and outlining my orders. Infractions will be dealt with sternly. There will be no exceptions granted to these rules, no matter how rich or . . .influential the person might be, or claim to be.”

There was a long, long silence. LeSeur waited for the most essential order to come.

“That will be all, Mr. LeSeur.”

But LeSeur didn’t move. “Captain Cutter, excuse me for mentioning this, but surely you’ll be diverting to St. John’s?”

As Cutter’s eyes rested on him, they turned cold. “No.”

“Why not, sir?” LeSeur swallowed.

“I am not in the habit of explaining my reasoning with junior officers.”

LeSeur swallowed again in an unsuccessful attempt to loosen his throat. “Commodore, if I may—”

Cutter interrupted him. “Mr. LeSeur, call the staff captain back to the bridge and confine yourself to your quarters until further orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That will be all. Mr. Kemper, you may vacate the bridge as well.” And without another word, Cutter wheeled away and resumed his pacing.

44

CAREFULLY, CAREFULLY, PENDERGAST BROUGHT THE CRUMBLING box out into the light. He fitted a jeweler’s loupe to one eye and, with a pair of tweezers, began sorting through the debris inside—dead insects, particles of resin, sawdust, fibers—placing select items into small test tubes taken from his jacket pockets. When he had finished, he fitted the lid back on the box, reassembling it with exquisite care, and placed it back in the safe in the rectangle of sawdust from which he had taken it. He closed the safe, dipped the passcard into the reader to lock it, then closed the teak cabinet and stepped back.

He checked his watch: nineteen minutes left.

Blackburn had hidden the object—whatever it was—elsewhere in his suite.

He peered around the salon, examining each object in turn. Many whose dimensions exceeded that of the box he could dismiss immediately. But there were many others that could fit in the box, albeit awkwardly; too many to examine properly within a quarter of an hour.

He went upstairs and searched the bedrooms, baths, and exercise room. Blackburn, he noted, had only redecorated the salon—except for the silken bedcoverings monogrammed with a large and ostentatious “B,” the upstairs rooms remained in their original decor.

He returned to the salon and paused in the center, his silvery eyes traveling around the room, fastening on each object in turn. Even if he eliminated all objects that were neither Tibetan nor Indian and more modern than the twelfth century, he was still left with an uncomfortably large number. There was an iron ritual lance damascened with gold and silver; a phur-bu dagger in massive gold with a triangular blade issuing from the mouth of Makara; several long prayer wheels in exquisitely carved ivory and silver, with sculpted mantras; a silver dorje ritual object encrusted with turquoise and coral; and several ancient thangkas and mandala paintings.

All extraordinary. But which one—if any—was the Agozyen, the terrible and forbidden object that would cleanse the earth of its human infestation?

His eye settled on the extraordinary thangka paintings that ranged about the walls: paintings of Tibetan deities and demons, bordered by rich silk brocade, used as objects of meditation. The first was an exquisite image of the Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, the Buddha of Compassion; next, a fierce depiction of the Kalazyga demon, with fangs, three eyes, and a headdress of skulls, dancing wildly in the midst of a raging fire. He examined the thangkas at close range with his loupe, then plucked a thread of silk off the edge of each in turn and examined them as well.

Next he moved to the largest of the mandalas, hanging over the gas fireplace. It was mind-boggling: an intricate, metaphysical representation of the cosmos that was, at the same time, a magical depiction of the interior state of the enlightened Buddha, as well as being the schematic of a temple or palace. The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

This was an exceptionally fine mandala; Pendergast gazed at it, his eye almost magnetically drawn to the object’s center, feeling the familiar peace and freedom from attachment emanating from it.

Was this the Agozyen? No—there was no menace, no danger here.

He glanced at his watch. Blackburn would be back in twelve minutes. There was no more time to examine individual objects. Instead, he returned to the center of the room and stood there, thinking.

The Agozyen was in the room: he was certain of that. But he was also certain that further searching was a waste of precious time. A Buddhist phrase came to his mind:When you cease searching, then you will find.

He seated himself on Blackburn’s overstuffed couch, closed his eyes, and—slowly, calmly—emptied his mind. When his mind was at rest, when he ceased caring whether he found the Agozyen or not, he opened his eyes and once again looked around the room, keeping his mind a blank, his intellect quiescent.

As he did so, his gaze gravitated toward an exquisite painting by Georges Braque hanging unobtrusively in the corner. He vaguely remembered the painting, an early masterpiece by the French cubist that had recently been auctioned at Christie’s in London—purchased, he recalled, by an unknown buyer.

From his position on the sofa, he examined the painting with relaxed pleasure.

Seven minutes.

45

LESEUR INTERCEPTED STAFF CAPTAIN MASON AS SHE WAS entering through the outer bridge security hatchway. She paused when she saw his face.

“Captain Mason . . . ,” he began, then faltered.

She looked at him, her face betraying nothing. She still appeared cool, collected, hair tucked under the captain’s hat with not a single strand out of place. Only her eyes bespoke a deep weariness.

She looked through the inner hatchway toward the bridge, taking in the current operational status with a quick, professional glance, then returned her attention to him. “Is there something you wish to tell me, Mr. LeSeur?” Her voice was studiously neutral.

“You’ve heard about the latest killing?”

“Yes.”

“Commodore Cutter refuses to divert to St. John’s. We’re maintaining course for New York. Sixty-five hours and change.”

Mason said nothing. LeSeur turned to go and felt her staying hand on his shoulder. He felt a mild surprise: she had never touched him before.

“Officer LeSeur,” she said. “I wish you to come with me when I speak to the commodore.”

“I’ve been dismissed from the bridge, sir.”

“Consider yourself reinstated. And please call the second and third officers to the bridge, along with Mr. Halsey, the chief engineer. I will need them to act as witnesses.”

LeSeur felt his heart accelerate. “Yes, sir.” It was the work of five minutes to quietly round up the junior officers and Halsey and return to the bridge. Mason met them at the security hatch. Over her shoulder, LeSeur could see that the commodore was still walking back and forth before the bridge windows. His pace had slowed still further, and he was putting one foot before another with excruciating precision, head bowed, ignoring everyone and everything. At the sound of their entry, he at last paused, looked up. LeSeur knew Cutter could not help but see the bridge staff arrayed in a row behind him.

Cutter’s watery eyes went from Mason to LeSeur and back again. “What is the first officer doing here, Captain? I dismissed him.”

“I asked him to return to the bridge, sir.”

There was a long silence.

“And these other officers?”

“I asked them to be here, as well.”

Cutter continued to stare at her. “You are insubordinate, Captain.”

There was a pause before Mason replied. “Commodore Cutter, I respectfully ask you to justify your decision to maintain course and heading for New York instead of diverting to St. John’s.”

Cutter’s gaze hardened. “We’ve been over this already. Such a diversion is unnecessary and ill-considered.”

“Pardon me, sir, but the majority of your officers—and, I might add, a delegation of prominent passengers—think otherwise.”

“I repeat: you are insubordinate. You are hereby relieved of command.” Cutter turned to the two security officers standing guard by the bridge hatch. “Escort Captain Mason from the bridge.”

The two security guards stepped up to Mason. “Come with us, please, sir,” one of them said.

Mason ignored them. “Commodore Cutter, you haven’t seen what I have; what we have. There are four thousand three hundred terrified passengers and crew on board this vessel. The security staff is wholly inadequate to handle a situation of this magnitude, something Mr. Kemper freely acknowledges. And the situation continues to escalate. The control, and therefore the safety, of this ship is at imminent risk. I insist that we divert to the closest available port—St. John’s. Any other course would endanger the ship and constitute dereliction of duty under Article V of the Maritime Code.”

LeSeur could hardly breathe. He waited for an enraged outburst, or a cold, Captain Bligh–like rebuff. Instead, Cutter did something unexpected. His body seemed to relax, and he came around and leaned on the edge of a console, folding his hands. His whole demeanor changed.

“Captain Mason, we’re all more than a little distraught.” He glanced at LeSeur. “Perhaps I was a little hasty in my response to you, too, Mr. LeSeur. There’s a reason why a ship has a master and why his orders are never to be questioned. We don’t have the time or luxury to start wrangling among ourselves, discussing our reasoning, voting like a committee. However, under the circumstances, I’m going to explain my reasoning. I will explain it once, and only once. Iexpect” —he glanced over at the deck officers and the chief engineer, and his voice hardened again—“you to listen. All of you must accept the ancient and time-honored sanctity of the master’s prerogative to make decisions aboard his ship, even decisions that involve life-or-death situations, such as this one. If I am wrong, that will be addressed once we reach port.”

He straightened. “We’re twenty-two hours to St. John’s, but only if we maintain speed . If we did divert, we’d be plunging into the heart of the storm. Instead of a following sea, we’d be subjected to a beam sea and then, as we cross the Grand Banks, a head-on sea. We’d be lucky to maintain twenty knots of headway. By this calculation St. John’s is thirty-two hours away, not twenty-two—and that’s only if the storm doesn’t worsen. I could easily imagine arriving in St. John’s forty hours from now.”

“That’s still a day ahead—”

The captain held up his hand, his face darkening. “ Excuse me. A straight heading to St. John’s, however, will take us dangerously close to Eastern Shoal and the Carrion Rocks. So we will need to chart a course around those obstacles, losing at least another hour or two. That makes it forty-two hours. The Grand Banks are riddled with fishing vessels, and some of the larger factory ships will be weathering the storm offshore, with sea anchors out, immobile, making us the give-way ship in all encounters. Knock off two knots of speed and add maneuvering room, and we lose another few hours. Even though it’s July, the iceberg season isn’t over, and recent growler activity has been reported along the outer margins of the Labrador Current, north of the Eastern Shoal. Knock off another hour. So we’re not twenty-two hours out of St. John’s. We’re forty-five.”

He paused dramatically.

“The Britannia has now become the scene of a crime. Its passengers and crew are all suspects. Wherever we land, the ship will be detained by law enforcement and not released until the forensic examination of the ship is complete and all passengers and crew interviewed. St. John’s is a small, provincial city on an island in the Atlantic, with a minuscule constabulary and a small RCMP detachment. It doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of resources needed to do an effective and efficient job of evidence gathering. TheBritannia could languish in St. John’s for weeks, even a month or more, along with its crew and many passengers, at a loss to the corporation of hundreds of millions of dollars. The number of people on board this ship will swamp the town.”

He looked around at the silent group, licked his lips.

“New York City, on the other hand, has the facilities to conduct a proper criminal and forensic investigation. The passengers will be minimally inconvenienced and the ship will probably be released after a few days. Most importantly, the investigation will be state of the art. They will find and punish the killer.” Cutter closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again. It was a slow, strange gesture that gave LeSeur the creeps. “I trust I have made myself clear, Captain Mason?”

“Yes,” said Mason, her voice cold as ice. “But allow me to point out a fact you’ve overlooked, sir: the killer has struck four times in four days. Once a day, like clockwork. Your twenty-four extra hours to New York means one extra death. An unnecessary death.A death that you will be personally responsible for. ”

There was a terrible silence.

“What does it matter that the passengers will be inconvenienced?” Mason continued. “Or that the ship might be stuck in port? Or that the corporation might lose millions of dollars? What does it matter when the life of a human being is at stake ?”

“That’s true!” LeSeur said, louder than he intended. He was distantly surprised to hear that the voice which spoke up was his own. But he was sick at heart—sick of the killing, sick of the shipboard bureaucracy, sick of the endless talk about corporate profits—and he couldn’t help but speak. “That’s what this is all about: money. That’s all it boils down to. How much money the corporation might lose if its ship were stuck in St. John’s for a few weeks. Are we going to save the corporation money, or are we going to save a human life?”

“Mr. LeSeur,” Cutter said, “you are out of line—”

But LeSeur cut him off. “Listen: the most recent victim was an innocent sixteen-year-old girl, a kid for God’s sake, traveling with her grandparents. Kidnapped and murdered! What if she had been a daughter of yours?” He turned to face the others. “Are we going to let this happen again? If we follow the course Commodore Cutter recommends, we’re very likely condemning another human being to a horrible death.”

LeSeur could see the junior deck officers nodding their agreement. There was no love lost for the corporation; Mason had hit a nerve. The chief engineer, Halsey, remained unreadable.

“Commodore, sir, you leave me no choice,” Mason said, her voice quiet but with a measured, almost fierce eloquence. “Either you divert this ship, or I’ll be forced to call for an emergency Article V action.”

Cutter stared at her. “That would be highly inadvisable.”

“It’s the last thing I want to do. But if you continue to refuse to see reason, you leave me no choice.”

“

Bullshit!

” This profanity, so remarkable on the lips of the commodore, sent a strange shock wave rippling across the bridge.

“Commodore?” Mason said.

But Cutter did not reply. He was staring out through the bridge windows, gaze fixed on an indeterminate horizon. His lips worked soundlessly.

“Commodore?” Mason repeated.

There was no reply.

“Very well.” Mason turned to the assembled group. “As second in command of the

Britannia

, I hereby invoke Article V against Commodore Cutter for dereliction of duty. Who will stand with me?”

LeSeur’s heart was pounding so hard in his chest it felt like it would burst from his rib cage. He looked around, his eyes meeting the frightened, hesitant eyes of the others. Then he stepped forward.

“I will,” he said.

46

PENDERGAST CONTINUED TO LOOK AT THE BRAQUE. A SMALL question, a nagging doubt, took root in the margins of his consciousness, spreading to fill the void he had created within his mind. Slowly, it intruded into his conscious thought:

There was something wrong with the painting.

It was not a forgery. There was no doubt it was genuine, and that it was the very painting auctioned at Christie’s in the Winter Sale five months before. But there was neverthelesssomething that wasn’t right. The frame, for one thing, had been changed. But that wasn’t all . . .

He rose from his seat and approached the painting, pausing inches from its surface, and then stepping slowly back, staring intently at it the entire time. It came to him in a flash: part of the image was missing. The painting had lost an inch or two on the right side and at least three inches off the top.

He stood motionless, staring. He was sure the painting had been sold intact at Christie’s. That could mean only one thing: Blackburn himself had mutilated it for reasons of his own.

Pendergast’s breathing slowed as he contemplated this bizarre fact: that an art collector would mutilate a painting that had cost him over three million dollars.

He plucked the painting off the wall and turned it over. The canvas had recently been relined, as one might expect from a painting that had been cut down from its original size. He bent down and sniffed the canvas, coming away with the chalky smell of the glue used in relining. Very fresh: a lot fresher than five months. He pressed it with his fingernail. The glue had barely dried. The relining had been done in the last day or two.

He checked his watch: five minutes.

He quickly laid the painting face down on the thick carpeting, removed a penknife from his pocket, inserted it between the canvas and the stretcher, and—with exquisite care—pressed down on the blade, exposing the inside edge of the canvas. A dark, loose strip of old silk caught his eye.

The liner was false; something was hidden behind it. Something so valuable that Blackburn had sliced up a three-million-dollar painting to hide it.

He quickly examined the fake liner. It was held tight by the pressure between the canvas and the stretcher. Slowly, carefully, Pendergast prized the canvas away from one side of the stretcher, loosened the liner, then repeated the process on the other three sides. Keeping the painting facedown on the carpeting, he grasped the now loose corners of the liner between his thumb and forefinger, peeled it back.

Hidden between the fake liner and the real one was a painting on silk, covered by a loose silk cloth. Pendergast held it at arm’s length, then laid it on the carpet and drew back the silk cover.

For a moment, his mind went blank. It was as if a sudden puff of wind had blown the heavy dust from his brain, leaving a crystalline purity. The image assembled itself in his consciousness as his intellectual processes returned. It was a very ancient Tibetan mandala of astonishing, extraordinary, utterly unfathomable complexity. It was fantastically, maddeningly intricate, a swirling, interlocking geometric fantasy edged in gold and silver, an unsettling,disintegrating palette of colors against the blackness of space. It was like a galaxy unto itself, with billions of stars swirling around a spinning singularity of extreme density and power . . .

Pendergast found his eye drawn inexorably to the singularity at the center of this bizarre design. Once it was fixed there, he found himself unable to move his eyes away. He made a minor effort, then a stronger one, marveling at the power of the image to hold both his mind and his gaze in thrall. It had happened so suddenly, so stealthily as it were, that he had no time to prepare himself. The dark hole at the center of the mandala seemed to be alive, pulsing, crawling in the most repellent way, opening itself like some foul orifice. He felt as if a corresponding hole had been opened in the center of his own forehead, that the countless billions of memories and experiences and opinions and judgments that made up his unique persona were being twisted, beingaltered ; that his very soul was being drawn out of his body and sucked into the mandala, in which he became the mandala and the mandala became him. It was as if he were being transfigured into the metaphysical body of the enlightened Buddha . . . Except that this wasn’t the Buddha.

That was the sheer, implacable, inescapable terror of it.

This was some other universal being, the anti-Buddha, the physical manifestation of pure evil. And it was here, with him, in this painting. In this room . . .

And in his head . . .

47

THE SOUND OF LESEUR’S VOICE DIED OUT ON THE BRIDGE, REPLACED by the howling of wind and the splatter of rain on the windows, the electronic beeping and chiming of the ECDIS electronics and radar as they went through their cycles.

No one spoke. LeSeur felt a sudden panic. He’d gotten ahead of the curve, throwing his hat into the ring with Mason. He had just made the move that would guarantee career suicide.

Finally, the officer of the watch stepped forward, a gruff mariner in the old style. Eyes downcast, hands clasped over his uniform, he was the very picture of stiff-jawed courage. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “A master’s first responsibility is to the lives of the people aboard ship—crew and passengers.”

Cutter stared at him, his chest rising and falling.

“I’m with you, Captain Mason. We’ve got to get this ship into port.”

The man finally raised his eyes and faced Cutter. The captain returned the look with a gaze of such ferocity it seemed to physically assault the man. The officer of the watch dropped his eyes once more—but did not step back.

Now the second officer stepped forward, followed by two junior officers. Without a word Halsey, the chief engineer, stepped forward. They stood in a tight group in the center bridge, nervous, uneasy, their eyes avoiding the commodore’s fatal stare. Kemper, the security chief, remained rooted in place, his fleshy face strained with anxiety.

Captain Mason turned to him and spoke, her voice cold, matter-of-fact. “This is a legal action under Article V. Your agreement is necessary, Mr. Kemper. You must make a decision—now. If you do not declare with us, it means you’ve taken the commodore’s side. In that case, we will proceed to New York—and you will assume the burden of responsibility for all that entails.”

“I—” Kemper croaked.

“This is a mutiny,” said Cutter, his gravelly voice low and threatening. “A mutiny , pure and simple. You go along with this, Kemper, and you’re guilty of mutiny on the high seas, which is acriminal offense. I will see you charged to the fullest extent. You will never set foot on the deck of a ship again as long as you live. That goes for the rest of you.”

Mason took a step toward Kemper, her voice softening just slightly. “Through no fault of your own, you’ve been placed between a rock and hard place. On the one hand, a possible charge of mutiny. On the other, a possible charge of negligent homicide. Life is hard, Mr. Kemper. Take your pick.”

The chief of security was breathing so hard he was almost hyperventilating. He looked from Mason to Cutter and back, eyes darting around as if seeking a way out. There was none. He spoke, all in a rush. “We’ve got to make port as soon as possible.”

“That’s an opinion, not a declaration,” said Mason coolly.

“I’m . . . I’m with you.”

Mason turned her keen eyes on the commodore.

“You’re are a disgrace to your uniform and to a thousand years of maritime tradition!” Cutter roared. “This shall not stand!”

“Commodore Cutter,” Mason said, “you are hereby relieved of command under Article V of the Maritime Code. I will give you one opportunity to remove yourself from the bridge, with dignity. Then I shall order you removed.”

“You . . . you vixen ! You’re living proof that women have no place on the bridge of a ship!” And Cutter rushed at her with an inarticulate roar, grasping the lapel of her uniform before two security guards seized him. He cursed, clawing and roaring like a bear, as they wrestled him to the ground, pinned him, and handcuffed him.

“Brown-haired bitch! May you burn in hell!”

More security guards were called in from a nearby detail and the commodore was subdued with great difficulty. He was finally wrestled off, his thundering voice hurling imprecations down the companionway until at last silence fell.

LeSeur looked at Mason and was surprised to see a flush of poorly concealed triumph on her face. She looked at her watch. “I will note for the log that command of theBritannia has been transferred from Commodore Cutter to Staff Captain Mason at ten-fifty, GMT.” She turned to Kemper. “Mr. Kemper, I shall need all the keys, passwords, and authorization codes to the ship and all electronic and security systems.”

“Yes, sir.”

She turned to the navigator. “And now, if you please, reduce speed to twenty-four knots and lay in a course for St. John’s, Newfoundland.”

48

THE DOOR OPENED SOFTLY. CONSTANCE ROSE FROM THE DIVAN with a sharp intake of breath. Pendergast slipped through the door, strolled over to the small bar, pulled down a bottle, and examined the label. He removed the cork with a faint pop, took out a glass, and casually poured himself a sherry. Carrying the bottle and glass with him, he took a seat on the sofa, put the bottle on a side table, and leaned back, examining the color of the sherry in the light.

“Did you find it?” Constance asked.

He nodded, still examining the color of the sherry, and then tossed off the glass. “The storm has intensified,” he said.

Constance glanced toward the glass doors that opened onto the balcony, lashed with flecks of spume. The rain was now so heavy she couldn’t see down to the water; there was only a field of gray, grading to darkness.

“Well?” She tried to control the excitement in her voice. “What was it?”

“An old mandala.” He poured himself a second glass, then raised it toward Constance. “Care to join me?”

“No, thank you. What kind of mandala? Where was it hidden?” His coyness could be maddening.

Pendergast took a long, lingering sip, exhaled. “Our man had hidden it behind a Braque painting. He trimmed down and restretched the painting in order to hide the Agozyen behind it. A lovely Braque, from his early cubist period—utterly spoiled. A shame. He’d hidden it recently, too. He had evidently learned about the maid that went crazy after cleaning his rooms—and perhaps he even knew of my interest. The box was in the safe. Apparently, he felt the safe wasn’t secure enough for the mandala—with good reason, as it turns out. Or perhaps he simply wanted to have it accessible at all times.”

“What did it look like?”

“The mandala? The usual four-sided arrangement of interlocking squares and circles, done in the ancient Kadampa style, astonishingly intricate—but of little interest to anyone beyond a collector or a superstitious group of Tibetan monks. Constance, would you kindly sit down? It is not agreeable to speak to a standing person when one is seated.”

Constance subsided into her seat. “That’s all? Just an old mandala?”

“Are you disappointed?”

“I thought, somehow, that we’d be dealing with something extraordinary. Perhaps even . . .” She hesitated. “I don’t know. Something with almost supernatural power.”

Pendergast issued a dry chuckle. “I fear you took your studies at Gsalrig Chongg a trifle too literally.” He sipped his sherry again.

“Where is it?” she asked. “I left it in situ for the time being. It’s safe with him and we know where it is now. We’ll take it from him at the end of the voyage, at the last minute, when he won’t have time to respond.”

Constance sat back. “Somehow I can’t believe it. Just a thangka painting.”

Pendergast eyed the sherry again. “Our little pro bono assignment is nearly finished. All that remains is the problem of relieving Blackburn of his ill-gotten goods, and as I said, that is trifling. I have already worked out most of the details. I do hope we won’t have to kill him, although I wouldn’t consider it much of a loss.”

“Kill him? Good God, Aloysius, I would certainly hope to avoid that.”

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “Really? I should have thought you would be accustomed to it by now.”

Constance stared at him, flushing. “What are you talking about?”

Pendergast smiled, dropped his eyes again. “Constance, forgive me; that was insensitive. No, we won’t kill Blackburn. We’ll find another way to take his precious toy.”

There was a long silence as Pendergast sipped his sherry.

“Did you hear the rumor of the mutiny?” said Constance.

Pendergast didn’t seem to hear.

“Marya just informed me of it. Apparently the staff captain has taken command, and now we’re heading to Newfoundland instead of New York. The ship’s in a panic. They’re instituting a curfew, there’s supposed to be an important announcement coming over the public address system at noon”—she glanced at her watch—“in an hour.”

Pendergast set down the empty glass and rose. “I am somewhat fatigued from my labors. I believe I shall take a rest. Would you see to it that upon rising at three o’clock I have a breakfast of eggs Benedict and Hojicha green tea waiting for me, fresh and hot?”

Without another word, he glided up the stairs to his bedroom. A moment later, his door eased shut behind him and the lock turned with a soft click.

49

LESEUR WAS ONE HOUR INTO THE AFTERNOON WATCH, AND HE stood at the integrated bridge workstation, before the giant array of ECDIS chartplotters and vector radar overlays, tracking the progress of the ship as it cut across the Grand Banks on a course for St. John’s. There had been no sea traffic—merely a few large ships riding out the storm—and progress had been rapid.

Since the change of command the bridge had been eerily silent. Captain Mason seemed subdued by the weight of her new responsibilities. She had not left the bridge since relieving Cutter of command, and it struck him that she would probably remain there until the ship came into port. She had raised the state of emergency to ISPS Code Level Two. Then she’d cleared the bridge of all but essential personnel, leaving only the officer of the watch, helmsman, and a single lookout. LeSeur was surprised at what a good decision that turned out to be: it created an oasis of calm, of focus, that a more heavily manned bridge did not have.

He wondered just how this Article V action was going to play out with Corporate and how it would affect his career. Adversely, no doubt. He consoled himself that he’d had no choice. He had done the right thing and that was what counted. That was the best you could do in life. How others took it was beyond his control.

LeSeur’s experienced eye roved over the big-screen electronics, the Trimble NavTrac and Northstar 941X DGPS, the four different sets of electronic charts, the gyro, radar, speed logs, loran, and depth sounders. The bridge would be hardly recognizable to a naval officer of even ten years before. But on one side, at a navigational table, LeSeur still charted the ship’s course the old-fashioned way, on paper, using a set of fine brass navigation instruments, parallel rulers and dividers given to him by his father. He even occasionally took a sun or star sight to determine position. It was unnecessary, but it gave him a vital connection with the great traditions of his profession.

He glanced at the speed and course readouts. The ship was on autopilot, as usual, and LeSeur had to admit theBritannia was proving to be unusually sea-kindly, despite a thirty-foot beam sea and forty- to fifty-knot gale winds. True, there was a rather unpleasant long- period, corkscrewing roll, but he could only imagine how much worse it would be for a smaller cruise ship. TheBritannia was making twenty-two knots, better than expected. They would be in St. John’s in less than twenty hours.

He felt a great relief at the way Mason had quietly taken charge. In her noon announcement to the entire ship over the PA system, she had quietly explained that the commodore had been relieved of duty and that she had taken over. In a calm, reassuring voice she had declared an ISPS Code Level Two state of emergency and explained that they were diverting to the closest port. She had asked passengers for their own safety to spend most of their time quietly in their staterooms. When leaving their cabins for meals, she urged them to travel in groups or pairs.

LeSeur glanced at the ARPA radar. So far, so good. There had been no sign of ice, and what few ships were still on the Banks had been lying to well off their course. He touched the dial of the ECDIS and changed the scale to twenty-four miles. They were closing in on a waypoint, at which the autopilot would execute a course correction that would take them clear of the Carrion Rocks on the leeward side. After that, it was a straight shot into St. John’s Harbour.

Kemper appeared on the bridge.

“How are things on the passenger decks?” LeSeur asked.

“As good as could be expected, sir.” He hesitated. “I’ve reported the change of command to Corporate.”

LeSeur swallowed. “And?”

“A lot of hard blowing, but no official reaction yet. They’ve dispatched a bunch of suits to meet us in St. John’s. Basically, they’re reeling. Their main concern is bad publicity. When the press gets hold of this . . .” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

A soft chime from the chartplotter announced that the waypoint had been reached. As the autopilot automatically adjusted to the new heading, LeSeur felt the faintest vibration: the new course had slightly changed the ship’s angle to the sea and the rolling had grown worse.

“New bearing two two zero,” LeSeur murmured to the staff captain.

“New bearing acknowledged, two two zero.”

The wind buffeted the bridge windows. All he could see was the ship’s forecastle, half hidden in the mist, and beyond that an endless gray.

Mason turned. “Mr. LeSeur?”

“Yes, Captain?”

She spoke in a low voice. “I’m concerned about Mr. Craik.”

“The chief radio officer? Why?”

“I’m not sure he’s getting with the program. It seems he’s locked himself in the radio room.”

She nodded to a door at the rear of the bridge. LeSeur was surprised: he had rarely seen it closed.

“Craik? I didn’t even know he was on the bridge.”

“I need to make sure that all the deck officers are working as a team,” she went on. “We’ve got a storm, we’ve got over four thousand terrified passengers and crew, and we’ve got a rough time ahead of us when we get to St. John’s. We can’t afford to have any second-guessing or dissention among the deck officers. Not now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need your help. Rather than make a big deal about it, I’d like to have a quiet word with Mr. Craik—just the two of us. I think perhaps he felt intimidated by you and the others into going along.”

“That sounds like a wise approach, sir.”

“The ship’s on autopilot, we’re still four hours from passing the Carrion Rocks. I’d like you to clear the bridge so I can speak to Craik in a nonthreatening environment. I feel it’s especially important that Mr. Kemper absent himself.”

LeSeur hesitated. The standing orders stated that the bridge must be manned by a minimum of two officers.

“I’ll temporarily take the watch,” said Mason. “And Craik could be considered the second bridge officer—so this won’t violate regulations.”

“Yes, sir, but with the storm conditions . . .”

“I understand your reluctance,” Mason said. “I’m asking for just five minutes. I don’t want Mr. Craik feeling he’s being ganged up on. I’m a little worried, frankly, about his emotional stability. Do it quietly and don’t tell anyone why.”

LeSeur nodded. “Aye, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. LeSeur.”

LeSeur walked over to the lookout. “Join me in the companionway for a moment.” He nodded to the helmsman. “You, too.”

“But—”

“Captain’s orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

LeSeur rejoined Kemper. “Captain’s taking the watch for a few minutes. She’d like us to clear the bridge.”

Kemper looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“Orders,” LeSeur repeated in a tone he hoped would discourage further questions. He checked his watch: five minutes and counting. They withdrew to the companionway just beyond the bridge hatch and LeSeur shut the door, taking care to leave it unlocked.

“What’s this all about?” Kemper asked.

“Ship’s business,” LeSeur repeated, sharpening his tone even further.

They stood in silence. LeSeur glanced at his watch. Two more minutes.

At the far end of the companionway, the door opened and a figure entered. LeSeur stared: it was Craik. “I thought you were in the radio room,” he said.

Craik looked back at him like he was crazy. “I’m just reporting for duty now, sir.”

“But Captain Mason—”

He was interrupted by a low alarm and a flashing red light. A series of soft clicks ran around the length of the bridge hatch.

“What the hell’s that?” the helmsman asked.

Kemper stared at the blinking red light above the door. “Christ, someone’s initiated an ISPS Code Level Three!”

LeSeur grabbed the handle of the bridge door, tried to turn it.

“It automatically locks in case of an alert,” said Kemper. “Seals off the bridge.”

LeSeur felt his blood freeze; the only one on the bridge was Captain Mason. He went for the bridge intercom. “Captain Mason, this is LeSeur.”

No answer.

“Captain Mason! There’s a Code Three security alert.

Open this door!”

But again there was no reply.

50

AT HALF PAST ONE O’CLOCK ROGER MAYLES FOUND HIMSELF leading a fractious group of Deck 10 passengers to the final lunch shift at Oscar’s. For over an hour he had been answering questions—or rather, avoiding answering them—about what would happen when they got to Newfoundland; about how they would get home; about whether refunds would be made. Nobody had told him shit, he knew nothing, he could answer nobody—and yet they had exhorted him to maintain “security,” whatever the hell that meant.

Nothing like this had happened to him before. His greatest joy of shipboard life was its predictability. But on this voyage, nothing at all had been predictable. And now he felt he was getting close to the breaking point.

He walked along the corridor, a rictus-like smile screwed onto his face. The passengers behind him were speaking in raised, querulous voices about all the same tiresome issues they’d been talking about all day: refunds, lawsuits, getting home. He could feel the slow roll of the ship as he walked, and he kept his eyes averted from the broad starboard windows lining one side of the corridor. He was sick of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the deep booming of the sea against the hull. The truth was, the sea frightened him—it always had—and he never enjoyed looking down into the water from the ship, even in good weather, because it always looked so deep and so cold. And endless—so very, very endless. Since the disappearances began, he’d had a recurring nightmare of falling into the dark Atlantic at night, treading water while watching the lights of the ship recede into the mist. He woke up in a twisting of sheets each time, whimpering under his breath.

He could think of no worse death. None.

One of the men in the group behind him quickened his pace. “Mr. Mayles?”

He turned, not slowing, the smile as tense as ever. He couldn’t wait to get into Oscar’s.

“Yes, Mr.—?”

“Wendorf. Bob Wendorf. Look here—I’ve got an important meeting in New York on the fifteenth. I need to know how we’re going to get from Newfoundland to New York.”

“Mr. Wendorf, I’ve no doubt the company will work out the arrangements.”

“Damn it, that’s not an answer! And another thing: if you think we’ll go by ship to New York, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m never setting foot on a ship again in my life. I want a flight, first class.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the ranks behind him. Mayles stopped and turned. “As it happens, the company is already lining up flights.” He knew of no such thing, but at this point he was ready to say anything to get these clods off his back.

“For all three thousand passengers?” A woman with rings on every wizened finger pushed forward, flapping her bejeweled, liver-spotted hands.

“St. John’s has an international airport.” Did it? Mayles had no idea.

The woman went on, voice like a buzz saw. “Frankly, I find the lack of communication intolerable. We paid a lot of money to make this voyage. We deserve to know what’s going on!”

You deserve a boot up your prolapsed old ass, lady.

Mayles continued smiling. “The company—”

“What about refunds?” interrupted another voice. “I hope you don’t think we’re going to

pay

for this kind of treatment—!”

“The company will take care of everyone,” Mayles said. “Please have patience.” He turned quickly to avoid more questions—and that’s when he saw it.

It was a thing; a thing like a dense massing of smoke, at the angle of the corridor. It was moving toward them with a kind of sickening, rolling motion. He halted abruptly, paralyzed, staring. It was like a dark, malignant mist, except that it seemed to have atexture to it, like woven fabric, but vague, indefinite, darker toward the middle with faint interior glints of dirty iridescence. Shapes like bunching muscles came and went across its surface as it approached.

He was unable to speak, unable to move.

So it’s true

, he thought.

But it can’t be. It can’t be . . .

It moved toward him, gliding and roiling as if with terrible purpose. The group stumbled to a halt behind him; a woman gasped.

“What the hell?” came a voice.

They backed up in a tight group, several crying out in fear. Mayles couldn’t take his eyes off it, couldn’t move.

“It’s some natural phenomenon,” said Wendorf loudly, as if trying to convince himself. “Like ball lightning.”

The thing moved down the hall, erratically, closing in.

“Oh, my God!”

Behind him, Roger Mayles registered a general confused retreat, which quickly devolved into a stampede. The confused babble of screams and cries faded away down the hall. Still he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He alone remained rooted to the spot.

As the thing approached, he could see something inside it. It was an outline, squat, ugly, feral, with madly darting eyes . . .

No, no, no, no, noooo . . .

A low keening sound escaped Mayles’s lips. As the thing drew nearer, he felt the growing breath of wetness and mold, a stench of dirt and rotting toadstools . . . The keening in his throat grew into a gargling flow of mucus as the thing slunk by, never looking at him, never seeing him, passing like a breath of clammy cellar air.

The next thing Mayles knew, he was lying on the floor, staring upward at a security officer holding a tumbler of water.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came save a sigh of air leaking from between his vocal cords.

“Mr. Mayles,” the officer said. “Are you all right?”

He made a sound like a punctured bellows.

“Mr. Mayles, sir?”

He swallowed, worked his sticky jaws. “

It . . . was . . . here

.”

A strong arm reached down and grasped his jacket, pulling him to a sitting position.

“Your group came tearing by me, hysterical. Whatever it was that you saw, it’s gone now. We’ve searched all the adjacent corridors. It’s gone.”

Mayles leaned over, swallowed unhappily, and then—as if to exorcise the very presence of the thing—vomited on the gold pile carpeting.

51

CAPTAIN MASON!” LESEUR JAMMED HIS FINGER HARD AGAINST the intercom button. “We’ve got a Code Three alert. Please answer me!”

“Mr. LeSeur,” said Kemper, “she knows very well we’ve got a Code Three. She activated it herself.”

LeSeur turned and stared. “You’re sure?”

Kemper nodded.

The first officer turned back to the hatch. “Captain Mason!” He yelled into the intercom. “Are you all right?”

No response. He banged on the hatch with his fist.

“Mason!”

He spun toward Kemper. “How do we get in there?”

“You can’t,” said the security chief.

“The hell I can’t! Where’s the emergency override? Something’s happened to Captain Mason!”

“The bridge is hardened just like an airline cockpit. When the alert is triggered from within, it locks down the bridge. Totally. Nobody can get in—unless let in by someone on the inside.”

“There’s got to be a manual override!”

Kemper shook his head. “Nothing that would allow entry by terrorists.”

“Terrorists?” LeSeur stared at Kemper in disbelief.

“You bet. The new ISPS regulations required all kinds of anti- terrorist measures aboard ship. The world’s largest ocean liner—it’s an obvious target. You wouldn’t believe the antiterrorist systems on the ship. Trust me—you won’t get in, even with explosives.”

LeSeur sagged against the door, breathing hard. It was incomprehensible. Had Mason had a heart attack of some kind? Lost consciousness? He glanced around at the anxious, confused faces looking back at him. Looking to him for leadership, guidance.

“Follow me to the auxiliary bridge,” he said. “The CCTVs there will show us what’s going on.”

He ran down the companionway, the others following, and opened the door to a service stair. Taking the metal steps three at a time, he descended a level, pulled open another door, then tore down the corridor, past a deckhand with a mop, to the hatchway leading into the aux bridge. As the group entered, a guard monitoring the security feeds within looked up in surprise.

“Switch to the bridge feeds,” LeSeur ordered. “All of them.”

The man typed several commands on his keyboard, and instantly a half dozen separate views of the bridge appeared on the small CCTV screens arrayed before them.

“There she is!” LeSeur said, almost sagging with relief. Captain Mason was standing at the helm, back to the camera, apparently as calm and collected as when he had left her.

“Why couldn’t she hear us over the radio?” He asked. “Or the banging?”

“She could hear us,” said Kemper.

“But then why . . . ?” LeSeur stopped. His carefully attuned shipboard senses felt the vibration of the huge vessel change ever so slightly, felt the sea changing. The ship was turning.

“What the

hell

?”

At the same time, there was an unmistakable shudder as the ship’s engine speed increased—increased significantly.

An ice-cold knot began to harden in his chest. He glanced down at the screen displaying the course and speed, watched the sets of numbers ticking away until they steadied on a new heading and course. Two hundred degrees true, speed gradually increasing.

Two hundred degrees true . . . Quickly, LeSeur glanced at the chartplotter running on a nearby flat-panel monitor. It was all there, in glorious color, the little symbol of the ship, the straight line of its heading, the shoals and rocks of the Grand Banks.

He felt his knees go soft. “What is it?” Kemper asked, staring closely at LeSeur’s face. Then he followed the first officer’s eyes to the chartplotter.

“What—?” Kemper began again. “Oh, my God.” He stared at the large screen. “You don’t think—?”

“What is it?” asked Craik, entering.

“Captain Mason has increased speed to flank,” LeSeur said, his voice dull and hollow in his own ears. “And she’s altered course. On a heading straight for the Carrion Rocks.”

He turned back to the closed-circuit television screen showing Captain Mason at the helm. Her head had turned ever so slightly, so that he caught her in profile, and he could see the faintest of smiles play across her lips.

In the corridor outside, Lee Ng paused in swabbing the linoleum corridor to listen more intently. Something big was going on, but the voices had suddenly ceased. In any case, he must have misunderstood. It was a language problem—despite diligent study, his English was still not what he wished it could be. It was hard, at the age of sixty, to learn a new language. And then there were all the nautical terms that weren’t even listed in his cheap Vietnamese-English dictionary.

He resumed pushing the mop. The silence that came from the open door to the auxiliary bridge now gave way to a burst of talking. Excited talking. Lee Ng edged closer, head down, swinging the mop in broad semicircles, listening carefully. The voices were loud, urgent, and now he began to realize that he had not misheard.

The mop handle fell to the floor with a clatter. Lee Ng took a step back, and then another. He turned, began to walk, and the walk became a run. Running had saved his life in desperate situations more than once during the war. But even as he ran, he realized that this was not like the war: there was no place of refuge, no protective wall of jungle beyond the last rice paddy.

This was a ship. There was no place to run.

52

CONSTANCE GREENE HAD LISTENED ATTENTIVELY TO THE acting captain’s announcement over the public address system, greatly relieved to hear the ship was finally diverting to St. John’s. She was also reassured by the stringent security measures that were being undertaken. Any pretense that this was still a pleasure voyage had been dropped: now it was about safety and survival. Perhaps, she thought, it was karma that some of these ultra-privileged people had a glimpse of life’s reality.

She checked her watch. One forty-five. Pendergast had said he wanted to sleep until three, and she was inclined to let him. He clearly needed the rest, if only to pull him out of the funk he seemed to have fallen into. She had never known him to sleep during the day before, or drink alcoholic beverages in the morning.

Constance settled on the sofa and opened a volume of Montaigne’s essays, trying to take her mind off her concerns. But just as she began to lose herself in the elegant French turns, a soft knock came at the door.

She stood up and went to the door.

“It’s Marya. Open, please.”

Constance opened it and the maid slipped in. Her usually spotless uniform was dirty and her hair disheveled.

“Please sit down, Marya. What’s going on?”

Marya took a seat, passing a hand over her forehead. “It is out there.”

“I’m sorry?”

“How you call it? An asylum. Listen, I bring you news. Very bad news. It’s going around belowdecks like fire. I pray it’s not true.”

“What is it?”

“The acting captain, they say—Captain Mason—has locked herself on the bridge and is steering the ship toward rocks.”

“What?”

“Rocks. The Carrion Rocks. They say we will hit the rocks in less than three hours.”

“It sounds to me like a hysterical rumor.”

“Maybe,” said Marya, “but this one, all the crew believe it. And something big is happening up on the auxiliary bridge, many officers coming and going, lots of activity. Also that, how you say, thatghost has been seen again. A group of passengers this time, and the cruise director as well.”

Constance paused. The ship shuddered through another massive wave, yawing strangely. She looked back at Marya. “Wait here, please.”

She went upstairs and knocked on the door of Pendergast’s stateroom. Usually he responded immediately, his voice as clear and collected as if he’d been awake for hours. This time, nothing.

Another knock. “Aloysius?”

A low, even voice issued from inside. “I asked you to wake me at three.”

“There’s an emergency you should know about.”

A long silence. “I don’t see why it couldn’t wait.”

“It can’t wait, Aloysius.”

A long silence. “I’ll join you downstairs in a moment.”

Constance descended. Several minutes later, Pendergast made his appearance, wearing black suit pants, a starched white shirt hanging open unbuttoned, black suit jacket and tie thrown over one arm. He tossed the jacket on the chair and cast his eyes about. “My eggs Benedict and tea?” he asked.

Constance stared at him. “They’ve shut down all room service. Food is being served only in shifts.”

“Surely Marya here is clever enough to scare something up while I shave.”

“We don’t have time for food,” said Constance, irritated.

Pendergast went into the bathroom, leaving the door open, pulled the shirt off his white, sculpted body, tossed it over the shower rail, turned on the water, and began to lather his face. He took out a long straight razor and began stropping it. Constance got up to shut the door but he gestured to her with his hand. “I’m waiting to hear what’s so important that it has disrupted my nap.”

“Marya says that Captain Mason—the one who took over from Cutter after he refused to change course—has seized the bridge of the ship and is sending us on a collision course with a reef.”

The razor paused in its smooth progress down Pendergast’s long white jaw. Almost thirty seconds passed. Then the shaving resumed. “And why has Mason done this?”

“Nobody knows. She just went crazy, it seems.”

“Crazy,” Pendergast repeated. The scraping continued, maddeningly slow and precise.

“On top of that,” Constance said, “there’s been another encounter with that thing, the so-called smoke ghost. A number of people saw it, including the cruise director. It almost seems as if . . .” She paused, uncertain how to articulate it, then dropped the idea. It was no doubt her imagination.

Pendergast’s shaving continued, in silence, the only sounds the faint booming and buffeting of the storm and the occasional raised voice in the corridor. Constance and Marya waited. At last he finished. He rinsed, wiped off and folded the razor, mopped and toweled his face, pulled on his shirt, buttoned it, slipped the gold cuff links into his cuffs, threw on his tie and knotted it with a few expert tugs. Then he stepped into the sitting room.

“Where are you going?” Constance asked, both exasperated and a little frightened. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

He picked up his jacket. “You mean you haven’t figured it out?”

“Of course I haven’t!” Constance felt herself losing her temper. “Don’t tell me you have!”

“Naturally I have.” He slipped on his suit coat and headed for the door.

“What?”

Pendergast paused at the door. “Everything’s connected, as I surmised earlier—the theft of the Agozyen, the murder of Jordan Ambrose, the shipboard disappearances and killings, and now the mad captain driving the ship up on a reef.” He gave a little laugh. “Not to mention your ‘smoke ghost.’ ”

“How?” Constance asked, exasperated. “You have the same information I do, and I find explanations to be so tiresome. Besides, it’s irrelevant now—all of it.” He waved his hand vaguely around the room. “If what you say is true, all this will shortly be wedged in the abyssal muck at the bottom of the Atlantic, and right now I have something important to do. I’ll be back in less than an hour. Perhaps in the meantime you might manage a simple plate of eggs Benedict and green tea?”

He left.

Constance stared at the door long after it had closed behind him. Then she turned slowly to Marya. For a moment she said nothing.

“Yes?” Marya asked.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

The maid waited.

“I want you to bring me a doctor as soon as possible.”

Marya looked at her with alarm. “Are you ill?”

“No. But I think

he

is.”

53

GAVIN BRUCE AND WHAT HE HAD BEGUN TO CALL HIS TEAM SAT in the midships lounge on Deck 8, engaged in conversation about the state of the ship and the next steps they might take. The Britannia seemed remarkably quiet for early afternoon. Even though a curfew had only been instituted for the nighttime hours, it seemed many of the passengers had taken to their cabins, either through fear of the murderer or exhaustion over an extremely tense morning.

Bruce shifted in his chair. While their mission to speak to Commodore Cutter had failed, it gratified him that the man had been removed and his recommendations had been acted upon. He felt that, in the end, his intervention had done some good.

Cutter had clearly been out of his depth. He was a kind of captain Bruce knew well from his own career in the Royal Navy, a commander who confused stubbornness with resolve and “going by the book” for wisdom. Such men often choked when circumstances grew chaotic. The new captain had handled the transition well; he’d approved of her speech over the PA. Very professional, very much in command.

“We’re moving into the teeth of the storm,” said Niles Welch, nodding at the row of streaming windows.

“Hate to be out in that mess on board a smaller ship,” Bruce replied. “Amazing how sea-kindly this big ship is.”

“Not like the destroyer I was a middy on during the Falklands war,” said Quentin Sharp. “Now that was a squirrelly vessel.”

“I’m surprised the captain increased speed back there,” said Emily Dahlberg. “Can’t say I blame her,” Bruce replied. “In her position, I’d want to get this Jonah ship into port as soon as possible, the hell with the passengers’ comfort. Although if it were me I might just ease off on the throttle a trifle. This ship is taking quite a pounding.” He glanced over at Dahlberg. “By the way, Emily, I wanted to congratulate you on how you quieted that hysterical girl just now. That’s the fourth person you’ve managed to calm in the last hour.”

Dahlberg crossed one poised leg over the other. “We’re all here for the same reason, Gavin—to help maintain order and assist any way we can.”

“Yes, but I could never have done it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody that upset.”

“I just used my maternal instincts.”

“You’ve never had any children.”

“True.” Dahlberg smiled faintly. “But I’ve got a good imagination.”

The sound of urgent footsteps and confused shouting came echoing down the corridor.

“Not another group of drunken sods,” Sharp muttered.

The voices grew louder, and an unruly group of passengers appeared, led by a man who was clearly drunk. They had fanned out and were pounding on stateroom doors, the occupants coming out into the corridor behind them.

“Did you hear?” the man in the lead shouted, his voice slurred. “You hear?” The others in the group kept banging, shouting for everyone to come out.

Bruce sat up.

“Is something wrong?” Dahlberg asked sharply.

The drunken man stopped, swaying slightly. “We’re on a collision course!”

There was a babble of frightened voices. The man waved his arms. “Captain’s seized the bridge! She’s going to wreck the ship on the Grand Banks!”

A burst of questions, shouts.

Bruce rose. “That’s an incendiary charge to make, sir, on board a ship. You’d better be able to back it up.”

The man looked unsteadily at Bruce. “I’ll back it up. I’ll back

you

up, pal. It’s all over the ship, the whole crew is talking about it.”

“It’s true!” a voice in the rear shouted. “The captain’s locked herself on the bridge, alone. Set a course for the Carrion Rocks!”

“What nonsense,” said Bruce, but he was made uneasy by the mention of the Carrion Rocks. He knew them well from his navy days: a broad series of rocky, fanglike shoals jutting up from the surface of the North Atlantic, a grave hazard to shipping.

“It’s true!” the drunken man cried, swinging his arm so hard he almost pulled himself off balance. “It’s all over the ship!”

Bruce could see a panic seizing the crowd. “My friends,” he said in a firm tone, “it’s quite impossible. The bridge on a ship like this would never, ever be manned by one person. And there must be a thousand ways to retake control of a ship like this, from the engine room or from secondary bridges. I know: I was a commander in the Royal Navy.”

“That’s not how it works these days, you old fool!” the drunken man cried. “The ship’s totally automated. The captain mutinied and took control, and now she’s going to sink the ship!”

A woman rushed forward and seized Bruce’s suit. “You were navy! For God’s sake, you’ve got to do something!”

Bruce extricated himself and raised his hands. He had a natural air of command and the frightened hubbub diminished.

“Please!” he called out. A hush fell.

“My team and I will find out if there’s any truth to this rumor,” he went on.

“There is—!”

“Silence!” He waited. “If there is, we’ll take action—I promise you that. In the meantime, all of you should stay here and await instructions.”

“If I recall,” said Dahlberg, “the Admiral’s Club on Deck 10 has a monitor that shows the ship’s position on the crossing, including course and speed.”

“Excellent,” Bruce said. “That will give us independent verification.”

“And then what?” the woman who had seized his suit practically shrieked.

Bruce turned to her. “Like I said, you stay here and encourage any others that happen by to do the same. Keep everyone calm, and stop spreading this rumor—the last thing we need is a panic. If it’s true, we’ll help the other officers retake the ship. And we’ll keep you informed.”

Then he turned back to his little group. “Shall we check it out?”

He led them down the hall and toward the stairs, at a fast walk. It was a crazy story, insane. It couldn’t be true . . .

Could it?

54

THE AUXILIARY BRIDGE WAS CROWDED AND GETTING HOTTER BY the minute. LeSeur had called for an emergency staff meeting for all department heads, and already the ship’s hospitality and entertainment chiefs were arriving, along with the chief purser, bosun, and chief steward. He glanced at his watch, then wiped his brow and looked for what must have been the hundredth time at the back of Captain Mason, displayed on the central CCTV screen, standing straight and calm at the helm, not a stray hair escaping from beneath her cap. They had called up theBritannia ’s course on the main NavTrac GPS chartplotter. There it was, displayed in a wash of cool electronic colors: the heading, the speed . . . and the Carrion Rocks.

He stared back at Mason, coolly at the helm. Something had happened to her, a medical problem, a stroke, drugs, perhaps a fugue state. What was going on in her mind? Her actions were the antithesis of everything a ship’s captain stood for.

Beside him, Kemper was at a monitoring workstation, headphones over his ears. LeSeur nudged him and the security director pulled off the phones.

“Are you absolutely sure, Kemper, that she can hear us?” he asked.

“All the channels are open. I’m even getting some feedback in the cans.”

LeSeur turned to Craik. “Any further response to our mayday?”

Craik looked up from his SSB and satellite telephone. “Yes, sir. U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard are responding. The closest vessel is the CCGSSir Wilfred Grenfell , hailing port St. John’s, a sixty-eight-meter offshore patrol boat with nine officers, eleven crew, sixteen berths plus ten more in the ship’s hospital. They are on an intercept course and will reach us about fifteen nautical miles east-northeast of the Carrion Rocks at . . . around 3:45 P.M. Nobody else is close enough to reach us before the estimated time of, ah, collision.”

“What’s their plan?”

“They’re still working on the options.”

LeSeur turned to the third officer. “Get Dr. Grandine up here. I want some medical advice about what’s going on with Mason. And ask Mayles if there’s a psychiatrist on board among the passengers. If so, get him up here, too.”

“Aye, sir.”

Next, LeSeur turned to the chief engineer. “Mr. Halsey, I want you to go to the engine room personally and disconnect the autopilot. Cut cables if need be, take a sledgehammer to the controller boards. As a last resort, disable one of the pods.”

The engineer shook his head. “The autopilot’s hardened against attack. It was designed to bypass all manual systems. Even if you could disable one of the pods—which you can’t—the autopilot would compensate. The ship can run on a single pod, if necessary.”

“Mr. Halsey, don’t tell me why it can’t be done until you’ve tried.”

“Aye, sir.”

LeSeur turned to the radio officer. “Try to raise Mason on VHF channel 16 with your handheld.” “Yes, sir.” The radio officer unholstered his VHF, raised it to his lips, pressed the transmit button. “Radio officer to bridge, radio officer to bridge, please respond.”

LeSeur pointing to the CCTV screen. “See that?” he cried. “You can see the green receive light. She’s picking it up loud and clear!”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Kemper replied. “She can hear every word.”

LeSeur shook his head. He’d known Mason for years. She was as professional as they came—a little uptight, definitely by-the-book, not exactly warm, but always thoroughly professional. He racked his brains. There had to besome way to communicate with her face-to-face. It frustrated the hell out of him that she kept her back to them at all times.

Maybe if he could see her, he could reason with her. Or at least understand.

“Mr. Kemper,” he said, “a rail runs just below the bridge windows for attaching the window-washing equipment—am I right?”

“I believe so.”

LeSeur yanked his jacket off a chair and pulled it on. “I’m going out there.”

“Are you crazy?” Kemper said. “It’s a hundred-foot fall to the deck.”

“I’m going to look into her face and ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing.”

“You’ll be exposed to the full force of the storm—”

“Second Officer Worthington, the watch is yours until I return.” And LeSeur tore out of the door.

LeSeur stood at the port forward rail of the observation platform on Deck 13, wind tearing at his clothes, rain lashing his face, while he stared up at the bridge. It was situated on the highest level of the ship, above which rose only the stacks and masts. The two bridge wings ran far out to port and starboard, their ends projecting over the hull. Below the wall of dimly lit windows he could just barely see the rail, a single, inch-thick brass tube cantilevered about six inches from the ship’s superstructure by steel brackets. A narrow ladder ran up from the platform to the port wing, where it joined the rail that encircled the lower bridge.

He staggered across the deck to the ladder, hesitated a moment, then seized the rung at shoulder level, gripping it as tightly as a drowning man. He hesitated again, the muscles of his arms and legs already dancing in anticipation of the coming ordeal.

He planted a foot on the lowest rung and pulled himself up. Fine spray washed over him and he was shocked to taste saltwater here, over two hundred feet above the waterline. He couldn’t see the ocean—the rain and spray were too thick—but he could hear the boom and feel the shudder of the waves as they struck blow after blow against the hull. It sounded like the pounding of some angry, wounded sea god. At this height, the movements of the ship were especially pronounced, and he could feel each slow, sickening roll deep in his gut.

Should he attempt it? Kemper was right: it was totally crazy. But even as he asked himself the question, he knew what the answer would be. He had to look her in the face.

Grasping the rungs with all his might, he heaved himself up the ladder, one hand and one foot after the other. The wind lashed at him so violently that he was forced to close his eyes at times and work upward by feel, his rough seaman’s hands closing like vises on the grit-painted rungs. The ship yawed under a particularly violent wave and he felt as if he were hanging over empty space, gravity pulling him down, down into the cauldron of the sea.

One hand at a time.

After what seemed like an endless climb, he reached the top rail and pulled his head up to the level of the windows. He peered in, but he was far out on the port bridge wing and could see nothing but the dim glow of electronic systems.

He was going to have to edge around to the middle.

The bridge windows sloped gently outward. Above them was the lip of the upper deck, with its own toe-rail. Waiting for a lull between gusts, LeSeur heaved himself up and gasped the upper rim, simultaneously planting his feet onto the rail below. He stood there a long moment, heart pounding, feeling dreadfully exposed. Plastered against the bridge windows, limbs extended, he could feel the roll of the ship even more acutely.

He took a deep, shivery breath, then another. And then he began to edge his way around—clinging to the rim with freezing fingers, bracing himself afresh with every gust of wind. The bridge was one hundred sixty feet across, he knew; that meant an eighty-foot journey along the rail before he faced the bridge workstation and helm.

He edged around, sliding one foot after the other. The rail was not gritted—it was never meant for human contact—and as a consequence it was devilishly slippery. He moved slowly, deliberately, taking most of his weight with his fingers as he crept along the polished rail, his fingers clinging to the gel-coated edge of the upper toe-rail. A big, booming wind buffeted him, sucking his feet from the rail, and for a moment he dangled, terrified, over churning gray space. He scrambled for purchase, then hesitated yet again, gulping air, his heart hammering, fingers numb. After a minute he forced himself onward.

At last, he reached the center of the bridge. And there she was: Captain Mason, at the helm, calmly looking out at him.

He stared back, shocked at the utter normality of her expression. She didn’t even register surprise at his improbable appearance: a specter in foul-weather gear, clinging to the wrong side of the bridge windows.

Taking a renewed grip on the upper rail with his left hand, he banged on the window with his right. “Mason!

Mason!”

She returned his gaze, making eye contact, but in an almost absent-minded fashion.

“What are you doing?”

No response.

“God damn it, Mason,

talk to me

!” He slammed his fist against the glass so hard it hurt. Still she merely looked back.

“Mason!”

At last, she stepped around from the helm and walked up to the glass. Her voice came to him faintly, filtering through the glass and the roar of the storm. “The question is, Mr. LeSeur, what are

you

doing?”

“Don’t you realize we’re on a collision course with the Carrion Rocks?”

Another twitch of the lips, harbinger of a smile. She said something he couldn’t hear over the storm.

“I can’t hear you!” He clung to the rim, wondering how long until his fingers gave out and he fell away into the furious gray spume.

“I said”—she moved to the glass and spoke louder—“that I’m well aware of it.”

“But why?”

The smile finally came, like sun glittering on ice. “That

is

the question, isn’t it, Mr. LeSeur?”

He pressed himself against the glass, struggling to maintain his grip. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

“Why?”

he screamed.

“Ask the company.”

“But you . . . you can’t be doing this

deliberately

!”

“Why not?”

He stopped himself from screaming to her that she was mad. He had to reach her, find her motives, reason with her. “For God’s sake, you don’t mean to murder four thousand people like this!”

“I have nothing against the passengers or crew. However, I

am

going to destroy this ship.”

LeSeur wasn’t sure if it was rain or tears on his face. “Captain, look. If there are problems in your life, problems with the company, we can work them out. But this . . . there are thousands of innocent people on board, many women and children. I beg you, please don’t do this.Please!”

“People die every day.”

“Is this some kind of terrorist attack? I mean”—he swallowed, trying to think of a neutral way of putting it—“are you representing a . . . a particular political or religious point of view?”

Her smile remained cold, controlled. “Since you ask, the answer is no. This is strictly personal.”

“If you want to wreck the ship, stop it first. At least let us launch the lifeboats!”

“You know perfectly well that if I even slow the ship down, they’ll be able to land a SWAT team and take me out. No doubt half the passengers have been e-mailing the outside world. A massive response is unquestionably under way. No, Mr. LeSeur, speed is my ally, and theBritannia ’s destination is the Carrion Rocks.” She glanced at the autopilot chartplotter. “In one hundred and forty-nine minutes.”

He pounded his fist on the glass. “No!” The effort almost caused him to fall. He scrabbled to recover, ripping his nails on the gelcoat and watching, helplessly, as she resumed her position at the helm, her eyes focusing into the grayness of the storm.

55

AT THE SOUND OF THE DOOR OPENING, CONSTANCE SAT UP. The open door brought with it the muffled noise of panic: shouts, curses, pounding feet. Pendergast stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

He walked across the entryway, something large and heavy balanced on one shoulder. As he drew closer Constance saw that it was an ivory-colored canvas duffle, snugged closed with a drawstring. He stopped at the door to the kitchen, unshouldered the duffle, dusted off his hands, then walked into the living room.

“You made the tea, at least,” he said, pouring himself a cup and taking a seat in a nearby leather armchair. “Excellent.”

She looked at him coolly. “I’m still waiting to hear your theory about what’s going on.”

Pendergast took a slow, appraising sip of tea. “Did you know that the Carrion Rocks are one of the greatest hazards to shipping in the North Atlantic? So much so that right after theTitanic sank, they first thought it might have fetched up on them.”

“How interesting.” She looked at him, sitting in the armchair, calmly sipping his tea as if there were no crisis at all. And then she realized: perhaps there was no crisis.

“You have a plan,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Indeed I do. And come to think of it, perhaps now is the time to familiarize you with the details. It will save some effort later on, when we might have to react to changing situations rather quickly.”

He took another languid sip. Then, putting the teacup aside, he stood and walked toward the kitchen. Tugging the laundry duffle open, he pulled something large out of it and stepped back into the living room, placing it on the floor between them.

Constance stared at it curiously. It was an oblong, hard-shelled container of white rubber and plastic, about four feet by three, lashed shut with nylon straps. Various warning labels were stamped on its face. As she watched, Pendergast removed the nylon straps and detached the faceplate. Nestled inside was a tightly folded device of Day-Glo yellow polyurethane.

“A self-inflating buoyant apparatus,” said Pendergast. “Known familiarly as a ‘survival bubble.’ Equipped with SOLAS B packs, an EPI radio beacon, blankets, and provisions. Each of theBritannia ’s freefall lifeboats is equipped with one. I, ah,liberated this from one of them.”

Constance stared from the container to Pendergast and back again. “If the officers prove unable to stop the captain, they may try to launch the ship’s lifeboats,” he explained. “Doing so at this rate of speed would be dangerous, perhaps foolhardy. On the other hand, we will encounter minimal risk if we launch ourselves into the water inthis from the stern of the ship. Of course, we will have to be careful where we effect our evacuation.”

“Evacuation,” Constance repeated.

“It will have to be from a deck low over the waterline, obviously.” He reached over to the side table, picked up a ship’s brochure, and pulled out a glossy photograph of theBritannia . “I’d suggest this spot,” he said, pointing to a row of large windows low in the stern. “That would be the King George II ballroom. It will most likely be deserted given the current emergency. We could precipitate a chair or table through the window, clear ourselves a hole, and launch. We’ll of course convey the apparatus down there hidden in that duffle to avoid attracting attention.” He thought for a moment. “It would be wise to wait thirty minutes or so; that will bring us close enough to the impact site to be within reasonable distance of rescue vessels, but not so close that we will be hindered by last-minute panic. If we launch ourselves from one of the ballroom’s side windows, here or here, we’ll avoid the worst of the ship’s wake.” He put the photograph aside with a sigh of self-satisfaction, as if well pleased with this plan.

“You say ‘we,’ ” Constance said, speaking slowly. “That is, just the two of us.”

Pendergast glanced at her in mild surprise. “Yes, of course. But don’t be concerned: I know it may look small inside this case, but it will be certainly large enough for both of us when fully inflated. The bubble is designed to hold four, so we should find ourselves easily accommodated.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You’re proposing to save yourself and just leave the rest to die?”

Pendergast frowned. “Constance, I will not be spoken to in that tone of voice.”

She rose in a cold fury. “ You. . .” She choked off the word. “Stealing that flotation device from one of the lifeboats . . . You weren’t out there looking for a way to defuse the crisis or rescue theBritannia . You were just arranging to save your own skin!”

“As it happens, I’m rather attached to my skin. And I shouldn’t have to remind you, Constance, that I’m offering to save

yours

, as well.”

“This isn’t like you,” she said, disbelief, shock, and anger mingling. “This gross selfishness. What’s happened to you, Aloysius? Ever since you returned from Blackburn’s cabin, you’ve been . . . bizarre. Not yourself.”

He looked back at her for a long moment. Silently, he reattached the faceplate to the plastic enclosure. Then he rose and stepped forward.

“Sit down, Constance,” he said quietly. And there was something in the tone of his voice—something strange, something utterly foreign—that, despite her rage and shock and disbelief, made her instantly obey.

56

LESEUR TOOK A SEAT IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM ADJACENT TO THE aux bridge. He was still soaked to the skin, but now, instead of being cold, he felt like he was suffocating in the heat and the smell of sweaty bodies. The room, meant to hold half a dozen people, was packed with deck officers and senior crew, and more were still arriving.

LeSeur didn’t even wait for them to sort out their places before he stood up, rapped his knuckles on the table, and began.

“I just talked to Mason,” he said. “She confirmed that her plan is to run the Britannia onto the Carrion Rocks at flank speed. So far, we haven’t been able to break into the bridge or bypass the autopilot. And I haven’t been able to find a doctor or psychiatrist sufficiently compos mentis to either diagnose her condition or suggest a line of reasoning that might work with her.”

He looked around.

“I’ve had several conversations with the captain of the Grenfell , the only ship close enough to attempt a rescue. Other ships—civilian and Coast Guard—have been diverted. They won’t get to us before the estimated collision. The Canadian CG has also dispatched two fixed-wing aircraft for surveillance and communication purposes. They have a fleet of helicopters on standby, but as of now we’re still out of range of coastal rotary aircraft. We can’t expect any help from that quarter. And theGrenfell is in no way equipped to handle four thousand three hundred evacuees.”

He paused, took a deep breath. “We’re in the middle of a storm, with forty-foot seas and forty- to sixty-knot winds. But our most intractable problem is the ship’s speed relative to the water: twenty-nine knots.” He licked his lips. “We would have many options if we weren’t moving—transfer of people to theGrenfell, boarding by a SWAT team. But none of that’s feasible at twenty-nine knots.” He looked around. “So, people, I need ideas, and I need them now.”

“What about disabling the engines?” someone asked. “You know, sabotaging them.”

LeSeur glanced at the chief engineer. “Mr. Halsey?”

The engineer scowled. “We’ve got four diesel engines boosted by two General Electric LM2500 gas turbines. Shut down one diesel and nothing happens. Shut down two, and you better shut down those turbines or you’ll get a gas compression explosion.”

“Disable the gas turbines first, then?” LeSeur asked.

“They’re high-pressure jet engines, sir, rotating at thirty-six hundred rpm. Any attempt to intervene while that bastard is running at high speed would be . . . suicide. You’d tear out the bottom of the ship.”

“Cut the shafts, then?” a second officer asked.

“There are no shafts,” said the engineer. “Each pod is a self- contained propulsion system. The diesel and turbines generate electricity that powers the pods.”

“Jam the drive gears?” LeSeur asked.

“I’ve looked into that. Inaccessible while under way.”

“What about simply cutting all electric power to the engines?” The chief engineer frowned. “Can’t do it. Same reason they hardened the bridge and the autopilot system—fear of a terrorist attack. The geniuses in the Home Office decided to design a ship that, if terrorists tried to commandeer it, there’d be nothing they could do to disable or take control of the vessel. No matter what, they wanted the officers locked into the bridge to be able to bring the ship into port, even if terrorists took over the rest of the vessel.”

“Speaking of the bridge,” a third officer said, “what if we were to drill through the security hatch and pump in gas? Anything that will displace the air within. Hell, the kitchen has several canisters of CO2. You know, knock her out.”

“And then what? We’re still on autopilot.”

There was a brief silence. Then the IT head, Hufnagel, a bespectacled man in a lab coat, cleared his throat. “The autopilot is a piece of software like any other,” he said in a quiet voice. “It can be hacked—in theory, anyway. Hack it and reprogram it.”

LeSeur rounded on him. “How? It’s firewalled.”

“No firewall’s impregnable.”

“Get your best man on it, right away.”

“That would be Penner, sir.” The head of IT stood up.

“Report back to me as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

LeSeur watched him leave the conference room. “Any other ideas?”

“What about the military?” asked Crowley, another third officer. “They could scramble fighters, take out the bridge with a missile. Or get a sub to disable the screws with a torpedo.”

“We’ve looked into those possibilities,” LeSeur replied. “There’s no way to aim a missile precisely enough. There aren’t any submarines in the vicinity, and, given our speed, there’s no way for one to intercept or catch us.”

“Is there a way to launch the lifeboats?” a voice in the back asked.

LeSeur turned to the bosun, Liu. “Possible?”

“At a speed of thirty knots, in heavy seas . . . Jesus, I can’t even

imagine

how you’d do it.”

“I don’t want to hear what you can’t imagine. If it’s even remotely possible, I want you to look into it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll find out if it’s possible. But to do that I’ll need a full emergency launch crew—and they’re all tied up.”

LeSeur cursed. The one thing they lacked were experienced deckhands. Sure, they had every bloody plonker in the world on board, from croupiers to masseurs to lounge crooners—all so much ballast. “That man who came up here a while ago, what’s his name? Bruce. He was ex–Royal Navy and so were his friends. Go find him. Enlist his help.”

“But he was an old man, in his seventies—” Kemper protested.

“Mr. Kemper, I’ve known seventy-year-old ex-navy men who could drop you in two rounds.” He turned back to Crowley. “Get moving.”

A voice boomed from the door, in a broad Scots accent. “No need to find me, Mr. LeSeur.” Bruce pushed his way through the crowd. “Gavin Bruce, at your service.”

LeSeur turned. “Mr. Bruce. Have you been apprised of our current situation?”

“I have.”

“We need to know whether we can launch the lifeboats under these conditions and speed. Have you experience in that line? These are a new kind of lifeboat—freefall.”

Bruce rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll have to take a close look at those boats.” He hesitated. “We might launch them after the collision.”

“We can’t wait until after the collision. Striking a shoal at thirty knots . . . half the people on board would be killed or injured by the impact alone.”

This was greeted by silence. After a moment, Bruce nodded slowly.

“Mr. Bruce, I give you and your group full authority to address this issue. The bosun, Mr. Liu, assisted by Third Officer Crowley, will direct you—they are thoroughly familiar with the abandon-ship routines.”

“Yes, Captain.”

LeSeur looked around the room. “There’s something else. We need Commodore Cutter. He knows the ship better than any of us and . . . well, he’s the only one who knows the number sequence for standing down from a Code Three. I’m going to call him back to the bridge.”

“As master?” Kemper asked.

LeSeur hesitated. “Let’s just see what he says, first.” He glanced at his watch.

Eighty-nine minutes.

57

CAPTAIN CAROL MASON STOOD AT THE BRIDGE WORKSTATION, staring calmly at the thirty-two-inch plasma-screen Northstar 941X DGPS chartplotter running infonav 2.2. It was, she thought, a marvel of electronic engineering, a technology that had virtually rendered obsolete the skills, mathematics, experience, and deep intuition once required for piloting and navigation. With this device, a bright twelve-year-old could practically navigate theBritannia : using this big colorful chart with the little ship on it, a line drawn ahead showing the ship’s course, conveniently marked with estimated positions at ten-minute intervals into the future, along with waypoints for each course alteration.

She glanced over at the autopilot. Another marvel; it constantly monitored the ship’s speed through the water, its ground speed, engine rpms, power output, rudder and pod angles, and made countless adjustments so subtle they were not even perceptible to even the most vessel-savvy officer. It kept the ship on course and at speed better than the most skilled human captain, while saving fuel—which is why the standing orders dictated that the autopilot should be used for all but inland or coastal waters.

Ten years ago, the bridge on a ship like this would have required the minimum presence of three highly trained officers; now, it required only one . . . and, for the most part, she hardly had anything to do.

She turned her attention to LeSeur’s navigation table, with its paper charts, parallel rulers, compasses, pencils and markers, and the case that held the man’s sextant. Dead instruments, dead skills.

She walked around the bridge workstation and back to the helm, resting one hand on the elegant mahogany wheel. It was there strictly for show. To its right stood the helmsman’s console where the real business of steering was done: six little joysticks, manipulated with the touch of a finger, that controlled the two fixed and two rotating propulsion pods and the engine throttles. With its 360-degree aft rotating pods, the ship was so maneuverable it could dock without help from a single tug.

She slid her hand along the smooth varnish of the wheel, raising her glance to the wall of gray windows that stood ahead. As the wind intensified the rain had slackened, and now she could see the outline of the bows shuddering through spectacular forty-foot seas, great eruptions of spray and flying spume sweeping across the foredecks in slow-motion explosions of white.

She felt a kind of peace, an utter emptiness, that went beyond anything she had experienced before. Most of her life she had been knotted up by self-reproach, feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, anger, overweening ambition. Now, all that was gone—blessedly gone. Decision-making had never been so simple, and afterward there had been none of that agonizing second-guessing that had tormented her career decisions. She had made a decision to destroy the ship; it had been done calmly and without emotion; and now all that remained was to carry it out.

Why? LeSeur had asked. If he couldn’t guess why, then she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of spelling it out. To her, it was obvious. There had never been—not once—a female captain on one of the great transatlantic liners. How foolish she had been to think she would be the one to break the teak ceiling. She knew—and this was not vanity—that she was twice the captain of most of her peers. She had graduated at the very top of her class at the Newcastle Maritime Academy, with one of the highest scores in the history of the school. Her record was perfect—unblemished. She had even remained single, despite several excellent opportunities, in order to eliminate any question of maternity leave. With exquisite care she had cultivated the right relationships at the company, sought out the right mentors, all the while taking care never to display careerist tendencies; she had assiduously cultivated the crisp, professional, but not unpleasant demeanor of the best captains, always genuinely pleased at the success of her peers.

She had moved easily up the ladder, to second, then first, and finally staff captain, on schedule. Yes, there had been comments along the way, unpleasant remarks, and unwelcome sexual advances from superiors, but she had always handled them with aplomb, never rocking the boat, never complaining, treating certain vile and buffoonish superiors with the utmost correctness and respect, pretending not to hear their offensive, vulgar comments and disgusting proposals. She treated them all with good humor, as if they had uttered some clever bon mot.

When the Oceania had been launched four years ago, she and two other staff captains were in line for the command—herself, along with Cutter and Thrale. Thrale, the least competent, who had a drinking problem besides, had gotten it. Cutter, who was the better captain, has missed it because of his prickly, reclusive personality. But she—the best captain of the three by far—had been passed over. Why?

She was a woman.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. All her peers had commiserated with Cutter, even though many of them disliked the man. Everyone took him aside and expressed the opinion that it was a shame he didn’t get it, that the captaincy was really his, that the company had made a mistake—and they all assured him he’d get the next one.

None of them had taken her aside like that. No one had commiserated with her. They all assumed that, as a woman, she didn’t expect it and, moreover, couldn’t handle it. Most of them had been jolly fellows together in the Royal Navy; that had been denied her as a woman. No one ever knew about the burning slight she had felt—knowing that she was the best candidate of the three, with the most seniority and the highest ratings.

She should have realized it then.

And then came the Britannia . The largest, most luxurious ocean liner ever built. It cost the company almost a billion pounds. And she was now the clear choice. The command was hers almost by default . . .

Except that Cutter got it. And then, as if to compound the insult, they had somehow thought she would be grateful for the bone of staff captain.

Cutter was not stupid. He knew very well that she deserved the command. He also knew she was the better captain. And he hated her for it. He felt threatened. Even before they were aboard, he had taken every opportunity to find fault with her, to belittle her. And then he had made it clear that, unlike most other liner captains, he would not spend his time chatting up the passengers and hosting cheery dinners at the captain’s table. He would spend his time on the bridge—usurping her rightful place.

And she had promptly given him the ammunition he needed in his struggle to humiliate her. The first infraction of discipline in her entire life—and it occurred even before theBritannia left port. She must have known then, subconsciously, that she would never command a big ship.

Strange that Blackburn should have booked the maiden voyage of the Britannia: the man who had first proposed to her, whom she had turned down out of her own burning ambition. Ironic, too, that he had become a billionaire in the decade since their relationship.

What an amazing three hours they had passed together, every moment now seared into her memory. His stateroom had been a marvel. He had filled the salon with his favorite treasures, million-dollar paintings, sculpture, rare antiquities. He had been particularly excited about a Tibetan painting he had just acquired—apparently not twenty-four hours earlier—and in his initial flush of excitement and pride he’d taken it out of its box and unrolled it for her on the floor of the salon. She had stared at it, thunderstruck, astounded, speechless, falling to her hands and knees to see it closer, to trace with her eyes and fingers every infinite fractal detail of it. It drew her in, exploded her mind. And as she had stared—mesmerized, almost swooning—he had pulled her skirt up over her hips, torn away her panties, and, like a mad stallion, mounted her. It had been the kind of sex that she’d never experienced before and would never forget; even the smallest detail, the tiniest drop of sweat, the softest moan, every grasp and thrust of flesh into flesh. Just thinking of it made her tingle with fresh passion.

Too bad it would never happen again.

Because afterwards, Blackburn had rolled up the magical painting, returned it to its box. Still aglow with the flush of their coupling, she had asked him not to; asked him to let her gaze upon it again. He’d turned, no doubt seen the hunger in her expression. Instantly, his eyes had narrowed to jealous, possessive little points. He’d jeered, said that she’d seen it once and didn’t need to see it again. And then—as quickly as lust had swept over her—a dark, consuming anger filled her. They had screamed at each other with an intensity she never knew she was capable of. The speed with which her emotions whipsawed had been as shocking as it had been exhilarating. And then Blackburn had ordered her to leave. No—she would never speak to him again, never gaze upon the painting again.

And then came the supreme irony. Their shouting had provoked the passenger in the next cabin to complain. She had been seen leaving the triplex. Someone reported her. And that had been an opportunity Cutter couldn’t miss. He had humiliated her on the bridge, in front of all the deck officers. She had no doubt it had already gone into her file and would be reported back to the company.

Many of the officers and crew, even the married ones, had sexual liaisons on board; it was so easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. They never seemed to get reported—because they were men. Men were expected to do this sort of thing, discreetly and on their own time, just as she had done. But it was different for a woman . . . or so company culture seemed to say.

Her career was over. All she could hope for now was the command of a middling-size cruise ship, one of the shabbier ones that tooled aimlessly around the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, stuffed with fat, white, middle-class seniors on a floating excursion of eating and shopping. Never seeing blue water, running from every storm.

Cutter

. What better way to exact revenge than to take his ship from him, rip its guts out, and send it to the bottom of the Atlantic?

58

FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, CONSTANCE WATCHED AS PENDERGAST paced back and forth across the living room of the Tudor Suite. Once he paused as if to speak, but he merely began pacing again. At last, he turned to her. “You accuse me of selfish behavior. Of wishing to save myself at the expense of others on board theBritannia . Tell me something, Constance: exactly who on board ship do you consider worth saving?”

He fell silent again, waiting for an answer, the light of amusement lurking in his eyes. This was the last thing Constance had expected to hear.

“I asked you a question,” Pendergast went on, when she didn’t answer. “Who among the vulgar, greedy, vile crowd on board this ship do you deem worthy of being saved?”

Still, Constance said nothing.

After a moment, Pendergast scoffed. “You see? You have no reply—because there is no reply.”

“That’s not true,” Constance said.

“Truth? You’re fooling yourself. What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. From the moment you boarded this vessel, you yourself were revolted by the wretched excess, appalled by the smarmy self-satisfaction of the rich and pampered. You yourself noted the shocking inequity between the serving and the served. Your behavior at dinner on that very first night, the ripostes you made to those unbearably gauche philistines we were forced to dine with, showed you had already pronounced judgment on theBritannia . And you were right to do so. Because I ask you again, another way:is not this very ship a floating monument to man’s cupidity, vulgarity, and stupidity? Is not this palace of crass concupiscence richly deserving of destruction?”

He spread his hands as if the answer was obvious.

Constance looked at him in confusion. What he was saying did strike her as true. She had been repulsed by the bourgeois airs and pork-belly gentility of most of the passengers she’d met. And she was shocked and outraged by the brutal working and living conditions of the crew. Some of the things Pendergast was saying rang an uncomfortable chord in her, arousing and reinforcing her own long-held misanthropic impulses.

“No, Constance,” Pendergast went on. “The only two people worth saving are ourselves.”

She shook her head. “You’re referring to the passengers. What about the crew and staff? They’re just trying to make a living. Do they deserve to die?”

Pendergast waved his hand. “And they, for their part, are expendable drones, part of the great sea of working-class humanity that comes and goes from the shores of the world like the tide on the beach, leaving no mark.”

“You can’t mean that. Humanity is everything to you. You’ve spent your whole life trying to save the lives of others.”

“Then I’ve wasted my life on a useless, even frivolous, endeavor. The one thing my brother Diogenes and I always agreed on was there could be no more odious a discipline than anthropology: imagine, devoting one’s life to the study of one’s fellow man.” He picked up Brock’s monograph from the table, flipped through it, handed it to Constance. “Look at this.”

Constance glanced at the open page. It contained a black-and-white reproduction of an oil painting: a young, ravishing angel bending over a perplexed-looking man, guiding his hand over a manuscript page.

“

Saint Matthew and the Angel

,” he said. “Do you know it?”

She glanced at him, puzzled. “Yes.”

“Then you know there were few images on this earth more sublime. Or more beautiful. Look at the expression of intense effort on Matthew’s face—as if every word of the Gospel he’s writing was struggling up from the very fiber of his being. And compare it to the languid approach of the angel assisting him—the way the head lolls; the half-naïve, half-coy posturing of the legs; the almost scandalously sensual face. Look at the way Matthew’s dusty left foot kicks out at us, almost breaking the plane of the painting. No wonder the patron refused it! But if the angel seems effeminate, we only need to glimpse the power, the glory in those magnificent wings, to remind us that we are in the presence of the divine.” He paused a moment. “Do you know, Constance, why—of all the reproductions in this monograph—this one is in black and white?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Because no color photograph of it exists. The painting was destroyed. Yes—this magnificent expression of creative genius was bombed into oblivion during World War II. Now, tell me: if I had to choose between this painting or the lives of a million useless, ignorant, ephemeral people—the humanity you say is so important to me—which do you thinkI’d choose to perish in that conflagration?” He pushed the image toward her.

Constance stared at him in horror. “How can you say such a vile thing? And what gives you the

right

to say it? What makes you so different?”

“My dear Constance! Don’t think for a minute that I believe I’m better than the rest of the horde. I’m as guilty of the fundamental flaws of bestial man as anyone. And one of those flaws is self-interest. I am worth saving because I wish my life to continue—and I’m in a position to do something about it. This is not just the thin end of the wedge anymore: we are sailing toward catastrophe at flank speed. And on a practical level, how could I possibly save this ship? As in any catastrophe, it’s every man for himself.”

“Do you really think you could live with yourself if you abandoned all these people to their fate?”

“Of course I could. And so could you.”

Constance hesitated. “I’m not so sure,” she murmured. Deep down, a part of her found something deeply seductive in his words—and that is what disturbed her most of all.

“These people mean nothing to us. They are like the dead you read about in the newspapers. We will simply leave this floating Gomorrah and return to New York. We shall lose ourselves in intellectual pastimes, philosophy, poetry, discourse: 891 Riverside is exceedingly well furnished as a place of retirement, reflection, and seclusion.” He paused. “And was this not the way of your own first guardian, my distant relation, Enoch Leng? His crimes were far more heinous than our little moment of self-interest. And yet he managed to devote himself to a life of physical comfort and intellectual satisfaction. A long, long life. You know this to be true, Constance: you were there with him, all along.” And he nodded again, as if this were the killing stroke of his argument.

“It’s true. I was there. I was there to see the pangs of conscience slowly eat through his peace of mind like worms through rotten wood. In the end there was so little left of a brilliant man it was almost a blessing when . . .” She could say no more. But her mind was made up now: she knew she could not be persuaded by Pendergast’s nihilistic message. “Aloysius, I don’t care what you say. This is horribly wrong. You’ve always helped others. You’ve devoted your entire career to it.”

“Precisely! And to what advantage? What has it ever profited me other than frustration, regret, alienation, mortification, pain, and reprimand? If I were to leave the FBI, do you think my absence would be mourned? Thanks in part to my own incompetence, my only friend in the Bureau died a most unpleasant death. No, Constance: I haveat last learned a bitter truth. All this time, I’ve been laboring pointlessly—the fruitless labor of Sisyphus—trying to save that which, ultimately, is unsalvageable.” With that he eased himself down again in the leather armchair and picked up his teacup.

Constance looked at him in horror. “This isn’t the Aloysius Pendergast I know. You’ve changed. Ever since you came back from Blackburn’s stateroom, you’ve been acting strangely.”

Pendergast took another sip of tea, sniffed dismissively. “I’ll tell you what happened. The scales finally fell from my eyes.” Carefully, he placed the teacup back on the table and sat forward. “Itshowed me the truth.”

“It?”

“The Agozyen. It’s a truly remarkable object, Constance, a mandala that allows you to see through to thereal truth at the center of the world: the pure, unadulterated truth. A truth so powerful that it would break a weak mind. But for those of us with strong intellects, it is a revelation. Iknow myself now: who I am, and—most importantly—what I want.”

“Don’t you remember what the monks said? The Agozyen is evil, a dark instrument of vengeance, whose purpose is to cleanse the world.”

“Yes. A somewhat ambiguous choice of words, isn’t it? Cleanse the world. I, of course, will not put it to such purpose. Rather, I will install it in the library of our Riverside Drive mansion, where I can spend a lifetime contemplating its wonders.” Pendergast sat back and picked up his teacup again. “The Agozyen will thus accompany me into the flotation device. As will you—assumingyou find my plan to be a palatable one.”

Constance swallowed. She did not reply.

“Time is growing short. The time has come for you to make your decision, Constance—are you with me . . . or against me?”

And as he took another sip, his pale cat’s eyes regarded her calmly over the rim of the teacup.

59

LESEUR HAD DECIDED THAT THE BEST WAY WAS TO GO ALONE.

Now he paused before the plain metal door to Commodore Cutter’s quarters, trying to calm his facial muscles and regulate his breathing. Once he felt as composed as possible, he stepped forward and knocked softly, two quick taps.

The door opened so quickly that LeSeur almost jumped. He was even more startled to see the commodore in civilian dress, wearing a gray suit and tie. The ex-master stood in the doorway, his cold stare affixed somewhere above and between LeSeur’s eyes, his small body projecting a granitelike solidity.

“Commodore Cutter,” LeSeur began, “I’ve come in my authority as acting captain of the ship to . . . ask for your assistance.”

Cutter continued to stare, the pressure of his gaze like a finger pushing on the middle of LeSeur’s forehead.

“May I come in?”

“If you wish.” Cutter stepped back. The quarters, which LeSeur had not seen before, were predictably spartan—functional, neat, and impersonal. There were no family pictures, no naval or nautical knick-knacks, none of the masculine accessories you normally saw in a captain’s quarters such as a cigar humidor, bar, or red leather armchairs.

Cutter did not invite LeSeur to sit down and remained standing himself.

“Commodore,” LeSeur began again slowly, “how much do you know about the situation the ship is in now?”

“I know only what I’ve heard on the PA,” said Cutter. “Nobody has visited me. Nobody has bothered to speak to me.”

“Then you don’t know that Captain Mason seized the bridge, took over the ship, increased speed to flank, and is intent on driving the

Britannia

onto the Carrion Rocks?”

A beat, and he mouthed the answer.

No.

“We can’t figure out how to stop her. She locked down the bridge with a Code Three. We strike the rocks in just over an hour.”

At this, Cutter took a slight step backward, wavered on his feet, then steadied. His face lost a little of its color. He said nothing.

LeSeur quickly explained the details. Cutter listened without interruption, face impassive. “Commodore,” LeSeur concluded, “only you and the staff captain know the cipher sequence for shutting down a Code Three alert. Even if we managed to get on the bridge and take Mason into custody, we would still have to stand down from Code Three before we could gain control of the ship’s autopilot. You know those codes. Nobody else does.”

A silence. And then Cutter said, “The company has the codes.”

LeSeur grimaced. “They claim to be looking for them. Frankly, Corporate is in utter disarray over this situation. Nobody seems to know where they are, and everybody is pointing fingers at everyone else.”

The flush returned to the captain’s face. LeSeur wondered what it was. Fear for the ship? Anger at Mason?

“Sir, it isn’t just a question of the code. You know the ship better than anyone else. We’ve got a crisis on our hands and four thousand lives hang in the balance. We’ve only got seventy minutes until we hit Carrion Rocks. Weneed you.”

“Mr. LeSeur, are you asking me to resume command of this ship?” came the quiet question.

“If that’s what it takes, yes.”

“Say it.” “I’m asking you, Commodore Cutter, to resume command of the

Britannia

.”

The captain’s dark eyes glittered. When he spoke again, his voice was low and resonating with emotion. “Mr. LeSeur, you and the deck officers are mutineers. You are the vilest kind of human being to be found on the high seas. Some actions are so heinous they can’t be reversed. You mutinied and turned my command over to a psychopath. You and all your backstabbing, toadying, conniving, skulking lickspittles have been planning this treachery against me since we left port. Now you’ve reaped the whirlwind. No, sir: I will not help you. Not with the codes, not with the ship, not even to wipe your sorry nose. My remaining duty consists of only one thing: if the ship sinks, I will go down with it. Good day, Mr. LeSeur.”

The flush on Cutter’s face deepened still further, and LeSeur suddenly understood that it was not the result of anger, hatred, or apprehension. No—it was a flush of triumph: the sick triumph of vindication.

60

DRESSED IN THE SAFFRON ROBES OF A TIBETAN BUDDHIST MONK, Scott Blackburn drew the curtains across the sliding glass doors of his balcony, shutting out the grayness of the storm. Hundreds of butter candles filled the salon with a trembling yellow light, while two brass censers scented the air with the exquisite fragrance of sandalwood and kewra flower.

On a side table, a phone was ringing insistently. He eyed it with a frown, then walked over and picked it up.

“What is it?” he said shortly.

“Scotty?” came the high, breathless voice. “It’s me, Jason. We’ve been trying to reach your for hours! Look, everyone’s going crazy, we need to get ourselves to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Blackburn said. “If you call me again, I’ll rip your throat out and flush it down the toilet.” And he gently replaced the receiver in its cradle.

His senses had never felt so keen, so alert, so focused. Beyond the doors of his suite he could hear shouting and cursing, pounding feet, screams, the deep boom of the sea. Whatever was happening, it did not concern him, and it could not touch him in his locked stateroom. Here he was safe—with the Agozyen.

As he went through his preparations, he thought about the strange trajectory of the last several days, and how his life had transcendentally changed. The call out of nowhere about the painting; seeing it for the first time in the hotel room; liberating it from its callow and undeserving owner; bringing it aboard ship. And then, that very same day, running into Carol Mason, staff captain on the ship—how strange life was! In the first flush of proud possession, he had shared the Agozyen with her, and then they had fucked so wildly, with such total abandon, that the coupling seemed to shiver the very foundations of his being. But then he had seen the change in her, just as he had seen the change in himself. He’d noticed the unmistakable, possessive hunger in her eyes, the glorious and terrifying abandonment of all the old and hidebound moral strictures.

It was only then he realized what he should have realized before: he had to be transcendentally careful to safeguard his prize. All who saw it would desire to possess it. Because the Agozyen, this incredible mandala-universe, had a unique power over the human mind. A power that could beliberated . And he, above all others, was in the perfect position to liberate it. He had the capital, the savvy, and—above all—thetechnology. With his graphical push technology he could deliver the image, in all its exquisite detail, to the entire world, at great profit and power to himself. With his unlimited access to capital and talent, he could unlock the image’s secrets and learn how it wrought its amazing effects on the human mind and body, and apply that information to the creation of other images. Everyone on the earth—at least, everyone who mattered even in the least degree—would be changed utterly. He would own the original; he would control how its likeness would be disseminated. The world would be a new place:his place.

Except that there was another who knew about the murder he’d committed. An investigator who—he was now convinced—had pursued him onto the ship. A man who was employing every possible means, even housekeepers on theBritannia staff, to take from him his most precious possession. At the thought, he felt his blood pound, his heart quicken; he felt a hatred so intense that his ears seemed to hum and crackle with it. How the man learned about the Agozyen mandala, Blackburn didn’t know. Perhaps Ambrose had tried to sell it to him first; perhaps the man was another adept. But in the end it didn’t matter how the man had learned of it: his hours were severely numbered. Blackburn had seen the destructive work of a tulpa before, and the one he had summoned—through sheer force of will—was extraordinarily subtle and powerful. No human being could escape it.

He took a deep, shivering breath. He could not approach the Agozyen in such a state of hatred and fear, of material attachment. Trying to fulfill earthly desires was like carrying water to the sea; a never- ending task, and an ultimately useless one.

Taking deep, slow breaths, he sat down and closed his eyes, concentrating on nothing. When he felt the ripples in his mind smooth out, he stood again, walked to the far wall of the salon, removed the Braque painting, turned it over, and unfastened the false lining, exposing the thangka beneath. This he drew out with exquisite care and—keeping his eyes averted—hung it by a silken cord on a golden hook he had driven into the wall nearby.

Blackburn took his place before the painting and arranged himself in the lotus position, placing his right hand on his left, the thumbs touching to form a triangle. He bent his neck slightly and allowed the top of his tongue to touch the roof of his mouth near his upper teeth, his gaze unfocused and on the floor before him. Then, with delicious slowness, he raised his eyes and gazed upon the Agozyen mandala.

The image was beautifully illuminated by the glittering candles arrayed on silver platters, yellow and gold tints that played like liquid metal over the thangka’s surface. Gradually—very gradually—it opened to him. He felt its power flow through him like slow electricity.

The Agozyen mandala was a world unto itself, a separate universe as intricate and deep as our own, an infinite complexity locked on a two-dimensional surface with four edges. But to gaze upon the Agozyen was to magically liberate the image from its two dimensions. It took shape and form within the mind; the painting’s strange, intertwined lines becoming as so many electric wires flowing with the currents of his soul. As he became the painting and the painting became him, time slowed, dissolved, and ultimately ceased to exist; the mandala suffused his consciousness and his soul, owning him utterly: space without space, time without time, becoming everything and nothing at once . . .

61

THE HUSH THAT HAD FALLEN OVER THE DIMLY LIT SALON OF THE Tudor Suite belied the undercurrent of tension in the stateroom. Constance stood before Pendergast, watching as the agent calmly took another sip of his tea and placed the cup aside.

“Well?” he asked. “We don’t have all day.”

Constance took a deep breath. “Aloysius, I can’t believe you can sit there, so calmly, advocating something that’s against everything you’ve ever stood for.”

Pendergast sighed with ill-concealed impatience. “Please don’t insult my intelligence by protracting this pointless argument.”

“Somehow, the Agozyen has poisoned your mind.”

“The Agozyen has done no such thing. It has

liberated

my mind. Swept it clean of jejune and hidebound conventions of morality.”

“The Agozyen is an instrument of evil. The monks knew as much.”

“You mean, the monks who were too fearful to even gaze upon the Agozyen themselves?”

“Yes, and they were wiser than you. It seems the Agozyen has the power to strip away all that is good, and kind, and . . . andmoderate in those who gaze upon it. Look what it did to Blackburn, how he murdered to get it. Look what it’s doing to you.”

Pendergast scoffed. “It breaks a weaker mind, but strengthens the stronger one. Look what it did to that maid, or to Captain Mason, for that matter.”

“What?”

“Really, Constance, I expected better of you. Of course Mason has seen it—what other explanation could there be? How, I don’t know and don’t care. She’s behind the disappearances and murders—very carefully escalated, you’ll notice—all to effect a mutiny and get the ship to divert to St. John’s, on which heading she could contrive to run it up onto the Carrion Rocks.”

Constance stared at him. The theory seemed preposterous—or did it? Almost despite herself, she could see some of the details begin to lock into place.

“But none of that is important anymore.” Pendergast waved his hand. “I won’t stand for any more delays. Come with me now.”

Constance hesitated. “On one condition.”

“And what is that, pray tell?”

“Join me in a Chongg Ran session first.”

Pendergast’s eyes narrowed. “Chongg Ran? How perverse—there isn’t time.”

“There

is

time. We both have the mental training to reach

stong pa nyid

quickly. What are you afraid of? That meditation will bring you back to normality?” This was, in fact, her own most fervent hope. “That’s absurd. There’s no turning back.”

“Then meditate with me.”

Pendergast remained motionless for a moment. Then his face changed again. Once more, he grew relaxed, confident, aloof.

“Very well,” he said. “I shall agree. But on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I intend to take the Agozyen before leaving this ship. If Chongg Ran does not work to your satisfaction, then you will gaze on the Agozyenyourself . It shall free you, as it did me. This is a great gift I am giving you, Constance.”

Hearing this, Constance caught her breath.

Pendergast gave a cold smile. “You’ve named your terms. Now I’ve named mine.”

For a moment longer, she remained silent. Then she found her breath, looked into his silver eyes. “Very well. I accept.”

He nodded. “Excellent. Then shall we begin?”

Just then, a knock sounded on the front door of the suite. Constance stepped over to the entryway and opened it. Outside in the hallway stood a worried-looking Marya.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Greene,” she said. “No doctor to be found. I search everywhere, but this ship go crazy, crying, drinking, looting—”

“It’s all right. Will you do me one last favor? Could you wait outside the door for a few minutes, please, and make sure we’re not disturbed?”

The woman nodded.

“Thank you so much.” Then, shutting the door softly behind her, she returned to the living room, where Pendergast had settled himself cross-legged on the carpet, placed the backs of his wrists on his knees, and was waiting with perfect complacency.

62

COREY PENNER, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MATE SECOND CLASS, sat in the glow of the central server room on Deck B, hunched over a data access terminal.

Hufnagel, the IT chief, leaned over Penner’s shoulder, gazing at the display through filmy glasses. “So,” he said. “Can you do it?”

The question was accompanied by a wash of sour breath, and Penner tightened his lips. “Doubt it. Looks pretty heavily defended.”

Privately, he was sure he could do it. There were few, if any, systems on theBritannia he couldn’t hack his way into—but it didn’t pay to advertise that, especially to his boss. The more they thought you could do, the more they’d ask you to do—he’d learned that the hard way. And the fact was he didn’t really want anybody to know just how he traversed the ship’s off-limits data services during his leisure hours. Close attention to theBritannia ’s pay-for-play movie streaming, for example, had allowed him to amass a nice private library of first-run DVDs.

He tapped a few keys and a new screen came up:

HMS BRITANNIA – CENTRAL SYSTEMS

AUTONOMOUS SERVICES (MAINTENANCE MODE)

PROPULSION

GUIDANCE

HVAC

ELECTRICAL

FINANCIAL

TRIM / STABILIZERS

EMERGENCY

Penner moused over GUIDANCE and chose AUTOPILOT from the sub-menu that appeared. An error message came onto the screen: AUTOPILOT MAINTENANCE MODE NOT ACCESSIBLE WHILE SYSTEM IS ENGAGED.

Well, he’d expected that. Exiting the menu system, he brought up a command prompt and began typing quickly. A series of small windows appeared on the screen.

“What are you doing now?” Hufnagel asked.

“I’m going to use the diagnostic back door to access the autopilot.” Just how he was going to get access, he wouldn’t say: Hufnagel didn’t need to know everything.

A phone rang in a far corner of the server room and one of the technicians answered it. “Mr. Hufnagel, call for you, sir.” The technician had a strained, worried look on his face. Penner knew he’d probably be worried, too, if he didn’t have such a high opinion of his own skills.

“Coming.” And Hufnagel stepped away.

Thank God . Quickly, Penner plucked a CD from the pocket of his lab coat, slid it into the drive, and loaded three utilities into memory: a systems process monitor, a cryptographic analyzer, and a hex disassembler. He returned the CD to his pocket and minimized the three programs just before Hufnagel returned.

A few mouse clicks and a new screen appeared:

HMS BRITANNIA—CENTRAL SYSTEMS

AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS (DIAGNOSTIC MODE)

SUBSYSTEM VII

CORE AUTOPILOT HANDLING SUBSTRUCTURE

He thought he’d ask a question before Hufnagel started in again. “When—I mean, if—I transfer control of the handling routines, what next?”

“Deactivate the autopilot. Kill it completely, and switch manual control of the helm to the aux bridge.”

Penner licked his lips. “It isn’t really true that Captain Mason seized the—”

“Yes, it is. Now get on with it.”

Penner felt, for the first time, a stab of something like apprehension. Making sure that the process monitor was active, he selected the autopilot and clicked the “diagnostics” button. A new window opened and a storm of numbers scrolled past.

“What’s that?”

Penner glanced at the process monitor, sighing inwardly. Typical IT chief, he thought. Hufnagel new all the latest buzzwords like “blade farm load-balancing” and “server virtualization,” and he could double-talk the officers until he was blue in the face, but he didn’t know jack about the real nuts and bolts of running a complex data system. Aloud, he said, “It’s the autopilot data, running in real time.”

“And?”

“And I’m going to reverse engineer it, find the interrupt stack, then use the internal trigger events to disrupt the process.”

Hufnagel nodded sagely, as if he understood what the hell he’d just been told. A long moment passed as Penner scrutinized the data.

“Well?” Hufnagel said. “Go ahead. We have less than an hour.”

“It’s not quite that easy.”

“Why not?”

Penner gestured at the screen. “Take a look. Those aren’t hexadecimal commands. They’ve been encrypted.”

“Can you remove the encryption?”

Can a bear shit in the woods? Penner thought. Quite suddenly, he realized that—if he played this right—he’d most likely get himself a nice fat bonus, maybe even a promotion. Corey Penner, IT mate first class, hero hacker who saved theBritannia ’s ass.

He liked the sound of that—it even rhymed. He began to relax again; this was going to be a piece of cake. “It’s going to be tough, real tough,” he said, giving his tone just the right amount of melodrama. “There’s a serious encryption routine at work here. Anything you can tell me about it?”

Hufnagel shook his head. “The autopilot coding was outsourced to a German software firm. Corporate can’t find the documentation or specs. And it’s after office hours in Hamburg.”

“Then I’ll have to analyze its encoding signature before I can determine what decryption strategy to use on it.”

As Hufnagel watched, he piped the autopilot datastream through the cryptographic analyzer. “It’s using a native hardware-based encryption system,” he announced.

“Is that bad?”

“No, it’s good. Usually, hardware encryption is pretty weak, maybe 32-bit stuff. As long as it’s not AES or some large-bit algorithm, I should be able to crack—er, decrypt it—in a little while.”

“We don’t

have

a little while. Like I said, we have less than an hour.”

Penner ignored this, peering closely at the analyzer window. Despite himself, he was getting into the problem. He realized he didn’t care any longer if his boss saw the unorthodox tools he was using.

“Well?” Hufnagel urged.

“Just hold on, sir. The analyzer is determining just how strong the encryption is. Depending on the bit depth, I can run a side-channel attack, or maybe . . .”

The analyzer finished, and a stack of numbers popped up. Despite the warmth of the server room, Penner felt himself go cold.

“Jesus,” he murmured.

“What is it?” Hufnagel asked instantly.

Penner stared at the data, confounded. “Sir, you said less than an hour. An hour until . . . what, exactly?”

“Until the

Britannia

collides with the Carrion Rocks.”

Penner swallowed. “And if this doesn’t work—what’s plan B?”

“Not your concern, Penner. Just keep going.”

Penner swallowed. “The routine’s employing elliptic curve cryptography. Cutting-edge stuff. 1024-bit public key front end with a 512-bit symmetric key back end.”

“So?” the IT chief asked. “How long is it going to take you?”

In the silence that followed the question, Penner suddenly became aware of the deep throb of the ship’s engines, the dull slamming of the bow driven at excessive speed through a head sea, the muffled rush of wind and water audible even over the roar of cooling fans in the windowless room.

“Penner? Damn it,

howlong

?”

“As many years as there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world,” he murmured, almost choking on the words from the feeling of dread.

63

THE THING WHICH HAD NO NAME MOVED THROUGH SHADOW AND audient void. It lived in a vague metaworld, a world that lay in the grayness between the living world of theBritannia and the plane of pure thought. The ghost was not alive. It had no senses. It heard nothing, smelled nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing.

It knew one thing only: desire.

It passed through the mazelike passages of the Britannia slowly, as if by feel. The world of the ship was but a shadow to it, an unreal landscape, a vague fabric of shade and silence, to be traversed only until its need had been fulfilled. From time to time it encountered the dull glow of living entities; their erratic movements were ignored. They were as insubstantial to the thing as the thing was to them.

Vaguely, it sensed it was approaching the prey. It could feel the tug of the living being’s aura, like a magnet. Following this faint lure, it made an irregular progression through the decks of the ship, passing through corridor and steel bulkhead alike, searching, always searching for that which it had been summoned to devour, to annihilate. Its time was not the world’s time; time was but a flexible web, to be stretched, broken, shrugged off, moved into and out of. It had the patience of eternity.

The thing knew nothing of the entity that had summoned it. That entity was no longer important. Not even the summoner could stop it now; its existence was independent. Nor did the thing have any conception of the appearance of the object of its desire. It knew only the pull of longing: to find the thing, to rend the entity’s soul from the fabric of the world and burn it with its desire, to consume it and satiate itself—and then to cast the cinder into the outer darkness.

It glided up through a dim corridor, a gray tunnel of half-light, with the flitting presences of additional living entities; through clouds heavy with fear and horror. The aura of its prey was stronger here: strong indeed. It felt its yearning grow and stretch out, seeking the heat of contact.

The tulpa was close now, very close, of its prey.

64

GAVIN BRUCE AND HIS LITTLE GROUP—NILES WELCH, QUENTIN Sharp, and Emily Dahlberg—followed Liu and Crowley toward a port-side hatchway onto Half Deck 7. It was marked Lifeboats;a similar hatch would be found on the starboard deck. A crowd milled before the hatch and, as soon as they appeared, converged on them.

“There they are!”

“Get us on the lifeboats!”

“Look, two ship’s officers! Trying to save their own asses!”

They were besieged. With a shriek, a heavy woman in a disheveled tracksuit grabbed Liu.

“Is it true?” she shrieked. “That we’re headed toward the rocks?”

The crowd surged forward, sweaty, smelling of panic. “

Is it true

?”

“You’ve got to tell us!”

“No, no, no,” Liu said, holding up his hands, the grimace of a smile on his lips. “That rumor is

absolutely

false. We’re proceeding on course to—”

“They’re lying!” a man cried.

“What are you doing here at the lifeboats, then?”

“And why the hell are we going so fast? The ship’s pounding like crazy!”

Crowley shouted to make himself heard. “

Listen

! The captain is merely bringing us into St. John’s at all possible speed.”

“That’s not what your own crew is saying!” the woman in the tracksuit bellowed, grabbing the lapels of Liu’s uniform and twisting them frantically. “Don’t lie to us!”

The corridor was now packed with excited passengers. Bruce was shocked by how wild and unruly they had become.

“

Please!

” Liu cried, shaking off the woman. “We’ve just come from the bridge. Everything is under control. This is merely a routine check of the lifeboats—”

A younger man pushed forward, his suit coat hanging open, the buttons of his shirt undone. “Don’t lie to us, you son of a bitch!” He made a grab at Liu, who ducked aside; the man took a swing and struck Liu a glancing blow to the side of the head. “Liar!”

Liu staggered, dropped his shoulders, turned, and, as the man came back at him, slammed his fist into his solar plexus. With a groan, the passenger fell heavily to the floor. An obese man charged forward, his bulk heaving, and took a wild swing at Liu while another grabbed him from behind; Bruce stepped forward, neatly dropping the fat man with a counterpunch while Crowley took on the second passenger.

The crowd, momentarily shocked by the outbreak of violence, fell silent and shuffled back.

“Return to your staterooms!” cried Liu, his chest heaving. Gavin Bruce stepped forward. “You!” He pointed to the woman in front, wearing the tracksuit. “Step aside from that hatch,now !”

His voice, ringing with naval authority, had its effect. The crowd shuffled reluctantly aside, silent, fearful. Liu stepped forward, unlocked the hatch.

“They’re going to the lifeboats!” a man cried. “Take me! Oh God, don’t leave me!”

The crowd woke up again, pressing forward, the air filling with cries and pleadings.

Bruce decked a man half his age who tried to rush the door and won enough time for his group to pile through. Within moments they had pressed the hatch shut behind them, shutting out the crowd of panicked passengers, who began pounding and shouting.

Bruce turned. Cold spray swept across the deck, which was open to the sea along the port side. The boom and rumble of the waves was much louder here, and the wind hummed and moaned through the struts.

“Jesus,” muttered Liu. “Those people have gone frigging crazy.”

“Where is security?” Emily Dahlberg asked. “Why aren’t they controlling that crowd?”

“Security?” said Liu. “We’ve got two dozen security officers for more than four thousand passengers and crew. It’s anarchy out there.”

Bruce shook his head and turned his attention to the long row of lifeboats. He was immediately taken aback. He had never seen anything like them in his navy days: a line of giant, fully enclosed torpedo-shaped vessels, painted bright orange, with rows of portholes along their sides. They looked more like spaceships than boats. What was more, instead of being hung from davits, each was mounted on inclined rails that pointed down and away from the ship.

“How do these work?” he asked, turning to Liu.

“Freefall lifeboats,” Liu said. “They’ve been deployed on oil platforms and cargo ships for years, but the

Britannia

is the first passenger vessel to use them.”

“Freefall lifeboats? You can’t be serious. It’s sixty feet to the water!”

“The passengers are buckled into seats designed to cushion the g-forces of impact. The boats hit the water nose-down, hydrodynamically, then rise to the surface. By the time they surface they’re already three hundred feet from the ship and moving away.”

“What kind of engines you got on these?”

“Each has a thirty-five diesel, capable of eight knots, and they’re all supplied with food, water, heat, and even a ten-minute air supply in case there’s fuel burning on the water.”

Bruce stared at Liu. “Good God, man, this is perfect! I thought we were going to have to launch old-fashioned boats on davits, which would be impossible in these seas. We could launch these right now!”

“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple,” Liu said.

“Why the hell not?”

“The problem is our forward motion. Thirty knots. That’s almost thirty-five miles an hour—”

“I know what a knot is, damn it!”

“It’s just that there’s no way to know how our forward speed might affect the boats. The rules are very emphatic that the boats have to be launched from a stationary ship.”

“So we launch a test boat, empty.”

“That wouldn’t tell us how passengers might be affected by the lateral g-forces.”

Gavin Bruce frowned. “I get it. So we need a guinea pig. No problem. Give me a portable VHF and put me in there. Launch the boat. I’ll tell you how hard it hits.”

Crowley shook his head. “You might be injured.”

“What choice do we have?”

“We couldn’t let a passenger do that,” Liu replied. “I’ll do it.”

Bruce stared at him. “No way. You’re the bosun. Your expertise is needed up here.”

Liu’s eyes darted toward Crowley, darted back. “It might be a rough landing. Like being in a car, hit broadside by another moving at thirty-five miles an hour.”

“This is water we’re talking about. Not steel-on-steel. Look, somebody’s got to be the guinea pig. I’ve taken worse risks than this. If I get hurt, at least I’ll be off the ship. As I see it, I’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s not waste time.”

Liu hesitated. “I should go.”

Bruce frowned with exasperation. “Mr. Liu, how old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“And you, Mr. Crowley?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“Children?”

Both nodded.

“I’m sixty-eight. I’m a better test case because my age and condition are more in line with the other passengers. You’re needed on the ship. And,” he added, “your kids still need you.” Now Emily Dahlberg spoke up. “One occupant isn’t a sufficient test for the launch. We’ll need at least two.”

“You’re right,” Bruce said. He glanced toward Niles Welch. “What about it, Niles?”

“I’m your man,” Welch replied immediately.

“Wait a minute,” Dahlberg protested. “That’s not what I—”

“I know what you meant,” Bruce replied. “And I’m deeply appreciative, Emily. But what would Aberdeen Bank and Trust say if I endangered one of its most important clients?” And with that, he took the VHF from Liu’s unprotesting hand, moved to the stern hatch of the nearest orange spaceship, and turned the handle. It opened on pneumatic hinges with a soft hiss. He stepped into the dark interior, nodding for Welch to follow. After a moment, he poked his head out again.

“This thing is fitted out better than a luxury yacht. What channel?”

“Use 72. There’s also a fixed VHF and SSB radios on board the lifeboat, along with radar, chartplotter, depth finder, loran—the works.”

Bruce nodded. “Good. Now quit standing around like a bunch of sheep. Once we give you the signal, say a Hail Mary and pull the bloody lever!”

And he closed and secured the hatch without another word.

65

CONSTANCE GREENE OPENED AN ANCIENT SANDALWOOD BOX AND took out a bizarre, fantastically complex knot tied from gray silken cord. Superficially, it resembled an obscure European knot known as aMors du Cheval , only it was far more complex. In Tibetan it was called dgongs , the “unraveling.”

The knot had been given to her by Tsering on her departure from the Gsalrig Chongg monastery. It had been tied in the eighteenth century by a revered lama, to be used in a particular kind of meditative exercise to expunge attachment, to rid oneself of evil thoughts or influences, or to aid in the joining of two minds. In Constance’s case, the knot was to be used for cleansing herself of the stain of murder; now, she hoped it would expunge the stain of the Agozyen from Pendergast. The knot was never to be untied in the real world: to do so would be to release its power and transform it back into a mere silken cord. It was an exercise of mind and spirit only.

The stateroom was dark, the curtains drawn tightly closed over the balcony windows. Marya—who had been unable to find a doctor—stood by the salon door, anxiety and uncertainty flickering in her eyes.

Constance turned to her. “Marya, please stand guard outside. Don’t let anyone interrupt us.”

The woman nodded, then turned and quickly left the salon.

When she heard the door close, Constance placed the knot on a small silken pillow that lay on the floor, illuminated within a circle of candles. Then she glanced over at Pendergast. With a dry smile, the agent took his place on one side of the knot, while she sat down on the other. The knot lay between them, one loose end pointing at her, the other at Pendergast. It was a symbol, both spiritual and physical, of the interconnectedness of all life and—in particular—of the two entities that sat on either side of the knot.

Constance arranged herself in a modified lotus position, as did Pendergast. She sat for a moment, doing nothing, letting her limbs relax. Then, keeping her eyes open and contemplating the knot, she slowed her breathing and decelerated her heartbeat, as she had been taught by the monks. She allowed her mind to settle into the moment, the now, discarding past and future and closing down the endless flow of thoughts that normally afflict the human mind. Liberated from the mental chatter, her senses became acutely aware of her surroundings: the boom and shudder of the waves on the hull, the splatter of rain on the glass of the balcony door, the new-room smell, the faint scent of wax from the candles and sandalwood from the knot. She became acutely aware of the presence opposite her, a dark shape at the periphery of her vision.

Her eyes remained on the knot.

Slowly, she released each external sensation, one after the other. The trappings of the outside world vanished into darkness, like the closing of shutters in a dark house. First the room around her; then the great ship, and then the vast ocean on which they crawled. Gone were the sounds of the room, its scents, the slow roll of the ship, her own corporeal awareness. The earth itself vanished, the sun, the stars, the universe . . . gone, all gone, falling away into nonexistence. Only she remained, and the knot, and the being on the far side of the knot.

Time ceased to exist. She had reached the state of

th’an shin gha

, the Doorstep to Perfect Emptiness.

In a strange meditative state of utter awareness and yet complete absence of effort or desire, she focused on the knot. For a moment, it remained unchanged. Then—slowly, evenly, like a snake uncoiling—the knot began untying itself. The fantastically complex loops and curves, the plunging bends and rising swerves of cord, began to loosen; the bitter ends of the rope withdrew into the knot, tracing in reverse the original convoluted tying, three centuries earlier. It was a process of immense mathematical complexity, symbolizing the unraveling of the ego that must take place before a being can reachstong pa nyid —the State of Pure Emptiness—and merge with the universal mind.

She was there; Pendergast was there; and in the middle, the knot, in the act of untying itself. That was all.

After an indefinite period—it could have been a second, it could have been a thousand years—the gray silken cord lay in a smooth heap, untied and loosely coiled. In its center a small, crumpled piece of silk was revealed, on which had been written the secret prayer the ancient monk had bound up in it.

She read it over carefully. Then slowly, chantlike, she began to recite the prayer, over and over again . . .

As she chanted, she extended her consciousness toward the loose end of the rope closest to her. At the same time, she was aware of the glow of the being opposite her, extending itself in the same manner toward the untied cord.

She chanted, the low, soothing tones unraveling her ego, gently parting all ties to the physical world. She felt the current as her mind touched the cord and moved along it, drawn toward the entity on the other side as he was drawn toward her. She moved along the convoluted strands, barely breathing, her heart beating with funereal slowness, coming closer, ever closer . . . Then her thought met and merged with the glow of the other, and the final stage was reached.

Abruptly, she found herself in a place both strange and familiar. She stood on a cobbled street between elegant gas lamps, staring up at a dark and shuttered mansion. It was a construct of extraordinary concentration, of pure thought alone, more real and solid than any dream she had ever experienced. She could feel the cool clamminess of the night mist on her skin; hear the creaking and rustling of insects; smell coal smoke and soot. She gazed up at the mansion through the wrought-iron fence, her eye traveling over its mansard roof, oriel windows, and widow’s walk.

After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped through the gate into a dark, humid garden, heavy with dead flowers and the smell of loam. She continued on up the walk, onto the portico. Beyond, the double doors were ajar, and she stepped through the entryway, passing into a grand foyer. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, dark and threatening, tinkling faintly as if disturbed by wind despite the dead air of the house. One massive doorway led into a tall library, its wing chairs and couches empty, its fireplace dark and cold. Another passage led toward a kind of refectory or perhaps exhibition hall, silent, watchful.

She crossed the foyer, her heels clicking on the marble floor, and climbed the wide stairs to the second-floor hallway. Tapestries and indistinct oil paintings lined the walls, stretching back into the dark heart of the house, interrupted by oaken doors darkened by time.

She glanced along the left wall as she moved forward. Ahead, not quite halfway down the long hall, one door was open—battered open, the doorframe smashed, splinters of wood and twisted pieces of lead scattered about the floor. The yawning black opening exhaled a cold, cellar-like stench of mold and dead, greasy centipedes.

She quickly passed by with a shudder. The door beyond drew her toward it. She was almost there.

She placed her hand on the knob, turned it. With a low creaking sound, the door swung inward and a welcome warmth flowed out around her, enveloping her with the pleasant sensation of stepping into a cozy dwelling in wintertime.

Aloysius Pendergast stood before her, dressed in black as usual, his hands clasped in front of him, smiling.

“Welcome,” he said.

The room was large and beautiful, with paneled wainscoting. A fire burned in a marble fireplace, and an old clock on the mantel chimed the hours, beside an antique gasogene and several cut-glass tumblers. A stag’s head mounted on the wall looked out with glassy eyes across a desk piled with leather-bound books and papers. The oak floor was covered with rich, dense carpeting, over which expensive Persian carpets had been laid in turn. Several comfortable wing chairs were scattered about, some with open books lying on their seats. It was an extremely comfortable, well-used, luxurious space.

“Come and warm yourself by the fire,” he said, motioning her forward.

She moved closer to the fire, keeping her eyes on Pendergast. There was something different about him. Something strange. Despite the utter reality of this room and this house, the edges of his form were indistinct, blurry, slightly transparent, as if he wasn’t quite there.

The door shut behind her with a dull thud.

He held out his hand for hers, and she gave it to him. He grasped it, suddenly very hard, and she tried to withdraw, but he pulled her toward him. His head seemed to waver, to bulge and dissolve; the skin cracked, and a glow emerged from within; and then his face peeled away and fluttered down in burning threads, revealing a visage that Constance recognized. It was the indescribable face of the Kalazyga demon.

She stared at it, strangely unafraid, feeling its warmth, drawn to it with a mixture of fear and attraction. It seemed to fill her with fire: the ineffable, all-consuming, triumphant fire she had felt in her mad pursuit of Diogenes Pendergast. There was a purity to it that awed her.

“

I am will

,” it said, with a voice that was not sound, but thought. “

I am pure thought burned clean of any vestige of human sentiment. I am freedom. Join with me

.”

Fascinated, repelled, she again tried to withdraw her hand, but it held fast. The face, terrible and beautiful, drew closer to her. It wasn’t real, she told herself, it was only a product of her mind, the image of one of the thangkas she had contemplated for hours on end, now recreated by this intense meditation.

The Kalazyga demon drew her toward the fire. “

Come. Into the fire. Burn off the dead husk of moral restraint. You will emerge like the butterfly from its chrysalis, free and beautiful.

”

She took a step toward the fire, hesitated, then took another, almost floating over the carpeting toward the warmth.

“Yes,” said another voice. Pendergast’s voice. “This is good. This is right. Go to the fire.”

As she drew closer to the flames, the heavy guilt and mortification of murder that had lain on her shoulders melted away, replaced by a sense of exhilaration, the intense exhilaration and dark joy she felt when she saw Pendergast’s brother tumble off the edge ofLa Sciara into the red-hot depths below. That momentary ecstasy was being offered to her now, forever.

All she had to do was step into the flames.

One more step. The fire radiated its warmth, licking up into her very limbs. She remembered him at the very edge, the two of them locked together in a macabre caricature of sexual union, struggling at the roaring edge ofLa Sciara ; her unexpected feint; the expression on his face when he realized they were both going over.The expression on his face: it was the most horrifying, most pitiful, and yet most satisfying thing she had ever seen—to revel in the face of a person who realizes, without the shadow of a doubt, that he is going to die. That all hope is gone. And this bitter joy could now be hers forever; she could be free to experience it again and again, at will. And she would not even need overweening vengeance as an excuse: she could simply murder, whoever and wherever, and again and again revel in the hot blood-fury, the ecstatic, orgiastic triumph . . .

All hope is gone . . .

With a scream, she writhed in the grip of the demon, and with a sudden, immense force of will she managed to break free. She threw herself back from the fire, turned and ran through the door, and suddenly she was falling, falling through the house, through the basements, the sub-cellars, falling . . .

66

THE STORM RAGED BEYOND THE OPEN RAILS OF HALF DECK 7, SPRAY sweeping across the deck despite their being sixty feet above the waterline. Liu could hardly think over the boom of the sea and the bellow of the wind.

Crowley came up, as soaked as he was. “Are we really going to try this, sir?”

“You got a better idea?” Liu replied irritably. “Give me your radio.”

Crowley handed it over.

Liu tuned it to channel 72 and pressed the transmit button. “Liu here, calling Bruce, over.”

“This is Bruce.”

“How do you read me?”

“Five by five.”

“Good. Buckle yourself into the coxswain’s station at the helm. Welch should take the seat across the aisle.”

“Already done.”

“Need any instructions?”

“They seem to be all right here.”

“The lifeboat’s almost completely automatic,” Liu went on. “The engine starts automatically on impact. It’ll drive the lifeboat away from the ship in a straight line. You should throttle down to steerageway speed only—they’ll find you quicker that way. The master panel should be pretty self-explanatory to a nautical man.”

“Right. Got an EPIRB on this crazy boat?”

“Two, and they’re actually the latest GPIRBs, which transmit your GPS coordinates. On impact, the GPIRB automatically activates at 406 and 121.5 megahertz—no action required on your part. Keep the lifeboat’s VHF tuned to emergency channel 16. Communicate with me through channel 72 on your handheld. You’re going to be on your own until you’re picked up—theBritannia isn’t stopping. Both of you stay strapped in at all times—you’re going to take a few barrel rolls in these seas, at the least.”

“Understood.”

“Questions?”

“No.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.” Bruce’s voice crackled over the handheld.

“Okay. There’s a fifteen-second automatic countdown. Lock down the transmit button so we can hear what happens. Talk to me as soon as possible after you hit.”

“Understood. Fire away.”

Liu turned to the freefall launch control panel. There were thirty-six lifeboats, eighteen on the port side and eighteen on starboard, each with a capacity of up to 150 people. Even launching one boat virtually empty like this, they still had plenty of capacity to spare. He glanced at his watch. If it worked, they’d have fifty minutes to evacuate the ship. A very doable proposition.

He murmured a short prayer.

As he initiated the launch sequence, Liu began to breathe a little easier. It

was

going to work. These damn boats were overengineered, built to withstand a sixty-foot free fall. They could take the extra strain.

Green across the board. He unlocked the switch that would began the countdown on lifeboat number one, opened the cover. Inside, the little red breaker-lever glowed with fresh paint. This was a hell of a lot simpler than in the old days, when a lifeboat had to be lowered on davits, swinging crazily in the wind and roll of the ship. Now all you had to do was press a lever; the boat was released from its arrestors, slid down the rails, and fell sixty feet to land, nose first, in the sea. A few moments later it bobbed to the surface and continued on, driving away from the ship. They’d been through the drill many times: drop to recovery took all of six seconds.

“You read, Bruce?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Hang on. I’m releasing the switch.”

He pulled the red lever.

A woman’s voice sounded from a speaker mounted overhead. “Lifeboat number one launching in fifteen seconds. Ten seconds. Nine, eight . . .”

The voice echoed in the metal-walled half deck. The countdown ran out; there was a loudclunk as the steel arrestors disengaged. The boat slid forward on the greased rails, nosed off the end into open space, and Liu leaned over the side to watch it fall, as gracefully as a diver, toward the churning sea.

It struck with a tremendous eruption of spray, much larger than anything Liu had seen during the drills: a geyser that rose forty, fifty feet, swept backward in ragged petals by the tearing wind. The VHF channel let loose a squeal of static.

But instead of plunging straight into the water and disappearing, the lifeboat’s forward motion, combined with the added speed of the ship, pitchpoled it sideways, like a rock skipping over the surface of a pond, and it struck the ocean a second time full force along its length, with another eruption of spray that buried the orange boat in boiling water. And then it began to resurface, sluggishly, the Day-Glo hull brightening as it shed green water. The static on the VHF abruptly died into silence.

The woman—Emily Dahlberg—caught her breath, averted her eyes.

Liu stared at the lifeboat, which was already rapidly falling astern. He seemed to be seeing the boat from a strange angle. But no, that wasn’t it: the lifeboat’s profile had changed—the hull was misshapen. Orange and white flecks were detaching themselves from the hull, and a rush of air along a seam blew a line of spray toward the sky.

With a sick feeling Liu realized the hull had been breached, split lengthwise like a rotten melon, and was now spilling its guts.

“Jesus . . .” he heard Crowley murmur next to him. “Oh, Jesus . . .”

He stared in horror at the stoved-in lifeboat. It wasn’t righting itself; it was wallowing sideways, subsiding back in the water, the engine screw uselessly churning the surface, leaving a trail of oil and debris as it fell astern and began to fade away in the gray, storm-tossed seas.

Liu grabbed the VHF and pressed the transmit button. “Bruce! Welch! This is Liu! Respond!

Bruce!”

But there was no answer—as Liu knew there wouldn’t be.

67

ON THE AUXILIARY BRIDGE, LESEUR WAS FACING A TORRENT OF questions.

“The lifeboats!” an officer cried over the others. “What’s happening with the lifeboats?”

LeSeur shook his head. “No word yet. I’m still waiting to hear from Liu and Crowley.”

The chief radio officer spoke up. “I’ve got the

Grenfell

on channel 69.”

LeSeur looked at him. “Fax him on the SSB fax to switch to channel . . . 79.” Maybe choosing an obscure VHF channel to communicate with theGrenfell —channel 79, normally reserved for exchanges between pleasure boats on the Great Lakes—would keep their conversations secret from Mason. He hoped to God she wouldn’t be scanning the VHF channels as a matter of course. She’d already seen, of course, the radar profile of theGrenfell as the ship approached and heard all the chatter on emergency channel 16.

“What’s the rendezvous estimate?” he asked the radio officer.

“Nine minutes.” He paused. “I’ve got the captain of the

Grenfell

on 79, sir.”

LeSeur walked up to the VHF console, slipped on a pair of headphones. He spoke in a low voice. “

Grenfell

, this is First Officer LeSeur, acting commander of the

Britannia

. Do you have a plan?”

“This is a tough one,

Britannia,

but we’ve got a couple of ideas.”

“We’ve got one chance to do this. We’re faster than you by at least ten knots, and once we’re past, that’s it.”

“Understood. We’ve got on board a BO-105 utility chopper, which we could use to bring you some shaped explosives we normally use for hull-breaching—”

“At our speed, in this sea and gale conditions, you’ll never land it.”

A silence. “We’re hoping for a window.”

“Unlikely, but have the bird stand by just in case. Next idea?”

“We were thinking that, on our pass, we could hook the

Britannia

with our towing winch and try to pull her off course.”

“What kind of winch?”

“A seventy-ton electrohydraulic towing winch with a 40mm wire rope—”

“That would snap like a string.”

“It probably would. Another option would be to drop a buoy and tow the wire across your course, hoping to foul your propellers.”

“There’s no way a 40mm wire rope could stop four 21.5-megawatt screws. Don’t you carry fast rescue craft?”

“Unfortunately, there’s no way we can launch our two fast rescue craft in these seas. And in any case there’s no way we can come alongside to board or evacuate, because we can’t keep up with you.”

“Any other ideas?”

A pause. “That’s all we’ve been able to come up with.”

“Then we’ll have to go with my plan,” LeSeur said.

“Shoot.”

“You’re an icebreaker, am I right?” “Well, theGrenfell ’s an ice-strengthened ship, but she’s not a true icebreaker. We sometimes do icebreaking duties such as harbor breakouts.”

“Good enough.

Grenfell

, I want you to chart a course that will take you across our bow—in such a way as to shear it off.”

A silence, and then the reply came. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I read you,

Britannia

.”

“You read me fine. The idea is, by opening selected bulkhead hatches we can flood forward compartments one, two, and three. That will put us down by the head enough to lift our screws almost out of the water. TheBritannia will be DIW.”

“You’re asking me to

ram

you? Good God, have you lost your mind? There’s a good chance I’d sink my own vessel!”

“It’s the only way. If you approach head-on just a few points off our starboard side, moving not too fast—say, five to eight knots—then, just before contact, back one screw hard while engaging your bow thrusters, you could shear off our bows with your reinforced forward hullplates, swing free, and we would pass clear of each other on the starboard side. It’d be close, but it would work. That is, if you’ve got the helmsmanship to pull it off.”

“I’ve got to check with Command.”

“We’ve got five minutes to our CPA rendezvous,

Grenfell

. You known damn well you’re not going to get clearance in time. Look, do you have the knackers to do this or not? That’s the real question.”

A long silence.

“All right,

Britannia

. We’ll give it a try.”

68

CONSTANCE’S EYES FLEW OPEN, HER WHOLE BODY JERKING ITSELF awake with a muffled cry. The universe came rushing back—the ship, the rolling room, the splatter of the rain, the booming seas and moaning of the wind.

She stared at the

dgongs

. It lay in an untidy coil around an ancient scrap of crumpled silk. It had been untied—for real.

She looked at Pendergast, aghast. Even as she stared, his head rose slightly and his eyes came back to life, silvery irises glittering in the candlelight. A strange smile spread across his face. “You broke the meditation, Constance.”

“You were trying . . . to

drag

me into the fire,” she gasped.

“Naturally.”

She felt a wash of despair. Instead of pulling him out of darkness, she had almost been pulled in herself. “I was trying to free you from your earthly fetters,” he said.

“Free me,” she repeated bitterly.

“Yes. To become what you will: free of the chains of sentiment, morality, principles, honor, virtue, and all those petty things that contrive to keep us enchained in the human slave-galley with everyone else, rowing ourselves nowhere.”

“And that’s what the Agozyen has done to you,” she said. “Stripped away all moral and ethical inhibitions. Let your darkest, most sociopathic desires run rampant. That’s what it offered me as well.”

Pendergast rose and extended his hand. She did not take it.

“You untied the knot,” she said.

He spoke, his voice low and strangely vibrant with triumph. “I didn’t touch it. Ever.”