The Wheel of Darkness Page 26

  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 the Britannia’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 CCGS Sir 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 be some 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 h
e 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.