The Wheel of Darkness Page 29

  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. We need 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 be liberated. And he, above all others, was in the perfect position to liberate it. He had the capital, the savvy, and—above all—the technology. 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 the Britannia 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 . . . and moderate 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 Agozyen yourself. 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 the Britannia 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 the Britannia’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 the Britannia’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.”