Below the huge row of windows that stretched from port to starboard, a bank of dozens of computer workstations controlled and relayed information about all aspects of the ship and its environment: engines, fire suppression systems, watertight integrity monitors, communications, weather maps, satellite displays, countless others. There were two chart tables, neatly laid out with nautical charts, which nobody seemed to use.
Nobody except him, that is.
LeSeur glanced at his watch: twenty minutes past midnight. He glanced out through the forward windows. The huge ship’s blaze of light illuminated the black ocean for hundreds of yards on all sides, but the sea itself was so far below—fourteen decks—that if it were not for the deep, slow roll of the vessel they might just as well have been atop a skyscraper. Beyond the circle of light lay dark night, the sea horizon barely discernible. Long ago they had passed the slow pulsing of Falmouth Light, and shortly thereafter Penzance Light. Now, open ocean until New York.
The bridge had been fully manned since the Southampton pilot, who had guided the ship out of the channel, had departed. Overmanned, even. All the deck officers wanted to be part of the first leg of the maiden voyage of theBritannia , the greatest ship ever to grace the seven seas.
Carol Mason, the staff captain, spoke to the officer of the watch in a voice as quiet as the bridge itself. “Current state, Mr. Vigo?” It was a pro forma question—the new marine electronics gave the information in continuous readouts for all to see. But Mason was traditional and, above all, punctilious.
“Under way at twenty-seven knots on a course of two five two true, light traffic, sea state three, wind is light and from the port quarter. There is a tidal stream of just over one knot from the northeast.”
One of the bridge wing lookouts spoke to the officer of the watch. “There’s a ship about four points on the starboard bow, sir.”
LeSeur glanced at the ECDIS and saw the echo.
“Have you got it, Mr. Vigo?” asked Mason.
“I’ve been tracking it, sir. It looks like a ULCC, under way at twenty knots, twelve miles off. On a crossing course.”
There was no sense of alarm. LeSeur knew they were the stand-on ship, the ship with the right of way, and there was plenty of time for the give-way ship to alter course.
“Let me know when it alters, Mr. Vigo.”
“Yes, sir.”
It always sounded odd in LeSeur’s ear to hear a female captain addressed as “sir,” although he knew it was standard protocol both in the navy and in civilian shipboard life. There were, after all, so few female captains.
“Barometer still dropping?” Mason asked.
“Half a point in the last thirty minutes.”
“Very good. Maintain present heading.”
LeSeur shot a private glance at the staff captain. Mason never spoke about her age, but he guessed she was forty, maybe forty-one: it was hard to tell sometimes with people who spent their lives at sea. She was tall and statuesque, and attractive in a competent, no-nonsense kind of way. Her face was slightly flushed—perhaps due to the stress of this being her first voyage as staff captain. Her brown hair was short, and she kept it tucked up beneath her captain’s cap. He watched her move across the bridge, glance at a screen or two here, murmur a word to a member of the bridge crew there. In many ways she was the perfect officer: calm and soft-spoken, not dictatorial or petty, demanding without being bossy. She expected a lot of those under her command, but she herself worked harder than anybody. And she exuded a kind of magnetism of reliability and professionalism you found only in the best officers. The crew was devoted to her, and rightly so.
She wasn’t required on the bridge, and nor was he. But all of them had wanted to be here to share in the first night of the maiden voyage and to watch Mason command. By rights, she should have been the master of theBritannia . What had happened to her had been a shame, a real shame. As if on cue, the door to the bridge opened and Commodore Cutter entered. Immediately, the atmosphere in the room changed. Frames tensed; faces became rigid. The officer of the watch assumed a studious expression. Only Mason seemed unaffected. She returned to the navigation console, glanced out through the bridge windows, spoke quietly to the helmsman.
Cutter’s role was—at least in theory—largely ceremonial. He was the public face of the ship, the man the passengers looked up to. To be sure, he was still in charge, but on most ocean liners you rarely saw the captain on the bridge. The actual running of the ship was left to the staff captain.
It was beginning to seem that this voyage would be different.
Commodore Cutter stepped forward. He pivoted on one foot, then—hands clasped behind his back—strode along the bridge, first one way, then back, scrutinizing the monitors. He was a short, impressively built man with iron gray hair and a fleshy face, deeply pink even in the subdued light of the bridge. His uniform was never less than immaculate.
“He’s not altering,” said the officer of the watch to Mason. “CPA nine minutes. He’s on a constant bearing, closing range.”
A light tension began to build.
Mason came over and examined the ECDIS. “Radio, hail him on channel 16.”
“Ship on my starboard bow,” the radio engineer said, “ship on my starboard bow, this is the
Britannia
, do you read?”
Unresponsive static.
“Ship on my starboard bow, are you receiving me?”
A silent minute passed. Cutter remained rooted to the bridge, hands behind his back, saying nothing—just watching.
“He’s still not altering,” said the officer of the watch to Mason. “CPA eight minutes and he’s on a collision course.”
LeSeur was uncomfortably aware that the two ships were approaching at a combined speed of forty-four knots—about fifty miles an hour. If the ULCC supertanker didn’t begin to alter course soon, things would get hairy.
Mason hunched over the ECDIS, scrutinizing it. A sudden feeling of alarm swept the bridge. It reminded LeSeur of what one of his officers in the Royal Navy had told him:Sailing is ninety percent boredom and ten percent terror. There was no in-between state. He glanced over at Cutter, whose face was unreadable, and then at Mason, who remained cool.
“What the hell are they doing?” the officer of the watch said.
“Nothing,” said Mason dryly. “That’s the problem.” She stepped forward. “Mr. Vigo, I’ll take the conn for the avoidance maneuver.”
Vigo retired to one side, evident relief on his face.
She turned to the helmsman. “Wheel aport twenty degrees.”
“Aye, wheel aport twenty—”
Suddenly Cutter spoke, interrupting the helmsman’s confirmation of the order. “Captain Mason, we’re the stand-on ship.”
Mason straightened up from the ECDIS. “Yes, sir. But that ULCC has almost zero maneuverability, and it may have passed the point where—”
“
Captain Mason, I repeat:
we are the stand-on ship.
”
There was a tense silence on the bridge. Cutter turned to the helmsman. “Steady on two five two.”
“Aye, sir, steady on two five two.”
LeSeur could see the lights of the tanker on the starboard bow, growing brighter. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead. It was true that they had the clear right of way and that the other ship should give way, but sometimes you had to adjust to reality. They were probably on autopilot and busy with other things. God knows, they might be in the wardroom watching porn flicks or passed out drunk on the floor.
“Sound the whistle,” said Cutter.
The great whistle of the Britannia, audible over fifteen miles, cut like a deep bellow across the night sea. Five blasts—the danger signal. Both bridge lookouts were at their stations, peering ahead with binoculars. The tension grew excruciating.
Cutter leaned into the bridge VHF repeater. “Ship crossing on my starboard bow, this is the
Britannia
The hiss of an empty frequency.
The whistle sounded again. The lights on the ULCC had resolved themselves to individual points. LeSeur could even see the faint bar of light of the tanker’s bridge.
“Captain,” said Mason, “I’m not sure that even if they altered now—”
“CPA four minutes,” said the officer of the watch.
LeSeur thought, with utter disbelief,
Bloody hell, we’re going to collide.
The silence of dread descended on the bridge. The
Britannia
sounded the danger signal again.
“He’s altering to starboard,” said the lookout. “He’s altering, sir!”
The whistle of the ULCC sounded across the water, three short blasts indicating it was backing down in an emergency maneuver.
About frigging time
, thought LeSeur.
“Steady on,” said Cutter.
LeSeur stared at the ECDIS. With excruciating slowness the ARPA vector radar overlay recalculated the ULCC’s heading. With a flood of relief, he realized they were moving out of danger; the ULCC would pass to starboard. There was a palpable relaxation on the bridge, a murmur of voices, a few muttered curses.
Cutter turned to the staff captain, utterly unperturbed. “Captain Mason, may I ask why you reduced speed to twenty-four knots?”
“There’s heavy weather ahead, sir,” Mason replied. “Company standing orders state that on the first night out, passengers are to be acclimated to the open sea by—”
“I know what the standing orders say,” Cutter interrupted. He had a slow, quiet voice that was somehow immeasurably more intimidating than bluster. He turned to the helmsman. “Increase speed to thirty knots.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the helmsman said, his voice dead neutral. “Increasing speed to thirty knots.”
“Mr. Vigo, you may resume the watch.”
“Aye, sir.”
Cutter continued staring at Mason. “Speaking of the standing orders, it has come to my attention that one of the officers of this ship was seen leaving the stateroom of a passenger earlier this evening.”
He paused, letting the moment build.
“Whether or not there was a sexual liaison is irrelevant. We all know the rules regarding fraternization with passengers.”
With his hands behind his back, he made a slow turn, looking into each officer’s face in turn, before ending with Mason.
“May I remind you that this is not the Love Boat. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Let the passengers be responsible for their own indiscretions; my crew must not indulge themselves in this way.”
LeSeur was startled to see that the flush on Mason’s face had deepened considerably.
Couldn’t be her,
he thought.
She’s the last one who would break the rules.
The door to the bridge opened and Patrick Kemper, the chief security officer, stepped in. Seeing Cutter, he moved toward him. “Sir, I—”
“Not now,” Cutter said. Kemper stopped, fell silent.
On every large cruise ship LeSeur had served on, the captain’s prime responsibilities were to schmooze with the passengers, preside over long, jolly dinners at the captain’s table, and be the public face of the ship. The staff captain, while nominally second in command, was the chief operating officer. But Cutter had a reputation for disdaining the glad-handing duties, and it appeared he was going to carry this habit into his first captaincy. He was an officer of the old school, a former commodore in the Royal Navy from a titled family, who LeSeur suspected had been advanced somewhat beyond his competencies. A few years before, the captaincy of theOlympia had gone to Cutter’s most bitter rival, and it had stuck in his craw ever since. He’d pulled strings in high places to get command of theBritannia —which should by rights have gone to Mason—and now his intentions were obvious. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure this maiden voyage was the crossing of his career—including breaking theOlympia ’s own fastest crossing, set just the year before. Rough weather would have no effect on him, LeSeur thought grimly, other than to steel his resolve. Cruise ships fled weather; but an ocean liner, areal ocean liner, toughed it out.
LeSeur glanced at Mason. She was looking ahead through the forward windows, calm and poised; the only hint of something amiss was the rapidly disappearing flush. So far, through the shakedown cruise and today’s departure, she’d taken the commodore’s heavy- handedness and second-guessing with equanimity and grace. Even being passed over as master of theBritannia seemed not to have ruffled her feathers. Perhaps she’d gotten used to the high-seas chauvinism and developed a thick skin. The captaincies of the great ships seemed to be one of the last male bastions in the civilized world. She was no doubt aware of the unspoken rule: in the passenger ship business, the so-called teak ceiling remained: no matter how competent, a woman would never make master of one of the great liners.
“Speed under the hull thirty knots, sir,” the helmsman said.
Cutter nodded and turned to the chief security officer. “All right, Mr. Kemper, what is it?”
The small, bulletlike man spoke. Despite his heavy Boston accent and inescapable American-ness, LeSeur thought of Kemper as a kindred soul. Maybe it was because they both came from working-class neighborhoods in port cities on the Atlantic. Kemper had once been a cop, shot a drug dealer who was about to pull the hammer on his partner, become a hero—but left the force anyway. Couldn’t deal with it, apparently. Still, he was a bloody good security officer, even if he did lack self-confidence. LeSeur guessed that lack was one of the by- products of killing a man.
“Captain, we’ve got an issue in casino operations.”
Cutter turned away from Kemper and spoke to the man as if he weren’t there. “Mr. Kemper, the casinos are incidental to the operation of ship. The first officer will handle it.” Without even glancing at LeSeur, he turned to the officer of the watch. “Call me if you need me, Mr. Vigo.” He strode crisply across the bridge and disappeared through the door.
“ ‘This is not the Love Boat,’ ” LeSeur muttered. “What a prig.”
Mason said crisply, but not unkindly, “Commodore Cutter was correct to say what he did.”
“Yes, sir.” LeSeur turned to Kemper with a friendly smile. “All right, Mr. Kemper, let’s hear about the problem in the casino.”
“It seems we got a bunch of card counters working the blackjack tables.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“First Mayfair was down two hundred thousand pounds, and then Covent Garden dropped by a hundred thousand.”
LeSeur felt a slight twinge: this was just the kind of thing that would really steam Corporate. “Did you identify them?”
“Obviously, we know who the winners are, but we don’t know who’s just lucky and who’s counting. They work as a team: players and counters. The counters don’t play—they watch and signal their players. As you know, they’re the brains.”
“I don’t know, actually. Not a coincidence?”
“Not likely. Hentoff’s worried they might be like that team of MIT students a few years back who took Vegas for three million.”
The sick feeling in the pit of LeSeur’s stomach deepened. The Britannia, he knew, wasn’t Las Vegas, where you could give a chap the bum’s rush if you caught him counting cards. These were paying passengers. And passenger ship companies relied heavily on gambling profits: a row in the casino might discourage other passengers from gambling. But something had to be done. A successful maiden voyage into New York with a fanfare of adoring publicity wouldn’t matter a damn to Corporate if there were huge losses in the casino. It was about money—first, last, and always.
“What do you propose we do about it?” he asked.
“Well, sir. There was this . . .” Kemper hesitated. “Thisunusual passenger. A rich guy who styles himself a private investigator. He’s the on
e first spotted the card-counting operation. He’s offered to help identify the individuals involved.”
“In return for what?”
“Well, you see . . .” Kemper stammered a moment. “It appears he’s on board to track down an artifact he claims was stolen from a client of his. If we give him some information on his suspects, he’ll help us with the card counters . . .” His voice trailed off.
“For all we know,” said LeSeur briskly, “this might be a coincidence and we’ll be up a hundred thousand pounds in Mayfair by the end of the night. Let’s wait a few more hours, see if the losses continue. Whatever you do, please deal with itquietly . No melodrama.”
“Right, sir.”
The Wheel of Darkness p-8 Page 10
