The Wheel of Darkness p-8

by Douglas Preston;Lincoln Child

  For a second, LeSeur stood motionless, staring at the screen in surprise and disbelief. Then he grabbed the radio, punched in the frequency for the guards posted outside the bridge. “LeSeur to bridge security, what the hell’s going on up there?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” came the reply. “But the Level Three alert’s been lifted. The security locks on the bridge hatch just disengaged.”

  “Then what the hell are you waiting for?” he screamed. “Get in there and turn hard aport,

  hard aport, you son of a bitch, now, now, now

  !”

  77

  EMILY DAHLBERG HAD LEFT THE AUXILIARY BRIDGE AND, AS ordered, was making her way back to her cabin. The ship was still proceeding at what seemed like full speed. She descended a staircase to Deck 9, walked along a corridor, and emerged again onto a balcony overlooking the highest level of the Grand Atrium.

  She paused, shocked at the sight that greeted her eyes. The water had drained away into the lower decks, leaving a tangled wreckage of sodden and broken furniture, wires, seaweed, wood paneling, ripped-up carpet, broken glass, and—here and there—a motionless body. The place stank of seawater.

  She knew she had to get to her cabin and brace for the collision. She’d listened to the argument on the auxiliary bridge, heard the announcement over the PA system. But it occurred to her that her cabin, here on Deck 9, might not be a good place to be. It seemed a better place might be on one of the lower weather decks, near the stern, where she would be farthest from the point of impact and could perhaps jump into the sea afterward. It was, of course, a pathetic hope, but at least it seemed a better risk than being trapped in a cabin a hundred and twenty feet above the water.

  She ran down a set of stairs, descending another eight levels, then stepped through an archway and began picking her way sternward, through the sodden debris littering the floor of the Grand Atrium. The elegant wallpaper of the King’s Arms restaurant was stained and darkened, with an encircling line of kelp showing the high-water level. She passed the ruined piano, looking away when she noticed one crushed leg protruding heavily from the sound box.

  With everyone in their cabins, the ship seemed strangely still, unpopulated and ghostlike. But then she heard a sound nearby—a sobbing—and, turning, noticed a bedraggled boy of perhaps eleven years old, shirtless, soaking wet, crouching amid a scatter of debris. Her heart swelled with pity.

  She made her way over to him. “Hello, young man,” she said, trying to keep her tone as light and as even as possible.

  He stared at her and she extended a hand. “Come with me. I’ll take you out of here. My name is Emily.” The boy took her hand and she helped him to his feet, then took off her jacket and placed it around his shoulders. He was shaking with terror. She put an arm around him. “Where’s your family?”

  “My mum and dad,” he began in an English accent. “I can’t find them.”

  “Lean on me. I’ll help you. We don’t have much time.”

  He gave one more gulping sob and she hustled him out of the Grand Atrium, past the Regent Street shops—shuttered and deserted—and then along the side corridor leading to the weather deck. She stopped at an emergency station for two sets of life vests, which they put on. Then she led the way over to the hatch.

  “Where are we going?” the boy asked.

  “Outside, onto the deck. It’ll be safer there.”

  Within moments of opening the hatchway and helping the boy step out, she found herself drenched by wind-driven spray. Above, she could see airplanes, circling uselessly. Keeping a tight hold on the boy’s hand, she made her way to the rail, preparing to head aft along the deck. The engines screamed and throbbed, shaking the ship like a terrier shaking a rat.

  She turned back, looking at the boy. “Let’s go—” she began. Then the words died in her throat. Over the boy’s shoulder, ahead of theBritannia ’s bow, she could see a line of leaping white surf thrown up against a dead-black row of huge, tooth-like rocks. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. The boy turned and stared. The wall of death was approaching at high speed. There would be no time to reach the stern, no time to do anything but brace for the impact.

  The boom of the surf against the rocks reached her, a deep vibration that seemed to thrum through her body. She put her arms around the boy. “Let’s just stay here,” she said breathlessly. “We’ll crouch down against the wall.”

  They took shelter against the superstructure, the boy, now crying again, bundled in her arms. A scream sounded from somewhere above her, a forlorn sound like a lost seagull.

  If she had to die, at least she would die with dignity, with another human being in her arms. She held the boy’s head against her chest, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

  And then the sound of the engine changed. The ship heeled over with a new motion. Her eyes flew open, almost afraid to hope. But it was true—the ship was beginning to turn. Rising, she brought the boy back to the rail, hardly believing her eyes as the booming line of surf edged closer, yet not quite as fast now. As the ship continued to yaw, the steepening groundswell pounded the hull, throwing up sheet after sheet of water, but in between them she could see the black rocks swinging past the bow—turning, turning—and then they were running parallel and the monstrous line of surf passed on the starboard side, the nearest rocks almost close enough to touch as they ran past, the ship’s hull slamming through the steep-walled waves.

  And then, suddenly, the last moiling tooth fell aft, the boom of the surf faded, and the ship headed on, noticeably slower now. And over the whine of the engines and the wrack of the surf, she could hear another sound now: the sound of cheers.

  “Well,” she said, turning to the boy. “Shall we go find your mum and dad?” And as she walked back to the hatch on shaking legs, Emily Dahlberg allowed herself a small smile of relief.

  78

  SCOTT BLACKBURN SAT, CROSS-LEGGED, IN THE RUINS OF THE PENShurst Triplex. The stateroom salon was a perfect whirlwind of destruction—rare china, precious crystal, exquisite oil paintings, jade and marble sculptures—now so much bric-a-brac, lying strewn about and piled up against one wall in a tangled, broken heap.

  Blackburn was oblivious to it all. Throughout the crisis, he had taken shelter in a closet with his precious, his most prized, hisonly possession, cradling it and protecting it from any harm. And now that the worst had passed and they were headed into port—as he’d always known they would—he had lovingly replaced it on its golden hook in his salon.

  His possession—that was wrong. Because, if anything, it possessed

  him

  .

  Pulling the monastic robes more tightly around his athletic frame, he sat on the floor in front of the Agozyen, assuming the lotus position, never once allowing his eyes to drift toward the mandala. He was alone, wonderfully alone—his private maid was gone, perhaps dead, for all he knew—and there would be nobody to disturb his communion with the unending and the infinite. His frame shivered in involuntary pleasure at the mere expectation of what was to come. It was like a drug—the most perfect, ecstatic, liberating drug—and he could never get enough of it.

  Soon, the rest of the world would share his need.

  He sat quietly, his heartbeat and mental restlessness slowing in turn. Finally, with a deliberation that was both delicious and maddening, he permitted his head to rise and his eyes to gaze upon the infinite wonder and mystery of the Agozyen.

  But even as he did so, something intruded on his private world. An inexplicable chill caused his limbs to tremble beneath the silken wraps. He realized that a stench was settling over the room—a smell of fungus and the deep woods, completely overpowering the mellow fragrance of the butter candles. Disquiet chased away his feelings of expectation and desire. It was almost as if . . . but no, that wasn’t possible . . .

  In sudden apprehension, he turned to look over his shoulder. And to his transcendental horror and dismay,it was there—not bent on hunting down his enemy, but rather closing in
on him with a hunger and desire that was palpable. He quickly rose to his feet but already it was upon him, penetrating him, filling his limbs and his thoughts alike with its burning, all-consuming need. He reared back with a gargling scream, falling over a side table and crashing to the floor, but already he felt his living essence being sucked from him, pulled relentlessly and utterly into a black and unquiet void from which there was no return . . .

  Soon, quiet once again settled over the Penshurst Triplex. The guttural cries and sounds of struggle faded into the smoky, salt-heavy air. A minute passed, then two. And then the front door to the suite was opened with a passkey. Special Agent Pendergast stepped inside. He paused in the entryway, taking in the scene of devastation with pale eyes. Then, stepping over the clutter of broken objets d’art with the finicky precision of a cat, he made his way into the salon. Scott Blackburn was sprawled across the carpet, motionless, limbs shrunken and contorted into odd angles, as if bones and sinew and viscera had all been sucked from him, leaving a loose, empty sack of skin. Pendergast gave him only the most cursory of glances.

  Stepping over the body, he approached the Agozyen. Taking great care to avert his eyes, he reached out as one might reach toward a poisonous snake. He let the silken shroud fall down over the face of the painting, felt carefully around the edges to ensure that every inch was covered. Then—only then—did he turn to face it, lift it from its golden hook, carefully roll it up, and tuck it under his arm. And then he withdrew silently and swiftly from the suite.

  79

  PATRICK KEMPER, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER OF THE BRITANNIA , STOOD on the bridge and watched Cabot Tower, perched on a bluff at the entrance to St. John’s Harbour, glide past. A dull thudding of rotors sounded as yet another medevac chopper took off from the forecastle with a load of severely injured passengers. The medevac flights had been going continuously since the storm abated and the ship had come within chopper range of the coast. The sound of rotors changed timbre as the helicopter rose, temporarily passing through the bridge’s view, swung round, and disappeared overhead. It was like a war zone on the ship—and Kemper felt like a shell-shocked soldier returning from the front.

  The great ship passed through the Narrows and continued to slow, its two podded screws grinding and shuddering. LeSeur and the St. John’s harbor pilot struggled to maintain control of the now unwieldy ship: stripped of its rotating propulsion pods, theBritannia had all the maneuverability of the floating carcass of a whale. The only berth at St. John’s able to take the vessel was in the container port, and as two assisting tugboats pushed the ship to starboard the long, rust-streaked platform came into view, surrounded by a cluster of giant container cranes. The berth had been hastily vacated by a VLCC, which was now anchored in the harbor.

  As the Britannia continued to turn toward the berth, Kemper saw that the quayside looked like a scene out of a disaster movie. There were dozens of emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks, morgue vans, and police cars ready to receive the dead and injured, a sea of flashing lights and distant sirens.

  Kemper was beyond exhausted. His head pounded and his vision was blurry from lack of sleep and nonstop stress. Now that their ordeal was over, he found himself speculating on the grim aftermath: the Maritime Board of Inquiry hearings, the testimonies, the lawsuits, the relentless press, the shame and the blame. For the first order of the day would be assigning blame. He knew well that he, as chief security officer, along with LeSeur—who was one of the most decent men Kemper had ever worked with—would bear the brunt. They would be lucky to escape criminal charges, especially LeSeur. Cutter had survived, and he would be an implacable enemy.

  He glanced at LeSeur, who was huddled with the harbor pilot over the ECDIS, and wondered what the first officer was thinking. Did he know what lay ahead? Of course he did—he was no fool.

  The Britannia was now moving only under tug power, being eased into its berth. Beyond, above the tower and on the far side of the harbor, he could see the hovering news choppers, kept out of the ship’s airspace but getting in plenty of shots from a distance. No doubt the damaged and limping outline of the Britannia was being broadcast live on millions of television screens at this very moment. It was one of the worst—or at least most bizarre—maritime disasters of recent history.

  He swallowed: he better get used to it. This was going to be his life from now on: Patrick Kemper, chief security officer on the maiden voyage of theBritannia . That’s what he would be known as until long after he was dead. It would be his dubious claim to fame.

  Forcing these thoughts out of his mind, he focused on the ship’s security screens. At least all systems had been stabilized—which was more than he could say for the vessel itself. He could only imagine what it must look like from the quay: the lower port portholes and balconies bashed in by the sea, the starboard side of Deck 6 peeled open like a sardine can by the bridge wing of theGrenfell . The insides were even worse. As they had limped in toward St. John’s, Kemper had done a security inspection of the lower decks. The sea had punched in through every piece of glass on the port side below Deck 4—portholes, plate-glass windows, and balconies alike—the water ripping through the shops, restaurants, casinos, and corridors with the force of a flash flood, smashing and piling everything up in the corners and leaving behind a mess worthy of a hurricane. The lower decks stank of seawater, old food, and dead bodies. He had been horrified to see how many people had been killed or drowned in the flood, their mangled bodies strewn about or wedged horribly among piles of debris, some even dangling from ceiling fixtures. In all, more than one hundred and fifty passengers and crew had lost their lives and nearly a thousand more had been injured.

  The tugs slowly brought the great vessel into position. He could hear, faintly through the bridge windows, the sirens and bullhorns shrieking as the emergency responders geared up to receive the hundreds of injured passengers and crew still on board the ship.

  He wiped his face and ran an eye once more down the security systems panels. He needed to focus on the miracle that most of them were still alive—the miracle that had happened on the bridge just before the Carrion Rocks. The miracle he could not explain, and never would be able to explain.

  The ship began to creep into place alongside the quay. Great hawsers, used as springlines, were dropped on the quay and manhandled over massive bollards by teams of longshoremen. LeSeur broke away from the vector radar. “Mr. Kemper,” he said, his voice the very quintessence of exhaustion, “we will be docked in ten minutes. Please make the announcement we discussed regarding evacuation procedures.”

  Kemper nodded, then keyed up the public address system and spoke into the bridge mike. “ Attention all passengers and crew: the ship will be docking in ten minutes. Seriously injured persons will be evacuated first. Repeat: seriously injured persons will be evacuated first. All others must remain in their staterooms or the Belgravia Theatre and await further instructions. Thank you.”

  Kemper could hear his own voice echoing over the PA system on the bridge, and he hardly recognized it. He sounded like a dead man speaking.

  80

  ALIGHT DRIZZLE OF RAIN FELL FROM THE EARLY MORNING SKY as LeSeur leaned against the teak rail of theBritannia ’s bow, looking back over the enormous vessel. He could see the dark crowds of passengers pressing forward along the decks, and he could hear, drifting up with the rain, their querulous voices as they jockeyed for position before the gangway, every one trying to get off the ship as quickly as possible. Most of the emergency vehicles had left, and now it was time for the uninjured passengers to disembark. Over his shoulder, lined up on the quay, were ranks of buses ready to take people away to area hotels and homes that had been volunteered by Newfoundlanders.

  As the deckhands were preparing to remove the gangway rope, the raised voices of the crew on board mingled with the shrill voices of complaint and threat from the passengers. It amazed LeSeur how these people still had the energy to be outraged. They were damned lucky to be alive.
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br />   Ropes, construction tape, and movable stanchions had been set up in a jerry-rigged effort to direct and manage the efficient processing of the passengers. At the head of the line he could see Kemper, who appeared to be giving his people the final directions on what to do: each passenger had to be identified and photographed—by orders of the RCMP—and directed to their assigned bus. No exceptions.

  They were not going to like it, LeSeur knew. But the corporation had to create some kind of legal record of who had disembarked from the ship if they were ever to sort out the missing from the injured and the healthy. Corporate wanted a photograph, he was told, because they didn’t want healthy passengers later suing for injuries. It was still, even after all that had happened, about money, first, foremost, and last.

  The gate over the gangway was lifted and the dark stream of passengers came rolling down, like a ragged line of refugees. And wouldn’t you know it: the first off was a burly man in a filthy tux, shoving his way past the women and children. He came charging down the ramp, yelling, and in the windless air his voice carried all the way to the bow. “God damn it, I want to talk to the man in charge here! I will not be photographed like some criminal!”