The Wheel of Darkness

by Douglas Preston

  “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.”