Grenfell
on channel 69.”
LeSeur looked at him. “Fax him on the SSB fax to switch to channel . . . 79.” Maybe choosing an obscure VHF channel to communicate with theGrenfell —channel 79, normally reserved for exchanges between pleasure boats on the Great Lakes—would keep their conversations secret from Mason. He hoped to God she wouldn’t be scanning the VHF channels as a matter of course. She’d already seen, of course, the radar profile of theGrenfell as the ship approached and heard all the chatter on emergency channel 16.
“What’s the rendezvous estimate?” he asked the radio officer.
“Nine minutes.” He paused. “I’ve got the captain of the
Grenfell
on 79, sir.”
LeSeur walked up to the VHF console, slipped on a pair of headphones. He spoke in a low voice. “
Grenfell
, this is First Officer LeSeur, acting commander of the
Britannia
. Do you have a plan?”
“This is a tough one,
Britannia,
but we’ve got a couple of ideas.”
“We’ve got one chance to do this. We’re faster than you by at least ten knots, and once we’re past, that’s it.”
“Understood. We’ve got on board a BO-105 utility chopper, which we could use to bring you some shaped explosives we normally use for hull-breaching—”
“At our speed, in this sea and gale conditions, you’ll never land it.”
A silence. “We’re hoping for a window.”
“Unlikely, but have the bird stand by just in case. Next idea?”
“We were thinking that, on our pass, we could hook the
Britannia
with our towing winch and try to pull her off course.”
“What kind of winch?”
“A seventy-ton electrohydraulic towing winch with a 40mm wire rope—”
“That would snap like a string.”
“It probably would. Another option would be to drop a buoy and tow the wire across your course, hoping to foul your propellers.”
“There’s no way a 40mm wire rope could stop four 21.5-megawatt screws. Don’t you carry fast rescue craft?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no way we can launch our two fast rescue craft in these seas. And in any case there’s no way we can come alongside to board or evacuate, because we can’t keep up with you.”
“Any other ideas?”
A pause. “That’s all we’ve been able to come up with.”
“Then we’ll have to go with my plan,” LeSeur said.
“Shoot.”
“You’re an icebreaker, am I right?” “Well, theGrenfell ’s an ice-strengthened ship, but she’s not a true icebreaker. We sometimes do icebreaking duties such as harbor breakouts.”
“Good enough.
Grenfell
, I want you to chart a course that will take you across our bow—in such a way as to shear it off.”
A silence, and then the reply came. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I read you,
Britannia
.”
“You read me fine. The idea is, by opening selected bulkhead hatches we can flood forward compartments one, two, and three. That will put us down by the head enough to lift our screws almost out of the water. TheBritannia will be DIW.”
“You’re asking me to
ram
you? Good God, have you lost your mind? There’s a good chance I’d sink my own vessel!”
“It’s the only way. If you approach head-on just a few points off our starboard side, moving not too fast—say, five to eight knots—then, just before contact, back one screw hard while engaging your bow thrusters, you could shear off our bows with your reinforced forward hullplates, swing free, and we would pass clear of each other on the starboard side. It’d be close, but it would work. That is, if you’ve got the helmsmanship to pull it off.”
“I’ve got to check with Command.”
“We’ve got five minutes to our CPA rendezvous,
Grenfell
. You known damn well you’re not going to get clearance in time. Look, do you have the knackers to do this or not? That’s the real question.”
A long silence.
“All right,
Britannia
. We’ll give it a try.”
68
CONSTANCE’S EYES FLEW OPEN, HER WHOLE BODY JERKING ITSELF awake with a muffled cry. The universe came rushing back—the ship, the rolling room, the splatter of the rain, the booming seas and moaning of the wind.
She stared at the
dgongs
. It lay in an untidy coil around an ancient scrap of crumpled silk. It had been untied—for real.
She looked at Pendergast, aghast. Even as she stared, his head rose slightly and his eyes came back to life, silvery irises glittering in the candlelight. A strange smile spread across his face. “You broke the meditation, Constance.”
“You were trying . . . to
drag
me into the fire,” she gasped.
“Naturally.”
She felt a wash of despair. Instead of pulling him out of darkness, she had almost been pulled in herself. “I was trying to free you from your earthly fetters,” he said.
“Free me,” she repeated bitterly.
“Yes. To become what you will: free of the chains of sentiment, morality, principles, honor, virtue, and all those petty things that contrive to keep us enchained in the human slave-galley with everyone else, rowing ourselves nowhere.”
“And that’s what the Agozyen has done to you,” she said. “Stripped away all moral and ethical inhibitions. Let your darkest, most sociopathic desires run rampant. That’s what it offered me as well.”
Pendergast rose and extended his hand. She did not take it.
“You untied the knot,” she said.
He spoke, his voice low and strangely vibrant with triumph. “I didn’t touch it. Ever.”
“But then how . . . ?”
“I untied it
with my mind
.”
She continued to stare. “That’s impossible.”
“It is not only possible, but it happened, as you can see.”
“The meditation failed. You’re the same.”
“The meditation worked , my dear Constance. I have changed—enormously. Thanks to your insistence that we do this, I have now fully realized the power given to me by the Agozyen. The power of pure thought—of mind over matter. I’ve tapped into an immense reservoir of power, and so can you.” His eyes were glittering, passionate. “This is an extraordinary demonstration of the Agozyen mandala and its ability to transform the human mind and human thought into a tool of colossal power.”
Constance stared at him, a creeping feeling of horror in her heart.
“You wanted to bring me back,” he continued. “You wanted to restore me to my old, conflicted, foolish self. But instead, you brought me forward. You opened the door. And now, my dear Constance, it’s your turn to be freed. Remember our little agreement?”
She couldn’t speak.
“That’s right. It is now your turn to gaze upon the Agozyen.”
Still, she hesitated.
“As you wish.” He rose and grabbed the neck of the canvas sack. “I’m through looking after you.” He moved toward the door, not looking at her, hoisting the sack onto his shoulder.
With a shock, she realized he had no more regard for her than for anyone else. “Wait—” she began.
A scream from beyond the door cut her off. The door flew open and Marya came backing in. Beyond, Constance caught a glimpse of something gray and unevenly textured moving toward them.
Where did that smoke come from? Is the ship on fire?
Pendergast dropped the sack and stared, taking a step backward. Constance was surprised to see a look of shock, even fear, on his face.
It
blocked the door. Marya screamed again, the thing enveloping he
r, muffling her screams.
As the thing came through the door, it was backlit for a moment by a lamp in the entryway, and with a sense of growing unreality Constance saw a strange, roiling presence deep within the smoke, with two bloodshot eyes, a third one on its forehead—a demonic creature jerking and moving and heaving itself along as if crippled . . . or perhapsdancing . . .
Marya screamed a third time and fell to the floor with a crash of breaking glass, her eyes rolling and jittering in her head, convulsing. The thing was now past her, filling the salon with a damp chill and the stench of rotting fungus, backing Pendergast into a corner—and then it was on him,in him, swallowing him, and he issued a muffled cry of such raw terror, such agonizing despair, that it froze Constance to the marrow.
69
LESEUR STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWDED AUX BRIDGE, staring at the S-band radar image of the approaching ship. It loomed ever larger, a phosphorescent shape expanding dead ahead on the radar screen. The Doppler readout indicated a combined closing speed of thirty-seven knots.
“Two thousand five hundred yards and closing,” said the second officer. LeSeur made a quick mental calculation: two minutes to contact.
He glanced at the more sensitive X-band, but it was awash with sea return and rain scatter. Quietly and quickly, he’d briefed the rest of the officers on his plan. He knew it was at least possible Mason had heard everything he’d said to the captain of theGrenfell : there was no failsafe way to block communications on the main bridge. But either way, once theGrenfell made its move, theBritannia would be hard pressed to respond.
Chief Engineer Halsey came up to his side. “I have the estimates you asked for.” He spoke in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
So it’s that bad,
thought LeSeur. He withdrew Halsey to one side.
“These figures,” said Halsey, “are based on a direct collision with the center of the shoal, which is what we anticipate.”
“Tell me quickly.” “Given the force of that impact, we estimate the death rate at thirty to fifty percent—with almost all the rest seriously injured: broken limbs, contusions, concussions.”
“Understood.”
“With its draft of thirty-three feet, the Britannia will make initial contact with a small shoal some distance from the main portion of the reef. By the time the ship is stopped by the main rocks, it will already be ripped open from stem to stern. All the watertight compartments and bulkheads will be breached. Estimated sinking time is less than three minutes.”
LeSeur swallowed. “Is there a chance it might hang up on the rocks?”
“There’s a steep dropoff. The stern of the ship will pull it off and down—fast.”
“Dear Jesus.”
“Given the extent of injury and death, and the speed with which the Britannia will sink, there won’t be time to institute any procedures for abandoning ship. That means nobody aboard at the time of collision has any chance of survival. That includes”—he hesitated, glancing around—“personnel remaining on the auxiliary bridge.”
“ Fifteen hundred yards and closing,” said the second officer, his eyes fixed on the radar. Sweat was streaming down his face. The aux bridge had gone silent, everyone staring at the looming green blob on the radar scope.
LeSeur had debated whether to issue a general order warning passengers and crew to brace themselves, but he had decided against it. For one thing, using the PA would tip their hand to Mason. But more importantly, if theGrenfell did the job right, the force of the lateral impact across the bow would be mostly absorbed by the enormous mass of theBritannia . It would be a jolt that might startle the passengers, or at worst jar a few off their feet. But he had to take the risk.
“
Twelve hundred yards.
”
70
ROGER MAYLES HEARD RUNNING FOOTSTEPS AND PRESSED HIMSELF into a cul-de-sac on Deck 9. A gaggle of passengers ran by shouting, gesticulating, on God knows what senseless, hysterical mission. In one sweaty hand he clutched a magnetic key that he kneaded and rubbed incessantly, like a worry-stone. With the other, he removed a flask and took a long slug of single-malt whisky—eighteen-year-old Macallan—and slipped it back into his pocket. His eye was already beginning to swell from the blow he’d received during a tussle with a hysterical passenger back in Oscar’s: it felt like someone was pumping air into it, making it tighter and tighter. Blood flecked his white shirt and dinner jacket from a bloody nose that had yet to stop leaking. He must look an absolute fright.
He checked his watch. Thirty minutes to impact, if the information he’d received was correct: and he had every reason to believe it was. He checked again to see if the hall was still clear, then staggered out of the cul-de-sac. He had to avoid passengers at all costs. It wasLord of the Flies time on board theBritannia , every man for himself, and nobody descended into brutish behavior quicker than a bunch of rich assholes.
He made his way carefully down the Deck 9 corridor. Although there was nobody in sight, the distant screams, yells, pleas, and agonized sobbing were omnipresent. He couldn’t believe that the ship’s officers and security had virtually disappeared, leaving hospitality staff like himself at the mercy of these rampaging passengers. He had heard nothing, received no instructions. It was clear there was no plan to deal with a disaster of this scale. The ship was absolute bedlam, with no information to be had, the wildest rumors spreading like a brush fire in high wind.
Mayles slipped down the hall, the key clutched in his palm. It was his ticket out of this madhouse and he was going to spend it right now. He wasn’t going to end up being one of forty-three hundred people ground to mincemeat when the ship ripped its guts open on the Grand Banks’ worst shoal. The lucky ones who survived the impact would live another twenty minutes in the forty-five-degree water before succumbing to hypothermia.
That was one party he wasn’t going to attend, thank you very much.
He took another slug of the whisky and slipped through a door marked by a red exit sign. He ran down a metal staircase, his short legs churning, and paused two landings below to peer into the corridor leading to the half deck where the port lifeboats were housed. While the corridor was again empty, the shouts of frantic, angry passengers were louder on this deck. He couldn’t fathom why they hadn’t launched the boats. He had been part of the lifeboat drills and had ridden on a couple of freefall launches. Those boats were damn near indestructible, dropping into the water while you were safely buckled into a cushioned seat, the ride no rougher than a Disneyland roller-coaster.
As he came around the corner toward the outside half deck, the noise of the crowd increased. Wouldn’t you know it: a bunch of passengers had gathered at the locked lifeboat hatches, pounding and shouting to get in.
There was only one way to the port lifeboats and it was through the crowd. No doubt more frantic passengers had assembled around the starboard lifeboats as well. He advanced, still clutching the key. Maybe no one would recognize him.
“Hey! It’s the cruise director!”
“The cruise director! Hey, you! Mayles!”
The crowd surged toward him. A drunken man, his face afire, grabbed Mayles by the sleeve. “What the hell’s happening? Why aren’t we launching the lifeboats?” He gave his arm a jerk. “Huh? Why not?”
“I don’t know any more than you do!” Mayles cried, his voice high and tense, trying to pull his arm back. “They haven’t told me anything!”
“Bullshit! He’s going to the lifeboats—just like the others did!”
He was seized by another grasping hand and pulled sideways. He heard the cloth of his uniform tear. “Let me through!” Mayles shrilled, struggling forward. “I tell you, I don’t know anything!”
“The hell you don’t!”
“We want the lifeboats! You aren’t going to lock us out this time!” The crowd panicked around him, tugging at him like children fighting over a doll. With a loud rending noise, his sleeve came away from his shirt.
> “Let go!” he pleaded.
“You bastards aren’t going to leave us to sink!”
“They already launched the lifeboats, that’s why there’s no crew to be seen!”
“Is that true, you asshole?”
“I’ll let you in,” Mayles cried, terrified, holding up the key, “if you’ll just leave me alone!”
The crowd paused, digesting this. Then: “He said he’d let us in!”
“You heard him!
Let us in!”
The crowd pushed him forward, suddenly expectant, calmer. With a trembling hand Mayles stuck the key in the lock, threw the door open, jumped though, then spun and tried to quickly shut it behind him. It was a futile effort. The crowd poured through, knocking him aside.
He scrambled to his feet. The roar of the sea and the bellowing of the wind hit him full in the face. Great patches of intermittent fog scudded over the waves, but in the gaps Mayles could see black, angry, foaming ocean. Masses of spray swept across the inside deck, immediately soaking him to the skin. He spied Liu and Crowley standing by the launch control panel, along with a man he recognized as a banking executive, staring at the crowd in disbelief. Emily Dahlberg, the meatpacking heiress, was beside them. The knot of passengers rushed toward the first available boat, and Liu and Crowley quickly moved to stop them, along with the banker. The air grew thick with shouting and screaming, and the horrifying sound of fists impacting flesh. Crowley’s radio went skipping and spinning across the deck and out of sight.
The Wheel of Darkness p-8 Page 33