The Wheel of Darkness

by Douglas Preston

  At the door, Pendergast took a swig of bourbon from a silver hip flask, let it linger briefly in his mouth, then swallowed it, opened the door, and slipped through. He found himself in what seemed like the teeth of a gale. The wind blasted him full in the face, pulling his tie from beneath his jacket and whipping it out behind him. Even though he was eight levels above the surface of the ocean, the air was full of atomized spray. It took him a moment to realize this wasn’t entirely due to the approaching storm; the ship was moving at over thirty miles an hour, which even on a windless sea created its own gale on any exposed deck. It was as the first officer, LeSeur, had said: A cruise ship will run away from a storm. We don’t divert—we just plough right through.

  He saw his target standing at the rail about fifty yards off, in the lee. Pendergast strode forward, his hand raised in jovial greeting.

  “Jason? Jason Lambe?”

  The man turned. “What?” His face looked green.

  Pendergast surged toward him, seized his hand. “By God, it is you! I thought I recognized you at dinner! How the hell are you?” He pumped his hand, clasping the man’s left in an enthusiastic greeting, drawing him close.

  “Uh, fine.” Jason Lambe did not look at all fine. “Excuse me, but do I know you?”

  “Pendergast! Aloysius Pendergast! P.S. 84, Riverdale!” Pendergast clapped an arm around the man’s shoulders, gave an affectionate squeeze while breathing heavily in his face, giving him a good dose of bourbon-breath. Lambe seemed to freeze, flinching and making an effort to disentangle himself from the obnoxious, clinging embrace.

  “I don’t remember any Pendergast,” he said dubiously.

  “Come on! Jason, think back to the old days! Glee club, varsity basketball!” Another squeeze, harder this time.

  Lambe had had enough. With a strenuous effort, he tried to twist from the agent’s limpet-like grasp.

  “Getting senile in your old age, Jason?” Pendergast gave Lambe’s upper arm an affectionate grope.

  Lambe finally wrenched himself free, shook off his hand, and took a step back. “Look, Pendergast, why don’t you head back to your cabin and sober up? I don’t have the slightest idea who you are.”

  “Is that any way to treat an old buddy?” Pendergast whined.

  “Let me make it even plainer. Fuck off, pal.” Lambe brushed past him and headed back inside, still looking seasick.

  Pendergast leaned on the rail, shaking briefly with silent mirth. After a moment he straightened up, cleared his throat, adjusted his suit and tie, wiped his hands with a silk hankie, and, with a disdainful frown, dusted himself off with a few flicks of his manicured fingers. He then took a stroll around the deck. The rolling motion of the ship was still more pronounced, and he bent into the wind as he headed forward, one hand on the rail.

  He glanced overhead at the rows of balconies above him, all empty. It seemed a supreme irony: the bulk of the Britannia’s passengers paid a hefty premium to obtain a balconied suite, but because of the extraordinary speed of the ship they were next to impossible to use.

  It was the work of almost ten minutes to stroll the length of the ship. At last he paused in the relative calm of the stern. He walked to the rail and looked out over the roiling wakes: four lines of white froth subsumed into an angry ocean. The spray and spume raised by the wind and sea had started to congeal into a light mist, wrapping the ship in an eerie, damp shroud.

  The ship’s horn gave a mournful blast and Pendergast turned, leaning thoughtfully against the rail. On the decks above him, twenty-seven hundred passengers were housed in luxurious surroundings. And far below his feet, in the deep spaces below the waterline, were the quarters of the sixteen hundred men and women whose job it was to cater to those passengers’ every whim.

  Over four thousand people—and among them was a bizarre murderer and the mysterious object he had killed to possess.

  In the shelter of the lee, Pendergast removed the list from his pocket, slipped out a fountain pen, and slowly drew a line through the name of Jason Lambe. His assessment of the man’s physical condition—which he had examined rather thoroughly under the pretext of the drunken reunion—assured him that Lambe’s sticklike arms and puny frame could not have overwhelmed Ambrose, let alone committed an act of such savage violence.

  Six more to go.

  The horn sounded again. As it did, Pendergast paused. Then he straightened up, listening intently. For an instant, he thought he had heard another cry, superimposed over the shriek of the horn. He waited, listening, for several minutes. But there was nothing save the rushing of the wind. Wrapping his dinner jacket tightly around himself, he made his way toward the entrance hatchway and the welcoming warmth of the ship. It was time to retire for the night.

  18

  A DIRTY SUN STRUGGLED UP THROUGH THE MISTS LYING ON THE eastern horizon, the watery rays of dawn flooding the ship with yellow light. First officer Gordon LeSeur stepped out of the Admiral’s Club and walked down the plushly carpeted starboard corridor of Deck 10. A few passengers were standing at the elevator bank and he greeted them good morning with a cheerful hello. They nodded back, looking a little green around the gills. LeSeur, who had not been seasick in over twenty years, tried to feel sympathetic but found it difficult. When passengers got seasick, they got cranky. And this morning they were bloody cranky.

  For a brief moment, he indulged himself in nostalgia for the Royal Navy. Normally a cheerful, easygoing bloke, he was getting weary of the flashy cruise ship lifestyle—especially the antics of spoiled passengers desperate to “get their money’s worth,” indulging themselves in an orgy of eating and drinking, gambling and bonking. And these American passengers always made the same asinine comment about him looking like Paul McCartney. Wanting to know if he was related to Paul McCartney. He was no more related to McCartney than Queen Elizabeth was related to her corgis. Perhaps he should have followed his father’s footsteps into the merchant marine. Then he could be working on a nice, quiet, and blessedly passenger-free VLCC.

  He smiled ruefully to himself. What was wrong with him? It was way too early in the crossing to start having thoughts like these.

  As he continued sternward, he pulled a radio from its holster, set to the ship’s frequency, and pressed the transmit button. “Suite 1046, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kemper’s Boston accent rasped over the radio. “A Mr. Evered. Gerald Evered.”

  “Very well.” LeSeur returned the radio. He paused outside the door, cleared his throat, adjusted his uniform, then raised his hand and rapped once.

  The door was quickly opened by a man in his late forties. Automatically, LeSeur took in the details: paunch, thinning hair, expensive suit, cowboy boots. He didn’t look seasick and he didn’t look cranky. He looked scared.

  “Mr. Evered?” he asked the man. “I’m the first officer. I understand you wished to speak with someone in command?”

  “Come in.” Evered ushered him inside, then closed the door. LeSeur glanced around the cabin. The closet door was open and he saw both suits and dresses hanging within. Towels were strewn across the bathroom floor, which meant housecleaning hadn’t yet cleaned the room. Strange, though—the bed was perfectly made. That meant nobody had gone to sleep the night before. A cowboy hat rested on the pillow.

  “My wife is missing,” Evered said, the heavy Texas accent not surprising LeSeur.

  “For how long?”

  “She didn’t come back to the cabin last night. I want the ship searched.”

  LeSeur quickly arranged his face into its most sympathetic expression. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Evered. We’ll do all we can. May I ask a few questions?”

  Evered shook his head. “No time for questions. I’ve waited too long as it is. You need to organize a search!”

  “Mr. Evered, it’ll help immeasurably if I could just gather a little information first. Please sit down.”

  Evered hesitated a moment. Then he took a seat on the edge of the bed, drumming his fingers o
n his knees.

  LeSeur sat down in a nearby armchair and removed a notebook. He had always found it helped if he took notes—it seemed to calm people. “Your wife’s name?”

  “Charlene.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “About ten-thirty last night. Maybe eleven.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, in our cabin.”

  “Did she go out?”

  “Yes.” A hesitation.

  “Where was she heading?”

  “I can’t rightly say.”

  “She didn’t mention that she wanted to go shopping, or to the casino, something like that?”

  Another hesitation. “Well, see, we had a bit of an argument.”

  LeSeur nodded. So that’s how it was. “Has this ever happened before, Mr. Evered?”

  “Has what ever happened before?”

  “Your wife leaving after an argument.”

  The man laughed bitterly. “Hell yes. Doesn’t it happen to everybody?”

  It had never happened to LeSeur, but the first officer chose not to mention this. “Has she stayed away overnight before?”

  “No, never. She always comes back eventually, tail between her legs. That’s why I called.” He swiped his brow with a handkerchief. “And now I think you better get going with that search.”

  LeSeur knew he had to delicately get the passenger’s thoughts away from a search. Fact was, the Britannia was too large to be searched completely. And even if they wanted to, they didn’t have the manpower to undertake one: passengers had no idea just how small the security staff really was on an ocean liner.

  “Pardon my asking, Mr. Evered,” he said as gently as he could, “but are you and your wife . . . generally on good terms?”

  “What the hell’s that got to do with my wife missing?” the man flared up, almost rising off the bed.

  “We have to consider all the possibilities, Mr. Evered. She might be sitting in a lounge somewhere, still angry.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about—go find her!”

  “We’ll do that. We’ll start by paging her on the public address system.” LeSeur already had a pretty good idea of how things stood. The couple had hit middle age, were having trouble in their marriage, and took the crossing to try to put some magic back into life. Maybe the husband been caught boning someone at the office, or she herself had been tempted by a little afternoon delight with a neighbor. So they went on a romantic ocean voyage to patch things up, and instead of finding the magic ended up fighting their way across the Atlantic.

  Evered frowned again. “It was just an argument, nothing serious. She’s never stayed out all night. Damn it, you need to get your people together and start a—”

  “Mr. Evered,” LeSeur interrupted smoothly, “I wonder if you’d mind my saying something? To reassure you.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been working aboard passenger ships for many years now. I see this kind of thing all the time. A couple quarrels, one steps out. It isn’t like your wife just walked out of your house, Mr. Evered. This is the Britannia, the largest passenger ship afloat. There are hundreds, thousands of things on board that could have distracted your wife. Perhaps she’s in one of the casinos—they’re open all night, you know. Maybe she’s in the spa. Or shopping. Perhaps she stopped someplace to rest her feet, then fell asleep—there are two dozen lounges on board. Or perhaps she ran into somebody she knew; a woman, perhaps, or . . .”

  LeSeur let his voice trail off decorously, but he knew the meaning was clear.

  “Or what? Are you implying that my wife might’ve met another man?” Evered rose from the bed in a sad, middle-aged fury.

  LeSeur stood as well and smiled disarmingly. “Mr. Evered, you misunderstood me. I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. It’s just that I’ve seen this happen a hundred times before, and it always works out in the end. Always. Your wife is just out enjoying herself. We’ll make a few announcements over the PA system and ask her to contact us or you. I guarantee you she’ll be back. Tell you what: why don’t you order breakfast for two, served en suite? I’ll bet you anything she’ll be here before it arrives. I’ll send up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, on the house.”

  Evered was breathing heavily, making an effort to control himself.

  “In the meantime, have you got a picture of your wife I could borrow? We have your ID photos from embarkation, of course, but it always helps to have more than one image. I’ll circulate them among our security staff, so they can keep an eye out.”

  Evered turned away, walked into the bathroom. LeSeur heard a zipper opening, the sound of shuffling and rummaging. A minute later Evered emerged again, a photo in his hand.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Mr. Evered. The Britannia is probably one of the safest environments in the world.”

  The man glared back at him. “You better damn well be right.”

  LeSeur forced a smile. “Now, order that breakfast for two. And have a good day.” He let himself out of the stateroom.

  In the hall, he paused to examine the photo. To his surprise, he found that Ms. Evered was something of a babe. Not outrageously stunning, of course, but he wouldn’t throw her out of bed: a dozen years younger than her husband, thin and blonde and stacked and wearing a two-piece swimsuit. Now he was more certain what had happened: the missus, pissed off, had met someone and was shacked up with him. He shook his head. These luxury liners were like one big floating orgy. Something happened to people when they got away from land—they started acting like a bunch of sybarites. If Mr. Evered knew what was good for him, he’d go out and do the same: there were plenty of rich widows aboard . . .

  LeSeur chuckled quietly at the thought. Then he pocketed the picture. He’d be sure to send it down to security: after all, Kemper and his boys were connoisseurs of hot-looking women, and no doubt they’d appreciate an eyeful of the curvaceous Ms. Evered.

  19

  THE CHIEF OF SECURITY’S OFFICE WAS IN THE CENTRAL SECURITY complex, a tangle of low-ceilinged rooms on Deck A, at the Britannia’s waterline. Asking directions, Pendergast passed first a manned checkpoint, then a series of holding cells, a locker room and showers, and then a large circular room filled with dozens of closed-circuit televisions cycling through hundreds, maybe thousands, of surveillance cameras sprinkled about the ship. Three bored security officers kept a listless eye on the walls of flat-panel screens. Beyond that stood a closed, faux-wood door marked Kemper. The ship’s legendary brightwork, Pendergast noticed, did not extend belowdecks.

  He knocked.

  “Enter,” came a voice.

  Pendergast stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Patrick Kemper was behind his desk, ear to a telephone. He was a short, burly man with a large, heavy head, thick knotty ears, a brown hairpiece, and a perpetual put-upon expression stamped on his features. His office was remarkably bare: other than a framed picture of the Britannia and some internal North Star promotional posters, there were hardly any furnishings or decoration. The clock on the wall behind Kemper read twelve noon exactly.

  Kemper put down the phone. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” Pendergast sat in one of the two unpadded seats facing the desk. “You asked to see me?”

  Kemper’s put-upon expression deepened. “Not exactly. Hentoff requested it.”

  Pendergast winced at the accent. “So the casino manager has agreed to my little proposal? Excellent. I’ll be most happy to return the favor tonight, when the card counters turn out for their evening’s work.”

  “You work out those details with Hentoff.”

  “How kind.”

  Kemper sighed. “I have a lot on my plate at the moment. So I hope we can keep this brief. What, exactly, do you need?”

  “Access to the ship’s central safe.”

  Abruptly, the security chief’s weary attitude evaporated. “No frigging way.”

  “Ah—and here I was under the misapprehension we had an agre
ement.”

  Kemper’s look changed to disbelief. “Passengers are not authorized to enter the vault, much less snoop around in it.”

  Pendergast’s reply, when it came, was mild. “It’s not hard to imagine what might happen to a security director who presided over a million-pound loss in the casinos on a mere seven-day crossing. Hentoff may be in charge of the casinos, but when it comes to security, the, ah, chip stops with you.”

  Several moments passed in which the two men looked at each other. Then Kemper licked his lips. “Only the first officer, the staff captain, and the commodore have access to the vault,” he said in a low voice.

  “Then I suggest you phone the officer of your choice.”

  Kemper continued to stare at Pendergast for another minute. At last—without taking his eyes off him—he picked up the phone and dialed. A brief, murmured conversation ensued. When Kemper put down the phone, the expression on his face had not quite cleared. “The first officer will meet us there now.”

  It was the work of five minutes to make their way to the vault, located one level below on Deck B, in a heavily reinforced section of the ship that also housed the master guidance control system and the server farms controlling the Britannia’s internal network. Here, below the waterline, the vibration of the diesels was more pronounced. The first officer was already waiting at the security station, looking every inch a ship’s commander with his silver hair and smart uniform.

  “This is Mr. Pendergast,” Kemper said, a distinct lack of grace in his voice.

  LeSeur nodded. “We met last night. At Roger Mayles’s table.”

  Pendergast smiled thinly. “My reputation precedes me, thanks to the good Mr. Mayles. This is the situation, gentlemen: a client has engaged me to find an object that was stolen from him. I know three things about this object: it is a unique Tibetan artifact; it is somewhere on this ship; and its current owner—who, by the way, is also on the ship—murdered a man to obtain it.”

  He patted the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “My list of suspects contains three names of passengers who, according to Mr. Mayles, consigned items to the ship’s vault. I would like to give those items a cursory inspection, if you please.”