The Wheel of Darkness

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