The Wheel of Darkness

About frigging time

, thought LeSeur.

“Steady on,” said Cutter.

LeSeur stared at the ECDIS. With excruciating slowness the ARPA vector radar overlay recalculated the ULCC’s heading. With a flood of relief, he realized they were moving out of danger; the ULCC would pass to starboard. There was a palpable relaxation on the bridge, a murmur of voices, a few muttered curses.

Cutter turned to the staff captain, utterly unperturbed. “Captain Mason, may I ask why you reduced speed to twenty-four knots?”

“There’s heavy weather ahead, sir,” Mason replied. “Company standing orders state that on the first night out, passengers are to be acclimated to the open sea by—”

“I know what the standing orders say,” Cutter interrupted. He had a slow, quiet voice that was somehow immeasurably more intimidating than bluster. He turned to the helmsman. “Increase speed to thirty knots.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the helmsman said, his voice dead neutral. “Increasing speed to thirty knots.”

“Mr. Vigo, you may resume the watch.”

“Aye, sir.”

Cutter continued staring at Mason. “Speaking of the standing orders, it has come to my attention that one of the officers of this ship was seen leaving the stateroom of a passenger earlier this evening.”

He paused, letting the moment build.

“Whether or not there was a sexual liaison is irrelevant. We all know the rules regarding fraternization with passengers.”

With his hands behind his back, he made a slow turn, looking into each officer’s face in turn, before ending with Mason.

“May I remind you that this is not the Love Boat. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Let the passengers be responsible for their own indiscretions; my crew must not indulge themselves in this way.”

LeSeur was startled to see that the flush on Mason’s face had deepened considerably.

Couldn’t be her,

he thought.

She’s the last one who would break the rules.

The door to the bridge opened and Patrick Kemper, the chief security officer, stepped in. Seeing Cutter, he moved toward him. “Sir, I—”

“Not now,” Cutter said. Kemper stopped, fell silent.

On every large cruise ship LeSeur had served on, the captain’s prime responsibilities were to schmooze with the passengers, preside over long, jolly dinners at the captain’s table, and be the public face of the ship. The staff captain, while nominally second in command, was the chief operating officer. But Cutter had a reputation for disdaining the glad-handing duties, and it appeared he was going to carry this habit into his first captaincy. He was an officer of the old school, a former commodore in the Royal Navy from a titled family, who LeSeur suspected had been advanced somewhat beyond his competencies. A few years before, the captaincy of theOlympia had gone to Cutter’s most bitter rival, and it had stuck in his craw ever since. He’d pulled strings in high places to get command of theBritannia —which should by rights have gone to Mason—and now his intentions were obvious. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure this maiden voyage was the crossing of his career—including breaking theOlympia ’s own fastest crossing, set just the year before. Rough weather would have no effect on him, LeSeur thought grimly, other than to steel his resolve. Cruise ships fled weather; but an ocean liner, areal ocean liner, toughed it out.

LeSeur glanced at Mason. She was looking ahead through the forward windows, calm and poised; the only hint of something amiss was the rapidly disappearing flush. So far, through the shakedown cruise and today’s departure, she’d taken the commodore’s heavy- handedness and second-guessing with equanimity and grace. Even being passed over as master of theBritannia seemed not to have ruffled her feathers. Perhaps she’d gotten used to the high-seas chauvinism and developed a thick skin. The captaincies of the great ships seemed to be one of the last male bastions in the civilized world. She was no doubt aware of the unspoken rule: in the passenger ship business, the so-called teak ceiling remained: no matter how competent, a woman would never make master of one of the great liners.

“Speed under the hull thirty knots, sir,” the helmsman said.

Cutter nodded and turned to the chief security officer. “All right, Mr. Kemper, what is it?”

The small, bulletlike man spoke. Despite his heavy Boston accent and inescapable American-ness, LeSeur thought of Kemper as a kindred soul. Maybe it was because they both came from working-class neighborhoods in port cities on the Atlantic. Kemper had once been a cop, shot a drug dealer who was about to pull the hammer on his partner, become a hero—but left the force anyway. Couldn’t deal with it, apparently. Still, he was a bloody good security officer, even if he did lack self-confidence. LeSeur guessed that lack was one of the by- products of killing a man.

“Captain, we’ve got an issue in casino operations.”

Cutter turned away from Kemper and spoke to the man as if he weren’t there. “Mr. Kemper, the casinos are incidental to the operation of ship. The first officer will handle it.” Without even glancing at LeSeur, he turned to the officer of the watch. “Call me if you need me, Mr. Vigo.” He strode crisply across the bridge and disappeared through the door.

“ ‘This is not the Love Boat,’ ” LeSeur muttered. “What a prig.”

Mason said crisply, but not unkindly, “Commodore Cutter was correct to say what he did.”

“Yes, sir.” LeSeur turned to Kemper with a friendly smile. “All right, Mr. Kemper, let’s hear about the problem in the casino.”

“It seems we got a bunch of card counters working the blackjack tables.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“First Mayfair was down two hundred thousand pounds, and then Covent Garden dropped by a hundred thousand.”

LeSeur felt a slight twinge: this was just the kind of thing that would really steam Corporate. “Did you identify them?”

“Obviously, we know who the winners are, but we don’t know who’s just lucky and who’s counting. They work as a team: players and counters. The counters don’t play—they watch and signal their players. As you know, they’re the brains.”

“I don’t know, actually. Not a coincidence?”

“Not likely. Hentoff’s worried they might be like that team of MIT students a few years back who took Vegas for three million.”

The sick feeling in the pit of LeSeur’s stomach deepened. The Britannia, he knew, wasn’t Las Vegas, where you could give a chap the bum’s rush if you caught him counting cards. These were paying passengers. And passenger ship companies relied heavily on gambling profits: a row in the casino might discourage other passengers from gambling. But something had to be done. A successful maiden voyage into New York with a fanfare of adoring publicity wouldn’t matter a damn to Corporate if there were huge losses in the casino. It was about money—first, last, and always.

“What do you propose we do about it?” he asked.

“Well, sir. There was this . . .” Kemper hesitated. “Thisunusual passenger. A rich guy who styles himself a private investigator. He’s the one first spotted the card-counting operation. He’s offered to help