The Wheel of Darkness

The mere fact of it stupefied her. This couldn’t be real. She looked around wildly, instinctively treading water. The great stern of the ship, like a glowing tower, was already receding into the night. She opened her mouth to scream but it was immediately filled with the churning wake. She flailed, trying to remain on the surface, coughing. The water was paralyzingly frigid.

“Help!” she cried, her voice so feeble and choked that she could hardly hear it herself above the rush of the wind, the throbbing engines, the loud hiss of rising bubbles in the wake. Above her, she heard the faint cries of the gulls that followed the ship day and night.

It was a dream. It had to be. And yet the water was so cold, so very cold. She thrashed, her bruised limbs turning to lead.

She had been thrown off the ship.

She stared in horror at the diminishing cluster of lights. She could even see, through the stern windows of the huge King George II ballroom on Deck 1, black moving dots silhouetted against the blaze of light—people.

“Help!” She tried to wave her arm and went under, clawing her way back to the surface.

Kick off the shoes. Swim.

It took but a moment to scrape off her shoes, the stupid, low-heeled pumps her employer made her wear. But it did no good. She couldn’t even feel her feet anymore. She made a few feeble strokes, but swimming was hopeless; it took all her strength now just to keep her head above water.

The Britannia was starting to fade into the night mists that lay low on the surface of the water. The lights were getting dimmer. The cry of the gulls disappeared. The hiss of rising bubbles and the green color of the wake slowly dissipated. The water turned black, as black as it was deep.

The lights vanished. A moment later, the faint throb of the engines faded to silence.

She stared in horror at the place where the lights and sound had been. All was blackness. She kept her eyes fixed to the spot, terrified to glance away and lose the place, as if somehow that was her last hope. The sea around her was dark, heaving. The moon peeked from a bank of scudding clouds. The mist lay on the sea, momentarily silvery in the moonlight, then it darkened again as the moon slid back into cloud. She felt herself rise on a wave, top it, sink, rise again.

As she strained to see into the misty darkness, a comber broke over her with a hiss, forcing her down. She flailed and clawed. All around her there was nothing—nothing at all; just pitch black and a terrible, implacable cold.

But even as she struggled, the fierce chill seemed to ease slightly, replaced by inexplicable warmth. Her limbs disappeared. As the seconds passed, her movements grew slower, until it took an effort of immense will just to move. She made a ferocious effort to stay afloat, but her whole body had turned into a sack of useless weight. She began to realize she wasn’t in the sea at all, but asleep in her bed. It had all been a nightmare. She felt flooded by relief and gratitude. The bed was warm, soft, pillowy, and she turned over and felt herself sinking into the black warmth. She sighed—and as she did so, she felt something solid and heavy on her chest, like a huge weight. A glimmer of understanding forced its way back into her consciousness: she was not in her bed after all; this was not a dream; she was truly sinking into the black bottomless depths of the North Atlantic, her lungs at their last extremity.

I was murdered , was the last thought that went through her mind as she drifted down, and then she sighed once again, the last of her air escaping her mouth in an eruption of silent horror more intense than the wildest cry.

26

IT WAS ELEVEN-FIFTEEN WHEN KEMPER WALKED INTO THE SHIP’S central security station. The door was half open, and he could hear boisterous chatter and what sounded like a low cheer from within central monitoring. He put his hand on the door and eased it open.

Hundreds of video screens lined the walls of the circular room, each showing a closed-circuit feed of some place on the ship. The security officers of the watch were all crowded around a single screen, laughing and talking, so engrossed they were unaware of his entrance. They were bathed in a bluish light from the many flickering monitors. The room smelled of old pizza from a stack of greasy boxes shoved in one corner.

“Oh, yeah, grandma, take it

all

!” one cried.

“To the

root

!”

“It’s the little old lady from Pasadena!”

A

Whoo-eeeh!

came from the group, mingled with catcalls and laughter. One officer swayed his hips lasciviously. “Attaboy! Ride ’em, cowboy!”

Kemper strode over. “What the hell’s going on?”

The men jumped away from the closed-circuit security screen, revealing two overweight passengers in a dim, remote hallway having vigorous sex.

“Jesus Christ.” Kemper turned. “Mr. Wadle, aren’t you supposed to be the supervisor this shift?” He looked around at all the officers, standing ridiculously at attention.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve got a missing passenger, a suicide on the crew, we’re losing thousands in the casino, and you’re busy watching the Viagra Show. You think that’s funny?”

“No, sir.”

Kemper shook his head.

“Shall I—?” And Wadle indicated the switch to turn off the monitor.

“No. Anytime a camera is shut off it’s logged, and that’ll raise questions. Just . . .

avert

your eyes.”

At this, someone stifled a laugh, and Kemper, despite himself, couldn’t help but join in. “All right, all right. You’ve had your fun. Now get back to your stations.”

He walked through the monitoring station to his tiny back office. A moment later his intercom buzzed.

“A Mr. Pendergast here to see you.”

Kemper felt his mood sour. A moment later the private investigator entered.

“You here for the show, too?” Kemper asked.

“The gentleman in question has studied the Kama Sutra. I believe that position is called ‘the Churning of the Cream.’ ”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Kemper replied. “We’re down another two hundred thousand in Covent Garden so far tonight. I thought you were going to help us.”

Pendergast took a seat, throwing one leg over the other. “And that is why I’m here. May I have photographs of tonight’s winners?”

Kemper handed him a sheaf of blurry photographs. Pendergast flipped through them. “Interesting—a different group from last night. Just as I thought.”

“And what’s that?”

“This is a large, sophisticated team. The players change every night. The spotters are the key.”

“Spotters?”