The Wheel of Darkness

shoulder, lined up on the quay, were ranks of buses ready to take people away to area hotels and homes that had been volunteered by Newfoundlanders.

As the deckhands were preparing to remove the gangway rope, the raised voices of the crew on board mingled with the shrill voices of complaint and threat from the passengers. It amazed LeSeur how these people still had the energy to be outraged. They were damned lucky to be alive.

Ropes, construction tape, and movable stanchions had been set up in a jerry-rigged effort to direct and manage the efficient processing of the passengers. At the head of the line he could see Kemper, who appeared to be giving his people the final directions on what to do: each passenger had to be identified and photographed—by orders of the RCMP—and directed to their assigned bus. No exceptions.

They were not going to like it, LeSeur knew. But the corporation had to create some kind of legal record of who had disembarked from the ship if they were ever to sort out the missing from the injured and the healthy. Corporate wanted a photograph, he was told, because they didn’t want healthy passengers later suing for injuries. It was still, even after all that had happened, about money, first, foremost, and last.

The gate over the gangway was lifted and the dark stream of passengers came rolling down, like a ragged line of refugees. And wouldn’t you know it: the first off was a burly man in a filthy tux, shoving his way past the women and children. He came charging down the ramp, yelling, and in the windless air his voice carried all the way to the bow. “God damn it, I want to talk to the man in charge here! I will not be photographed like some criminal!”

He burst through the press of debarkation crew members at the base of the gangway, but the St. John’s stevedores and RCMP officers who had been called in to assist were not to be trifled with. They blocked his way, and when he resisted they slapped cuffs on him and took him aside.

“Get your hands off me!” came the man’s shout. “How dare you! I manage a twenty-five-billion-dollar hedge fund in New York! What is this, Communist Russia?”

He was promptly bustled off to a waiting paddy wagon and shoved inside, yelling all the way. His fate seemed to have a salubrious effect on anyone else thinking of making a scene.

With effort, LeSeur tuned out the voices raised in complaint and outrage. He understood why they were upset and sympathized with them, but the bottom line was that this was the fastest way to get them off the ship. And there was still a serial killer to be found.

Kemper came up alongside him and leaned against the rail, watching the flow of people from a broader vantage point. They shared a moment of exhausted, silent commiseration. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

LeSeur’s thoughts turned to the board of inquiry hearings that lay ahead. He wondered just how he was going to explain the bizarre . . .thing he had witnessed attack Mason. It had been like a demonic possession. Ever since it happened, he had been going over the sequence of events in his mind—dozens of times—and yet he was no nearer understanding what the hell he had seen than when he first witnessed it. What was he going to say?I saw a ghost possess Captain Mason? Now matter how he couched it, they would think he was being evasive, or that he was crazy—or worse. No, he could never tell the truth about what he saw. Ever. He’d say, instead, that Mason had some kind of fit, an epileptic attack perhaps, and leave out the rest. Let the medical examiners figure out what happened to her limp, deflated body.

He sighed, watching the endless files of people shuffling along in the drizzle. They sure didn’t look so high and mighty now; they looked like refugees.

His thoughts kept returning obsessively to what he’d seen. Maybe he hadn’t seen it at all; maybe it had been a glitch in the CCTV feed. It could have been, in fact, a speck of dust trapped inside the camera, magnified a hundred times, joggled about by the vibration of the ship’s engines. His stress and exhaustion had led him to see something that wasn’t there.

Yes, that was it. That had to be it.

But then he thought of what they’d found on the bridge: the bizarre, sacklike corpse of Captain Mason slumped on the floor, her bones like so much mush . . .

He was shaken from his thoughts by the approach of a familiar figure: a portly man with a walking stick and a white carnation on his spotless lapel. Immediately, LeSeur felt his guts turn to water: it was Ian Elliott, principal director of the North Star Line. No doubt the man had flown here to preside personally over his public keelhauling. At his side, Kemper made a small, strangled sound. LeSeur swallowed—this was going to be even uglier than he’d imagined.

Elliott strode up. “Captain LeSeur?”

LeSeur stiffened. “Sir.”

“I wanted to congratulate you.”

This was so unexpected that, for a moment, LeSeur didn’t understand what he’d heard. Perhaps it was all a hallucination—God knew he was tired enough to be seeing things.

“Sir?” he asked in a very different tone of voice.

“Thanks to your courage, seamanship, and level-headedness, the Britannia is still afloat. I don’t know the whole story yet, but from what I do know, things could have turned out very differently. I wanted to come here and thank you personally.” And he stuck out his hand.

With a sense of unreality, LeSeur shook it.

“I’ll let you get on with the disembarkation. But once all the passengers are off, perhaps you could fill me in on the details.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And then there’s the question of the

Britannia

.”

“Question, sir? I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well, once she’s been repaired and fitted out, she’ll need a new captain—won’t she?” And then, giving him a small smile, Elliott turned and walked away.

It was Kemper who broke the silence. “I don’t frigging believe it,” he murmured.

LeSeur could barely believe it either. Perhaps this was just the spin the North Star public relations people wanted to put on things—to paint them as heroes who saved the lives of over twenty-five hundred passengers. Perhaps not. In any case, he wasn’t going to question it. And he’d be happy to tell Elliott everything that had happened—at least,almost everything . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by the approach of an RCMP officer.

“Which of you is Mr. Kemper?” the man asked.

“I’m Kemper,” the chief of security said.

“There’s a gentleman here from the FBI who wants to speak to you.”

LeSeur watched as a thin man stepped out of the shadows of the superstructure. It was the FBI agent, Pendergast.

“What do you want?” Kemper asked.

Pendergast stepped forward into the light. He was dressed in a black suit and his face was as gaunt and corpselike as anyone coming off the ill-fated ship. Tucked under one arm he carried a long, thin mahogany box. Next to him, linked in the other arm, was a young woman with short dark hair and dead-serious eyes.