Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

“Yes, sir.” Anh bustled off.

A minute passed, then two. Word about the size of the bets had circulated and a sizable crowd was developing around the table. The impatience of the crowd—not to mention the mark—was growing. All eyes were on the tottering stacks of chips sitting on the green felt.

“Make way!” came a cry, and Hentoff, the casino manager, stepped through the crowd. He paused before the two women at Pendergast’s table, flashed them a broad smile, and opened his arms. “Josie and Helen Roberts? Today is your lucky day!”

They looked at each other. “Oh, really?”

He put an arm around each and drew them up. “Once a day, we have a little lottery—all the room numbers are automatically entered. You won!”

“What did we win?”

“Ninety-minute massages with Raul and Jorge, deluxe spa treatment, a gift basket of cosmetics, and a free case of Veuve Clicquot!” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, no! If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss Raul and Jorge! We’ve been looking all over for you two!”

“But we were just—”

“We’ve got to hurry. The prize is good for today only. You can

always

come back.” He gestured to the dealer. “Color them up.”

“With the bets on the table, sir?”

“I

said

, color them up.”

The dealer exchanged their chips and Hentoff, arm around each sister, led them away through the crowd. A moment later Anh Minh arrived with the drink.

Pendergast drained it, banged it down. He looked around the table with a grin. “Okay. I’m fortified.”

The dealer swept her hand over the table, calling for final bets, then she pitched out the cards. Pendergast was dealt two aces, and split. The mark got two sevens, which he also split. The dealer’s upcard was a queen.

The mark advanced a new stack of chips against the split hand. Now there was five hundred thousand on the table. Pendergast added his second bet, bringing his stake to two hundred thousand.

The dealer dealt Pendergast his two cards: a king and a jack. Two blackjacks.

The crowd erupted in applause, then quickly fell into a hush as the dealer turned to the mark and dealt a card on each seven.

Two more sevens, just as Pendergast had expected. “Too bad we’re not playing poker!” he brayed.

The mark split the sevens again—he had little choice—and reluctantly advanced two more piles of chips. A million pounds were now in front of him on the table.

The dealer dealt out four cards: jack, ten, queen, ace.

The crowd waited. The silence was extraordinary.

The dealer turned over her hole card—to reveal a ten.

A collective sigh rose from the crowd as it sank in: they had just witnessed a man lose a million pounds. There was no applause this time, only a high, excited murmuring, the air so thick with schadenfreude one could almost taste it.

Pendergast rose from the table, collected his own winnings, and winked again at the Chinese man, who seemed frozen as he watched his million pounds being raked away, counted, and stacked. “Win some, lose some,” he said, giving his chips a jaunty rattle.

As he exited the casino, he caught a glimpse of Hentoff, staring at him, mouth hanging open.

29

WHEN FIRST OFFICER LESEUR ENTERED THE BRIDGE JUST BEFORE midnight, he immediately sensed tension in the air. Commodore Cutter was back on the bridge again, thick arms crossed over his barrel chest, pink fleshy face impassive and unreadable. The rest of the bridge complement stood at their stations, silent and on edge.

But it wasn’t just Cutter’s presence that created the air of tension. LeSeur was acutely aware that the level-two search had failed to turn up the Evered woman. Her husband had become unmanageable, tearing up and down, making scenes, insisting that his wife would never have jumped, that she’d been murdered or was being held hostage. His behavior was beginning to alarm the other passengers, and rumors were spreading. On top of that, the gruesome and unaccountable suicide of the housekeeper had badly spooked the crew. LeSeur had quietly checked Blackburn’s alibi and found it held up; the billionaire really had been at dinner and his private maid in medical.

LeSeur was pondering these problems when the new officer of the watch arrived on the bridge and relieved the outgoing watch. While the two men discussed the change of watch in low voices, LeSeur strolled over to the bridge workstation, where Staff Captain Mason was checking the electronics. She turned, nodded, and went back to her work.

“Course, speed, and conditions?” Cutter asked the new officer of the watch. It was a pro forma question: not only was LeSeur sure that Cutter knew the answers, but even if he didn’t, a glance at the ECDIS chartplotters and weather panels would have told him all he needed to know.

“Position four nine degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and zero one two degrees 43.08 minutes west longitude, heading two four one true, speed twenty-nine knots,” the officer of the watch answered. “Sea state 4, wind twenty to thirty knots on the starboard stern, seas running eight to twelve feet. Barometric pressure 29.96, dropping.”

“Give me a printout of our position.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer of the watch tapped a few keys and a thin sheet of paper began scrolling out of a miniprinter slot in the side of the console. Cutter ripped it free, glanced at it, then tucked it into a pocket of his immaculately pressed uniform. LeSeur knew what he would do with the printout: once back in his quarters, he’d be quick to compare it to the relative position of the Olympia on her record- breaking crossing the year before.

Beyond the vast bank of windows that covered the forward face of the bridge, the front was getting closer and the sea was growing dramatic. It was a large, slow-moving system, which meant it would be with them for most of the crossing. The Britannia ’s knifelike bows tore through the waves, throwing up huge frothy sprays that soared to heights of fifty feet before raining back down on the lower aft weather decks. The ship had developed a pronounced deep-ocean roll.

LeSeur’s eyes roamed over the ship’s system panels. He noted that the stabilizers were deployed at half position, sacrificing passenger comfort for greater speed, and he guessed it must be at Cutter’s orders.

“Captain Mason?” Cutter’s voice cut across the bridge.

“He’ll be here any moment, sir.”

Cutter did not respond.

“Under the circumstances, I suggest we give serious consideration to—”

“I’ll hear his report first,” Cutter interrupted.

Mason fell silent again. It was clear to LeSeur that he’d walked into the middle of an ongoing disagreement of some kind.

The door to the bridge opened again and Kemper, chief of security, stepped inside.

“There you are, Mr. Kemper, finally,” Cutter said, not looking at him. “Your report, please.” “We got the call about forty minutes ago, sir,” Kemper said. “An elderly woman in suite 1039, reporting that her companion is missing.”

“And who is the companion?”

“A young Swedish woman named Inge Larssen. She put the old woman to bed about nine o’clock, then supposedly went to bed herself. But when some inebriated passengers mistakenly knocked on the old woman’s door, she woke to find Ms. Larssen missing. We’ve been looking for her since, with no results.”

Slowly, Commodore Cutter swiveled toward the security chief. “Is that all, Mr. Kemper? Captain Mason led me to believe it was something serious.”

“We thought that this being a second disappearance, sir—”

“Have I not made it clear that the vicissitudes of the passengers are not my concern?”