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Below the huge row of windows that stretched from port to starboard, a bank of dozens of computer workstations controlled and relayed information about all aspects of the ship and its environment: engines, fire suppression systems, watertight integrity monitors, communications, weather maps, satellite displays, countless others. There were two chart tables, neatly laid out with nautical charts, which nobody seemed to use.
Nobody except him, that is.
LeSeur glanced at his watch: twenty minutes past midnight. He glanced out through the forward windows. The huge ship’s blaze of light illuminated the black ocean for hundreds of yards on all sides, but the sea itself was so far below—fourteen decks—that if it were not for the deep, slow roll of the vessel they might just as well have been atop a skyscraper. Beyond the circle of light lay dark night, the sea horizon barely discernible. Long ago they had passed the slow pulsing of Falmouth Light, and shortly thereafter Penzance Light. Now, open ocean until New York.
The bridge had been fully ma
Carol Mason, the staff captain, spoke to the officer of the watch in a voice as quiet as the bridge itself. “Current state, Mr. Vigo?” It was a pro forma question—the new marine electronics gave the information in continuous readouts for all to see. But Mason was traditional and, above all, punctilious.
“Under way at twenty-seven knots on a course of two five two true, light traffic, sea state three, wind is light and from the port quarter. There is a tidal stream of just over one knot from the northeast.”
One of the bridge wing lookouts spoke to the officer of the watch. “There’s a ship about four points on the starboard bow, sir.”
LeSeur glanced at the ECDIS and saw the echo.
“Have you got it, Mr. Vigo?” asked Mason.
“I’ve been tracking it, sir. It looks like a ULCC, under way at twenty knots, twelve miles off. On a crossing course.”
There was no sense of alarm. LeSeur knew they were the stand-on ship, the ship with the right of way, and there was plenty of time for the give-way ship to alter course.
“Let me know when it alters, Mr. Vigo.”
“Yes, sir.”
It always sounded odd in LeSeur’s ear to hear a female captain addressed as “sir,” although he knew it was standard protocol both in the navy and in civilian shipboard life. There were, after all, so few female captains.
“Barometer still dropping?” Mason asked.
“Half a point in the last thirty minutes.”
“Very good. Maintain present heading.”
LeSeur shot a private glance at the staff captain. Mason never spoke about her age, but he guessed she was forty, maybe forty-one: it was hard to tell sometimes with people who spent their lives at sea. She was tall and statuesque, and attractive in a competent, no-nonsense kind of way. Her face was slightly flushed—perhaps due to the stress of this being her first voyage as staff captain. Her brown hair was short, and she kept it tucked up beneath her captain’s cap. He watched her move across the bridge, glance at a screen or two here, murmur a word to a member of the bridge crew there. In many ways she was the perfect officer: calm and soft-spoken, not dictatorial or petty, demanding without being bossy. She expected a lot of those under her command, but she herself worked harder than anybody. And she exuded a kind of magnetism of reliability and professionalism you found only in the best officers. The crew was devoted to her, and rightly so.
She wasn’t required on the bridge, and nor was he. But all of them had wanted to be here to share in the first night of the maiden voyage and to watch Mason command. By rights, she should have been the master of theBrita
Cutter’s role was—at least in theory—largely ceremonial. He was the public face of the ship, the man the passengers looked up to. To be sure, he was still in charge, but on most ocean liners you rarely saw the captain on the bridge. The actual ru
It was begi
Commodore Cutter stepped forward. He pivoted on one foot, then—hands clasped behind his back—strode along the bridge, first one way, then back, scrutinizing the monitors. He was a short, impressively built man with iron gray hair and a fleshy face, deeply pink even in the subdued light of the bridge. His uniform was never less than immaculate.
“He’s not altering,” said the officer of the watch to Mason. “CPA nine minutes. He’s on a constant bearing, closing range.”
A light tension began to build.
Mason came over and examined the ECDIS. “Radio, hail him on cha
“Ship on my starboard bow,” the radio engineer said, “ship on my starboard bow, this is the
Brita
, do you read?”
Unresponsive static.
“Ship on my starboard bow, are you receiving me?”
A silent minute passed. Cutter remained rooted to the bridge, hands behind his back, saying nothing—just watching.
“He’s still not altering,” said the officer of the watch to Mason. “CPA eight minutes and he’s on a collision course.”
LeSeur was uncomfortably aware that the two ships were approaching at a combined speed of forty-four knots—about fifty miles an hour. If the ULCC supertanker didn’t begin to alter course soon, things would get hairy.
Mason hunched over the ECDIS, scrutinizing it. A sudden feeling of alarm swept the bridge. It reminded LeSeur of what one of his officers in the Royal Navy had told him:Sailing is ninety percent boredom and ten percent terror. There was no in-between state. He glanced over at Cutter, whose face was unreadable, and then at Mason, who remained cool.
“What the hell are they doing?” the officer of the watch said.
“Nothing,” said Mason dryly. “That’s the problem.” She stepped forward. “Mr. Vigo, I’ll take the co
Vigo retired to one side, evident relief on his face.
She turned to the helmsman. “Wheel aport twenty degrees.”
“Aye, wheel aport twenty—”
Suddenly Cutter spoke, interrupting the helmsman’s confirmation of the order. “Captain Mason, we’re the stand-on ship.”
Mason straightened up from the ECDIS. “Yes, sir. But that ULCC has almost zero maneuverability, and it may have passed the point where—”
“
Captain Mason, I repeat:
we are the stand-on ship.