The Wheel of Darkness

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 fu

“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 wi

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?”

“Mr. Kemper, your naïveté surprises me. While the system is complex, the principles are simple. The spotters mingle in the crowd, keeping track of the play at the high-stakes tables.”

“Who the hell are these spotters?”

“They could be anyone: an elderly woman at a strategically placed slot machine, a tipsy businessman talking loudly on a cell phone, even a pimply teenager gaping at the action. The spotters are highly trained and quite often masters of creating an artificial persona to cover their activities. They count the cards—they don’t play.”

“And the players?”

“One spotter might have two to four players in his string. The spotters keep track of all the cards played at a table and ‘count’ them, which usually involves assigning negative numbers to low cards and positive numbers to tens and aces. All they have to remember is a single number—the ru

Kemper shifted uneasily. “How can we stop it?”

“The only foolproof countermeasure is to identify the spotters and give them the, ah, bum’s rush.”

“Can’t do that.”

“No doubt that’s why they’re here and not Las Vegas.”

“What else?”

“Combine the cards into eight-deck shoes and then deal only a third of the shoe before reshuffling.”

“We deal out of a four-deck shoe.”

“Another reason you’ve attracted counters. You could stop them cold by instructing your dealers to shuffle up every time a new player sits down or when a player suddenly ups his wager.”

“No way. That would slow play and reduce profits. Besides, the more experienced players would object.”

“No doubt.” Pendergast shrugged. “Of course, none of these countermeasures solve the problem of how to get

back

your money.”

Kemper looked at him, eyes red-rimmed. “There’s a way to get back the money?”

“Perhaps.”

“We can’t do anything that would involve cheating.”