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“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 Brita
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
Brita
.”
“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.
“Thank you, Mr. Kemper, for a most interesting voyage.” And with that, Pendergast eased his arm from the woman’s support and slipped a hand into a valise he carried.
Kemper stared at the man in surprise. “There’s no need to tip the ship’s officers,” he said curtly.
“I think you’ll want this tip,” Pendergast replied, extracting an oilskin-wrapped package from the valise. He extended it toward Kemper.
“What’s this?” Kemper asked, taking the package.
The man said nothing more. He merely turned, and then he and the woman melted back into the early-morning shadows, heading toward the moving masses of people.
LeSeur watched as Kemper untied the oilskin.
“Looks like your three hundred thousand pounds,” he said, as Kemper stared in silent astonishment at the soiled bundles of notes.
“Strangest man I ever met,” Kemper said, almost as if speaking to himself.
LeSeur didn’t hear him. He was thinking again of that demon-haunted shroud that had engulfed Captain Mason.
Epilogue
SUMMER HAD FINALLY COME TO THE LLÖLUNG VALLEY. THE Tsangpo River roared over its cobbled bed, fed by melting snows in the great mountains beyond. Flowers mortared the cracks and hollows of the valley floor. Black eagles soared above the cliffs, their high-pitched cries echoing from the great wall of granite at the valley’s head, mingling with the steady roar of the waterplume leaping off its rim and feathering down onto the rocks below. Beyond rose up the three massive peaks, Dhaulagiri, A
Pendergast and Constance rode side by side up the narrow track, trailing a pack pony on whose back was tied a long box wrapped in a canvas manty.
“We should be there before sunset,” Pendergast said, gazing at the faint trail that wound up the granite face.