Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Author:Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780752882819
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2008-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

“Get your best man on it, right away.”

“That would be Penner, sir.” The head of IT stood up.

“Report back to me as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

LeSeur watched him leave the conference room. “Any other ideas?”

“What about the military?” asked Crowley, another third officer. “They could scramble fighters, take out the bridge with a missile. Or get a sub to disable the screws with a torpedo.”

“We’ve looked into those possibilities,” LeSeur replied. “There’s no way to aim a missile precisely enough. There aren’t any submarines in the vicinity, and, given our speed, there’s no way for one to intercept or catch us.”

“Is there a way to launch the lifeboats?” a voice in the back asked.

LeSeur turned to the bosun, Liu. “Possible?”

“At a speed of thirty knots, in heavy seas . . . Jesus, I can’t evenimaginehow you’d do it.”

“I don’t want to hear what you can’t imagine. If it’s even remotely possible, I want you to look into it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll find out if it’s possible. But to do that I’ll need a full emergency launch crew—and they’re all tied up.”

LeSeur cursed. The one thing they lacked were experienced deckhands. Sure, they had every bloody plonker in the world on board, from croupiers to masseurs to lounge crooners—all so much ballast. “That man who came up here a while ago, what’s his name? Bruce. He was ex–Royal Navy and so were his friends. Go find him. Enlist his help.”

“But he was an old man, in his seventies—” Kemper protested.

“Mr. Kemper, I’ve known seventy-year-old ex-navy men who could drop you in two rounds.” He turned back to Crowley. “Get moving.”

A voice boomed from the door, in a broad Scots accent. “No need to find me, Mr. LeSeur.” Bruce pushed his way through the crowd. “Gavin Bruce, at your service.”

LeSeur turned. “Mr. Bruce. Have you been apprised of our current situation?”

“I have.”

“We need to know whether we can launch the lifeboats under these conditions and speed. Have you experience in that line? These are a new kind of lifeboat—freefall.”

Bruce rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll have to take a close look at those boats.” He hesitated. “We might launch them after the collision.”

“We can’t wait until after the collision. Striking a shoal at thirty knots . . . half the people on board would be killed or injured by the impact alone.”

This was greeted by silence. After a moment, Bruce nodded slowly.

“Mr. Bruce, I give you and your group full authority to address this issue. The bosun, Mr. Liu, assisted by Third Officer Crowley, will direct you—they are thoroughly familiar with the abandon-ship routines.”

“Yes, Captain.”

LeSeur looked around the room. “There’s something else. We need Commodore Cutter. He knows the ship better than any of us and . . . well, he’s the only one who knows the number sequence for standing down from a Code Three. I’m going to call him back to the bridge.”

“As master?” Kemper asked.

LeSeur hesitated. “Let’s just see what he says, first.” He glanced at his watch.

Eighty-nine minutes.

57

CAPTAIN CAROL MASON

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