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April 1912

PRELUDE

The man on Deck A, Stateroom 33, tossed and turned in his narrow berth, the htmare He was s white hair and a bland face, whose only i feature was a pair of dark, bushy eyebrows His hands lay entwined on his chest, his fingers twitching in a nervous rhythm He looked to be in his fifties His skin had the color and texture of a concrete sidewalk, and the lines under his eyes were deeply etched Yet he was only ten days shy of his thirty-fourth birthday

The physical grind and the mental tored edge ofdown vacant channels, losing all track of time and reality He had to remind hioing mad, slowly but irrevocablymad

His eyes fluttered open and he focused the of his stateroorowth of beard He didn't have to look at his clothes; he knew they were soiled and rumpled and stained with nervous sweat He should have bathed and changed after he'd boarded the ship, but, instead, he'd taken to his berth and slept a fearful, obsessed sleep off and on for nearly three days

It was late into Sunday evening, and the ship wasn't due to dock in New York until early Wednesday htly more than fifty hours hence

He tried to tell himself he was safe now, but his mind refused to accept it, in spite of the fact that the prize that had cost so many lives was absolutely secure For the hundredth time he felt the lump in his vest pocket Satisfied that the key was still there, he rubbed a hand over his glistening forehead and closed his eyes once more

He wasn't sure how long he'd dozed So had jolted him awake Not a loud sound or a violentnoise somewhere far below his starboard stateroo his feet to the floor A few minutes passed and he sensed an unusual, vibrationless quiet Then his befogged ines had stopped He sat there listening, but the only sounds caeway, and thecabins

An icy tentacle of uneasiness wrapped around hinored the interruption and quickly gone back to sleep, but he ithin an inch of aoverti every i nor drinking, reliving the horrors of the past five months, served only to stoke the fires of insanity behind his rapidly degenerating mind

He unlocked the door and walked unsteadily down the passageway to the grand staircase People were laughing and chattering on their way froe to their staterooms He looked at the ornate bronze clock which was flanked by two figures in bas-relief above the ilded hands read 1151

A steward, standing alongside an opulent lamp standard at the bottom of the staircase, stared disdainfully up at hi the first-class accommodations, while all the others strolled the rich Oriental carpets in elegant evening dress

"The enginesthey've stopped," he said thickly

"Probably for a minor adjustment, sir," the steward replied "A new ship on her s to iron out Nothing to worry about She's unsinkable, you know"

"If she's ed his bloodshot eyes "I think I'll take a look outside"