chapter 29
Anyone on the promenade deck who cared to look might have picked out the bright yellow WaveRunner approaching at a steady clip, but no one did. As he got closer, Alex heard calypso music streaming from above. There were teens and adults on the deck, arm in arm, looking at one another more than at the dark water.
Alex came up along the starboard side, hugging the side of the ship, scanning the white metal for any kind of access. The water was churning and he had to keep about two yards away to avoid getting swamped and sucked under. The ship was not moving fast, but it was kicking up a dangerous spray.
The Allimarc was not as large as a typical cruise ship—it was more of a giant yacht—but for a landlocked (if enormous) lake, the ship made a fantastically opulent statement. It was clearly very new, and Alex felt certain it would be outfitted with every geegaw a self-impressed ship owner would want, from HD screens in every stateroom to marine compactors for recycling glass and aluminum waste down to handy little blocks, to water purifiers to bring in lake water for use in cooking. Like the cars they were driven in, the ship was a symbol of the power of the parents of these schools’ students. The students themselves might be just kids, the ship was saying, but we the parents are powerful, even dangerous.
As he came around the curve of the hull he saw that the Allimarc had a rescue ladder near the prow, going all the way down under the waterline, cutting its own groove in the lake. Alex came up alongside, letting go of the WaveRunner, and grabbed on to the ladder. The WaveRunner whipped past his feet as he scrambled up. He heard a heavy, chunky sound as the yellow craft got caught up in the churn and disappeared beneath the ship, and Alex mentally apologized to the rental manager. The Polidorium could replace it.
Xylophone music accompanied him up the ladder. When he reached the top, he peered over the edge, keeping his head behind a huge life preserver and stanchion.
The deck at the prow was deserted. Alex scanned, seeing the lights of the bridge up above, and the tops of a few crewmen’s heads. No static. He grabbed the side and climbed, dropping onto the deck. As he hit the boards his dress shoes slid and he tumbled, crying out briefly as he fell in a mound of thick blue rope.
Alex stood up, breathing, taking in the calypso music and the cold wind leaching body heat through his jacket. He was dripping water. Okay. Now what?
The music shifted to a more orchestral number—a live orchestra, he could tell. Alex slunk along the deck, sticking to the bulkhead. The promenade, where the air-seeking partygoers were gathered, was above—he had to stay close in, to avoid being seen.
A pair of adults came around a corner up ahead. Instinctively Alex waved and they waved back. He saw a door and ducked through it.
The jangling, oscillating chirps and trills of a casino drowned out any hint of the orchestra from the ballroom above. Alex moved through the darkened, smoky cave, waving off the stale cigarette smoke, past a few more adults enrapt by the charms of the slot machines. Amazing that some parents would come all this way to see their kids, but would probably spend the next six hours right here, tugging at the golden arm.
Alex exited the casino and found himself at the center of the ship, facing a huge stairwell with brass railings and gilt-edged rugs and thankfully a guide plaque on the wall. This was level 1, and the ballroom was on 3, one up from the promenade deck.
Soaking or not, he had to just go. Alex ran his hands through his wet hair, slicking it back.
Two flights up he found a sign: MINISTERS BALL AND BENEFIT. As if there were anything else going on.
A woman was speaking, and the voice sounded full but older, probably in her sixties.
“. . . a tribute to these fine young people that they have weathered these events so well. Even now, a house is being refurbished where Glenarvon will continue its work. But that’s not all: There is much more work to be done on the school’s own grounds. This is why . . .”
Alex headed out onto the walk around the ballroom, taking his place next to some plants and peering in.
How was it going to work? In the woods, Elle had played Ultravox’s voice, and that had been the cue. But how would they do it here? There was a PA system, of course. Should he go look for the PA?
In the ballroom the speech subsided, and Alex saw another staircase, leading up to a dining area. There was a crowd gathered up above, and he could see boys in tuxes and the girls in evening gowns. There was a woman, gray haired, elegant, in a head-to-toe sequined gown, standing next to a microphone with a stack of large, black index cards.
“And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: our debuts,” the woman said.
The attendees of the ball had gathered along the edges, and the woman began reading names.
“Miss Millicent Deveraux.” Alex saw a stunning seventeen-year-old come forward, at the hand of a gentleman in a tux. He stepped forward and handed her off to her escort as the woman went into Miss Millicent’s many swell-sounding accomplishments. Apparently wintered in the Alps, where she was teaching ice sculpture on the side. Did they make this stuff up?
Alex caught a glimmer of green in the waiting room above—Vienna. She was standing next to a man who must be Mr. Cazorla.
And there was Minhi—next to a tall, olive-skinned woman who looked like her, but with a pixie cut and a little more fullness. And now as he scanned he saw the rest—Ilsa behind them, Paul and Sid, waiting in the wings, and next to them a boy Paul was talking to. Javi, the RA from school. An escort in a pinch for Vienna. They both spoke Spanish. What luck.
The wet coat was bulky and annoying and he stripped it off, letting it fall at his feet, his lapel pin clacking on the boards.
The woman announced that each debutante would be met with a gift, a pen—a gleaming platinum Montblanc, in fact, commemorating the upcoming international meeting this ball was intended to kick off. Although of course Glenarvon was accepting offers of support, Alex figured that one of those pens could pay for most of the books in the library. What are you doing, Alex? You’re here on a hunch. You should be here for real. You should be up there. The mission was a fake and Elle was just playing along when you stretched it out into a threat against the ball. You’re as much a chump as the Merrills.
He thought all of this with a blistering honesty. No, wait. He thought that he thought that.
The man standing behind him had said it.
Alex felt static, finally, far away and muffled.
“Let’s take a walk, Alex,” said Ultravox. “There’s something you’ll want to do.”