Valhalla Rising (5 page)

J
ULY 15, 2003
T
HE
S
OUTH
P
ACIFIC
O
CEAN

I
f the disaster had been planned months in advance with meticulous insight and judgment, it could not have been more catastrophic. Everything that could go wrong did so beyond imagination. The luxurious cruise ship
Emerald Dolphin
was on fire and no one on board had an omen, a premonition, not even the slightest trace of suspicion of the danger. Yet flames were slowly devouring the interior of the ship’s wedding chapel, located amidships just forward of the sumptuous shopping village.

On the bridge, the officers went about their watch, oblivious to the pending disaster. None of the ship’s automatic fire-warning systems, nor their backups, hinted at a problem. The console, with its schematic profile of the entire ship that displayed every fire-warning indicator aboard, was a sea of green lights. The one light that should have revealed a fire in the chapel failed to blink red.

At 4
A.M.
, the passengers were all asleep in their staterooms. The bars and lounges, magnificent casino, nightclub and dance ballroom were empty, as the
Emerald Dolphin
plowed the South Seas at twenty-four knots on a cruise from Sydney, Australia, to the islands of Tahiti. Launched only the year before and then fitted out,
Emerald Dolphin
was on her maiden voyage. She did not have the flowing, elegant lines of other cruise ships. Her hull looked more like a giant hiking boot with a huge disk in the center. The entire superstructure of six decks was round and circled 150 feet beyond and above both sides of the hull, and fifty feet over the bow and stern. If anything, her superstructure resembled that of the starship
Enterprise.
There was no funnel.

The pride of the Blue Seas Cruise Lines, the new ship would unquestionably receive a six-star rating and was expected to become a very popular vessel, especially with her interior, which resembled that of an ornate Las Vegas hotel. She sailed on her maiden voyage with every stateroom booked. At 750 feet in length and a gross tonnage of 50,000, she carried 1,600 passengers in opulent style, served by 900 crew members.

The marine architects of the
Emerald Dolphin
had gone over the top creating ultramodern glitz in the five dining rooms, three bar and lounge areas, the casino, ballroom, theater and staterooms. Glass in wildly different colors abounded throughout the ship. Chrome, brass and copper swirled on the walls and ceilings. All the furniture was created by contemporary artists and celebrity interior designers. Unique lighting created a heavenly atmosphere, or at least the designer’s conception of heaven as described by those who’d died, gone there and were then revived. Except for the outside promenade decks, there was little demand for walking. Escalators, moving ramps and walkways spread throughout the interior of the ship. Glass-enclosed elevators were spaced throughout the decks within a short stroll.

The sports deck featured a short four-hole golf course, Olympic-sized swimming pool, basketball court and a huge workout gym. A shopping avenue two city blocks long rose three decks high, and might have been taken from the Emerald City of Oz.

The ship was also a floating museum of Abstract Expressionist art. Paintings by artists Jackson Pollock, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning and other notables were on view throughout the ship. Bronze sculptures by Henry Moore stood in niches on platinum pedestals in the main dining room. The collection alone cost seventy-eight million dollars.

The staterooms were circular, with no sharp corners. They were all spacious and exactly alike—there were no small inside staterooms or penthouse suites on the
Emerald Dolphin.
The designers did not believe in class distinction. The furniture and decor looked like something out of a science-fiction movie. The beds were raised, with extremely soft mattresses, beamed with soft overhead lights. For those on a first or second honeymoon, mirrors were mounted inconspicuously in the ceiling. The bathrooms had built-in chambers that dispersed mist, spray, rain or steam amid a jungle of flowering tropical plants that looked as though they’d been grown on an alien planet. Sailing on the
Emerald Dolphin
was an experience unique among cruise ships.

The ship designers also understood where their future passengers would be coming from, and fashioned the ship in the image of the affluent young. Many were well-off doctors, attorneys and entrepreneurs of small and large businesses. Most brought their families. The single passengers were in the minority. There was a fair-sized group of senior citizens who looked like they could well afford the finest money could buy.

After dinner, while most young couples danced in the ballroom to a band playing whatever popular music was on the charts, hung out in the nightclub with its floor show or gambled in the casino, those families with children attended the theater and watched the ship’s troupe perform the latest Broadway smash success,
Sonofagun from Arizona.
By 3
A.M.,
the decks and lounges were empty. No passengers who went to bed that night would have thought that the old grim reaper was about to swing his scythe at the
Emerald Dolphin.

C
aptain Jack Waitkus made a brief inspection of the upper decks before retiring to his cabin. Old by most cruise ship standards, Waitkus was only five days away from his sixty-fifth birthday. He had no illusions about remaining at sea after this voyage. The directors of the company had notified him that he would be on the beach as soon as the ship returned to its home port in Fort Lauderdale after its maiden voyage to Sydney and back. Actually, Waitkus looked forward to retirement. He and his wife lived on a beautiful forty-two-foot sailing yacht. For years they had planned to take a leisurely cruise around the world. Waitkus’s mind was already charting a course across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.

He had been named commander of the
Emerald Dolphin’s
maiden voyage in honor of his distinguished service to the company. He was a stout man with the jolly appearance of a Falstaff without the beard. His blue eyes had a leprechaun look to them, and his lips seemed always turned up in a warm smile. Unlike many cruise ship captains who did not care to mingle with the passengers, Captain Waitkus enjoyed circulating among them. At his table in the dining salon, he regaled his guests with stories of how he had run away to sea when he was a young boy in Liverpool, sailed on tramp steamers in the Orient, and worked his way up through the ranks. He’d studied hard and passed the ships’ officers’ tests until finally receiving his master’s papers. He’d then served for ten years with the Blue Seas Cruise Lines, as second and first officer until he was named master of the
Emerald Dolphin.
He was very popular and the directors of the Line were reluctant to let him go, but it was company policy and they felt they could make no exceptions.

He was tired, but never dropped off to sleep until he’d read a few pages of one of his books on underwater treasure. He had one shipwreck in mind that had carried a cargo of gold and gone down off the coast of Morocco that he especially wanted to search for during his retirement journey. He made one final call to the bridge and was told all was normal before he drifted off to sleep.

A
t 4:10
A.M.,
Second Officer Charles McFerrin thought he caught a distinct whiff of smoke as he made a routine tour of the ship. Sniffing the air, he gauged the smell to be strongest at one end of the shopping avenue where the boutiques and gift shops were located. Mystified, because no alarm had been sounded, he followed the acrid scent along the avenue until he stood in front of the wedding chapel. Sensing heat on the other side, he pulled the door open.

The interior of the chapel was a raging mass of flames. Stunned, McFerrin stumbled backward away from the intense heat, tripped and fell to the deck. He quickly recovered and called the bridge on his radio communicator and shouted a series of commands. “Wake up Captain Waitkus. We have a fire in the chapel. Sound the alarm, program the damage-control computer and engage the fire-control systems.”

First Officer Vince Sheffield automatically turned to the fire-systems console. All the lights were green. “McFerrin, are you sure? We have no indication here.”

“Trust me,” McFerrin shouted into the mouthpiece. “It’s an inferno, and it’s out of control.”

“Are the sprinklers activated?” Sheffield demanded.

“No, something is radically wrong. The fire-extinguishing system is not operating, and there was no heat alarm.”

Sheffield was at a loss. The
Emerald Dolphin
had the most advanced fire-alarm and -control system of any ship at sea. Without it, there were no options. Staring at the console that showed all was well, he wasted precious seconds vacillating while standing in frozen disbelief. He turned to the junior officer on the bridge, Carl Harding. “McFerrin is reporting a fire in the chapel. Nothing shows on the fire-control console. Go down and check it out.”

More time was lost while McFerrin frantically fought the growing conflagration with extinguishers, but he might just as well have tried stopping a major forest fire by beating it out with a burlap sack. The flames were spreading beyond the chapel as he fought them alone. He simply could not believe that the automatic sprinklers were not operating. The flames were unstoppable unless crew members appeared and turned on the water valves and attacked the fire with hoses, but only Harding appeared, walking leisurely down the shopping avenue.

Harding was stunned when he saw the extent of the holocaust, more so when he found McFerrin fighting a losing battle by himself. He called up to the bridge. “Sheffield, for God’s sake! We’ve got a raging firestorm down here and have nothing to fight it with but portable extinguishers. Call out the fire crew and engage the fire-control systems!”

Still wallowing in disbelief, Sheffield hesitated before switching on the manual override on the extinguishing system in the chapel. “System is on,” he called to the men at the chapel.

“Nothing is happening!” McFerrin cried. “Hurry, man. We can’t stop this alone.”

As if in a daze, Sheffield finally called and reported the blaze to the fire-crew officer and then woke Captain Waitkus.

“Sir, I have a reported fire in the chapel.”

Waitkus came instantly awake. “Are the fire-control systems taking care of it?”

“Officers McFerrin and Harding, who are on the scene, report the systems as inoperative. They’re attempting to contain the fire with extinguishers.”

“Call out the fire crew to man the fire hoses.”

“I’ve seen to that, sir.”

“Have the lifeboat crews man their stations.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

As he hurriedly dressed, Waitkus could not conceive of an emergency that would call for him ordering 2,500 passengers and crew to board the lifeboats and abandon ship, but he was determined to take all precautions. He rushed to the bridge and immediately studied the fire-control console. It was still awash with green lights. If there was a fire, none of the sophisticated systems was detecting it, nor were they automatically engaging to put it out.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked Sheffield skeptically.

“McFerrin and Harding swear there is a fire raging in the chapel.”

“This is impossible.” Waitkus picked up the phone and called the engine room.

Assistant Chief Engineer Joseph Barnum answered. “Engine room. This is Barnum.”

“This is the captain. Do your fire-control and detection systems show any indication of a fire anywhere on the ship?”

“One moment.” Barnum turned and peered at a large panel. “No, sir, I’ve got green lights across the board. No indication of a fire on this end.”

“Stand by to activate your fire-control system manually,” ordered Waitkus.

At that moment a crewman came running onto the bridge. He rushed up to Sheffield. “Sir, I thought you should know, I smelled smoke when I came around the port promenade deck.”

Waitkus picked up the phone. “McFerrin?”

The second officer barely heard the phone buzz over the crackle of the fire. “What is it?” he snapped harshly.

“This is Captain Waitkus. You and Harding get out of the chapel. I’m going to close the steel fire doors and seal off the chapel.”

“Make it fast, sir,” said McFerrin loudly. “I fear the fire is about to burst through into the avenue.”

Waitkus pressed the switch that would send the concealed fire doors around the chapel area, sealing it off. He stood bewildered when the activation light failed to illuminate. He called McFerrin again. “Have the fire doors closed?”

“No, sir. There is no movement.”

“This is impossible,” Waitkus muttered for the second time in the past two minutes. “I can’t believe the entire system has shut down.” He rang the engine room again. “Barnum,” he barked, “use your manual override and close the fire doors around the chapel.”

“Closing the fire door,” Barnum acknowledged. Then, “My board shows no movement. I don’t understand. The fire-door control system is not functioning.”

“Damn!” Waitkus gasped. He gave a curt nod to Sheffield. “I’m going down to check out the situation for myself.”

The first officer never saw the captain again. Waitkus entered the bridge elevator, rode down to A Deck and approached the wedding chapel from the side opposite the crew fighting the fire. Unthinkingly, unaware of the enormity of the danger, he jerked open the door behind the altar. A storm of flame burst through the doorway and engulfed him. Almost instantly, his lungs were seared and he was turned into a walking torch. He reeled backward and fell dead in a fireball before he struck the deck.

Captain Jack Waitkus died horribly, never knowing that his ship was about to die, too.

K
elly Egan awoke from a nightmare. It was a kind she often dreamed, in which she was being chased by some sort of indescribable animal or insect. In this one, she was swimming and a huge fish brushed up against her. She moaned in her sleep and popped her eyes open, seeing only the glow from the night-light in the bathroom.