Zahn could see the veins bulging in the captain's neck. He stared through the bridge windows at the old torpedo boat leading the way. “In that case,” he said in a voice that seemed to echo in a tomb, “God help us all.”

PROFESSOR, wake up." The voice was hard-edged, urgent.

Kovacs opened his eyes and saw Karl bending over him. He sat up and rubbed his cheeks as if he could squeeze the sleep out of them.

“What's wrong?”

“I've been talking to people. My God, what a mess! There are two captains and they fight all the time. Not enough lifeboats. The ship's engines are barely keeping us up to speed. The stupid submarine division ordered the ship to sail with an old torpedo boat escort that looks as if it was left over from the last war. The damned fools have got the ship's navigation lights on.”

Kovacs saw an uncharacteristic alarm in the marble features.

“How long have I slept?”

“It's nighttime. We're on the open sea.” Karl shoved a dark blue life jacket at Kovacs and slipped into a similar jacket.

“Now what do we do?”

“Stay here. I want to check the lifeboat situation.” He tossed Kovacs a pack of cigarettes. “Be my guest.”

“I don't smoke.”

Karl paused in the open doorway. “Maybe it's time you did.” Then he was gone.

Kovacs spilled a cigarette from the pack and lit up. He had quit smoking years ago, when he got married. He coughed as the smoke filled his lungs, and he felt dizzy from the strong tobacco, but he recalled with delicious pleasure the innocent debauchery of his college days.

He finished the cigarette, thought of lighting up another but decided against it. He had not had a bath in days, and his body itched in a dozen places. He washed his face in the sink and was drying his hands on a threadbare towel when there was a knock at the door.

“Professor Kovacs?” a muffled voice said.

“Yes.”

The door opened, and the professor gasped. Standing in the doorway was the ugliest woman he had ever seen. She was more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders straining the seams of a black Persian lamb coat. Her wide mouth was painted in bright red lipstick, and, with such heavily rouged lips, she looked like a circus clown.

“Pardon my appearance,” she said in an unmistakably male voice. “This is not an easy ship to get aboard. I had to resort to this silly disguise, and a few bribes.”

“Who are you?”

“Not important. What is important is your name. You are Dr. Lazlo Kovacs, the great German-Hungarian electrical genius.”

Kovacs grew wary. “I am Lazlo Kovacs. I consider myself to be Hungarian.”

“Splendid! You are the author of the paper on electromagnetism that electrified the scientific world.”