Everything around her became a blur during the fall. In what seemed the wink of an eye, she splashed into the water, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Saltwater flowed up her nose, and she fought off the urge to open her mouth to exhale a breath to purge the flow.

Down she plunged in an explosion of bubbles, as the sea closed over her. When her impetus slowed, she looked up and saw the surface shimmering under the lights of the two ships. She stroked upward, helped by her life vest, before she finally burst into the air. She sucked in several deep breaths as she looked around for her father, and saw him floating limply about thirty feet away from the scorched hull of the cruise ship.

Then a wave swept over him and she lost him. Unnerved, she frantically swam to the spot where she had last seen him. A wave raised her on its crest and she spotted her father again, no more than twenty feet away. She reached him, put one arm around his shoulders and pulled back his head by the hair. "Dad!" she cried.

Egan's eyes fluttered open and he stared at her. His face was twisted, as though he was in great pain. "Kelly, save yourself," he said haltingly. "I can't make it."

"Hold on, Dad," she encouraged him. "A boat will pick us up soon."

Still clutching the brown case, he pushed it toward her. "When I fell in the water, I struck this. I must have broken my back. I'm paralyzed and can't swim."

A body floating facedown drifted against Kelly, and she fought to keep from gagging as she pushed it away. "I'll hold on to you, Dad. I won't let you go. We can use your hand case as a float."

"Take it," he muttered, forcing her to grab the case. "Keep it safe until the proper time."

"I don't understand."

"You'll know . . ." He barely got the words out. His face contorted in agony and he sagged.

Kelly was shocked at his defeatism until she realized that her father was dying before her eyes. As for Egan, he knew he was dying. But there was no panic, no terror. He accepted his fate. His biggest regret was not the loss of his daughter-he knew she would be all right. It was not knowing if the discovery he had created on paper would work. He looked into Kelly's blue eyes and smiled faintly.

"Your mother is waiting for me," he whispered.

Kelly looked around desperately for a rescue boat. The nearest was less than two hundred feet away. She released her father, swam several yards, waved her hands and shouted. "Over here! Come this way!"

A woman, weakened by smoke inhalation and foundering in the waves, saw Kelly just as she herself was plucked from the water, and pointed her out to a seaman, but the rescuers were too engrossed in pulling others from the sea, and they failed to see her. Kelly rolled over and backstroked back to her father, but he was not to be seen. Only the leather case floated there.