Chapter One

San Diego, California, 2001

West of Encitas on the Pacific coast, the graceful motor yacht Nepenthe swung at anchor, the grandest craft in a flotilla that seemed to include every sailboat and powerboat in San Diego. With her fluid drawn-out lines, the spearlike sprit jutting from the thrusting clipper bow, and her flaring transom, the two-hundred-foot-long Nepenthe looked as if she were made of fine white china floating on a Delft sea. Her paint glistened with a mirror finish, and her brightwork sparkled under the California sun. Flags and pennants snapped and fluttered from stem to stern. Bobbing balloons occasionally broke loose to soar into the cloudless sky.

In the yacht's spacious British Empire-style salon a string quartet played a Vivaldi piece for the eclectic gathering of black-clad Hollywood types, corpulent politicians, and sleek TV anchors who milled around a thick-legged mahogany table devouring pâté, beluga caviar, and shrimp with the gusto of famine victims.

Outside, crowding the sun-drenched decks, children sat in wheelchairs or leaned on crutches, munching hot dogs and burgers and enjoying the fresh sea air. Hovering over them like a mother hen was a lovely woman in her fifties. Gloria Ekhart's generous mouth and cornflower-blue eyes were familiar to millions who had seen her movies and watched her popular sitcom on TV. Every fan knew about Ekhart's daughter Elsie, the pretty, freckle-faced young girl who scooted around the deck in a wheelchair. Ekhart had given up acting at the peak of her career to devote her fortune and time to helping children like her own. The influential and well-heeled guests chugging down Dom Perignon in the salon would be asked later to open their checkbooks for the Ekhart Foundation.

Ekhart had a flair for promotion, which was why she leased the Nepenthe for her party. In 1930, when the vessel slid off the ways at the G. L. Watson boatyard in Glasgow, she was among the most graceful motor yachts ever to sail the seas. The yacht's first owner, an English earl, lost her in an all-night poker game to a Hollywood mogul with a penchant for cards, marathon parties, and underage starlets. She went through a succession of equally indifferent owners, winding up in a failed attempt as a fishing boat. Smelling of dead fish and bait, the rotting yacht languished in the back corner of a boatyard. She was rescued by a Silicon Valley magnate who tried to recoup the millions he spent restoring the vessel by leasing her out for events such as the Ekhart fund-raiser.

A man wearing a blue blazer with an official race badge pinned to the breast pocket had been peering through binoculars at the flat green expanse of the Pacific. He rubbed his eyes and squinted into the lenses again. In the distance thin white plumes were etched against the blue sky where it met the water. He lowered the binoculars, raised an aerosol canister with a plastic trumpet attached, and pressed the button three times.

Hawnk...hawnk...hawnk.

The klaxon's blaring squawk echoed across the water like the mating call of a monster gander. The flotilla took up the signal. A cacophony of bells, whistles, and horns filled the air and drowned out the cry of hungry gulls. Hundreds of spectators excitedly reached for their binoculars and cameras. Boats heeled dangerously as passengers shifted to one side. On the Nepenthe the guests wolfed down their food and poured from the salon sipping from glasses of bubbly. They shaded their eyes and looked off in the distance, where the feathery plumes were thickening into bantam rooster tails. Carried on the breeze was a sound like an angry...