Plague Ship

Robinson.” George “Gomez” Adams was a matinee-idol-handsome chopper pilot who’d gotten his nickname after using his charms on a South American drug lord’s wife, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Carolyn Jones, the actress from the old Addams Family television show. “Tell him I want a UAV on the launch rail as soon as we’re in position. If need be, you can fly it.” Eric couldn’t fly a real plane to save his life but played enough flight simulator games to easily handle the Oregon’s remotely operated drones.

Cabrillo asked, “What’s our ETA?”

“Little over two hours.”

“Put yourself down for a bonus if you make it in two.”

CHAPTER 7

BY THE LIGHT OF THE STARS SMEARED ACROSS THE night sky, she looked like a wedding cake, multiple tiers rising higher and higher, a delicate balance of form and function. Yet to the men and women in the Op Center studying the feed beamed back by the flying drone, she also looked like a ghostship.

Not a porthole was lit, nothing stirred on her deck, even the bar of her radar transmitter was stationary.

Cresting waves slapped against her long white hull, hitting her as if she was as immutable as an iceberg.

Thermal imaging off the drone’s IR camera showed that her engines and funnel were cold, and while the ambient air temperature in this part of the Indian Ocean hovered near the high eighties the gear was sensitive enough to detect body heat. They saw none.

“What the hell happened here?” Linda asked, knowing there couldn’t possibly be an answer.

“Gomez, buzz the deck,” Juan ordered.

George Adams sat at a workstation at the rear of the Op Center, his slicked-back and brilliantined hair shimmering in the dim neon glow of his computer. He ran a finger across his pencil mustache and eased the joystick forward. The UAV, nothing more than a commercial radio-controlled airplane fitted with powerful cameras and an extended transceiver, complied with his command, diving down toward the cruise ship lying dead in the water thirty miles east of the hard-charging Oregon .

The crew watched expectantly as the tiny aircraft arced out of the sky and ran along the ship’s starboard rail, the camera tracking along her deck. For several long seconds, it was quiet in the room, each person absorbed with what they were seeing. It was Cabrillo who finally broke the silence.

He keyed his communications pad. “Medical to the Op Center. Hux, we need you now!”

“Are those what I think they are?” Eric Stone asked in a hushed whisper.

“Aye, lad,” Max replied, equally subdued. “Her deck’s littered with bodies.” There had to be a hundred corpses on the deck, sprawled in twisted shapes of agony. Their clothing fluttered with the breeze. Adams zoomed in on the open deck around the ship’s swimming pool, where it seemed as if every guest at a party had simply collapsed, the area was strewn with dropped dishes and glasses. He tightened the camera’s focus as he slowed the UAV to narrow in on one passenger, a young woman in a dress. She lay in a pool of her own blood. It looked as though everyone was.

“Did anyone notice the ship’s name?” Mark Murphy asked.

“Golden Dawn,” Juan told him, all thoughts of salvage and prize money driven from his mind.

Mark concentrated on his computer, calling up everything he could get about the ship as the others stared transfixed at the grisly tableau.

Julia Huxley rushed into the Op Center wearing pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair was a gnarled mess. She carried a medical case that she kept in her stateroom.

“What’s the emergency?” she asked breathlessly.

When no one answered, she looked up at the screen holding their attention. Even for a seasoned medical professional, the carnage arrayed around the deck of the cruise ship was appalling. She visibly blanched, before composing herself with a subtle shake of her head. She approached the monitor and cast a critical eye at what she saw. The low light and unsteady UAV made it difficult to discern details.

“It doesn’t appear to be trauma,” she said. “I’d say they were struck by some kind of fast-acting hemorrhagic virus.”

“Natural?” Max asked.

“Nothing in nature strikes this swiftly.”

“They didn’t have the time to send out a distress signal,” Juan remarked, to back up Hux’s assessment.

Julia turned to him. “I need to get over there. Take some samples. There is biohazard gear down in the medical bay, and we can set up a decontamination station on deck.”

“Forget it,” Juan said. “There’s no way I’m letting you get some virus anywhere near this ship.” Julia made to argue but Cabrillo wasn’t finished. “We’ll do decon on a tethered Zodiac inflatable and then sink it. Eric, take over the UAV from George. Gomez, get down to the hangar and finish prepping the chopper. Mark, go roust Eddie, get yourselves a couple of pistols from the armory, and meet us in the hangar. Julia, do you need a hand?”

“I’ll get an orderly to help me,” she said.

“Okay. Bring a couple extra bio-suits in case there are any survivors.” Cabrillo was already on his feet. “I want to be in the air in twenty minutes.”

The Oregon reached the stricken Golden Dawn a minute short of Juan’s deadline. Because of the Robinson’s weight limitations, it would take two trips to ferry everyone and their equipment to the cruise ship. Eric had scouted the liner from the drone and determined the best place for them to land was on top of the bridge. It was the largest area on the ship that was free of the dead. Though the chopper wouldn’t land directly on the Dawn, George Adams was kitted out with a rebreathing orange biohazard suit like the rest of them, and two of Julia’s staff were prepping a hose on deck, fed from a tank of powerful bleach concentrate, to disinfect the chopper prior to its touching back down.

Juan was taking no chances. The crewmen who would tow the Zodiac over with the ship’s SEAL assault boat would go through a similar drill. Because whatever agent had wiped out the passengers and crew of the Golden Dawn wasn’t natural, he knew they were looking at a case of intentional terrorism and murder on a mass scale. He was concerned not only about the virus itself but was already thinking ahead to the people responsible.

He held out his hands to Julia so she could duct-tape where the suit’s tall gloves meshed with the sleeves.

She then secured the back zipper with more of the silver tape. The airflow off his tank was steady, and the carbon scrubbers were activated. He had three hours before he needed to be out of the suit.

“Move slowly and deliberately,” Julia was telling them over the integrated communications net as she worked. “Plan out everything before you do it. Avoid running. These suits are your life. If the pathogen is airborne, a tiny tear could leave you exposed.”

“What happens if I do rip the suit?” Mark asked. His voice quavered.

Murph had been on a few shore operations, but he was clearly uncomfortable going over to the Dawn.

Cabrillo wanted him with them to check the cruise ship’s computers and learn exactly where she had been in the past few weeks.

“I’m going to leave extra lengths of tape on all of your suits. If you get a rip, tape it up immediately and contact me. The suits have a positive air pressure, so, if you’re quick, you should be okay. Don’t move from where you are, because I will need to examine whatever it is that cut you.” She worked on Eddie next, looking over every square inch of the rubberized fabric before taping the seams. He, Mark, and Cabrillo had gun belts slung around their waists. The protective gloves made working the triggers difficult, but there was no way Juan would let them go over unarmed.

“Any time, Chairman,” George said from the Robinson’s open cockpit door. A stack of gear was on one of the nimble little helicopter’s backseats.

Juan tried to shout at a nearby technician but couldn’t be heard through the hazmat suit. He strode over and hit the button that would activate the hangar elevator. Overhead, the two sections of rear deck hatch folded open as the lift eased upward on four hydraulic rams. He secured the helo’s back door once Julia was inside and swung