Plague Ship

press the issue. Her emotional state is pretty fragile. She did tell me something that might be pertinent.

The ship was on a charter for a group called the Responsivists.”

“What’s this about Responsivists?” This came from Max Hanley. He strode into the lab like a bull in a china shop. Before anyone could answer, he crossed to Juan and shook his hand. “Scuttlebutt around the ship says you were out of isolation. How are you doing?” It never ceased to amaze Cabrillo how quickly information passed through the crew, even at—he glanced at his watch—four-thirty in the morning. “Glad to be alive,” he said warmly.

“That was a hell of a thing.” Max grinned. “Never seen anything like it in my life. You came out of that funnel like a cork out of a bottle of cheap champagne.”

“I managed to climb almost to the top,” Juan said. “But then I got jammed up. I couldn’t budge, and the water was rising faster and faster. Rather than deflate my suit, I inflated it as far is it would go, to completely block the exhaust stack. Air forced up the funnel by the flooding in the engine room did the rest.”

“Looked like one wild ride.”

“How high did I go anyway?”

“At least twenty feet, and you cleared the rail by fifteen.” Max then seemed to remember his original question. “You said something about Responsivists?”

“Yeah, Miss Dahl mentioned the ship was on a charter for them. From the Philippines to Athens.”

“Piraeus, actually,” Eric corrected automatically. “Athens is inland. Its port is the city of Piraeus.” Murph smacked him on the shoulder. “Do you honestly think we all don’t know that?” Julia couldn’t suppress a smile, more certain than ever that neither of these paramour wannabes would get very far with Janni.

“I talked to my ex again,” Max said. “This really wasn’t a kidnapping at all. She said that to light a fire under my tail. Kyle has always been a follower—you know, someone easily swayed by peer pressure.

He fell in with the wrong crowd in high school, and that’s how he ended up busted for drugs. His rehab counselor told me Kyle doesn’t have an addiction problem; he has a self-esteem problem. Anyway, he met up with this group at some demonstration and within a few days he declared himself a Responsivist.

He even went so far as to see a urologist about a little snip-snip and is now in Greece. Apparently, they have some sort of compound on the Peloponnesian Peninsula.”

“He had a vasectomy?” Julia asked. “He’s only twenty-one or twenty-two. There aren’t many doctors who will perform one on a man much before thirty unless he already has a family.”

“Kyle’s twenty-three, and the Responsivists have their own doctors that do nothing but vasectomies and tubal ligations all day long.”

“I hadn’t heard of Responsivists before Jannike mentioned them,” Juan said.

“I don’t know much myself,” Max admitted. “Just what Lisa told me.”

“You guys need to read more Hollywood gossip,” Julia said. “Ever heard of Donna Sky?”

“The actress?” Mark asked.

“The highest-paid actress in history, as a matter of fact. She’s a Responsivist. So are a lot of people in the film world. It’s the newest thing in Hollywood.”

“Is it a church or a cult or something?”

“No one is exactly sure. At least, no one on the outside,” she replied. “It was started back in the seventies by a geneticist named Lydell Cooper. Cooper had been instrumental in developing cheaper drugs to fight malaria and smallpox. Some credit his work for saving hundreds of millions of lives.

“He didn’t see it that way, at least not after a while, as he watched population explosions all over the globe. By eradicating diseases, he had helped remove one of the natural checks and balances in human population control. People weren’t having more children, but more of the ones they had were living, and then more of their children were surviving, too. Without disease, he started to argue, humanity was doomed to extinction because of our swelling numbers.

“He wrote a book on the subject, and began to crusade for family planning on a global scale. He founded a group of like-minded people, the Responsivists, which comes from ‘those who are responsible.’ Soon, the movement was known as Responsivism, and it began to attract some big-name people from all walks of life, politicians, sports stars, actors and actresses. Cooper died about ten years ago, but the movement’s flourished under a husband- and-wife team. I don’t know their names, off the top of my head.”

“What does this group do now?” Juan asked.

“They operate family-planning centers all over the world, providing free condoms, abortions, and reproductive surgeries to men and women. They’ve been in a long-running battle with the Catholic Church, as you can well imagine, and with everyone on the right side of the political spectrum.” Juan looked around the room. “Next question is, what have the Responsivists done to make someone wipe out a cruise ship full of its members?”

No one had an answer to that.

CHAPTER 10

THE CIRCLING PAPARAZZI HELICOPTERS WERE FOILED by the snowy white tent erected over the manicured lawns of the Beverly Hills estate. The tent was easily twice the size of the nearby azure Olympic-sized swimming pool. When a Los Angeles County sheriff’s Bell JetRanger appeared, as per their instructions, the two hired choppers took off before their tail numbers could be identified for later prosecution for encroaching on the no- fly zone. The pilots weren’t going to risk arrest, no matter how much the photographers tried to bribe and then harangue them.

The pampered guests under the marquee were accustomed to such intrusions of their privacy and paid scant attention to the drama. The sound of the aircraft faded, and the buzz of conversation returned to its normal level. The band, on a raised wooden platform at one end of the tent, resumed playing, while toned starlets in skimpy bikinis, de rigueur for any Hollywood party, ventured back to cavort around the swimming pool.

The house looming over the expansive backyard was a faux Mediterranean villa encompassing nearly forty thousand square feet of living space, with a separate guesthouse twice the size of the average American home. The underground garage could accommodate twenty cars. Two multimillion-dollar properties had been bought and leveled to give the new owners what they wanted, and crews had worked nearly around the clock for three years to complete the walled compound. In a town accustomed to garish displays of wealth, the estate had sent chins wagging since it was first proposed.

The owners were Thomas and Heidi Severance. They weren’t actors, nor were they moguls in the film industry, although Thom Severance had worked as an executive at a studio for a couple of years. They were the benefactors and guardians of the estate of the late Dr. Lydell Cooper, the founder of Responsivism, and they now headed the growing institution. The money to build the house, which doubled as the group’s California headquarters, had come from donors from all over the world, although the bulk had been raised among the Hollywood elite who flocked to Responsivism in ever-increasing numbers.

Thom Severance had been among the first to recognize the brilliance of Dr. Cooper’s breakout book, We’re Breeding Ourselves to Death, and had sought the author out to help spread the word. It was natural that Thom would find a kindred spirit in Cooper’s daughter, Heidi. They were married after a two-month courtship, and it was their boundless energy that had grown Responsivism into the worldwide phenomena it was today. They had taken over, as Cooper had wanted, upon his death, and continued his work. Their charisma had especially attracted followers in the entertainment industry, and when Oscar-winning actress Donna Sky had admitted to the world she had been practicing Responsivism for many years, the group’s popularity exploded.

Thom Severance stood at a solid six feet, with surgically enhanced features that gave him a commanding aura. He was fifty-three, yet his sandy hair had yet to thin and his eyes had lost none of their compelling appeal. The cream linen jacket he wore was cut too large for his frame, but rather than detract from his exercise-hewed body the effect made him look even more well muscled. When he laughed, which was often, his white teeth contrasted with the permanent tan he sported.

Heidi stood at his side. She was only a couple of years younger than Thom but looked to be in her late thirties. She was the quintessential California girl, with perfectly tinted blond hair, radiant blue eyes, and the figure of a professional athlete. Her neck was her greatest asset, long and graceful, and she took full advantage of it by wearing low-cut tops and necklaces laced with flawless diamonds.

Individually, Thom and Heidi were attractive people. Together, they made such a striking couple that it was