we were careful with them but we ran finally out. So we found the
“You weren’t afraid of the flu?” Kuzma asked.
“We got vaccinated in New York,” Sophia said, carefully. “Since you’re still sort of a cop, you’ll allow me to take the Fifth on any more discussion of that, okay?”
“Okay,” Kuzma said. “But some of that stuff…”
“It was for real,” Sophia said, tonelessly. “Let’s just say my uncle had some connections. And, yes, it was the kind made from people’s spines. And, yes, we knew it. Now can we change the subject or are you going to arrest us?”
“No,” Kuzma said, shaking his head. “I wish I had some. I wish
“Yeah,” Sophia said, shrugging. “Put it this way, NYPD was vaccinated
“Holy crap,” Kuzma said, his eyes wide. “Seriously?”
“Really should drop the subject,” Sophia said. “But, yeah, I’m sure. You could only get about ten units per infected. The count I got was thirty thousand vaccinated. And you needed primer and booster. Sixty thousand units. I don’t know where they were doing it, but they had to have had an assembly line that made Auschwitz look like Central Park.”
“Wolf, Kuzma,” Kuzma said. “Mind if I accompany?”
“Grab a respirator,” Seawolf said.
“Respirator?” Kuzma asked.
“For the smell.”
“You get used to it.”
CHAPTER 24
“
Steve after some thought had centralized the “clearance teams” on the
He kept his voice low: singing wasn’t one of his gifts. But he could hear Faith caroling along in a high, perfect, soprano and even a deeper and not bad tenor from Sergeant Fontana. They were busy prepping gear on the aft deck. If the rolls bothered them it wasn’t apparent. He heard Faith laugh about something and wondered, mildly, if putting her alongside the older and presumably heterosexual SF sergeant was a good idea. He wasn’t a jealous angry father type by any stretch and trusted his girls to make reasonably intelligent decisions.
But Faith was still a bit young to make mature and intelligent decisions regarding romance and, face it, both his daughters were hotties. The main issue he had wasn’t if something happened. He knew Faith generally knew the guidelines on that sort of thing. They’d had discussions on the subject. And in Fontana’s position, the temptation had to be fairly high. The real issue was when, not if, something went wrong and dealing with the aftermath. Faith was both passionate and, at this point, about as deadly as they came.
It didn’t, for now, appear to be a real issue. But it was just another nagging problem at the back of his mind.
Like the Coasties. The “headquarters” hadn’t gotten back to them at the three day limit. The sub was still out there. It even maintained the same general position relative to his boat. The ESM mast was scooting along the surface, five klicks or so, port, forward. Just in case he got a call he guessed. He’d put them on the Large, since they had some people who could figure out the systems, and pointed out that they didn’t really have the fuel to use it, then showed them the flotilla’s usage. The Coasties were…coasting. They were being useful, helping out on the
They’d gotten two more boats up and doing rescue/clearance, Blair was over on the
He paused in his ruminations and picked up his binoculars, peering into the distance. The
That also meant that up on the fly bridge he could see further than the helm. Which meant he was the first to spot the target.
By the same token as having a higher spot to look from, being higher above the water meant you were more visible. And this boat was visible from too far away. Then the music cut off.
“Captain Wolf?” the helmsman called over the radio. “I think I’ve spotted it on radar…?”
His new helmsman, Gustav Fleischmann, had had some experience with small fishing boats. Graduating to the
“Roger,” Steve said. “I’ve got it on visual.”
He wanted to curse. The boat could be a gold mine or a bust. But it was even larger than the Large. Much larger as he finally spotted Sherill’s Bertram alongside. It looked like, well, a toy boat. In fact, the boat was much much larger than he’d realized. It wasn’t a boat, it was a… Small cruise ship? Megayacht? He wasn’t sure.
He flipped channels for the flotilla frequency.
“
“
“Oh, no,” Steve said. “This is an all hands evolution. All boats, relay, proceed to location of
* * *
“Bloody buggers…”
The megayacht was…massive. As long as the cutter with some of the same lines but…prettier. It was anything but utilitarian. And it was, indeed, listing.
On the starboard side of the yacht was a “boarding and support center” that was basically a