Plague Ship (25 page)

“A little more,” David said tonelessly. Then he stepped on Barrick’s right hand and ground his heel into the bones, snapping and crushing all the metacarpals. Barrick screamed in agony and jerked his fractured hand away, but his other hand remained exposed. David crushed its metacarpal bones as well, all the while ignoring the deckhand’s shrieks.

“Let’s see if you can hold a knife to a child’s throat with those hands,” David said and ran for the elevator.

thirty-eight

The bridge was uncomfortably
hot, and with the sun blazing in through the windows, it was growing even hotter. David gazed around the glass enclosure, thinking they had traded one hostage situation for another. The seven occupants on the bridge were trapped and had no way out. Juanita was sitting on the floor, with Kit asleep in her arms. Jonathan Locke was at the helm, while nearby Chandler was peering at a radar screen. Everyone was stationary, except for the chief radio officer, who was wandering around with little to do since he was now cut off from the communications room. David watched him pace aimlessly and thought the man was like a fish out of water, helpless and doomed.
But then again, so are the rest of us. We are just as helpless and just as doomed
. David sighed deeply and turned his attention to Carolyn. She was crunching the numbers of their incomplete survey and trying to make sense of them.

“Any luck?” David asked her.

Carolyn shook her head. “There are too many blanks that need to be filled in. And I can guarantee you the crew won’t allow us to roam the ship and gather more information from the passengers.”

“There’s a lot of things the crew won’t be allowing us to do, and that includes letting us continue to set the course for the
Grand Atlantic
.”

“Do you think they’ll storm the bridge?” Chandler asked over his shoulder.

“They don’t have to,” David answered. “The temperature in here will keep rising because they’ve shut off the air conditioning. Soon we’ll become dehydrated, and without any water we’ll grow increasingly weak and unable to put up any resistance. So they can just wait us out.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?” Chandler asked, with concern.

“A day,” David estimated. “Two, if we’re lucky.”

“And then there’s my diabetes,” Locke added. “I require insulin injections every six hours, and I can’t get to my supply now.”

“And we can’t call for help,” the chief radio officer joined in, “because we can’t reach the communications room.”

“Which puts us at a double disadvantage,” Locke said discouragingly. “Now we don’t have access to the weather forecasts. We could be sailing into another hurricane.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” the chief radio officer told him. “The last weather report from six hours ago called for calm seas except for a thunderstorm brewing along the eastern coast of Florida. We’re presently well clear of that.”

“Well then, score one point for our side,” Chandler said.

“Not really,” David countered. “In rough seas, the mutineers would have trouble grounding the ship and swimming ashore. Calm seas make it easier for them.”

“Shit,” Chandler muttered, then immediately looked over at Juanita and apologized. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Juanita nodded briefly, accepting the apology.

David’s eyes drifted back to the expansive bridge, with its rows of consoles and computers and electronic displays. All were useless now, as were his two loaded shotguns. Oh, he could kill the first wave of mutineers, but the remaining ones were mean and desperate enough to kill him in return. And they might decide to kill the others as well and feed them to the sharks, figuring it was in their best interest not to leave any witnesses behind. David concentrated his mind and tried to come up with a doable solution to their problem. He couldn’t give in to the mutineers, because they would eventually start a worldwide pandemic. He couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t.
Maybe if—

There was a loud bang on one of the large metal doors to the bridge. Then another bang, louder yet.

“What’s that?” Chandler asked, spinning around. “Are they trying to break in?”

“I don’t think so,” Locke replied. “That door is made of reinforced steel. They could smash it with a sledgehammer and barely cause a dent.”

For a moment, everything was quiet. Then a voice hollered from behind the door. “Listen up in there! The CDC wants to talk with the doc.”

“It could be a trap,” Chandler warned immediately.

David nodded. The mutineers knew he was the group’s leader, and if he was captured, the others would quickly surrender. But, on the other hand, David needed to talk with the CDC. It could be their only way out. He hurried to the door and yelled, “What do they want?”

“They didn’t say,” came the answer.

“Then ask them,” David said, buying himself time. “I want specifics.”

There was only silence outside the door now.

David rushed back to the others and asked the chief radio officer, “Do they know how to use the ship-to-shore radio?”

“For sure,” the radio officer said. “Some of the crewmen who work with me are experts in communications.”

“It could still be a trap,” Chandler advised. “After what you did to Choi, they’d happily tear you apart.”

Carolyn asked anxiously, “Is there any way to determine if it’s a trap?”

“First, let’s see if the CDC really wants to talk with me,” David said. “And about what. It could be vitally important.”

“Important enough to risk your life?” Carolyn asked.

David nodded. “About five hours ago, before we started our survey, I contacted the CDC and told them my preliminary findings. I wanted them to find out which of the passengers had taken the various flu vaccines and which hadn’t.”

“How in the world could they do that?” Carolyn pondered. “They’d have to track down hundreds of family members and hope the family members knew who their relative’s doctors were, and then hope the doctor kept accurate records of the flu shots their nurses probably gave. It’s an impossible task that would take forever to do.”

“I know,” David said dispiritedly, realizing the odds were stacked against him. “But I had to try.”

“It’s a very long shot,” Carolyn said candidly.

“But that’s better than no shot at all.”

There was another loud rap in the large metal door, followed by a booming voice. “They need to talk with you about the vaccine. They say it’s really important for you to give them more information.”

David took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t!” Carolyn implored. “Once you’ve spoken with the CDC, they’ll never let you come back onto the bridge. They’ll have you as a hostage, and we’ll be goners.”

“Maybe not,” David said. “Particularly if I give them a good reason to allow me to return.”

“Like what?”

“Like this,” David said and turned to Locke, then gestured to the rows of electronic equipment on the bridge. “Can you disrupt all the navigational systems that are essential to guide the
Grand Atlantic
?”

Locke thought for a moment. “Yes, I guess I could, but I won’t.”

“What if your life depended on it?” David pressed.

“Tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

“I’m going to threaten the mutineers,” David told him. “And I’ll do it by saying the following: If I’m not back on the bridge within twenty minutes, you will proceed to destroy all the essential navigational instruments. Then the
Grand Atlantic
can float around in circles until it runs out of fuel or the next big hurricane comes along.”

“That will scare the bejesus out of them,” Locke agreed, nodding firmly. “Without guidance, they couldn’t run the ship aground anywhere near shore.”

“Exactly,” David said. “Now I want you to name all the important navigational instruments for me, so I can sound like an authority on the subject.”

Locke slowly reeled off a short list of the critical instruments, giving David ample time to memorize each. “Even the dumbest seaman will recognize those.”

“Good,” David said and headed for the door. He handed Chandler the shotguns. “If they try to burst in, aim for the leader’s head and blow it off.”

“Gotcha!”

“Be careful, David!” Carolyn cried out after him.

David quickly opened the large metal door and moved back. He was now face to face with Poston, the deckhand whose genitals he had threatened to cut off. David hastily glanced around the entrance. There were two crewmen behind Poston, none to the sides.

David stepped out and saw a malevolent glint in Poston’s eyes. “I see something in your eyes I don’t like.”

“Yeah?” Poston challenged. “Tell me what you see.”

“A plan to take me hostage once I’ve spoken with the CDC.”

Poston smiled thinly. “That crossed my mind.”

“Well, you’d better uncross it,” David said brusquely. “Because if I’m not back on that bridge in twenty minutes, the captain is going to use my hatchet to disrupt the entire navigational system of the
Grand Atlantic
. I’m talking about the fiber-optic gyrocompass, the self-tuning autopilot, and all the radar screens and electronic displays. Then you and your mates can paddle this goddamn ship to shore.”

The smile left Poston’s face.

They walked down a short passageway and entered the communications room. Two more crewmen, with hard looks on their faces, and a junior radio officer were waiting for them. The crewmen blocked David’s way, and only moved aside when Poston ordered them to do so with a gesture of his head. So Poston was now the leader of the mutiny, David thought, and probably the most dangerous. David hurriedly envisioned the fastest way to kill Poston if trouble broke out. A chop to the larynx, he decided. Then he could deal with the other two crewmen.

“You shouldn’t have done what you did to Barrick,” Poston said, and the other crewmen in the room nodded their agreement. “That’s a fact.”

“What I should have done was rip his head off and thrown it overboard,” David said gruffly.

“Barrick is going to kill you the first chance he gets.”

“Yeah? How is he going to do that? Paw me to death?”

Poston gave David a long stare. “Your time will come.”

“So will yours,” David said evenly. “Now let’s stop wasting time and get down to business.”

The junior radio officer called out, “I’ve got Dr. Lindberg from the CDC on the line!”

David sat at the small conference table and, clearing his throat, spoke into the speakerphone. “David Ballineau here. What information do you need from me?”

“The health status of 220 passengers,” Lindberg answered. “That’s how many we know for sure did or didn’t take the vaccines.”

David’s brow went up. He brought his chair in closer and hunched over the speakerphone. “You were able to track down the vaccine history of 220 people in under six hours? Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“How in the world did you do it?”

“We had some help from the ship’s company,” Lindberg explained. “They gave us the passenger manifest on the
Grand Atlantic
, which of course contained the people’s names and who to call in case of an emergency. Luckily for us, they also required the passengers to list their doctor’s name and phone number. I guess they did this because so many of the passengers were elderly. In any event, it was the big break we needed. So we immediately put twenty of our investigators at the CDC on twenty different phone lines and began the calls. There were more than a few doctors we either couldn’t reach or didn’t have the information we wanted. But we finally collected 220 verifiable vaccination histories, and we figured that was enough.”

“Damn right it was!” David said excitedly.

“Now here’s how we’ll determine the effectiveness of vaccines,” Lindberg went on. “We’ll read from our list, one by one, calling out each passenger’s name. You will check your list and tell us the health status of that particular passenger. Then we’ll tell you whether or not they received the two vaccines. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly. I’m going to put you on hold.” David quickly pressed the hold button and looked over to the junior radio officer. “Connect me to the bridge. I need to speak with Carolyn.”

Poston stepped in closer to the conference table and asked harshly. “What the hell is this all about?”

“Saving a lot of lives, if we’re lucky,” David said.

“With a vaccine?”

“With a vaccine.”

The junior radio officer snapped his fingers. “She’s on line two.”

David pushed a button on the speakerphone and said, “Carolyn, I want you to come in here and bring all the patient survey data with you. All of it, yours and mine.”

“Are—are you sure?” Carolyn asked hesitantly. “Are you positive, Dr. Balli-not?”

David smiled to himself. Carolyn was using the code word, his mispronounced last name, to determine if the mutineers were forcing him to make the call. “Everything is fine and may get even better. Now get a move on.”

“I’m on my way.”

David leaned back and thought hurriedly about Lindberg’s plan to find out if the vaccines were effective. It had one big flaw. Lindberg’s list of passengers, which he would call out first, was probably in no particular order. David’s list
went by cabin number. It could take hours and hours to match up names since there were sure to be some passengers on Lindberg’s list that David and Carolyn hadn’t seen in their survey. They would have to go down a long list of passengers, over and over again, looking for matching names. But David saw a way around that.

The door opened and Carolyn rushed in, carrying a stack of sheets from their survey. She quickly drew up a chair and sat beside David.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Maybe the end of this nightmare,” David told her, then gave her the details of his conversation with Lindberg at the CDC. He saved the best for last. “So we have the vaccine histories on 220 passengers.”

“What a stroke of luck!” Carolyn breathed.

“Only if it works out for us,” David said and reached for the hold button on the speakerphone. “Lindberg?”

“Here.”

“We’re going to do things a little differently,” David proposed, “because your way will take too long. Your list may be in no particular order, while ours is by cabin number. So we could be here all day matching up names. I suggest we give you the passenger’s name and health status first, then you inform us if he or she received the vaccines.”

“Good,” Lindberg agreed immediately. “Give me a second to get the names up on my computer screen.”