Plague Ship (14 page)

Juan had a handheld walkie-talkie and brought it to his lips. “Mr. Stone, ballast us down about fifteen feet. I want our decks to be lined up a little closer.”

Eric acknowledged, and a moment later the pumps that filled the tanks spooled up and the
Oregon
began to settle deeper in the water.

“Deck crew, get those fenders over the sides.” Juan’s order was met with a frenzy of activity, as men lowered thick rubber bumpers down to just above the waterline. Unlike the old truck tires they used in port partly as disguise, these were modern cushions, and could take a tremendous amount of pressure before failing.

Over on the
Tallahassee
, part of her deck just fore of her sail began to articulate upward, emitting the faint red glow of battle lights. This was the loading port for the twenty-four Mk 48 ADCAP torpedoes the boat could carry. For this mission, she was carrying less than a full complement of the Advanced Capability weapons in order to accept the Iranian rocket torpedo, which was sitting on the
Oregon
’s deck on a wheeled trolley. The cases of captured computer information were secured to the torpedo.

Cabrillo keyed his walkie-talkie again. “Okay, Helm, shove us over using the thrusters, twenty-five percent power.”

“Twenty-five, aye.”

The
Oregon
began to move toward the waiting submarine, creeping slowly enough to let the water she was pushing dissipate rather than rock the
Tallahassee
. Several officers watched from the sub’s conning tower, using night vision binoculars.

“Ease off, Mr. Stone,” Juan ordered, judging distance and speed with an expert eye. The ships were less than twenty feet apart. “Very good, now, ten percent opposite side.”

Water frothed at the thruster ports as Eric used them to stop the ship with only ten feet separating them from the submarine.

“Hold us here, if you please,” Juan said over the scrambled channel.

“Nice piece of ship handling,” a voice boomed from the
Tallahassee
’s conning tower.

“Thank you,” Juan called back. “Are you ready to receive the package?”

“I was led to believe there were two packages,” the sub’s captain shouted.

“Slight change of plans, following a dustup this morning in the Sea of Oman.”

“How’d it work?”

“Believe it or not, flawlessly.”

“Very well. We’re ready. Our satellite window closes in four minutes forty seconds.”

Juan turned to the technician waiting next to the derrick controls. Though the crane looked like it was ready to topple at any moment, it was rated to lift seventy tons. Slack was taken up, and the sling cradling the rocket torpedo rose off the deck. Other men were standing by with guide ropes to prevent the weapon from spinning as it was lifted clear of the railing. The long boom rotated on its axis to swing out over the waiting submarine, where sailors stood by to receive the torpedo.

One of the sailors guided the lift using universal hand gestures, rotating his finger downward to call for more cable as the weapon came down into their waiting hands. They locked it into the boat’s autoloader and unstrapped it from the cradle. The lead sailor spun his hand over his head to indicate the torpedo was free and they could recover the crane. No sooner had it vanished into the hull than the large door began to close.

“Stow the derrick,” Juan ordered, before calling down to Eric Stone: “Helm, edge us away, twenty percent power, and pump us dry. Make ship ready for a high-speed run, and steer us best possible course for Karachi.”

“I thought we were going to Monaco.” This from Mark Murphy. It was clear in his voice he was looking forward to a few weeks at the opulent principality abutting the Riviera. Maurice had told Juan that Murph had even requisitioned a tuxedo from the Magic Shop so he could play James Bond in Monaco’s fabled casino.

“Don’t worry,” Juan assured him, “you are. Max and I have other plans.”

Hali Kasim’s voice cut through the line. “Radar contact, Chairman. Just came on the scope at a hundred miles out, bearing due east.”

“Track it, and keep me posted.” Juan cupped his hands to his mouth to shout over to the
Tallahassee
’s captain, as the
Oregon
put more and more distance between the two vessels. “We just got a blip on radar. Its east of us, and the range is pretty extreme, but you guys might want to do your Houdini act and vanish.”

“Roger that, and thank you.” The captain waved. “We saw her on our approach. The read from the passive sonar sounds as if she’s derelict, and we caught nothing on any of our sensors, no radar emissions or radio. Not even an automatic distress signal. Obviously, we couldn’t investigate, but you all might want to. If she’s abandoned, it could mean a pretty hefty salvage fee.”

“We might just do that,” Juan said, intrigued. He could leave a prize crew on her to sail to Karachi while the
Oregon
went ahead. “Any idea how big she is?”

“By the sound of waves lapping against her hull, my chief sonar man estimates about the same size as your ship, five hundred and fifty feet or so.”

“Thanks for the tip, Captain. We might just check her out.”

“Good luck,
Oregon
.” With that, the last of the men disappeared down the conning tower hatchway.

Moments later, spray erupted around the sub’s ballast tank inlets as seawater rushed in and expelled the air trapped inside. A gout of froth boiled at her stern as her reactor directed power to her single, seven-bladed screw. The tail planes sank below the calm ocean surface and a wave began to stream over her bows. She sank swiftly, vanishing into her natural realm, and leaving behind a bare ripple that quickly dissolved as though the massive boat had never existed.

“Rotten way to make a living.” Max scowled. Though not exactly claustrophobic, Hanley wasn’t fond of confined spaces.

“Linc has done a couple of stints on fast-attack subs in his SEAL days. Says they’re nicer than a lot of the hotels he’s stayed in.”

“Linc’s cheap. I’ve seen the places he goes for. Hourly-rates-available, clean-sheets-extra kind of joints.”

Wind started to blow as the
Oregon
accelerated eastward. In a few minutes, the magnetohydrodynamics would have them going so fast that standing on the deck would be like facing into a hurricane. The deckhands had finished securing the crane boom, and the trolley had been returned to the torpedo room.

“What do you say, Max?”

“What do I say about what?”

“The derelict out there. Do we stop and take a quick look-see or hightail it to Karachi?”

Max led Cabrillo into the protection of a stairwell, where he could light his pipe. “Kyle’s been missing since the day before yesterday. My ex thinks she knows who he’s with—some group of friends she doesn’t care for—which makes me think this isn’t as big a deal as she’s making it. It’ll take us at least twenty-four hours to get to L.A., once we reach Pakistan, so losing an hour investigating a ghostship isn’t going to matter much.”

“You sure?” Juan asked, blinking rapidly because hot ash from Max’s pipe whipped across his face.

“Sorry.” Max tapped the pipe over the side. “Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

“Eric, you read me?” Juan asked into the walkie-talkie.

“Right here.”

“New course. Get us over to that ship at best possible speed. Track down Gomez and have him prep the 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.”