Plague Ship (15 page)

“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 around to the copilot’s seat.

Eddie and Murph backed away to give George some room before he fired the engine. After warming up the helicopter for a couple of minutes, he engaged the transmission to start the main rotor turning. The Robinson bucked and wobbled, as the blades built speed, until it had generated enough force to lift them free.

The ride stabilized as he brought the chopper up vertically and then peeled away from the
Oregon
. There was a half mile of open ocean separating the two ships. Below, Juan spotted the wake of the SEAL boat and the little Zodiac bobbing behind it. There was a large loading door just above the
Golden Dawn
’s waterline used when the cruise ship was being provisioned. They would tie off the Zodiac there and return for their bleach shower.

The
Dawn
had beautiful lines, Cabrillo thought as they approached. She was slightly shorter than his ship, but with seven decks of cabins and suites she was much taller. Her bow had a nice racy curve to it, and she had a classic champagne-glass fantail. Her single funnel, just aft of the pool, was raked back, giving the impression that she was cutting through the water. As the Robinson crossed over the
Dawn
’s stern, Juan could just make out the Golden Cruise Lines’ logo, a cascade of gold coins, on the smokestack.

Adams brought the Robinson to a hover over the wheelhouse, making sure he had enough room to stay well away from the mass of antennas and radar dishes. The confining suit couldn’t diminish his skills as a pilot. He lowered the chopper to within two feet of the deck and kept it there as though it was tethered.

“Good luck,” he said as Juan threw open his door and jumped clear, instinctively ducking low.

Julia opened her own door and handed out the crates of medical gear, the rotor downwash rippling her suit. Juan set each on the deck and caught Julia as she jumped free. He closed the door and slapped the chopper’s flank. Adams instantly lifted away to get Murph and Eddie.

“I want to get down to the sick bay right away,” Julia said when the noise from the Robinson faded enough to use the radios.

“No. We’re going to wait here for George to come back. I want Eddie with you at all times while you’re looking around.”

Julia knew Juan was right. He wasn’t being protective because she was a woman. He was being protective because she was the only doctor within a thousand miles. If something happened to them while they were out here, it would fall to her to find a cure.

The helo returned in less than ten minutes, her underside still wet from being hosed with bleach. Juan and Julia positioned themselves on the stairwell down to the flying bridge to give George room. Eddie and Mark jumped simultaneously from the chopper, and Gomez took off again. This time, the Robinson would be thoroughly scrubbed down, and left on deck in case the boarding team got into trouble.

“How you doing, Mark?” Juan asked.

“Little creeped out. I’m starting to regret playing those video games about laboratory accidents that create armies of zombies.”

“Want me to stay with you on the bridge for a few minutes?”

“I’ll be okay.” His tone indicated he wanted to accept the Chairman’s offer, but pride was getting the best of him. Eric Stone and the rest of the team in the Op Center were listening in on their conversation, so there was no way he’d show any weakness.

“Good man. Where did you say the
Dawn
came from?”

“The Philippines,” Murph said. “From the cruise line’s database, I learned she’s on a charter from Manila to Athens for some self-help group.”

“Check her logs and computer memory. Find out if she’s made any stops and, if so, where. Also, see if there’s mention of anything unusual happening during her run. It should all be there. Julia, you know where to go and what you’re looking for. Eddie, stay with her and give her any help she needs collecting her samples.”

“Where are you going to be?” Eddie Seng asked.

“We’ve got three hours of air, so I’m going to search as much of the ship as I can.” He clicked on one of the flashlights they had brought and made sure he had a couple of spare batteries in a pouch at his back.

Cabrillo led them down the stairs and onto the wing bridge. At the far end of the narrow promenade, hanging eighty feet above the ocean, was a set of controls for a harbor pilot to maneuver the cruise liner into port. The door that gave entry to the bridge was closed. Juan pulled it toward him and stepped into the high-tech room. With the power off and the batteries for the emergency lights apparently drained, the bridge was nearly pitch-black. Only the glow of the stars and moon shone through the big windows, rendering everything in murky shadow.

Juan played the beam of the light around. He spotted the first body in less than two seconds. Julia added her torch to the illumination as she moved past him. Mark had a video camera held up to his visor. The corpse wore the uniform of a ship’s officer, white trousers, and a white shirt with dark shoulder boards. His head was turned away from the team, but even with the uncertain flashlight beams they could see the skin of his neck was a sickly shade of white. Julia knelt at his side and gently turned the body over. The man’s face was smeared with blood, and his torso had been lying in a lake of it. Dr. Huxley performed a quick examination, grunting to herself with each discovery.

As she worked, Mark Murphy was searching for the backup electrical system, and, in a moment, several lights came up and a few computer monitors flickered to life. There were three other corpses on the bridge, two men in utility uniforms and a woman wearing a cocktail dress. Cabrillo surmised that she had been the guest of the officer who was showing off the bridge when they were struck by whatever pathogen had swept through the passengers and crew like wildfire. The other two crewmen had been standing watch.

“Well, Hux?” he asked before she had finished her grisly task.

“It’s possible it was a gas attack of some sort, but with so many of the victims out on deck my money’s on a new form of hemorrhagic fever, but more powerful than anything I’ve ever heard of.”

“Like a super Ebola virus?” Eddie asked.

“Faster and more lethal. This has a hundred percent mortality. Ebola Zaire, the worst of the three strains, is about ninety percent. The blood isn’t black, which leads me to believe it didn’t pass into his gastrointestinal tract. Judging by the spray patterns, I’d almost say he coughed it all up. Same with the woman. However, there are other things at work here.” She gently lifted the officer’s arm. It was as rubbery as a tentacle. “The bones have decalcified to the point they have almost dissolved. I think I can press my finger into his skull.”

“That’s okay,” Juan said before she gave a demonstration. “Any idea what we’re dealing with?”

She stood and used a disinfecting wipe to clean her gloves. “Whatever it is, it’s an engineered virus.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. For no other reason than this bug kills its host too quickly to be natural. Like any other living organism, viruses are biologically compelled to reproduce themselves as often as possible. By destroying its host in a matter of minutes, it doesn’t have much time to transfer itself from one person to the next. An outbreak of this stuff in the real world would die out as quickly as it flared up. Even Ebola takes a couple of weeks to kill its victims, leaving enough time for family members and neighbors to catch it. Natural selection would have killed off this bug a long time ago.” She looked him in the eye, so there was no mistaking her meaning in the next sentence. “Someone made it in a lab and unleashed it on board this ship.”

Juan was torn by pity for the poor men and women who were on the
Golden Dawn
when the virus was set free and rage at those who perpetrated the attack. It was the fury in his voice that carried the strongest over the radio. “Find what you need to nail them, Hux.”

“Yes, sir.” His tone compelled her to salute, even though such actions were almost unheard of for the crew of the
Oregon
.

Juan turned on his heel and strode aft through a doorway leading into the ship.

The hallway beyond was thankfully empty, and the cabins he peered into were vacant. Judging by the dress of the young woman on the bridge and the other passengers they’d observed from the UAV and chopper ride in, he assumed there had been a large party under way and that most cabins would be empty. When he finished his sweep of the officers’ accommodations, he opened another door that led into what the cruise industry called the hotel section of the ship. Though not as opulent as some modern cruise vessels, the
Golden Dawn
sported her fair share of polished brass and plush carpets, done in accents of pink and teal. The sound of his own breathing was all he heard as he reached a balcony overlooking an atrium that sank four decks to a marble floor. Without lights, the towering foyer was like a dingy cave. The flashlight beam momentarily flashed off the windows of specialty boutiques down below, making Juan think he’d seen movement.

He was jumpy and took a deep breath to calm himself. There were bodies strewn all around the atrium, each of them settled in a repose of agony. Some lay on the staircases as if they’d sat themselves down to await death’s embrace while others had simply collapsed where they were. As he circled down the wide steps that ringed the foyer, Cabrillo saw where a six-piece orchestra had been. Five of the tuxedoed musicians had simply fallen over their instruments, while only one had tried to get away. He’d made it less than a dozen feet from his bandmates before he had succumbed to the virus.

There were hundreds of stories to tell from the dead: a man and woman clinging to each other as they died, a waitress who’d taken the time to set her tray of drinks on a side table outside a bar before she fell, a group of young women still close enough to each other for him to tell they were getting their picture taken, though there was no sign of the photographer, just his expensive camera lying in pieces on the floor. He couldn’t see inside the glass-enclosed elevator that linked the decks because the panes were painted with blood.

Juan continued on. The hazmat suit and recycled air could protect him from the environment, but nothing could shield him from the horror. He had never seen mass murder on such a scale, and, if not for one hand curled around the flashlight and the other clutching a pistol, he knew they would be trembling uncontrollably.

“How’s everyone doing?” he called over the communications net, more to hear a human voice than any need for a progress report.

“Eddie and I are en route to the ship’s hospital,” Julia replied. The transmission was garbled by interference from the ship’s steel construction.

“I’m about to enter the engineering spaces. If you don’t hear from me in thirty minutes, get Eddie to come find me.”

“Copy that.”

“Murph?”

“With just backup power, the computer’s slower than my first PC on dial-up,” Mark said. “It’s going to take me a while to retrieve what we need.”

“Keep on it.
Oregon
, do you read?”

“Affirmative,” a voice replied. Static made it difficult to tell who it was, but Cabrillo assumed it was Max Hanley. Juan had never thought to upgrade the suite’s radios from the ones that came standard from the manufacturer. A rare oversight he was paying for now.

“Anything on the scopes?”

“We’re all alone, Juan.”

“If anyone shows up, tell me right away.”

“You got it.”

The door in front of Juan was labeled CREW ONLY and was secured with an electronic lock. With the power out, the lock had automatically disengaged, so he pushed it inward and started down a corridor. Unlike the passenger spaces, decorated with wood paneling and elaborate lighting, this passage was painted a plain white with vinyl tiles on the floor and boxy fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling. Bundles of color-coded piping conduits ran along the walls. He passed small offices for stewards and pursers as well as a large dining hall for the crew. There were a half dozen more victims here, either slumped over tables or lying on the floor. As with all the others Juan had seen, he noted that they had coughed blood in copious amounts. Their final moments must have been excruciating.

He passed by one of the ship’s gleaming kitchens, which now resembled a slaughterhouse, and an industrial-sized laundry room with twenty washing machines that looked as big as cement mixers. He was aware that certain ethnic groups dominated the service sectors of the cruise industry and wasn’t surprised to see the laundry gang was Chinese. It might seem a racist stereotype, but, in this case, it was true.

He kept on, looking for and finally spotting a heavy door marked ENGINEERING/NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE. Beyond the door was a small vestibule and a second soundproof hatch. He ducked through, and descended three flights of stairs, before emerging in an auxiliary room off the main engine room. His light revealed a pair of generators sitting side by side and banks of computer controls. A massive sliding door aft led to the engine room. Dominating the cavernous space were two huge engines, each the size of a commercial truck. He laid a hand on one engine block. It was stone cold. The
Golden Dawn
must have been without power for at least twelve hours for it to have cooled to the ambient air temperature. Overhead, the engines’ exhaust pipes merged into a plenum and funnel that would rise all the way to the main smokestack.