Plague Ship (42 page)

Kovac thought for a moment. “Perhaps by this afternoon. We need to run up the other engines to fully charge the batteries, as well as stabilize power distribution in order to protect the antenna.”

“The test virus we gave the people on the
Golden Sky
is a simple, fast-acting rhinovirus, so we will know within twelve hours if the receiver got the signal. As long as we send it no later than tonight, we should be fine. Of course, there’s a second team aboard her that is planting our principal virus.”

“This is a great moment, gentlemen,” Lydell Cooper said. “The culmination of everything I have worked for. Soon, there will be a new beginning, a fresh dawn, where humanity will shine like it was meant to. Gone will be the burdensome multitudes that tax our natural resources and return nothing but more mouths to feed. In one generation, with half of the world unable to bear children the population will return to a sustainable level. There will be no more want or need. We will abolish poverty, hunger, even the threat of global warming.

“Politicians all over the world give lip service to these problems by offering short-term plans that make their constituents think something is being done. We know it is all lies. One just has to read a newspaper or watch the news to see that nothing is going to change. In fact, it is getting worse. Struggles for land and water rights are already sparking conflicts. And how many have already died to protect dwindling oil supplies?

“They tell us we can fix everything if humans changed their habits—drove less, bought smaller houses, used different light-bulbs. What a joke. No one is willing to take a step back from their luxuries. It goes against our deepest instincts. No, the solution isn’t to call for minor sacrifices that in reality don’t address the crux of the problem. The answer is to change the playing field. Rather than have more and more vying for less and less, just reduce the population.

“They all know this is the only way, only they don’t have the courage to say it, so the world spins closer and closer to chaos. As I have written, we are breeding ourselves to death. The desire for offspring is perhaps the strongest force in the universe. It cannot be denied. But nature has natural mechanisms to regulate it. There are predators to cull the population of prey animals, forest fires to renew the soil, and cycles of flood and drought. But man, with his large brain, has continuously found ways to sidestep nature’s efforts to contain him. We killed off any animal that sees us as prey so that there are only a handful left in nature and the rest are caged in zoos. That left the lowly microbe to thin our ranks with disease, so we created vaccines and immunizations, all the while breeding as if we still expected to lose two out of every three children before their first birthday.

“Only one country has had the courage to admit their numbers were growing too fast, but even they failed to slow population growth. China tried to legislate population with its one-child policy, and there are two hundred million more of them now than there were twenty-five years ago. If one of the most dictatorial countries in the world can’t stop it, no one can.

“People simply can’t change, not in any fundamental way. That’s why it is up to us. Of course, we are not madmen. I could have engineered our virus to kill indiscriminately, but I would never consider the outright murder of billions of people. So what was the solution? The original hemorrhagic influenza virus I started with had the side effect of leaving its victims barren but also had a mortality rate near fifty percent. After I gave up medical research, I worked with the virus over tens of thousands of generations and mutations, coaxing out its lethality while maintaining the one trait I desired. When we release it on those fifty ships, it will infect nearly one hundred thousand people. It sounds like a large number, but it is just a drop in the bucket. The passengers and crews aboard the ships come from every part of the world and from every socioeconomic background. On a cruise ship, one finds a microcosm of society, from the titan of industry to the lowly deckhand. I wanted to be entirely democratic. No one will be spared. When they return to their suburban homes in Michigan, their villages in Eastern Europe, or their slums in Bangladesh, they will carry the virus with them.

“It will remain symptomless within its host for months, as it is spread from person to person. And then the first sign of infection will come. It will seem like every person in the world has come down with mild influenza and a high fever. The mortality rate should be less than one percent, a tragic but unavoidable cost to those with weakened immune systems. Only later, when people seek out answers to why they aren’t having children, will they learn that one half of the world’s population has become barren.

“When that harsh reality strikes, there will be rioting, as frightened people seek answers to the questions their leaders had been afraid to ask. But it should be brief—weeks or months at most. And the world economy will stutter as we adjust, but adjust we will, because that is humanity’s other great driving force: its ability to adapt. And then, oh my friends, then we will have solved all those problems, cured all those ills, and ushered in a period of prosperity the likes of which the world has never known.”

A tear ran unabashedly down Zelimir Kovac’s cheek, and he made no move to wipe it away. Thom Severance, who had known Cooper for all of his adult life and had heard him speak a thousand times, was equally moved.

CHAPTER 26

“THOSE TWO THERE,” LINDA ROSS SAID AND POINTED.

Mark Murphy followed the line of her arm and spotted the couple immediately. While many of the passengers streaming off the
Golden Sky
were elderly, or at least middle-aged, she had spotted a man and woman in their thirties. Each held a hand of a little girl, about eight years old, wearing a pink dress and Mary Janes.

“Candy from a baby,” Mark said when he saw the woman hand her credit card-sized ship ID to her husband. He slipped it into his wallet and returned his wallet to his front pocket.

Behind the army of disembarking passengers, eager to tour Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and get fleeced at the bazaar, the
Golden Sky
looked eerily like her sister ship. Chilling memories rushed in on Mark every time he glanced up at her. He hadn’t thought through his emotions very carefully when he’d volunteered for the mission and wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of boarding her.

“They’re heading for the buses.” Linda nodded to where the young family was veering toward the curb, where a dozen chartered buses idled. Passengers were showing attendants their day passes to board.

“Do it now or follow them downtown?”

“No time like the present. Let’s do it.”

They waited for the three to get ahead of them before easing into the crowd. They moved effortlessly through the mostly slow-walking people until their target was just ahead of them, and had no idea they were being tracked.

“Hurry!” Linda suddenly called out. “I think our bus is going to leave.”

Mark quickened his pace and brushed against the man as he passed. The man immediately felt for his wallet. Keeping it in his front pocket and feeling for it when someone accidentally brushed into him showed the hallmark of a seasoned traveler. In most instances, this security practice would have been sufficient. But as they had planned, when Linda breezed by him the passenger felt secure that the Americans rushing by weren’t a threat and he didn’t check his pocket a second time.

He hadn’t felt Linda’s small hand reach into his khakis and pull his wallet free.

An amateur would have veered away from the mark as soon as the pocket had been picked, but Linda and Murph continued their ruse of being hurried passengers and strode for the buses. They loitered near one of them until the young family had showed their passes to an attendant on another bus and climbed aboard. Only then did Linda and Murph break from the crowd and head back to where they had parked their rental car.

With Linda standing next to the open back door to shield the interior from curious passersby, Mark worked on one of the laminated identification cards with a kit especially packed back on the
Oregon
. He used a scalpel to remove the transparent plastic and cut away the photograph. He then inserted an appropriate-sized picture of Linda from the stash he’d brought and ran the card through a battery-powered laminator. He spent a moment smoothing it out and trimming away excess plastic.

“There you go, Mrs. Susan Dudley,” he said, showing Linda the still-warm card.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Linda remarked.

“I was fifteen when I arrived at MIT, so you can best believe I know all about making fake IDs.”

There was a hint of something wan in his voice that Linda noticed. She said, “It must have been rough.”

Mark paused from his work and looked up at her. “You can imagine that place was loaded with
uber
-geeks, but I was a stand-out. Briefcase, tie, pocket protector, the whole enchilada. The school administration assured my parents they had counselors for accelerated students to make the transition easier. What a crock. I was on my own in the most competitive environment in the world. It only got worse when I went into the private sector. That’s why I joined Juan and the Corporation.”

“Not for the money, huh?” Linda teased.

“I’m not bragging or anything, but I took a serious pay cut when I joined up. It was worth it, you know. You guys treat me like an equal. When I was designing weapons systems, these macho generals would strut around, looking at us like we were insects or something they had to scrape off the bottom of their shoe. Sure, they liked the toys we gave them, but they detested us for being able to deliver. It was like high school all over again, in the cafeteria, with the military guys sitting by themselves like a bunch of jocks and the rest of us hanging around the fringe, hoping to get noticed. Kinda pathetic, really.

“That doesn’t happen on the
Oregon
. We’re all on the same team. You and Linc and Juan don’t make Eric and me feel like outsiders even though we push it a little with the whole nerd thing. And for the first time in my life, I don’t feel I have to search for an empty table when I go into the mess hall.” He seemed to look as though he’d said too much, so he threw her a grin and said, “I hope you don’t charge for geekotherapy.”

“You can buy me a drink tonight on board.”

Mark looked startled, and then a knowing smirk raised his lip. “We’re not getting off the
Golden Sky
until we find something, are we?”

She pressed a hand to her breast in a shocked gesture. “Are you actually accusing me of disobeying Eddie’s direct order?”

“Yup.”

“Surprised?”

“Nope.”

“Still game?”

“I’m fixing the second ID, aren’t I?”

“Good man.”

Mark fed the two cards into an electronic device attached to a laptop computer and recoded the embedded magnetic strips. Ten minutes later, he and Linda stood at the bottom of the
Golden Sky
’s gangplank. Nearby, a forklift was loading pallets onto the ship through a large hatch while gulls wheeled and squawked above the vessel like warplanes in a dogfight.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Dudley?” the assistant purser manning the gangplank asked when they said they wanted to return to their cabin.

“Just my knee,” Mark said. “I blew my ACL playing college football, and it flares up every once in a while.”

“As you know, we have a doctor aboard who can look at it for you.” The purser swiped the two cards through an electronic monitor. “That’s odd.”

“Problem?”

“No, well, yes. When I swiped your cards, my computer crashed.”

As part of any major cruise line’s security, the electronic ID card brought up a file on the computer that had a picture of the bearer as well as information about his or her itinerary. Mark had recoded the stolen cards so that nothing would show on the screen. The purser would either have to trust that the two people standing before him were who they said they were or delay them while someone fixed the computer. With customer service being so important, it was unlikely he would inconvenience passengers over a simple glitch.

The purser ran his own employee identification through the scanner, and when his picture popped up on his screen he handed the two IDs back to Murph. “Your cards don’t work anymore. When you get back to your cabin, ring the purser’s office and they will arrange replacements.”

“Will do. Thanks.” Mark took the IDs and shoved them in his pocket. Arm in arm, he and Linda climbed the ramp, with Murph playing up a limp.

“College football?” she questioned when they were out of earshot.

Mark patted his less-than-taut belly. “So I’ve let myself go to seed.”

They entered the ship on the main atrium level. The ceiling lofted four stories and was crowned with a stained-glass dome. A pair of glass elevators gave access to the upper levels, and each deck was fringed by safety-glass panels capped by gleaming brass rails. A rose marble wall with water sheeting down its face and collecting in a discreet fountain was opposite the elevators. From their vantage, they could see signs for small luxury stores one deck up and a neon fixture lighting the way to the casino. The overall effect was opulence bordering on tacky.

They had discussed their plan while still on the
Oregon
, and both had studied the layout of the ship from the cruise line’s website, so there was no need to talk now. They went straight for the public restrooms behind the fountain. Linda handed Mark a bundle of clothing from her utilitarian shoulder bag. Moments later, they reemerged dressed in workers’ overalls with the cruise line’s logo stitched in gold thread over their hearts, thanks to Kevin Nixon’s Magic Shop. Linda had scrubbed off most of her makeup, and Mark had tamed his unruly hair with a cruise-line baseball cap. The maintenance-crew uniforms gave them the virtual run of the ship.

“Where do we meet if we get separated?” Linda asked as they started walking.

“The craps table?”