The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  “You need to get these corpsmen to the infirmary. Then we need to review anything brought on board in Constanța.”

  She nodded. At her command another officer escorted the corpsmen away. They lugged packs of protective equipment. The heavy biological warfare gear could protect them and the ship’s medical staff. The equipment wasn’t enough for everyone on board who needed it, and the corpsmen knew it. They waved at Wade and headed down the stairway.

  “Follow me,” she told Ethan and Wade.

  She led them past the opulence of swimming pools and waving pennants strung along the upper decks of the ship. Sunbathers gawked at them as they strode by, alarmed by Wade’s stride and his automatic rifle pointed at the deck. Rumors would spread faster than the disease and compound Lucia’s problems.

  They passed sliding doors into a lavish hallway and strode on for a hundred yards before reaching an elevator that took them to the inner workings of the ship. There they found a narrow security office with monitors hung on the wall above a command desk. It reminded Ethan of the operations center in Langley. The operations staff would be waiting for an update from him, just as the security officers here scanned the ship on a dozen screens watching for unusual behavior.

  “Show me everything from Constanța. Supplies, passengers, crew. Anything,” he said.

  Lucia prodded a security officer who pulled open lists of events on a monitor at eye level.

  “We often take on supplies and new crew. And many of our passengers go on excursions. This will take a while, and I need to return to the bridge,” she said.

  “We don’t have a while. The virus came aboard in Constanța. If we don’t find who or how, you’re going to have more sick. And most of them will die.”

  “Do as he says,” she told the security officer.

  They wasted nearly an hour reviewing the recorded faces of passengers as they boarded. Their cruise badges appeared on the screen as they scanned their identification. He recognized none of the sun-weary faces that boarded half drunk or exhausted from a day at the Riviera. Nothing about any of them suggested they carried certain death on board. No nervous glances, no obviously incriminating packages. With every new face, he hoped to see Sarah. She never appeared, which meant she could have stayed on board. Or maybe she wasn’t here at all.

  Lucia showed him the ship manifest. The galley had taken fresh fish and produce aboard, but not much else. They took on no medical supplies, nor any large palettes or containers to hide the small vials Kamran had described to him.

  “What about the crew?” he said without taking his eyes off the screen. The faces began to repeat in front of him.

  “Some took shore leave. You saw most of those return with the guests. There are a few who came aboard for new positions.”

  “Does that happen a lot?” Wade asked. He leaned against the back wall, his great arms crossed at his chest. Ethan sensed his growing impatience.

  “It’s not unusual. And they have to pass a security inspection to board.”

  “Who came aboard for new positions?” Ethan asked.

  She reviewed the manifest on screen. “Four cabin stewards. All women who worked with us before, it appears. A butler and two cook crew, all for the main dining room. Look, all of their names are here.”

  “These last two have the same last name,” he said. “Ramil and Marco Dimaapi.”

  She shrugged. “We have many Filipinos on staff, though I don’t recognize them specifically. They could be related.”

  The security officer glanced away from his many screens. “Brothers. Vikram checked them in Friday. He said one of them was a diabetic.”

  “Diabetic?” Ethan said, still staring at the men’s security photos.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the officer said. “One of them had a bunch of insulin in little boxes.”

  Little boxes. With little vials, he thought. Labeled as other medication, they could easily conceal the vials Kamran told him about.

  “Where is Vikram now? I want to talk to him first,” he said.

  “I’ll call for him.” Lucia picked up a phone and dialed. She spoke with someone and placed the phone down. Her face paled, and the calm retreated from her now unsteady voice. “He’s in the infirmary.”

  Wade stood away from the wall and nodded at Ethan. “That’s our boys right there.”

  Ethan saw Lucia’s gaze wander. She would lose the confidence to command if the uncertainty and fear contaminated her thoughts.

  “We’ll detain them quickly and quietly,” he said. “Provide us a security detail. You can call it a random inspection. Then we can search for the virus.”

  Her stare lengthened, her confidence returning as she spoke. “Yes, exactly. We must keep the guests calm. I can arrange a security detail.” Her eyes refocused, and the stern calm returned to her voice. “I need to return to the bridge.”

  ◆◆◆

  Ethan followed Wade and two security officers through the white service hallways to the main galley. Crew in white smocks stared as they passed. The officers stood out in their light blue shirts and black shoulder stripes, conspicuous with their sidearms and radios scratching transmissions from all over the ship.

  At Lucia’s insistence, Ethan and Wade both carried radios as well. He convinced Wade to abandon the rifle. In trade, Wade forced the M9 Beretta that he’d stowed in his pack into Ethan’s hands.

  “Just like your old one. Don’t lose it this time,” Wade told him with a smirk.

  He thought of the one he’d lost in Tbilisi. He had lost much more since and wanted that trend to end here. Sarah was here somewhere. That thought alone drove him to finish what they had started.

  The show of force wasn’t his first choice. If the targets saw them, they’d slip away into whatever contingency Hector Korkolis had plotted for them. But there was nowhere for them to run on board Korkolis’ crazed experiment. He reached for the Beretta as they approached the galley doors.

  They opened to the clamor of preparing food for more than two-thousand guests. Ethan marveled at the size of the sprawling galley. The impossible space within the ship was an organism in constant motion as men and women in white hats shuttled carts of desserts between rows of counters covered in sliced fruit and long knives. The staff nearest them gawked at their entrance, but activity continued unabated across the galley.

  One of the security officers asked a loitering dish washer who stood off to the side awaiting more work. “Marco Dimaapi?”

  The scrawny dishwasher frowned and shrugged.

  A crash of steel erupted from the galley. Ethan jolted from the sound and turned to see a wave of scalding water splash on the officer. Steam rose up like a smokescreen and a steel pot clattered on the floor. The guard screamed and fell to his knees as the steam rolled off his body. Through the haze Ethan caught sight of a black-haired man as he scrambled over a counter and out of sight behind a massive cooler.

  The orchestrated order of the galley dissolved into chaos. Galley staffers scattered, yelling at one another and running away from the spot where the officer knelt screaming in agony. The boiling water had scalded his arms and neck to a pale pink. His eyes widened in shock as he stared at his hands where the skin sloughed off. The other officer called into his radio for aid, trying to calm his comrade as he did so.

  Wade leapt over the counter in pursuit. Ethan followed, then hesitated. They had to find both brothers. He surveyed the chefs and stewards. Most moved farther away from him, pressing into one another to find some shelter behind the steel counters and cook stoves. Some stood gaping at the guard’s gruesome injuries, unsure how to help. He scanned the kitchen staff, but he lost track of the terrorized faces as they scattered in a confusing swarm of white uniforms and hats.

  He heard the shout. One of the staff unleashed a burst of automatic fire at the security guards. The drumbeat sound ripped through the steel galley. Just behind him, the gunfire struck the guards, silencing the injured man’s screams.

  Ethan dove behind the
end of the counter. The shouts erupted again as the panicked staff fled the room. Another quick burst rattled the galley like a chainsaw cutting steel.

  He shouted for Wade. No reply. Ethan raised his pistol in both hands and peered around the edge of the counter. The brother with a lean and pockmarked face plodded toward him. It was Marco, not that it mattered now.

  Marco ignored the galley workers who ran past him and raised a machine pistol no bigger than the Beretta that Ethan held in his hands. In the close quarters of the galley, the weapon would tear him apart.

  More gunfire muffled by steel doors and angled corridors echoed into the galley from the dining hall. He knew Wade could handle himself. But it only took one misstep and he’d lose another fellow officer. He couldn’t accept that. He owed Wade more than that. Again he peeked around the corner to see Marco who looked toward the great hall, distracted by the gunfire.

  Ethan had the opportunity to act, but not the angle. His sides hurt. His arms ached with dull pain. Every part of his body resisted motion. He sat against the counter, his arms on his bent knees, and willed himself to move. A streak of red along the wall caught his attention. He could buy the time he needed, but he’d have to move fast.

  He aimed and fired.

  A plume of white streamed from the fire extinguisher on the opposite wall. The white filled the air like a dense fog that began to settle as quickly as it came. Marco shouted at him, and a burst of gunfire tore into the white cloud.

  Ethan heaved himself around the counter. He steadied his pistol on the countertop. The smoky white thinned, and he saw the standing shape of Marco peering into the white. His enemy fanned away the foggy haze and pointed the machine pistol at the counter’s end. He sprayed a roaring burst of bullets that punched holes in the counter where Ethan had sat moments ago.

  Ethan wanted to question the brothers. He had to find the virus and how they had spread it. There was no intelligence to capture from Marco now. That opportunity died with the guards that lay at Marco’s feet. Maybe for Ethan it had died with Marcus Eldridge many weeks ago, lost with Seda and with Kamran, gone with Jane Corso. They all stood in the path of a killing stroke set in motion before they knew their fates. He had failed all of them, and now he held the sole recourse left to him firmly in two hands. He gripped the pistol just as Wade taught him—a practice with which he had become too comfortable in these weeks.

  Ethan fired. Four rounds struck Marco before he could react. Marco stood for a moment, propped up perhaps by his fanaticism. An expression of shock that his work could end here and now, unwilling to accept that as he exhaled he would fall to the floor and bleed out like the dead guards lying next to him.

  A trio of shots fired again from the dining room. Ethan ran to the doors and looked out the round window into the ornate room. He saw no sign of Wade.

  He entered the hall and crept between round tables draped in white tablecloths and perfectly placed settings that awaited evening guests. The tang of smokeless powder from Wade’s weapon filled the air as he moved around the perimeter. The hall’s center opened to rising floors where a grand chandelier spanned the levels above like a rain of diamonds.

  Something moved to his left. It was Wade crouched low, creeping between tables toward the curving staircase with his pistol raised to the level above. Ranil Dimaapi must have escaped to the upper dining floors.

  Ethan circled around the main floor. He moved quickly and silently. He tried signaling Wade as he approached the opposite staircase. But Wade’s wide eyes tracked above, searching for any sign of their quarry.

  Wade reached the far stair and scanned with his pistol at the balconies above, creeping up the plush stairs. On the balcony behind him, Ethan saw too late the face of Ranil squinting down the iron sights of a gun.

  “Wade!”

  His friend spun around, but the shot struck him somewhere below the waist. Wade fell back firing his weapon. But Ranil had disappeared.

  Ethan raced up the steps, his aim focused on the other side of the hall. Ranil slunk between tables to another part of the floor. His white smock blended in with the white tables, but Ethan caught glimpses of him as he moved.

  Lucia’s voice crackled from the radio at his hip, interrupting the sounds of Wade swearing between gasps of pain. The radio awoke with chatter. They were coming, but not fast enough for Wade’s sake. Ethan had to end it.

  He ran to a wide support column at the balcony’s edge and pressed himself against it. He lost sight of Ranil who had moved to somewhere in the middle of the hall, stalking closer to him.

  “Hold on,” he shouted at Wade, but he did not look down at his friend. He set the radio at the base of the column, tucked just out of sight along the balcony’s baseboard. Then he crawled back the way he came. His knee shot out pain with each deliberate step back. He stifled a grunt and held his breath, creeping back until he reached the cover of a tablecloth and waited.

  The radio bleeped and crackled again. Metallic voices spoke to one another about the bodies they discovered on the galley floor. They were close. Ethan sat on his haunches and raised his weapon at the column.

  Ranil came from the left, farther away than Ethan had expected. His target rose up and moved fast to aim his shots at the source of the sound. Ranil’s mouth opened in an angry sneer, then jerked his head in a panic at finding the lone radio.

  Ethan adjusted his aim to the base of Ranil’s sternum.

  “Drop the gun,” he said.

  Ranil spotted him at last and brought his pistol around to shoot. Ethan returned with a quick cadence of fire. Ethan’s shots struck Ranil, but by instinct he flinched away from the flash and explosive force of Ranil’s gun shooting back. A high pitch filled his ears, and he fell forward to his knees. Ranil’s wild fire missed its mark.

  Ethan stumbled forward gasping for breath. He stood cautiously, gun raised at the spot where Ranil fell. From behind a tablecloth, a pair of legs writhed on the ground. Ethan moved around and saw Ranil clutching his chest, his face contorted in pain and shock. For a moment, Ethan’s finger tensed on the trigger. He wanted to do it. No one would blame him, if they ever knew. Ranil lay there, minutes away from his last breath. Ethan could take those moments from him, just as he and his brother had already stolen time from so many others. From Sarah. No, not her. He kicked the pistol away from Ranil’s grasp and backed away.

  The threat was over, but he cursed himself for coming too late. He ran to Wade, who had crawled down the steps to a table and pressed a white cloth napkin soaked through with blood onto the side of his thigh.

  “You’re bleeding bad.”

  “I’m all right. Asshole hit me in the leg.” Wade said. “Hurts like hell, though.”

  “Let’s get you some help. Can you stand?”

  He helped Wade hop up to one leg. He draped his arm over Wade’s shoulder and helped him hobble back to the galley.

  “You got him?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Damn. That’s one less you owe me,” Wade said. He almost seemed impressed.

  ◆◆◆

  Ethan hauled Wade to the lowest level of the ship. They walked from the elevator across the steel deck that seemed balanced like a beam along the keel. Beneath them lay the rumble of the engines and below that the depths of the sea. Ahead they met a rank smell of human waste wafting from the infirmary.

  A nurse wearing a surgical mask stood at the reception desk and waved them away. Blue Latex covered her hands, and she had tucked her long shirt sleeves into the gloves at her wrist.

  “Get him the hell out of here,” she said.

  “He’s been shot. Where can I take him for treatment?”

  “I’ll see if someone can treat him out there. He can’t be past this point with an open wound like that. Just go back.”

  Wade lifted his head and curled his nose from the stink. “Looks bad.”

  Ethan helped him sit on a palette of supplies wrapped in cellophane. Minutes passed. Wade’s blood dripped onto the plastic
down to the white steel deck. His eyes drooped.

  “I’ll go get someone,” Ethan said. “Sit up. And stay awake.”

  Ethan approached the infirmary desk. The smell worsened with every step. The hospital staff’s voices overlapped in a frantic chorus. They spoke in urgent tones, talking about fluids and symptoms that he knew were signs of the virus.

  A lone patient lay in a gurney in the infirmary hallway. A slender hand gripped the gurney’s rail. Layers of blankets swaddled her body, but she shivered uncontrollably.

  “Hello? I need help here,” Ethan said. He stepped closer. “Can we get some help?”

  Sweat matted the woman’s brown hair. A pouch of fluid hanging over her head fed into her arm. She groaned pitifully, and he stepped to the foot of her bed. She rolled over moaning weakly for help, and he realized his greatest fear. Sarah’s eyes watered. Her face twisted in pain, flush from the fevered heat of her body. She didn’t seem to recognize him.

  He stood immobilized, unable to speak. He wanted to cry out to her, to hold her hand and comfort her. But he knew what it would mean for him, and he hated his sense of self preservation. She had left him for his overly rational mind and his dedication to his job. He hated all of it in that moment.

  “Sir, I need you to step back. Now,” said the nurse who’d greeted them. She jogged to him and waved her hands, motioning to shove him away without touching his chest.

  “That’s my … I know her,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. This is a very contagious area. Please, we don’t have enough people. You have to get away from here.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “We don’t know. Please,” she said.

  Sarah’s feeble voice croaked, and he heard his name.

  “I’m here,” he said. “Sarah, I’m here. Hold on.”

  He backed away to wait with Wade, unable to look away from the gurney where he could just see the lump of Sarah’s feet. He wondered where her new husband was, and knew he probably lay in another bed somewhere inside the infirmary.

  An anxious corpsman came out to tend Wade. Ethan helped him cut away Wade’s canvas pants, and he held a flashlight as the corpsman stitched up the wound on his thigh.