Plague Ship

by Clive Cussler

  “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 suit’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.

  Unlike the hundreds of other engine rooms Juan had been in, he didn’t feel the palpable power, the sense of strength and endurance that these engines were capable of. Here, he felt nothing but the chill of a crypt. He knew if Max was with him, his engineer’s pride would require him to refire the diesels, just to give them life again.

  He tried his radio, calling to Hux, then Mark, and finally the Oregon, but interference returned nothing but static. Juan quickened his pace, training his light over the equipment for any sign of something out of th
e ordinary. He passed through another watertight door and found himself at the ship’s sewage treatment plant. He moved on. Beyond was another set of idle generators and the Dawn’s desalinators. Using a technique called reverse osmosis, the water treatment system drew in seawater and extracted almost one hundred percent of the salt, rendering it safe enough to drink. This one machine provided water to the galleys, the laundry, and every bathroom aboard the vessel. Of the two places he could think to introduce a deadly virus and make certain it affected everyone aboard, this was number one. He would search for the second—the vessel’s air-conditioning units—later.

  Cabrillo spent ten minutes examining the desalinator, borrowing a tool kit from a nearby workbench to unbolt inspection ports and peer inside. He saw no evidence of tampering or recent maintenance. The bolts were all stiff, and the grease felt gritty, even through his protective gloves. There was nothing at all to indicate that a foreign object, like a bunch of vials of toxin, had been injected into the plant.

  The explosion came without warning. It rumbled someplace aft of the engine room and sounded deeper within the ship. And even as the sound faded, another blast rocked the Golden Dawn. Cabrillo stood, immediately trying to raise his team on the radio net, when a third explosive charge detonated.

  One second, Juan was standing over the desalinator and, the next, he was halfway across the room, his back a flaming sheet of pain from being slammed into a bulkhead. He fell to the deck as another rumbling detonation hit the ship. The blast was well forward of his position, and, yet, he could feel the overpressure wave sluice through the engine room and press him to the floor. He staggered to his feet to retrieve his flashlight, which had been flung ten yards away. As soon as his fingers curled around the light, some sixth sense made him turn. There was motion behind him. Even without electricity, the ship’s gravity-powered watertight doors functioned flawlessly. The thick metal plates began to slide down from the ceiling to cover the open hatchways.

  A new sound struck the Chairman, and he whirled in time to see a wall of white water erupt from under the deck through grates that gave access to bilge spaces below the engine room.

  A fourth explosion rocked the Golden Dawn and made the entire ship rattle.

  As he ran for the descending watertight door, Juan knew that whoever had poisoned the passengers and crew had placed scuttling charges to hide the evidence of their crime. There was something significant in that, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it.

  The water welling up from below was already to his ankles when he ducked under the first door, with four feet to spare. Hampered by the protective suit, he ran as best he could across the next room, passing the sewage plant without a glance, his feet splashing through the rising water. His breathing wheezed in his ears and taxed the suit’s filters.

  The next door was already a mere two feet from slamming into the deck. Juan put on a burst of speed and dove flat, sliding through the water so it foamed over his faceplate. His helmet hit the bottom lip of the door. He twisted under it, pressing himself flat as he moved, wriggling to get by without ripping the suit. He could feel the weight of the door pressing down and he lurched as hard as he could, pulling his chest and upper legs through. He tried to roll away, but the solid gate continued to drop. In a desperate gamble, he cocked one leg and wedged his foot between the door and the sill.

  The door weighed at least a ton, so Cabrillo’s artificial foot delayed its descent for only a second but it bought him enough time to yank his other leg clear.

  The pulverized limb remained jammed under the door and allowed a curtain of water to surge into the main engine room unchecked. It also held Juan helplessly pinned, because, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t free the prosthesis.

  Cabrillo was trapped in the engine room of a doomed ship, and, no matter how he fiddled with his radio dials, he got nothing but static.

  CHAPTER 8

  MAX HANLEY DIDN’T NEED HALI’S FRANTIC CRY TO tell him a series of explosions had struck the Golden Dawn. He could see the bursts of white water erupting in sequence along the cruise ship’s side on the Oregon’s main monitor. It looked like she’d been struck by torpedoes, but he knew that was impossible. The radar scopes were clear, and sonar would have detected the launches.

  As the smoke cleared, Eric zoomed the low-light camera in on one of the damaged areas. The hole was easily big enough for a person to walk through, and seawater was cascading into the breach at a staggering rate. With four identical punctures along her waterline, there were too many compartments flooding to save the ship, especially without power going to her bilge pumps. He estimated that she would founder in less than an hour.

  Max tapped his communications console. “George, get your butt back in the whirlybird and get over to the Dawn. A series of scuttling charges just went off, and our people are in trouble.”

  “Copy that,” Gomez Adams replied instantly. “Do you want me to land over there?”

  “Negative. Hover on standby and await further orders.” Max changed channels. “Oregon to Cabrillo. Come in, Juan.” Static filled the Op Center. Hali fine-tuned the transceiver, searching in vain for the Chairman’s signal, but he couldn’t find it. “Julia, are you there? Eddie?”

  “I’m here,” a voice suddenly boomed over the loudspeakers. It was Mark Murphy. He was still in the Golden Dawn’s wheelhouse and had better reception. “What just happened? It sounded like explosions.”

  “It was,” Max replied. “Someone’s trying to sink the ship, and, from what we can tell over here, they’re going to succeed.”

  “I’ve barely started on the downloads.”

  “Pack it in, son. Gomez is on his way to you. Hightail it out of there as soon as you can.”

  “What about Juan and the others?” Murph asked.

  “Have you been able to reach them on the radio?”

  “No. Juan cut out about twenty minutes ago when he went down to the engine room.”

  Hanley suppressed a curse. That was about the worst location to be when the explosives went off. “What about Eddie and Hux?”

  “They fell off the net a couple minutes later. I’ll tell you one thing, Max, the radios in these suits are getting upgraded as soon as we’re back.”

  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Max said, although he’d been thinking the exact same thing. He studied the image relayed to the monitor and saw that the Dawn was settling fast. Her lowest row of portholes was less than three feet from going under, and the ship had developed a slight list to starboard. If he sent Murph out to search for the rest of the team, there was a good chance the weapons specialist would become trapped in the vessel. She was sinking pretty evenly now, but he knew the ship could lurch downward at any second. He would just have to trust that the others would make their own way out.

  “Mark,” he called, “get aboard the chopper as soon as you’re able. We’ll have you stay on station, searching over the ship for when the rest reach the upper deck.”

  “Roger that, but I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, lad, neither do I.”

  AFTER ONLY A QUICK GLANCE at a ship’s schematic, Eddie Seng led Julia unerringly to the Golden Dawn’s small hospital, located on level DD, well below the main deck. With his help, she had gathered blood and tissue samples from a number of victims on the way.

  “You’re holding up pretty well for someone who isn’t a medico,” Hux had told Eddie when she was working on the first of the victims.

  “I’ve seen how Chinese interrogators leave their prisoners after extracting whatever information they think the person had,” Eddie had said in an emotionless monotone. “After that, nothing much bothers me.”

  Julia knew of Seng’s deep-cover forays into China on behalf of the CIA and didn’t doubt he’d seen horrors far worse than anything she could imagine.

  As she had suspected, there was a trail of bodies leading down the corridor toward the dispensary, men and women who had had just enough time after f
alling ill to go to the one place they thought they could find help. She took samples here as well, thinking that something in their physiology gave them a few minutes other victims had been denied by the pathogen. It could be an important clue at finding the cause of the outbreak, since she was holding little hope of finding any survivors.

  The hospital door was open when they arrived. She stepped over a man wearing a tuxedo lying across the threshold and entered the windowless antechamber. Her flashlight revealed a pair of desks and some storage cabinets. On the walls were travel posters, a sign reminding everyone that handwashing was a crucial step in reducing infections aboard ship, and a plaque stating that Dr. Howard Passman had received his medical degree from the University of Leeds.

  Julia played her light around the adjoining examination room and saw it was empty. A door at the far end of the office led to the patients’ rooms, which were little more than curtained-off cubicles, each containing a bed and a simple nightstand. There were two more victims on the floor here, a young woman in a tight black dress and a middle-aged man wearing a bathrobe. Like all the rest, they were covered in their own blood.

  “Think that’s the doctor?” Eddie asked.

  “That would be my guess. He was probably struck by the virus in his cabin and rushed here as fast as he could.”

  “Not fast enough.”

  “For this bug, no one is.” Julia cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”

  “In this suit, I can’t hear anything but my own breathing.”

  “Sounds like a pump or something.” She pulled back one of the curtains surrounding a bed. The blanket and sheets were crisp and flat.

  She went to the next. On the floor next to the bed was a battery-powered oxygen machine like those used by people with respiratory problems. The clear-plastic lines snaked under the covers. Julia flashed her light over the bed. Someone was in it, with the blankets pulled up over their head.