Daniel swallowed a lump. It was good to see him. It had been too long.
He intercepted the older man as soon as he had gotten his bingo cards, steering him toward the hallway leading back out the rear door. “Hey, what?” David said, jerking away before Daniel lifted his hat to show his face. He put a finger to his lips before his father could cry out.
Daniel whispered in his ear, “Great to see you, Dad, but we got a situation. You’re being watched, because they want to find me. You got to didi-mao with me now. Give me your cell phone.”
The elder Markis stared at his son a moment, wheels turning in his head, then reached into a pocket and handed him the phone. Daniel pulled him into the men’s room, dropping the phone into the tank of one of the old toilets. He mimed getting undressed, opening up the paper bag he carried and taking out a set of cheap sweats and a pair of sneakers. His dad changed silently, eyes questioning. Daniel shrugged, held his fingers up to his lips, then his ear. His father nodded.
Daniel picked up his father's wallet, ran a bug-finder over it with negative results, then put it in his pocket. Everything else of his dad’s except his handgun and ammo went into a plastic bag. They slipped out the back, and tossed the bag into a pickup truck bed chosen at random. Follow that, Jenkins.
They got into their own pickup truck and pulled out the sun screens, pushing them behind the seats. “Damn, son, you’re makin’ me miss bingo, and I’m supposed to meet a nice young lady here. What –” He broke off as Spooky appeared at the passenger door, climbing in silently. His dad moved over on the bench seat to the middle. Daniel drove casually out of the parking lot, just another patron of the VFW leaving early.
“All clear, Spooky?”
“Two more infected, Chairman DJ. And out for a while.”
“Excellent. Dad…this is a long story, but we have a few hours on the road. Just listen for a while, okay? It’s freaky.”
They told him everything, start to finish, sparing no detail. It took some time.
David J. Markis was nothing if not a quick study, whip-smart in a way that Daniel wasn’t, he’d be the first to admit. He ate it up. His first words were, “All right. Give it to me.”
“What? So soon? Don’t you need to think about it?”
“You must have brought some. Your Montagnard buddy here ‘infected’ the surveillance, he said. I presume that’s to complicate their logistics. With the virtue effect, they won’t be useful to the opposition for a while, unless they can brainwash them. But that means you got a needle around here somewhere, or one of you can just bite me. So do it. We might have a crash on the way. They might come after us before we get to this bunker of yours. I don’t wanna miss out on immortality because I was too timid.”
Daniel shrugged, not really surprised. “No one would ever call you timid, Dad. Okay, Spooky, you heard the man. Shoot him up.”
Spooky silently took out the syringe.
A moment later his dad rolled down his sleeve, then sat back. “Now what?”
“Now we wait. There’s some protein shakes in that box on the floor – hey Spooky, pass me one, will you?” Daniel guzzled a can. “You might as well drink one now. And I’ll tell you how we’re going to make a better world.”
-22-
Infection Day Minus Seven.
“Mister Nightingale? Mister Nguyen?” The gate agent was perky, professional. “You’re traveling together? How nice to see. Here’s your passports and your cabin assignment. One of our Premier Suites. This packet has everything you need to know, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask one of the staff or crew. Welcome aboard Royal Princes Cruise Lines’ “Royal Neptune,” and have a wonderful cruise.”
Larry and Spooky took back their passports and put on their best smiles, but declined the standard picture-taking as they boarded. Port Canaveral, Florida was perpetually sunny, the air fresh and sweet rolling in off the Atlantic.
Larry adjusted his sunglasses. “I guess Vinny spoofed their computers all right. That was the hardest part of this whole gig, sweating in line, waiting to get matched against some kind of watch list.”
“Yes. My nephew is very competent, if undisciplined. He say it is easier to hack into cruise line computers and make software ignore us than hack into government computers and take us off the lists.”
They proceeded through ornate and luxurious spaces toward the rear of the ship, where their cabin sat facing aft. One of the first-class suites, it was second only to a few exclusive and unadvertised luxury living spaces above them, cleverly designed to be difficult to find unless you knew where to go, and hard to see into from the surrounding balconies and observation decks.
Opening the door with his keycard, Larry found their luggage already in place inside. “Compliments of Royal Princes! We livin’ large now,” he cried as he picked up a bottle of champagne cooling in a bucket on the table. He put it down to lift a suitcase onto one of the luggage caddies, unlocking it with a combination.
His eyes roved over several plastic bottles that had been carefully opened, filled with Eden Plague solution, and repacked just like new. To any inspection they would appear to be just bottles of popular soft drink. They had even added some food dye to complete the illusion. Many people brought their own particular favorite drinks or foods on a cruise; it would arouse no suspicion, and the bottles could be carried around openly.
Spooky reached over and pulled a clean new laptop out of the suitcase, packed next to the bottles; it was a powerful model with tremendous graphics capability. It booted up quickly and soon a flash drive on his key fob dumped stolen plans of their ship into the computer’s memory.
No firearms this time; it was too risky, though he had a ceramic and carbon-fiber knife that was virtually invisible to the luggage scanners. Nguyen strapped it onto his forearm, deliberately avoiding thoughts of using it in any deadly capacity. It was a tool, or in extremis, a threat. He took out another laptop, booted it up and hard-linked it to the first machine so there was nothing to intercept over a wireless connection. He immediately started reviewing their intended actions, taking himself on yet another virtual rehearsal.
“I’m hungry,” complained Larry.
“You always hungry, Larry. But you right, I’m hungry too. Nothing is open yet during boarding. Here is food.” He opened one of his smaller cases, turning it around to show its load of high-calorie, high-protein snacks.
Larry looked at the selection with distaste. “I’m so sick of nuts and protein shakes I could puke. I’m gonna go through the buffet like a buzz saw through balsa wood.” He unenthusiastically picked up a plastic bag full of trail mix and began eating, washing it down with champagne.
Spooky grabbed a big bag of wasabi chips and munched while staring at his computer screen. “I gonna do all the hard work this op, I think.”
“It’s not like I can blend in with the service staff below-decks, Spooky. How many three-hundred-pound – well, two-sixty now – African-Americans do you think they got cleaning rooms or waiting tables? Ze-ro, that’s how many. I’m just here to be a jailer, and enjoy the par-tay.”
“Remember you got fiancée now, Larry.”
“You see a ring on this finger?” He laughed. “All right, all right. We both know I ain’t cheatin’ on Shawna, even for the good cause of spreadin’ the stuff around. You know back in the day, you would never have even brought that up.”
“Back in the day we had no Eden Plague. No use complaining now. I have no such inhibition. I have no commitment to stop me from ‘spreading the stuff around.’ ”
“Damn, Sam, you gonna rub my face all up in that, huh? Buddy’s only half a word aroun’ here.”
“So solly, Larry-san. Here, I got girlie disk for you. Asian hotties.” Spooky tossed a DVD at his friend.
“Great. Just freakin’ great.”
***
In one of the enormous buffet cafeterias Larry sat methodically shoveling food into his maw while staring out over the moving ocean. The
Bahamas receded in the distance; tomorrow morning they would arrive in Cancun, Mexico. Normally he would be ecstatic to go on a cruise like this – meet women, play some poker in the ship’s casino, eat and drink his fill. This time his mind was taken up with more important things.
That didn’t stop him from enjoying the food.
He wondered how DJ was getting on, then pushed it out of his mind, feeling a trifle guilty. Here they were, living it up, while Daniel was driving across the country along the southern route, mostly I-10 and I-20, toward the opening salvo in their battle to make a better world. He laughed silently at himself; it sounded pretentious even in his own head.
He firmly quashed his doubts and went back for more. The fish was excellent.
Spooky came in with a full tray and sat down across from him. “Almost showtime.”
“Yep. You got your man picked out?”
“Yes. Piece of cake.”
“You ain’t got no cake on your tray.”
Spooky scowled, mock-serious. “You a funny spook, Larry.”
“And you a funny gook, Spooky. When do you want to nab him?”
“End of his shift, two hours. I told him to come by our cabin, we play Mahjong for money.”
“How’d you convince him to risk getting in trouble for doing that?”
Spooky stared at Larry, cocking his head in disbelief. “What, you kidding? I told him we play Mahjong for money. That like telling you a hottie waiting in your room in the bed.”
Larry choked back a laugh, covering his face with his napkin. “That was the old me.”
“Okay then, like telling you Shawna waiting in your room in the bed; how is that, smart guy?”
“I get it. You know your people best.”
“He is not my people, he is Chinese. I am thuong Degar, from Vietnam.”
“You little guys all look the same to me.”
“Yeah, you big guys too. If you were not black I forget who you are.”
“You never used to talk so much before the Eden Plague.”
Spooky stared hard at Larry, then smiled faintly. “Before, I have too much confusion in my mind. To kill many, many men is…disturbing. Now the confusion is lifted. Everything is clear.”
***
Spooky, dressed in the clothing of the man they had sedated in their suite, walked brazenly into the ship’s lower-deck service area, a place the paying customers would never see. Spacious carpeted corridors and pleasant colors gave way to rubber and metal and harsh white lights, cramped passageways and the hustle and bustle of the enormous cruise ship’s below-decks. He turned sideways repeatedly to slide past as other similarly-dressed people, many Asian and even smaller than he was, hurried about their tasks.
He turned down each corridor in turn, comparing the numbers and letters written on the walls against the route he had memorized, until he came to a hatch marked “Crew Only.” Spooky was masquerading as staff, not crew, so this was the point at which he entered into real danger of being discovered.
He stepped through the hatch, ducking behind an enormous painted pipe. Setting down the nondescript utility bag he carried, he pulled his staff server’s tunic over his head and stashed it, revealing a white naval style uniform with Lieutenant’s banded epaulets very like the ones worn by the real crew. It wouldn’t pass close inspection but he hoped it would at least keep a casual observer from alerting to him right off.
Down three metal and steel-mesh ladders, then through several more twists and turns he burrowed into the bowels of the enormous cruise ship. Soon he found the location he had memorized, a condensation reclamation pipe with a thick rubberlike join where it made an odd curve among the machinery.
There was no one in sight, just the humming of the mechanisms of the engines and pumps and vents that controlled the fluids of the modern vessel – hydraulic fluids, fuel, oil, air, and water. Spooky set the bag down and removed one of the horse-needle syringes they had prepared. Without hesitation he shoved the sharp metal tube through the soft joint, into the feed from the central desalination system that supplied the thousands of people aboard with water.
Water to drink, water to prepare food in the kitchens, water to bathe in and fill the swimming pools and jacuzzis. Water to spray from their showers, atomizing the virus mixture into the air of the enclosed stalls, so it would carry the Eden Plague to resting places in their lungs, where it would take root, invading their cells, bestowing its gifts and demanding its payments.
He left the syringe in after the initial injection, pulling out the plunger and attaching a hose to the plastic tube. This ran to a two-liter soda bottle of the Plague solution, which Spooky taped inverted to the back of a nearby fitting. His carbon-fiber knife flashed, poking a tiny hole in the uppermost surface of the bottle, allowing air in, defeating the vacuum principle that would have impeded the flow down through the hose. Gravity would do the rest, dripping the virus-laden fluid into the vast clean-water tanks.
“Hey, you there, what are you doing?” The Afrikaans-accented voice was indignant, official.
Spooky turned around to placate whoever it was. He saw an officer of the crew with Commander’s stripes, sandy blonde hair and protruding teeth and a nametag that said “de Voort.”
“Just making a repair, sir,” Nguyen said in his best false British accent.
The man licked his lips. His eyes flicked over the tube running around behind the fitting, then focused on Spooky’s right hand. “What’s that you have there?”
“Just a tool, sir.” He held the thing up, showing the handle and concealing the blade behind his turned hand. But he had forgotten just how sharp the high-tech edge on this knife was, as the pressure of his own palm opened his flesh against it. Blood suddenly ran dribbling down his upraised arm.
Commander de Voort might be middle-aged and running to fat, a long ways from the South African Navy where he began and long unused to dangerous situations, but his instincts were still good. He turned and bolted for the nearest passageway, yelling for help.
Spooky leaped after him. If the commander sounded the alarm, the whole plan might come crashing down. Desperately he lunged, catching hold of the fleeing man’s uniform tunic.
De Voort yelled louder and spun, swinging Spooky painfully into the corner of a railing.
The little man hung on grimly with his one hand, bringing the knife up in the other, threatening. “Stop!” he gasped, but de Voort ignored him. The bigger man pummeled the Vietnamese on the head and shoulders with his fists, bruising him.
Spooky dropped the knife to the deck with a clatter and struck the commander a foul blow with his free hand, perhaps four inches below his belt. The man folded up, gasping with shock. Picking up the knife, Nguyen put the blade to de Voort’s throat. “Be silent!” The ceramic-edged, razor-sharp blade was covered with Spooky’s own blood, which gave him an idea. He slid the knife down to slice a ribbon of skin on the other man’s forearm. The edge was so sharp that it was seconds before the commander even felt the sting. “Be silent or I will cut your throat! Turn over!”
De Voort rolled over to face downward on the deck.
Spooky wiped the blood off the blade then slid it back into his hidden sheath on his forearm; he carefully calibrated the force, as if breaking a board in the dojo, then drove a fist into the nerve plexus at the base of the man’s skull. De Voort went limp.
Just in time. A cry from down the passageway drew his eyes to a young woman, a crew member by her uniform, hurrying in their direction.
“He fell and hit his head,” Spooky said loudly. “He is injured. Run to call for a doctor, please.”
The woman nodded, breathless, dashing off for the nearest intercom handset.
Spooky made a quick inspection of the man’s arm where the knife had mingled both of the men’s blood. The slash was already healing, closing. The Plague had taken. De Voort’s body fat would keep him alive and recovering until medical help arrived, so looking around one last time to make sure he was not observed, Ngu
yen smashed a fist one more time into the base of the man’s skull. He told himself that the result would be sufficient, that the man would be unconscious for long enough.
Leaping to his feet, he followed the trail of blood back to where the two men had met, then inspected his handiwork. The bottle was half empty. He debated with himself whether it would be better to leave the thing there and get every possible drop into the system, or take it down to remove all trace of it.
Finally he decided he had to take it down. They could not afford to risk a cautious captain or crew shutting down the main water system for fear of contamination, prohibiting showers and making everyone drink bottled water until the ship got into port.
He had to hope it would be enough.
***
The restaurants and buffets on the ship were humming that night, filled to capacity with cheerful, unusually energetic people. Every public space was busy and buzzing with conversation. Senior citizens with spry steps took moonlight walks on deck or visited the ballroom to dance to big band swing; weary staff members found their twelve-hour shifts were not so odious and tiring after all; pinch-faced losers at the casino smiled as their chips flowed away from them across the tables, shrugging and philosophical. The young and not-so-young partied long into the night, drinking less, talking more, retiring to their rooms by twos.
By morning, there were miracles.
Moshe Capernaum, eighty-nine years of age, blind, diabetic and wheelchair-bound, woke up that morning and walked the four steps to the cramped bathroom of his tiny lower-deck cabin, half-asleep.
“Moshe! What are you doing, will you kill yourself? Sit back down before you fall and hurt yourself.”
Moshe blinked clear brown eyes at his wife Miryam as she fussed him back to sit on the narrow bed. “You are so beautiful, my dear. I love you more now than the day of our wedding.”
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