All three of the men who had dared the ghost ship below the earth had succumbed to its curse.
-4-
Sir Arthur Thomas Gordon moved quickly for so heavy a man. He instantly rushed from his limousine to that of Commissioner James Nathan where Nathan contemplated the scene that had exploded in his face. Knighted by the Queen of England, a self-made man after his father had pissed away the family fortune, Gordon didn't like standing down to any man. He'd wheedled his way in close to Nathan, buying off his man Perkins, and Perkins had kept Gordon apprised of Nathan's every move, and in turn Gordon had thought to use it against Nathan when he brought in this charlatan Stroud. Gordon was way past going through channels. He had been on the phone to every public official in the city, including the mayor, and he had been made to stand here and watch this ridiculous affair while the construction of his tower was held up for days. The costs were astronomical.
"Now, Nathan? Now will you bloody well listen to reason? Look at all you've accomplished with this vaudeville act! I hope you're satisfied."
"Shut up, Gordon!"
"Shut up? Shut up?"
"You heard what the fuck I said!"
Camera crews and microphones were jammed in at Sir Arthur as he lit into the commissioner of police. Questions flew from the reporters.
"What're your next plans, Sir Arthur?"
"Has anyone other than Stroud's party offered to go into the pit?"
"Will you blow the place now?"
"Commissioner Nathan? Will the city give in to Sir Arthur's demands at this point?"
"Get these damned reporters back!" shouted the C.P. to his uniformed officers, who moved in, barricading the press even as they snapped pictures of Stroud, Wisnewski and Leonard being carted off to waiting ambulances by men wearing protective gear. Another man entered the decon unit, retrieving the protective wear laid aside by the three archeologists. The tears in the clothing worn by the trio that had gone into the pit were noticeable, and Nathan shouted for this man to hold as he examined the rents. They looked like the work of sharp-toothed animals, shrews or minks.
"What the hell's down there?" Nathan wondered aloud in a whisper to a beat cop his own age, an old friend by the name of Harry Baker. Harry never had what it took to rise in rank, primarily because he was so damned pleased with doing what he was doing that he didn't want any of it ... didn't want the headaches and heartaches of command. Smart move, Nathan had told him many times over. Now Harry looked back at him with a queer, questioning look and said, "Jimmy, what's really going on here?"
"Wish to God I knew, Harry ... wish I knew." Then Nathan ordered the medics out. "Go ahead, get these men to St. Stephen's; see that they get into the hands of a Dr. Cline there. She's with the CDC." Nathan felt energized, standing in the rain in the dark, the street lit with police lights, a barricade thrown up. It was like old times, too, seeing Harry. Nathan felt like a detective again. He'd missed being on a street team and he was sick of having to deal with men like Gordon. And he was sick of the treatment shown him by people around him, kowtowing and bootlicking. Good ol' Harry never knew how. Nice to know some men always stayed the same...
Lloyd Perkins rushed along beside him now with a wide umbrella, trying to cover him. Nathan angrily pushed him aside, saying, "Lloyd, get the shit outa my way."
But then Arthur Gordon stepped into his way, spoiling for a fight, getting right into his face like an angry baseball manager at a Mets game, spittle foaming at the edges of his mouth. "I'm ordering my men in now!"
"You'll do no such thing, Gordon!"
Perkins was in James Nathan's ear, whispering, "Maybe we ought to let Gordon go ... let the bastard hang himself."
"Shut up, Lloyd! Now, you, Gordon, old chap, listen good, because I'm only saying this once--"
"Whom do you think you are speaking to?"
"A royal pain in the ass, asshole, now--"
"Just who do you think you are!"
"I'm the highest ranking officer in New York City! Do you have it straight now? Damn you!"
Gordon was visibly shaking with anger. He was not used to being treated this way. For a moment, he looked as if he might explode.
"You can't talk to me that way!"
"Is that all you can say?" Nathan burst out laughing at the man. "Listen, asshole, your money and influence do not change the fact I am in control here; I give the orders."
"Don't be so sure I can't buy you straight out of a job, mister!"
"Damn you, Gordon, this city and decisions affecting the welfare of the people in it are not up to you, and so help me, if you--or anyone in your employ--goes near that damned hole in the ground--"
"You'll what?"
Nathan grabbed the wealthy Gordon by his coat and doubled him over the wet, black limo. "I'll see that your bloody, limey butt is dragged into a civil court and I'll throw everything I can at you. Do you understand me, Englishman?"
Perkins was tearing at Nathan to release the man and finally Nathan did so. Gordon's workers looked on, a sensation of excitement flooding over them, all of them hoping, it seemed, to see Gordon truly crowned.
Perkins retrieved Gordon's hat from the mud and was handing it to him when Nathan shouted for him to come along. Nathan got into his limo and Perkins got in across from him, shaking his head, unable to meet Nathan's eyes. Nathan shouted for the driver to take him to St. Stephen's Hospital.
The limousine parted the press and the crowd that had gathered as it pulled out.
"Have a drink, Commissioner?" asked Perkins, going for the bar inside the limo.
"No, and you aren't either, Lloyd. You're still a cop, whatever else you've become, and you're on duty."
Perkins gripped the bottle in his hand tighter, and then he put it back. "You sure put Gordon in his place, Commissioner."
"And you, Perkins? Where is your place, Lloyd?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I saw the way you groveled around Gordon. You're on his payroll, too, aren't you?"
"Now, wait a minute, Commissioner."
"Tell you what, Lloyd, we'll talk about it at a later time ... maybe when this is all over."
St. Stephen's Hospital was in the heart of Manhattan, and besides its central location, it had the finest in modern equipment, technology and trauma care. It had been immediately selected as headquarters for the Centers for Disease Control when they had sent their representative and her team up to analyze the uncommon and unusual nature of the disease that was now throwing more and more New Yorkers into comas. Dr. Kendra Cline had taken her residence at New York's Bellevue, and no greater proving ground for a doctor existed on the face of the earth. She'd done extensive work in cell biology and virology, to the exclusion of anything anyone else might call a social life. At thirty-six, she remained unmarried, had no children and no prospects for either, which disturbed her family and friends far more than it did her. She cared passionately for her work and when she had gotten the position with the CDC in Atlanta, she felt it a dream come true.
She'd been dispatched to many areas to oversee what turned out to be Legionnaires' disease in one case, a virulent new strain of chicken pox in another, and she had done extensive regional studies of the spread of the HIV virus. But this was the first time that she was heading a team, and she was very worried, for what was going on in the city of New York was like nothing she had ever seen in all her experience. She had no idea what her superiors in Atlanta were wondering as they surveyed the daily reports she faxed back to them.
She had sent out blood and serum samples, packed in fail-safe metal containers and loaded on U.S. Air Force jets. She had also readied materials and packing for the first autopsy samples, certain that within hours one or more of her patients would succumb to death.
Now she got word that three more patients were on their way, two in coma and one in shock. She learned that it was the party of archeologists who'd braved going to the site of all the trouble, where the unknown disease seemed to originate f
rom. She had herself tried to gain access to the location but had been denied by the authorities. She had been fighting with them ever since. She needed samples from the area badly, and she didn't mind taking risks to get them; and soon, if her wishes were not complied with, she'd take Tom and Mark, her aides, and they'd get in there by dark of night if need be. But for now she was in the midst of readying her team to gather in the new patients. In only the last four hours, many people had been brought to the hospital and to other hospitals across the city. Whatever this virulent bug was, it was taking a great toll in a short amount of time.
"Have you read about this guy, Stroud?" asked her assistant Mark Williams as they rushed the monitors down to meet the incoming victims.
"Some, yeah."
"One for the books, wouldn't you say?"
"Or National Enquirer, I suspect."
"Still, took some nerve going in there like that, him and those other two men."
"Looks that way."
They arrived at emergency to the ranting and threats of a patient who had leaped off a table and was wielding a scalpel he had gotten hold of, shouting for all the goddamned demons in the place to get away from him. Kendra guessed the madman to be another addict on PCBs or worse, before recognizing him as one of the men she'd seen earlier on a TV screen. He was an archeologist who had gone down into the pit. He was conscious but babbling, quite out of his head, and dangerous.
She saw Commissioner James Nathan in the thick of trying to calm the man he called Dr. Wisnewski. The older man jabbed at Nathan with the scalpel, ripping a long tear in his overcoat, when two uniformed police grabbed Wisnewski and wrestled him to the ground.
"Sacrifice me! They sacrificed me to the demon! The bastards! Bastards all! Get away! Get them away! They're all over me! All over me!"
"Get in here with some goddamned sedation, please!" shouted Nathan.
"No! No sedation!" shouted Kendra. "Get a jacket on him! Render him harmless, but no drugs!"
Mark saw to it, locating and helping fit Dr. Wisnewski for a straitjacket as the man spat and attempted to bite countless times.
Nathan backed off and said to Dr. Cline, "Not the Wisnewski we've come to know and love. This is awful ... tried to kill Stroud at the site with a pickax to the chest ... Fortunately--"
"This is Stroud?" she asked, looking over the huge frame of Abraham Stroud which lay as still as a cadaver on a gurney alongside Dr. Leonard, who was equally silent and ominous. "Not sure I wouldn't prefer to see these other two in Wisnewski's condition, rather than as they are. Getting very tired of seeing strong, healthy men turned to vegetables by this thing."
"Well, Wiz ... Wisnewski is no vegetable, that's for sure."
"I'll want to get an EKG and a CAT scan on Wisnewski, the blood, urine and serum tests, try to ID what it is that's kept him going."
"You got a test for bullheadedness?"
"Afraid not."
"Then you'll probably come up zip."
She frowned, rubbing the back of her neck, exhausted. "You have any idea how our isolation ward is swelling! There's been an acceleration in the number of cases! We've got to check everything, try every avenue--which brings me back to my need for soil, air and water samples from the site. Did you have anyone test for these?"
"Yes, just prior to their going in deep. My aide's taken them upstairs to your people."
"Good. Now perhaps we can begin to find some answers."
"You'd better. Damned few out on the street. As for Wisnewski, he's dangerous, criminally dangerous, attempting to kill Stroud and now me. Acts as if he's seeing things--"
"I noticed the delirium, yes."
"Soon as you're through running your tests, he's out of here to a maximum-security, padded room at Bellevue. I will see that the arrangements are made."
"All right ... if that's how it must be. And thanks for ordering those tests for me."
"That was the easiest thing I've had to do all day."
"Yeah, I saw some of your debate with Gordon on the tube in the lounge."
"Great ... just great. Mayor Leamy'll love me for that."
"Well, again, thanks, and I'll take it from here." She began shouting orders to her people to get the comatose patients in tents and hooked to machines. This done, they began disappearing with Stroud and Leonard down the corridor. Nathan watched Kendra Cline go, thinking the dark-haired woman had a lot of grit, a lot of substance and a lot of beauty. She continued to shout along the corridor, "No time to lose! Up to isolation immediately! And use every precaution, people! Move, move!"
Nathan had a thousand questions for the silent Stroud and Leonard, a thousand questions for the raving Wisnewski ... none of which would be answered, he assumed.
He turned and went back outside to the waiting limousine. Alone, he had that drink, Jack Daniel's neat. He then picked up the phone and punched the code for the mayor's office. Perkins arrived just at that moment and James Nathan kicked out at him as he tried to get in, shouting, "Outside, Lloyd! This is confidential!"
He'd have to take the heat for this one all alone.
"I suppose you've heard the news?" he asked Mayor Bill Leamy.
Leamy, an Irishman and an instinctive politician, was cagey. He asked, "What's the word from the CDC people? Anything?"
"Working as hard as they can, Bill."
"I have to tell you, Jim, from where I sit, you and your archeology friends looked a little like Rocky and Bullwinkle out there today."
"Thanks for that insight, Bill. I'll treasure those remarks till they put me under."
"Why'd you have to get into it with Gordon on camera, Jimmy? That sort of thing only makes it worse."
"Mayor ... Bill, Wisnewski's out of his head with madness, Leonard and Abe Stroud are both gone comatose. How is street dancing with Gordon going to make it any worse?"
"Gordon's got a lot of pull in this town, Jimmy. I've told you that before."
"Lot of pull, Mr. Mayor? Enough to bump me off the playing field?"
"Dammit, Jim, this isn't a game of soccer."
"No, more like Monopoly, isn't it ... sir?"
There was a silence at the mayor's end. "We've got to get Gordon's people back to work. It's a lot of jobs we're talking about here, Jimmy boy."
"Things keep going the way they are, Bill, and for every Gordon employee there'll be a man like Stroud and Leonard vegetating in our goddamned hospitals."
"Please, Jim, you know a comatose man can't vote."
"If anyone can find a way to get him to..."
The mayor laughed heartily at the joke. "Yes, well, Jim, come down here to see me. Gordon's on his way and I've gotten the City Council together for emergency session and my advisers will be here. We'll hash this thing about some more."
"Hash it about some more ... sure."
"Now, don't be taking that attitude, Jim. I don't like Gordan a whit more'n you do, believe me, but Jim, you know how elections are lost over trivial matters like the trains running on time, dire weather that we can't control, and this ... this spreading epidemic is just such an uncontrollable wild card--"
"And it's an election year, I know."
"I go out, Jim, so will you. So, please, spare me the 'high and mighty' routine."
"Yes, sir."
"Bring along Perkins, too."
James Nathan forced himself into silent restraint before replying, "We'll be right along, your honor."
"Aha. That's my boy, Jim ... See you in chambers."
-5-
Abraham Stroud awoke blinking back the pain and stiffness in neck and back, to find himself listening to his own EKG. The machine and he shared an isolation ward in the hospital with two rows of motionless bodies, approximately twenty-six in all, thirteen to a row.
Stroud looked closely at the man on his right. Stiff and cold, the man looked like a cadaver, his color drained. For a moment, Stroud thought he was in a morgue, but the sound of EKGs humming up and down the rows of the zombies forestalled this notion. On his left, h
e saw the profile of the man he had seen in the silvery crystal skull in Egypt: Simon Albert Weitzel. This gave Stroud a start and he sat bolt upright, finding himself connected by wires and tubes to machines and feeding drips. The IVs looked like plastic bats hanging on each side of him.
A little disoriented, he tried to piece together what had brought him here to lie among the near-dead victims of the thing in the pit.
He'd had a bad reaction to the decontamination unit. The brilliant light colliding with the plate in his head had caused a catatonic response. This had led the others to assume that he had succumbed to the bizarre fate of the others, that he had contracted this vile disease being spread about by the thing on the dead ship.
Stroud's EKG reading was the only one in the room that wasn't damned near a straight line. He now tore away the attachments to the machine, watching the green reading disappear. He snatched himself free of the IVs and threw his legs over the side of the bed, facing Weitzel. He went to the man, the first victim, curious and filled with questions that had no solutions.
"It is you," Stroud said with a raspy, dry throat.
Weitzel lay like a stone, without response. His eyelids were closed. It was that way with all the patients in the room. Some nurse had gone about the silent forms and had placed a gloved hand on the eyelids, forcing them down. Stroud recalled the sensation as if it were happening now to him. Someone had done it for him while he lay in this state as well. Fortunately, for him it wasn't the same exact state.
"What's happened to you, Weitzel? What is happening to you now?"
Weitzel's eyelids flipped open, causing Stroud to back off, but not before the man's left arm had shot up and his hand had wrapped about Stroud's throat, tightening with the power of a vise, cutting off Stroud's air.
Behind a glass, men and women were suddenly up and rushing about, hitting alarms, calling others. Stroud called for help and one of the white-coated men came over an intercom with, "You've just come out of a coma! Try to relax. What're you doing to that other man? Get away from him!"
Weitzel's right hand quaked upward, trying to join with his left to strangle the life from Stroud. Weitzel's body trembled and shook, lifting off the bed, and a strange, eerie, metallic green and blue light discolored the whites of his eyes. His pupils were nowhere to be seen, rolled far back in his head.
Zombie Eyes bs-2 Page 5
