Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller)

by Goldberg, Leonard

  Scott shrugged off the threat. “Go about looking after the ill passengers. I’ll expect an update every few hours.”

  David nodded, but Kit was still on his mind. Somehow he’d have to find a way to protect her. “Remember what happens if you hurt my daughter.”

  Scott shrugged again. “Don’t make me come looking for you to get the updates.”

  As David left the bridge, he glanced out an expansive side window to the pool area below. Dozens of crewmen were strolling about or lounging in chairs, enjoying the bright sun. Some were even splashing in the pool. They were taking the place of the passengers, who were hiding from the virus in their plush cabins. Oh, yeah, David thought darkly, the crew could now enjoy all the pleasures of the Grand Atlantic, except for skeet shooting. Only Richard Scott and his band of mutineers would have the shotguns that gave them absolute control. And when the time came for the great escape, the unarmed crew would be let loose and spread ashore like ants, thus providing cover for Scott and his companions. But what was their final destination, and how did they plan to gain entrance to it? David had no answers for those questions.

  He hurried down a long passageway, his brain focusing on the weapons Richard Scott had. The shotguns gave Scott an insurmountable advantage and it would be foolhardy to attempt to take him on in a fight. Without a weapon, I’m at Scott’s mercy and there’s nothing I can— David’s eyes abruptly narrowed as he remembered the firearms Jonathan Locke had spoken about just after the transfer of command. Was the new captain referring to shotguns or something else?

  David picked up the pace, now almost running. He dashed around a corner and came to the section reserved for officers’ living quarters. Looking both ways to make certain he wasn’t being seen, he quickly knocked on the door to William Rutherford’s cabin and entered. The room was stuffy and hot, and had the stale smell of death about it.

  Rutherford was dozing and appeared even sicker. He was sweating profusely, and his face was beginning to turn bluish-red, which indicated oxygen deprivation. His strength had ebbed to the point that it required an effort for him to cough.

  Opening his eyes, Rutherford slowly turned to David and tried to clear the sputum from his throat. “Has there been some change?”

  David nodded gravely. “I’m afraid Richard Scott has taken over the ship. It’s a good old-fashioned-type mutiny.”

  “The imprudent bastard,” Rutherford growled. “How did he manage it?”

  “He and three of his friends somehow got hold of the shotguns and took over the bridge,” David replied.

  “And it was easy enough for him to accomplish that.” Rutherford paused to cough up some bloody sputum. He wiped the phlegm from his lips before continuing. “All he had to do was say they wanted to enjoy some skeet shooting, and the weapons would have been handed to him without hesitation.”

  “Or maybe your security officer decided to join them,” David suggested.

  Rutherford shook his head. “Bob Cooperman has been at sea for over thirty years, half of them with me. He’s tried and true.”

  Well, I suspect one of your officers isn’t, David wanted to say, but said nothing because he had no proof.

  “Is the crew involved with the mutiny?” Rutherford asked.

  “To a man.”

  “Then Scott has total control of the ship.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “There may be a few of the crew who won’t voluntarily participate in this cowardly act. They could be of some assistance to you.”

  “That’s unlikely,” David told him. “If Choi sees anyone wavering, he’ll see to it that they toe the line.”

  “Be wary of Choi,” Rutherford cautioned. “He can be very ill-tempered when provoked, and he’s a master of martial arts, which makes him doubly dangerous.”

  “Have you seen him in action?” David asked.

  Rutherford nodded. “A deckhand on the last cruise purposefully tried to provoke a fight with a passenger. Choi stepped in to calm things down, but the deckhand attacked him instead. The deckhand ended up with a fractured jaw and multiple broken ribs.”

  “Did you actually see Choi do the damage?”

  Rutherford nodded again. “From the bridge. He used both his hands and his feet to deliver vicious blows that were lightning-fast.”

  David guessed that Choi was Korean and knew that country’s martial-arts specialty was taekwondo, a tough and brutal form of hand-to-hand combat. In David’s estimation, taekwondo was more lethal than karate and more difficult to defend against.

  “What about my officers?” Rutherford broke the silence. “Have any of them been harmed?”

  “No, they’re fine,” David answered, again wondering if an officer was involved in the mutiny. Deep down he believed one was, but believing it and proving it were two different things. And he had to know for sure. The last thing he needed at that point was another backstabber. “Can your officers be trusted? I mean, really trusted?”

  “I think so,” Rutherford said evenly but without strong conviction. “They’re all family men, with clean records. But then again, one never knows.”

  “What about the acting captain?” David asked directly. “Does he have the gumption to stand up to Scott if the need arises?”

  “I would say so, as long as his diabetes remains under control,” Rutherford replied. “He requires four injections of insulin every day to keep his blood sugar steady.”

  A brittle diabetic! David groaned. It was another serious medical problem he might have to deal with. “What about the acting first officer? You know, the chubby one with a little mustache.”

  “He’s new to the ship. I can’t vouch for him.”

  Rutherford began to cough violently, bringing up gobs of blood-streaked sputum. With great effort, he cleared his throat, then lay back to gasp and rest. Every breath now seemed a struggle.

  David watched the man slowly dying right before his eyes. A good and decent man whom David really liked. But he had to push Rutherford further for more information. It could be critical to his and everybody else’s survival. “I’ve got a few more questions. Do you feel up to it?”

  Rutherford nodded weakly.

  “We’re headed due south on Scott’s orders,” David said in a rush. “Do you have any idea why and where we’re headed?”

  Rutherford swallowed heavily, his voice low and hoarse. “My guess is he’ll try to make it to some Caribbean island that has no navy or coast guard.”

  “So he’ll sail right in and spread the goddamn virus and start a pandemic.”

  “Unless someone decides to blow us out of the sea, or somehow disable us.”

  “Are you referring to our navy?”

  “Or the Coast Guard.”

  “Forget it,” David said bluntly. “They’ll have no notion as to what’s going on. Scott now has complete control of all communications in and out of the Grand Atlantic, so there’s no way we can inform anybody of the mutiny. I’m afraid we’re on our own.”

  “Bloody Christ!” Rutherford muttered and started coughing again. But the coughs were weak and ineffective and unable to clear the secretions blocking his large bronchi. The captain sucked for air as his complexion turned more cyanotic.

  “Just one more thing,” David asked quickly. “Locke told me about some firearms the ship has. True or false?”

  “True,” Rutherford gasped and again tried to clear the thick sputum from his airway. He pointed a trembling finger to a file cabinet beside the desk in his quarters. “The bottom drawer has a combination-lock panel. Punch in two, eight, four to open it. At the back of the drawer is a semiautomatic pistol.”

  “What make?” David asked hurriedly.

  “A Glock, nine-millimeter.”

  David’s face lit up. “How much ammo?”

  “A half-dozen clips.”

  Perfect! Da
vid thought, barely able to control his soaring spirits. The semiautomatic Glock could do an incredible amount of damage in only a few seconds. “Do all the officers know about the weapon?”

  Rutherford lay back on his pillow, now totally exhausted. He coughed feebly as his eyes closed. “The senior ones do. But they’re under strict orders not to touch it unless ordered by me.”

  David heard a noise in the passageway outside the captain’s quarters. It came and went, sounding as if someone was hitting the wall as they walked by. Or maybe someone was opening and closing doors. David crouched down and waited for the sound to disappear. He couldn’t believe his good luck. A semiautomatic Glock with 9mm bullets! It was ideal! He could hide the weapon under his short white medical coat until the four mutineers left the bridge and separated. Then he could take them out one by one. He stuffed his stethoscope into the left pocket of his white coat so that it would conceal the bulge made by the pistol beneath it.

  Moving quickly to the file cabinet, David punched in the numbers 2, 8, 4 and opened the bottom drawer. He lifted up a stack of papers and stared down into the metal drawer. It was empty! There was no gun or ammunition clips. He rapidly checked the other drawers. No gun! No clips!

  David pushed aside his disappointment and glared over to the sleeping sea captain. Well, Captain Rutherford, now we know for sure that one of your officers was involved in the mutiny. But which one?

  seventeen

  The elevator door opened on the G level, and David stepped out into a horror show. Outside the sick bay, bodies were stacking up. There were at least a dozen dead and twice the number dying. All the living seemed to be coughing at once, but only a few were wearing their N-95 masks. David shook his head in despair, thinking they were going to need a lot more body bags, and soon.

  In his peripheral vision, David saw a pair of burly crewmen emerging from the nearby spa. Their hair was wet and dripping water, like they’d just stepped out of the shower. They gave David a casual look and continued on their way, ignoring the death and suffering around them.

  “Hey!” David called out and walked over.

  “What do you want?” the shorter of the two crewmen asked.

  “I need your help for a while.”

  “Doing what?”

  David pointed to the people on the floor. “Moving these passengers back to their cabins.”

  “Forget it!” the larger crewman said. “I ain’t touching any of those dead people, or any of those live ones either.”

  “Me neither,” the other crewman joined in.

  “If you wear gloves and a mask, the virus can’t hurt you,” David informed them.

  “Yeah, right,” the larger crewman said sarcastically and motioned to a dead passenger on the floor who had an N-95 mask on. “You mean, like that poor son of a bitch?”

  “You won’t be actually touching their bodies,” David pressed. “Just the wheelchairs and gurneys.”

  “No way!” the crewmen replied almost simultaneously and walked off.

  David glowered after them, furious they wouldn’t lend a hand. He wondered if Richard Scott had given them orders not to. After all, the more fear and chaos, the less likely the officers and passengers were to revolt against him. Or were the crew simply frightened of death and the virus that brought it? Either way, David was left with a major problem. The dead and dying on the floor were teeming with the virus and contaminating everything in the sick bay and beyond. And the air would be the most contaminated as patients continued to cough up virus-laden droplets. Again David thought about the N-95 masks being only 75 percent effective at best, with the true effectiveness probably closer to 50 percent. And again he thought they were going to need a lot more body bags.

  David entered the reception area and stepped over more sick and dying people. Most were so weak they couldn’t call out for help or even reach up to him, like they’d done before. They had given up hope and accepted their impending death. The phones were ringing, all lines lit up. Where the hell were the doctors and nurses? David asked himself, glancing around the chaotic area.

  He moved into the examining room and noticed there was now a curtain separating the two tables. To his left, Marilyn was asleep, her head resting on the chest of her dead son. David made a mental note to transfer them out first, then the other dead, then the dying. And by himself, he’d have to put all the dead in body bags. Shit! Fighting his fatigue, he pulled back the curtain and saw Carolyn standing beside the examining table, with defibrillation paddles in her hands. The body in front of her was ghostly white.

  “David! Thank goodness!” She cried out. “Sol just went into cardiac arrest! He was getting better! I swear to God his breathing was starting to improve, then he crashed!”

  David rushed over and looked at the running EKG strip. There was a flat line, with only rare, small blips. “Have you already tried the defibrillator?”

  Carolyn nodded hurriedly. “No response at 300 joules.”

  “Go up to 400!” David directed.

  Carolyn quickly reset the defibrillator and placed the paddles on Sol Wyman’s chest. “Stand clear!”

  The shock caused Sol’s body to briefly lift off the examining table, then it settled. Sol remained motionless, his eyes staring up at nothingness.

  David peered at the EKG. It showed only a flat line, with no blips at all. “Again!” he shouted.

  Another shock went through Sol and lifted his body.

  The EKG stayed flat.

  “Once more!” David yelled.

  The third shock also had no effect. The EKG showed only a flat line.

  “Get me a cardiac needle with 1:1000 epinephrine!” David ordered and began CPR, repeatedly compressing Sol’s sternum. But to little avail. There was still no evidence for effective circulation. Sol’s skin was cold and starting to mottle. The EKG continued to show a straight line.

  “Here you go!” Carolyn handed David a syringe with a very long needle attached, and watched him jab the needle through the chest wall and into Sol Wyman’s left ventricle. Blood came up into the syringe and David quickly injected a 1:1000 epinephrine.

  David gazed down at the EKG and studied the moving flat line. At length, he removed the needle from Sol’s chest and discarded it into a nearby trash can. “No good,” he pronounced softly.

  “Ooooh!” Carolyn moaned and slumped heavily into a metal stool. Her entire body seemed to sag.

  David came behind her and began to gently rub her shoulders. “You did everything right and everything you could.”

  “He was such a sweet man,” Carolyn murmured.

  “I know.”

  “And now Marilyn has no one,” Carolyn said, “No child, no husband. Nothing. Even if she gets through this outbreak, I doubt that she’ll be able to go on.”

  “She just might turn out to be a lot stronger than you think,” David told her.

  “Lord! I hope so.”

  David glanced around at the crowd of sick and dying people, all of whom seemed to be moaning and groaning at the same time. It reminded him of something out of a gothic novel, in which a contagious outbreak decimated the population and quickly overwhelmed the few physicians on hand. But this wasn’t the Middle Ages. It was modern-day America, and things like this shouldn’t be happening. But they were. And where the hell were the other doctors, who should be helping Carolyn?

  “Where is Maggio?” David asked, scanning the sick bay once more.

  “He decided to take a break, along with his wife, who’s even more useless than he is.”

  “Terrific,” David growled. “And Steiner?”

  “With his wife, who has the bird flu for sure.”

  “Christ!” David grumbled. “That leaves just you and me and Karen.”

  “And I’m near the breaking point,” she said honestly. “In another minute, I’m going to start screaming and yell
ing and telling everyone to get off their asses and go back to their rooms.”

  David squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “You’re holding up fine.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  A loud chorus of coughs came from the adjoining room. Then someone started to retch, but the sound was drowned out by even harsher coughing. As the noise quieted, a pale, thin pan appeared at the door and appealed, “My wife is about to pass out! Could someone please help me?”

  Carolyn sighed wearily. “I’ll be right with you.”

  “Thank you, miss,” the man said and hurried away.

  With effort, Carolyn pushed herself up and took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m rowing against the tide and close to dropping the oars.”

  “Can you hold on a little longer?” David implored.

  “Not much,” she said candidly.

  “A little longer,” he encouraged. “Now tell me, how many gurneys and wheelchairs do we have?”

  “Five wheelchairs, two gurneys.”

  “So about seven trips to clear out the sick bay.”

  “But who is going to do the pushing?”

  “I’ll find somebody,” David promised. “In the meantime, I’ll send Karen down to lend a hand.”

  Carolyn made a guttural, disapproving sound. “Any port in a storm, I guess.”

  “Keep the curtain between Sol and Marilyn closed until I return.”

  David dashed out and down the passageway, his mind on Carolyn and all the stress she was under. My God! She’s handling a sick bay packed with the sick and dying all by herself. Then she had to deal with a cardiac arrest on top of everything else. And she’s doing all this while I wasn’t there to direct or assist. It’s amazing she lasted as long as she did. Even for an experienced MedEvac nurse like Carolyn, the load is too heavy.

  And she’s right about Karen Kellerman not being much help. Anesthesiologists are good at putting patients to sleep and awakening them. Looking after sick people isn’t their forte.