Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller)

by Goldberg, Leonard

  Scott signaled to Robbie, and the shotgun on the bridge disappeared from view. Then he came back to David. “You’re making a big mistake.”

  “Not as big as the one Choi made,” David countered.

  “Which was?”

  “He wouldn’t allow me to see my daughter.”

  “You should have brought that to my attention.”

  “I did. That’s why we’re standing out here on the deck.”

  A hollow smile came to Scott’s face, but it vanished quickly. “His mistake can be remedied. Yours can’t.”

  David remained silent and wondered why Scott was dragging things out. The man was either waiting for the right moment to mount a surprise attack or, less likely, for convincing evidence that the sick passengers had all been moved. Which? A surprise attack, David decided.

  “The giant mistake you made was dishonoring Choi,” Scott went on. “The Asians call it a loss of face. With them, that’s very important.”

  “So?”

  “So he’ll kill you the first chance he gets.” Scott paused for effect and glanced over his shoulder at the deckhands. “And the crew will be glad to help him because of the damage you did to their friends.”

  The crew joined in, apparently liking the idea of tearing David apart.

  “Yeah!” cried out a voice from the rear.

  “Damn right!” bellowed another.

  “Who needs a doctor now anyway?”

  “You do,” David answered the third voice. “Because if you get sick, you’ll hope to God I’m here to help and maybe ease some of your suffering. And when the experimental drugs come to treat the virus, you’ll sure as hell need me to administer them.”

  The crowd murmured excitedly at the glimmer of hope. A drug! Something that could save them!

  “What drugs?” Scott pressed him.

  “You’ll see,” David said vaguely, and knew he’d thrown the crew off balance. And David could see from Scott’s expression that the banker knew it, too. The crewmen would be harder to control now.

  “You said experimental drugs,” Scott argued mildly. “Have they ever been tried in humans?”

  David shrugged.

  “They probably used the damn things in rats,” Scott reckoned. “And who knows what happened to those rats when they received the drug?”

  “They seemed to improve,” David lied easily.

  “I’m still in favor of getting off this ship,” Scott said. “I’m not waiting around to catch this killer virus, then be a guinea pig for some drug that might help rats.”

  “I’m with you,” a voice in the crowd yelled out. “I’ll take my chances ashore.”

  “Me too,” another chimed in. “I don’t want some drug that’s never been used in people.”

  Scott nodded firmly, now certain he had regained control of the crowd. He gave David a stern look and said impatiently, “Get Choi up!”

  David stayed motionless.

  Scott raised his shotgun and aimed it at David’s head. “One last time,” he threatened.

  David increased the pressure on the blade of his knife. A thick strand of the rope popped and flew up into the air. Choi must have sensed it because he started screaming again.

  No one moved or even breathed. It was a Mexican standoff. Somebody was about to die.

  Seconds ticked off. The tension in the air was almost suffocating.

  David placed more pressure on the knife. Another strand of rope popped.

  Suddenly the door to the passageway opened. The lanky, blond crewman who had volunteered to move the sick passengers hopped out onto the deck and announced, “The patients are all back in their cabins!”

  The crowd collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I need proof,” David said at once, his knife still on the rope.

  “The nurse knew you would,” the crewman said. “She told me to give you the password. It’s Beaumont.”

  David took the knife away from the rope. He hadn’t discussed a password with Carolyn, but she knew he’d demand one. Smart! She was so damn smart! And the word she’d chosen was known to only a very few aboard the ship.

  Beaumont was the name of the private pavilion at University Hospital where Carolyn was head nurse. Finally, David said, “You can have Choi back now.”

  Scott gestured to the crew with his shotgun, and a dozen men rushed over to the rope and hoisted Choi up. As he was lifted over the railing, the crewmen cheered, as though they were welcoming a hero home.

  The tape was cut from Choi’s wrists, and he rubbed at them to get the circulation going. As the tangle of rope was removed from his torso, Choi turned to David and gave him a long, mean look. His thin lips seemed to disappear. There was only a slit where his mouth should have been. In a monotone, he uttered something in Korean. It sounded like a death sentence.

  David raised the knife he was holding and expertly threw it down to the deck, just in front of Choi. It stuck straight up, deep into the wood. The message David was sending was clear. Don’t fuck with me!

  The message didn’t seem to bother Choi. His hateful expression didn’t change.

  From high on the bridge, Robbie yelled down, “The CDC is on the line.”

  “Let’s go,” Scott said and prodded David with his shotgun toward the elevator. The crowd parted to give them room. One of the deckhands reached out to pat Scott’s shoulder in a congratulatory fashion. Scott glowered at the man, who quickly backed away and disappeared into the throng.

  “Move faster,” he ordered David and pushed him into the elevator.

  As the elevator ascended, David concentrated on possible ways to alert the CDC that a mutiny was taking place aboard the Grand Atlantic. Maybe he could use a code word that they would hopefully understand. But then again, they—

  “You’re tougher than I thought,” Scott broke into David’s thoughts.

  David shrugged.

  “Ex-military, huh?” Scott asked and waited for an answer that didn’t come. “MP, right?”

  David nodded slowly, as if giving out privileged information.

  “Marines, I’d guess.”

  David nodded again.

  “Where were you stationed?”

  This was not a casual conversation, but a quiz, David decided. Scott wanted to find out if David had in fact been an MP or something else, like a Green Beret or Navy SEAL. Someone he would really have to fear. Finally, David said, “A lot of places.”

  “Where was your last assignment?”

  “Pendleton,” David replied, figuring that an investment banker didn’t know much about a Marine base outside San Diego.

  “Ah-huh,” Scott said, still measuring David.

  The elevator came to a stop, and the door opened. They hurried through the bridge and into the small communications room. Robbie was standing off to the side, with his shotgun pointed at the chief radio officer. The light atop the speakerphone was blinking green.

  “I’ve got the CDC on the line,” the chief radio officer called over.

  As David sat, Scott reached out and put his finger on the phone’s hold button. “Remember, any tricks and the call ends.”

  David again tried to think of a way to stealthily alert the CDC that the ship was now in the hands of mutineers. But nothing worthwhile came to mind. And a clumsy attempt was worse than no attempt at all. That would make future calls to the CDC very limited, and David needed all the help he could get.

  He leaned forward and spoke into the phone.

  “Ballineau, here.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Ballineau,” Lawrence Lindberg said.

  “There’s nothing good about it.”

  “Well, it’s about to get worse,” Lindberg warned. “I’m afraid the virus is totally resistant to Tamiflu and Relenza, as well as all the other antiviral agents. We have a few
experimental drugs we are now testing, but they’ve never been tried on humans.”

  Scott nodded to himself. It was just as he’d thought. There weren’t any experimental drugs to treat them, and there wouldn’t be any in the immediate future either. His plan to jump ship and get away from the virus was looking better and better. He jerked his head toward David, now aware that the silence on the other end was lasting too long. “Say something,” he whispered to David.

  “Never been tried in humans, eh?” David asked hastily.

  “Never.”

  “Well, at the rate we’re going, there won’t be any humans left to test them on.”

  “How many sick do you have?”

  “Over a hundred and climbing,” David reported. “And we already have dozens dead, and only four of them had underlying conditions that weakened their defenses. Two had HIV infections, one with diabetes.”

  “And the fourth?”

  “A young boy who inhaled repeated, huge doses of the virus from the dying bird.”

  There was a long pause before Lindberg asked, “Are the other flu victims afflicted with the severe form of the disease?”

  “So it would appear,” David answered. “Dozens more are dying, and dozens more will almost surely follow.”

  “Bad, bad,” Lindberg muttered to himself, then raised his voice. “Did you receive the new supply of N-95 masks and body bags?”

  “Affirmative,” David replied. “But they were dropped onto the deck by your helicopter, and the heavy crates split the already badly damaged heliport wide open. It’s totally useless now.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  Was it? David asked himself suspiciously. He wondered if that was done on purpose, in order to make doubly sure no helicopters could land on the Grand Atlantic. David shook his head at his paranoia and dismissed the idea, but the useless heliport did make one thing certain. Now, badly needed doctors and nurses could not be airlifted to the ship under any circumstances.

  “Ballineau?” Lindberg broke the silence.

  “Yeah,” David answered, his mind going back to the fact that no antiviral agents were available to combat the virus. “Is some sort of vaccine possible?”

  “It would take at least a year to produce, test, and distribute any vaccine,” Lindberg said. “With no guarantee for success, of course.”

  “I figured,” David said sourly. “So we just make do and stay on our current course, eh?”

  “For now,” Lindberg replied. “But there’s a storm warning in the Leeward Islands at present. It probably won’t reach you, but it’s a possibility. How is your weather?”

  “Calm,” David said, and suddenly saw an opening to warn the CDC that the Grand Atlantic was in even greater distress now that a mutiny had taken place. “It’s like a day in May.”

  Scott quickly reached over and punched the hold button on the speakerphone. “Don’t try that again,” he growled.

  “What?” David asked innocently.

  “That Mayday bullshit!”

  “Christ! You’re paranoid!” David snapped, desperately trying to cover his clumsy, foolhardy attempt to warn the CDC. “That’s an academic doctor on the other end. He wouldn’t know Mayday from a day in June.”

  “Maybe,” Scott said, unconvinced. “Now, finish your call and talk strictly in medical terms.” He reached for the phone and switched off the hold button, then aimed his shotgun at David’s head. “Strictly medical terms,” he repeated quietly.

  David leaned to the speakerphone and said, “Sorry about the interruption, but I just got a call from the sick bay, where I’m needed. Is there anything else?”

  “One final item,” Lindberg told him. “You’re going to have to establish a let-die list.”

  “A what?” David asked, not certain he’d heard Lindberg’s instructions correctly.

  “A let-die list,” Lindberg said again. “You should attend to only those who have a chance to survive.”

  “There won’t be too many of those,” David said pessimistically.

  “Would the number of survivors increase if we managed to get you some ventilators?”

  David hesitated as he considered the offer. “The ventilators would help a lot. But the problem is we don’t have the staff to monitor the patients on them. And patients on ventilators need to be constantly monitored or they can develop all sorts of complications.”

  “Can you do the monitoring?” Lindberg asked.

  “Of course, and so can the nurse and anesthesiologist we have on board. But at best, we’ll only be able to monitor seven or eight patients, and that’s a stretch, particularly if they have to be intubated.”

  “Then we’ll have a Navy ship ferry over eight ventilators, with the appropriate monitors.”

  “We need more antibiotics as well,” David told him. “And a lot more body bags.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Lindberg said. “Now let’s get back to the let-die list. These are patients who wouldn’t survive, even under the best of conditions. This group should include those on chemotherapy, transplant patients, diabetics, the elderly, and anyone with AIDS, cancer, or chronic pulmonary disease. You shouldn’t waste any of your resources or manpower on these individuals.”

  “Are you saying to just move them aside and let them die?”

  “That’s exactly what’ I’m saying.”

  “Jesus Christ!” David groaned. “It’s like being on the train platform at Auschwitz and deciding who should live and who should die.”

  “Sadly, yes, “Lindberg said. “It does resemble that.”

  The phone went dead.

  twenty

  David took the stairs down, the let-die list still on his mind. A goddamn let-die list, he thought bitterly. It sounded like something Charles Dickens would write. But this wasn’t fiction. It was real life, and soon he’d have to devise a triage system to separate the sure-to-die from the hope-to-live. Carolyn could help with that.

  David left the stairwell and entered a long passageway. He passed a pair of deckhands who were mopping the interior of an elevator with disinfectant. Both were masked and wearing gloves. They nodded to David and he nodded back. They obviously weren’t as hostile as the other crew members and not as stupid either. They were doing their best to avoid the avian flu virus until they could jump ship.

  Up ahead he saw a solitary, motionless figure with his hands on his hips, waiting for him. It was Choi. David glanced around and hoped to see one of the armed mutineers who might intercede. But, except for him and Choi, the passageway was deserted. David slowed and prepared himself, all the while looking for an edge. There wasn’t any. And this time he wouldn’t have the element of surprise working for him, which was a big disadvantage.

  He watched Choi move to the center of the passageway, effectively blocking it off. Then the Asian assumed a fighting stance. His feet were apart, the left in front of the right, his arms hanging loosely but bent at the elbows and ready to spring into action. And now he had a knife in his belt. A big knife.

  David slowed even more. He had his eyes locked onto Choi’s, but he was still searching for an opening. He moved a few inches to the right. Choi moved with him. Seconds ticked by in the ominous silence. Carefully David wiggled out of his short white coat and wrapped it around his forearm. A hint of a smile crossed Choi’s face as he gradually moved his hand up. Now it was at the level of his hip and a lot closer to his knife.

  Parry the thrust of his knife, David thought rapidly, then go for the eyes or testicles, whichever was open. He took a measured step forward. Choi’s smile grew.

  “You’re blocking the goddamn passageway!” a voice boomed out from behind Choi.

  Choi turned hastily and saw a large man, with reddish-gray hair and a square jaw, staring down at him. He was dressed in a green warmup outfit that had the words FIGHTING IRISH on the front of the jerse
y.

  “You go other way,” Choi ordered.

  The big man didn’t budge. He was two heads taller than Choi and forty pounds heavier, with hands the size of hams. “Don’t push,” he said hoarsely. “I ain’t in the mood for it.”

  Choi hesitated as his eyes darted back and forth between David and the FIGHTING IRISH. He appeared to be weighing his chances against the two. It didn’t take him long to reach a decision. With a scowl, he turned and walked away.

  The man watched Choi leave, then came over to David. “They think they own the damn ship.”

  “In a way, I guess they do,” David said.

  “Nah,” the man disagreed easily. “They’re still prisoners, just like we are. This ship is one giant brig.”

  David nodded, noting the man’s use of the word brig. He had to be ex-Navy or ex-Marine. Sticking out his hand, David introduced himself. “I’m David Ballineau.”

  “I know who you are,” the man said and shook David’s hand with a grip that felt like an iron vise. “I’m Tom Sullivan in cabin 408.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “And I was coming to get you, doc. I think my wife has caught the damn virus. She’s coughing her head off.”

  “Does she have any fever?”

  “Some.”

  “Any shortness of breath?”

  “Only after a bad bout of coughing,” Sullivan replied. “She’s not a strong person, doc, and she has some other medical problems. I suspect that’s why the flu is hitting her so hard.”

  A door down the passageway slammed loudly, then slammed again. They waited for the noise to subside.

  “A goddamn bird virus,” Sullivan went on disgustedly. “And we took all those shots for the regular flu and swine flu and everything in between, and it hasn’t done us a bit of good.”

  “The avian flu virus is a different type of virus,” David told him.

  “Yeah, and there’s no shot for it.” Sullivan coughed and used a hand to cover it. Then he coughed again. “It looks like the virus is getting to me, too.”

  From the sound of his voice, he didn’t seem concerned about having the avian flu. His tone was almost matter-of-fact, David thought. “Are you coughing up blood?”