“I haven’t reexamined her,” David replied.
“Why not?”
“Because your man hustled me up to the bridge, that’s why.”
Scott looked over at Tommy. “Well?”
“I figured this was more important than her,” Tommy said bluntly.
“You figured right,” Scott said, and finished the last of his donut. Licking his fingertips, he turned back to David. “The CDC just called. They want to talk with you.”
“About what?” David asked.
“They didn’t say, but we’re about to find out.”
Scott motioned for David and Tommy to follow him and led the way into the small, private communications room. He waited for David to sit, then snapped his fingers at the chief radio officer. “Get the CDC on the line.”
David watched the chief radio officer follow orders without the slightest hesitation and wondered if he was the inside man who helped Scott pull off the mutiny and commandeer the Grand Atlantic. They needed someone who knew all about ships to take it over and make certain Scott’s orders were being followed exactly. It could have been the chief radio officer or Jonathan Locke or any of the other senior officers. David would know for sure when they were about to reach landfall. The one who jumped into the first lifeboat would be the traitor.
“I have the CDC,” the chief radio officer called out.
Scott quickly sat across from David and reached over for the hold button on the speakerphone. “Be very careful what you say.”
David heard Lawrence Lindberg’s voice come over the phone. “Dr. Ballineau?”
“I’m here,” David said.
“How are things?”
“Things are awful,” David reported. “There are over a hundred dead and twice that number dying. And all of our supplies are exhausted.”
“We’ll try to get more to you. What do you need?”
“Everything. We need IV fluids and setups, oxygen tanks, antibiotics, bronchodilators, and the ventilators you promised. And most importantly, we need more doctors and nurses. We’re way beyond being overwhelmed.”
“We may be able to help you with additional personnel.”
David leaned in closer to the speakerphone. “How?”
“You have to understand that we’re still in the planning stage.”
“Cut the bullshit and tell me how,” David demanded.
“It’s now clear that the newly formed hurricane will head directly into the Gulf of Mexico. It will track well away from the Bahamas. With that in mind, we may be able to transform the Grand Atlantic into a floating hospital.”
“You may be able to?” David asked, losing patience. “What does that mean?”
“I know how difficult it is for you. But you—”
“No! You don’t know how difficult it is for me,” David cut him off. “We’re out of time and we’re going to end up with nothing but dead people on this ship. It’s not going to be a floating hospital. It’s going to be a floating morgue. So stop using words like may and may be. Tell me exactly what you plan to do and when you plan to do it.”
Everyone in the communications room heard the sound of multiple conversations taking place on the other end of the line. Someone raised his voice, but another voice quieted him. There were more loud words in the background before Lawrence Lindberg came back on the line.
“Here are the specifics,” he said in a decisive tone. “Your current position is 820 miles northeast of the Bahamas. According to the ship’s company, you have just enough fuel to reach Nassau. We will instruct your captain to steam to Nassau, where the Grand Atlantic will be refueled offshore. From there, the ship will proceed to an isolated area off the east coast of Mexico where medical supplies and personnel will be waiting.”
“Why not some place off the coast of Florida?” David asked. “It’s a lot closer.”
“For two important reasons,” Lindberg told him. “First and foremost, we don’t want the Grand Atlantic anywhere near heavily populated areas. And second, the weather forecast calls for severe thunderstorms with strong gusts along the Florida coast. That would obviously make things much more difficult. So it’ll have to be Mexico.”
“Where is this isolated area in Mexico?”
“We’re working on that now.”
I’ll bet, David wanted to say, now certain he was being given the runaround.
“We’ll contact you again once we have more definite information.”
The phone line went dead.
Richard Scott let out a whoop of joy. He danced over to Tommy and high-fived him. “Perfect! It’s perfect! They’re going to let us go straight into Nassau and they won’t suspect a thing. And when we’re close enough to the island, we’ll put all the lifeboats in the water and head for land.”
Tommy smiled broadly and high-fived Scott back.
“And they’ll only have a refueling tanker out there,” Scott continued on. “Can you imagine what they’ll do when they suddenly see two dozen lifeboats chugging for shore?”
Tommy nodded. “They won’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
Scott nodded back. “By the time they respond, most of the lifeboats will be near or on the beach.” He turned to David and added, “And you can stay on this ship with the goddamn virus, while our government begs Mexico for one of their crummy little islands.”
The chief radio officer stepped forward and asked, “Why don’t you just wait until we reach the Mexican island, where they can help us?”
“Because there isn’t going to be any Mexican island,” Scott told him. “There’s a hurricane that will move across the Gulf of Mexico, which means we can’t go anywhere in the Gulf. And that leaves the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, where I’ve spent many vacations. That’s where Mexico has a multibillion-dollar-a-year tourist industry. It’s Mexico’s version of the French Riviera. They won’t allow this ship to come anywhere near the Yucatan and start a pandemic and turn that area back into a jungle. Trust me. They’re not that stupid.”
Tommy stroked his chin and gave the matter further thought. “So they’re just planning to let this ship float around until everybody is dead.”
“Except for those of us who reach land in Nassau,” Scott said. “This is still a death ship, and it’s going to stay that way.”
David kept his face expressionless, but he knew Scott was right. There would be no remote island off of Mexico where medical help awaited them. All the reasons Scott gave were valid, but he missed the most important one. If the American government really wanted to help, they would have directed the ship to Guantanamo Bay near the easternmost tip of Cuba. We have a naval base there. We have a harbor there where the Grand Atlantic could dock. We have a huge runway there to land giant cargo planes. And Guantanamo is relatively close to Nassau, so we could reach there without refueling. So, David thought on sourly, they are going to let all of us die on this ship. They’re going to sacrifice us for the greater good.
“Well,” Scott was saying as he gleefully rubbed his hands together, “we have plans to make, and not a lot of time to draw them up. Let’s see now. We’re traveling at twenty-eight miles an hour and we’re about 800 miles from Nassau. At that speed, we’ll reach the island in just over thirty hours.”
“Should we alert the crew?” Tommy asked.
“Not yet,” Scott said promptly. “We don’t—”
The door to the communications room burst open and Choi hurried in. His arms and shirt were covered with dust and grime. “No find Robbie!”
“Did you check his cabin?” Scott asked.
Choi nodded.
“What about the storage area?”
Choi nodded again. “Look everywhere. No find Robbie.”
“Sometimes he catches a snooze on the cot in the carpenter’s shop,” Tommy suggested.
“No there,” Choi said.
A worried look came across Scott’s face. He knitted his brow and concentrated before asking, “Where was his last duty station?”
“Guard storage area,” Choi replied.
“Maybe he’s asleep down there,” Scott thought aloud.
Choi shook his head. “Too hot to sleep there.”
“Check the area again,” Scott directed. “Search it carefully, wall to wall.”
“Already search.”
“Do it again,” Scott barked. “Now!”
Choi rushed out of the room, grumbling to himself.
Too hot, David thought miserably. Too hot in the storage area. He hadn’t considered that when he rolled Robbie’s body up in a thick Persian rug. The body would stay hidden, but the smell that would emanate from it wouldn’t. In the hot, humid air, Robbie’s body would rapidly decompose. David had seen bodies in the jungle do that before, and it happened in a matter of hours.
“I don’t like it,” Scott was saying. “It’s not like Robbie to go missing.”
Tommy shrugged. “If anybody messed with him, they’d have to contend with his shotgun.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Scott muttered under his breath.
David nodded inwardly, now convinced that Scott had unloaded Robbie’s shotgun, with or without his knowledge. He knew Robbie couldn’t use it to defend himself.
“Without Robbie, we can’t be sure the captain isn’t fooling around with the ship’s course,” Tommy said.
“There are ways to make certain he doesn’t.” Scott reached for a ring of keys, which he held up and jingled. “Very persuasive ways.”
Tommy smiled knowingly. “That should keep him real honest.”
“Or real sick, if he does something stupid,” Scott said, and headed for the door.
thirty-one
“She looks dead,” Tommy commented.
“She almost is,” David said and pulled the sheet up to Deedee Anderson’s chin.
The woman’s face was now so blue that it was impossible to tell if she was Caucasian. Air was barely moving in and out of her lungs, causing severe oxygen deprivation and deep cyanosis. And she seemed to be aging by the hour. Her lines and skin folds had become much more noticeable.
“How long you figure she’s got?” Tommy asked.
“Not long,” David answered as Deedee gasped weakly for air. It was more of a hiccough than a gasp. “Does death bother you?”
Tommy shrugged. “Not particularly.”
“Good,” David said. “If you’re here when she dies, I want you to run up to the bridge and inform Scott.”
Tommy shrugged again. “They were never that close, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Well, I mean they were sleeping together and all that. But she was more like a toy than anything else.”
“Nevertheless, if she dies in your presence, you tell Scott.”
“Is that an order?” Tommy asked, with an edge to his voice.
“It’s more an act of courtesy,” David said. “Do you know what courtesy is?”
“Yeah. But it’s not going to matter to him, and it sure as hell ain’t going to matter to her.” Tommy stared down at the motionless woman and studied her purplish face. “Damn! She really looks gross now.”
“Death by suffocation does that to a person,” David explained. “It’s like her tissues are silently screaming for oxygen.”
“Ah-huh,” Tommy nodded, as if he understood the pathophysiology of anoxia. “What are you going to do with her body?”
“Put it in a body bag.”
“Like the Army uses?”
“Yeah, like the Army uses.”
Tommy backed away from the foot of the bed, his shotgun aimed at Deedee, his finger loosely on the trigger. “The kindest thing to do would be to blow her head off and stop her suffering.”
“That’s called murder,” David said.
“I was just saying,” Tommy went on. “But I’ll tell you this. If I ever catch the bird flu, I’ll put this shotgun in my mouth and end it. I’m not going to lay around and suck for air while my face turns blue.”
David shook his head. “You’ll do what everybody else does. You’ll hang on and wait and pray for someone or something to save you.”
“Bullshit!” Tommy snapped. “I’m not hanging around and waiting on anything. That’s why I’m jumping ship the first chance I get. That’s called saving your own ass rather than waiting for someone to save it for you.”
“What makes you so certain you’ll reach land?” David asked.
“I can’t be sure,” Tommy said without hesitation. “But I figure it’s better to die trying instead of sitting here and waiting for some damn virus to kill me. And if you had any sense, you’d get the hell off the Grand Atlantic too.”
David nodded. He didn’t agree with the plan, but he understood its appeal.
“Okay,” Tommy said, his voice all business now. “Have you done everything you’re going to do for her?”
“Yes.”
“Then move out.”
They took the elevator up two levels in silence. Tommy kept his eyes on David, as if expecting him to make some sudden maneuver. His shotgun was aimed directly at David’s abdomen. David ignored the stare and shotgun as he again thought about Robbie’s body and the stench it would soon give off. They’d surely find it and probably also discover that several tanks of oxygen were missing. Then they’d put two and two together and come looking for him. Somehow he had to take care of Robbie’s body. But how? Choi and the others would be searching the storage area, and even if they found nothing, they’d still guard it. It would be doubly dangerous to go back down there. And it might give Choi the one thing he wanted most. The opportunity to kill David.
The elevator jerked to a stop. They stepped into a passageway that was noticeably darker than before. Two of the ceiling lights were out, limiting clear vision to no more than ten feet.
“Put your hands on top of your head,” Tommy ordered.
David did as he was told.
“Now walk slowly, like you expected your prisoners to do when you were a military cop.”
David took short, measured steps, thinking that Tommy was the exact opposite of Robbie. He had obviously been trained in how to deal with those he had captured. He knew all the right moves.
“If it was up to me, I’d put handcuffs on you and throw you into the brig,” Tommy said tonelessly.
“Well, I’m glad it’s not up to you,” David said.
“You’re dangerous,” Tommy went on, “but not nearly as dangerous as people think you are. Right, tough guy?”
“If you want to find out, put your shotgun down,” David challenged.
Tommy smiled thinly. “Maybe another time.”
David walked on, nodding to himself. Tommy was smart, very smart, and he wasn’t about to be goaded into a fight he might lose. He already had a winning hand. He would be ashore in under thirty hours. Why take any chances?
They came to Kit’s cabin. David stopped and felt the muzzle of the shotgun on his spine.
“Don’t wander around,” Tommy directed. “Stay put in your room.”
“But I have to check on the sick passengers,” David argued.
“Make certain that’s all you do,” Tommy said and backed away in the dimness.
David entered the suite and coughed for the first time. It was a dry, shallow cough, but a cough nonetheless. Christ! Me too? Is this the start of it? He collected himself and hastily went through the other symptoms of influenza. Fever, chills, malaise. He had none of those, not yet at least. Pushing his self-concern aside, he hurried into the bedroom. Carolyn was reaching up to adjust the flow of IV fluid into Kit’s slender arm. His daughter no longer had the transparent plastic mask over her nose and mouth.
“Why did you stop the oxygen?”
David asked quickly.
“Because we’re out of it,” Carolyn replied. “The first tank was full, but the second one had a big leak and was virtually empty.”
“Oh Lord!” David groaned loudly, shaking his head at yet another obstacle. “Was the oxygen helping?”
“I think her color was starting to improve, but her cough is still bad,” Carolyn said. “We have to get her more oxygen, David.”
“That’s going to be almost impossible,” he said, and told her about the intensive search currently underway for Robbie’s body. He repeated word for word the orders Richard Scott had given to Choi. “They somehow know that Robbie is in the storage area, and they’ll scour the entire space inch by inch until they find him.”
“Maybe his body won’t decay so fast,” Carolyn said hopefully.
“Trust me. It will. And the stench will lead them right to Robbie.”
Kit coughed up thick sputum that clung to her lips. She coughed again. The phlegm rattled in her throat.
Carolyn used a Kleenex to remove the sputum from Kit’s mouth. “Poor thing! She’s trying so hard.”
“While we just sit and watch.”
“We’re doing the best we can,” Carolyn said softly.
David gazed down at his desperately ill daughter and felt totally powerless. Here he was, a highly trained physician, and he could do nothing to save his own child. Nothing! His temper rose up, then spilled over. “Goddamn this flu virus!”
“If He does, He’s already a little late.”
“I guess.” David waited for his anger to pass, then took a wet washcloth and dabbed Kit’s feverish brow with a gentle touch. She opened her eyes and smiled weakly before dozing off again. David had to fight to hold back his tears.
Behind him he heard Juanita grunt with effort. When he turned, he saw the nanny sitting up in bed, pointing a finger at him.
“Do not curse God,” she told him. “He has a long memory.”
David stared at her in amazement. Her color was better and her strength was obviously returning. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible,” Juanita admitted. “But now I must treat the Little One.”
“With what?”
Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller) Page 22
