by Toby Tate
Blakely sighed. “There’s a lot of stuff on here,” he said. “It looks like she had a blog that she posted about the ecological balance between man and nature and so forth, plus articles for various magazines and websites. She’s pretty prolific.”
“I’m not impressed,” Lisa said flatly.
The alarm that suddenly went off caused them both to jump.
“What the hell is that?” Lisa asked.
“I think that’s the power plant casualty alarm. That probably doesn’t bode well.”
Lisa massaged her temples. “God, what else can go wrong around this place?”
“Lilith probably did something to the reactor. Let’s hope they can contain whatever it is.”
“Or what?”
Blakely frowned. “Or it’s Chernobyl all over again.”
Lisa felt like she was coming to the end of her rope. Being pregnant and then having your husband kidnapped by a crazy woman was bad enough, but now she was on board a floating bomb. Maybe it was time to start doing some serious praying, she thought.
* * *
George Saunders scrolled through the phone numbers listed on Lilith MacIntyre’s cell phone and the bill from her work phone, looking for familiar numbers of incoming or outgoing calls and some clue as to what she might have been up to before she boarded the Ford. Most were the numbers of other magazines, staff members of her own organization and magazine, and the numbers of several political organizations.
But one number in particular interested Saunders. It was not suspicious in and of itself since it was a number that she would be expected to call quite regularly—her own stepfather. The troubling thing was, Lilith’s stepfather was quite well connected in the Washington establishment and could easily acquire any documents he needed to get her on board the Ford. What’s more, he also had access to lots of classified information concerning the mechanical workings of Navy ships and their personnel, something that would come in very handy for Lilith.
But Lilith’s stepfather was also a patriot, or so it seemed. He had served in the military and had an exemplary record. It looked as if the two had shared a large number of phone calls over the last few months—more than usual. Of course, it could have been a family emergency or just a daughter wanting to talk to her father.
Saunders didn’t like where this line of reasoning was leading. In fact, he hoped and prayed that what he was thinking was wrong, but decided to follow up on it anyway, just in case.
CHAPTER 58
As Jessica watched the handle on the door to CIC slowly move upward, Captain Geralds, Commander Johnson, Sammy and armed members of the ship’s self-defense force crept silently forward, ready to spring into action the minute the door opened. Sammy held the syringes up, his thumbs on the plungers, ready to inject whoever exited the room.
The first person to look out the door, however, wasn’t Lieutenant Duncan or a master at arms, but a huge first class gunner’s mate named Dave Hodges. Before anyone could make a move, Hodges spotted the team in the passageway and slammed the door shut, then dogged it back down as Geralds and Johnson ran forward, grabbed the handle and tried to raise it back up.
* * *
Inside CIC, Sanchez watched Hodges use his considerable muscle to keep the door handle down, but it was a losing battle. Sanchez knew now that Jessica had been lying—Lilith had never spoken to her. It was a trap. That was too bad, because Sanchez was really hoping to have some more sex with her. Maybe he still would, he thought as he turned to push a button and fire the second missile.
* * *
Lieutenant Shelly Glasser, who had been on watch in CIC when Sanchez and Hodges had stormed in and duct taped her to the chair, craned her neck around to see behind her. Over the course of the last hour she had managed to loosen the tape on her legs and was now able to move them somewhat. She still couldn’t move her hands, though, but she couldn’t wait for that. Sanchez was about to fire another missile and she had to stop him. She was angry and frightened and had a good bit of adrenaline going—enough to help her do what she had to do.
Glasser placed her feet firmly on the deck and with every ounce of energy she could muster, launched herself backwards into Lieutenant Sanchez, hitting him squarely on the back of the knees and sending him banging face-first into the control panel, then sprawling to the floor.
Glasser was lying on her back and seeing stars, but from what she could surmise, Sanchez wasn’t moving. Across the room, she saw Hodges finally lose his grip on the door handle, which caught him squarely under the chin on the way up and knocked him to the deck. She thought he probably lost a couple of teeth in the process. In seconds the room was full of officers and members of the self-defense force running toward them. Glasser recognized Seaman Blount, who darted over and cut off the rest of her bonds with a pocketknife.
The ship’s chaplain quickly emptied one syringe of yellow serum into Hodges and another one into Sanchez. Immediately, the two men began convulsing and white liquid poured from their bodies.
Glasser thought she was going to be sick as she struggled to get off the floor and away from Sanchez. “What the hell?” she said.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, it’s just a parasite,” Jessica said. “We’ve been killing those fuckers all day.”
CHAPTER 59
MacIntyre stood before the watertight door of the reactor room. Its yellow and black sign resembled the hub of a wheel with DANGER, RADIATION HAZARD written in block letters beneath it. He was sure the radiation wouldn’t harm him—at least, he was mostly sure. It hadn’t harmed his sister that he knew of. But if the ship caught fire and contaminated the entire city of New York, whether he was irradiated or not wouldn’t matter. It had to be stopped and he was the one to do it.
Mac said a silent prayer and undogged the door, releasing the watertight seal. He moved inside quickly and sealed the door shut behind him. It was hot as hell in there, like standing fully clothed in a sauna. He surveyed the room—there were pumps and valves everywhere and Mac was not trained in nuclear physics, so he had no idea what most of it was for. It looked just like any other engineering space on the ship, everything painted the usual deck gray and the pipes stenciled with arrows to show the liquid’s direction of flow. The only noise in the space was from the water flow, which he knew was useless since the rods had been pulled. He could see the top of the huge pressure vessel that held the reactor core and noticed a ladder leading up the side. He ran to it and scrambled up as quickly as he could.
Immediately, Mac counted four rods lying horizontally on top of the pressure vessel. They were huge, about ten feet long and maybe four feet across. They looked like the columns that were sometimes used to reinforce the roofs of buildings. Did he actually believe he could pick those things up? Yet he had to—or people would die. Lots of people.
They didn’t seem to be cracked, which was a major plus. They had a multi-colored layer of film covering them, like they were coated with some kind of oil. He hoped it wasn’t oil, because that would make them slippery. He inhaled deeply, letting his mind and body relax, and concentrated all his focus on the task at hand. He leaned over to pick one up and was pulverized by a bone-crunching blow to the face. He fell backwards off the vessel, landing on the floor below with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He realized that somebody had kicked him in the face.
MacIntyre lay on his back trying to catch his breath when a pair of biker boots thudded hard on the steel deck in front of him—someone had leapt from the top of the pressure vessel. When he saw who it was, his jaw fell open. He had seen the man before, many years ago, with Lilith before she had started her organization. She said he was just a friend, though Mac had suspected much more. But he hadn’t suspected this. The radiation had turned the man’s eyes as silver as Lilith’s had been—he was a Lilitu.
“Larry Hendricks,” Mac said, still gasping for breath. “How the hell did you get onboard the ship?”
Hendricks sneered at him. “I prefer Lawrence,” he said. �
��I got onboard the same way Lilith did—as part of the media group. You could have been one of us, John. But your love for the humans has made you weak, now you’re just as impure as they are. I can’t let you stop us, John. We’ve come too far. The radiation will make us strong and kill the humans that infest Manhattan. We will be the dominant life forms, repopulating the island and eventually the Earth.”
“Sounds like you have high aspirations. But tell me, Lawrence, exactly who is Lilith going to be doing this repopulating with?”
Hendricks raised his brows and grinned. “Why, haven’t you heard? Me, of course—who else?”
It was MacIntyre’s turn to be impudent. “I hate to tell you this, Lawrence, but Lilith has already chosen a partner. You’ve been double-crossed.”
Hendricks’ eyes burned like lasers. “You’re lying. What do you mean?”
“Before she left the ship, Lilith made them put Hunter Singleton into the admiral’s barge with her. Apparently, she plans to make him the father of her new master race.”
Mac thought Hendricks looked as if his head might explode. “That bitch!” Hendricks screamed. “I’ll kill her—I swear I’ll kill her.”
Now totally oblivious to Mac, Hendricks walked past him to the door, opened it and raced out toward the engine room. Mac figured he would probably get off the ship and make his way to wherever Lilith was hiding in New York. He only hoped Hendricks could stop Lilith without killing her or harming Hunter.
Mac turned his attention to the task at hand—preventing a nuclear meltdown. He knew that confrontation with Hendricks had cost him precious seconds; seconds he didn’t have. He peeled himself up off the floor and began climbing the ladder back to the top of the pressure vessel, praying that he wouldn’t be too late.
CHAPTER 60
Sly Johnson undogged the blue, watertight door to the ship’s brig and led the large group inside. Several of the sailors on the ship’s self-defense force carried the limp forms of Hodges and Sanchez, who were still recovering from their ordeal with the parasites. They managed to wedge the men through the doorframe, where Johnson unlocked a steel mesh door leading down to the third deck and yet another watertight door that led into the actual brig.
They stood in an office with a large metal desk covered with papers weighed down by an old black rotary dial telephone. Sammy Crane, having never been inside the brig of the Ford, noticed a short passageway leading to several jail cells. Towards the back was a larger cell obviously meant for a general population. A colorful nautical mural painted on the starboard side bulkhead depicted the Ford at sea. A fire extinguisher and a water fountain occupied a corner and a couple of lockers stood next to them. There were charts along one wall with drawings of the cells where the master at arms could use a grease pencil to keep track of who was in which cell—on one of the cells was written the acronym CHENG. Sammy figured they must have sedated the poor bastard. A 1MC communications device was mounted directly below the chart.
The sailors carrying the two men whisked past Sammy and down the passageway to the general population area and carefully laid the two slumbering figures on a couple of the metal racks. The sailors made sure the two men were comfortable, turned and filed out of the cell, closing and locking the barred metal door behind them.
Once the men were secured in the cell, the XO crossed his arms and studied Crane.
“Sammy, I want to know what the hell is in that concoction of yours. It isn’t toxic, is it?”
Sammy frowned. “Toxic? Of course not. I wouldn’t give something toxic to my own crew. To tell you the truth, I don’t know all the ingredients because the CIA won’t tell me, but I do know that it’s mostly garlic vinegar.”
The XO raised one eyebrow. “Garlic vinegar? You’re kidding me. I thought garlic was for vampires.”
Sammy shook his head. “Once we figured out they were parasitic in nature, we started trying different drugs like Vermox and Mintezol, but they had a lot of side effects and believe it or not, the garlic vinegar seemed to work the best—they hate that stuff. And when they leave the host, as you saw, they evaporate almost immediately, like a volatile liquid.”
There were a few moments of silence as the gears seemed to turn inside the XO’s head. He suddenly grabbed the 1MC and called Captain Phillips in the number two engine room. After about a minute of conversation, he hung up the phone and turned back to the chaplain.
“Sammy, I want you to go to your stateroom and bring every last ounce of that stuff here to the brig,” Geralds said. “If you have any unused hypos, bring those, too.”
Geralds turned to one of the enlisted sailors. “Bennett, go to sickbay and tell them we’re going to need all the corpsmen they can spare down here in the brig. Tell them to bring every damn hypo they have.”
* * *
Boxes with thousands of hypodermic needles were brought and stacked in the brig’s main office. Every person in the brig besides the three men in the cells was inoculated with Sammy’s concoction. They tried to come up with a name for the yellowish liquid and since it was a mix of garlic and vinegar, decided to call it “Gin,” which Sammy found quite amusing—Gin and Tonic was one of his favorite drinks.
The toughest part was assembling the entire crew, except for watch standers, on the hangar deck of the Ford under the pretense of inoculating them against a rampant and dangerous flu virus. Once on the hangar deck, the self-defense force, along with the master at arms staff, armed themselves with Berettas and M16s and surrounded the crew at evenly spaced intervals just in case someone decided they wanted to make a break for it. The crew eyed them warily. Once everything was in place, the corpsmen, doctors and even the chaplain’s staff began the monumental task of inoculating several thousand people, going division by division, row by row. To the dismay of their fellow sailors, a number of the crew crumpled to the deck when the Gin hit their bloodstream and the white, milky liquid poured out of their bodies, slowly evaporating into thin air. It was all the guards could do to keep the sailors from bolting in all directions when they saw the parasites for the first time.
CHAPTER 61
Sweat poured off of Mac like raindrops as he wrapped his arms around the first huge control rod. There had to be no doubt in his mind that he could lift the hafnium rods. There was no choice. But was he already too late? Mac was no expert in nuclear fission and he didn’t know how long the fuel would continue to heat until it reached the point of no return. He only prayed that the rods would work and stop the reaction before a total meltdown could occur.
Mac hefted the half-ton rod as if he was lifting a heavy bag of groceries. At first, he thought he was going to get a hernia. Then the rod started to move. With every ounce of focus, he willed himself to lift the rod and drag it across the top of the pressure vessel, inching it over to one of the holes. He hoped that all the holes and rods were the same size and that each hole wasn’t made for a specific rod. He moved to the last hole in the row and stood over the opening, edging his way around other rods and straining to keep the huge rod from slipping out of his grasp, then gently released pressure until it slid down into the hole next to the oversized electromagnetic control motor. The rod went nearly all the way to the bottom of the pressure vessel, which he hoped was a good sign.
Mac continued the procedure with each rod, dropping them one by one into the vessel until the last one was finally in place. From his perch he checked out the room for anything that seemed out of place. Hendricks probably figured no one would be able to replace the rods so he didn’t bother doing any other damage. Thank God he hadn’t ripped out one of the cooling water pipes—they probably wouldn’t have been able to fix that, though they could have still used the control rods to scram the reactor, Mac thought.
He remembered that he was soaking up a ton of radiation, then walked to the edge of the vessel and climbed down. Mac made one last sweep of the room before opening the watertight door and heading out to the engine room to see whether the reactor was stable or if they were soon go
ing to die.
* * *
The CO saw the reactor core temperature climb to fifty-one hundred degrees as his stomach bunched up into knots. Another one hundred degrees and he and the rest of the crew and probably most of Manhattan Island could kiss their asses goodbye. Just then he noticed someone, a man he recognized from the media crew, whiz by the control room. What the hell was that about? Was that guy one of them? That would explain how the reactor got screwed up. Phillips decided he would have to worry about that later and hoped Mac was making some kind of progress.
He raised an arm and wiped it across his brow, transferring some, but not all of the sweat. He desperately wanted to run to the hangar deck and see how things were going, but he dared not leave the engineering space. Phillips wondered exactly how much stress a human body could take, because he figured he had just about reached the breaking point by now.
When he was an ensign, Phillips had once seen the chief engineer escorted off the ship after having a nervous breakdown. Someone in the crew who had no desire to experience a six-month Mediterranean cruise had sneaked into the engine room and dropped a large bolt into the reduction gear casing, which the CHENG had inadvertently left open. When the main shaft had been engaged for a test, the reduction gear, a half-million dollar piece of equipment, was damaged beyond repair. The next day, the CHENG was gone.
