Plague Ship (19 page)

twenty-nine

David rushed into Kit’s
cabin and quickly closed the door behind. He tossed the empty shotgun aside before dashing into the bedroom.

Carolyn looked up and smiled broadly. “You got ’em!”

“I got ’em.”

“How’d you do it?”

“Later.” David checked his watch. It was now 5:10 a.m. Tommy would be coming in a matter of minutes to escort him back to Deedee’s cabin. “Here,” he said hastily and handed Carolyn the two small oxygen tanks. “Set up one for Kit and hide the other.”

“Hide it where?”

“Use your imagination.”

David sprinted out to the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony and opened them. After a moment’s hesitation, he tossed the useless shotgun overboard. He had considered holding onto the weapon and searching for shells, but that would have been very dangerous. Had the mutineers discovered the shotgun, they would have known it was Robbie’s, and David would have been a dead man. Again David wondered how many of the shotguns were loaded. Richard Scott’s for sure. The weapons of the other two mutineers—maybe. But who the hell knew? And it wasn’t worth the risk to find out. A wrong move could cost him his life.

He spun around and hurried back into the bedroom. Moving quietly to Kit’s bedside, he felt his heart breaking once more. Kit looked so sick, with her short, labored respirations and flushed facies. Carolyn already had the oxygen going, and had ensured maximum delivery by placing a plastic mask over the child’s nose and mouth. But it didn’t seem to be helping much.

“Two small tanks won’t last long,” Carolyn said in a whisper.

“When she needs more, I’ll get more,” David whispered back.

“You should have taken all the damn tanks,” Carolyn chided mildly.

David shook his head. “They probably won’t notice two missing tanks. But if all of them were gone, they’d guess what happened and begin an intensive search for Robbie.”

“What happened to Robbie?” Carolyn asked.

“He won’t bother you again,” David replied vaguely.

“What happened to him?” she asked again.

“I snapped his neck.”

“Good,” Carolyn said without emotion. “Did you throw the body overboard?”

“I couldn’t,” David answered. “There was no open balcony down there.”

“I hope you hid him well.”

“He won’t be easy to find,” David said and glanced around the bedroom. “Where did you hide the second oxygen tank?”

Carolyn gestured with her head to Juanita. “I rolled it up in a towel and wrapped her rosary beads around it. Then I squeezed it inside her bathrobe.”

“Nice,” David approved. “They won’t bother to look there.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Carolyn warned. “They think you’re up to something, and they keep checking on you. About a half-hour ago, one of the mutineers knocked on the door to see if you were still here.”

“What did you tell him?” David asked.

“That you were examining your daughter and for him to be quiet.”

“And he bought it?”

Carolyn shrugged. “He went away. But I could sense from the sound of his voice that he’d be back soon. And he may come in next time.”

“And maybe search around.”

“That’s what I’m thinking too,” Carolyn said, then pointed to Kit’s pillow. “And by the way, I found your hatchet under Kit’s pillow, so I put it inside the pillow case itself. That makes it a little harder to find.”

Kit moaned and coughed, but not with enough strength to bring up sputum. Her face was still flushed and very red, despite the added oxygen she was receiving. She coughed again, the cough even weaker this time.

David reached for this stethoscope and listened to Kit’s chest. As before, he heard rhonchi and rales, but now there were wheezes too. A bad sign. Her airways were becoming more obstructed. He quickly examined the mucous membranes in her nose and mouth. They were as dry as sandpaper.

“Let’s start an IV,” David directed.

Carolyn nodded and reached for an IV setup. “Five percent dextrose in water?”

“For now,” David said and leaned over to kiss his daughter’s forehead. Her skin was still hot, her fever at least 102º. “And she’ll need more Tylenol.”

David stepped back, feeling helpless and wishing he could do more. Kit was deteriorating right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it. Once again he considered joining Richard Scott and the others, and taking Kit ashore in one of the first lifeboats. At least that way there was a chance for survival. It was admittedly a slim chance, but nevertheless a chance.

Juanita propped herself up on an elbow and asked in a worried voice, “How is the Little One?”

“Not good,” David said candidly.

With effort, Juanita pushed her body to the edge of her bed. She didn’t notice the small tank of oxygen roll out from under her robe and clang onto the floor. “I will help her.”

David eased her back onto her pillow. “In a little while, you can help us.”

Juanita nodded, exhausted by the brief exertion. Slowly her eyes closed. “You will tell me when.”

“I will tell you when.”

Carolyn started an IV infusion of 5 percent dextrose in water on Kit and taped the needle down securely, then leaned over for the fallen tank of oxygen on the floor. “Not such a good hiding place after all, eh?”

David gazed rapidly around the room. His eyes went from the mattresses to the leatherbound chair to the chest of drawers, then to the closet and lamp tables.
Too much in the open
, he thought. They’d find the tank in a matter of minutes. And they’d take it from the cabin without giving Kit a second thought. His gaze drifted up to the ceiling and to the expensive lighting fixture that had wide blades of glass protruding from it.
Too small! Not strong enough!
Then he saw what he was looking for. He pointed to a large ventilation duct. “We can unscrew the screen and stick the tank in there.”

“Perfect!” Carolyn said and reached in her pocket for a coin to use as a screwdriver.

Juanita raised up once more, saying, “I will help the Little One now.”

“Later,” David told her and waited for the nanny to plop back onto her pillow. But now she kept her eyes open and fixed on Kit.

In a barely audible voice, Carolyn asked, “Where does she get her strength from?”

“From loving Kit as much as I do, I guess,” David said and grabbed a chair to position it directly under the large ventilation duct. “Once I get the screen off, you hand—”

There was a powerful rap on the outer door to the suite. A voice yelled, “Ballineau, out!”

“What do you think he wants?” Carolyn asked quietly.

“For me to see Deedee again,” David surmised.

Carolyn shook her head. “He sounds really angry. Like maybe they found Robbie’s body.”

“We’ll see,” David said and motioned up to the ventilation duct. “You hide the oxygen tank while I’m away.”

“Be careful, David.”

He darted through the sitting room to the door, thinking that if Tommy was by himself, there was no real trouble. If Choi was with him, it meant double trouble.

David opened the door and saw only Tommy, with his shotgun pointed downward. They obviously hadn’t discovered Robbie’s body or that two oxygen tanks were missing.

“What?” David asked.

“We’re going to the bridge,” Tommy answered.

“Why?”

“Because the captain says so.”

David squinted an eye quizzically. “Locke wants to see me?”

“No. Richard Scott does.”

“He’s no damn captain,” David said derisively.

“As long as he controls the ship, he is,” Tommy growled. “Now move it.”

They walked at a fast pace down the passageway and into a waiting elevator. As the elevator ascended, David studied the mutineer in his peripheral vision. Tommy stood off to the side, expressionless, his eyes glued on David. The mutineer carried the shotgun exactly right. He held it waist high, not too tight, ready to fire instantly. Tommy was clearly at ease around shotguns, but that didn’t tell David whether it was loaded or not.

David motioned with his head toward the Browning shotgun. “Is that a Citori model?” he asked, already knowing it was.

“Yeah,” Tommy said tersely.

“Does it have a chrome-plated chamber?” David asked, again knowing the answer.

“All Citoris have a chrome-plated chamber,” Tommy said
neutrally.

“How many rounds does it hold?”

“Make a sudden move and you’ll find out.”

It’s probably loaded
, David thought to himself. Just the way Tommy held it and talked about it told David that the mutineer had a lot of experience with shotguns. And Tommy didn’t learn all that from skeet shooting. He knew how to bear arms.

“Were you in the Army?” David asked casually.

“Airborne.”

David nodded to himself. Tommy had checked out the weapon, like any good soldier would. It was loaded for sure.

thirty

They stepped onto the
bridge in bright sunlight. It took a few seconds for David’s eyes to adapt and see beyond the sunbeams streaking in through the wide glass windows. There were three others on the bridge. Directly in front of him was Richard Scott, who was nibbling on a donut. Off to the side, Jonathan Locke was peering at a radar screen, while another mutineer stood guard over him. David briefly studied the youngest of the mutineers. He was tall and muscular and had red hair, with a buzz cut. He also had a raspy cough that he tried to suppress.

“How is Deedee?” Scott asked.

“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 miss
ing.”

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.