White Plague (11 page)

Captain Zhou Dongfeng, commander of People’s Republic of China nuclear attack submarine type 094, its newest Jin-class underwater craft, lowered his periscope, and ordered the vessel backward, quietly, away from the American Marines skiing toward the crippled USS
Montana
. He was a medium-sized, thickly black-haired, superbly postured thirty-three-year-old, and he was furious that they’d beaten him here, but he also knew they had no idea he was present. This meant he still might be able to complete his mission.

I have never failed and I will not now
, he thought, recalling the admiral’s call to him, a day ago, as he cruised north of Alaska, west of the cyclone. The admiral was a well-known leader in the Chinese Navy, whom Captain Zhou admired, and studied, but had never met.

“The American submarine is carrying the prototype Mark 80 torpedo, most advanced underwater weapon in the world. It is also possible that they carry some bioweapon that released. We have heard there is a strange deadly illness aboard. This sickness greatly troubles me.”

Captain Zhou Dongfeng had beaten long odds since he was ten years old, son of a poor farmer in China’s arid northwest. He’d hated pig farming and had excelled at school, and then at Naval entrance exams, driving himself to succeed, working, sleepless, while all around him, privileged sons of government or military officials rose through the ranks with assisted ease.

Now his ceaseless work had paid off. He had been entrusted with one of the People’s Republic’s newest submarines, dispatched to the High North, a region that Beijing believed would be crucial to the twenty-first century. When the call came, he had been patrolling new ice-free areas, which Beijing believed would soon become shortcuts for Chinese commercial vessels. He was carrying forty crack Marines. Captain Zhou knew that the United States had stationed long-range missiles in Alaska, aimed at China. If war ever came in the future, and more than a few officers he knew believed this a possibility, knowledge of northern routes and undersea terrain could make a difference. Jin-class subs carried nuclear missiles.

“As you know, our relationship with America is bad at the moment,” the admiral had said. “Two weeks ago one of their ships hit a Chinese submarine in the South China Sea, during their war games. The Americans claim this was an accident, that our vessel ran so silently they did not know it was there. Twenty-eight Chinese died. The sub was lost.”

The admiral’s fury was palpable. “Beijing has chosen to accept the U.S. explanation.”

It was clear that the admiral believed, as Captain Zhou did, that the Americans had no business conducting war exercises so close to China, and that the alleged “accident” had been either a deliberate challenge, or the natural result of American aggressive posturing. Neither was acceptable, and the loss of the sub and so many lives had been a humiliation and disaster.

The admiral had said, “You will arrive at the abandoned submarine before the Americans. You will offer the survivors medicines and food, both of which will be airdropped to you before you enter the storm area. You will, while assisting the crew, do all you can to learn about the
Montana
’s systems. You will say you are on a humanitarian mission. You will take control of the vessel. You will wait for the arrival of the
Snow Dragon
, so the American submarine can be towed, if possible. You will acquire a prototype Mark 80 torpedo, along with any blueprints, plans, and technology available. I want samples. I want hard drives. I want blood taken from their ill, if possible. I want them to know that tender toes will be stepped upon.

“Also, regrettably, any one of your crew who enters that sub is to wear protective clothing, and undergo full decontamination when rejoining you. Chemical shower. Quarantine. They will transfer to the
Snow Dragon
later. You, and they, will be doing a great service for China.”

The admiral had no patience with excuses, and Zhou had seen the man destroy the careers of officers who did not live up to his expectations. A certain captain—a rising star—might be marked for better things. Then, failing the admiral, he would be transferred, demoted, or would languish in the bureaucracy for years.

Just a vision of the admiral’s bald head, thin eyebrows, set mouth, and stern face—from China’s
Naval News
—made the captain’s mouth dry. He imagined a tiny room with no windows, a pile of paperwork on a desk, a one-room apartment for his family, a dusty wind blowing and the smell of pigs . . . a lone man and hung head—the fate of a failure.

Moments ago, through the periscope, he’d treasured the view of the crippled $2.4 billion bonanza that, the admiral had said, “will help us thwart U.S. adventurism!”

“The bioweapon, sir. Do we know anything more about it?” The notion of toxic gasses and human-made germs made the captain’s skin crawl.

“It is unclear whether the illness is that at this point. There may be a natural explanation.”

“Sir, what if the U.S. rescue team arrives first?”

The question, of course, was logical, but in the silence that followed, Captain Zhou broke out in a sweat. The admiral’s voice seemed cooler when he responded.

“All cats love fish, but fear to wet their paws.”

Meaning, fearful people are of no use to me.

The admiral added, “I am certain, with your speed, this could not happen. In addition, we have an asset aboard their icebreaker slowing them down.”

Captain Zhou knew that under international law, any ship in danger of sinking, or of damaging the environment, was permitted to be boarded, rescued. But military ships were tricky; the law said they belonged to their host nation. He had asked the admiral, the issue of a fight on the table, “For clarification, sir. If any of their crew is on the sub, you still want me to board her?”

The admiral provided the excuse. “Should ice crush the submarine, the environmental disaster would be profound, especially if their reactor is damaged. You must prevent this catastrophe.”

“The Americans may, sir, have other ideas.”

“Undoubtedly. But their satellites are blind. And thanks to our asset, the American rescuers cannot communicate with Washington. He’s jamming them. They think the storm is blocking communication.”

What the admiral meant, the captain thought, is that no one else will know what happens on the ice. Just as in the collision in the South China Sea, there will be two versions.

The admiral added delicately, “If they start a fight, no one can blame you for defending yourself. Remember, defeat cannot be bitter if one chooses not to swallow it.”

There it was. Give them medicines, look helpful, but get the American sub, no matter what you have to do.

Captain Zhou Dongfeng had no illusions about the other part of the admiral’s message. If you fail, if anything goes wrong, you will take responsibility, not me.

The admiral went on, “The Americans are tricky and lie constantly; they are dangerous and dying as an empire. Even their great diplomat Henry Kissinger recently predicted that war may erupt in the future. Our own great naval thinker, Li Zhenfu of Dalian Maritime University, has said that whoever controls the new Arctic routes will control the new passage of world economics and international strategies. Captain, you may save millions of lives through thoughtful action. I have no doubt that you will bring honor to China, and to yourself.”

The captain recalled a lesson he had learned in officer training school, about Russian submarine captains who refused to fire nuclear missiles at America during the 1960s, when the Americans blockaded Cuba. Those captains prevented nuclear war, and were broken for it back home, and became scapegoats and pariahs.

The admiral broke into his thoughts, providing the identity of the spy with the Americans, the code word used for identification, and an encrypted photo of the asset.

“You will bring home this person if assistance is required.”

Captain Zhou Dongfeng had been filled with admiration for Chinese ingenuity when he learned the identity of the spy.

But now he needed to move fast. He looked around the control room, at the tense faces of his crew. He called up on the monitor photos taken from the submarine and beckoned forward the major who led forty shipboard commandos, troops whose training mirrored that of the U.S. Delta Force. They were tough men who’d received cold weather training in the subzero temperatures of Manchuria. They’d been sent north to practice landings and maneuvers on the polar ice pack in international waters.

It was pure luck that they’d been within range when Beijing discovered the location of the crippled U.S. sub.

The major was a wide-shouldered, trim, and dark-haired perfectionist named Li Youyoung, who quickly took in the photos as Captain Zhou issued orders.

“We are backing out of view of the Americans. You will land and circle around them on skis, using the ice ridge as cover. Once you set up your field of fire, we will surface. Do not shoot unless ordered to, or fired upon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They have a State Department person with them, urging cooperation.”

The major snorted.

Captain Zhou Dongfeng added, “I will begin a dialogue with them, keeping the channel open to you. If at any point you hear me say,
‘I am trying to be reasonable,’
show yourselves so that they understand they are surrounded. I want them to see that their position is untenable; you behind, us in front.”

The major told Captain Zhou Dongfeng, “I had a cousin aboard the
Victory
,” giving the nickname of the Chinese submarine sunk by the Americans in the alleged accident last week.

“My condolences, Major.”

The major’s men, Zhou Dongfeng knew, carried bullpup assault rifles equipped with under-barrel grenade launchers, and two QJY88 tripod-mounted machine guns.

The captain said sternly, “We prefer to avoid a fight. You are not to start one. But if you hear me say, ‘I’m sorry. I have done everything possible,’ you will preemptively, immediately fire.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“
This is a photo of a friend of China who is with them, but works for us. If at any point this person seeks asylum, provide it.”

The captain jabbed the shots on screen, grainy from falling snow—but the layout of the American position was clear.

In the photos, the
Montana
lay crippled in a lead, a gap between ice floes. It seemed to be tied by hawsers to stanchions hammered into the ice. The lead was so wide that the sub almost seemed docked along a meandering oxbow river. The “shores” of the river stretched, at the moment, at least almost half a mile apart, enabling Zhou’s 094 to maneuver. But, of course, the ice was constantly moving, and leads could widen or close at any time.

At the moment, the sub was backing off to remain out of view when they surfaced.

But the insulated tents and life rafts housing the American survivors of the
Montana
disaster were in plain view on screen, clustered thirty feet from open water, about a hundred feet from their crippled sub.

Captain Zhou Dongfeng told Major Li Youyoung that the U.S. Marines had probably entered the sub by now, but he knew their numbers and so knew that they had left no guards in the rear. Nobody was looking for a Chinese submarine surfacing a third of a mile away, around a bend, in a blizzard. No one was guarding the backs of the Americans.

The major inclined his head in understanding.

Captain Dongfeng liked this major. “Prepare your men!”

The major saluted, turned on his heel, and hurried off.

At the periscope again, the captain saw that he’d successfully moved his craft out of view of the Americans.

It was therefore safe to surface now.

His mouth tasted of copper, and bile.

“Prepare to unload troops!”

It was a coffin made of steel, a coffin made of ice. I followed Dr. Vleska through the $2.4 billion wreck. Our headlamps cut the dark as we maneuvered through blackened passageways, stirring up a film of particles underfoot, even the unburned areas coated with soot. Our bulky toxic suits were made for cold weather and worn over Coast Guard parkas.

Somewhere in here a poison had come to life.

Outside, in the tents and life rafts, Eddie Nakamura and half the Marine contingent were preparing the ninety-six survivors for evacuation. Eleven more of the submarine crew had died of illness or burns since my departure from Anchorage. Speed was essential. But so was care.

The ice continually groaned out there, threatening to break up.

Our guides were a
Montana
chief of the boat, Sam Apparecio
,
and a SEAL commando, Lieutenant Mark Speck; both of whom had fallen ill, but survived
.
Apparecio had trained to work in a hazmat suit, but not Speck. We kept bumping into things, the suits restricting movement. We had to move sideways through the narrowest passageways, twenty-one inches wide.

Both guys survived. Why?

We breathed air from canisters and I felt like a mine inspector after a cave-in. The
Montana
echoed in places from wind swirling in up top, and we left hatches open as we passed through, to allow water flow in case I had to scuttle the sub.

It seemed inhuman to expect the two sailors—after what they’d been through—to function. Apparecio was a kind-faced Minnesotan of about thirty-two years old. He had a blackened hand, from the fire, bandaged, and he coughed dryly like a coal miner. Smoke damage, I thought, not a wet hack like the crew in the tents. Speck was a pockmarked, hook-nosed, big but surprisingly light-footed man, with an arm in a sling. He’d broken a wrist during the evacuation.

But they responded magnificently to my questions with a forced cheerfulness that made me want to weep with pride, as we tried to bottom-line the status of what had been—only days earlier—the pride of America.

“Can the
Montana
dive?”

“No way, sir. No controls.”

“The reactor?”

“No telling if it was damaged. The skipper was quite clear on that. Can’t turn it on.”

“What about electrical power?”

“Well, sir! Electricity might be different! Let’s just pry this here console loose.
Might
be possible, sir.
Could
happen,” mused Apparecio, peering out at the guts of the console, through his faceplate, like a car mechanic examining a Honda’s undercarriage. “Bit o’ this, sir, bit o’ that.
Might
be able to get auxiliary power. Shall I try?”

“Why not?”

“We probably still won’t be able to move, sir.”

I said, “But if you have electricity, you can fire torpedoes.”

Three pairs of curious eyes flickered at me in the headlamps.

“Just in case,” I said.

The faceplate nodded. “Well, we usually keep fish in tubes one and two. Let me check, see what I can do.”

We left him behind, a man in a cave. As we continued aft, Dr. Vleska paused to examine Medusa-like clusters of burned wiring, and smashed computer screens. Plastics had melted, and without heat, ice stalactites hung above us, and we avoided sharp edges—protecting our suits—as I scraped samples; pink residue from a vent, burnt skin off a corpse in a passageway, mouth scraping from a man—dead of smoke inhalation—sprawled in a head.

Some compartments had been devastated by fire. Others were just smoky.

The passageway between engine room and crew quarters swirled with particles, fire-blackened curtains that had shielded bunks. The portable chem-alarm, wielded by Speck, remained silent. If it detected toxic chemicals, its tinny beeper was supposed to go off.

But chemical alarms don’t work as well in temperatures below freezing. They are not made for this climate.

Somewhere in here sickness had erupted and killed sailors, and was still killing them outside, inside their makeshift shelters.

Before descending into the sub, I’d seen those rafts and tents and knew the scenes inside would always haunt me: the mix of horribly burned men and women and hideously sick ones, wrapped in salvaged blankets, or sleeping bags, or lying on salvaged mattresses; suffering 103-degree fevers, wracking coughs, blotched chests and faces . . . the cramped spaces dripping with condensation if heaters worked, weighed down with crystallized breath on domed canopies if the heaters had run dry; temperature outside now at two below zero, twenty below in wind.

Originally the sub crew had been triaged into four covered rafts for the badly sick and the worst burn cases; three for lesser sick and milder burns; tents for the healthy.

But over the last two days, the sickness had spread; triage lines had collapsed. Now all the shelters hosted a mix; the sickest people, clearly dying, coughing up frothy blood, which froze on their cheeks, ran down their throats. I’d tended crewmen and women with their skin peeling, with hands that smelled of rot, faces needing grafts, the odor of burned flesh and hair everywhere.

Everyone on the evacuation detail wore gauze masks, but precautions that worked in temperate climates failed in subzero wind. Breath solidified and ice coated fabric, and then you couldn’t breathe anymore.

Two Marines had discarded their masks, and Major Pettit had let them. If they couldn’t breathe, they couldn’t work.

Eddie and I had administered morphine to those in extremis. We’d tried to clear air passages by scooping out the masses of phlegm, blood, and mucus with gloved fingers.

I’ll check their blood back on the
Wilmington
, in the labs off the helicopter hangar. There are microscopes there, sample freezers, instruments, a lot I can use. I’ll call the CDC in Atlanta. The director will assemble the wise men—a committee—to deal with this on screen. We’ll try an assortment of antibacterial and antiviral medicines to see if anything works.

But just now our worst-case victims were lying in vomit-soaked salvaged bedding, shaking like malaria victims, groaning from stabbing pain in their joints—elbows and knees—crew wrapped in blankets that stank of diarrhea, as blue patches, the size of dimes, blossomed on frozen cheeks. The same man might have black areas from fire on his face, white ones from frost on his hands.

I’d asked the men,
“Where are your officers?”

“Dead, sir.”

“Do you know where the infection started?”

“No.”

“Did your medical officer figure out what the sickness is?”

Hands gripped my forearm, fell away, clawing.
“I don’t know. I have kids at home. Help me.”

“Major Nakamura! More xapaxin here, fast.”

We had no idea if any medicines would work, and if so, which ones. We acted confident around the victims, telling them things would get better, especially once they got to the
Wilmington
, once they were airlifted ashore to warm hospitals . . . but when we were outside, Eddie had slumped and said, “Christ, this is about the worst thing I ever saw.”

“Get them on the ship soon as possible. Quarantine the hangar. Block all contact between
Wilmington
crew and rescuers. Everyone who came here stays in the hangar.”

“Numero, no one will do more for these guys than you. They’re lucky to have you.”

“
I don’t want lucky. I want them cured.”

Then I called Major Pettit aside and explained that his men would need to stay in the hangar once they got back to the ship, stay clear of the ill, and wear masks. Anyone who’d been exposed to the
Montana
crew might become sick, too, I said, and needed to be quarantined.

The hangar isn’t as secure as—say—even a level-three biohazard lab, but if we keep it closed off and the hangar doors open, and ventilation system off, hopefully any contagion can be contained for the time it takes to get to shore, or for airborne help to arrive.

Pettit told me coldly, almost accusingly, “Marines don’t leave anyone behind, Colonel.”

He’s thinking that I’m afraid. Well, fuck you, Pettit.

I wanted to be going with them. But the source of the illness was in the sub, and I needed to identify it and either scuttle the
Montana
or guard it until the
Wilmington
broke free of ice, and arrived to take us under tow.

Eddie will start out without me. Clinton can guide them back to the ship.

I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. A mold? Mold could have taken root in their lungs, and started growing. A gas could have dissipated, liquefied, frozen.

If it was mold or gas, why did the sickness spread after they left the sub? Because the toxin was already inside them; and it took a couple days for it to work?

No, it’s more likely that a germ did it.

I shuddered.

A germ.

A random germ? Or a planted one?

I told Karen and Speck as we moved, “An airborne germ would have spread through ventilation. Hell, one crew member gets a cold and soon half the crew has it. Each sick person amplifies the spread.”

Or was the source, I wondered, the Arctic virus or bacteria we’d been waiting for? A virus like the one that Russian scientists pulled from a Siberian lake a few years back, fully formed, a tiny life that woke up in a heated lab?

I was so preoccupied that it took some time before I realized that something else was bothering me.

Why is it that as soon as we arrived here, I got a funny feeling in my scalp, an itching, the sort of warm tickle I used to feel in Afghanistan when it turned out we were under observation?

Maybe it’s just normal itching. After all, my scalp is itching now, inside the sub, probably from sweat from the balaclava.

No, that’s not it
,
I thought.

I feel watched.

“Chief,” I asked Apparecio, “tell me more about your mission.”

“Sir, we set up a weather station and then we were testing weapons capability in cold conditions.”

“Anything biological?” I prayed the answer would be no.

“Just the new torpedoes, sir. But then we got an emergency message to drop everything.”

“Emergency?” I said, surprised.

“We were told to meet an explorer who needs assistance. An American . . . some guy walking and paddling to the North Pole.”

Karen spun around and stared at him.

“He’d sent out a message. He’d stumbled onto something. What was his name? Nate . . . Nate something . . .”

“DiLorenzo?” said Karen.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“I know him,” she said, sounding concerned. “He’s on a one-man expedition this year, to dramatize ice melt. Foldable kayak and sled. Nate was in trouble, you say?”

“It wasn’t that, ma’am. He’d found something. Anyway, we got there, surfaced. Sunny, beautiful day, ma’am. I went out with the rescue crew. Your friend. He was fine, but . . .”

“But what, Chief?”

“Well, it was what he showed us, Colonel. It was the damndest thing. I’m out there and I can’t believe what I’m seeing because it’s like my six-year-old daughter’s dollhouse, you know? A cutaway section, like the hull of a boat had been torn away, but one cabin had been
saved,
intact, sir, embedded and
sticking out of a half-melted iceberg
. The rest of that boat, maybe it was crushed, on the bottom. What was left,
two frozen men at a table.
”

Karen and I looked at each other, holding our breaths.

Apparecio said, “They’d probably been there for years. They’d died at that table. What’s the word, sir, when you’re in second grade and you make a scene in a shoebox, a picture, you know, to show your class?”

“Diorama,” I said, my heartbeat rising.
Why didn’t the director tell me about this? Or did he know?

“Yeah. That’s it. Like an exhibit in a museum, behind glass. There was old film equipment there, a tripod with an old camera. There was a pot of coffee with the stuff frozen inside. Weirdest goddamn thing.”

“You took the bodies aboard,” I said, feeling the worst sensation—heat—spread inside my skull.

“Yeah, those frozen guys were U.S. Army, right? The film container said
ARMY
, and we took it, too. Battered old canister, sir. Really old. Blankets. Knives. We wouldn’t leave them. The doc was supposed to keep the bodies in the freezer, but he wanted a look. So I heard from Chief Duerr that he took a body out, to examine.”

My headache worsened. “And it thawed out.”

“Only thing I know is, two days later the doc was sick, and then the skipper, and so
fast.
He was fine in the morning. He was dead that night. Then it spread. Colonel, the XO told Washington about this before he died, and . . .”

I stopped dead in the passageway, looking back at the open, round, kind face of the chief—the five-day beard. The shock spread through me.

“He
told
this to Washington?”

“I was there, sir, he plain out said it.”

“That you’d taken aboard frozen bodies.”