Plague Ship (43 page)

“When that harsh reality strikes, there will be rioting, as frightened people seek answers to the questions their leaders had been afraid to ask. But it should be brief—weeks or months at most. And the world economy will stutter as we adjust, but adjust we will, because that is humanity’s other great driving force: its ability to adapt. And then, oh my friends, then we will have solved all those problems, cured all those ills, and ushered in a period of prosperity the likes of which the world has never known.”

A tear ran unabashedly down Zelimir Kovac’s cheek, and he made no move to wipe it away. Thom Severance, who had known Cooper for all of his adult life and had heard him speak a thousand times, was equally moved.

CHAPTER 26

“THOSE TWO THERE,” LINDA ROSS SAID AND POINTED.

Mark Murphy followed the line of her arm and spotted the couple immediately. While many of the passengers streaming off the
Golden Sky
were elderly, or at least middle-aged, she had spotted a man and woman in their thirties. Each held a hand of a little girl, about eight years old, wearing a pink dress and Mary Janes.

“Candy from a baby,” Mark said when he saw the woman hand her credit card-sized ship ID to her husband. He slipped it into his wallet and returned his wallet to his front pocket.

Behind the army of disembarking passengers, eager to tour Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and get fleeced at the bazaar, the
Golden Sky
looked eerily like her sister ship. Chilling memories rushed in on Mark every time he glanced up at her. He hadn’t thought through his emotions very carefully when he’d volunteered for the mission and wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of boarding her.

“They’re heading for the buses.” Linda nodded to where the young family was veering toward the curb, where a dozen chartered buses idled. Passengers were showing attendants their day passes to board.

“Do it now or follow them downtown?”

“No time like the present. Let’s do it.”

They waited for the three to get ahead of them before easing into the crowd. They moved effortlessly through the mostly slow-walking people until their target was just ahead of them, and had no idea they were being tracked.

“Hurry!” Linda suddenly called out. “I think our bus is going to leave.”

Mark quickened his pace and brushed against the man as he passed. The man immediately felt for his wallet. Keeping it in his front pocket and feeling for it when someone accidentally brushed into him showed the hallmark of a seasoned traveler. In most instances, this security practice would have been sufficient. But as they had planned, when Linda breezed by him the passenger felt secure that the Americans rushing by weren’t a threat and he didn’t check his pocket a second time.

He hadn’t felt Linda’s small hand reach into his khakis and pull his wallet free.

An amateur would have veered away from the mark as soon as the pocket had been picked, but Linda and Murph continued their ruse of being hurried passengers and strode for the buses. They loitered near one of them until the young family had showed their passes to an attendant on another bus and climbed aboard. Only then did Linda and Murph break from the crowd and head back to where they had parked their rental car.

With Linda standing next to the open back door to shield the interior from curious passersby, Mark worked on one of the laminated identification cards with a kit especially packed back on the
Oregon
. He used a scalpel to remove the transparent plastic and cut away the photograph. He then inserted an appropriate-sized picture of Linda from the stash he’d brought and ran the card through a battery-powered laminator. He spent a moment smoothing it out and trimming away excess plastic.

“There you go, Mrs. Susan Dudley,” he said, showing Linda the still-warm card.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Linda remarked.

“I was fifteen when I arrived at MIT, so you can best believe I know all about making fake IDs.”

There was a hint of something wan in his voice that Linda noticed. She said, “It must have been rough.”

Mark paused from his work and looked up at her. “You can imagine that place was loaded with
uber
-geeks, but I was a stand-out. Briefcase, tie, pocket protector, the whole enchilada. The school administration assured my parents they had counselors for accelerated students to make the transition easier. What a crock. I was on my own in the most competitive environment in the world. It only got worse when I went into the private sector. That’s why I joined Juan and the Corporation.”

“Not for the money, huh?” Linda teased.

“I’m not bragging or anything, but I took a serious pay cut when I joined up. It was worth it, you know. You guys treat me like an equal. When I was designing weapons systems, these macho generals would strut around, looking at us like we were insects or something they had to scrape off the bottom of their shoe. Sure, they liked the toys we gave them, but they detested us for being able to deliver. It was like high school all over again, in the cafeteria, with the military guys sitting by themselves like a bunch of jocks and the rest of us hanging around the fringe, hoping to get noticed. Kinda pathetic, really.

“That doesn’t happen on the
Oregon
. We’re all on the same team. You and Linc and Juan don’t make Eric and me feel like outsiders even though we push it a little with the whole nerd thing. And for the first time in my life, I don’t feel I have to search for an empty table when I go into the mess hall.” He seemed to look as though he’d said too much, so he threw her a grin and said, “I hope you don’t charge for geekotherapy.”

“You can buy me a drink tonight on board.”

Mark looked startled, and then a knowing smirk raised his lip. “We’re not getting off the
Golden Sky
until we find something, are we?”

She pressed a hand to her breast in a shocked gesture. “Are you actually accusing me of disobeying Eddie’s direct order?”

“Yup.”

“Surprised?”

“Nope.”

“Still game?”

“I’m fixing the second ID, aren’t I?”

“Good man.”

Mark fed the two cards into an electronic device attached to a laptop computer and recoded the embedded magnetic strips. Ten minutes later, he and Linda stood at the bottom of the
Golden Sky
’s gangplank. Nearby, a forklift was loading pallets onto the ship through a large hatch while gulls wheeled and squawked above the vessel like warplanes in a dogfight.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Dudley?” the assistant purser manning the gangplank asked when they said they wanted to return to their cabin.

“Just my knee,” Mark said. “I blew my ACL playing college football, and it flares up every once in a while.”

“As you know, we have a doctor aboard who can look at it for you.” The purser swiped the two cards through an electronic monitor. “That’s odd.”

“Problem?”

“No, well, yes. When I swiped your cards, my computer crashed.”

As part of any major cruise line’s security, the electronic ID card brought up a file on the computer that had a picture of the bearer as well as information about his or her itinerary. Mark had recoded the stolen cards so that nothing would show on the screen. The purser would either have to trust that the two people standing before him were who they said they were or delay them while someone fixed the computer. With customer service being so important, it was unlikely he would inconvenience passengers over a simple glitch.

The purser ran his own employee identification through the scanner, and when his picture popped up on his screen he handed the two IDs back to Murph. “Your cards don’t work anymore. When you get back to your cabin, ring the purser’s office and they will arrange replacements.”

“Will do. Thanks.” Mark took the IDs and shoved them in his pocket. Arm in arm, he and Linda climbed the ramp, with Murph playing up a limp.

“College football?” she questioned when they were out of earshot.

Mark patted his less-than-taut belly. “So I’ve let myself go to seed.”

They entered the ship on the main atrium level. The ceiling lofted four stories and was crowned with a stained-glass dome. A pair of glass elevators gave access to the upper levels, and each deck was fringed by safety-glass panels capped by gleaming brass rails. A rose marble wall with water sheeting down its face and collecting in a discreet fountain was opposite the elevators. From their vantage, they could see signs for small luxury stores one deck up and a neon fixture lighting the way to the casino. The overall effect was opulence bordering on tacky.

They had discussed their plan while still on the
Oregon
, and both had studied the layout of the ship from the cruise line’s website, so there was no need to talk now. They went straight for the public restrooms behind the fountain. Linda handed Mark a bundle of clothing from her utilitarian shoulder bag. Moments later, they reemerged dressed in workers’ overalls with the cruise line’s logo stitched in gold thread over their hearts, thanks to Kevin Nixon’s Magic Shop. Linda had scrubbed off most of her makeup, and Mark had tamed his unruly hair with a cruise-line baseball cap. The maintenance-crew uniforms gave them the virtual run of the ship.

“Where do we meet if we get separated?” Linda asked as they started walking.

“The craps table?”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Library.”

“Library,” she parroted. “All right, let’s go play Nancy Drew.”

“Hardy Boys.”

“It’s my operation, so it’s my call. You can be my sidekick, George Fayne.”

To Linda’s surprise, Mark asked, “Not Ned Nickerson?” It was the name of Nancy’s boyfriend.

“Not in your wildest dreams, and someday we need to talk about your adolescent reading habits. Or maybe we shouldn’t.”

The easiest way to leave the ship’s public accommodations was through the galley, so they climbed a flight of nearby stairs and found the main dining room. Large enough to seat three hundred people, the room was empty except for a housecleaning crew vacuuming the carpet.

They weaved purposefully through the tables toward the back and entered the kitchen. A chef looked up from his cooking but said nothing as the duo strode in. Linda glanced away. Unlike the dining room, the galley was loaded with staff preparing the next meal. Aromatic steam rose from bubbling pots as assistant chefs cleaned, chopped, and sliced away in a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation.

There was a door at the rear of the kitchen that led to a brightly lit hallway. They found a staircase and descended, passing a bevy of waitresses heading up for their shift. They encountered several more people, but no one paid them the slightest attention. As janitors, they were practically invisible.

Mark spotted a folding ladder leaning against a bulkhead and grabbed it to further their disguise.

With the
Golden Sky
tied to the dock and most passengers ashore, she was drawing minimal power, and, as a result, her engineering spaces were deserted. Linda and Mark spent the next several hours crawling over every pipe, conduit, and duct, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Unlike Juan’s time on the
Sky
’s ill-fated sister ship, their search was unhurried and methodical, but, in the end, the results were essentially the same.

“Nothing,” Mark said, the frustration in his voice coming from his anger at himself for not figuring it out. “Not one damned thing that shouldn’t be here. Nothing attached to the ventilation system or the water supply.”

“Those are the most efficient ways of spreading a virus, sure.” Linda used a ball of cotton waste to wipe grease off her hands. “What else is there?”

“Short of walking around and spritzing every surface on the ship with an atomizer, I can’t think of anything. If we’ve had this much time down here by ourselves, the Responsivists probably did, too.” He pointed overhead, where ducts as big as barrels were anchored to the ceiling. “In two hours, I could take apart a section of that and set up my dispersal system inside.”

Linda shook her head. “The risk of being caught is too great. It has to be something much simpler and quicker.”

“I know, I know, I know.” Mark rubbed his temples, where the beginnings of a headache was pressing in on his brain. “I remember Juan on the
Golden Dawn
saying he wanted a look at the main intakes for the air-conditioning system. That might be something to check.”

“Where would they be?”

“Topside. On the front of the funnel, most likely.”

“That’s pretty exposed.”

“We should wait until tonight.”

“Then let’s head back to the public areas and change.”

Meandering their way out of the labyrinthine engine room, they finally came out into a corridor filled with people. Guest-service workers in various uniforms were gearing up for the passengers’ return, and engineers were making their way to the engine room in preparation for leaving Istanbul.

A chance glimpse through a doorway near the laundry suddenly brought Linda up short. A man in his thirties, wearing a uniform much like the one she had on, was standing just outside the laundry. It wasn’t the man or even his casual stance that caught her eye. It was the way he looked away when their eyes met. She recognized the same furtive glance she herself had given the first chef she’d seen in the galley. It was the look of someone who was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

He turned away slightly but then peeked back over his shoulder. As soon as he saw Linda still studying him, he took off running in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” Linda shouted. “Stop!”

She started after him, with Mark a pace or two behind.

“No,” Linda said sharply. “Check if there are any more of them down there.”

Mark turned and ran back, leaving Linda in sole pursuit.

The runner had a twenty-foot head start and six-inch-longer legs. The advantages seemed to do him no good because Linda’s determination to catch him was simply greater than his body’s ability to get away. She quickly cut down his lead, running around corners without a check in her pace, springing as lightly as a gazelle but with the ferocity of a hunting cheetah.