Red Tide (26 page)

47

“E
ight hundred fifty-seven feet at the waterline,” the captain said. “A little over seventy-seven thousand tons.” He looked around, making sure everyone was duly impressed. “We cruise at twenty-five knots with a range of nearly four thousand miles.” Sitting there, partially obscured by the fog, the ship looked more like an office building tipped over onto its side. Black down below, all white and shiny up top, it seemed unreasonably large and most certainly incapable of sustained movement.

“Accommodations for just over two thousand guests and eight hundred crew members,” he was saying. “Two pools, five separate dining rooms, a casino, six hot tubs. It’s got a running track all the way around.”

The sight of five space suits stepping out of the elevator brought his spiel to an abrupt halt. Corso stood among the assembled multitude of government functionaries, seventy yards upwind from where the CDC crew members made their appearance.

They watched in silence as the space suits waddled over and handed their test kits to a similarly clad figure who disappeared inside a mobile laboratory, while they lined up at the rear of a small tanker truck, where they took turns rinsing one another off with a pressure washer. Ten minutes later, when the last man was presumably decontaminated, they shed their biohazard suits and disappeared behind a cordoned-off area at the extreme edge of the pier. By that time, the air was permeated with the smell of chlorine bleach.

“How many crew members are on board this time of night?” one of the FBI agents asked the captain.

“About two hundred,” he answered.

“Passengers?”

The captain shook his white mane. “No passengers till six
A
.
M
.”

“What about the cleanup crew?”

A bald-headed guy in a pair of forest green overalls stepped forward. “I got a hundred forty-one people on board. Fifteen women, a hundred and twenty-five men.” He checked his watch. “They’re due to get off for lunch in eleven minutes.”

Corso watched as the CDC lead pressed his earpiece deep into his ear and stepped away from the rest of the group. If his facial expression was any indication, the news wasn’t good. He watched as the guy took a deep breath before opening his mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. All eyes were on him. “Preliminary tests on the wipe kits show the presence of the virus.” A buzz ran through the crowd. “In some cases trace amounts, in others truly alarming levels of toxicity.” He waved off the barrage of questions. “They’re working on more specific test protocols as we speak. Sometime in the next hour or so, we should have a much better idea of what we’re dealing with here.” The buzz started again, “But,” he began again. Silence. “It doesn’t look good. Anyone who’s been on board is going to have to be isolated indefinitely. Anyone who’s on board now, which is somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred fifty people, well, I would say their chances of having been exposed to the virus to one degree or another are quite high.”

This time the buzz broke out in earnest, as groups broke off from the main body and huddled on their own. Corso watched as the mayor used his index finger to pound in a point with the governor. Watched as the FBI and CIA broke into separate knots of whispered conversation that seemed to repel one another like the opposing poles of a magnet.

“This is insane,” Harry Dobson muttered.

“Actually, in its own little way, it was a hell of a plan,” Corso said. “While everybody’s looking the other way, you hop on three cruise ships and contaminate six thousand people from something like twenty-three countries. You stretch out the incubation period of the virus a little bit and everybody gets all the way back home before they start feeling sick. And even when they do, first thing they assume is that they got the standard ship sickness. They go to their doctors.” Corso twirled a hand in the air. “Worldwide epidemic, doomsday, god only knows how many dead before it’s over.”

“Damn near everybody,” Harry Dobson said. “That’s what’s so crazy about it. Whoever these people are, they have no regard whatsoever for human life. It’s like they’re willing to kill everybody, willing to unmake the entire planet, just to prove some point they want to make.”

“Ever been to India?” Corso asked.

Harry shook his head.

“Falling through the cracks in India isn’t like it is here,” Corso said. “You fall through the cracks in India, you end up all the way on the bottom, ’cause there ain’t no other place to fall.” He snapped his fingers. “You wake up one morning and you’re a garbage eater. Living on the streets of some city with all the others just like you. In the blink of an eye, you go from your mama’s knee to living with people who purposely maim themselves in colorful ways…who gouge out an eye or cut off their fingers to make begging easier. People who’ll cut your throat with a piece of glass over something you found in the trash.”

The chief was paying rapt attention now, but Corso was just about through.

“There’s no message here, Chief,” Corso said. “If they wanted to send a message they’d have gone after the germ doctors. This isn’t about politics. This is about suffering and the human need for revenge.”

They milled around in silence for a moment. Up close to the overhead lights, the fog moved inland as a translucent sheet of white, folding itself around the
Arctic Flower
like tissue paper and then rising off the water in stages, to envelop the Alaskan Way Viaduct and then move upward toward the stadiums beyond.

Corso watched as Harry Dobson looked his way and scowled. Wasn’t until Harry took a step to the left that Corso thought to look behind himself, where a pair of cops approached warily, as if they weren’t at all certain they wanted to be this close to whatever in hell was going on. Between the officers, propelled along by the elbows, a hooded apparition in a burgundy ski jacket stiff-legged it their way.

“Guy says you want to see him, Chief,” said the shorter of the two officers.

“Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” added his partner.

Before the chief could speak, the hood pulled a hand out of his pocket and thrust it forward. A black cell phone rested in the palm. Harry stared at it for a minute and then left it there; instead, he took a step forward and pulled the hood from the man’s head. Jim Sexton came into view.

“I should have known,” the chief said, snatching the phone and putting his nose right up on Sexton’s. His hands were twisted into knots. “You make me sick, you know that? You put people’s lives at risk over some stupid story, you—” He unknotted one hand and grabbed hold of Sexton’s jacket, jerking him even closer.

Corso put a restraining hand on the chief’s shoulder. “We’ve got company,” Corso said. The ship’s captain, Belder, Klugeman, Mayor Dean, the governor, the guy from the sanitation company, and a pair of FBI field agents all walked a respectful half step behind the guy in the brown cashmere topcoat as they made their way across the tarmac toward Corso and the chief. As they approached, the chief let go of Jim’s jacket and smoothed his own clothes with his hands.

The mayor took the lead with the introductions. “I don’t know whether you two have met,” he began. He indicated the guy in the topcoat. “Harry, this is Bernard Pauls, chief of Homeland Security.” Pauls nodded but failed to offer a hand. “Mr. Pauls, this is Harry Dobson, chief of police for the city of Seattle.” Harry returned the nod.

“Governor Doss has wisely called out the National Guard. They’ll be sealing off this section of the city in just a minute here,” Pauls said. “We’re going to need some volunteers from among your ranks, Chief.”

“Volunteers for what?”

“We’ll need to get the terrorists off the ship before we make any decisions regarding the disposition of the people on board.”

Harry waved a hand at the FBI contingent. “What about these guys? Half the Bureau’s in town. Send them on board.”

“The Bureau doesn’t have the necessary equipment on hand,” Pauls said in an even voice. “The time lines for getting bioequipment from Quantico aren’t workable at this point. I’m sure you understand. It’s a law enforcement issue.”

“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” Harry said.

A collective gasp. “Chief,” chided the mayor.

“First you tell me you don’t need my help. You turn my whole damn department into traffic cops while you run around chasing every Arab in town. Then, after a couple of my men break the case, and we’re suddenly faced with the possibility of a plague, you want my men to go on board a death ship for you. You want them to risk their lives to clean up your mess so’s nobody will notice how you botched the investigation.”

“I’d hoped our mutual professionalism could rise above—” Pauls began.

“Professionalism my ass,” the chief spat. “We’re talking about people’s lives here, Mr. Pauls.” He pointed across the deck at a pair of CDC staff in space suits. “There’s people inside those suits, Mr. Pauls. People with wives and kids and gutters to clean and car payments to make, and every one of them is taking his life in his hands as we speak. As far as I’m concerned, the basic FBI ‘cover your ass’ drill doesn’t work around here.”

“I’ve consulted with Deputy Chief Gardener,” Pauls said.

“You can’t send firemen after these guys, for pity’s sake.”

“Harry,” the mayor interjected.

“You gonna volunteer?” Harry snapped. He waited a beat and then said, “If not, maybe you ought to keep out of this.”

Gary Dean’s fleshy neck visibly reddened but he kept quiet. A shout broke the silence. Then another and another until it started to sound like a ball game was about to break out. Corso looked in the direction of the commotion. Two of the upper decks of the
Arctic Flower
were lined with green uniforms, waving their hands and shouting at the people down below. “Lunchtime,” Corso said. “They want to get off for lunch.”

“We’ve sealed the staircases and are holding the elevators at ground level,” Pauls said. “The ship’s crew has locked themselves into the employee areas. The cleaning crews are stuck on their respective decks. Lunch is going to have to wait.”

Harry turned his back in disgust. He opened his coat and pulled a cell phone from his belt as he walked away. The group watched in silence as he spoke into the mouthpiece for several minutes, pocketed the phone and walked back their way.

“I’ll have six men ready to go in fifteen minutes,” Harry said.

“Do we have a confirmed ID on the suspects?”

“Just a pair of names. Roderick Holmes and…”

“Robert Darling,” Corso filled.

“Pictures?”

“No, the Canadians claim they can’t come up with those until Monday, but these guys are East Indian. How many East Indians can there be on board?”

“Seven,” said the guy from the cleaning company.

“You’re kidding.”

The guy shrugged. “Immigration makes us keep track. We got a big turnover. We get a lot of transients, lotta Mexican workers…they come, they go.” He lifted his hands in resignation. “Ain’t exactly workin’ for Microsoft, if you know what I mean.”

“We have a number of East Indian crew members as well,” said the captain. “I’m not sure exactly how many, but certainly not more than five or so, at this time of night.”

Harry was disgusted. “There are over three hundred people on board that ship. How are we supposed to…”

“I’ve seen one of them,” Corso said.

“I’ve seen both of them,” came another voice. Jim Sexton freed his elbows from the pair of cops and stepped forward. “As close as I am to you now,” he added. “I’d for sure know if I saw them again.”

Pauls wasted no time. “Perhaps if these gentlemen were willing…”

Harry shook him off. “They’re civilians. There’s no possible way we can allow them on board.”

Pauls looked at his watch again. “The terrorists have been on board for nearly four hours now. Presuming that message about the shelf life of the virus was anywhere near correct, we’ve only got another three hours to get this resolved before it becomes airborne, which, if our scientific friends here are to be believed, will result in a catastrophe.”

Harry looked over at Corso. “You understand what he’s asking you to do?”

“I understand,” said Corso.

“Me too,” said Jim Sexton.

Harry thought it over. Looked up at the governor. “Let’s have the Guard bring them lunch on board. We’ll say we’ve got a toxic spill down at dock level. That way everybody will have his mask off and we’ll have support people on board in case we get any resistance. Once they’re eating, we’ll send my men on board.”

48

A
t first, Bobby Darling, like all the others, wondered why they were not being allowed to get off the ship for lunch. Then came the announcement that there’d been a toxic spill of some sort down below. Unlike all the others, however, Bobby knew better. The sight of the Bradley armored vehicles parked nose to nose across the gate, of the horde of soldiers and policemen swarming like maggots, wiped any trace of hunger from his innards, replacing the urge to eat with a shaft of cold remorse that somehow they had been found out and had thus failed in their mission. He cursed and got to his feet.

His knees were unsteady as he abandoned his position on the rail and went looking for Holmes. People were sitting everywhere, pulling open the box lunches the soldiers had brought. He smiled his way to the center of the ship, where the same soldiers who delivered lunch now guarded the elevators. He kept moving, all the way around the front of the ship and back down the far side.

He hadn’t seen Holmes since they’d started working. A finger of panic traced his spine as it occurred to him that he and Holmes might not be on the same deck. Took him ten minutes to get all the way around, back to where he’d left his unopened lunch. No Holmes. The realization that he was alone made him nauseous and slightly dizzy. Bobby took a moment to compose himself and then leaned far out over the rail. A trace of talk and laughter rose to his ears. The deck below was likewise filled with people sitting and eating their lunches. He walked to the stern and tried the door marked
STAIRS
. Locked. Then around the deserted side of the ship, trying all the doors, every locked entry pushing the sense of panic deeper into the pit of his stomach until finally he yanked on a handle and found himself looking at the inside of a safety locker.

The oxygen had a sweet taste, as if the air had been dusted with powdered sugar. Corso and the cops were working their way down the landward side of deck three. Thus far, they’d encountered two East Indian men. Neither was the guy with the snake eyes. Mostly it was college kids, deadbeats and green card refugees. The free food, combined with the announcement that lunch today was going to be an hour seemed to have assuaged any prior hostilities and suspicions. Mostly they wanted to know what got spilled and how it was going to interfere with getting off shift later. Corso was within two hundred feet of the stern and a big open area he thought maybe they called the fantail. Maybe a dozen diners sat with their backs to the rail, chatting and sipping at Cokes.

“Hey,
cabrón,
” a dark little fellow called. “What kinda chit dey speel down dere?”

Corso smiled at him through the plastic faceplate.
“No sé,”
he said into the microphone.

The guy waved a disgusted hand Corso’s way.
“Pinche Bebosa,”
he said.

Corso was fumbling for a reply when the last guy in line got to his feet and headed for the stern. Something about the thickness of his neck and the blocky, almost square head caught Corso’s attention. He moved that way. “Hey,” he called. The guy kept walking.

At that moment, a barrage of shouts and laughter went off behind him. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder. A piece of white rope, with an orange and white life preserver on the end, was hanging down from above. From the way the rope was shaking, it was safe to assume somebody was trying to climb down from the deck above. The three cops swam people out of their path on their way to the rail. Corso turned his attention back the other way just in time to see the heavyset guy disappear around the corner, to the right. Corso stretched his long legs to the max, moving as fast as he could without running.

Holmes took the apple out of his mouth as soon as he saw the rope…had to be Bobby. “Parag, Parag,” he chided silently. “Oh no, Parag.” And then he watched the three guys in the white suits fan out and move that way with a practiced assurance that could only mean cops and the fourth one…the tall one…was nearly on him now. He got to his feet, and moved quickly in the other direction. An amplified voice called, “Hey.” He kept walking. Didn’t break into a run until he was sure he was out of sight and then gave it all he had across the width of the vessel.

He had, for the past half hour, been ruminating on their present situation. Where things had gone wrong. Whether or not the whole team had been compromised…a great likelihood as far as he was concerned. And what he might do to both maximize the damage and effect his escape, neither of which, at this point, seemed in the least bit likely.

Once he saw the rope and then the cops, all bets were off. He was only sorry that he’d run out of virus. He’d have loved to have gone down spraying. As it was, they’d made their statement. Before it was over the name Bhopal would be on the world’s lips once again and they would remember. At least he hoped they would. The only thing he was sure of at the moment was that he had no intention of being taken alive. Instead of sprinting down the deserted side of the ship in an attempt to elude his pursuer, he stopped just around the corner, pulled down the zipper on his coveralls and fished his knife from his pants pocket. He took his time zipping up and opening the blade. American policemen were quick with their weapons. Everyone knew that. He didn’t imagine he would have any difficulty getting them to help him finish the game.

He counted three and stepped back around the corner. Only the tall one was in view. The others must have stopped to deal with poor Parag. The tall cop stood fifteen feet in front of him, feet spread, his long arms hanging loosely from his sides. And then the cop spoke. “It’s over, man,” came from a tiny speaker at the top of the helmet.

And then he saw the face behind the plastic and knew he had seen it before, at the house with the cop who had asked him about Brian Bohannon.

“It will never be over,” he said. “Not so long as I’m alive.”

“So…don’t be alive.”

“You’re not a policeman.” It was a statement. “Policemen don’t say things like that.”

“No. They don’t.”