Red Tide (28 page)

51

“S
TAND CLEAR,” the voice boomed over the loudspeakers. “STAND CLEAR OF ALL SECURITY GATES AND WATERTIGHT DOORS.” And then the horn, like the dive horn on a submarine, bouncing its rough squawk off the steel walls, coming from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. “STAND CLEAR.” It started over again. “STAND CLEAR OF ALL…”

The cop grabbed Corso by the hand and pulled him to his feet. The maneuver caused Corso to wince, as the sharp pain in his ribs returned with a vengeance, turning his vision white, leaving him short of breath and reeling.

And then the shots began. One, two and then a burst of four or five, automatic weapons fire, somewhere up by the center of the ship. “Stay here,” the cop ordered. “I’ll come back for you.”

Another burst of fire rapped around the walls. Corso nodded and massaged his side, trying to pant some air back into his lungs as the cop took off running toward the front of the ship.

To his right, the collapsed form of Roderick Holmes lay sprawled on his back, his big hands loose and comfortable, his dark face serene. Wasn’t till then Corso remembered what he’d promised. He closed his eyes and listened again. Heard the words being whispered in his ear. Second time through, his lips began to form the sounds as if the thoughts were his and not those of the dead man at his feet.

“STAND CLEAR,” scattered his thoughts like leaves. “STAND CLEAR OF ALL SECURITY GATES AND WATERTIGHT DOORS.”

And then the clash of metal on metal began to rumble through the ship like a drumroll. That maximum security lockdown beat. That hydraulic bolt-snapping, greased-door-sliding moment when the steel eyelids come down and all movement ceases.

He could hear shouts from the deck above. A glance over at Safeco Field told him they were moving even before his ears picked up the throb of the engines. Before he could collect his thoughts, he heard his name being called. “Hey, Mr. Corso. Hey.”

Massaging his ribs and moving slowly, Corso made his way over to the starboard rail. The cop who’d promised to come back for him stood sixty feet up the deck, his fingers entwined in the thick mesh of a security gate. A similar gate barred the way, not ten feet in front of Corso’s face.

Corso looked up. What had earlier appeared to be nothing more than stanchions for supporting lifeboats had cleverly morphed into a series of white security gates, some of which now segmented the deck into sections of varying length.

“This is as close to you as I can get,” the cop said. “They got it locked off both ways. Whole center of the ship is crew quarters, so you can’t get through that way either. Everybody’s stuck where they are. Probably trying to keep the cross-contamination down. Keep everybody separate from everybody else.”

“Where we going?” Corso asked.

“No idea.”

“How many people in your area?” Corso asked.

“Sixteen,” said the cop. He managed a weak smile. “Looks like you got the bar all to yourself,” he commented.

“I’ve heard worse ideas,” said Corso, turning away.

The caption read: “Governor of the State of Washington, James F. Doss.” CSPAN, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS occupied the alpha camera positions with the rest of the affiliates bringing up the rear in descending order of rank. From where Doss stood, the sea of whirring red lights looked like rats in the darkness. Doss pulled his little half glasses from his inside coat pocket and slipped them onto his nose. He squinted through the lights and made eye contact with the technician at the PE mixer board for long enough to get the okay sign.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “The purpose of this briefing is to fill you in on the situation as it presently stands and perhaps to give you some idea of what you may be able to expect in the coming days. At the conclusion of the briefing, we will take a limited number of questions.” He paused for effect and then went on. “Let me begin by stressing how much more dire this situation could have become had it not been for the stellar efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, and any number of other agencies without whose efforts we could be looking at disaster today.”

They were all lined up behind the governor, doing their official dais routine. Belder, Klugeman, Pauls, Payton, Helen Stafford, Marty Morningway and a bevy of others.

“Beginning at approximately eight-thirty last evening, three teams of terrorists made their way aboard cruise ships bound for Alaskan waters. Masquerading as maintenance workers, their intention was to infect the crew and passengers of these ships, nearly eight thousand people in all, with a deadly virus and thus instigate a plague of worldwide proportions.” He made a gesture at the crowd behind him. “Without these ladies and gentlemen you see standing before you tonight, they most certainly would have been successful in their mission.”

A smattering of applause ran through the crowd. “I am relieved to report that two of these teams were apprehended before they managed to do any harm whatsoever.”

He paused to let the numbers speak for themselves. “The third group, however, was at least partially successful.”

He took a deep breath. “At this time there are approximately three hundred sixty people on board the
Arctic Flower.
We believe it is possible that every one of them could potentially be a carrier of this deadly disease.” The numbers rushed through the crowd like a gust of wind. “Faced with such staggering numbers of potential cases…consulting with some of the world’s foremost scientists and health care professionals, we have determined that our best option is treating the victims on board.” He pushed his glasses up and read from a paper in front of him. How many isolation units would be required to treat the victims in a traditional hospital setting…how many more would be required for the people who treated the first wave of victims and the people who then treated them…The numbers brought the crowd to a stunned silence.

“At this moment, we are launching an unprecedented medical treatment and cleanup program aboard the
Arctic Flower.
If our information is correct, and we believe it is, the incubation period for this virus is between ten and twenty days and the life span of the virus will under no circumstances exceed thirty days.”

The MSNBC section just couldn’t hold it together for another second. “So what you’re saying then, Governor,” someone shouted, “is that you’re going to keep these people on board until you can be sure which of them have the virus and which do not.”

“That’s correct,” the governor said.

This time the roar began to rise from the back of the crowd, where friends and relatives of those on board had found their way to the edges of the gathering.

“You just can’t keep people like that,” someone shouted. “What if somebody wants to be treated by his own doctor?”

Payton from the FBI stepped forward. “Under the provisions of the Patriot Act…”

The crowd buried him in boos.

Soon as they heard over the loudspeaker they were going to get fed, they’d ordered thirteen meals. There were only eleven of them, but they wanted to be sure they had enough food for the long haul. Seemed silly. Like somebody pointed out…nobody ever starved to death on a cruise ship. But what the hell. They were all stuck here together. Majority rules. Thirteen meals. Early on, Jim Sexton had wandered up to the next gate and shot the breeze with a couple of the cleanup guys who were trapped in the next forward section. They had nineteen people, including two women. While the people in Jim’s section had taken the news of their isolation with a certain stoic grace, the group immediately forward had apparently erupted into something a bit more exciting, eliciting a couple of fights and a good deal of general hysteria of the “we’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die” variety. If the noises heard bouncing around the boat immediately following the announcement were any indication, a great many other people had objected to their enforced quarantine. It had been long after midnight before the shouts had subsided and Jim had been able to get a few hours of fitful sleep.

An awsome array of toiletry articles, new coveralls and new respirators had arrived with breakfast. Along with a nicely written, not too pushy list of do’s and don’ts for “making your stay with us a happy one: Stay in your suit and mask as much as possible. If not, stay in your cabin as much as you can. Stay away from public areas. Shower often.” Things like that.

Most of the people in Jim’s section had taken the suggestions to heart and hadn’t been seen or heard from since, apparently preferring to ride out their quarantine in solitary confinement. Things could, after all, have been worse. They had twice as many staterooms as they had people. Each of which was lavishly equipped. Each wired for cable television and phone service. What with three sumptuous meals a day…hell, if you subtracted the specter of agonizing death, most of these people had it better than they’d ever had it before. Sort of an American dream come true…strings attached of course.

Jim had taken more or less the middle ground. The notion of these little spores drifting around bespoiling his lungs with every step kept him in his room the majority of the time. The frank realization that most likely they’d all been in contact with the virus already allowed him a couple of strolls a day through the section of the ship on which they were confined, which explained what he was doing all the way over on the starboard side, poking his nose into every open door, when he discovered the Caravelle Internet Café.

A dozen Compaq computers were spread around a tony little room. “Keep in touch with friends and loved ones,” the sign admonished.

“Yeah, sure,” Jim thought.

One of the first things he’d done, after they’d been apprised of the situation and after they’d picked out staterooms for themselves, was to call Beth. Second thing he’d done was to wish he hadn’t. She’d already been notified by the station and had seen the story of his heroism on TV. Predictably, the heroic part of his present predicament had been lost on Beth, whose sole concern was the precarious nature in which Jim’s actions had left the family. Would the station continue to pay his salary? Would his health benefits still be available? How could he have done something so thoughtless and stupid in the first place? What was he thinking?

Forty-five minutes of remonstrations had reduced Jim to claiming his cell phone battery was getting low and he’d better get off. He’d promised to keep in touch.

The station he hadn’t called at all. After an hour of watching the news, all he knew for sure was that the media was playing up how he and this Frank Corso guy had been assisting the authorities with the investigation when they got caught in the lockdown. Short bios and small pictures of Jim and the six cops who were trapped on board what was now being called the Death Ship. Long bio and scads of pictures on this Corso guy.

Jim sat down in front of one of the computers and hit the space bar with his thumb. The monitor hummed and then burst into life. “Welcome aboard the
Arctic Flower.
What would you like to do? E-mail? Chat with someone on shore? Download your photos to disk? Send streaming videos back and forth with someone? Make a DVD of your—”

Jim stopped fiddling with the mouse and raised his eyes. The blank stare of the little TV camera met his gaze, and, for the first time in half a day, Jim smiled.

52

O
n the morning of the third day, a couple of moon-suited medics showed up to check Corso’s medical condition. They took his pulse and blood pressure and checked his side, which was pronounced safe but sore. Apparently, the tip of the knife blade had only penetrated as far as the surface of the rib, which had been partially displaced by the force of the blow. They administered an antibiotic and recommended rest. Soon as they left, Corso went outside. He’d thought the matter over at some length and could not make a compelling case for spending what could be his final days walking around in a haz-mat suit and respirator. After the scene with Holmes, he was unable to imagine a scenario in which he remained uncontaminated. Might as well be comfortable.

The morning was steel wool gray. Everything…the sky, the city, the waters of Puget Sound, all of it so similar in hue it seemed as if the world could have been turned upside down and nothing much would have changed.

Holmes’s body had been gone since early on the previous day. The area had been hosed down and then treated with some kind of bleach solution, so that when Corso strolled out onto the fantail promenade that morning the first sensation to reach his brain was once again the smell of a Laundromat.

The ship was anchored a mile south of Four Mile Rock. Just about smack in the middle of the bay, as far from land on all sides as they could be without infringing on the shipping channel. The
Arctic Flower
was now surrounded by a flotilla of barges. A nearly endless stream of boats ferried supplies and medical personnel to and from shore. Isolation was a very busy place indeed.

To the north and south, Coast Guard cutters stood sharp and ready, prepared to repel both media incursions and potential escapees, as Corso padded behind the bar and fixed himself a mimosa for breakfast.

“What do the numbers look like?” the mayor asked.

The CDC guy scoured his way through a computer printout until something caught his eye. “We’ve got a confirmed count of three hundred ninety people being held on board. Two hundred three crew members, six police officers, two civilians and a hundred seventy-nine maintenance personnel of one kind or another.”

“What kind of…” Marty Morningway hesitated. “I mean of the three hundred ninety, how many can we expect to come down with the virus?”

“Nearly all of them.” The guy looked around the room. “Allowing for a four percent incidence of people whose immune systems will successfully fight off the disease and another nine percent who will not become infected purely by chance, we can estimate that approximately three hundred thirty-nine people will likely become infected.”

As a buzz began to circle the room, he held up a restraining hand. “If we factor in the fact that the wipe tests on the crew areas came back with only marginal signs of contamination and that the crew has been able to maintain a greater level of isolation than the passengers, the reasonable expectation would be that we will have somewhere in the immediate vicinity of a hundred and fifty infected people, of whom we can expect approximately a hundred thirty will die.”

“You mean to tell me, what with modern medical science throwing everything it’s got at these people—”

“There is no cure,” the CDC doctor interrupted. “No serum. No vaccine. At present, the best we can do is keep their fluids up and make them as comfortable as possible. Untreated, Ebola Zaire has a ninety-two percent mortality rate. Treatment, regardless of the quality or quantity, can be expected to drop the number by no more than six percent.”

A pall settled over the room, as everyone considered the numbers. Finally, Harry Dobson broke the spell. “So sometime in the next five or six days, we’re going to get our first cases showing up. What then?”

Dr. Helen Stafford leaned forward and folded her hands on the table in front of her. “The period surrounding the onset of the disease is going to be critical.” She took a deep breath and gathered herself. “Ebola damages the brain. It creates psychotic dementia. At Maridi, victims ran from their beds, out into the street, without knowing who they were or how they had gotten into their present situation.”

“None of these poor souls will be running in the streets,” the FBI agent threw in.

The doctor shook her head. “The point is, once we start to see victims, we’re also going to see people who are simply terrified, and it’s going to be very difficult to tell the frightened from the infected.”

Harry Dobson checked his watch for the date. “Five days,” he said, as much to himself as to the room.

Before anyone could respond, the conference room door snicked open. All eyes swiveled that way. A King County deputy pushed his two-tone brown uniform into the room. He walked quickly over to the sideboard which held the coffee pots and water and grabbed the remote control.

“I think you’re gonna want to see this,” he said.

The picture had a fun-house effect. The poor quality of the transmission allowed Jim’s face to remain fluid, to move from thin to fat to square to round and back. Any hint of mirth, however, was immediately trampled by the grim expression on his face. “This is Jim Sexton reporting live from aboard the
Arctic Flower.”

He spent five minutes relating the current state of affairs aboard the ship. Then, one by one, he introduced the other ten inhabitants of his area and allowed each to broadcast a greeting to whomever they chose. Some were long-winded. Some too overwrought to finish. Several were in Spanish. The cops went last. Everybody got their say. When the sounds of men shuffling in and out of the room finally subsided, Jim looked steadily at the camera and said, “I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon since I’ve been aboard the
Arctic Flower.”
He tried to smile, only to have it wither on his lips. “I mean most of us spend our days glued to the tube watching CNN and the national news, hearing all this Ghost Ship stuff, listening to the figures about how many of us are going to die, and you know what?” He paused a beat. “Nobody thinks it’s going to be them. Everybody thinks they’re the one who’s going to survive.” He shook his head. “I mean like…me too. There’s just something inside us refuses to believe we’re going to”—he stopped—“that we’re going to end up being just another statistic. That we’re going to be one of the ones they find melted down in their own beds.” He looked away from the camera for a moment. “Maybe that’s why we’ve survived for this long. Maybe that’s the skill that’s allowed us to…”—he waved a diffident hand—“what are we gonna call it? Maintain dominion over the planet? This absolutely unreasonable sense of hope…this kind of totally unwarranted optimism, that allows us to go on almost no matter what.”

The tone of his own voice brought his monologue to a close. He ran a finger beneath his nose and looked at the camera. “This is Jim Sexton reporting for KING Five News.”