The Stolen Chalicel (47 page)

Sitting there, he made up his mind. If he got the plague, he wouldn’t let anyone see him like that. Not even Cordelia. He wanted her to remember him in the prime of life. Not a half-rotted corpse, dying in a hospital bed. He made that promise to himself as he sat in the corner. Then he tightened his shirt around his nose and mouth, pulling the arms snugly.

The MoonSonnet
Motorsailer

C
ORDELIA COULDN’T STOP
crying. Her face was buried in the bulk of Jim Gardiner’s shoulder. Others sat around
The MoonSonnet
cabin with glum faces.

“There are two teams in Hazmat suits trying to pull Dr. Graham out of the air shaft,” the agent was telling them.

“What are the obstacles?” Gardiner asked.

“There is an intersection of two shafts about two hundred feet in front of her. There is egress about thirty feet beyond that. If she can get to that junction, we can get a rope to her and pull her out.”

They took this information in and digested it. VerPlanck was ashen. His eyes had the glassy stare of shock. He looked at everyone in turn as they spoke but seemed to have no urge to respond.

Carter had the opposite reaction. He was wild. He stood and paced the salon in frustration and anger.

“I can’t
believe
Sinclair would lock her in!” he ranted. “When he
knew
there was a canister in there.”

Cordelia raised her head from Gardiner’s shoulder and glared at him.

“How
dare
you! Of
course
he would. He wanted to save everyone else,” she snapped. “He’s not
selfish,
like other people.”

“But he wasn’t making that decision on his own. Holly was in there with him!”

“He had no choice,” she replied, her voice rising in anger.

“I’m sorry, Cordelia, but I don’t see it like that. It was a thoughtless thing to do,” Carter answered. “Heroic, but unthinking. He should have let the professionals take charge. That’s what I would have done.”

“He’s twice the man you are!”

Her face was red and there were tears coursing down.

“Delia,
don’t
!” Gardiner shushed her. “No one is at fault.”

VerPlanck rose from his chair and walked to the aft door.

“We’re all upset,” he admonished. “We are all saying things we will regret. Carter, why don’t you step outside on deck with me? I believe we both need some air.”

Carter Wallace stood on deck of
The MoonSonnet,
breathing hard.

“Thanks,” Carter mumbled. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Everything will be forgotten tomorrow. It was only the heat of the moment,” VerPlanck assured him.

“But I still can’t believe Cordelia would take me apart like that!”

“From what I understand, she has been an orphan for most of her life. Sinclair is pretty much the only thing she has in the world,” VerPlanck explained.

“Do you think they’ll get Sinclair out?” Carter asked.

“I’m sure of it. There has to be an override system on the door,” VerPlanck assured him.

“That’s a relief. I hadn’t thought of that,” Carter admitted. “And it sounds like Holly is going to be OK.”

“Yes, you heard the security officials. They’ll pull her out of the air shaft and she’ll be fine.”

Carter closed his eyes and gripped the railing of the boat. Relief washed over him. She was going to make it. When he opened his eyes, VerPlanck was looking at him.

“If you’ll forgive me, it seems you are pretty emotionally involved with Holly,” VerPlanck ventured. “Is there something you would like to talk about?”

Carter turned to him with abject honesty.

“I was pretty infatuated for a while.”

“Was?”

“I’m getting over it. Slowly. Listen, I know what’s going on,” he said to VerPlanck.

“Going on?” VerPlanck repeated.

“You’re crazy about her too.”

“No, not at all,” VerPlanck denied.

“Bullshit.”

VerPlanck looked at Carter in astonishment as a variety of emotions played over his face. At first he appeared to be offended, then, embarrassed, finally he crumpled.

“Is it that obvious?”

“To me it is,” Carter said. “But then I know all the signs.”

“I see.”

“And when this is over . . . this terrorism stuff. When it comes to Holly, I won’t stand in your way.”

“That’s very
noble
of you,” VerPlanck said.

“No, it’s not. It’s realistic. She doesn’t care for me at all.”

“Well, thank you, Carter, but I can’t really act on my feelings right now,” VerPlanck said. “It wouldn’t be decent. My wife just died, you know.”

“Yeah, I heard. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, so am I,” VerPlanck said.

They both looked out at the dark water for a moment.

“Listen,” Carter spoke up. “You’ll probably punch me in the nose or throw me overboard for saying this, but you shouldn’t worry so much about being
decent
. Other people weren’t all that decent to you. In fact, it sounds to me like you were the only
decent
person involved in all of this.”

VerPlanck turned to Carter with troubled eyes, but he didn’t reply.

“So don’t let your decency get in the way with Holly,” Carter urged him. “Women like that don’t come along very often.”

Ted nodded slowly.

“I see your point, Carter. Well, I may take my chances on catching her interest. If you don’t mind.”

“Go for it,” Carter said. “Don’t wait too long.”

“Thank you,” VerPlanck said.

“By the way, while we’re being so honest and open and everything . . . You know she was once in love with Sinclair,” Carter offered.

“Probably still is,” observed VerPlanck.

“Nah. Not after he exposed her to bubonic plague. That would pretty much finish it for most women.”

“One would
hope
so,” VerPlanck said, smiling. “But in
my
experience women are funny.”

Cordelia and Gardiner sat alone in the salon of
The MoonSonnet.
She was still fuming.

“I can’t believe Carter had the nerve to criticize John like that!”

“Give him a break, Delia,” Gardiner soothed her. “Can’t you see he’s half out of his mind over Holly?”

“Yeah, but
she’s
going to live,” Cordelia cried. “And John is going to . . .”

She couldn’t finish the sentence and sat there, defeated.

“No!” Gardiner said firmly. “No, he’s
not
. You just wait and see.”

Sharm el-Sheikh Conference Center

S
INCLAIR LOOKED AT
his watch. He couldn’t help but calculate his odds. It was a quarter after ten. The formal dinner was supposed to be over at ten sharp.

How clever of Moustaffa to have outwitted them all. The master manipulator had cranked up their nerves to the breaking point and then had herded them to their deaths like cattle to a slaughter.

Sinclair thanked his stars that the attack had been stopped in the end. Or maybe not. Here he was sitting on the floor, waiting to be doused with a spray of weaponized plague. How smart was that?

The phone began to ring. Sinclair stayed where he was and listened to it. The phone was on the table right above the canister. Too close. He shouldn’t go over to pick it up. Twenty minutes had gone by since they shut the door. An automatic trigger would activate pretty soon.

The phone kept ringing shrilly in the enclosed space. It sounded urgent. He second-guessed himself and considered the possibilities.

What if they had figured out a way to dismantle the canister? Or wanted to tell him how to open the door? It could be any number of things.

He looked over at the canister again. The timing was too close. He shouldn’t approach it. Surely it had been set to go off any minute now.

The phone kept on ringing, shattering his nerves. He wanted to answer it, just to stop it. And if they were trying to reach him, there might be a way out. He made a decision. He walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” he said.

Just below him he heard a hiss. He looked down at the canister. It was spraying a fine mist of particles into the air, like a can of hairspray with the button permanently depressed.

“Agghhh . . .” he gasped as he threw the phone down and headed to the corner. He didn’t rush. There was no need. He was a dead man already.

Paul Oakley hung up the phone and turned to the chief of security.

“I didn’t get a chance to tell him the door code,” he said in a leaden tone. “It was too late.”

“The canister?”

“Yes, it detonated,” Oakley confirmed. “Just now.”

“Oh, hell!” the man said. “We’re going to Plan B. Send in the guys with Hazmat suits. Seal the building.”

“What about Sinclair?” Oakley asked.

“Get Sinclair out of there and into a biocontainment unit. We’re taking him to Cairo—the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit, NAMRU-3. It’s the only place we can take him, unless you want to airlift him to Europe. NAMRU-3 is equipped for the highest bio-security level, BSL-4, to handle the deadliest diseases.”

“We’re talking about weaponized plague. Are they any good at that sort of thing?” Oakley asked worriedly.

“They’re the
best
. If U.S. troops are hit with bioweapons during battle, the NAMRU team has the expertise to diagnose what pathogen was used, right in the field. They have been investigating outbreaks of disease in this part of the world since World War Two. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has doctors at the lab in Cairo working with them. This is where you get the real hard-core stuff—Ebola, Lassa fever, SARS, avian flu. We couldn’t do better, if you want to save him.”

“NAMRU-3 sounds perfect. But Sinclair doesn’t have much time,” Oakley said. “I’d like to go along with him to fill them in on what happened.”

“You’re already cleared. I have a helicopter standing by.”

“How did you get that kind of transportation so quickly?”

“It’s been on standby all night. In the worst-case scenario, it was supposed to be used by the president of the United States.”

Sinclair sat in the corner and yanked the shirt away from his face. This was ridiculous. The spray had hit him foursquare in the eyes and he had been lethally contaminated. Leaving his shirt tied over his nose and mouth now wouldn’t accomplish much. He put the white oxford shirt back on and buttoned it up. Might as well meet his fate fully clothed.