White Plague

by James Abel

  “What was the name of the person the XO spoke to?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Karen was staring at me angrily. “Nobody told me about this,” she said. “Or any accident.”

  “Nobody told me either.”

  She studied me in the beam, deciding something.

  “Then someone lied to us both,” Karen said.

  The fury started as a small beat in my chest and spread down into my belly. The director! Had he known? Had he sent us five hundred miles from land, into a blizzard, into this, and not told me everything?

  Or was someone in Washington holding back from him?

  I said, “We need to figure out what infected these people.”

  She said calmly, “Before it spreads.”

  “We need to find that old film. Maybe there’s something on it that . . . Chief, do you know what happened to it?”

  “Maybe it burned up. Maybe it melted. Maybe it’s in here somewhere. I don’t know.”

  We couldn’t find it. Or any overt clue.

  I cursed inwardly as we looked for records: a captain’s log, a book, a diary, a file; a thumb drive that would explain what the Montana had taken aboard . . . but finding things amid the wreckage seemed impossible. The captain’s cabin, wardroom, the infirmary, useless. The control room. You’d need a month in here to do this right.

  We pulled open blackened steel desk drawers, opened lockers, bashed a lock off a soot-smeared desk, covered with a snowfall of burned insulation. Nothing.

  Our Marine Motorola emitted static. Possibly someone outside was trying to reach us, possibly they were just talking to each other. Inside our cold cave, I couldn’t make out words, so we kept going. If it was important enough, a message for me, a Marine would come down.

  What is on that film? Can it even help us?

  Digital monitors had exploded. Plastic keyboards were frozen blobs that clicked emptily if you touched them.

  That film is probably burned up or useless anyway.

  In the sub’s mess were soot-coated stainless steel cabinets and cookware. A red and white cardboard box of Sysco Kosher Salt lay by the sink.

  “There’s nothing here the Chinese could use,” I said.

  Karen made a tsking sound. “Oh, they could learn plenty from those prototype torpedoes in the bow.”

  I envisioned the twelve Marines outside, stationed beside the Montana, watching to make sure that the ice did not start to move, start to break up, float off with the submarine attached, or with the sick on top.

  I recalled a lecture from one of our old biowarfare instructors at Quantico.

  “Back in the 1980s,” I said, “the Soviet Union designed chemical weapons for cold climates. Their gasses could kill in forty below zero. Their mustards worked below their freeze points. Their hydrogen cyanide,” I said as we walked, probed, took samples, “solidified at fifteen below into particles you could send through ventilation systems.”

  I said, “In extreme cold, chemical contaminants are harder to locate. Gas goes solid, breaks into bits that can cling to clothing. Chemicals can be carried on a hazmat suit into a warm room, where they vaporize, go airborne, sicken people who think they’re safe . . . Lieutenant Speck, hold that detector lower. Some chemical agents settle by the floor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Karen said, “You wanted to know why I decided to go into submarine work? Man, why did you go into this?”

  “I love the Tropics.”

  She turned and hit me in the arm, grinning.

  Her first nonprofessional act toward me.

  The radio emitted more static. What were they saying out there? Where was the damn movie canister?

  I glanced through Karen’s face shield, got a flash of cheekbones, and eyes looking back, felt a dry beat on the roof of my mouth.

  She’s beautiful, even at a time like this.

  “I’m not leaving them on the ice,” I said.

  Our search was interrupted, from outside, as I grew aware of a new sound against the hull, not the irregular scrape of ice, but a rhythmic pounding of a person out there using something heavy against steel. Three hits and stop. Three and stop. Whoever had been trying to reach us via radio had given up, and was using a more urgent method.

  As I turned to go, Karen’s glove reached out and brushed the arm of my hazmat suit, too lightly for me to feel it. “You really think that film is important?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me try the captain’s cabin again, and the exec’s. I’ve got to think they’d keep anything important there. Maybe there’s a place we missed. I mean, we’re moving around here so fast.”

  “Good.”

  I had a vision of the ice field outside splitting, those deep cracks spreading, and the sub floating off, powerless, the sick and burned sub crew drifting farther away. I rushed through the passageways, the banging more urgent on the hull. I felt an ice stalactite snag at my shoulder, at my hazmat suit. I reached the ladder and climbed as quickly as the bulky garment allowed, to emerge outside, onto the bridge.

  What I saw out there froze me in place.

  It was big, and black, closing slowly, five hundred yards away.

  Through the snow and gloom, I recognized the tapered shape from images the director had forwarded, and the red flag made identification unmistakable.

  It was a Chinese submarine.

  FOURTEEN

  From the bridge, I saw the Chinese sub halt about three hundred yards away, inside the lead, its bow facing our midsection, far enough away, if the commander was confident he could withstand a blast at that distance, to enable him to fire. If he used a spread, he’d hit the Montana and also kill the evacuees from the sub, at the edge of the ice. Or he can just go after the survivors and seize the sub.

  Their sail flew a white flag, requesting parlay, along with the red flag of the People’s Republic of China.

  As Dr. Vleska and Lieutenant Speck came up from below, I watched Chinese crewmen lower a Zodiac boat into the sea. Two figures in bulky parkas and fur hats climbed onto it, one at the bow, the other steering, avoiding bergy ice bits that swirled in the crosscurrents, their sharp edges capable of ripping a hole in the small craft.

  I placed my Marine Motorola to my lips, hoping that I could reach Chief Apparecio in the engine room. “Chief?”

  No response.

  “Chief?”

  I heard static. Then, “Here, Colonel.”

  “We really could use that electricity.”

  “Working . . . on . . . Maybe in . . . buzzzzzzz . . . ten . . . buzzzz.”

  The Zodiac was a hundred yards off and closing. The wind had died, the falling snow had gentled. But the currents below seemed even more violent, ice swirled in different directions, floes collided, moving north and south. Natural law seemed held in abeyance. Even math and logic degenerated into anarchy this far north.

  “If you get electricity, how long till you can arm the torpedoes, Chief?” I asked as Karen’s head jerked in my direction.

  This time he came in clear. “A couple . . . minutes, sir.”

  “Hurry. We may need it.”

  There was a pause. The chief said with some irony, “Colonel, last time I looked, our bow pointed straight at ice. An explosion at forty yards, the concussive power, could crack us open. And even if I get power, I’m not sure we can fire or program the fish. Controls might be damaged in the torpedo room.”

  “One thing at a time, eh? Electricity first.”

  The Chinese captain had positioned his sub perfectly. I envisioned his open torpedo tubes beneath the waterline, enormous snouts. Inside lay finned missiles. He wouldn’t even have to guide them, as we lay straight ahead. The ones destined to destroy our sick and wounded would be wire-controlled, so as to curve left upon launch.

  I tried to reac
h Major Pettit as, on the ice, Andrew Sachs skied toward me, waving his arms and moving faster and abler, I noted, than he had while getting here. A fast learner? Clinton Toovik had exited a tent, and was also coming. So was Peter Del Grazo. All the homing pigeons converging to help.

  Or is one of them coming for a different reason?

  Pettit’s crackly voice came back, via his neck mike. “I see it, Colonel.”

  “Turn the evacuation over to the chiefs. Don’t fire. Get more men over here! Can you find any cover?”

  “Negative, sir. We’d need axes to break up the ice.”

  “No hummocks, ridges, something to get behind?”

  “Flat as a pancake if you want us close. Plus, no way to move the sick out yet. They’re not loaded.”

  Bobbing thirty feet away, the Chinese Zodiac’s fur-hatted passenger turned out to be an officer who spoke English, his language skills one more Arctic ability that our party lacked. The man smiled and waved and knew not to try to get up on deck, but he tossed up to Lieutenant Speck a ziplock package containing a handheld Chinese radio. He seemed like every Good Samaritan ever to arrive at the scene of an accident. His captain wished to help, he said. But the goodwill on his face was marred by the threatening bulk of the sub behind him.

  The officer said, “We understand that you are in trouble. My captain wishes to speak with you, sir. I will translate.” He explained the operation of the radio. It was similar to our Motorolas, handheld or neck-mounted, encrypted and probably equipped with automatic frequency jumping to discourage monitoring or jamming. Good at short range, in good weather, lousy at long range, in any weather. They could cut off reception on the set remotely, when they wanted. And like our models, if you wanted to share conversation, all you had to do was instruct everyone else with similar sets to tune to the same mode.

  I had a feeling more than one person would be monitoring what came next. Maybe someone all the way in China.

  Is it possible he can reach home, but we’re blocked?

  The green light on the unit glowed on, meaning that the figure on the bridge of the other sub, waving, was ready to talk. I wasn’t. I turned it off. I pretended to speak into the unit. I shook it, as if it was not working right. I kept the red light on, pressing a gloved finger firmly over the mike, in case the thing was transmitting anyway. With my other hand, out of sight, I activated my Motorola, raised my voice, and pretending to address the Chinese set, spoke loudly to Pettit over the other line.

  The Chinese Zodiac below had pulled back, too far away to hear. I turned my head, in case they had a lip reader.

  I told Pettit, “Move the sick behind the pressure ridge, out of the line of fire.”

  “I’ll tell the chiefs, but they’re still loading.”

  “No shooting. No sudden moves. Easygoing, right?”

  “Yeah, Colonel. Easy.”

  Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Andrew Sachs reached the mass of tumbled boulders abutting the hull, discarded his skis, and began a clumsy ascent toward the bridge, slipping back, scrambling up. He was a wild card. But the presence of an important U.S. official, even when communication was out, might give us some leverage. I let him come.

  Sachs shouted up to me, “Let me talk to them. I speak Chinese.”

  You do?

  No way would I give Sachs a radio. But maybe he could translate snatches of Chinese if any came over the thing.

  Clinton came up behind Sachs and began a slower, but steadier, ascent. I could use him when it came to predicting ice behavior.

  Del Grazo knew electronics so maybe he could help Chief Apparecio below. I waved him up also.

  I couldn’t delay the parlay any longer. Heart thumping, I pressed the right-hand button on the Chinese unit. A twinkle of green came on.

  “I am Captain Zhou Dongfeng,” the translator said cordially on our three-way loop. “I am sorry that we meet under such terrible circumstances. We picked up your distress signal and can share food and medical supplies. I have an excellent physician on board to assist.”

  The accent was more British than American, and the command of English excellent. Andrew Sachs reached the deck and headed for the tower. I gestured Del Grazo to go below. Captain Zhou repeated, “My medical officer is at your disposal.”

  Yeah, to grill our guys while he works. No thanks.

  I told Zhou Dongfeng, trying to sound gracious, “Thank you for coming, Captain, and for risking your ship in this terrible storm. I’m happy to say, though, that we’ve gotten the situation under control. We’ll be moving our injured to our icebreaker. It is close. As for the medicines, we’d sure appreciate those.”

  Sachs, coming up to me, reached for the set, miming, Let me talk to him. I shook my head.

  Zhou’s voice was all sympathy. “Ah, sorry to tell you, but perhaps you are unaware that the Wilmington is stuck and cannot move. Actually, it has drifted further away from you, since you started off.”

  Christ, how does he know that? Or is he lying?

  Zhou added, “Colonel, my doctor is well trained in treating burn victims.”

  Now he’s telling me he knows my rank, too.

  Sachs reached for the radio again. I shook my head and told him to make sure I got a real translation of Zhou’s words, and to also translate any errant bit of Chinese—in the background—that came through. Perhaps Zhou might talk to someone else on the other tower, with the unit on. You never know.

  Sachs stepped toward me, unused to being ordered. “Colonel, I expressly—”

  My expression stopped him dead. He actually backed away a step. He held up both gloved palms, as if to say, Okay, have it your way. But I don’t like it.

  Three hundred yards, I thought. A torpedo, launched at three hundred yards, would require less than fifteen seconds to reach a target. We’d never hear the whoosh of discharge. We’d never hear the hum of the motor coming on. Without sonar, we’d never hear the torpedo tube doors opening, that is, if they were still closed. Perhaps we’d see a small wake through the falling snow.

  That captain would be risking blowback from an explosion that close to him. It was chess with human beings as pieces. I suggested to Captain Zhou that he send the medicines ashore, where we’d take them over, and Sachs nodded, as if telling me he approved. Asshole, I thought.

  Zhou Dongfeng countered with, “Very good. Also, I’ve been instructed to put our fine lab facilities on the incoming Snow Dragon at your disposal. My physician can take samples of blood, and perhaps this will help you identify the illness.”

  Sachs nodded, as if to urge me, Why not?

  Did I imagine a long sigh coming over that radio when I declined? Or was it static? Zhou’s voice grew firmer, losing the overtly helpful note. “Very well! I will send the drugs, and the other offer stands, Colonel. Meanwhile, if you will kindly exit the sub, I will send over a damage assessment crew and hook you up to tow you from harm’s way. You are in danger of being crushed by ice. And your reactor has been weakened by the fire, most certainly.”

  Yeah, and the second your guys are here, they’ll begin taking things apart, snapping photos, grabbing parts, making diagrams, no way, Captain.

  “Colonel, neither of us wants to see a leaking reactor go down,” Zhou added reasonably, both of us probably knowing—I would bet—that the reactor was not leaking.

  I hoped that Chief Apparecio, his headlamp glowing in the dark below, was making progress turning on the auxiliary power. I couldn’t remember how far the auxiliary power area was from the torpedo room. But I saw no lights coming on below, felt no vibration, just the dead stillness of a sub at total rest. I had to delay and figure out how to keep Zhou off.

  If I tell the chief to scuttle her, he’ll open the sea cocks if he can, and she’ll go down fast. If the Chinese hear that happening, hear the rush of water, will they fire? Will they try to board and stop it? Why would they fire? It
would serve no purpose. It wouldn’t get them the sub.

  I had another, more chilling thought.

  But what will I do if Zhou threatens to fire at the survivors on the ice?

  “Chief? Can you hear me?”

  “Almost there, Colonel. Power should have come on by now. But this . . . this stuck panel here . . .”

  “How much time to scuttle her?”

  “Don’t know, sir. The ballast controls are jammed. If I can get to the sea cocks and open ’em, ten minutes to do that, maybe another fifteen to sink. But moving around, sir, some places are blocked, and the heat fused some controls.”

  That captain knows we can’t talk to Washington. What he’s doing is blatant and brilliant and no one will see what happens here. All I can do is play for time and hope something changes and that he won’t use force.

  It was, I thought, a perfect ambush.

  Onshore, some of the Marines who had tended the sick had turned over loading to healthier crew from the Montana. Moving with exaggerated slowness, they drifted toward me on the ice.

  I told Zhou, “We expect to fix these problems shortly. I’ll decline the tow. The Montana is not abandoned. As you see, we are aboard.”

  I heard a snatch of rapid, agitated Chinese and then the unit went off.

  Sachs said, “Someone was arguing with him. Telling him to go ahead . . . to do something . . . but I couldn’t hear . . .”

  The green light came on again, and this time there was strain in the British-accented voice, which was clearly losing patience. “Colonel, the Montana is in immediate peril of being crushed. You’ve lost power, steering, and diving. You’ve got a nuclear reactor on board—possibly leaking. I must insist on assessing damage. I expect the arrival of our icebreaker Snow Dragon imminently. I’m sure that our governments will work out any details. That part is for diplomats. Meanwhile, we must prevent an environmental catastrophe, I know you will agree.”