“And yourself, Dr Lebsky? Do you agree?”
“Actually, you may be surprised to hear that I have also reconsidered my previous decision to move forward quickly with Piras Stage Three. Now that we have delayed, and now some wider infection has occurred, I am tempted to suggest that we actually wait just a little longer and see what happens to those who have been infected. There are important questions that I would like to know the answers to: will the new beta drugs that the President just made available to us from several U.S. drug companies have any effect on halting the disease and improving the condition of those newly infected? And most importantly, will the plague prove to be as infectious to contemporary humans, as those from the past?”
“Is there any evidence to suggest that it will not?” the President asked.
“Sadly not at this stage, but the longer we wait, the more we shall know.”
“And the greater will be the risk to others, as you cautioned earlier…”
“That is true…”
Silence. No one spoke for a while.
“If we move to Stage Three, now…how long will it be before we are ready to detonate the device?”
“The device is already loaded in the airplane which will drop it over the resort on a parachute.” The President replied. “ The plane is on standby, and a crew is ready. It could be detonated within thirty minutes of the order being given.”
Everyone on the call digested this information.
“…And no one from the secondary group…the residents and employees…has yet died?” the Governor asked.
“No.” Dr Lebsky replied.
“Okay, gentlemen," the President spoke. "Let me propose the following. We wait a few more hours, reviewing the situation constantly. We monitor the spread of the infection amongst the residents, and the mortality rate. If those currently being treated do not respond to the latest drugs, we move to Stage Three as soon as the first death is reported. Delaying beyond that is simply foolish, given that we have the opportunity to nip this whole situation in the bud and wipe the infection off the planet, so long as it is still geographically contained. Do you all agree?”
There was a pause of several seconds, and then Dr Lebsky nodded. “I agree.”
“And so do I,” the Governor said.
“As do I,” the Superintendent concluded.
“Then, so be it!” The President summarized. “As soon as we see the first death, we shall speak again. Gentlemen, I thank you for your support. This is a difficult and dangerous world that we now live in. Tough decisions have to be made, and as leaders, it is our job to make them. But remember, by making the correct decision now, we will save countless lives in the future…Let’s just hope the new drugs work… Goodbye.”
As soon as the call finished, Dr Anton Lebsky picked up the phone and dialed the cell number of Moira Cerny in Puerto Rico. He informed her of the decision that had just been made.
Moira thanked him for the call and turned back to her screen.
“Come on girl,” she whispered to herself. “If there is anything that I have missed, now’s the time to find it.”
Behind her, she could hear the clock ticking loudly on the wall. Unless there was a miracle, it would only be a matter of time now.
Chapter 43
The Sundowner Bar
Negril
Jamaica
Wednesday
10.30 p.m.
Colonel Patterson put the cold beer down on the table in front of Professor Derek Martin, clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good to see you, Derek!”
Derek had never seen the Colonel so excited or friendly.
“Cheers!” Derek replied, lifting his glass and banging it against the Colonel’s.
“Sorry about the wait at the airport. Your plane had to fly back to Florida to pick something up, and I couldn’t get another one for you. What with the restrictions on flying into Puerto Rico at the moment, it was lucky that we got the plane back in there to pick you up at all.”
The Colonel took a sip of his beer, sat back in his chair, and relaxed.
“So, 1699, you say? The pirates come from the year 1699! This is too good to be true. It means that the pirates' ship was sucked through the vortex that the Stormchaser fell into. First the Stormchaser arrives in 1699, travelling back in time from 2014, and then the pirate ship jumps forward to 2014!”
“Not exactly. We think there was not one Hunraken Vortex, but two.”
“Two?”
“Yes. The Stormchaser traveled from the present to the past via one, and completely separately, the pirate ship traveled through another vortex from the past to the present. In effect, they may have swapped places.”
“Why? How?”
“We don’t know exactly yet, but Mick and I were crunching the numbers behind it yesterday, trying to come up with a theory to describe it, or to amend the theory we already have. We got as far as proposing the second vortex, and when we viewed the videos we have of the event, it made sense. We saw two distinct light pulses, which could be associated with the Stormchaser going in one direction, and the pirate ship in the other.”
“Wow…I hadn’t thought of that.” The Colonel exclaimed.
“Neither had we,” Derek replied. “The thing is though, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Some of the mathematics doesn’t quite balance yet…but I’m sure we will find a way to make it happen…but there is something bugging me about it at the back of my mind, that I can’t quite articulate yet.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Or maybe I do…you see, the thing is, the pirate ship is mainly made of wood. Timber - which is basically water. There is not a lot of metal. The Stormchaser airplane on the other hand was solid metal. It has an empty weight of about thirty-one tons, but when loaded can be up to seventy tons. On the airplane from Puerto Rico to here I started with playing with the numbers, thinking that maybe another reason the pirates' ship was attracted to arrive here, in 2014, as opposed to another time or place, was because the aircraft leaving through the vortex had created some sort of hole or metal-mass imbalance, that was filled by the ship when it arrived in 2014, balancing it out.”
“Interesting,” the Colonel replied. “But what about the cannon on the pirate ship. How many are there? Maybe that would make up the difference?”
“I have no idea how many there are…I looked up some reference sites on the web, and for a ship that size and type…I think you would best describe it as a ‘brig’…it could carry about twenty cannons. But I don’t think that would be enough. I tried creating several estimates of the ships metal cargo weight, and comparing it to different possible weight scenarios for the Stormchaser, but they didn’t balance. We would still be missing several tons of weight. Our new equations would work if there were a massive lump of metal sitting in the middle of the pirate ship, which acted as a sort of lodestone for the vortex to form around. Which is obviously not the case, but it would explain it really well if it was true!”
“What cargo was the pirate ship carrying?”
“No idea. I never asked. It would be nice to find out.”
“We must. Let’s get onto that tomorrow, first thing.”
“So…” Derek said, wiping the condensation off the side of his glass, and staring at the beer inside. “What did you get me to come all this way down here to see?”
“Tomorrow. You will find out then. It is too late to take you there tonight…but tomorrow will be just fine.”
“What is it that you want me to see? Come on, tell me. Let’s stop playing kid’s games. Just tell me…”
“It’s an oil-painting of Kate. Done in 1708.”
“Of Kate?”
“Yes. It’s hanging in the estate they purchased and ran in Jamaica. They were the most successful sugar plantation owners in Jamaica!”
“Who’s ‘they?’” Derek asked.
“Kate and her new husband.”
For a second, a pang of jealous
ly shot through Derek.
“Why couldn’t you just send me a photo of the oil painting? Why make me come all the way down here to see it!”
“There’s something else in the oil-painting that I want you to see too. Something extraordinary. Something that you would never guess in a million years of guessing.”
“Tell me! Now!”
“No. Tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. will do just fine…You have got to see this for yourself to believe it!”
--------------------
The Blue Emerald Bay Resort
Puerto Rico
Thursday
06:45 a.m.
Captain Rob McGregor woke up from his dream, his heart racing and fear surging through his veins. He was on the deck of the Sea Dancer in the midst of a storm. His pregnant wife Ann was standing beside him, holding onto him tightly, her arms wrapped around him tightly as he manned the tiller. As the storm worsened, suddenly Ann cried out in pain. “The baby is coming! Robert, what shall I do?”
Robert turned to his wife, her cries of pain ringing in his ears.
“Hold on, Ann, we shall soon be coming into port. Try to wait, if you can!”
“It’s coming now, I cannot stop it!”
Just then a freak wind hit the Sea Dancer, driving it hard to port. At that exact same moment, his wife let go of her grip around his belly, and cried out once more in pain. The Sea Dancer began to roll to port, a large wave simultaneously crashing over the gunwales and heading straight towards them.
For a second Captain Rob stared at his wife, who was caught off balance by the movement of the ship and was now staggering backwards towards the edge. Rob saw the wave coming towards him, but instinctively knew that he had to drive the tiller to starboard to keep the ship from rolling over altogether and sinking.
It was a simple choice: let go of the tiller and reach out and catch his wife but lose the Sea Dancer and everyone aboard, or turn the tiller, save the Sea Dancer and his crew, but risk his wife being swept overboard.
Robert hesitated for a second, let go of the tiller, then reached out to save his wife. At that very moment the wave caught her and swept her away from him. A second later, the Sea Dancer began to roll over.
Down and down the Sea Dancer fell, falling deeper and deeper into a bottomless trough that opened up before them...
Rob screamed, sitting straight up, and staring into space. Slowly his mind began to clear and he realised where he was.
He was sitting in the hospital in Puerto Rico with his men dying all around him.
“Captain McGregor?” A woman’s voice said to him feebly from his left. “Is that you?”
Rob turned to see the face of Miss Sally, her eyes opened and looking at him.
“Yes, Miss Sally. It is I. You have awoken from your fever. How do you feel?”
“Thirsty. Please, can you find me some water?”
Captain Rob returned quickly, water in one hand and a doctor following close behind.
Rob helped the doctor get Miss Sally up into a sitting position, and then helped her to drink some water. She no longer wore the facemask, its use now past and proven ineffectual in preventing her from catching the infection.
The doctor checked Sally over and then urged her to get more rest and sleep. He administered some medication to her, and then spoke briefly to the Captain out of earshot of Miss Sally.
“She needs rest, a lot of rest, but the signs are good. Her body seems to be fighting the infection. Captain McGregor, I would suggest that you leave her with us, and may I suggest that you spend less time visiting with Miss Sally and the rest of your men? I’ve noticed that you have spent most of yesterday walking around and administering to your men, but you must think of yourself! It’s incredible that you have not yet become infected, but the more time that you spend here, the more likely it will be that you catch it!”
The Captain nodded. “Thank you for your concern, but fear not. I will not catch this plague. I have already been visited by the disease before. I did not die then, and I fear I will not die now, even though all my crew may.”
“You have had the plague before and survived?” the doctor asked, incredulously.
“Yes, over three hundred years ago.”
Before the doctor could ask anything more, Captain McGregor turned back to Miss Sally, and sat down beside her.
“Close your eyes, Miss Sally, and sleep. I promise you, I will not leave your side until this infection within you is beaten. I believe that you and I will one day be friends, and I will be dammed if the devil will take you from me before I have been given the opportunity to invite you aboard the Sea Dancer, and show you how fast she can skip across the waves on a fine day with a good wind behind her! She is a beauty, Miss Sally, and I promise you that one day I will let you enjoy her as much as I have done.”
Miss Sally smiled, squeezed the Captain’s hand, and then fell back asleep.
Two hours later, the first of the residents and hotel employees died.
--------------------
Operation Cutlass Incident Room
Police Headquarters
San Juan
Puerto Rico
Thursday 10 a.m.
It was just past ten o’clock in the morning when the news came into the Incident Room that one of the guests at the Blue Emerald had died in hospital.
The news had stunned everyone, and to a man, everyone in the room had felt a twinge of fear upon hearing it.
The threat was somehow more real now than it was before, and if anything, the news helped re-galvanize their determination to fight the infection and prevent it spreading beyond the confines of the resort.
Within ten minutes of receiving the report from the army doctor at the resort, the Governor had arranged a telephone conference call with the President and Dr Anton Lebsky.
The call was short, but far from sweet. The Superintendent had summarized the latest report that they had received, and the W.H.O. leader in Switzerland had confirmed that the death toll and number of infected reported by the Governor tallied with what Dr Lebsky had been told separately by his W.H.O. doctors working in the resort.
In total seventy of the pirates had now died: an astronomical death toll within such a short period of time. Seven of the pirates had shown excellent signs of recovery, and only two more pirates had presented symptoms in the past six hours. Which was encouraging news.
However, in total, there were now eight residents of the resort and two employees who were being treated within the field hospital.
One had died.
Upon hearing this, the Governor, the Superintendent, the leader of the W.H.O. and the President of the United States of America had agreed unanimously to proceed to Stage Three of the Piras Plan.
They had each synchronized their watches.
“We will need two hours from now to ensure the safe withdrawal of our troops and police from the outskirts of the resort to the specified distance outside the blast zone,” the Governor had pointed out.
“Which means,” the President had concluded, “…that at 12.30 p.m. exactly, we shall drop an N-648 Nuclear Incendiary Device above the Blue Emerald Resort. It will detonate at 90 feet above sea-level. Every living thing and organism within a radius of a quarter of a mile from the blast center will cease to exist. Including all the pirates, the residents and the employees of the Blue Emerald Bay Resort."
"But what about the W.H.O. staff and the army?" the Governor asked.
"They will share the same fate." Dr Lebsky answered quietly. "There is nothing that can be done."
Silence.
"The important fact that we must focus on," the President continued, "…is that by 12.35 p.m. the world will be safe from the threat that this plague poses. We will speak together again at 1 p.m. after we receive satellite surveillance of the target area. Until then, I would suggest you say some prayers for those that we are about to kill, and request God’s forgiveness for that which we are about to do. Good morning gentlemen.”
>
The President hung up and the call was ended.
Two minutes after ending the call with the President and the Governor and Superintendent of Puerto Rico, Anton Lebsky called his colleague Moria Cerny in San Juan.
“Moira, the President has just this minute authorized Piras Stage Three. The bomb will be detonated at 12.30 p.m. today, in just over two hours time.”
“Oh no, …two hours time?
“Yes. How are things? Have you come up with anything yet?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps there is nothing new to come up with. Moira, listen, you must not take this personally. We are doing a job here. I know you are beginning to worry that this was your idea, but you are making a professional and scientific recommendation based upon scenarios that are well researched and agreed by all the experts in the field. Based upon the information you have, your expert knowledge, and the expert knowledge of many others, Piras Stage Three is the correct step to take. We must not think of those who will die, but honestly, we have to focus on the fact that we will potentially save millions of lives by doing this.”
“Anton, I hear what you are saying. I know this. But still…
“So, give yourself two hours more, and then you have to rest. If you don’t find anything by then that gives us any reason to abandon the plan, then it is the correct next step, for which your actions and involvement in this will be commended. Certainly by me.”
“Thanks, but that does not help. I’d better go Anton. I only have two hours and every second counts.”
Moira had been living off dark Columbian coffee for the past forty-eight hours, and now with only two hours to go, she found a renewed energy. She had only slept for three hours last night, and had not left the office in two days. Before Anton had called her with the bad news, or good news, depending upon how you viewed it, the tiredness had begun to dull her mind, but suddenly she felt alive and full of purpose. Two hours.
TIME SHIP (Book Two) - A Time Travel Romantic Adventure Page 20