by Brad Taylor
“I’m Captain Franke. Welcome to Air Station Borinquen.”
I shook his hand. “Pike Logan, Centers for Disease Control, and I don’t really have the time to enjoy your post. You got the word we were coming?”
“Yes. You need transport to a cruise ship, is that right?”
“Like yesterday.”
We walked into a hangar and he pointed at a group of sleek, orange and white helicopters, with a unique embedded tail rotor. “We’re tracking its location, and I’ve got four Dolphins, three fully mission capable.”
“Perfect. The boat has no landing pad, so we’ll need to rope in. These outfitted for that?”
“Rope? What do you mean?”
Uh-oh.
“You know, fast rope? Like Call of Duty?”
He looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. I gave up.
“How will we get on board the ship?”
He pointed at a basket and said, “You’ll get lowered in that.”
Boy, that’s going to be real speedy. Knuckles is going to shit.
Speaking of the devil, Knuckles and Jennifer walked up, with him asking, “Did I just hear what I thought I did?”
“Don’t even start. Get our kit loaded. Docs in one bird, our team in another. We’ll develop the situation first, then call them in.”
72
Elina turned off the small television above her bed, sick of seeing the exact same movie for what could have been the tenth time. She closed the drapes to her stateroom and laid out the vest, staring at it.
It was time. Twelve o’clock.
She cinched it on, slowly ensuring everything was perfectly in place, taking much longer than was necessary. Satisfied at the fit, she joined the loose wires from the blasting cap to the detonator, ensured a solid connection, then slid the assembly into the Velcro fabric just underneath her left armpit, trapping it between her dress and the vest.
She sat on the bed, debating, then decided to call. She had earned one final meal with actual silverware, where she could drink from a glass instead of a water bottle.
And a final bit of companionship from another human being.
The man answered the phone, and she said, “You still want lunch?”
* * *
I saw the ship in the distance, a speck that grew larger by the second. I could hear the pilot talking to the bridge, letting them know we were inbound and to slow the engines, making it easier to transfer us with the basket—what Knuckles now referred to as “putting on the training wheels.”
Even though it didn’t matter, I held up a finger and shouted, “One minute!”
Everyone else echoed the command, checking that their weapons were concealed and touching other pieces of kit. Knuckles just rolled his eyes.
We drew into a hover over a basketball court, four crew members below to assist in the transfer and others keeping a crowd off of the deck. Decoy and I went out first, and I had to admit I felt a little bit like a pussy as the basket lowered onto the deck, slow as molasses.
A full fifteen minutes later, we were assembled and the helo had pulled off enough to allow us to talk without a gale-force wind.
I pulled the captain aside, out of earshot, and said, “Room number?”
He gave it to me and said, “What are you going to do if she’s not there?”
“I’m going to find her.”
The primary plan was to go to her stateroom and see if she was inside. If she was, we were simply going to barricade the door, locking her in, then bring in CDC to assess any damage. She couldn’t get out through the miniature window of her room.
The captain said, “What should I be doing?”
“Nothing. Whatever you do, keep to the story you’ve been told. We get a panic on this boat and there’s not enough people on the island of Puerto Rico to contain it.”
He gave me several copies of a map of the boat and a passkey, then said, “Good luck.”
They left the deck and I handed out the maps. The place was a damn maze, and it was huge. “Man,” I said. “If she’s not in the room, we’re in real trouble.”
Decoy said, “I always hated ship takedowns. They are the fucking worst.”
Having done one or two during training I couldn’t have agreed more, but I had been ordered into it as a “force enhancer” because I was in the Army. Hearing him say it was ridiculous.
I said, “You’re a damn SEAL. This is what you do.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
I glanced at Knuckles, the other SEAL, and said, “I’ve never met a squid who hated boats more than him.”
I raised my voice. “Everyone, remember, we only have about thirty minutes of on-station time for the helos. We don’t find her in under thirty, and we’re stuck on the boat without the CDC help until they can do a revolution back to base for fuel. No change to the plan. Room first, then we start our search grid. Jennifer and I take the most likely, because she knows her on sight. Questions?”
Retro said, “We never finalized rules of engagement. I see her, what do you want me to do?”
I knew what he was asking. He could take her down with little effort, but he’d be dealing with a death machine. He wanted to know if he was supposed to risk his life. All it would take was her biting or spitting on him.
“Stay in pairs. You find her, get guns out. Screw the CDC cover. Get her on the ground. Be prepared for her to run—remember, she has nothing to lose. She tries, shoot to kill. But only as a last resort. You spill her blood, and that place becomes ground zero of virus land.”
The team’s humor wilted at my statement, all realizing how deadly this had become. Unlike the CDC doctors, we were used to the threat of conventional attacks. What frightened them was old hat to us. Facing a mindless virus that would rip a body apart from the inside out scared all of us more than anything we had ever seen.
Knuckles said, “That happens, what are our odds of getting out clean? No bullshit. You’re the guy that talked to the doctor who made this thing.”
I took a breath and let it out. “I don’t know. We’ve been vaccinated, but the doctor never got to test the version we used. He seemed to think it would work, but there’s really no way to tell. We’ve all been pumped full of Tamiflu, and that’s supposed to help. The doctor couldn’t predict, but he did say he thought we’d be good as long as we didn’t get any bodily fluids on us.”
Nobody said anything for a second, then Retro whispered, “Head shots only. Stop her in her tracks.”
* * *
Elina met him in the aft dining room on the lobby level, her first time there. In fact, her first time in any of the multitude of restaurants on the boat, and she was enjoying it immensely. The thought of eating with real silverware on a real plate, drinking out of a real glass, was almost overwhelming, causing her to forget for a moment what was to come.
After leaving her room, strangely giddy at the prospect of talking to someone, she’d had a little bit of a delay as the ship stopped its forward movement and prevented any travel from bow to stern. She’d asked what was going on and had been told someone very sick was being flown off of the boat by helicopter. She’d nodded, wondering if somehow she’d slipped up.
Eventually, she’d made it to the dining room and was met by her suitor, now wearing a coat and tie and looking somewhat decent. Even attractive. He pulled out her chair and she sat down, saying, “I didn’t know they even had restaurants like this on the boat.”
“Yeah, it’s the best place to come because you have to wear regular clothes and they take your order. Most on a cruise don’t want to waste their time, so they all go to the hog-trough buffet on the Lido deck. That place is always jam-packed.”
Elina filed that away. She said, “You never told me your name.”
“It’s Jared. Jared Bonaparte. I’m from Louisiana. What about you?”
“I’m Elina. I live in Latvia. You know it?”
He surprised her. “Yeah, actually I do. I was in the Army in the e
ighties. I served in Berlin. After the wall fell, my buddies and I traveled around over there, hitting up all the new countries that used to be the Soviet Union. We never made it to Latvia, but I know where it is.”
She said, “You went to Prague, didn’t you?”
He laughed and said, “I did. How did you know?”
“That’s where all the westerners go. Have you ever heard of Chechnya?”
The waiter arrived, interrupting the conversation. Elina showed confusion, and Jared helped her out. “Order whatever is on the menu. It’s free. Part of your ticket.”
She did so, and the man left.
He said, “You were asking about Chechnya, and yeah, I’ve heard of it. Sometimes I wonder about where the world is going. I ‘fought,’ if you can call it that, against the Soviet Union, and now they’re our friends, but they’re doing the same damn things they did when they were our enemies.”
She took that in and said, “But they’re all Muslims.”
He looked at her in confusion and said, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
She felt her foundation shift. The reason for the attack beginning to slide. She said, “Jared, whatever you do, after today, go to your room and stay there. Leave here and get enough bottled water to last until you dock. No matter what anyone says, don’t open your door.”
“What are you talking about? Are you nuts? Muslims, hide in the room—really?”
He was looking at her like she was insane, and she realized how ridiculous she sounded. She reached across and put her hand over his, saying, “Sorry. It has been a rough couple of months for me. And I don’t speak English that well.”
He relaxed, and Elina pulled her hand away. He said, “I know what you mean. I just got divorced after twenty years. Wife was sleeping around on me. Completely shattered my entire life.”
She started to respond when she saw a woman enter the dining room with a man, both searching about as if trying to find someone who was waiting on them. The female looked vaguely familiar.
She searched her memory, then felt a jolt of fear straight to her core. The woman’s hair had a different color and was shorter, but there was no doubt.
It was her pursuer from Macau.
73
The room check had proven to be a bust, with the carrier out and about somewhere on the massive ship. The cubicle looked like the den of an animal, with Styrofoam room-service boxes stacked all over the place. We’d searched it, picking up items with coat hangers and ridiculously holding our breath, and found nothing but her clothes, a packet of disposable hospital masks, and a garbage can full of plastic water bottles. Which meant she was taking precautions, something I read as a good sign.
She hasn’t been spitting in the salad bowl for the past week if she’s only eating room service, drinking bottled water, and running around like she’s in the ER.
The bad news was she wasn’t there, which meant she was potentially at an endgame, doing whatever it was to infect the boat. Everyone saw the reality in the empty space, but nobody could figure out the method.
Retro said, “What now? How is she going to hit this place?”
“I don’t know, but it’s coming soon. We need to find her before she triggers.”
Decoy said, “Maybe she’s filled up a bunch of water balloons with her urine, and she’s going to start lobbing them at the pool during the limbo competition.”
Jennifer snorted in disgust and glared at him. I split up the crew into teams of two, giving us three separate search teams. We spent a second dissecting the boat, then I divvied up assignments, focusing primarily on the dining areas, since it was lunchtime. The biggest problem we had was that nobody but Jennifer had actually seen her. Everyone else was working off of the sketch.
“Look for a woman alone. On this boat, that’s going to stand out. See that, then compare to the sketch. Worst case, remember, she doesn’t know you. Ask her for the time. If she’s got a Russian-sounding accent, take her down. We’ll sort out the due-process bullshit later. Better to ask for forgiveness on this one.”
There were four separate dining rooms, but only two were open for lunch. Jennifer and I took the one at the lobby level, Decoy and Retro went to the casino, and Knuckles and Blood went to the Lido deck to the buffet and assorted hamburger stations.
We arrived at the lobby level, only to find you couldn’t reach the restaurant by going straight to it. You had to go up one deck and over, then down again. What a damn maze.
Cutting through a children’s arcade, Jennifer grabbed my arm, pointing at a woman disappearing through a hatch.
“That looked like her.”
We picked up our pace, only to see the woman snag a little boy and begin scolding him.
We’re never going to find her on this boat. I began thinking about drastic action. Calling an emergency lifeboat drill or something, just to get everyone locked up in certain locations. The problem was the chaos might actually help her achieve whatever she was planning, and there was no way I could trust that she’d pay attention to the commands and go to her designated area.
We searched the first level of the dining room and came up empty. We wound our way down the circular staircase and began searching the bottom floor. We’d only walked about six feet when Jennifer did a double take on a woman sitting with a man. Someone I’d initially ignored because she wasn’t alone.
“That’s the carrier.”
I started to ask if she was sure when the woman stood up and began walking at a fast pace to a side stairwell.
I keyed my radio as we both broke into a jog. “We have the carrier. Aft dining room. Going up the stairs. We’re compromised.”
We ran by her companion, who shouted, “Hey, what the hell’s going on?”
Hitting the stairwell, we both started to run, taking the steps two at a time, hearing her just above us.
* * *
Elina felt her lungs screaming and ran on, weaving up the stairwell, one thought pulsing in her: Lido deck. Get to the Lido deck.
She passed the seventh deck, her legs beginning to feel like rubber. She slowed and heard the pounding just below her. She staggered on. Hitting the eighth deck, where her room was located, she knew they were going to catch her before she reached the Lido deck at level ten. She left the stairwell, racing down the narrow hallway of staterooms, taking a left in a corridor to get to the port side, then ran backward to another stairwell and continued on, hoping she’d gained some time.
She broke out on level ten right outside the swimming pool, dazzled by the sunlight. She saw the entrance to the buffet a few feet on the other side of the pool, a long line snaking out of the doors almost reaching the edge of the water. She took two ragged breaths and began to jog forward, ignoring the stares of people sunbathing in the lounge chairs.
She had reached the edge of the line when she saw a commotion coming from the opposite direction. Two men bulling their way through the crowd, drawing curses. She heard someone say, “He’s got a gun!”
And knew who they were.
She turned around and ran on the edge of the pool, trying to reach the second entrance on the starboard side, leaping over people lying out sunning. She reached the stretch of deck leading to the second buffet line and saw another man holding an assault rifle with a folding stock. She stopped moving, and he swiveled his head back and forth, going right over her.
He doesn’t recognize me.
She began to backtrack, intent on getting back into the stairwell she had come from, now certain the team hunting her did not know what she looked like. She moved slowly so as not to draw attention. She had reached the far side of the pool, the stairwell directly in front of her, when the door opened.
74
Knuckles radioed that they had cleared the buffet and it was a dry hole. I directed him up to the final level, to the water slides, in the hopes that she was now simply trying to hide. I was a step behind Jennifer exiting onto the Lido deck, the heat and glare of the sun ov
erpowering, blinding me. I saw Jennifer draw up short and followed her gaze.
She shouted, “Elina!”
And the carrier turned and ran, toward the railing of the boat, near a Ping Pong table with a multitude of kids playing around it and two women asleep on adjacent lounge chairs. She sprinted around the table and glanced over the railing, now hemmed in by the bulkhead of the boat and the open ocean. The only way out was through us.
Jennifer closed the distance, her H&K UMP at her side, nonthreatening, getting thirty feet away. I stayed on the far side, preventing the carrier from squirting back to the stairwell.
I put my red dot on her eye orbit and said, “Jennifer, don’t get any closer. Get your weapon up. Get her on the ground.”
The crowd behind us began to gather, some shouting. A few of the kids scampered away, others hid under the table or simply sat down and began crying.
Jennifer said, “Elina, it’s over. We don’t want to hurt you, and you don’t want to harm these children.”
The carrier said nothing. She simply stared at Jennifer.
“Come on. Please. Get on your knees. Don’t make us hurt you. I know you don’t want to do this. I know.”
She spoke for the first time. “You shoot me, you release the virus.”
“I can’t let you go. I can’t let you infect this ship.”
She said, “Maybe I already have.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. We saw your room. And I saw you eating lunch with the man. You weren’t going to harm him. I watched you smile. Please. Lie on the ground.”
I wondered if this was stupid. If we just shouldn’t put a bullet in her head, because it would probably end up that way anyway. But that would release the virus, so I let Jennifer run.
The carrier shook her head and gazed out into the ocean. “It doesn’t matter now. You have to kill me. I’m a Black Widow. I can’t go back. I can’t go forward. I can’t do anything but die. It’s my destiny.”
Something she said tickled the back of my brain, telling me it was important. Deadly important.