Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller)

by Goldberg, Leonard

  “He has coronary artery disease,” Marilyn confided. “He’s undergone bypass surgery, but still has to take a variety of medicines to prevent his angina from recurring. We were assured there would be excellent medical care aboard the ship in case of any problem. But now I’m not so sure. The little doctor downstairs is a very nice man, but I’m not certain he’s up to date.”

  Try twenty years behind time, Carolyn wanted to say but held her tongue.

  “If any problem arises,” Marilyn went on, “could we turn to you for help?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re very kind,” Marilyn said and reached into her purse for an envelope, which she handed to David. “And here is the name, address, and phone number of Sol’s friend in Los Angeles. He’s the one who knows so much about diamonds.”

  “Thanks,” David said and winked at Carolyn.

  “I wonder who the diamond is for?” Carolyn asked with a grin.

  “I can’t tell you,” David grinned back. “It’s a surprise.”

  Carolyn chuckled softly, delighted that her life was once again smooth and wonderful. The depression that followed her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s disease had finally lifted, and the memories of several failed relationships, which should have led to marriage but didn’t, had faded away. Now she had the ideal man and everything in her world was perfect. “Big secret, eh?”

  “For now.”

  The threesome strolled on as a warm breeze from the south freshened. The women chatted about the ship’s beauty spa and salon, and about shopping in the luxury stores located on the arcade level. Names such as Gucci, Bottega, and Bulgari were discussed at length. David blanked out the conversation, but his mind was still on Marilyn Wyman. A pleasant, attractive woman, well-to-do and refined, who seemingly had everything in the world. But that was on the surface. Scratch a little deeper and one found a world of sadness. A first marriage that ended in the premature death of her husband. A second marriage to a man with heart disease, who she constantly worried about. And then there was the biopsy on her breast that may or may not have revealed a malignancy. But chances were she palpated her breasts daily, looking for another lump to appear. The woman had bad karma and was waiting for the next terrible event to occur.

  “Hi, Dad!” Kit’s voice brought him out of his reverie. She ran over to give him a tight hug.

  “Hi, kiddo!” David hugged her back, loving her more than anybody or anything on the face of the earth. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” Kit told him, “but Juanita is still not feeling good.”

  “Is she still seasick?”

  “I guess,” Kit said with uncertainty. “She just says she feels bad.”

  “Well, I’d better stop down to see her.” David kissed his daughter’s cheek and tried to think why the nanny would continue to be seasick. The sea was now calm and the few swells that did occur shouldn’t noticeably affect the stability of the Grand Atlantic. But David knew that even a few swells could cause the ship to gently bob, and that might be enough to exacerbate the symptoms in those suffering from severe seasickness. Like the second doctor and nurse aboard the luxury liner, who were still dizzy and nauseated. David kissed his daughter’s cheek again and said, “We have to take good care of her, don’t we?”

  “I love Juanita,” Kit cooed.

  “I know.”

  Juanita Cruz was a naturalized American citizen who had left her native Costa Rica to get away from an abusive husband. She began working for the Ballineaus when Marianne was six months pregnant with Kit. After Marianne’s death, Juanita moved into their guest house and helped David raise Kit, like a surrogate mother. Juanita became an integral part of the family and loved Kit almost as much as her own daughter, who was currently a registered nurse at Grady Hospital in Atlanta.

  “You’ll make her well, huh, Dad?” Kit said.

  “I’ll get her fixed up,” David promised.

  As Kit reached up to hug David again, a small notepad slipped out of the back pocket of her jeans and fell to the deck. She quickly retrieved it and smiled up at David. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you too.”

  Securing the notepad in her back pocket, Kit blew him another kiss and ran back to a small restaurant that was just beyond the pool. She picked up her half-eaten hot dog, added more mustard, and bit into it, all the while talking with her new best friend, Will, who seemed to have most of his chili dog on his face.

  “She’s adorable,” Marilyn commented.

  “And bright as can be,” David noted with pride.

  “Will thinks so too,” Marilyn said. “But tell me, why does she carry around that notepad?”

  “She wants to be a writer,” David said. “So when she sees or hears something interesting, she immediately writes it down, then rewrites it in her diary for possible use in the future.”

  Marilyn shook her head in wonderment. “Has she written anything thus far?”

  “A play for her class in school based on a Harry Potter novel,” David replied. “It was surprisingly good.”

  “It’s amazing how soon some children realize exactly what they want to do with their lives.”

  “Yes, amazing,” David agreed, stealing another glance at Kit and thinking about how fast she was growing up right before his eyes. “What about Will? Has he decided what he wants to do later in life?”

  Marilyn nodded. “He’d like to be a veterinarian. The boy just loves animals and taking care of them.” She laughed briefly to herself. “He wouldn’t come on the cruise unless I allowed him to take along his pet goldfish and turtle. And of course he also had to bring his book on what to do if pets get sick.”

  “He sounds great,” David said and meant it.

  “He is,” Marilyn beamed. “My only problem is coming up with ways to feed his interest in animal care. I’ve already bought him a dozen books on the subject.”

  “What about more pets?” David proposed.

  Marilyn rolled her eyes to the sky. “In addition to the goldfish and turtle, we have two dogs, a cat, and a parakeet. I don’t think more animals is the answer.”

  “May I make a suggestion for Will?” Carolyn offered.

  “Please do,” Marilyn said promptly.

  “Well, when I was growing up, the boy next door was a real animal lover,” Carolyn told her. “Like Will, he really enjoyed looking after his pets. So his father arranged for him to work on the weekends, without pay, for the local vet. That boy is now the town’s veterinarian. You could talk with your vet and see if he can arrange a similar position for Will.”

  “What a wonderful idea!” Marilyn exclaimed. “Thank you so much for that.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Carolyn replied.

  “Both of you are becoming so special to me,” Marilyn said warmly. “We’ll have two bottles of Dom Pérignon around seven tonight. Is that convenient for you?”

  “Perfect,” Carolyn and David responded almost simultaneously.

  “And thank you for agreeing to look after Sol if the need arises,” Marilyn said to David.

  “No problem,” David said.

  “See you two at seven then.”

  David watched Marilyn walk away, her husband’s illness still on his mind. Sol Wyman required medications to control his angina, despite having undergone coronary bypass surgery. And that meant he continued to have coronary artery insufficiency and was an ideal candidate for a full-blown myocardial infarction.

  “What’s causing that faraway look on your face?” Carolyn broke into his thoughts.

  “I was thinking what would happen if Sol blocked off his bypass and had an acute myocardial infarction,” David answered quietly.

  Carolyn shuddered to herself. “We’d never be able to handle it. The sick bay hasn’t got any monitoring equipment and no anticoagulants or antiarrhythmic drugs.” />
  “And if he went into shock, he’d be dead,” David added.

  “A nightmare,” Carolyn thought aloud.

  “We’d better hope it doesn’t happen.”

  Carolyn took his arm and hugged it. “This ship is turning into another ER for you, isn’t it?”

  David nodded. “It seems like it so far.”

  “This was supposed to be a vacation away from all that stress,” Carolyn said wistfully. “A nice, relaxing time. But then again, doctors are never really off duty, are they?”

  David shrugged. “It comes with the territory.”

  ———

  Munching on a giant bag of potato chips, Kit and Will carefully studied the list of movies available on the Grand Atlantic. The luxury liner had two large theaters as well as a library filled with DVDs of the most recent hit shows.

  “Look!” Kit called out. “They’ve got the newest Spider-Man !”

  “I saw it,” Will told her.

  “Is it any good?”

  “Real good.”

  “Want to see it again?”

  “Sure,” Will said enthusiastically. “We can get a big box of popcorn and some sodas on the way in.”

  Kit checked the listings, then her watch. “Shoot! It doesn’t start for over an hour.”

  “I know something we can do to pass the time,” Will said, and looked over to the pool area to make sure no one was within earshot. “It’ll be really cool.”

  “Like what?”

  Will hesitated as he glanced around once more. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even from your dad?”

  “Yeah,” Kit said with uncertainty. “I guess.”

  “You’ve got to promise,” Will insisted.

  “Okay,” Kit said and crossed her heart. “I promise.”

  “Let’s go!”

  They hurried past the pool and lounge chairs, and through a door that opened into a narrow passageway. The area was hot and humid, with a staircase that went down at a sharp angle. Carefully, they descended the stairs, watching their every step. Will led the way while he held Kit’s hand.

  “We’ve got to go real slow,” Will cautioned. “Everything is covered with moisture and really slippery.”

  “Okay,” Kit said in a low voice. She was excited to be on a new adventure with Will, but not at all nervous. Although she’d known Will for only a few days, she trusted him. And she knew why. They shared something important that they could talk to each other about. Both had lost a parent—Kit, her mom and Will, his dad—and that left both of them emotionally scarred. It made them different from the other kids. A lot different. They always felt a sadness and emptiness when trying to remember things about their dead parent. Other people didn’t understand it. One had to have lost a parent early in life to know the feeling. “Where are we going?” Kit whispered.

  “You’ll see,” Will whispered back.

  They went down another flight of stairs and came to a metal door that had a sign on it:

  DANGER

  HIGH VOLTAGE

  “Will!” Kit cautioned. “I don’t think we should go in there.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Will said confidently. “Just follow me.”

  They entered a large room that was hot and sticky despite several ventilation ducts that circulated the air. Behind one wall were giant, screened-off generators. The opposite wall was lined with bundles of wire and big metal pipes.

  “Will, if you get us electrocuted, I’ll never forgive you,” Kit warned.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Will assured her. “Now watch.”

  He reached down beneath a large pipe and pulled out a

  crumpled-up blanket. Atop the makeshift nest was a big, gray bird. It lay motionless except for a brief fluttering of one wing. There was a thick discharge drooling from its beak.

  “It’s a goose,” Will explained. “I found it up on deck under a lounge chair yesterday. I think it landed accidentally on the ship and hurt itself.”

  “Is it dying?” Kit asked, concerned.

  “I don’t know,” Will replied. “I gave him some food and water, but he barely touched it. That’s not a good sign in animals.”

  “Maybe you should tell the captain.”

  “No! No!” Will refused adamantly. “They’d probably destroy it or throw it overboard. With some rest, he might be able to fly again.” He considered the matter at length. “Maybe the food I left for him is something he doesn’t like.”

  “Or maybe he’s got a broken bone,” Kit suggested.

  “Maybe. But yesterday he was still moving his wings, and that means nothing important is broken.”

  Will bent down farther and was now face to face with the bird. The large goose quivered as spittle drooled off its beak. Then it had a cough-like spasm, and more spittle sprayed out.

  “Watch it, Will!” Kit admonished. “That stuff will get all over you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Will said. “I’ll wash my hands when we leave.”

  He carefully fluffed up the small blanket to construct a better nest and keep the bird more comfortable. Then he pushed the small bowls of food and water closer to the bird’s beak.

  The large bird coughed again and sprayed the air with droplets that were heavily laden with the avian flu virus.

  Some of the deadly droplets floated toward the children. Others drifted up into the ship’s ventilation system.

  ———

  David peeled off his T-shirt and began some stretching exercises to relieve the stiffness in his scarred upper back. “I think I’ll shower before dinner.”

  “Want some company?” Carolyn asked playfully.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  As Carolyn slipped out of her jeans, she shivered noticeably. “Jesus! It’s cold in here. Should I turn down the air conditioning?”

  “Leave it on high,” David said while starting a series of shoulder rolls that caused the large joints beneath his deltoids to crack pleasantly. “I like it cold.”

  Carolyn nodded thoughtfully, remembering that heat bothered David, particularly at night when he always slept under a single sheet, with the air conditioner on full blast. If he began to perspire in his sleep, he would suddenly throw off the sheet and start yelling, “Get out! Get out! Get out!” At first David refused to talk about it, saying it was just a bad dream. But Carolyn persisted and prodded him and, after two episodes happened in the same evening, he finally told her why oppressive heat triggered his subconscious outburst. They were nightmarish flashbacks to a firefight that occurred in Somalia during the hottest part of the summer. David was a member of an elite Special Forces unit sent in to destroy a militant group that was terrorizing the shipping lanes in the eastern Indian Ocean. After completing their mission, the unit was on their way back to an airstrip when they were ambushed by an overwhelming force of Islamic terrorists. Somehow, in the intolerable heat, they fought their way back to a waiting helicopter, but paid a heavy price. Two members of the unit were killed and three others badly wounded, including David, who had a shattered jaw and severe shrapnel wounds in his upper body. It took two months and multiple surgeries at Walter Reed Hospital to put David Ballineau together again.

  Carolyn brought her mind back to the present and studied David’s face in profile, focusing in on the contour of his chin that had been restored with a plastic implant. A faded, jagged scar was the only remaining evidence of that terrible wound. But the emotional wounds of war, the ones you couldn’t see—those lasted a lifetime.

  Carolyn moved in closer to David and watched him rub at a deep scar on his shoulder. The scar still had flecks of black buried in it. According to David, the surgeons weren’t able to remove all the debris from the wound before they sutured it. The embedded metallic particles caused the scar tissue to itch and burn when
the muscle beneath it was stretched too far.

  “Is that scar bothering you again?” Carolyn asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Your expression says it is.”

  “Maybe a little,” David said absently. But it wasn’t the twenty-year-old wound that now had his attention. It was an intuitive sixth sense that was suddenly telling him that something was wrong. Something was amiss! On more than a few occasions the sixth sense had alerted him and saved his life as well as the lives of the others in his Special Forces unit. But what the hell could be amiss here, on a giant luxury liner in the middle of the ocean?

  Carolyn tried to read his face. “Your mind is a million miles away, isn’t it?”

  “It’s right here in the cabin,” David said, improvising quickly. “I was just thinking how lucky I am to have a beautiful girl like you.”

  Carolyn smiled at him. “You don’t lie very well.”

  David smiled back. “But I think I’m getting better at it.”

  “Not really.”

  David rubbed more vigorously at the scar, digging into it before admitting, “That goddamn itch is back.”

  Carolyn reached up and scratched the area with her long fingernails. “Better?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, let’s try this.” Carolyn stood on her tiptoes and kissed the scars on his shoulders and back. Then she ran her tongue and lips back and forth over them. A flick here. A gentle nibble there. “How’s that?” she breathed.

  David felt himself stir as her tongue came up his neck and into his ear. “You’re asking for trouble,” he shuddered.

  “Among other things.”

  David spun her around and kissed her lips hard, then threw her down on the bed. They both quickly wriggled out of their clothes, their tongues and mouths going everywhere. Clinging to each other, they made wild, passionate love. The air now filled with sighs and moans and the sound of their headboard hammering against the wall. Yet there was no hurry. They went long and slow, long and slow, then deep and easy. Then deep and easy gave way to faster and harder, and faster and harder, until they both groaned simultaneously—a long, sustained groan—as their climaxes met, with Carolyn’s seeming to go on and on.