Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller)

by Goldberg, Leonard

  “What shall we do for food?” Berns asked.

  “We’ll provide room service,” David said and headed for the door.

  “Nasty virus, eh?” Berns called after him.

  “Very.”

  David hurried down the passageway with a worried look on his face. The virus was spreading so rapidly to all parts of the ship. The cases would really begin to pile up now, particularly among those with impaired immune systems. Like the couple he’d just seen. Christ! He wondered how many more HIV-positive people were aboard the Grand Atlantic. They would go first, along with those on chemotherapy, then the elderly and infirm, then those with cardio-pulmonary problems. But there was still one big question in David’s mind. How did Will contract the virus and develop

  influenza pneumonia? How? He was a healthy kid, yet he caught it and passed it on to Sol, with whom he had close contact. And Marilyn would be next because she too had such close contact with …

  David stopped in his tracks. Close contact! The people who had close contact with Will were most likely to become infected with the virus, and nobody had closer contact than Kit! They played and ate and went to movies together every day. And who knows? They may have even kissed! Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus!

  David broke into a run and dashed to the staircase, then up the stairs at full speed. He sprinted by startled passengers as he went through a door and down a long passageway, still thinking about how close Kit and Will had been. They had been closer than Will and Sol—that was for damn sure. David grumbled to himself, remembering how cute he thought it was for Kit to have found a little boyfriend. Then it all seemed so innocent. Now it could turn out to be all so deadly.

  He came to Kit’s cabin and, after a quick rap on the door, entered. Juanita was sitting on the sofa, reading a Spanish magazine. The sliding glass doors were opened to an empty balcony. Kit was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Kit?” David asked anxiously.

  “She’s taking her afternoon nap,” Juanita replied. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “No, no,” David said, gathering himself. “Is she feeling all right?”

  “She is fine,” Juanita told him. “It was I who insisted she take a nap. Children need their rest too, you know.”

  David breathed a sigh of relief. “Has she had any symptoms of a cold? Like fever or chills or cough?”

  “No,” Juanita said and eyed him carefully. “Why do you ask this?”

  “Because there is a virus going around.”

  “The Little One is fine,” she reassured him. “See for yourself.”

  David tiptoed into the bedroom and saw Kit sound asleep, hugging her favorite teddy bear. He watched her breathe, without even a hint of a cough or wheeze. Again he was struck by the child’s beauty. The flawless skin. The raven-black hair. The rosy pink lips that always seemed to have a half-smile on them. She had inherited so much from her mother, David thought for the thousandth time. Those wonderful genes that made her doubly special. He moved silently to the bed and kissed the top of her head, careful not to wake her. As he turned to leave, he saw Kit’s diary on the nightstand. It was open. Reaching over to close it, he noticed there was a paragraph about Will at the top of the page. He had always considered Kit’s diary to be her private business, and none of his. But now things were different. Will was sick and dying from a vicious virus, and Kit was still very much at risk.

  David sat quietly in a chair and began to read the diary.

  Wednesday

  Will showed me his big secret. We went through a door by the pool and down some real slippery steps to a place where there was a lot of pipes and electric things. Then Will showed me his secret. It was a sick bird he had found under a deck chair. He had it on a dirty old blanket and was giving it food and water. But the big bird—Will says it’s a goose—wouldn’t drink or eat. Maybe because it was so sick. The bird kept coughing up stuff and it got all over Will’s face and hands, but he promised to wash it off later. Then Will put the bird back under the pipes and we left.

  David stared at the page of the open diary, stunned, with his mouth agape.

  Oh, my God!

  eight

  David took William Rutherford’s arm and guided him to the outer deck of the bridge. He glanced over his shoulder to make certain no one was within earshot of their conversation.

  “We’ve got a full-blown disaster underway on this ship,” David said gravely. “And it’s going to explode right in our face.”

  “Are you referring to the viral pneumonia?” Rutherford asked at once.

  David shook his head. “I’m referring to avian influenza. We have an outbreak of bird flu aboard the Grand Atlantic and it’s spreading fast.”

  Rutherford was shocked speechless. He stared at David for a full ten seconds before asking in a whisper, “Are you sure?”

  “Ninety-nine percent,” David replied and recited the details of the sick bird in Kit’s diary, then told him about the newly ill passengers. “So we’ve already got six who are sick, and that’s just the beginning of this nightmare.”

  Rutherford clasped his hands together tightly, a man now clearly out of his depth. “Wh-what should we do?”

  “A number of things,” David said and immediately prioritized the list. “First, we have to find the damn bird and place it in something airtight. My daughter told me it’s located down some slippery steps that lead to a large room with screened-off generators on one side and pipes and wires on the other. Do you know where that is?”

  Rutherford nodded promptly. “It’s a restricted area just beyond the pool.”

  “Does it have ventilation ducts?”

  “Of course,” Rutherford answered. He didn’t see the significance of the question at first, but then it came to him. “Do you think the virus is traveling to all parts of the ship via the ventilation system?”

  “Yes,” David said. “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “So, if we can remove the sick bird, we can stop the virus in its tracks,” Rutherford said and brightened at the prospect.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” David said carefully. “Usually the H5N1 bird flu virus is not easily transmitted between humans. Most of the cases have occurred in poultry workers who were exposed to large doses of the virus from the sick birds. But for some reason, the bird virus aboard this ship is spreading rapidly from person to person. In essence, we have a transmissible killer on the Grand Atlantic.”

  Rutherford’s face turned ashen. “Can—can a virus change itself into such a virulent form?”

  David nodded gravely. “It happened in the great flu epidemic of 1918. And I suspect it’s happened here. In all likelihood, a fair number of people have already been infected. When they develop symptoms and start coughing, they’ll become carriers of the virus and be able to transmit it to other passengers. Nevertheless, the sick bird remains a major source of the virus.”

  “So it’s still important to remove the bird,” Rutherford thought aloud.

  “Oh yeah,” David said at once. “The only question is who’s going to go down there and stick his nose next to a sick bird whose body is teeming with a deadly virus.”

  Rutherford hesitated a moment, then said bravely, “As captain of the ship, I should do it.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” David said. “You have to stay in command of the Grand Atlantic. You’re one of the people we’ve got to keep healthy.”

  “Who then?”

  “Me.”

  Rutherford squinted one eye. “Do you know how to do it with any degree of safety?”

  “No, but I think I know somebody who does,” David said, then refocused his mind on the list of tasks for Rutherford to do. “Now, while I’m busy learning how to bag that bird, there are a number of things you must do pronto. First, I’ll give you the names of the infected passengers. We have to keep them isolated from the others at all
times. They are to stay in their cabins and have all their meals delivered.”

  “Done.”

  “Secondly, two of your deckhands are down with the illness,” David went on. “You have to find a room to put them in, so they don’t infect the entire crew.”

  “Done.”

  “Next, go through your passenger list and cull out those who wrote down the present or prior professions as doctors or nurses. Call each of them and have them gather in one of your conference rooms.”

  “I could do that faster on the PA system.”

  David shook his head. “That could cause people to panic, and that’s the last thing we need.”

  “Right, you are.”

  “And one final thing,” David concluded. “Did you contact the Navy regarding our problem?”

  “Not yet,” Rutherford replied. “I decided to put in a call to the ship owners first, and I’m waiting to hear back from them. I thought it best to go through the owners, and see if they could come up with a way to transport the boy back to the mainland.”

  “Cancel the request,” David said hurriedly. “Tell them Will has suddenly improved.”

  “Why?”

  “Because for now we have to keep the virus limited to the Grand Atlantic,” David explained. “Will is now a huge reservoir of the avian flu virus, which we already know is highly contagious. If Will is taken ashore, he would spread the virus to everyone he came in contact with. And I mean everyone. The helicopter crew, the Navy personnel on the ship, the medical staff on land, and on and on. He would be ground zero for an avian influenza pandemic.”

  Rutherford swallowed hard. “Are you saying the entire ship should be placed under quarantine?”

  David nodded. “Until we get instructions from the Centers for Disease Control on when and where to make port.”

  “I should discuss this matter with the ship owners,” Rutherford said, more to himself than to David.

  “I wouldn’t,” David advised. “They might panic and do something foolish. Let’s wait for instructions from the CDC.”

  “When will—”

  “Captain!” the first officer called out from the door to the bridge. “We have a problem!”

  “What?” Rutherford called back irritably.

  “There’s another storm brewing in the Bahamas,” the first officer reported. “And we’re headed straight for it.”

  “What are the winds?”

  “They’re Category 1, at seventy miles per hour.”

  Rutherford turned to David. “We’ll have to change course to avoid the storm.”

  “And?” David asked, noticing the added worry on the captain’s face.

  “And that will take us even farther away from port.”

  “By how much?”

  “That depends on the size of the storm and how rapidly it moves.”

  David walked away, grumbling and thinking that everything was going against them. Now the virus had even more time to spread and infect everyone aboard the Grand Atlantic.

  nine

  People around the pool area stared at David as he stepped out of the elevator. He was wearing a hospital gown and latex gloves that were taped down onto his sleeves. Atop his head was a shower

  cap, and over his nose and mouth were three surgical masks layered one upon another. His eyes were covered with snorkel goggles.

  “Everyone step back, please,” Rutherford ordered from David’s side. “Please step back and make way.”

  The crowd slowly moved apart and gave David an open path to the staircase leading down to the sick bird. He walked awkwardly, with his feet apart, because his shoes were wrapped in thick towels. The passengers’ eyes were glued on David’s outrageous outfit, so no one noticed the partially hidden long forceps in his left hand or the folded-up plastic bag in his right.

  “What’s going on?” someone in the crowd cried out.

  “Please be patient for now,” Rutherford urged.

  “What the hell is that strange getup?” another voice yelled.

  Rutherford ignored the question and reached for the door to the staircase. Under his breath, he told David, “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it,” David said. “Now remember, when you hear me knock, open the door and step away—far away.”

  “Right.”

  David gathered himself and rehearsed in his mind a final time how to grab the sick bird and bring it up without contaminating himself. And how to make certain he didn’t carry any of the avian flu virus back on deck with him. Son of a bitch! he growled silently. I should be on a white sand beach in Hawaii now. I should—”

  “What’s this all about?” Richard Scott broke into the silence of the crowd. The banker pushed people aside as he made his way from the volleyball court over to David and Rutherford. He carefully eyed David’s bizarre outfit and remarked snidely, “Is it Halloween already?”

  “Please, Mr. Scott,” Rutherford implored. “We’re doing something of the utmost importance.”

  “Like what?” Scott demanded. He was wearing only tennis shorts on his well-muscled body that was covered with beads of perspiration.

  “Please,” Rutherford urged. “Now is not the time to—”

  “I don’t move until you give me some straight answers,” Scott interrupted.

  “Yeah,” another volleyball player joined in. He was in his mid-thirties, with a tattoo of a red rose on his deltoid area. “Nobody does a damn thing until we get to the bottom of this.”

  Scott shoved Rutherford to the side and confronted David face to face. “Well, Dr. Sharpshooter, it seems the captain has suddenly gone mute. So it’s up to you to give us some answers.”

  “Your best move would be to back off,” David said stonily.

  “Maybe you’d like to make me,” Scott challenged.

  The man with the tattoo moved in closer. “Maybe you’d like to make me go away too.”

  The move was so quick nobody could swear they actually saw it. In a fraction of a second, David dropped the folded plastic bag and brought his hand up to Scott’s throat, grasping the banker’s Adam’s apple and squeezing it. Scott’s face when from tan to red as he sucked for air.

  “If I squeeze a little harder, you’ll be breathing through a tube for the rest of your life,” David said without inflection. “You’ll be a banker with a tracheostomy.”

  Scott was now wide-eyed, his face deep red from lack of oxygen.

  “When I let go, you walk away,” David went on. “And you take your tattooed friend with you. Got it?” He waited for a response and when none was forthcoming, David added, “You’d better nod before you lose your larynx.”

  Scott nodded hurriedly.

  David released his grip and watched Scott crumple to his knees. He turned and gave the man with a tattoo a hard look, and that was all it took for the man to back off and retreat into the crowd.

  David reached down for the folded plastic bag and glanced over at Rutherford. “All right, let’s do it. And remember, when you hear my knock on the door, open it and step way away.”

  “What if those two idiots gather their courage and come down after you?”

  “They’ll wish to God they hadn’t,” David said simply. “Now open the door.”

  David stepped in and heard the door close behind him. The air was humid and hot, and David could feel his temperature rising beneath the layers of clothing he was wearing. He waited for his eyes to acclimate to the dimness before starting down the stairway. Like Kit had written in her diary, the stairs were covered with moisture and slippery, so he moved very slowly, not touching the walls or railing. His mind went back to the instructions he had received from Lawrence Lindberg, the director of Global Migration and Quarantine at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

  “Don’t touch anything unless you absolutely have to,” L
indberg had cautioned in their phone conversation. “Just about everything in that passageway could be swarming with that virus.”

  “Well, I’m going to have to have contact with the damn bird,” David had told him.

  “Not if you do exactly as I tell you.”

  Lindberg then instructed him how to put together a makeshift outfit that would protect David from the deadly virus. But there were still a dozen ways the virus could contaminate David, and both men knew it.

  “Place the bag containing the sick bird in a secure container,” Lindberg had continued on, “then attach the container to a very long rope.”

  “How long should the rope be?”

  “At least two hundred feet,” Lindberg had replied. “That should be enough to reach the ocean from the deck.”

  David knew from past experience that Lawrence Lindberg was a very careful man who always did his homework. Two years earlier, David had seen a Pakistani in the ER at University Hospital who was suspected of having smallpox. The patient came from a remote village in one of the tribal areas, had never been vaccinated, and had a rash that closely resembled that of smallpox. Lindberg had flown to Los Angeles and expertly guided the quarantined medical team until the disease was proven not to be smallpox, but rather a rare, relatively benign disorder that was seen only in South Asia. Maybe the virus aboard the Grand Atlantic will turn out not to be the avian flu variety, David thought hopefully.

  Maybe it will be some other, less lethal microorganism. But deep down he knew that was only wishful thinking.

  David’s foot suddenly slipped on a wet step, and he had to grab the railing to steady himself. Goddamn it! Concentrate or you’ll end up rolling around in the virus, and then start coughing your guts out, like little Will. Carefully David continued down the stairs, trying to watch his feet in the dimness. The towels wrapped around his shoes were already soaked with water and made a slushing sound with each step. He moved on, now uncomfortably hot and sweating beneath the multiple layers of clothing. The light became brighter and he saw the bottom of the staircase, with screened off generators to his right.