Plague Ship (A Ballineau/Ross Medical Thriller)

by Goldberg, Leonard

  “Costa Rican herbal tea,” Juanita replied. “The boiling tea leaves help clear the lungs.”

  David’s eyes bore into the nanny as he hoped against hope that the herbal tea contained some potent antiviral agent. “Did you use this tea?”

  Juanita shook her head. “It only works in children.”

  “I see,” David said, hiding his disappointment. He leaned over to the nanny and eased her back onto her pillow. “You rest now. It will be your turn to watch over the Little One this evening.”

  “Good,” Juanita said, closing her eyes and drifting off again.

  David signaled Carolyn and they tiptoed out into the sitting room. They stared at one another, almost not trusting what they had just witnessed. It wasn’t a return from the dead, but it was close.

  “Unbelievable!” Carolyn breathed.

  David nodded. “There’s no question she’s better. It looks like she’s going to survive.”

  “Maybe the virus isn’t as nasty as we originally thought.”

  “Oh yes, it is,” David said firmly. “Everybody who has caught the avian flu virus has died or is dying. So far, we’ve got over a hundred dead and twice that number dying. And there have been no exceptions until Juanita.”

  “But why her?”

  David shrugged. “Maybe her immune system was able to mount an antibody response against the virus.”

  “Or maybe she was plain lucky.”

  “When it comes to medicine, I don’t believe in luck.”

  They heard Kit coughing. A high-pitched, child’s cough. She coughed again and again, trying to clear her lungs.

  “I’ve got to get Kit more oxygen,” David said determinedly.

  “But how?”

  David quickly thought about possible sources of oxygen tanks. There were only two. “First, I’ll check Deedee Anderson’s room for spare tanks. She’s so close to death, all the oxygen in the world won’t help her. If I can’t find any there, I’ll have to go back to the storage area.”

  “But it’s so dangerous.”

  “I have no choice.”

  They walked on their tiptoes, arm in arm, back into the bedroom. Kit and Juanita were both asleep. The nanny was snoring softly.

  David bent over and kissed Kit’s forehead. She didn’t stir. He turned to Carolyn and said, “You know, I think her color is a little better. I think the oxygen may really be helping.”

  “I do too,” Carolyn agreed and looked directly into David’s eyes. “But while you’re searching for more oxygen, please remember that a dead father won’t do Kit any good.”

  “I don’t plan on dying.”

  “But if Choi sees you with the oxygen tanks, he’ll stop you and kill you.”

  David reached into Kit’s pillowcase and extracted the hatchet. He tested the sharp edge with his fingertip before saying, “If he tries, it’ll be the last thing he does on the face of the earth.”

  Carolyn shivered at the sudden change in David’s expression. Now he had on his war face. Now he was a stone-cold killer.

  David tucked the hatchet under the back of his belt and slipped silently out of the room.

  thirty-two

  David found Deedee Anderson dead in her cabin. But someone had been there before him and played with the body. Her silk nightie was ripped open, exposing her silicone-enhanced breasts, and bright red lipstick had been applied in a careless manner. Sick! David thought and wondered who was responsible. Richard Scott? Tommy? Maybe one of the crew? Whoever it was, was sick as hell. He covered her with a sheet and searched around for tanks of oxygen. The only one he found was on the floor, empty and discarded.

  He dashed out of the cabin and down the deserted passageway, now concentrating on the other way to obtain a tank of oxygen for Kit. First, he would need a diversion of some sort. Something to get the mutineers out of the storage area and him in, unnoticed. But what? A fire? An alarm bell? A smoke—

  David stopped in his tracks. There were faint footsteps and voices behind him. He raced for the first cabin door he saw and entered without knocking. Quietly he closed the door and held his ear to it. There was only silence, then voices approaching. A couple. A man and a woman. It couldn’t be Choi or the mutineers or any of the deckhands. A door slammed shut. The voices disappeared.

  David relaxed, but only for a moment. Abruptly he brought a hand up to muffle another cough, which was again dry and short. Before he could begin to worry about it, he detected a terrible stench in the air. A body was decomposing somewhere in the cabin. He glanced around the empty sitting room, then over to the sliding-glass balcony doors that were closed and kept the odor in. Holding his breath, he walked into the bedroom and saw two bodies on the bed. A woman and a child were bloated and green and decaying in the hot, humid enclosure. He gagged briefly and looked away. The sickening sight reminded him of rotting bodies he’d seen in the streets of Mogadishu twenty years ago. But unlike Somalia, there were no swarming flies, at least not yet.

  David hurried out of the cabin and ran for the staircase. He took the stairs down two at a time, making no effort to conceal the sounds of his footsteps. If he was seen and challenged, he had a ready-made excuse for being there. He was on his way to see a sick passenger. David knew that virtually any cabin he went to would have sick or dead occupants. But the storage area was another matter. If he was caught there, he’d have no excuse. He’d have to kill. And that was bad. More bodies meant more problems.

  He came to the storage level and cautiously opened the door. The passageway was still and silent, but well lighted. The stillness made the hairs on the back of David’s neck stand up. All of his senses were suddenly heightened. Something was wrong. There should be people, noise, the sounds of an ongoing search. He wondered if they had found Robbie’s body and taken it topsides.

  David moved along the passageway past the carpenter’s shop and laundry room, all the while keeping his ears pricked. He heard nothing but his own soft footsteps. As he approached the entrance to the storage space, he reached back and made sure the hatchet under his belt could be extracted with ease.

  The lights were off in the storage area, and there were no sounds coming from within. David took a penlight that he used to examine patients’ throats and shone it on the floor. Slowly he moved alongside the aisles, counting them, until he came to the one holding the oxygen tanks. On tiptoes, he walked to the shelf where the tanks were stored. Shit! There was only one cylinder remaining. He quickly searched the surrounding shelves for more tanks, but saw only boxes of surgical instruments and bags of IV fluids. Cursing again under his breath, he grabbed the sole cylinder of oxygen and raced to the next aisle over. David didn’t need his penlight to locate Robbie’s body. The stench of decay told him it was very near.

  Not good! Not good! David groused. A blind man could find the body now. And the smell will linger in the rug, long after the body is removed. Goddamn it to hell!

  Hurriedly he recalled the contents of the adjacent shelves. Furniture. Mattresses. Linens. Fixtures. Then soaps and detergents and other—

  Oh yeah! Detergents! David turned and sprinted full speed past furniture and mattresses and linens before reaching the shelves that held the huge cartons of soaps and detergents. With his penlight, he found two gallon-sized containers of lemon-scented detergent. He gripped their handles and, with the oxygen tank tucked under his arm, dashed back to the aisle where Robbie’s body was. He put down the folded body bag he’d brought along and went to work. It took him less than a minute to pull off the stack of rugs and unroll the one with Robbie in it. The stink was awful. The heat within the rolled-up Persian rug had apparently sped up the decaying process.

  David hastily poured the lemon-scented detergent onto Robbie’s body and the Persian rug, dowsing both. The stench was muted, but it was still there. Now it was a lemon-scented stench. David spun around to obtain more detergent and
perhaps some deodorizers as well. Suddenly the lights came on, bright and blinding. David heard voices. Two or three. He couldn’t be sure. But one of the voices belonged to Choi.

  In a matter of seconds, David rolled Robbie’s body into the thick Persian rug and hoisted it up onto the shelf. After pushing the body well in, he piled two more rolls of rugs atop the Persian to ensure that Robbie was completely hidden. Then he took out his hatchet and, crowding into a nearby stack of rugs, he waited.

  The voices grew louder, but were still difficult to understand. David concentrated his hearing to catch every word. There were two people near the entrance and they were having an argument.

  “We do like Mr. Scott say,” Choi was insisting.

  “But we’ve already searched the place,” a second voice complained.

  “We do again,” Choi ordered. “But this time we throw everything off shelf and onto floor.”

  “Shit! That will take us all day.”

  “Not if we find Robbie.”

  “All right,” the second voice said begrudgingly. “But what’s so important about finding Robbie?”

  “Robbie is Mr. Scott’s half-brother, and Mr. Scott want Robbie in boat with us,” Choi said. “So we find.”

  David’s brow went up. So Robbie was Scott’s half-brother! That would explain how Robbie, who was obviously from the working class, could afford to be on a luxury liner that cost at least $8,000 per passenger. The affluent Richard Scott footed the bill for his brother. And no doubt for Tommy as well, who was probably a personal assistant or bodyguard. David stifled a cough and swallowed it back, then concentrated his hearing as the two crewmen began speaking about the lifeboats and how they would be used, particularly if Robbie was sick.

  “The lifeboat might get a little crowded with him in it,” the second voice said, then had a harsh coughing spell. “It’ll get real crowded if we have to lay him down.”

  David nodded to himself. The voice belonged to the redheaded mutineer who was coughing on the bridge. Hopefully he’d become sicker, and that would leave only Richard Scott and Tommy to deal with. And of course Choi, who was the most dangerous of the lot.

  “Big lifeboat,” Choi was saying. “Plenty of room for Robbie, Tommy, Mr. Scott, you, me, Locke, and lady doctor.”

  Son of a bitch! David seethed. Jonathan Locke was the inside man who helped Richard Scott with the mutiny. A goddamn traitor! And then there was Karen Kellerman, two-faced and self-serving like always. She would be the first to jump off the Grand Atlantic along with the mutineers, saving herself at the expense of others. The good doctor, he thought disgustedly.

  David went back to overhearing the conversation between the mutineers.

  “So I take this side,” Choi directed. “And you take that side. Start here and go all the way to wall.”

  Ah-huh, David deduced quickly. They planned to start their search in the center of the storage area and work their way to the sides. That would take time, but it would also prevent him from dashing for the entrance. There was no way he could accurately predict where Choi and the other mutineer would be at any given moment. And if he was spotted, Kit would never receive the oxygen, and he could end up dead, especially if Robbie’s body was discovered.

  David eased himself out from his hiding place and again concentrated his hearing, listening for sounds that would help him pinpoint the location of the mutineers. He heard the thud of boxes as they hit the floor at least four aisles away. Then came the noise of metallic objects clanging together. Then came a loud, raspy cough. It was the redheaded mutineer and he was moving fast. David quickly gazed around for another hiding place, preferably one that would allow him to attack from the back or front. His eyes went to a large shelf, four feet up, just down the aisle from Robbie’s body. It held large cushions for lounge chairs. He climbed up quickly and wedged himself into the shelf, feet first. Then he reached back for his hatchet and pulled two cushions in front of his face, leaving a very narrow space between the two for him to spy through.

  With his mind preoccupied, David didn’t take into account that he was now encased by thick, heavy cushions, which would cause his core temperature to rise. Degree by degree the heat within the closed-off space intensified. David began sweating profusely in the blackness, drenching his shirt top to bottom. Then the flashbacks came, brought on by the scorching heat. He was back in Somalia, surrounded by Islamic terrorists hellbent on killing the Special Forces unit so they could drag their bodies through the streets of central Mogadishu. David’s hands started to shake violently as the terrorists in his mind’s eye moved in closer, screaming and yelling, their white turbans swirling in the hot wind. Suddenly his chest wouldn’t move, like it was caught in a vise. He gasped for air, his senses telling him he was about to suffocate in the enclosed space. Frantically he punched at one of the large cushions and it fell to the aisle below. Air flowed in. Warm air, but cool enough to evaporate some of his sweat and lower his temperature. As the flashbacks faded, he took long, deep breaths in an attempt to steady himself and ease his tremors. But the shaking continued.

  My God! I’m coming apart at the worst possible moment. Kit desperately needs oxygen and I’m the only one who can supply it. And my goddamn brain keeps going back to Somalia. Get over it! he commanded himself. And concentrate on the two men standing between Kit and the oxygen that could save her life.

  Swallowing back his fear, he turned his attention to the two crewmen who were searching for Robbie. He could only hope they didn’t hear the large cushion hit the floor, which had to have made an audible thud. He listened intently and heard the crewmen talking to one another. Their voices were still distant, still calm. Good! David told himself, climbing down for the large cushion to conceal himself again. But this time he left enough space for air to get in and circulate.

  The crewmen’s conversation stopped. Then seconds and more seconds or maybe a minute passed. David couldn’t be sure because the blackness all around disoriented him to time. Now he could only hear the sound of his own breathing. More and more seconds went by in the stillness, and David wondered if the mutineers had left. Maybe they had been called away temporarily. That would give him enough— Abruptly the racket made by the searching crewmen commenced again.

  The noise of objects crashing to the floor drew closer and closer. David heard dishware and glasses shattering, followed by a string of coughs. Then there was more coughing and the sound of the mutineer hawking up phlegm to clear his throat. Then came more glassware breaking into pieces. There’s no way they’ll miss the stench of Robbie’s decaying body! No way! Pushing his legs against the back of the shelf, David readied himself to pounce.

  For a moment things went silent. David held his breath and listened intently, now wondering what had—

  The silence was abruptly broken by a deafening blast from a shotgun. The loud bang reverberated back and forth across the immense storage area. Again David’s mind flashed back to scenes from the firefight in Somalia. Muslim fanatics were all around them, screaming and yelling and closing in on the Special Forces unit. A grenade went off. John E. lost a leg and bled out right before their eyes. Got to get out! Got to get—

  David blinked rapidly as the flashback ended. Sweat was pouring down his chest, and he had to once more force himself to breathe. Two goddamn flashbacks in a row! he thought miserably. Just like the kind that occurred when I first arrived at Walter Reed. They just kept coming day and night, making it impossible to distinguish between nightmare and reality. And if that happens here, I’m as good as dead. And so is my little girl. Gradually David’s brain calmed, and he regained control of his senses. He pushed his jitters aside and brought his attention back to the mutineers.

  Choi was yelling, “Why you shoot?”

  “I saw something move up there on the shelf.”

  “Maybe Robbie, you idiot!”

  Then there were heavy footsteps before the con
versation started

  again.

  Choi made a brief chuckling sound. “A rat! You shot a big rat!”

  “It could have been that doctor,” the redheaded mutineer explained. “I remember what he did to you, and I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

  “You no shoot him,” Choi growled. “He is mine to kill.”

  “Whatever. Let’s finish up this search and get the hell out of here.”

  “We both go to my end and go shelf by shelf on both sides of aisle. That way we no miss anything and you not shoot at rats!”

  “Suits me.”

  The footsteps walked away.

  David climbed down silently and waited for the sounds of the search to begin again. The footsteps faded. Seconds ticked by, then more seconds. Choi said something, but it was garbled and far away.

  The rummaging started.

  David secured the tank of oxygen under his arm and tiptoed to the end of the aisle. He peeked around the corner and made sure the way was clear, then dashed over to the next aisle. He did this maneuver twice more and was now only two aisles away from the entrance. He peered out at the door and into the passageway. It was deserted. No guard. No sounds.

  The conversation commenced from a distance.

  “Less than twenty-four hours and we’ll be out of this hellhole,” the redheaded mutineer said.

  “Stop talk and look for Robbie.”

  David carefully peered around the edge of the aisle and saw nothing. He waited for the sounds of the search to begin again, then sprinted for the passageway.

  thirty-three

  Carolyn wrinkled her nose at the strong aroma. “You smell like lemon juice.”

  “I know,” David said. “But it’s way better than the stench it’s covering.”

  “Robbie?”

  David nodded. “He turned ripe real quick.”

  “Well, at least they didn’t find him.”

  “But they will, and soon,” David told her. “The mutineers were only five or so aisles away when I made a break for it.”