“He’s a John Doe,” Kurt said, “but you can call him Jonah. He was spit out of the mouth of a whale.”
The paramedic wrote both names down on the clipboard and rechecked the patient’s vitals. After a few more questions, they loaded the gurney into a waiting ambulance, buttoned it up and drove off.
Rudi stepped forward. “That’s not Joe,” he said. “Word out of Bermuda was, you were bringing Joe home.”
“I had to use Joe’s name and ID to get that guy out of hospital.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Pascal Millard,” Kurt said. “He’s a genetic engineer who worked for Tessa. He was in charge of their bacteria production facility. He suffered a head wound during our escape.”
“So, you kidnapped him?”
“I got him stabilized first,” Kurt said. “But we wouldn’t be able to question him if he remained on the island. And if Tessa knew we had him, he’d be in grave danger.”
Rudi didn’t bat an eye. “All right. What about Joe?”
At this Kurt paused. “The Bermudian Coast Guard is still searching for him. But it doesn’t look good.”
“How bad?”
“There’s a thousand-foot hole in the reef where that ship was sitting,” Kurt said. “If Joe was on or anywhere near it when it went up, then he’s gone.”
An outsider might have been shocked at Kurt’s words, but Rudi understood his Special Operations leader’s stoic demeanor better than anyone. There was a job at hand, emotions and mourning—if it came to that—would have to wait. “I’ll make sure the authorities out there know this one is personal for us.”
“That’s the best we can do,” Kurt replied. “What about the Monarch? We may have lost Joe. I’m not going to lose Priya, too.”
“We’re looking,” Rudi said, gesturing toward his SUV and walking as he spoke. “But you might as well look for a ghost in the wind. That plane is covered with a stealth material and crossing an ocean with little to no radar coverage. It could be anywhere, from South America to Norway. It can land on any lake, river, bay or inlet, not to mention airports, abandoned runways, hard-packed dirt or fields of ice. Even with multiple satellites searching for it, our chances are slim. And that’s only if it doesn’t put into a hangar somewhere.”
“Not a lot of hangars big enough to hide that monster,” Kurt said. “As for all the places it can land, you’re right, there’s an awful lot of them, but it’s still a finite number. That makes the plane something less than a ghost.”
“And we’ll keep looking until we find it,” Rudi said. “But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick.”
“What about the freighter?” Kurt asked.
They’d reached the SUV by now. “Different problem, same result,” Rudi explained. “Bermuda is on the path, or slightly off the path, of several major shipping lanes. There are hundreds of freighters and containerships within the radius that vessel could have covered since you and Joe saw it. Without any identification, there’s no way to know which one it might be. And if the crew has even the slightest bit of sense, they’ve gotten rid of any evidence already.”
“Which brings us back to Millard,” Kurt said. “He’s the only link we have left.”
“He’s in a coma,” Rudi pointed out.
“Medically induced, at this point,” Kurt said. “With the right drugs, we can wake him up and make him tell us everything, including where Tessa might be hiding.”
Rudi unlocked the doors. “First, we go to the White House,” he said. “The President would like to see you.”
“I’m a little busy right now,” Kurt replied.
“It wasn’t exactly an optional invitation,” Rudi replied. “With everything that’s happened, our part in this mission is being reevaluated.”
With that, Rudi climbed inside, with Kurt settling into the passenger seat.
“This is not the time to blink,” Kurt said.
“Tell that to the President,” Rudi said. “Better yet, make him believe it. Otherwise, we’ll be searching for Priya on our time.”
* * *
• • •
THE ARRIVAL at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was less than auspicious, entering via the back gate, a service door and then up through the kitchen. Instead of making their way to the Oval Office, Kurt and Rudi were shown to the lower level and the underground theater, where the President was rumored to watch classic movies from Hollywood’s golden era.
At the moment, the theater was empty, but a black and white film was showing. With nothing else to do, Kurt and Rudi took a seat.
On the screen, Errol Flynn was getting ready to attack the Crimean artillery in The Charge of the Light Brigade, one of Flynn’s biggest hits.
“Half a league, / half a league, / Half a league onward,” a voice said from behind them. “All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred.”
Kurt turned to see the President coming down the aisle. Both he and Rudi stood.
The President motioned for them to sit. “I hate to inform you gentlemen, but we’re heading into an abyss of our own.”
He handed each of them a newspaper and took a seat. Kurt received the The Wall Street Journal. On the front page was a bold headline declaring a new oil shortage.
OLD WELLS DRYING UP.
New Finds Disappoint. Demand Growing.
The paper in Rudi’s hand was the pink, UK-published Financial Times. Its headline was more ominous.
Why Is the World’s Oil Suddenly Vanishing?
“You can read them later,” the President said. “For now, let’s just say the cat’s out of the bag.”
“Intentionally?” Rudi asked.
“Of that, I have no doubt,” the President said. “There are enough identical details in both articles to suggest the information was leaked from the same source.”
Rudi put his paper down. “What’s the reaction been like?”
“Oil prices opened thirty dollars a barrel higher this morning,” the President said. “The front-end contracts have been riding higher ever since. The price could double by the end of the week. The shock is going to be sudden and severe. On top of what we’ve experienced since the Alpha Star catastrophe, and the slow rise before that, we’re looking at prices three times what they were a year ago, with more to come.”
“Not good,” Rudi said.
“No,” the President added. “All other stocks are tanking. The talking heads on TV are spouting off words like correction, recession and depression. If you look in the rearview mirror, you’ll see that economic meltdown I told you about coming on fast. I was hoping NUMA would help us avoid that.”
“We’re making progress,” Rudi said.
“Blowing up a sunken ship in Bermuda is not the kind of progress I’m interested in.”
Kurt spoke up. “I took a chance and it went wrong. If that’s indefensible, then the blame falls on me.”
The President paused, surprised that Kurt would come right to the heart of the matter. Most men called on the carpet preferred to talk about other things as long as humanly possible.
“So, you prefer a quick death,” the President said.
“I prefer not to die at all,” Kurt said. “But we’ve lost too much time to talk around the issue.”
The President crossed his long legs and nodded thoughtfully. “Rudi briefed me on your missing colleagues. You have my condolences. That’s quite a blow. By the sound of it, you’re not ready to get out of the fight. I admire that. Now, tell me how the next round is going to come out differently.”
“Because we have a target now,” Kurt said.
“We do?”
“Tessa Franco,” Kurt said. “We get her, we get the truth.”
A perplexed look swept onto the President’s face. “Tessa Franco?”
“You’ve heard of her?”
“Everyone has heard of her,” the President said. “She announced an IPO this morning and a plan to build fuel cell factories in seven different states. The senators and congressmen are falling all over themselves to praise her and vie for the business.”
“Of course they are,” Rudi said.
“You’ve picked an interesting target,” the President added. “At this moment, she’s as close to untouchable as any person on earth. For one, she’s not an American. She has dual American and French citizenship. We can’t simply go get her. Beyond that, she’s the darling of the press. She’s being treated like an international hero who’s single-handedly going to save us from this oil crisis.”
“She is the oil crisis,” Kurt insisted. “Her people created this bacterium, snuck around the world pumping it into oil fields and then sat back waiting for the inevitable.”
“Ah, yes, the bacteria,” the President said, looking at Rudi. “I understand your people brought in samples of that last night.”
“Not without trouble,” Rudi said. “Paul and Gamay were attacked on their way in. They survived and made it to Biloxi by the skin of their teeth. A saboteur working on the FEMA staff was the initial problem. But they had to fight off some very determined hijackers along the way.”
This was the first Kurt had heard of that. “What’s happening with the samples now?”
“They’ve been divided up,” the President said. “Half to a team from the CDC and the rest to the military germ warfare unit in Nevada. The two groups will be looking for methods to kill the bacteria. But even with a heap of good fortune, I’m told it might be a year or two before we create a method to attack the bacteria and deploy it on a worldwide scale. And that’s if there is any weakness.”
“There has to be a weakness,” Kurt said. “Otherwise, Tessa wouldn’t have risked trying to stop Paul and Gamay from delivering the samples.”
“That may be so,” the President said. “But time is still our enemy.”
“I know someone who can speed that process up,” Kurt said. “His name is Millard. He’s a French scientist who was working with Tessa. If anyone knows how the bacteria was put together and what its weaknesses are, it would be him.”
“And where do we find this Millard?”
“Bethesda Naval Hospital,” Kurt said. “And before you ask, he’s here because I abducted him from a hospital in Bermuda, used my possibly dead friend’s name and ID to get him past security at the airport and then rushed him onto a NUMA plane before anyone learned the truth. Rudi knew nothing about it, not until I landed twenty minutes ago. That’s why he never briefed you.”
The President stared at Kurt, incredulous for a second.
“Millard was on the production ship,” Rudi explained. “Kurt thought it wise to bring him back here, where we might learn what he knows.”
“We have to wake him up,” Kurt said.
“Wake him up?”
“He’s in a medically induced coma.”
The President paused, his expression opaque for the moment. “Going after Tessa directly would be fruitless at the moment even if this man implicates her. But that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. I’ll try and put some pressure on the SEC to put a hold on her IPO paperwork and ask them to request all manner of documents and data above and beyond the usual. In the meantime, we could use Millard’s help. You go wake him up.”
45
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
MILLARD WAS HELD in a private room with two stern-looking Marines at each end of the hallway and another pair guarding his door.
Kurt was glad to see the level of security.
After checking on Millard and finding his condition unchanged, Kurt began a conversation with Bethesda’s Director of Medical Services and the hospital’s chief doctor.
A discussion about the risks of waking Millard went several heated rounds. It ended when an Executive Order from the President arrived. The chief doctor, a resolute woman with short white hair, a stern demeanor and teal-rimmed glasses, chose to do the task herself rather than have any of her staff deal with potentially difficult decisions.
She worked on Millard with the help of a nurse and an anesthesiologist. Kurt took a seat, watching from afar.
Bringing Millard out of the coma was a slow, tedious process. First, they had to undo the effect of the drugs Millard had been placed on, then they had to deal with his injuries.
As the effort progressed, the doctor spoke to Kurt. “You’re a conundrum to me, Mr. Austin.” She spoke while monitoring the patient and not bothering to look Kurt’s way. “I’m told you risked your life to save this man. Pulled him off a burning ship. Is that true?”
“Something like that,” Kurt admitted.
“That explains why you smell of diesel oil and why both of you are singed in places,” she added. “It doesn’t explain why you’re willing to take a risk with his life this way. You do realize he has swelling in his brain? Trying to wake him up now is dangerous. You may end up killing him. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not,” Kurt said. “This is not an easy decision, but we need to know what he knows. So please, just do the best you can.”
The doctor said nothing more to Kurt and concentrated on Millard. She checked his vitals, as new drugs were added to the IV drip, and double-checked the contents of an injection that was being prepared.
Over the next twenty minutes, Millard moved closer to consciousness, his heart rate and respiration increasing, his blood pressure coming up.
“He’s getting closer,” the nurse said.
“The EEG shows no change,” the chief doctor replied. “Brain activity is still in a vegetative state.”
Another drug was administered and finally the brain waves began oscillating.
“He’s coming around.”
Kurt stood up and moved closer. Millard was waking up, but something was wrong. Tremors were running through the man’s body. They began in his left hand, progressed up his arm into his shoulder and moved quickly to his head and neck.
Without warning, Millard kicked violently and then straightened.
“He’s seizing,” the doctor said. “More Epitol.”
With the doctor and nurse holding Millard as still as possible, a second nurse pulled a small vial from the cart and prepared another injection. With the hypodermic filled, she held it up, flicked its side with her finger and pushed the plunger a fraction to get any bubbles out.
“Quickly.”
She handed the hypodermic to the doctor, who injected it.
Millard’s seizures faded almost instantly, though his hands continued to shake. After a minute of quiet, he began to stir again. This time, his movements were more conventional. Finally, he opened his eyes.
The doctor asked him several questions, which he responded to almost inaudibly. It was enough to satisfy her. She turned to Kurt. “You can speak with him now. I’m not sure you’re going to learn much. This kind of head trauma normally leads to memory loss and incoherence.”
Kurt placed a digital recorder beside Millard and switched it on. Leaning in, he got Millard’s attention. “Can you hear me?”
The scientist didn’t respond. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. Without warning, he began thrashing around again, not in a seizing motion but as if he were trying to climb free of the bed. “The ship is going to explode,” he said. “We have to get out.”
“We are out,” Kurt said. “You’re in a hospital. We swam free, remember?”
Millard relaxed for several seconds and then began thrashing around once more. This time, he spoke in French. Kurt didn’t understand—and wasn’t all that certain the words would have been comprehensible if he did—but at least they were on the tape.
“Look at me,” Kurt said. “Do you recognize me?”
The French monologue ceased. As Millard focused
on Kurt, he switched back to English. “Hold on . . . Breathe through this . . . Don’t . . . Don’t . . .”
Kurt recognized the words he’d spoken to Millard aboard the submerged ship. “That’s right,” he said. “Don’t panic or I’ll leave you here. That’s what I told you when we swam out.”
Millard jerked upward suddenly. “We have to get out. The ship is going to explode.”
“We’re already out,” Kurt insisted. “You’re safe.”
“It’s going to explode,” Millard repeated. “It’s going to explode.”
Despite Kurt’s efforts, Millard would come out of his panic only momentarily and then go right back into it. He responded to any question Kurt asked by repeating that they needed to get off the ship and then moving his arms as if he were trying to swim.
Kurt turned to the doctor. “What’s happening to him?”
“The head trauma,” the doctor said. “It often affects short-term memory. I’ve had patients from car crashes say the same thing over and over for hours. In the simplest terms, his brain isn’t recording the fact that he got off the ship. You tell him that he’s safe. He accepts that, relaxes and then instantly forgets. As soon as that happens, he reverts to the last thing he can recall and then he’s right back on the ship. It’s like a record with a scratch on it. His thoughts keep skipping back to the same groove.”
“What about his long-term memory?”
The doctor adjusted her glasses. “I can’t say it’ll be sharp, but things that happened before the trauma are usually safe from this type of recall error. The further back they happened, the more likely they are to be unaffected.”
Kurt leaned back down toward Millard and clutched him by the shoulders. “Hold on to me,” he said. “I’ll get you off the ship. But you need to stop thrashing around.”
Millard held on to Kurt with a weak grip but this time remained calm. The doctor looked on.
“I need you to tell me about the bacteria,” Kurt said.
“It devours the oil,” Millard replied.
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