Red Tide (29 page)

53

D
r. Helen Stafford adjusted the microphone. “I think it would be safe to say that sometime in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, we should start seeing our first cases aboard the
Arctic Flower.
Yes.”

She pointed at Wolf Blitzer, holding the CNN microphone in the front row.

“Sources tell us that, as of this morning, there have been two cases of Ebola found among shoreside personnel. Would you care to comment on that?”

“Actually three,” she corrected. “A union electrician. A truck driver. And a security guard in the employ of the steamship line. All three were, at one time or another, aboard the
Arctic Flower
on the night of the terrorist attack. All three are presently in Level Four isolation at Harborview Hospital.” She ignored the sea of waving hands. “As of an hour ago, we have identified fifty-six citizens who have had face-to-face contact with any of the three. Members of my staff and of the Centers for Disease Control are taking all the appropriate steps to minimize the spread of the virus.”

She listened again. “No. Privacy laws prevent us from releasing the names.”

The questions and answers went on for another fifteen minutes before Helen Stafford rose from her chair and pointed to her watch. “It’s been a long day, ladies and gentlemen. The seventh in what I imagine will be many such days. If you’ll excuse me.”

They’d run the video feed through a bevy of electronic enhancement techniques in an attempt to stabilize the image. Despite their efforts, the results were, at best, sketchy. Jim’s face no longer morphed as he talked, but the stabilization process had so flattened his features as to render him nearly unrecognizable to all but his closest relatives.

“Jim Sexton reporting live from aboard the
Arctic Flower.
Day Seven,” he intoned. As he rambled on about the weather and the discovery of a cache of liquor in a forward locker, his voice once again began to rise and to take on a more stentorian tone. The change in his demeanor had been noticed by any number of national commentators. Some suggested that he was unsure of his equipment and thus felt a need to be more forceful; others lay the change in his demeanor to the fact that his live feeds had become a regular staple of every major news organization in the world, thus catapulting him from local also-ran to internationally recognized reporting icon.

“Tonight the decks are deserted.” He paused. “As we near the end of the incubation period, people have begun to take our situation more seriously. In the past couple of days everyone seems to have taken to their rooms, venturing forth only when absolutely necessary. Tonight we truly are the Ghost Ship, the one you see on the television, our own little universe floating on the waves of Elliott Bay, waiting to face our fate, wishing each other well when we can and hoping like the devil that we’ll be the one who survives, even if it means they won’t.” He shrugged at the camera. “So for tonight anyway, this is Jim Sexton reporting for KING Five News. Good night.”

The presence came to him slowly. Like a finger gently lifting an eyelid or the soft arrival of dawn. He’d been dreaming he could fly. All the other kids in his elementary school stood openmouthed and dumbfounded as he soared above the playground with a dreamy expression etched on his face.

In the moments before he opened his eyes, he was overcome by the clarity of the images. The green of the grass. The deep red color of the earth and the fine gray gravel of the road. He opened an eye and it all disappeared.

The digital clock read twelve-fourteen
A
.
M
. The ship was motionless. Corso lay on his back staring at the ceiling. As the moments passed, he began to feel a tingling sensation run across his bare chest. Almost as if he could feel someone’s eyes on him from across a crowded room. Although he wasn’t cold, he had the sudden urge to pull the blanket over himself, but instead sat up in bed and stretched.

“You’re a heavy sleeper,” the voice said.

The sound pulled Corso out of bed in a single bound. He stood, quivering, sweeping the room with his eyes until he caught her outline seated in the armchair in the far corner of the stateroom. “You might want to put your trousers on,” she said from the darkness. She smiled. “It’s up to you of course,” she added.

Realizing he was naked, Corso bent at the waist and felt around on the floor. He took his time, buttoning up his jeans before slipping the T-shirt over his head. When he was finished, he snapped on the light over his nightstand.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Not long.”

He took a deep breath, trying to quiet his pulse. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you how in hell you got in here.”

“No,” she said. “Probably not.” Before he could speak, she rose from the chair. “Aren’t you going to offer a lady a drink?” she said. “From what I can see, you’ve got a whole bar to yourself.”

“What’s your preference?”

She thought it over. “A martini. Bombay Sapphire. Olives.”

“I can manage that,” he said and headed for the door.

She followed him outside. Around the back of the ship to the bar, where Corso snapped on the bright lights and proceeded to put together a shaker of martinis. She watched in silence as he worked.

The persistent fog had cleared, leaving the lights of the city spread out across the dark water like fallen stars. Corso slid her drink across the bar at her and raised his own glass. “Salute.”

“Salute.”

He watched her throat move as she swallowed, waited until she put the glass back on the bar. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” he asked.

She took another sip. “I came to make you an offer,” she said.

“One I can’t refuse.”

“Something like that.”

“Why me?”

It was a question for which she was prepared. “Because you have a history of being where you’re not supposed to be. You seem to have a knack for ending up in the middle of things, of making trouble, both for yourself and for others.”

“Such as?”

“Such as your problems with
The New York Times.”

“Done our homework, eh?”

“Always.”

“What do I get in return?”

“Your life.”

Corso folded his arms across his chest. “You can’t catch this, can you? This hemorrhagic fever, you’re immune to it.”

“Yes, I’m immune to it, and I can make you immune to it also.”

“There’s several hundred people on this boat and god knows how many others elsewhere who could use the same thing.”

“That wouldn’t do at all,” she said.

Corso smirked. “Because then you’d have to admit you made the virus in the first place, wouldn’t you? There wouldn’t be any other credible explanation for having the antidote, unless you’d manufactured the original virus.”

“If you say so,” was all she said.

Corso opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him off. “Everyone makes it, Mr. Corso. How could they not? How could they be unsure what their enemies were doing and purposely not keep pace? How could that kind of largesse be explained away later? What could be said to a decimated people? ‘We thought nobody was doing this kind of thing anymore’?” She made a disgusted noise with her mouth. “Everyone who can create germs is doing so. Some are merely more adept than others.”

“Hundreds of people are going to die before this is over.”

“Hundreds of people are going to starve to death in Africa while we’re having this conversation.” Her tone was flat. Her eyes unwavering.

“And you want me to do what?” Corso asked.

“I want you to deliver a package for me.”

“In return for which you’ll make me immune to the virus.”

“Yes.”

“This package…does it contain any type of—”

She read his mind. “No,” she interrupted. “It’s merely a photograph.”

“Of?”

“Of the person you’ll be delivering it to.”

“Memento?”

“Loose end.” She reached behind herself and pulled out a manila envelope which she had secreted under her belt and beneath her coat. She dropped it on the bar and picked up her martini glass. “Go ahead,” she said.

Corso pulled the flap back and extracted the photo. Two men, passing something between them. Corso recognized one of them immediately. He’d seem him on TV.

“The other man’s name is David Reubens. He used to be a genetic engineer for the Russians.”

“Used to be?”

“The Russians went broke.”

“So?”

“So he sold his product to the highest bidder.”

Corso flicked the photograph with his fingernail. “The other gentleman here.”

“Precisely.”

Corso threw her a disgusted look. She made a rude noise. “What else was Reubens supposed to do. He had a wife…children. A nice apartment in Moscow.” She waved a disgusted hand. “What was he supposed to do, when overnight everything he had worked for was gone? It’s like you Americans are so fond of saying: ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’”

He studied the picture for another minute and then looked up. “I take it this…”—he shook the picture—“this explains how a bunch of pathetic East Indian terrorists get their hands on a high-tech bioengineered virus.”

“This completes the circle.” She checked her watch. “Time is short, Mr. Corso. What do you say? Do we have a deal or do we not?”

Corso found himself suddenly filled with voices, as if his solitary inner dialogue had suddenly become a heated debate. The call to refuse the antidote as a matter of principle. The call to die a noble death rather than profit from anything tawdry. The call to insist that everyone on board the
Arctic Flower
be given the antidote as well. Each righteous incantation he dreamed up more infeasible than its predecessor. They went on and on. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing. “Deal,” he said.

She smiled. “Your room. You’re going to need to lie down.”

54

N
o dreams at all. No feeling. No moving. Just a sense of being suspended in warm water. And then the drums began. Deep and rhythmic. One two, one two, into infinity they thumped. He listened to the drumming for what seemed like days before he had an idea. He was asleep. He was dreaming. All he had to do was…

He couldn’t. Muster a muscle. Open an eye. Raise his hand. He couldn’t.

He began to rock, or at least to try. Rolling left and right, trying to move a little farther on each roll. The drums got louder. He rocked harder. Trying to use the momentum of his last effort to improve the next. Back and forth to the sound of the drumming. And then he teetered on the edge, experienced a moment of free fall and hit the floor face-first, driving the air from his lungs.

He gasped, fighting for breath, rolling over onto his back where he lay for what seemed an eternity, pulling air in and out of his chest in great whooshes.

With great effort, he levered himself into a sitting position. Unable to raise his eyelids, he used his fingers to peel the lids upward. The world swam in his vision. Tears ran down his cheeks. He removed his fingers. The lids stayed up.

Slowly, moving in stages, he gathered his strength and managed to raise himself to sit on the edge of the bed, where it all came back to him in a sudden rush. The stateroom. The woman. Lying on his back while she gave him the injection. The paralyzing heat of whatever was in the syringe as it coursed through his veins, and then the all-encompassing darkness settling over him like a velvet cape.

Must have been a dream. Some inner defense mechanism designed to provide some measure of relief from the looming specter of death. The body’s way of keeping the stress level in check. Wishful thinking at its finest. He lowered his watery eyes. A small brown Band-Aid decorated the inside of his left elbow. Took him three tries to peel it off. A single spot of blood on the gauze made a serious dent in the dream theory. He moved his eyes across the room. The manila envelope on the nightstand dismissed the notion altogether.

Using the walls and furniture for balance, Corso crossed the room and pulled open the outside door. The blast of cold air sent a series of shudders through his body. He leaned heavily against the doorjamb until the shaking subsided.

It was daytime. The weather was clear. The sky a muted blue. The air was full of the smell of seawater and diesel fumes. Using the rail for support, he made his way aft. Pair of martini glasses on the bar. One nearly full. One empty. So much for dreaming.

He kept moving. Got to the starboard rail. Seemed like the whole bay was full of boats and barges. An armada coming and going from the
Arctic Flower.
More action than the past week combined. On his way back to his room, he put the martini glasses in the sink.

Five minutes in the head, running cold water over his face and then brushing his teeth, and he was a new man. A little shaky but otherwise okay.

He snapped on the TV. Peter Jennings. Nice clip of the
Arctic Flower
floating around in Elliott Bay. PLAGUE SHIP. “The inevitable has come to pass. Despite a complete news blackout, ABC News has confirmed an earlier report. Hemorrhagic fever is now rampant aboard the
Arctic Flower.
Medical teams from as far away as the Midwest have responded to this emergency and are now engaged in the process of trying to help those on board in any way they can. What we know for certain—”

Corso changed the channel. Jim Sexton, settling in for his morning broadcast. Corso smiled. Sexton finally had his big break. Probably not exactly what he had in mind, floating around on a seagoing isolation ward, doing his impression of the electronic grim reaper, but what the hell. He was having his fifteen minutes of fame. Should he, by some twist of fate, survive the experience, it was safe to say he would be in great demand within the industry. Amazing how one’s moment comes around.

Jim Sexton was looking more disheveled than usual. Looking a little bit bleary. Probably been up all night. Lots of chaos on his deck maybe. He shuffled the papers in front of him on the desk and then finally looked up at the camera.

“Jim Sexton on board the
Arctic Flower
reporting for KING Five TV. Day nine and our worst fears have come to pass. Nearly everyone is sick.” No doubt about it. Sexton was either ailing or drunk or both. “Not feeling very well myself,” Jim slurred. “At least three people on my section of the ship have already melted down.” He went on to describe the army of medical personnel who were on board trying to isolate the victims and console the terrified. Having come to what appeared to be the end of his report, Jim Sexton squared his shoulders and leaned closer to the camera. “You know,” he said, “when you find yourself in a situation like this, where you’re probably not going to make it through, it gives you pause to wonder just how in the name of God you managed to end up where you are.” He waved a spastic hand at the camera. “I’m not talking about just bobbing around out here on this floating morgue. I’m talking about my whole goddamn life. About my dreams. About my fat-ass wife who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me as long as I keep paying the damn bills. Who’s gotta be the worst fuck in history. I mean like…” Corso sat straight up in the chair. Definitely both. Sick and drunk.

“A pair of daughters”—he waved the hand again—“don’t care whether I live or die as long as they can shop at The Gap and talk on the friggin’ phone.” He shook his head. When he looked back at the camera, it took him a while to focus. “And you know, I’m doing this because…I don’t know, I’m doing this because…I thought it might get me ahead. Maybe make those assholes I work for sit up and take notice of me. Just for once, maybe they’d finally notice me. Stop handing out jobs on the basis of a hair helmet or a big pair of tits…maybe look for a little depth…maybe…” The station pulled the plug on him. The screen went dark for a second, then came back with the Technical Difficulties screen. Segue to an antacid commercial. Corso couldn’t help but smile. “Way to go, Jimbo,” he said out loud.