Pandemic Page 33

“And calling me an illegal isn’t an insult? I’m an undocumented worker.”

José paused the playback. His finger reached out, rested below the screen’s time readout. Cooper saw it, made the connection — the recording was from the time of that morning’s launch.

Cooper leaned in. “What the hell?”

“This is when the Platypus was right next to the boat,” Jose said. “Watch as it starts to move away …”

He hit “play.” The sonar signal faded, then vanished. Cooper looked at the time readout: only ten seconds had passed.

“That can’t be right,” he said. “Ten seconds after it started moving, it wasn’t even thirty feet away from us.”

At a distance of thirty feet, something artificial the size of the Platypus should have been a bright white signal.

José paused the playback. He looked at Cooper. For once, the man wasn’t smiling.

“That’s not just expensive equipment, Jefe Cooper. That’s stealth. Military-grade, maybe. Is Stanton running drugs or something? What if the Coast Guard comes out here?”

Cooper finally understood José’s concern.

“Steve Stanton is not running drugs,” Cooper said. “We won’t get busted by the Coasties. You won’t get deported. You’re fine.”

José looked at the paused recording. He hit “play” and again let it run. It showed nothing. He looked up at Cooper again.

“And no gang war? No one will shoot at us?”

“No gang war,” Cooper said. “We’re safe. I promise. Just …” Cooper couldn’t help looking at the screen again, noting that the time stamp was thirty seconds into the Platypus launch — the thing should have still been kicking back sonar like mad. “You were right to tell only me. Jeff will just get all fired up, and it’s nothing. Between us, right?”

José nodded, raised his hands in a gesture that said, You told me what I needed to hear.

“Okay, Jefe Cooper. Sorry to wake you up.” He stood and walked to the door.

“No problem,” Cooper said. “You go on, get some sleep. I’ve got the helm.”

José left.

Cooper sat, feeling mixed emotions.

Stealth. Military-grade.

If Jeff found out …

Cooper shook his head. Jeff wouldn’t find out. So the customer had expensive equipment, crazy expensive, so what? That wasn’t Cooper’s business, and it wasn’t Jeff’s business, either. They were getting paid like kings to facilitate Steve Stanton’s search for the Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes.

Jeff’s instincts and decisions had almost put the business under. It was Cooper’s turn to call the shots. A few more days, a week at the most, and this would be over.

THE BODIES

“Margo,” Clarence said, “you okay?”

Margaret heard his voice through the speakers in her wide helmet, but also from outside the suit. Clarence was right behind her, in a BSL-4 rig of his own.

She’d tuned out, got lost in her memories. Amos … Dew … Betty Jewell … Chelsea … Perry. The mind-ripping horror of it all. No, she wasn’t okay. Not even close.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”

She hadn’t been on the Carl Brashear for more than a few hours, and there was already one person infected. The divers had done something wrong, exposed themselves somehow.

Margaret was already far behind in the race.

To center herself, she took a long look at the trailer Tim called the hurt locker. The place had been designed with volume in mind. Ten metal tables were lined up in parallel, running down the trailer’s length. Each table had its own rack of analysis equipment. Maybe the engineers assumed the Carl Brashear would have a full complement of scientists when the shit hit the fan.

She reached up, checked the hose connected to her helmet: secure, no problems. When moving from trailer to trailer, the suits used internal air supplies. For working in one area, however, ceiling-mounted hoses provided breathable air.

Two of the metal tables held corpses of Candice Walker and Charlie Petrovsky. Tim was already working on Petrovsky, taking samples from all over his body.

Margaret couldn’t put it off any longer: she had to get to work, figure out what had happened. One of those bodies — or both — had infected Diego Clark.

“Clarence, I need you to talk to Cantrell,” she said. “Clark’s diving gear was BSL-4 rated. We have to figure out how he got infected.”

“I can do that,” Clarence said. “I’ve read his report, seems like everything was solid.”

She’d also read the report, hadn’t seen any mistakes. “Maybe he missed something. Maybe the suits malfunctioned, somehow.”

“Maybe,” Clarence said. “I’ll find out. Do you need anything before I go talk to him?”

She shook her head. From her helmet’s speakers, she could hear him breathing. He was there with her, like he always was, like he had been since he’d been assigned to her when all of this began nearly six years earlier. What would life be like without him? And how had she managed to let a man like him slip away?

Margaret had to get her head in the game. She couldn’t rely on Clarence to be her crutch anymore.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just go, Clarence. Talk to Cantrell.”

She walked toward the bodies.

Chapter end