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I gave him a doubtful glance.

  "What have we got to lose? Besides, you could use the cash. Even if we only get to keep a fraction of what we find, it would be more than enough for you to acquire Diver Down."

  I indulged his quest, though, to be honest, I had long since given up on actually finding the lost treasure of Jacques De La Fontaine. A news story said the treasure the college kids found on Angelfish Key island couldn't be positively identified as belonging to the infamous French pirate. JD took that as confirmation that the treasure was still out there somewhere. Even if it was Jacques De La Fontaine's lost treasure, the chest of Spanish medallions found by the college kids on Angelfish Key would only have been a fraction of the French pirate’s total loot. Who knows, maybe there is still treasure lurking in the depths of the waters off the Florida Keys?

  Either way, it provided an excuse to get out on the water.

  Not that we needed much of an excuse.

  I had managed to stave off the sale of Diver Down, but I had been stalling Madison due to lack of funds. I needed a windfall, but with David Cameron in a coma, and the studio placing the Bree Taylor project, and our TV series, on hold, I wasn't holding my breath.

  We finished the meal, settled the tab, then Jack followed me back to the marina. With the Vivere fueled up, we cast off the lines, disconnected water and power, and Jack took the helm. He idled the super-yacht out of the marina and headed toward the open ocean.

  I grabbed two cold beers from the cooler, popped the tops, and handed one to Jack. The massive yacht plowed through the teal water, leaving a frothy white wake in its trail. The diesel engine rumbled, and Coconut Key faded away in the distance. We left the serial killer behind for the afternoon, and as always, my troubles seemed to dissipate on the water.

  They would all come flooding back soon enough. But the brief respite was much welcomed.

  It took a little over an hour to reach our destination. We dropped anchor and Jack mapped out a search grid, programming it into his iPhone. We launched the sonar drone that looked like a Tomahawk missile with a propeller. The device would run a search grid and relay a 3-D image back to Jack's phone. It was a state-of-the-art piece of equipment. I didn't want to know how much he paid for the damn thing. In his eyes, it was all a cost of doing business.

  JD always had to have the best toys.

  We lounged in the aft deck, drinking beer, swaying with the swells. The sun glistened across the water as we fished and shot the breeze. We lazed the afternoon away, moving the boat occasionally, setting up new search grids, fishing new spots, not catching much of anything, certainly not any treasure.

  The sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and soon the sky grew black and the water became like ink. The sliver of a moon had been obscured by a blanket of clouds that rolled in at dusk. I thought we might get a spot of rain, but the weather held, for now. It was supposed to get pretty rough later, but they didn’t expect any real rain until after midnight. Still, the wind picked up as the front moved in, creating a lot of chop.

  The darkness seemed like an endless abyss. With no fish on our hooks, and no sunken treasure to be found, we decided to call it a wrap.

  I reeled in my last cast and stowed the rods while JD attempted to recover the drone. The boat pitched and rolled with the increasing swells as I staggered back to the aft deck.

  Jack was so busy with the drone, he hadn’t noticed the impending doom. He pulled the device onto the swim platform and toweled it off before stowing it in a case. He staggered up the steps to the aft deck, oblivious.

  I looked to starboard, and I couldn't believe my eyes. “Oh, shit!”

  3

  A cargo ship emerged from the inky blackness, heading straight toward us. The massive vessel made the Vivere look small. It was on course to plow across the super-yacht, smash the hull, and break us in two.

  I sprinted to the helm, cranked up the engine, and throttled up. The water burbled behind the boat, spitting a frothy wake, and the Vivere lumbered forward.

  Jack lost his balance and tumbled to the deck as the engines roared.

  Just in time to avoid collision, the Vivere cleared the path of the cargo ship as the behemoth drifted into the swirling wake we left behind.

  I banked the boat to starboard, circling around the container vessel. It was adrift in the water, moving with the wind and current at about 3 knots. The screws weren’t spinning, there was no wash behind the vessel.

  My eyes gazed through the starboard window at the cargo ship as we rounded the stern, then cruised along the port side. The grimy hull was painted royal blue with a rust-colored, red water line. The vessel was a 209-foot, 1500 DWT general cargo ship. Tall yellow cranes towered fore and aft. It had an 11.7-meter beam and a draft of 3.9 meters. By my guess, it could carry roughly 50 to 60 TEU containers.

  I scanned the deck for any signs of life. There were no lights. No sounds. Nothing.

  The ship was dead.

  Near the bow, there was a fresh coat of royal blue paint in a rectangular strip. In white letters, the name Intrepid had recently been painted within the bounds of the royal blue rectangle.

  We made another pass around the vessel, then pulled alongside. I deployed the automatic fenders so we wouldn’t destroy the hull of the Vivere as we drew near.

  "Stay with the boat,” I said. “I’m going to take a look around."

  Jack took the helm, and I climbed on the gunwale and grabbed a rebar ladder rung welded to the side of the cargo ship. The Vivere rolled with the swells, and I had to time my grasp perfectly as we bobbed up and down. I clung onto the rung and pulled myself up the side of the rusty hull and scaled the gunwale to the deck.

  The ship was loaded with battered containers of all colors—orange, brown, blue, and red. Other than the cargo, the deck was empty.

  No sign of any crew.

  The ship creaked and groaned as I headed aft toward accommodation. The waves crashed against the hull, and the breeze blew across the deck as I moved down the passageway. The stillness aboard the vessel was eerie.

  When I stepped through the hatch into accommodation, the pungent odor hit my nostrils and made me gag. The sour stench twisted my stomach, and bile roiled. The recognition of the smell was instant—death was in the air. Stale, rotting death.

  I pulled my shirt over my mouth and nose, holding it like a mask. It didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing. I drew my 9mm pistol from the holster inside my waistband. I used the tactical flashlight on my key chain to illuminate the way. The thin beam slashed the air as I angled the flashlight down the corridor.

  There were several decks that housed crew quarters, mess halls, rec rooms, supplies, laundry, food storage, and galleys. The navigation bridge sat perched on top of it all. It was like a city unto itself—everything you needed to survive at sea for months at a time.

  I pushed down the passageway and opened the first hatch I came to—the stench was even more atrocious.

  Flies buzzed about the compartment, and the beam of my flashlight raked across two corpses that were bloated.

  They lay in bunks, their skin pale green and sagging. Deep purplish-red bruises stained the skin where blood had pooled where the bodies made contact against the mattresses. Sores and pustules festered the skin, most notably on the face. Crusted blood had stained the eye sockets and drizzled from nostrils.

  The remains were grotesque.

  Horrific.

  It looked like these crew members were victims of some type of hemorrhagic fever, or perhaps a chemical agent.

  An unsettling feeling fluttered in my stomach. What had I stepped into?

  I pulled back, closed the hatch, then moved down the corridor and opened a hatch to another compartment on the opposite side of the passageway.

  More of the same.

  Two more corpses lying in their bunks, their flesh rotting.

  I backed away, moved down the corridor, and spiraled up the stairwell to the navigation bridge. The captain lay slumped over a contr
ol terminal. Flies buzzed around his body. The rancid odor was intense—days of sun filtering through the large windows, heating the compartment, accelerating decomposition.

  The whole crew had been afflicted. I was convinced there wasn't another living soul aboard the ship.

  I left the bridge, spiraled my way down to the main deck, and stepped into the fresh air. My chest heaved, sucking in a full breath. The smell of salt water filled my nostrils, purging the fetid odor. But the scent would linger in my memory.

  I had a cast-iron stomach, but that experience was enough to make me want to hurl. I pulled out my phone and called JD. I leaned against the gunwale and looked down at the Vivere bobbing on the swells beside the cargo ship.

  "Call Sheriff Daniels and the Coast Guard. Maybe even the CDC. I think the crew died from some type of infectious disease."

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the possibility of infection from my brief exposure. I hadn't touched any of the bodies, but I certainly breathed the air in the crew quarters and touched handles and railings. I made a conscious effort not to place my hands to my face. The last thing I needed was a 106° fever and to start bleeding from my mucous membranes.

  The ship’s manifest might provide answers to where the ship had been, what their cargo was, and where they were heading.

  4

  A Coast Guard Cutter had pulled alongside the container ship, and Defender class patrol boats swarmed the water.

  I stood on the deck of the Intrepid, looking over the gunwale at the responders. Sheriff Daniels had arrived in a patrol boat with Brenda, the forensics team, and a few deputies. The EMTs were in another patrol boat. Everyone wore white personal protective equipment (PPE) with respirators and goggles. Effective PPEs needed to cover the skin, clothing, mucous membranes, and protect the respiratory system.

  I forced a grim smile and waved. Something told me that I was about to become a lab rat. I would be poked and prodded and examined. Hopefully, I wouldn’t end up like the crew of the cargo ship with festering pus-filled lesions.

  Brenda was the first to board the ship. I could sense the reluctance of everyone else until it had been determined what, exactly, was going on in the hot zone.

  Brenda did a quick examination, shining a penlight into my eyes and taking my temperature in my ear with a handy electronic device. She handed me a respirator that covered my nose and mouth. It wasn't for my protection—it was to prevent the spread of a possible pathogen to anyone else. I suited up in a white PPE onesie and put on a pair of gloves and booties.

  "I have to warn you, it's not pretty,” I cautioned Brenda.

  "At this point in my career, I've seen just about everything."

  I escorted her down the passageway to the crew quarters. I followed her as she pushed into the compartment, shining a flashlight on the gruesome remains.

  "What do you think?" I asked. "Hemorrhagic fever? Ebola? Chemical attack?"

  She hesitated for a moment. "I don't know. But it doesn't look good. We don't know if this illness is airborne or if it's limited to bodily fluids. All of these remains will have to be handled with the strictest protocol. How many are there?"

  I shrugged. "Not sure. I didn't search the entire ship."

  Brenda clicked a two-way radio and spoke to Sheriff Daniels. "Hold off until I make an assessment. We don't need to risk any unnecessary exposure. I'll have a body count for you shortly."

  "Copy that," Daniels squawked back.

  We left the compartment and proceeded to move through the crew quarters, searching each of the compartments. There were 9 compartments housing a total of 13 crew. We found more of the same in every compartment, except for one.

  There was a lifeless body in the bunk of the 5th compartment we examined. But this one was different from the others. There were skin lesions and oozing pustules. But there was no bruising from pooled blood, and the skin was slick with sweat.

  Suddenly, the thing that resembled a corpse groaned.

  This person was still alive.

  Brenda examined the man who was beating on death's door. She pried open his lids and shined her flashlight in his eyes.

  He wasn't exactly responsive.

  There were puddles of dried vomit on the floor from where the man had previously wrenched his guts out.

  Brenda contacted Daniels and told him to send up the EMTs and an ISOPOD for the survivor and 36 vinyl, chlorine-free, cremation-compatible, leak-proof, thermally-sealed body bags.

  The ISOPOD, a portable vinyl enclosure with a negative pressure HEPA air filtration system, was designed to transport biologically contagious patients. The white vinyl bag had clear panels and multiple gloved portals. Ribs and rods tented the bag, and a battery-powered blower maintained the negative pressure.

  Each corpse required 3 body bags, layered to ensure prevention of fluid leakage. The outer bag required a minimum thickness of 18 mil. Seams needed to be factory heat-sealed, and handles needed to be riveted instead of sewn. Reinforced handle-straps ran under the pouch, providing extra strength. Nothing worse than a handle-strap tearing and leaking contaminated fluid.

  Once the remains were secured within the bags, hospital disinfectant was to be used to sterilize the exterior vinyl. Standard procedure was to cremate the remains immediately to prevent the spread of infection. No autopsy, no examination, no embalming.

  I continued searching the vessel and found another corpse in the engine room and one in the cargo hold. It didn't take long before the deck was swarming with responders in white PPE suits and respirators. Fear flooded their eyes.

  This was an unseen killer.

  One that couldn't be stopped with a bullet. One that couldn't easily be contained with handcuffs or a cage.

  It was the unknown that spooked everyone.

  The ship would need to be quarantined and disinfected. Blood samples would need to be examined. And whatever killed these men would need to be contained.

  That meant I would most likely need to be quarantined as well.

  It took several hours to extract the remains. Afterward, the Coast Guard took custody of the cargo vessel, and the arduous process of disinfecting the ship began. Getting the container ship back to port was their headache now.

  I disembarked from the cargo vessel, boarded the Sheriff’s patrol boat, and was taken to the Vanden University Medical Branch’s Bio-containment Unit where I was quarantined and evaluated along with the surviving crew member.

  VUMB already had a BSL-4 bio-containment lab, so the transition from laboratory to medical treatment facility didn’t take much. They already had the air filtration systems, equipment, and entry/exit ports. The expansion was part of a national preparedness effort sparked by the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa during 2014. When several caregivers had become infected, and returned to the states for treatment, it became readily apparent how woefully ill-equipped the nation was to deal with such a devastating situation.

  The facility had five negative pressure rooms with a total of 10 beds, 15 HEPA filtrated air exchangers, UV filtration, a dunk tank, a pass-through autoclave, and a decontamination shower. The unit was capable of handling smallpox, plague, viral hemorrhagic fever, botulism, anthrax, SARS, avian influenza, monkeypox, and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

  I was dosed up on a course of prophylactic antibiotics and antivirals. Everyone that interacted with me wore respirators, goggles, suits, and gloves. A monitor beside the bed pulsed with my heartbeat and displayed vital statistics like blood pressure and oxygen saturation.

  So far, my vitals seemed to be normal.

  I felt fine.

  Nurses scurried about, but I wasn't allowed visitors. No non-essential personnel at this point.

  A doctor stepped into the room in PPE gear. She stood at the foot of the bed, examining my chart before speaking. After a moment, she finally looked up and said, “Hi, I'm Dr. Joanna Page. I'm an infectious disease specialist here at VUMB.”

  I couldn't really tell what she looked lik
e behind her protective gear, but she had pretty blue eyes. Her voice was slightly muffled by the mask attenuating the high frequencies.

  "How long do I have to be quarantined?" I asked.

  She shrugged. "It may take a few days to develop antibodies to any pathogens you might have been exposed to. Generally, 3 to 5 days for the pathogen to replicate to the point where it can be detected. But the quarantine period could be up to 3 weeks."

  My eyes widened with shock. "You mean I could be in this place for 3 weeks?"

  "It's possible."

  "No. I don't have that kind of time."

  "I'm sorry, Deputy Wild. Releasing you any sooner could spread a possible infection."

  "What are we dealing with?" I asked.

  "We don't have a confirmed diagnosis yet. But judging by the symptoms, this could be an especially virulent flu, or perhaps even a hemorrhagic fever. Possibly Ebola."

  I cringed with dread.

  Dr. Page continued, “Can you tell me if you were exposed to any bodily fluids?"

  "No," I said.

  "Pathogens can live on door handles and hard surfaces for several days. Have you touched your hands to your face?"

  "Not that I'm aware of. Do you think whatever we're dealing with could be airborne?"

  Dr. Page shrugged again. "It's possible. We should know more shortly. In the meantime, stay hydrated. You're in good hands here. You'll be just fine."

  "I'm sure you say that to everyone," I said.

  "I haven't lost a patient yet to hemorrhagic fever," she said.

  "How many cases of hemorrhagic fever have you treated?”

  "None,” she admitted. "It's not something we see here in Coconut Key."

  With the recent completion of the expansion, the medical facility hadn’t been treating patients for that long. I had a sneaking suspicion her perfect track record was about to change.

  5

  "I've got bad news," JD said.

  He was decked out in protective gear and somehow had convinced the staff he needed to speak with me regarding official business.