Page 58 (1/2)

Murray wasn’t a naval expert, but Porter seemed confident in the measures taken.

Blackmon eased back in her chair. “So, sabotage,” she said. “That’s the most likely answer. But if something did get through our lines …”

She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.

“Every agency is on alert,” Porter said. “Homeland, TSA, everyone. Not that this changes anything — they’ve been on alert since the Los Angeles went down.”

Murray had his doubts. Anyone talented enough, resourceful enough, to s.n.a.t.c.h an artifact from nine hundred feet down — right out from under the nose of the U.S. Navy — would have no problem getting past airport security, or just putting the thing on a truck and sending it to Mexico.

At any point on any path of transport, infection could occur.

“Well,” Blackmon said, “for once, I find myself rooting for sabotage.”

Murray couldn’t agree more.

WELCOME ABOARD

Ten clear cells. Four empty. Six occupied.

Three new subjects. Margaret tried to think about them in those terms, as subjects. But unless Tim’s cellulase-secreting yeast acted like some kind of miracle cure, those men were death-row inmates.

She stood in the airlock that led from the lab s.p.a.ce to the containment area. She looked through the door’s window, stared at the men in the cells. Clarence stood on her right, Tim on her left. They quietly waited for her to think things through.

Thirty hours since she and Clarence had landed on the Carl Brashear. Barely more than a day, and things were already collapsing.

The men in the clear cells weren’t alone — two positives had been found on the Pinckney, the infected men discovered because they opened fire on their s.h.i.+pmates, killing three and wounding two. Unlike the Brashear, however, the Pinckney had no containment facility: Captain Tubberville had ordered the immediate execution of the infected men and the incineration of their bodies.

Obviously, Petrovsky and Walker hadn’t been the only ones to come up from the Los Angeles. Others, or at least pieces of others, had floated to the surface, contagious flesh mingling with swimming survivors of the Forrest Sherman and the Stratton. Or could it have been something else? Maybe a gas-filled puffball corpse breaking the surface and then opening up to spill spores across the task force?

The cause almost didn’t matter: what mattered was that the task force had become infected. This was going to end in a giant fireball. The only real question was, would anyone get out alive?

“The killer, Orin Nagy, the test missed him,” Margaret said. “I didn’t think false-negatives were possible.”

“They’re not,” Tim said. “He must have found a way to skip his test, or use someone else’s blood.”

Margaret turned to Clarence. “Yasaka has strict procedures in place. How could someone dodge a test?”