Lampedusa had no more than five thousand inhabitants, but, in Kurt’s experience, half of them always seemed to be on the main road at the same time, especially whenever he needed to go somewhere. Scooters and small cars zoomed around in every direction, tiny delivery trucks darted and dodged through the fray, with that uniquely Italian style of daring that suggested half the population could qualify as Formula 1 drivers.
To see the island so quiet gave him a chill. “Cut to the right,” he said. “Go around that sailboat. We can take a shortcut to the operations shack.”
“Shortcut?”
“There’s a private slip over there that’s a lot closer to our building than the main dock,” Kurt said. “I’ve been fishing off it a few times. It’ll save us a lot of walking.”
Joe changed course and they passed the sailboat on the port side. Two figures could be seen slumped on the deck. The first was a man, who seemed to have fallen and gotten one arm tangled in the sail lines. The second was a woman.
“Maybe we should . . .”
“Nothing we can do for them,” Kurt said. “Keep going.”
Joe didn’t reply, but he kept the boat on course and they were soon tying up at the small pier Kurt had mentioned.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about someone stealing our ride.”
They climbed out of the boat in their bulky suits and quickly reached the lane at the top of the pier. More bodies lay on the street, including a middle-aged couple with a small child and a dog on a leash. Dead birds littered the sidewalk beneath a pair of shade trees.
Kurt walked past the birds and knelt briefly to examine the couple. Except for bruises and scrapes where they’d hit the ground, there was no sign of bleeding or trauma. “It’s like they fell straight down. Taken without warning.”
“Whatever hit these people, it hit quickly,” Joe said.
Kurt looked up, got his bearings and pointed up the next street. “This way.”
He and Joe hiked for two blocks before they reached the small building that NUMA was using for their logistics center. The front was a small garage, now given over to equipment and littered with items recovered from the sunken Roman ship. Behind this lay four small rooms that were being used as offices and sleeping quarters.
“Locked,” Joe said, trying the handle.
Kurt stood back and then stepped forward, slamming his boot into the wooden door. The blow was heavy enough to splinter the wood and send the door swinging wide.
Joe ducked inside. “Larisa?” he shouted. “Cody?”
Kurt shouted as well, though he wondered how much noise actually escaped the helmet. Most of it seemed to reverberate in his ears.
“Let’s check the back rooms,” Kurt urged. “If anyone realized it was a chemical vapor, the best defense would be to seal off the innermost room and hide out.”
They lugged their way to the back of the building and Kurt entered one room to find it empty. Joe pushed open the office door across from him and found something else. “In here.”
Kurt stepped out of the empty room and came around to where Joe stood. Facedown on a table were four of the five team members. It looked as if they’d been studying a map when it hit them. In a chair nearby, slumped as if he’d simply fallen asleep there, was Cody Williams, the Roman antiquities expert who’d been heading up the research.
“Morning meeting,” Kurt said.
“Check them for signs of life.”
“Kurt, they’re not—”
“Check them anyway,” Kurt replied sternly. “We have to be sure.”
Joe checked the group at the table while Kurt checked on Cody, easing him out of the chair and onto the floor. He was deadweight, a rag doll.
Despite shaking him, there was no response.
“I can’t feel a pulse,” Joe said. “Not that I’d expect to through these gloves.”
Joe went to pull one of the gloves off. “Don’t,” Kurt said.
As Joe relented, Kurt brought out a knife and held the flat edge of the blade against the bottom of Cody’s nose. “Nothing,” he said. “No condensation. They’re not breathing.”
He pulled the knife away and lowered Cody’s head gently back to the floor. “What the hell was that freighter carrying?” he muttered aloud. “I don’t know of anything that could do this to a whole island. Except maybe military-grade nerve agents.”
Joe was just as baffled. “And if you were a terrorist and you had a stockpile of killer nerve gas, why on earth would you use it here? This is a speck on the map in the middle of the sea. The only people here are vacationers, fishermen and divers.”
Kurt looked at the fallen team members once again. “I have no idea. But I’m telling you right now we’re going to find the people who did this. And when we do, they’re going to wish they’d never heard of this place.”
Joe recognized the tone in his friend’s voice. It was the opposite of the easygoing, everything-will-be-all-right manner Kurt usually projected. In a way, it was the dark side of his personality. In another way, it was a typical American response: Don’t tread on me. And woe unto those who do.
Sometimes Joe would try to talk Kurt down when he got like this, but at the moment he felt exactly the same way.
“Call the Sea Dragon,” Kurt said. “Tell them what we found. I’m going to look for a set of keys. We need to get to that hospital and I’ve had enough of walking.”
7
The Jeep’s V-8 engine roared to life, bringing the shock of sound to an island bathed in silence.
Kurt revved the engine a few times as if the din could break the spell that seemed to have been cast on those around them.
He put the Jeep in gear and drove while Joe consulted a map. It was a short journey but one made more difficult by dozens of wrecked cars with steaming radiators and scooters lying on their sides not far from their spilled riders. Every intersection had a pileup, every sidewalk pedestrians lying where they’d fallen.
“It’s like the end of the world,” Joe said grimly. “A city of the dead.”
Near the hospital entrance another multicar wreck blocked the way, this one including a truck tipped over with half its contents spilled out. To avoid it, Kurt drove up over the curb and across a rock garden until they arrived at the main doors.
“Modern-looking hospital,” Joe said of the six-story structure.
“As I recall, it was updated and expanded to care for the refugees making their way here on boats from Libya and Tunisia.”
Kurt shut off the engine and climbed out of the Jeep, pausing as something caught his eye.
“What’s wrong?” Joe asked.
Kurt stared back in the direction they’d just come. “Thought I saw something moving.”
“What kind of something?”
“Not sure. Over by the wrecked cars.”
Kurt stared for a long moment but nothing appeared.
“Should we check it out?”
Kurt shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just the light on my face shield.”
“It could be a zombie,” Joe said.
“If that’s the case, you’ll be safe,” Kurt said. “I hear they only eat brains.”
“Very funny,” Joe said. “Honestly, if someone did survive and saw us dressed up like this, he might think twice before coming up and introducing himself.”
“More likely, my mind is playing tricks on me,” Kurt replied. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”
They reached the entrance and the automatic doors opened with a swish. They passed a dozen bodies in the waiting room, half of them slumped in chairs. A nurse lay beside the front desk.
“Something tells me we don’t need to check in,” Joe said.
“Not checking in,” Kurt replied, “I’m down a third of a tank of air. You have to be too. This is a pretty big place, I’d rather not walk the halls
checking every room.”
He found a directory, flipped it open and scanned through the names. Ambrosini was on the first page—oddly enough, the name was written in by hand while everything else was typed. “She must be new,” Kurt said. “Unfortunately, no office number or floor is listed.”
“How about we use this?” Joe said, holding up a microphone that seemed to be connected to a PA system. “Maybe she’ll answer a page?”
“Perfect.”
Joe turned the system on and set it to hospital-wide by selecting a switch that said All Call and Kurt took it from there.
Holding the microphone up to the faceplate of his helmet, he tried to speak as clearly as possible. “Dr. Ambrosini, or any survivors in the hospital, my name is Kurt Austin. We picked up your distress call. If you can hear this message”—he almost said “pick up the white paging phone”—“please contact the front desk. We’re trying to reach you but don’t know where to look.”
The message went out over the PA system, somewhat muffled but clear enough to understand. He was about to repeat it when the automatic doors opened behind them.
Both he and Joe turned with a start, but there was no one there, just the empty space. After a second or two, the doors closed.
“The sooner we find these people and get out of here, the happier I’ll be,” Joe said.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
The desk line began to buzz and a white light began blinking on the panel.
“Call for you on line one, Dr. Austin,” Joe said.
Kurt punched the speaker button.
“Hello?” a female voice said. “Is anyone there? This is Dr. Ambrosini.”
Kurt leaned near to the speaker and spoke clearly and slowly. “My name is Kurt Austin. We heard your radio call. We came to help.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said. “You sound American. Are you with NATO?”
“No,” Kurt replied. “My friend and I are with an organization called NUMA. We’re divers and salvage experts.”
There was a pause. “How is it you’re unaffected by the toxin? It affected everyone it touched. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Let’s just say we dressed for the occasion.”
“Overdressed in some ways,” Joe said.
“Okay,” she replied. “We’re trapped on the fourth floor. We sealed off one of the operating rooms with plastic sheets and surgical tape, but we can’t stay in here much longer. The air is getting very stale.”
“Italian military units with a hazmat response team are on their way,” Kurt said. “But you’ll have to wait a few hours.”
“We can’t,” she replied. “There are nineteen of us in here. We desperately need fresh air. CO2 levels are rising rapidly.”
In a backpack, Kurt had brought two extra dry suits and a smaller handheld emergency oxygen tank. The plan had been to shuttle whomever they found out to the Sea Dragon and then come back for the rest. But with twenty people trapped . . .
“I think I see a fly in the ointment,” Joe said.
“A whole swarm of them,” Kurt mumbled.
“What was that?” the doctor asked.
“We can’t get you out,” Kurt said.
“We’re not going to last in here much longer,” she replied. “Several of the elderly patients have already fallen unconscious.”
“Does the hospital have a hazardous-materials unit?” Kurt asked. “We could round up some suits from there.”
“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”
“What about oxygen?” Joe said. “All hospitals have oxygen.”
Kurt nodded. “You’re really earning your pay this week, my friend.”
“Don’t I always?”
Kurt held out a hand, made a side-to-side gesture, as if to say it was iffy sometimes.
As Joe feigned great offense, Kurt turned back to the speakerphone. “What floor is your supply room on? We’ll bring you more oxygen bottles. Enough to extend your stay until the Italian military arrives.”
“Yes. That would work,” she said. “Medical supplies are on the third floor. Please hurry.”
Kurt hung up and they went to the elevator. Joe pressed the button and the doors opened to reveal a doctor and nurse slumped in the corner.
Joe went to pull them out, but Kurt waved him off. “No time.”
He pressed 3 and the door closed. When the bell pinged, Kurt moved down the hall while Joe dragged the doctor halfway through the door and left him there.
“Using him as a doorstop?” Kurt mentioned as Joe caught up with him.
“I’m guessing he won’t mind,” Joe insisted.
“No, I guess not.”
They found the supply room at the end of the hall and broke in. A cage marked Medical Oxygen was near the back. Kurt pried it open. There were eight green bottles inside. He hoped it was enough.
Joe came forward with a wheeled gurney. “Pile them on this. That way, we don’t have to carry everything.”
Kurt loaded the bottles onto the gurney. Joe strapped them down so they wouldn’t slide off.
They pushed the gurney out through the door, tried to turn and slid into the wall.
“Where did you learn to drive?” Kurt asked.
“These things are harder to maneuver than they look,” Joe replied.
Straightening up, they gathered steam as they headed toward the elevator. Halfway there, they heard another ping and the sound of the second elevator’s doors opening.
“This building must be haunted,” Joe said, continuing on.
“Either the building or its electrical system,” Kurt replied.
As they neared the elevator bank, a darkly tanned figure stumbled out of the second car and fell.
“Help me,” he said, collapsing against the wall. “Please . . .”
Stunned, Kurt parked the gurney and dropped beside the man.
The man’s eyes were hooded at first, but as Kurt leaned close to him they opened and locked on Kurt’s. There was no delirium or fear in those eyes, only deadly malice, which was backed up by the short-barreled pistol the man pulled out and fired.
8
The gunshot echoed in the narrow hallway and Kurt fell backward, twisting awkwardly. He landed on his side and lay there not moving.
Surprised, but born with quick reflexes that he’d honed in the boxing ring for half his life, Joe lunged forward. His gloved hand knocked the man’s arm to the side and caused the next two gunshots to bury themselves in the wall. A headbutt, assisted by the steel diving helmet, sent the gunman sprawling and the weapon flew from his hand and slid along the scuffed white floor of the hallway.
Both men scrambled for the gun. Joe reached it first, grabbing it and standing, but the gloves got in the way and he couldn’t get his finger on the trigger. The wiry assailant tackled him and they crashed through a door marked Caution MRI.
They landed hard on the floor and were separated by the impact. Hindered by the limited visibility from the helmet, Joe momentarily lost track of both the gun and his opponent. When he looked around, the gun was nowhere to be seen, but the man who’d attacked them was lying twenty feet away. He seemed to be unconscious.
Joe got to his feet and took a step forward. He felt a tremendous sense of vertigo, as if he were being pulled over backward. Before he could take another step, he found his sense of balance failing. His first thought was that the toxin had affected him, but it wasn’t his imagination, he was actually being pulled backward, like someone had attached a rope between his shoulder blades.
The reason dawned on him quickly. They’d crashed through the door into the hospital’s MRI lab. Twenty feet behind him stood a machine the size of a small car. It was filled with powerful, supercooled magnets that had no off mode. Having worked in a hospital for a summer, Joe was familiar with the danger of MRI machines, a
nything made of ferrous metal that got too close would be drawn in like a tractor beam. And Joe had a steel tank on his back and a steel helmet on his head.
He leaned forward at a thirty-degree angle, fighting the magnetic force, trying to prevent it from lifting him off his feet. He took a few steps in that posture, like a man walking into the brunt of a hurricane, but his progress was agonizingly slow.
His injured opponent was only ten feet away, still recovering from hitting the floor, but, despite every effort, Joe could not reach him.
Joe leaned farther, pushed harder, and put his foot down on a slick spot on the floor. His foot slipped and came out from under him, the traction suddenly gone. That was all it took. In the next instant, he was yanked off his feet and flying through the air.
His back slammed against the curved face of the machine, his head whiplashing against another section and knocking against it with a resounding clang.
The magnets held him in place and he hung there at an odd angle. Even his feet were held up, thanks to the steel shanks in his boots, and his left arm, thanks to the steel in his watch. He managed to pull his right arm away from the machine but was unable to free anything else.
In the meantime, the assailant had regained consciousness. He got to his feet, looked over at Joe and then shook his head as if seeing things. He began to laugh and raised the pistol only to have it fly from his hand and slam against the MRI’s housing beside Joe.
Joe twisted his body and stretched for it, but the gun remained stuck to the machine and just beyond his reach.
The thug seemed surprised but quickly got over it. He switched to a second weapon, a short triangular knife connected to brass knuckles. He slid his fingers into the holes, clenched his fist in a ball and began moving toward Joe.
“Maybe we can talk about this,” Joe said. “I’m thinking you need some help, right? Maybe a better medical plan. Perhaps something with mental health coverage.”
“You might as well accept the inevitable,” the man said. “It will be easier that way.”
“Easier for you, maybe.”
The man lunged, but Joe wrenched one foot from the machine and kicked, catching the man in the side of the face.