“What?! We need to get away from the Immari.”
“We can’t. There’s no way out of here. They’re burning a perimeter around the Orchid district walls—almost a half kilometer.”
Kate’s thoughts immediately went to the boys, to the couple in the old city. “Are they burning the Old Town district?”
Shaw seemed confused. “No. Just a defensive perimeter around the camp. They’re turning it into a new processing center. Anyway, by nightfall the fire will be at the walls and the plague barge will be here. It’s the only way out.”
Kate made her decision. “Then we’ll be on it.”
Shaw opened his mouth, but Kate cut him off. “I’m not asking. There’s a bag in my room. You know where that is?”
He nodded.
“Bring it to me. It has the research. Then find some…” She need to try something to slow the disease progression. Normally, for any other virus, the key would be antivirals and patience. But if this disease behaved the same way it did in 1918, Martin was undergoing an immune system overload. His own body was attacking him, much the same way autoimmune diseases behaved. “Bring some steroids.”
“Steroids?”
“Tablets.” Kate tried to think of the European names. “Prednisolone, cortisone, methylprednisolone—”
“Okay, I get the picture.”
“And we need some food. When the loading starts, we’ll take him out. We’ll say he’s a drunk soldier.”
Shaw let his head fall back. “This is a really bad idea.” He focused on Kate, and seeing how serious she was, simply turned and walked out. He paused at the door and pointed at the iron bar that had blocked it. “Put that back in the door while I’m gone. And stay quiet.”
CHAPTER 46
Immari Advance Fleet Alpha
Near Cape Verde
Dorian walked onto the ship’s bridge and cringed as all the officers, including the ship’s captain, stopped what they were doing and saluted him.
“For God’s sake, stop saluting me. I’ll demote the next sailor who salutes me to seaman zero class.” He wasn’t sure if that rank existed, but the looks on the faces around the room told him that his meaning was received. Dorian led the captain aside. “Any update from Operation Genesis?”
“No, sir.”
In this case, no news was bad news. The lack of update from his operative told Dorian that his plan to capture Kate Warner was exactly nowhere. He debated changing course.
The Atlantean had been clear: You must wait until she obtains the code.
“Do you have new orders, sir?”
Dorian turned away from him. “No… Stay the course, Captain.”
“There’s something else, sir.”
Dorian eyed him.
“An update from Ceuta. They say the British have mined the Straits of Gibraltar. We won’t be able to pass them.”
Dorian exhaled and closed his eyes. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve sent several ships in. They were hoping to find a way and guide us through, but the Brits sewed it up tight. But, we think there’s some good news.”
“Good news?”
“They wouldn’t have mined the straits if they planned to face us off the coast of Spain.”
The captain’s logic made sense. Options formed in Dorian’s mind, but he wanted to hear the captain’s opinion first. “Options?”
“Two. We sail north, try to go around the British Isles and find a port in north Germany. We could fight our way south from there. But I advise against it. That’s what the British want. They have to be low on jet fuel, maybe close to out. But their subs and half their destroyers are nuclear; assuming they have enough survivors to operate even some of them, they can field a small fleet. Off the coast of Britain, between their sea and air power, they could take us easily.”
“And option number two?”
“We park off the coast of Morocco, fly you to Ceuta on a helicopter, and you sail across the Mediterranean on one of the ships they’ve collected.”
“Risks?”
“You’ll have a smaller fleet, with fewer battleships and fewer of our well-trained troops—just what we can fly with you in the five helicopters. You’ll dock in northern Italy and make your way to Germany from there. Reports from the ground are that the Orchid Districts are evacuating across Europe. It’s complete pandemonium. Once you get to Italy, you’ll have no problem.”
“Why can’t we just fly the whole way? Surely we can find a jet.”
The captain shook his head. “There are still some air defenses in continental Europe, and they’ve got backup power to last for years. They’re shooting down any unidentified aircraft—several each day.”
“Ceuta it is, then.”
When Dorian returned to his stateroom, Johanna was awake and naked, stretched out on the bed, reading an old gossip magazine, for reasons he would never understand.