Prince Edward Island, South Africa
November 11, 4:18 P.M.
The distant flash on the sea, and the rumble that followed a few seconds later, was not lightning. The fact that he could not hear anything caused van Tonder to put the distance at forty or fifty miles to the northeast. Possibly farther, depending on the size of the blast.
Another plane? he wondered. It might be, though he had not seen anything in the sky, heard the shriek of a nose-diving descent.
Lord, he hated this utter sense of helplessness.
Mabuza was still on the oxygen tank, which was nearly depleted. So was the pilot. He seemed to have chills and a fever, and van Tonder had turned up the heat. But he was not considerably worse—or better—than he had been when they touched down.
Sisula had managed to get the situation booted up to Lieutenant Colonel Gray Raeburn, commander of the South African Navy’s Military Health Service based in Simon’s Town. Through whatever tricks the atmosphere enjoyed playing in these parts, van Tonder was finally able to communicate directly with the sixty-three-year-old pulmonary specialist.
Through Sisula, Commander van Tonder had already recounted what happened and where. He also described what they had briefly seen in the wreckage of the jetliner.
“There is a report from the American FBI that a passenger onboard was reported to have been seized by a possible pathogen,” the doctor said. “Lieutenant Mabuza’s symptoms seem to reflect that, with some unknown connection to Prince Edward.”
“If it helps, I still hear birds … there’s night life moving around outside the helicopter.”
“Cross-species contamination is extremely rare,” the doctor informed him.
“That isn’t what I mean, sir. It seems to support that theory. Radioactivity or chemicals would have killed them.”
“Very good, Commander van Tonder. I’ll try and keep up.”
“Not at all, sir. You’ve got a lot to try and figure out. I’m just sitting here playing nurse and offering recon. Which reminds me, there’s something else,” van Tonder went on. “I saw an explosion of some kind at sea, maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Approximately where?”
“To the northeast, well into the horizon. There was a yacht out there when we did our evening flyover yesterday. It was north of our jurisdiction and nothing out of the ordinary. It may have nothing to do with the fire.”
“Name?”
“Sorry, sir. We could barely see the boat in the evening fog.”
“Of course. You say you are wearing a surgical mask?”
“Yes. And Lieutenant Mabuza, now.”
“Commander, can you look at his mask, read me the specifications? It will be on a tag on the elastic or tieback.”
Van Tonder turned on the cockpit light and leaned toward the pilot. He found the blue label. “It says EN 149 FFP3.”
“European standard for pandemics,” the doctor said. “Very good.”
Van Tonder sat back. It took him a moment to reply. “Are you saying that’s what we have here?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a heavy thought for a man whose biggest challenge was trying not to slip on bird droppings. “What do we do, sir?”
“I will try to get a quarantine medical team to you at least by morning.”
“What about the aviation investigators? They’ll be headed to Marion Island, surely—”
“They are preparing an expedition,” Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn said. “There was some debate, I’m told, about going by sea instead of risking an approach that tracked the doomed flight. But they feel it is worth the risk, especially with sensors trying to ascertain what caused this.”
“Can they help us?” van Tonder asked.
“As civilians, I believe their priority will be the crash. I’m sorry.”
It made sense, van Tonder had to admit. It stank to have resources on the way that couldn’t help them—but he couldn’t dispute the caution.
“Doctor, we only have the water and medical supplies we brought, which isn’t much,” van Tonder said.
“I know and I’m sorry, Commander. This is not, you know, something for which we are properly or even improperly prepared.”
Van Tonder looked around. It seemed not just desolate out here but ancient, as though human existence was either a blip or a fantasy. He might just as easily have been a time traveler, the helicopter his ship, visiting some antediluvian era.
“You can take heart about one thing,” Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn said. “It does not sound as if your pilot has gotten any worse. Either the infectious agent cannot survive long in the air, or else did not possess sufficient numbers. These are matters to be investigated further.”
“Then you don’t think Lieutenant Mabuza will get worse?”
“Couldn’t say. From what you’ve described, he sounds like any patient who is fighting pneumonia or a similar malady.”
“Dr. Raeburn, forgive me, but ‘malady’ doesn’t quite seem to fit this. He’s sweating like a footballer and shivering. Yeah, he’s fighting now, but what do I do when the oxygen runs out? I don’t suppose opening the vents is a good idea.”
“If you’re serious, no,” the lieutenant colonel said. “But only because you will suffer hypothermia.”
“I don’t follow, sir.”
“I assume the heater is on?”
“It is.”
“I want you to bundle the lieutenant up as best as possible and turn off the heat,” Raeburn instructed.
“Sir, it’s close to zero outside.”
“I appreciate that, and it’s one reason he may still be alive. This is apparently a bug that prefers a cold environment—permafrost, upper atmosphere. That’s not uncommon. You probably swept it up the same way the airliner did, by flying into it. Give it cold air to go to. As long as your bodies are warmer than the environment, it may not go back. I also want you to keep the lieutenant’s forehead damp so it cools as well.”
“For the same reason?”
“Exactly that. Draw it out with cold. And there’s one thing more,” the doctor said. “How far are you from this glow you saw?”
“I’d say it was about a mile. It was Ship Rock, I know that for sure, though I can’t say exactly where we’ve set down.” Van Tonder had already leapt ahead of the doctor, again. “You want me to go there.”
“Commander, I do not ‘want’ that,” the doctor said. “But I may need you to give me firsthand intelligence. I’m going to consult my superiors. For now, just kill the heat and keep yourself warm as well. We’ll try to get help out to you somehow.”
“How about using a missile?” van Tonder joked.
“Not the worst idea I’ve heard. And Commander, keep the mask on even when the tank runs out.”
“Affirmative,” van Tonder said.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn assured him.
“Thanks,” van Tonder said. “I’m glad I apparently got the right man for this call. For once, the navy did something right.”
“For once,” Raeburn agreed.
The officer signed off and van Tonder cut the heat. Within seconds, the temperature had already chilled. And they still had hours of darkness to go. He took the water bottle and—
“Shit.”
He had not asked if he could touch Lieutenant Mabuza. He decided against it. Rather than pour water into his palm he took a shimmy from the toolbox under the seat and folded it across the pilot’s head. Then he dribbled water across it.
The commander killed all the lights so he did not have to look at his own reflection in the glass. The sky was deep and near—but also vast and endless. The sense of timelessness, of eternity was something unique down here.
“Okay, Lieutenant,” van Tonder said. “I want you to fight this. We may just be blips in the cosmos, but two motes are better than one. You hear me?”
“It’s … beautiful,” the officer said in a raw, gravelly voice.
Van Tonder smiled. “You’re awake!”
“Somebody was making a lot of noise, sir.”
“Sorry. You usually sleep through anything. Remember that rockslide?”
Mabuza did not reply. He was shivering, his teeth clacking hard. Van Tonder did not have a blanket but he did have the insulated tarps Mabuza had removed. He dragged them over the seat back and bundled first the pilot, then himself beneath them.
Then he sat back and waited.
A ruddy glow played against the blue sky where the explosion had been. Most likely burning fuel.
As he thought back over the conversation, he found himself less encouraged by what he had heard than unsettled.
Those were some pretty specific instructions from a man who was coming to this cold, van Tonder thought. The lieutenant colonel was either a very good or inordinately intuitive doctor, or there was one other possibility.
He had a very good idea what was going on.
Just then, the stars low on the sky were blotted by something moving along the horizon.