“Is this true, Russell?” Jake asked without looking up from the table.
Vardy sat down, ran his fingers through his hair, and fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. “I might have, you know, tinkered about a bit. I mean, it’s true what you said. A new strain of virus like that is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of discovery. Sure, we saw new bacteria and new variants of viruses all the time, but something like that, with such destructive power, something that used the body’s own defences to become stronger? That’s the sort of thing Nobel prizes are made of.”
“If they handed out Nobel prizes for doing evil shit,” Max grunted.
“Yes, well, you know what I mean.” Vardy was getting into the flow. He put his hands on the table and looked around at the others. “You can’t blame me if I chose to spend some of my free time trying to understand such a discovery, can you? Obviously I took all the necessary precautions. Nobody has ever been in any danger. This is important work. If we encounter another strain, or something else like it, we should be prepared, don’t you think?”
“Tell me then, virus-man,” Lucya said coldly. “In all your experimenting, have you come up with a way to make the virus act more quickly?”
Vardy closed his eyes.
“Forty-seven minutes,” Max said quietly.
“Okay!” Vardy kept his eyes shut. “I may have looked into ways of accelerating its destructive effects. Purely as a scientific exercise, you understand. It’s always possible we may encounter another variant. It’s as well to be prepared.”
“And did you succeed? Did you make a faster-acting virus?” Jake asked, his voice shaking slightly.
“Well, sort of. Kind of. I think so.”
All eyes were on him, all asking the same question.
“Okay, yes. It’s fast acting, but it’s also highly unstable. The first samples I created had a tendency to act so quickly as to self-destruct. But this is the beauty of this kind of research!” Vardy was becoming animated, gesticulating as he spoke. “You try going down one avenue and it leads you somewhere quite unexpected. Quite, quite unexpected. It’s early days, but I think I’ve been able to use that capability for auto-destruction to make a kind of antidote.”
“Great!” Lucya exclaimed. “So let’s get some of your mega-virus in there and paralyse the bastards!”
“Hold your horses. First, I’d need to defrost a sample of the modified virus. There are two in a secure freezer in the medical suite. It has to be done carefully; it can’t just be bunged in the microwave like a frozen pizza. Then it would have to be introduced into that classroom, and only that classroom, without — obviously — the occupants noticing. And even then, it might not cause enough paralysis within forty-seven minutes to be of any use.”
“How long?” Jake asked.
“I’d want it there for an hour to be sure. But that’s even assuming you could get it in there.”
“You let us worry about that, Russell. This is the best chance we have of getting every one of those kids out alive. Do it. Get your virus ready the quickest way you can. Sit on it, use a hairdryer, shove it down your pants for all I care, but get it warmed up and ready to go. Lucya, find Martin and work out a way of getting the virus into the room undetected. There has to be a pipe or a vent or something that goes through there. He knows this ship better than anyone. He’ll know a way.”
“Wait,” Vardy said. “That’s not the only problem.”
“Okay. Enlighten me.”
“If this works, and that’s a big if, the children will be carrying the modified virus. Anyone who goes in there, guns blazing, to get them out, will risk becoming infected. At least until the kids are no longer contagious.”
“How long do they remain contagious?”
“With the new strain? No idea. We’d have to quarantine them in a sterile and airtight room. But that’s not all.”
Jake rolled his head back. “What else?”
“The virus acts so quickly we won’t be able to get rid of it using the method we used before. The immunosuppresives that saved us will slow it down — maybe — but they won’t stop it. The Koreans will all die. Anyone who goes in there to get the kids out and contracts the virus will also die.”
Max stood and stretched. “You said you had an antidote? So my guys go in wearing gas masks. And while they do that, you can be preparing this room to quarantine them. It can’t be that hard. If they show signs, give them the antidote. The Koreans can die for all I care.”
“And therein lies the problem,” Vardy said. “The gas masks are all on the Ambush. And so is the antidote. I had to store it there as there was no more room in the secure freezer in the medical suite. Until the submarine comes back, your plan is a mass suicide mission.”
Jake got to his feet. He looked at Lucya. “Go. Find Martin.” He turned to Max. “Keep this area secured. Can you spare a couple of men?”
Max nodded. “I suppose. Why?”
Jake ignored him, looking instead at Vardy. “Get your virus ready. Take two of Max’s men with you and brief them on exactly what they must do to prepare this room for the children.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “And you?”
“I’m going to buy us some more time with the bad guys, and then I’m going to find HMS Ambush.”
• • •
While the others went to work on their rescue plan, Max Mooting returned to the classroom, where most of his team were keeping the area secure. “Have any of you lot seen Grace Garet?” His voice boomed through the corridor. He looked from one face to the next, but was met with blank expressions and shaking heads.
“Haven’t seen her at all today,” one man said.
“Me either,” Bembridge added, looking bashful.
Max groaned. He had a bad feeling about Grace. “Okay. Has anyone seen the gun she signed out this morning, before her shift started?”
More blank stares.
“None of you? Jesus. Why don’t we just start handing out weapons to everyone. It’s not like we’re short. Oh, wait, yes we are. A handful of anti-pirate weapons and a few guns donated by the Ambush. Bembridge has kindly given one to the Koreans, and now Garet’s gone missing with another one.”
A stocky security man nearer the classroom called him over. “Erm, there’s something else you need to know, Mr Mooting.”
“Yes?”
“It’s Zhang, sir.”
“What about him? You locked him up, right? With the others? Before coming down here?”
“No, sir. He’s gone missing.”
Max said nothing, didn’t take his eyes off his officer, waiting for an explanation.
“It was when the explosion happened. Made a hell of a noise, caused panic in the Farm Plaza. People running in all directions. I tried to grab onto Zhang, but he ran. I lost him in the crowd.”
“Jesus. Are you lot completely incompetent? How any of you ever got jobs in the real world I’ll never understand. Why didn’t you bring this to my attention earlier?”
“I tried to, sir. But with the Koreans and everything, there hasn’t been a chance.”
Max looked at his watch again. “Right. Get your useless butt upstairs to medical and find Doctor Vardy. He’ll tell you what you’re to do next. Take Evans with you. Everyone who’s supposed to be on restaurant duty can bugger off too. Those Koreans aren’t going anywhere. You four, stay there. Keep that door covered. The rest of you, duty as normal.”
“What about Zhang, sir?”
“What about him? He can’t go far, can he? It’s not like he’s going to skip the country. He’ll turn up, probably when he’s hungry.”