James Abel
White Plague
MAP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe many people thanks for their generous help during the research, writing, and editing of this novel.
At the U.S. Coast Guard, thanks to Admiral Thomas Ostebo, to Captain John Reeves of the icebreaker Healy, to Marcus Lippmann, and to the crew of that icebreaker. Thanks for a great trip.
Thanks to retired General Dana Atkins of the U.S. Air Force. At the Navy, to Robert Freeman, once again, and to Lieutenant Commander Jason Weed, and to David Fisher, retired, all of whom put up with lots of questions. At the U.S. Marine Corps, thanks to Captain Tyler Balzer.
Several magazine editors gave me assignments in the Arctic over a three-year period. I’d like to thank Daryl Chen and Janice Kaplan at Parade, Carey Winfrey of Smithsonian, Dawn Raffel at Reader’s Digest, and Chris Keyes at Outside magazine.
In Barrow, Alaska, thanks to Edward Itta and Richard Glenn, and also to David Harding, formerly of Barrow.
In Anchorage, huge thanks to Mead Treadwell.
To Bruce Seligman, inventor of the Arktos amphibious craft, many thanks for taking the time to answer my many questions.
Thanks to Patricia Burke and Charles Salzberg, good friends who gave terrific advice during the writing of the book. So did James Grady and Phil Gerard.
The list of people I ran imaginary scenarios by includes Jerome Reiss, Samantha Reiss, Marsha Price, Gabrielle Rosenthal, Ken and Ann Smith, Ginny O’Leary and Kirk Swiss, and Dr. Tio Chen. Michael Pillinger at NYU was hugely helpful on the subject of viruses. Thanks.
Many thanks to Tasha Mandel, and to Seicha Turnbull.
To my publisher, Leslie Gelbman, and my editor, Tom Colgan, thanks for believing in the book.
I’m lucky to have agents like Esther Newberg, Josie Freeman, Daisy Meyrick, and Zoe Sandler.
I’m luckier still to have Wendy Roth at home.
There is no resemblance between any real person and the fictional characters in White Plague. The real icebreaker Healy is not the fictional icebreaker Wilmington in the novel, and the crew of the real ship has no resemblance to the crew of the fictional one, except that they both have my respect and admiration, as do the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard for the superb job they do.
Any factual mistakes in this novel are mine.
ONE
The pleas for help stopped coming just after five in the morning, Washington time. The Pentagon staffers cleared for handling sensitive messages sat in horror for a moment and then tried other ways to reach the victims. Nothing worked so they called the director, who phoned me. I was awake anyway, as I often am at 1 A.M., Alaskan time, running a fifteen-miler in the coastal city of Anchorage, where I live.
I have trouble sleeping. I don’t like the dreams that come when I do.
The director said, “Joe, the submarine USS Montana is in the Arctic Ocean, five hundred miles north of Alaska, on the surface, on fire.”
“What started it, sir?”
“Unclear. Everything happened fast, in the last few hours. Something toxic hit ’em. Chemicals or gas probably. They’re sick apparently. Their air circulation system went out and then the fire started. Or maybe the fire started first. They can’t dive. They can’t move. The Montana carries a crew of a hundred and fifty-four men and women. Last report, one hundred and seven were still alive. Nine are critical. The medical officer burned to death.”
“Radiation leak?”
“It’s not radiation.”
“Intentional?”
“Possible, Joe.”
“What’s the surface temperature?”
“Plus two. At least the sun barely goes down in late August. Darkness drops it another twenty degrees.”
I blew out air. “Where are the survivors, sir?”
“Anyone not fighting the fire evacuated. They’re on the ice, in insulated tents and covered life rafts, with portable generators. They’ve got fuel for two more days.”
I swore. “Rescue helicopters?”
“Nothing has the range or space. Plus our closest subs are eight, nine days out. And, Joe?” I heard thick frustration in the director’s voice, and grief. “The satellites are blind. Three days of bad weather and more on the way. Some kind of polar superstorm. We can’t send planes, even those tough little Twin Otters. And nothing can land anyway on that ice. It’s a goddamn rubble field where that sub came up. Might as well be boulders.”
I thought fast, breathing with exertion, standing in running shorts and Reeboks on Treadwell Street in front of the old Russian church, with its hemlock and Sitka spruce trees scenting the air, along with the clean tang of the Chugach Mountain Range foothills, and with dead marble eyes of dew wet statues — saints and ocean explorers, Vitus Bering, watching the solitary runner with an encrypted cell phone in his hand. The yellow cedars were heavy with green. A traffic light blinked red in the plate glass window of Rosa’s Brooklyn Bagels. “Maybe the Russians can assist, sir. Don’t they have twenty icebreakers? They must have something closer.”
There was a long sigh. The director said, “Can’t.”
In the silence I heard secrecy and disgust for politics and necessity and all the reasons why our biohazard response unit had been formed in the first place. The director was a rotating public servant — corporate to government for twenty years — and lived in a world of high-level trade-offs. He was far more comfortable in the backstabbing world of high-level Washington than I. I said, the drumbeat of urgency growing, “Why, sir?” and the bigger picture began coming out.
“She’s a Virginia-class sub, newest thing we’ve got. Most advanced weapons and guidance systems. We can’t have President Topov’s boys getting a look at them, sharing them with their friends in Damascus and Tehran.”
“So it was a spy mission.”
“They have spies,” the director said wryly. “We have intel. Joe, get up there.” His voice grew angry. “The United States Navy… greatest in the world… and we only have one working icebreaker at the moment and it’s used for science, not even under Navy control. The Coast Guard has it. At least it’s only four hours out of Barrow,” he said, naming the northernmost city in Alaska. “It’s been up there doing sea bottom surveys. We’ll jettison the scientists, board you and Marines.”
“I want Eddie with me,” I said, naming my best friend.
“He’s on the way.”
“And an expert on Virginia-class subs.”
“Yes, yes, with Major Nakamura, coming up from Seattle,” the director said. Major Nakamura was Eddie.
He added, as if needing to underline urgency, “The new Russian government makes old Vladimir Putin look peaceful as Gandhi. They’ve made control of the Arctic a keystone of military policy. The Arctic is melting, Joe. A whole ocean opening that wasn’t passable before. Oil. Gas. Shipping. It’ll make the Atlantic sub game look like third grade. They’re stronger than us up there. I’ve been trying for years to get more money from Congress for Arctic ops.”
“You mean intel.” My joke fell flat.
“Save the ones you can. Secure or destroy that sub. Joe, whatever happened up there, whatever started it, you’ve got the qualifications to handle it. You make the hard choices. I’ll back you up.”
I felt my pulse go up and more sweat break out on my forehead. One hundred and fifty-four people. A sharp ache gripped my gut. My mouth was dry and a cold shadow seemed to pass over the city, even though it was a hot night for Anchorage, temperatures around seventy degrees.