“Then why give us the antidote?”
“Maybe they made a mistake using it. Maybe whoever used it did so without orders. So now they need to stop it, but not admit they did it. It’s a screwup. They sent Zhou here to make the problem go away, before the truth got out,” Eddie suggested. “If the truth gets out that they attacked us, Christ, One, that’s an act of war.”
I recalled our first confrontation with Zhou, the way the Chinese officer had threatened to blow up the Montana, had sent soldiers to seize it. Was it possible that the whole episode — the attempt at seizure at first, the supplying of drugs when military action failed — had all been some kind of attempted cover-up, an effort to correct a terrible error made by someone on the Chinese side?
“No,” I decided. “That wouldn’t explain the disease breaking out because the Montana took hundred-year-old bodies aboard, and it sure wouldn’t explain the connection to an old silent movie.”
“Do you have a better explanation?” Eddie challenged.
“No.”
“How about a worse explanation?”
“No,” I said helplessly.
“Well, while we try to figure out any explanation,” Eddie said, “we better get word to the director that we might have an antidote. I mean, if people keep getting better on it then… My God! An actual antidote!”
“And I’m going to ask Zhou what the hell this is.”
I called ahead to the bridge to warn DeBlieu that I would be coming. It was the only way to try to use the long-range radio, that is, if it had been fixed. When I reached the bridge, the group of officers clustered at the control panel and chart table — a smaller group than usual, diminished by disease — moved back collectively, even though I was in my hazmat suit, with a surgical mask on instead of the faceplate, so I could talk.
The view through the windows stopped me dead. I’d not seen the sky for many hours, and it had changed. It seemed a schizophrenic rendering of two entirely different weather systems. To the northeast, a colossal northern light show — aurora borealis — turned the heavens astoundingly beautiful. The whole sky was luminous and deep cobalt, and against that background I saw enormous pulsating serpents in electric emerald, forming fantastic waxing and waning shapes — intertwined pythons, massive twirling ghost gyroscopes — while a solid arc of light stretched away, parallel to and fixed above the steep curvature of the earth.
But look left and I saw the ominous incoming mass of one more weather system, a thick solid gray. In minutes the cloud wall would slide between the lights and the ship, obscuring the glorious show, low and dark.
I turned to glance back. Behind the ship, a half mile away, was our follower, the sub, matching our speed.
DeBlieu’s crew stood ready with bottles of powerful disinfectant. They would pounce when I left and scrub anything I touched, anything nearby. The captain showed me how to operate the HF radio, and explained that the crew had been working in the radio room, and they were ready for a test.
“But even if we got the thing working, you might have trouble due to that light show overhead,” DeBlieu said.
When I switched it on, a gaggle of electronic scratches and screeches poured out. Nothing… nothing…
The whole thing went dead.
I could not call out.
I got on the handheld and called the submarine. While DeBlieu and the bridge crew listened, transfixed, I told the truth, that their medicines were working. I said that we knew now they’d sent aboard different stuff than ours. I told them that we’d compared medicines under the microscope, and the differences, chemically, were huge, no small modification. I thanked Zhou but also asked him, “Can you tell me what is in those containers? We’re going to need more. We need to know what it is.”
The static grew so bad that for an instant I thought that I’d lost him. The gray clouds were ominously closer in the sky now, racing toward us, closing the gap. The static climbed so high that I saw two of DeBlieu’s crew cover their ears with their hands.
But then the voice came through.
“Colonel, this is excellent news. I’ve been instructed to tell you that we are pleased that medicines made in China have been able to assist you in a time of need.”
He had not answered the question.
I asked, “But what is the medicine that you gave us?”
“I’ve been instructed to inform you that representatives from the People’s Republic would be pleased to work out a way, with your government, of supplying more help. These discussions will be held at high levels so action can come fast!”
I felt as if he read from a script that had nothing to do with my questions. That he understood my questions perfectly and that no real answers would come. It was maddening. The man had studied English but just used it to talk in riddles. So I asked directly about Zhou’s change in behavior, the switch from aggressor to helper, as the static poured forth, and the British accent — if I didn’t know it came from a Chinese man, I would have envisioned someone in a bowler hat — came through again.
“I have been instructed, should you make this particular inquiry, to inform you that we work for a different superior now. The officer formerly in charge of our command is temporarily assigned to a different job.”
Above, I watched the dark clouds consume the light show. Soon half the sky was gray, then 30 percent, then 10. The electric green undulations vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.
I said, “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you? You’re not going to give me any answers at all.”
Nothing.
“Can you help us call Washington?” I asked, grasping at a new thought. “Patch me through?”
But they were gone. I cursed.
They were back.
“I’ve been instructed, Colonel,” the voice continued in that maddeningly formal tone, “to inform you that we now intend to break off contact, submerge, sir, and leave you with our good wishes before your warplane arrives.”
“Warplane?” A barb sliced into my belly. “What warplane?” I thought, Was that a warning? From Zhou?
“Colonel, considering the recent misunderstandings between our countries in the South China Sea, we do not wish our presence to be misconstrued as aggressive. We wish you continued success in thwarting the outbreak. I am instructed to say good-bye and wish you the best of luck, especially now that satellites cannot see what happens to you, with cloud cover so thick. We hope you suffer no accident.”
He clicked off. He did not answer when I attempted to reestablish contact. I went out on deck and saw, beyond the aft deck and copter landing square and winches at the rear of the ship, the submarine fall back, slide low, and then there was a phosphorescent frothing at the bow, from microorganisms. Zhou’s submarine began to disappear.
Captain DeBlieu — back on the bridge — had heard the whole conversation.
“What was that about a warplane?” he asked. “And an accident? And why the effing x do they know more than we do half the time? We need choppers, dropped supplies. A warplane? An accident?”
“How far are we from land, Captain?”
“Eighty miles, more or less. But I don’t get it. How come they haven’t sent us a copter by now?”
“Can I reach Barrow on the handheld?”
I tried. Of course no one answered. We needed a miracle. The goddamn radio had a range of a few miles.
DeBlieu said, not really believing it, “Maybe we’ll get lucky, patch up the radio room. Yeah, maybe.”
And I asked, “How fast can your Zodiacs go?”
“At top speed, twenty-six, twenty-eight knots.”