"Good job."
Santiago clicked off.
He made his way towards the engine room.
The admiral called Tomas Benjamin on the coms. He told the man about the ship. It must be somewhere around the shores of Antarctica or on the high sea.
In minutes one of the ships moved off.
Admiral Huebner smiled contentedly.
Meanwhile, the U-boat had broken water. He went down to the sonar room to find it. They found the beeping marker of the boat due east on the coast of the ice shelves. The admiral directed the exec forward.
"Full speed!" he hissed.
"Aye, aye, sir."
Peter Williams was shaking more visibly as they approached the open sea and a brewing storm to the west. Nassif did not ask this time. He now knew the signs of the disease. He touched the professor's hand furtively. It was clammy. But he knew the man was burning up inside.
"You are sick," he whispered.
Peter's face tightened. He looked out to sea.
Nassif wasn't the only one watching. Ted Cooper got up slowly from his place on the box of tools. He frowned.
"He's infected!"
Olivia looked up from her notes, her face drained of color. She stood up. Miller and Itay Friedman turned to look at Peter too.
"Look at him; he's got the chills as the soldiers had. His color is leaving him!" Ted shouted.
"Shut up, Ted. We have all lost weight and color," Miller said without much strength.
He asked Peter Williams, "How are you feeling, Professor?"
Peter sighed. "I don't know. Just tired and hungry."
"Oh no, you lying fuck, you feel way worse than that," Ted said.
Friedman removed one of his guns, cocked it, and pointed it. Miller looked at him and shook his head. "We have to be sure, Itay."
Miller glanced at Doctor Anabia Nassif.
"We are not savages, you have to test him. Give him some drugs, whatever."
Nassif pulled out his rack of tubes. He stared at the collection for a while, then pushed it back under the console. Something had happened to the virus since they left the underground facility.
He said, "Guys, have you wondered why the major isn't dead yet? The first soldier to get infected went berserk and just died. The others got sick and progressed a lot more slower. Then the major just won't die."
They stared at him. Borodin's eyes went wide. "And he's been busy pulling wires."
"What I'm saying is, this virus infects everyone, but each one reacts to it differently; some die instantly, just as the Nazi scientists wanted it to. But it was their first, and they were bound to make mistakes in measurements, calibrations, they didn't even have centrifuges. Peter is not going to die. As of this moment, his immune system is fighting the virus. We are all fighting it, we are all infected. We will all show symptoms with time."
There was shocked silence.
Miller said finally, "Keep the professor under observation."
Olivia was beside him. She squeezed Peter's hand.
Everyone smiled at Peter. He returned it with a weak one.
Admiral Tomas Benjamin found Frank Miller's ship, a luxurious cruise watercraft. It was waiting by an uninhabited atoll ten miles out as if waiting for some signal.
The admiral radioed back to Huebner. "Send the ship away," he ordered. "Shoot it if it resists."
"Isn't that too extreme?"
"No, this is national security, Tomas. Whose side are you on?"
"You need to calm down, Huebner."
Huebner hung up.
Prick.
Huebner checked the horizon through his glasses again and saw the U-boat floating along carelessly. A wicked grin smothered his face.
"Got you."
He called his exec.
"Target in sight. Advance on it!"
The admiral saw the dense black cloud west. The wind was changing, and drops of water pelted the windshields. Waves crashed as the winds blew.
"Two hundred meters, and gaining," the exec announced.
"Fire at will, at fifty meters."
12
Second officer Julio Hernandez approached the exec in his office. He was with two other officers. He was a cautious young man with a birthmark on the side of his face.
He asked permission to see the admiral. He held his logbook and a piece of the official document.
"I have to make a report of these activities on international waters."
The exec's eyes shifted from the officer to the other two who accompanied him. He asked the officer to come with him.
"Alone," he added.
When they entered the coms room where the admiral was waiting, the exec told the admiral what the two officers requested.
"Let me have the form, I'll deal with it, Officer."
"Sir, I have to do it myself," the slight man retorted.
Admiral Huebner signaled the exec to leave.
When the door was shut, Admiral Huebner stretched out his hand. "Let me have the form, Officer. I'm taking the burden from you."
"No, sir." He spread his feet apart. "Whatever these people did to you, it does not matter. These are international waters. I have to report it."
"No one will ever find out if you don't report it," Huebner argued. "It is for the sake of the international laws that you so adore that Tomas Benjamin and I are doing this."
"I beg to disagree, sir."
"Then, I'm sorry that I have to insist." Huebner stepped forward. "Hand it over, Officer. I will not ask again."
The officer retreated, his back to the door.
A gun materialized in Huebner's hand. He squeezed off two rounds, it hit the officer center mass. The officer slid down the door, coughing blood and spraying his white uniform. He left a streak of crimson on the door.
Huebner picked up the form from beside the dying man as he watched the blood pool on the officer's chest. He called the exec, who cleaned up the blood.
The exec flung the body over the side of the ship.
The wind howled outside, it rocked the U-boat from side to side. Miller tried to reach his ship. He got static.
Nassif was having difficulties finding the ship on the sonar. But he saw another blip on the sonar, and it was closing in on them fast. He called the crew.
"Are we expecting company?" Nassif asked Miller.
“No, why?"
They stared at the black screen. There was the blip that was the U-boat and another that was moving faster than they were.
"And it's coming from behind." Miller frowned.
"The major," Itay Friedman said.
Miller instructed the bodyguard to find the Argentine major.
Meanwhile, it had begun raining violently outside. Dark clouds hung so low they could row their boats into them. Nicolai and Borodin went up the hatch and saw the destroyer gaining on the U-boat.
It had gotten so dark, and the sea tumultuous, that shooting was almost impossible. The waves tossed the ship up and down. Admiral Huebner ordered that flares be fired.
And then the long guns be fired at the U-boat.
Hesitant at first, the exec would not give the order. He remembered the body of the second officer now being torn by the waves and fishes. He gave the order.
The U-boat was getting rocked on the waves. Each member of the team held on to something.
Peter Williams's symptoms were fading. He had nearly reached self-composure, but the color was leaving the faces of the others as they held on to life.
Nassif called out, "We are locked! We are locked!"
"What!?" Ted shouted.
"Missiles."
Before the missiles, there were shots. A few hit the water beside the vessel. Two glanced off the prow.
"We need to dive! We are diving, hold on to something!"