The Judas Strain - James Rollins [19]
She had treated over a hundred and fifty patients during the course of the interminable morning, cases of burns, blisters, racking coughs, dysentery, nausea, a wrist sprain from a fall at the docks. Yet she had only seen a fraction of all the cases. The cruise ship had arrived at the island last night, and the evacuation had been well under way by the time she arrived at daybreak, flown in by helicopter. It required her to hit the ground running. The tiny, remote island had held over two thousand inhabitants. Though quarters were tight, the ship should accommodate the entire populace, especially as the number of dead had tragically climbed past four hundred…and was still rising.
She stood for a moment, hugging her arms around herself, wishing it were Painter’s strong arms instead, embracing her from behind, his cheek, rough with stubble at her neck. She closed her eyes, tired. Even though he was absent, she borrowed a bit of his steel.
While laboring, case after case, it had been easy to turn clinical, to detach, to simply treat and move on.
But now, in this moment of calm, the enormity of the disaster struck her. Over the past two weeks, the illnesses here had started small, a few burns from immediate exposure. Then in just two days, the seas had churned up a toxic cloud, erupting in a final volcanic expulsion of blistering gas that killed a fifth of the population and injured the rest.
And though the toxic cloud had blown itself out, secondary illnesses and infections had begun afflicting the sick: flus, burning fevers, meningitis, blindness. The rapidity was disturbing. The entire third deck had been designated a quarantine area.
What was she doing here?
When this medical crisis first arose, Lisa had petitioned Painter for this assignment, stating her case. Besides her medical degree, she held a PhD in human physiology, but more importantly, she had extensive field experience, especially in marine sciences. She had labored for half a decade aboard a salvage ship, the Deep Fathom, doing physiological research.
So she had a sound argument for her inclusion here.
But it was not the only one.
For the past year Lisa had been land-bound in Washington and found herself slowly being consumed by Painter’s life. And while a part of her enjoyed the intimacy, the two becoming one, she also knew she needed this chance away, both for herself and for her relationship, a bit of distance to evaluate her life, out of Painter’s shadow.
But maybe this was too much distance…
A sharp scream drew her attention toward the double doors into the dining room. Two sailors hauled in a man atop a stretcher. He writhed and cried, skin weeping, red as a lobster shell. It looked as if his entire body had been parboiled. His bearers rushed him toward the critical care station.
Reflexively, she ran the treatment through her head, going clinical again. Diazepam and a morphine drip. Still, deeper inside, she knew the truth. They all did. The suffering man’s treatment would be merely palliative, to make him comfortable. The man on the stretcher was already dead.
“Here comes trouble,” Jessie mumbled behind her.
Lisa turned and spotted Dr. Gene Lindholm striding toward her, an ostrich of a man, all legs and neck, with a shock of feathered white hair. The head of the WHO team nodded at her, indicating she was indeed his target.
What now?
She didn’t particularly care for the Harvard-trained clinician. He came with an ego to match. Upon arriving, rather than helping here, he had sequestered himself with the owner of the cruise line, maverick Australian billionaire Ryder Blunt. The billionaire, notorious for his hands-on approach to business, had been aboard the ship for its maiden cruise. And while he could have left when the ship was commandeered, the billionaire had remained on-site, turning the rescue event into a marketing opportunity.
And Lindholm cooperated.
However, such cooperation did not extend to Monk and Lisa. The WHO leader resented the strings that were pulled to include the pair on his team. But he’d had no choice but to acquiesce