When Andy opened his eyes, he felt like he had been hit by a truck. His muscles ached with fatigue as if he had just completed a killer CrossFit workout, and he was racked with exhaustion.

“Doc?”

His voice was barely a whisper. He turned his head to the side and saw a machine displaying what he assumed were his vitals, and he studied the numbers with little more than idle curiosity. Like most pilots, he avoided the doctor at all costs and still didn’t know the difference between systolic and diastolic. He understood heart rates, and his looked unusually high.

“Doc?” he asked again.

The room was abuzz with activity, and each of the other beds was occupied. He couldn’t remember if that had been the case before, and he wondered just how many people had come down with the same illness. He vaguely remembered Tom telling him that lots of people were getting sick. Was this the result?

A corpsman appeared over his shoulder, and he focused his eyes on her, taking note of the mask and protective equipment she wore over her Navy Working Uniform.

“How are you feeling?”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“You and a lot of other people are getting sick. It’s spreading quickly across the entire ship.” She paused to look at his vitals, then checked the bag of saline solution hanging above his bed. “Are you feeling thirsty? Do you need to urinate?”

Andy shook his head. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

The petty officer nodded. “Makes sense. You had a seizure, so your muscles—”

He cut her off. “A seizure?”

“We think it was caused by a combination of severe dehydration and high fever. We’ve given you several bags of intravenous saline solution to remedy the first, but your fever is still higher than we’d like. Even after giving you acetaminophen injections.”

Andy looked at the patients in the other beds. “What about them?”

The corpsman winced and gripped her stomach before answering. “They’re experiencing the same symptoms. We’re doing what we can to keep them hydrated and cool them before it gets too bad.”

As the reality of the situation hit him, Andy remembered that Doc Crowe had wanted to draw blood and test it for pathogens. He thought he remembered that she had just received the results before telling somebody over the phone that she recommended quarantine and cleaning protocols.

“What did the blood test show?”

The corpsman’s eyes softened as she looked down at him, but she almost looked defeated. “I don’t know. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. But the Navy’s best doctors are looking at it.”

Andy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to make it home to Jenn. That was all that mattered.

46

Dusty One

Air Branch Mi-17 Hip

Charlie leaned forward and kept sight of the retreating Super Hornet for as long as he could. Its glowing exhaust was clearly visible through his night vision goggles, but one by one, even those turned dark and cold as the fighter jet ran out of precious fuel. Like most pilots, he watched with morbid fascination until the bitter end.

“Think he made it?” Charlie asked.

Before Roger could answer, they both saw a bright flash as the canopy jettisoned and the pilot ejected from the stricken jet. They were too far away to see the parachute deploy, and all they could do was hope he had survived.

“Can you see him?” Roger asked.

Instead of answering, Charlie keyed the microphone. “Pedro One, this is Dusty One. The Super Hornet pilot ejected, but we can’t see a chute.”

The Marine pilot replied immediately. “Roger. We have his beacon.”

“What’s our fuel?” Charlie asked.

As if his copilot understood what he was asking, Roger replied, “Not enough.”

Charlie clenched his jaw in frustration. As a fellow pilot, he didn’t like the idea of leaving the fighter pilot alone in the water. But he liked it even less since they would have been shot from the sky had he not shown up when he did. The fact that the fighter pilot had knowingly run himself out of gas to save them made it even more maddening that they had to continue to the shoal without looking for him.

But the Marine Osprey pilot set his mind at ease. “Dusty One, Pedro Two is en route to recover the pilot. Continue to Scarborough Shoal.”

“Dusty One,” Charlie replied.

The flickering red light on the radar warning receiver turned solid, and the relative silence was broken by an alarm neither wanted to hear. They were no longer detecting only the side lobes of the HQ-9’s radar energy but were being targeted by the robust surface-to-air missile battery.

“Dusty One is spiked,” Roger said, reaching down to activate their electronic warfare jammers.

“Dusty One, Scar Nine Nine, chatter indicates the HQ-9 battery is targeting you,” the calm voice from the TOC said.

“No kidding!”

Another red light blinked on, and Charlie glanced down to see the low fuel warning he had hoped would remain extinguished for just a little while longer. They were already making best speed for the shoal, and there was nothing they could do to counter either problem — the enemy surface-to-air missile or the lack of fuel.