The dinghy bobbed in the choppy gray water of the bay.
Jason rowed hard. His muscles burned, but the physical pain was a relief. It distracted him from the mental image of Sarah struggling to breathe.
Beside him sat the lead canister, radiating a faint warmth.
Ahead, the wreckage of the Red October loomed like a beached whale. The massive Soviet airship was half-submerged, its tail fin sticking out of the water at a forty-five-degree angle.
Soldiers stood on the tilted hull. They raised their rifles as Jason approached.
Jason stopped rowing. He raised the white flag.
"Don't shoot!" Jason shouted in Russian (a phrase he had learned from a duolingo session he barely remembered). "Parlay!"
A man in a leather trench coat stepped to the edge of the wreckage. His arm was in a sling. His round glasses were cracked.
Leon Trotsky.
The revolutionary leader looked down at the billionaire.
"You have nerve, Capitalist," Trotsky shouted. "You destroyed my fleet. Why should I not put a bullet in you?"
"Because your men are dying," Jason shouted back. He pointed to a soldier near Trotsky who was coughing violently, blue foam on his lips. "The flu. It's killing them faster than my EMP did."
Trotsky looked at the sick soldier. He hesitated.
"I have a cure," Jason lied. "But I need your help to finish it."
Trotsky stared at him for a long moment. Then he waved his hand.
"Come aboard."
Jason climbed the slippery hull of the airship.
The deck was a disaster zone. Wounded men lay on crates. The air smelled of diesel fuel and sickness.
Trotsky sat on an ammunition box. He looked pale.
"Show me," Trotsky demanded.
Jason opened the lead canister. Inside was the gray, radioactive sludge of the bone marrow.
"Phosphorus-32," Jason explained. "A radioactive isotope. It hunts the virus. But I need to separate it. My electric centrifuge is dead. I need a manual one."
Trotsky laughed. A dry, hacking sound.
"You Americans. Helpless without electricity."
He snapped his fingers.
A medic brought out a heavy wooden box. Inside was a hand-cranked centrifuge made of brass and iron. Sturdy. Reliable. Soviet.
"We use this for blood typing in the field," Trotsky said. "Will it work?"
"It has to," Jason said.
He set up the machine on a level crate. He poured the bone sludge into the glass vials.
"Crank it," Jason said to the medic.
The medic hesitated, looking at the glowing sludge.
"I'll do it," Jason said.
He grabbed the handle. He spun it.
Whirrrrrr.
The gears ground together. Jason spun faster. His arm ached. He needed 3,000 RPM to separate the isotope.
Trotsky watched him.
"Why?" Trotsky asked. "Why come here? Why save my men?"
"I'm not saving your men," Jason grunted, sweating. "I'm saving my wife. Your men are just the control group."
Trotsky smiled. "Pragmatism. I respect that."
Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Jason's arm felt like it was on fire.
"Stop," the medic said.
Jason let go of the handle. The centrifuge spun down.
He lifted the vials.
Separation.
At the bottom, the heavy bone matter. At the top, a clear, glowing blue liquid.
Pure Phosphorus-32.
"Bring me a patient," Jason ordered.
Trotsky pointed to the coughing soldier. "Ivan. Front and center."
The soldier stumbled forward. He looked terrified.
Jason drew the blue liquid into a syringe.
"This will burn," Jason warned.
He injected it into the soldier's arm.
Ivan gasped. He fell to his knees, clutching his veins.
"It's hot!" Ivan screamed. "Fire in my blood!"
"It's working," Jason watched the soldier's neck. The blue veins were turning red. The radiation was killing the viral replication instantly.
Five minutes later, Ivan stopped screaming. He took a deep breath. He didn't cough.
"I can breathe," Ivan whispered. "Comrade General... I can breathe."
Trotsky looked at Jason with new eyes.
"You have done it," Trotsky said. "You have weaponized medicine."
"Take the rest," Jason handed him two vials. "Save your crew. I'm taking this one."
He grabbed the last vial and jumped back into the dinghy.
"Go," Trotsky said. "But know this, Prentice. Next time we meet, I will not need a cure."
The Infirmary
Jason sprinted into the cell block.
Sarah was unconscious. The monitor (a manual stethoscope taped to her chest) showed her heart rate was fading.
"She's crashing," the medic yelled.
Jason didn't wait. He didn't sterilize the needle.
He jammed the syringe into her arm and pushed the plunger.
The glowing blue fluid entered her bloodstream.
Sarah's eyes flew open. She arched her back, a silent scream of agony.
"Hold her down!" Jason yelled.
Hemingway and O'Malley grabbed her shoulders. She thrashed, her body fighting the radiation.
"Come on," Jason whispered, holding her hand. "Fight it."
Her temperature spiked. She was burning up.
Then, she collapsed back onto the cot.
Silence.
Jason put his ear to her chest.
Thump... thump... thump.
Stronger. Slower.
And her breath. It wasn't a rattle anymore. It was a sigh.
The blue tint faded from her lips.
"She's clearing," the medic gasped. "The fluid is reabsorbing."
Jason slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor. He buried his face in his hands. He was shaking uncontrollably.
"We did it," O'Malley cheered quietly. "We beat the bug."
Jason looked up. He felt a wave of relief so strong it made him dizzy.
BANG.
A gunshot echoed from outside.
Distant. From the mainland.
"What was that?" Hemingway asked, grabbing his shotgun.
They ran out to the prison yard.
They looked toward the city.
Through the binoculars, Jason saw the Presidio.
The American flag was gone.
A new flag was rising over General MacArthur's base.
It was black. In the center was a red 'L'.
"The Silver Legion," Hemingway spat.
"Who?" Jason asked.
"Fascists," Hemingway said. "American Nazis. Led by William Dudley Pelley. They hate the Reds. They hate the government. And they just took the military base."
Through the scope, Jason saw a figure standing on the ramparts of the Presidio. A man in a silver shirt and black tie. He was holding a sniper rifle.
Jason looked out at the bay.
On the deck of the Red October, there was a commotion.
Trotsky was down.
"They shot him," Jason realized. "They assassinated Trotsky."
"Why?" O'Malley asked. "He was retreating."
"They don't want him to retreat," Jason said, watching the black flag snap in the wind. "They want the cure."
He looked at the vial in his hand. The last of the isotope.
"We cured the flu," Jason whispered. "But we just caught the cancer."
The Silver Legion began to fire mortars at the island.
"Get back inside!" Jason yelled. "The war isn't over. It just changed management."