Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

“But so are any of the tax-haven islands south of Cuba,” Tess said. “Plus there’s all of Central America. That’s a lot of countries, a lot of islands, and so a lot of runways. It’s unlikely we’ll find that plane, but the best place to look is Puerto Morelos.”

“Are you not hungry, boss?” Zach asked. “Because if you don’t want your breakfast, I could finish it.”

“Not a chance,” she said.

It didn’t take long to finish their meagre repast. Afterwards, as Avalon began a lecture on the domestication of corn, Tess went to the bridge. Captain Adams was nearing the end of a rant partially directed at Commander Tusitala.

“Do you know the most frustrating thing?” Adams asked. “There is coffee galore on the mainland. Ah, Commissioner. Good morning.”

“G’day. Are you thinking of an excursion to a farm?” Tess asked.

“No, I was bemoaning the existence of the undead,” Adams said. “We’re only seventy kilometres east of Nicaragua. If we had fuel for the helicopter, there’d be nothing to stop us flying to Nicaragua, finding a farm, and harvesting coffee beans for breakfast.”

“Even if the zoms really are dying like the scientists think,” Commander Tusitala said, “dying’s not the same as dead.”

“Ah. Right. That,” Tess said. “I want to believe them, but it sounds like a theory with little evidence to back it up.”

“We’ll get the evidence when we get back to Auckland,” Commander Tusitala said. “Someone over there must have seen it, too. Next trip, we’ll pick up the coffee, Cap’n.”

“Next voyage, we’ll be heading for the tea plantations of Sri Lanka,” Adams said. “But perhaps we’ll find some supplies on Corn Island.”

“Will we arrive there today?” Tess asked.

“Within the hour,” Adams said. “We’re ten kilometres south of the Corn Islands. There are two, Big Corn, and Little Corn. Another hundred and fifty kilometres west-northwest is the island of San Andres, but I think we’ll investigate there on our return.”

“How far to Puerto Morelos?” Tess asked.

“Another thousand kilometres,” Tusitala said.

“We’re low on aviation fuel,” Adams said. “The helicopter is essential to an effective survey of the Mexican mainland. Tourist-cities are the last place I’d want to seek refuge in a disaster. I doubt we’ll find many survivors near the coast, but those that are there could have sought refuge at the top of tall hotels.”

“Hopefully hotels with a helipad,” Tusitala said.

“Exactly,” Adams said. “We might find a few survivors hiding on the rooftops, but I doubt we’ll find supplies. No, this whole region was too popular with tourists, and too close to Cuba. It’s been too long since the outbreak. Survivors will have moved inland, towards a source of fresh water. We’ll need time to find them. Time, and food, and fuel for the Seahawk.”

“Are we changing our priority from reaching Puerto Morelos to finding survivors?” Tess said.

“The two are the same,” Adams said. “Puerto Morelos is a coastal overspill for Cancun. There’s no refinery, no large harbour. It’s barely more than a port on our charts. I’d guess it’s for people who want a quieter holiday than you’d find further up the Yucatan Peninsula. My theory is that this group were selling the fuel contained within a diesel-tanker originally servicing the remote tourist-harbours of the Caribbean. The Mexican Gulf, and the states and nations bordering it, ooze with oil. If these survivors had been workers at a refinery, who’d just refuelled a fuel-freighter when the outbreak hit, what better vessel to seize?”

“Have you a map of the Gulf?” Tess asked.

“You want to look at this one,” Tusitala said. “It marks the major refineries, and the off-shore platforms.”

“But there are smaller refineries which aren’t on our charts,” Adams said. “If this group of survivors were protecting a fuel supply in a small harbour town, why didn’t they barter passage aboard any of the ships travelling through there?”

“If it were me, I’d have taken the first ship,” Tusitala said. “Unless I had something to protect.”

“Like a family too large to fit in something like that yacht,” Tess said.

“I was thinking of something far bigger than that,” Tusitala said. “Why trade fuel for gold with ships that will never return? If they had so much food and ammunition they didn’t require more, why trade fuel at all? If this is such a large group, so confident in their position, they can effectively give diesel away, why didn’t that yacht stay with them? If they controlled an airport, too, wouldn’t we have seen more than one plane, and wouldn’t that plane have radioed us, selling us a pitch to come bring our gold to Mexico?”

“I bet you have an answer,” Tess said.

“We both do,” Adams said. “Different answers.”

“I think they’ve got an oil platform, and a refinery,” Tusitala said.

“There’s a refinery in Puerto Morelos?” Tess asked.

“Not one listed on our charts,” Adams said. “One point we both agree on is that Puerto Morelos might not be precisely where that yacht bought the fuel, but a guess by that young diarist as to where they were nearest when they met these traders. I believe they had a diesel-transport vessel, and the plane we saw is looking for them. The commander believes that plane is looking for land.”

“Farmland,” Tusitala said. “That’s what they’ll want now. Farmland within sailing distance of the refinery.”

“Oil platforms in the Indian Ocean were targets for pirates even before the first bomb fell,” Adams said. “It’s less likely they will have survived here. It is unbelievable that the roughnecks, on reaching the mainland, would not have gone looking for their families.”

“They came back,” Tusitala said. “Or the traders are the workers from the refinery whose families live nearby.”

“A ship, or a refinery?” Tess asked. “Why not both? Diesel is valuable. Too valuable to swap for shiny yellow rocks. But you