Plague Ship by Clive Cussler, Jack du Brul

wasn’t a pretty sight. She hadn’t even had the strength to let the lone nurse change her sheets and could imagine what her body smelled like.
    The curtain around her bed was suddenly drawn back. Dr. Passman moved so softly that Janni never knew he had entered the recovery room. He was in his sixties, a retired heart surgeon from England who had given up his practice following his divorce and had signed on to be a shipboard doctor with the Golden Cruise Lines to enjoy a more peaceful life and to deny his ex-wife half of the salary he had once made.
    “I heard you cry out,” he said, looking at the monitors rather than his patient. “Are you okay?”
    “Just another attack.” Janni managed a smile. “Same as I’ve been having for three days now.” She then added in her lilting Scandinavian accent, “It wasn’t as bad as before. I think they’re passing.”
    “I will be the one making that determination,” he said, finally looking at her. There was concern in his eyes. “You’re as blue as a berry. My daughter has chronic asthma, but not like you.”
    “I’m used to it,” Jannike shrugged. “I had my first attack when I was five, so I’ve been dealing with it for three-quarters of my life.”
    “I’ve been meaning to ask, are there other members of your family who have it?”
    “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and neither of my parents had it, though my mother told me her mother had it when she was a little girl.”
    Passman nodded. “It tends to run in families. I would have thought being at sea and away from pollution would have reduced your symptoms.”
    “I had hoped so, too,” Janni said. “That’s one of the reasons I took a job waitressing on a cruise ship. Well, that and to get out of a small town with nothing to do but watch fishing boats come in and out of the harbor.”
    “You must miss your parents.”
    “I lost them two years ago.” A shadow passed behind her dark eyes. “Car accident.”
    “I am sorry. Your color’s coming back,” Passman said to change the subject. “And your breathing seems to be getting easier.”
    “Does that mean I can leave?” Janni asked.
    " ’Fraid not, my dear. Your oxygen saturation level is still below what I would like to see.”
    “I suppose it doesn’t matter to you that today is the crew’s social,” she said with a trace of disappointment. According to the clock on the far wall, the party was only a few hours away.
    The dance was the first opportunity for the younger members of the ship’s hotel staff to cut loose a little since the Golden Dawn had left the Philippines two weeks earlier. It was to be the highlight of the cruise for the waiters, waitresses, maids, and off-duty crew, which happened to be comprised of some devilishly handsome Norwegians. Janni knew some of the younger passengers were going to attend as well. It was all anyone had been talking about for a week.
    “No, it doesn’t,” the doctor said.
    The door to the small hospital ward opened, and, a moment later, Elsa and Karin, Janni’s best friends on the Golden Dawn , swept into the room amid a cloud of perfume. They were from Munich, a couple of years older than Janni, and had spent the past three years working for the cruise line. Elsa was a pastry chef, and Karin worked the same dining-room shift as Jannike. They were dressed to kill. Karin wore a black dress with spaghetti straps that accented her ample chest, while Elsa wore a tank dress and, from the lack of lines under the clinging fabric, nothing else. Both were heavily made up and giggly.
    “How are you feeling?” Elsa asked and sat on the edge of Janni’s bed, ignoring Passman.
    “Jealous.”
    “You aren’t well enough to come to the party?” Karin scowled at the doctor as if it was his fault Jannike’s asthma wasn’t in check.
    Janni pushed her damp hair off her forehead. “Even if I was, I wouldn’t stand a chance the way you two are dressed.”
    “Do you think Michael will like