Plague Ship

The Oregon looks like a battered freighter, but it is a heavily armed private vessel crewed by former military and intelligence operatives, and it works for any government willing to pay. Its captain is Juan Cabrillo, a charming, one-legged chairman who runs the whole outfit, known as the Corporation. This is a novel in the Oregon Files series by Clive Cussler.

Fresh from a secret operation against Iran in the Persian Gulf, the crew comes upon a cruise liner drifting with no one at the helm. Hundreds of dead passengers are scattered across its decks. Before Cabrillo can work out what killed them, a series of explosions tears through the ship, and he gets out alive only by a narrow margin, bringing with him the one person aboard who is still living.

What follows is a tangled and dangerous puzzle. The trail leads Cabrillo to a fanatical cult that has a deadly plan for the whole human race, one involving a virus. With the clock running, he and his team must find out how much time is left, and whether they are already too late to stop it.