Neither, from the shocked pallor on his face, did Underwood himself—and Quentin was by no means a timid or cowardly man.
But, by the time Nichols reached Underwood, he’d brought himself under control.
More or less.
“Sit . . . down,” he commanded, pointing a rigid finger at Quentin’s chair. “Now!”
As Quentin fumbled to comply, James spoke through teeth which were not quite clenched, but closely enough that the words came as a hiss.
“Let me explain something to you, Underwood. Maybe this time you’ll finally get it. There is no such thing as a ‘Dutch disease.’ There is no such thing as a ‘United States immune system.’ The bacteria and viruses which carry epidemics don’t give a flying fuck about your precious borders and your fine political distinctions. They could care less, fathead. Do you think a germ stops when it gets to your nose and says: ‘Oh, no! Mustn’t infect this man. He’s a fine and respectable Murikun, ‘e is. I’ll just have to find me a scruffy no-good Dutchman or Kraut or Frog or Dago. Huh? Do you?”
Underwood stared up at him, wide-eyed.
“Do you?” James demanded. His hand reached out, as if he were tempted to grab Underwood by his jacket and shake him. But he drew it back. Mike was relieved to see that Nichols had his temper back under control, even if he was still steaming mad.
“Let me explain to you, Underwood,” James grated, “what’s going to happen to you—or your wife, or your sons—if you get infected with Yersinia pestis. That’s the germ that carries bubonic plague. I’ll start with the less fatal form. Then I’ll move on to describe what often happens in cold weather—shut the fuck up, Underwood! I am sick to death of you!”
Quentin’s attempt to interrupt James was cut off by that angry shout. James drove on relentlessly. “You will listen. This once, you will finally listen to me.”
In the time which followed, carefully and slowly, Nichols explained—in the truly graphic and gruesome detail which a doctor can—exactly what would happen to a human body infected with bubonic plague. Even Mike, who knew far more about the subject than Quentin had ever bothered to learn, found himself getting a little sick to his stomach. Most of the people sitting frozen around the table seemed to share his reactions.
By the time James finished, the tone in his voice was more that of an old, tired anger than a fresh and hot fury.
“—come cold weather—and the sieges in Luebeck and Amsterdam will for sure and certain last through the winter—the form of the plague often changes. The infection migrates from the lymph nodes to the lungs. At that point it becomes what we call ‘pneumonic plague,’ which is the most virulent form of the disease. Along with the septicemic variety, where it gets into your blood.”
He wiped his face. “I’ve had nightmares about pneumonic plague since the Ring of Fire,” he said, almost whispering. “It’s airborne, so it can spread like wildfire. Except for some of the exotic Ebola strains of hemorrhagic fever—which, thank God, we don’t have to worry about—there is no disease I know of which has a worse fatality rate. No mass disease, anyway. Regular bubonic plague is bad enough. That’ll kill half of the people who contract it. But pneumonic plague . . . With that form of the disease, the fatality rate is at least ninety percent.”
He glared down at Underwood, his dark eyes like agates. “The Black Death of the fourteenth century was bubonic plague, by the way—and it started in China. But, hey,” he sneered, “who cares about China, right? If we aren’t going to worry about some Dutchmen, why lose any sleep over a bunch of coolies? Right? Well, here’s how it really works, Mr. Borders-and-Frontiers. After killing an estimated twenty-five million Chinese, the epidemic reached Europe, probably through India and the Middle East. Maybe Istanbul. Who knows? The bacterium’s invisible to the human eye, Underwood—you do know that much, I hope? Ain’t no border guard checking papers gonna spot it, trust me.”
He moved away from Underwood and started walking back toward his side of the conference table, talking as he went. “It started in the Italian port cities. By the summer of the year 1348 it had reached Paris; by the end of the year, London. By 1350—two years, that’s all—it had spread throughout Europe. Everywhere, from Scandinavia to Spain to Russia. By the time it ran its course, the Black Death killed a third of the continent’s population, all told. The estimate of historians is another twenty-five million people. Add that to the death toll in China, and you’re looking at the same numbers as World War II and the Holocaust—in a world which had a far smaller population than the twentieth century.”