Scull thought for a moment.
“Say you’re a medical sherlock. There’s a disease you don’t recognize, you want to trace its origin, same’s I’d do with some radical political movement in Frickfrackistan,” he said. “So you start looking at how the person you’re treating might’ve acquired it. Where’s he been lately? Who were his contacts? You maybe hit on another case that can be linked to him, you can pretty much surmise the sickness is communicable. The next step is to figure out its vectors. How it’s spreading. Whether it jumps from rodents to people. Or rodents to insects to people like bubonic plague. Or gets passed directly from person to person. Name your route. The main thing is that once die information’s in your pocket, you’re on the way to finding your germ. And men you can maybe come to terms with it Figure out how to deal with the thing.” He looked from Megan to Pete. “You see where I’m coming from?”
The other two were nodding, Megan with her eyebrows raised.
They sat in pensive silence again.
Then, from Nimec: “Where do we start?”
Scull turned sideways in his chair and rapped his fist on the wall.
“Right here, PeteyrUpLink HQ,” he said. “Where the hell else but the boss’s home away from home?”
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was dreaming he was in the hospital. Or at least : it was a dream. It was hard to tell sometimes real and what wasn’t. Like the day he’d gone I’s office with the syringe. That had seemed was a dream, too. He remembered how he’d I to be floating in space as he walked through the ; sense of unreality. Of being inside and outside at once. And that was how he felt now. So it was all in his mind. Not just the bad things happened to him lately, the things he’d done, tiing since Brazil. The gambling, his selling nts to the space station facility to make his i wife leaving him… and then back to the U.S.A. ; bets, more shylocks, more betrayals demanded jjjNmd carried out. All a dream, every minute of it. day, week, and month, right up to and in- his coming down with the sickness. Merrily, , merrily, merrily, life was …
[life. Or something like that.
dream he’d been slipping into and out of to- these latest installments of his dream of life, or jNteam, whatever, he was in a hospital bed, tucked i clean sheets, feeling loads better. The fever was e, the glands in his throat swollen to the size “balls. And the heaves and coughs and the blood started coming out of him with the coughing, ; in his phlegm, then clots, streaking the sink |phe spat into it, darkening the water of his toilet, the bowl even after he’d flush and flush and
, all gone. Pain and trouble down the drain. The had treated him, the nurses were tender and at257
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
tentive, and he was comfortable, on the way to being cured. And whenever he opened his eyes and found himself back in his apartment, lying alone in his bed, twisted up in his soiled, wet, stinking sheets, his head on a pillow soaked with bloody discharges from his nose and mouth, whenever he’d opened his eyes and seemed to wake alone, so alone, Palardy would force himself back into that other place, that place of comfort, where the physicians were skilled and the nurses were kind, and he was getting better, so much better, in a warm, clean bed. And then the only thoughts to disturb him would be about the message in a bottle, the riddle sent to himself and not to himself, so people would be able to figure out what happened to him in case anything bad did happen.
That message, that payback, that whopping fuck-you to his betrayers … the problem was that it could come right back at him, be a disaster for him if things turned out okay and he recovered, if it was found before he got released from the hospital to intercept it.
Definitely a thought to intrude on his peace of mind, intrude on his dream, jolt him back to the lonely reality of the apartment where he lay wretched and shivering and very possibly dying in his own bodily filth.
In fact, it was pulling him back there right now, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. Because in the present snippet of his dream of sweet mercy and healing, a nurse had been about to care for him, quietly entering his room, softly coming around his bedside, and oh, and oh, and oh, although he couldn’t quite see her features, Palardy was sure she was beautiful, like his wife on their honeymoon, when they’d made then* first baby, beautiful
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wife, and he didn’t want to leave her, he didn’t ito. –
dy opened his eyes. Unsure of his bearings, his of place confused. He seemed to be back in his in his moist and jumbled bed. Sometimes it 1 to be positive on awakening. The shades were i to keep the sun from lancing into his eyes. The t were out for the same reason, that terrible pain in The room was so dim, it was hard to know, thought he was in his apartment. Awake now. t he still had the feeling somebody was with him, bed.
} bunked rapidly. If this was his own place, if he longer in me dream, then nobody belonged in. except him. < could be ... ? iy afraid, Palardy struggled to lift himself on ows, craning his head from side to side. Iy, he thought the man standing to his left was His face smashed and flattened. Then he his eyes still might be blurry with sleep, and i some more to clear them, then he realized the man was wearing a mask, k stocking mask. fear mounting exponentially, Palardy summoned little strength remained in his body and raised it off the mattress. was shoved back down by a black-gloved hand chest, ; hand held him. hard against his ribs. : him from moving at all. tried to speak but could only groan through his 259 Tom Clancy's Power Plays scaled, blue lips. Then tried again as the man's free hand reached into a pouch or a bag on his belt... reappeared with something that finally unlocked his vocal cords ... "Who?' he managed. "Why ... ?' Palardy would die without an answer to the first question. As for the second, his conscience had already answered it for him. 260 SEVENTEEN VARIOUS LOCALES NOVEMBER 15, 2001 reuters online: Spokesperson insists Roger Gordian has not suffered stroke Web Posted at 1:14 p.m. PST (2114 GMT) SAN JOSE-Reports that UpLink International CEO Roger Gordian was hospitalized for a massive stroke last weekend were denied this afternoon by a corporate spokeswoman. "There has been a rash of false speculation that I would like to dispel. Mr. Gordian is undergoing thorough tests after experiencing some dizziness and physical discomfort while doing yard work at a family member's house Sunday," longtime UpLink executive Megan Breen told Reuters, reading from a prepared statement. "He's a Tom Clancy's Power Plays very active man and may have overexerted himself, but 1 can positively assure you that a stroke is not suspected by his doctors." Ms. Breen offered no specifics about Gordian's condition and present location but added that he was fully alert and had expressed his eagerness to return to work. The billionaire defense contractor and communications entrepreneur became the subject of ill-health rumors when information surfaced yesterday that be had unexpectedly canceled several meetings with key Senate and business leaders... After hearing Lieberman summarize Roger Gordian's symptoms and lab results over the phone, Eric Oh, his colleague at public health, became concerned enough to ask him to fax over the case report the instant they hung up. Oh waited at his machine, plucking each page out of the tray as it was transmitted. His hurried reading prompted him to make an equally fast callback. His impressions corresponded to Lieberman's-Oh's version of gut radar, which he'd dubbed his "Spidey sense" in homage to his favorite childhood comic book character, was giving him physical tingles. He urged that a fresh specimen of Gordian's blood be transported to the renowned virology lab at Stanford Medical School in nearby Palo Alto for examination and recommended that Lieberman follow the usual guidelines for a potential biohazardous threat and ship a second viable sample, dry-iced, to die Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. 262 BIO-STRIKE appreciate you getting another tube of sera ch facility at Berkeley," he said. "I consult . there pretty often, and we have a good ; relationship." to make matters official," Lieberman said, the departmental chairs, obtain their authoriza- you can rustle diem together this afternoon?" |we it my best." i more thing before I forget-Gordian's X-rays, note you've had series taken every twelve 11 see your originals? From the initial images recent. I'll send them right back to you to- pEBorning."