“Who did it, Mr. President?” another reporter asked.
“We don’t know, and for the moment I will not speculate as to the origin of this epidemic.” And that was a lie, Ryan knew even as he was saying it, speaking the lie right after stating that he wouldn’t lie, because the situation demanded that, too. What a crazy fucking world it was.
IT WAS TH E worst interview of her life. The woman, she saw, called the Index Case, was attractive, or had been so a day or two previously. Now skin that had so recently qualified as a peaches-and-cream complexion was sallow and mottled with red-purple blotches. Worst of all, she knew. She had to know, the agent thought, hiding behind her mask, holding her felt-tip pen in the rubber gloves
1064
(nothing sharp that might penetrate the thin latex), taking her notes, and learning not very much. She had to know that this sort of medical care was not the usual thing, that the medics were afraid to touch her, and that now a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not even approach her bed.
“Aside from the trip to Kansas City?”
“Nothing really,” the voice replied, as though from the bottom of a grave. “Working at my desk, getting ready for the fall orders. Went to the housewares show at McCormick Center two days.”
There were some more questions, none of which turned up any immediately useful information. The woman in the agent wanted to reach out, touch her hand, provide some measure of comfort and sympathy–but no. The agent had just learned the previous week that she was pregnant with her first child. She had custody of two lives now, not just her own, and it was all she could do to keep her hand from shaking.
“Thank you. We’ll be back to you,” the agent said, rising from her metal chair and moving to the door. Opening it, she pulled her shoulders in so as not to touch the door frame, and proceeded to the next room down the hall for the next interview. Klein was in the corridor, discussing something with another staffer–doc or nurse, the agent couldn’t tell.
“How’d it go?” the professor asked.
“What are her chances?” the agent asked.
“Essentially zero,” Mark Klein replied. For diseases like this one, Patient Zero was just that.
“COMPENSATION? THEY ASK us for compensation!” the Defense Minister demanded before the Foreign Minister could speak.
“Minister, I merely convey the words of others,” Adler reminded his hosts.
“We have had two officers from your Air Force exam-me the missile fragments. Their judgment confirms our ‘ vn. It is a Pen-Lung-13, their new heat-seeker with the
*, range, a development of a Russian weapon. It’s def-
1065
inite now, in addition to the radar evidence developed from your ships,” Defense added. “The shooting of the airliner was a deliberate act. You know that. So do we. So, tell me, Mr. Adler, where does America stand in this dispute?”
“We wish nothing more than the restoration of peace,” SecState replied, confirming his own predictions. “I would also point out that the PRC, in allowing my direct flights between their capital and yours, are showing a measure of goodwill.”
“Quite so,” the Foreign Minister replied. “Or so it might seem to the casual observer, but tell me, Mr. Adler, what do they really want?”
So much, the American Secretary of State told himself, for settling the situation down. These two were as smart as he was, and even more angry. Then that changed.
A secretary knocked, then entered, annoying his boss until they exchanged a few words in Mandarin. A telex was passed over and read. Then another was given directly to the American.
“It seems that there is a serious problem in your country, Mr. Secretary.”
THE PRESS CONFERENCE was cut off. Ryan left the room, returned to the Oval Office and sat on the couch with his wife.
“How did it go?”
“Didn’t you watch?” Jack asked.
“We were talking over some things,” Cathy explained. Then Arnie came in.
“Not bad, boss,” the chief of staff opined. “You will have to meet with people from the Senate this evening. I just worked that out with the leadership on both sides. This will make the elections today a little interesting and–”
“Arnie, until further notice we will not discuss politics in this building. Politics is about ideology and theory. We have to deal with cold facts now,” SWORDSMAN said.
“You can’t get away from it, Jack. Politics is real, and if this is the deliberate attack the general here says it is, then
1066
it’s war, and war is a political act. You’re leading the government. You have to lead the Congress, and that is a political act. You’re not a philosopher king. You’re the President of a democratic country,” van Damm reminded him.
“All right.” Ryan sighed his surrender to the moment. “What else?”
“Bretano called. The plan is being implemented right now. In a few minutes, the air-traffic system tells all the airliners to stop flying. There’s probably a lot of chaos in the airports right now.”
“I bet.” Jack closed his eyes, and rubbed them.
“Sir, you don’t have much choice in the matter,” General Pickett told the President.
“How do I get back to Hopkins?” Alexandre asked. “I have a department to run and patients to treat.”
“I told Bretano that people will be allowed to leave Washington,” van Damm informed the others in the room. “The same will be true of all big cities with borders nearby. New York, Philadelphia and like that. We have to let people go home, right?”
Pickett nodded. “Yes, they’re safer there. It’s unrealistic to assume that the plan will be properly implemented until midnight or so.”
Then Cathy spoke: “Alex, I guess you’ll come with me. I have to fly up, too.”
“What?” Ryan’s eyes opened.
“Jack, I’m a doctor, remember?”
“You’re an eye doctor, Cathy. People can wait to get new glasses,” Jack insisted.
“At the staff meeting today, we agreed that everybody has to pitch in. We can’t just leave it to the nurses and the kids–the residents–to treat these patients. I’m a clinician. We all have to take our turn on this, honey,” SURGEON told her husband.
“No! No, Cathy, it’s too dangerous.” Jack turned to face her. “I won’t let you.”
“Jack, all those times you went away, the things you never told me about, the dangerous things, you were doing your job,” she said reasonably. “I’m a doctor. I have a job, too.”
1067
“It’s not all that dangerous, Mr. President,” Alexandre put in. “You just have to follow the procedures. I work with AIDS patients every day and–”
“No,(God damn it!”
“Because I’m a girl?” Caroline Ryan asked gently. “It worries me some, too, Jack, but I’m a professor at a medical school. I teach students how to be doctors. I teach them what their professional responsibilities are. One of those responsibilities is to be there for your patients. You can’t run away from your duties. I can’t, either, Jack.”
“I’d like to see the procedures you’ve set up, Alex,” Pickett said.
“Glad to have you, John.”
Jack continued to look in his wife’s face. He knew she was strong, and he’d always known that she sometimes treated patients with contagious diseases–AIDS produced some serious eye complications. He’d just never thought much about it. Now he had to: “What if–”
“It won’t. I have to be careful. I think you did it to me again.” She kissed him in front of the others. “My husband has the most remarkable timing,” she told the audience.
It was too much for Ryan. His hands started to shake a little and his eyes teared up. He blinked them away. “Please, Cathy …”
“Would you have listened to me on the way to that submarine, Jack?” She kissed him again and stood.
THERE WAS RESISTANCE, but not all that much. Four governors told their adjutant generals–the usual title for a state’s senior National Guard officer–not to obey the presidential order, and three of those wavered until the Secretary of Defense called to make the order clear and personal, threatening them with immediate relief, arrest, and court-martial. Some talked about organizing protests, but that took time, and the green vehicles were already starting to move, their orders modified in many cases, like the Philadelphia Cavalry, one of the Army’s most ancient and revered units, whose members had escorted George Washington to his inauguration more than two centuries
1068
earlier, and whose current troopers now headed for the bridges on the Delaware River. Local TV and radio told people that commuters would be allowed to go home without inhibitions until nine that night, and until midnight with identification check. If it was easy, people would be allowed to get home. That happened in most cases, but not all, and motels filled up all across America.