The Viral Epiphany

by Richard McSheehy

  It was only in the far hills and small villages that people still lived on the island of Oahu now. They had been saved by something they didn’t understand: the RMS distance, as calculated by the Omega mathematicians. It had saved them, at least for a while. The analysts at Omega had been precisely correct in their mathematical analysis of the disease’s propagation characteristics. Now the only hope for the few, widely separated survivors would be what the analysts had termed the “persistence factor”. How long could the virus survive in the environment before it too died? Life or death for those hiding in the hills now was only a question of mathematics.

  * * *

  It had been several days since Civil Defense headquarters in Honolulu had sent a report to the Centers for Disease Control. The last report had been very grim: the city was in flames, the people were rioting in the streets, and there was no way off the island. Honolulu, no doubt because of its proximity to Asia and the large amount of Asians who went back and forth to Asia from the city, had been the worst hit American city by far. The report indicated that total deaths had exceeded 350,000. But that had been days ago and there had been no word since.

  President Cranston sat back in his chair in the White House Situation Room and said nothing for several seconds after the CDC analyst had finished giving his report.

  “What about the mainland?” President Cranston finally asked.

  “So far, nothing close to Honolulu,” he replied. “New York City has had about 3,000 deaths, Boston about 1,000, Chicago over 2,000 and so forth. It’s pretty much the same for all the major port cities. It looks like these cities are about where Honolulu was a month or so ago.”

  “Why is that?” asked the President.

  “Almost certainly because many more carriers of the disease from Asia went to Honolulu rather than our other cities. However, the toll is beginning to rise in the mainland cities too.”

  The President looked over once more at the wall-mounted video display and saw the image of Honolulu that had been transmitted from the CIA’s ultra-high resolution satellite. “So that’s what we have to look forward too?”

  “I can’t say, sir. I do know that the CDC is looking at implementing some more radical isolation methods to try to contain outbreaks. There have been several lessons learned from the Honolulu experience.”

  President Cranston looked at the young analyst for a few seconds before replying, “Yes, but we still don’t have a cure or a vaccine yet, do we?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So it’s really just a matter of time then isn’t it?”

  The CDC analyst only looked down at the tabletop without replying. President Cranston stared at him as a range of emotions coursed through him. Then several seconds later, he took a deep breath and exhaled deeply. Then he said with a trace of resignation in his voice, “Call your boss. I need to meet with him.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll call right now, sir.”

  President Cranston turned back to his chief of staff, “Where is the Seawolf right now?”

  “The Seawolf ? I…I’m not sure exactly sir, but I believe she’s out patrolling somewhere off the New England coast. I haven’t heard of any plan to return to Bremerton soon.”

  “Find out, and wherever she is have her come to SUBASE New London and be ready to sail again by tomorrow. Get Marine One ready to fly me from Andrews to New London tonight. I’m putting Operation Silent Running into effect.”

  The chief of staff felt the hairs rise on his neck and swallowed hard. “Yes, sir,” he said and then quickly left the room.

  Twenty-Five

  Long after sunset, President Cranston, walking alone and pensive, returned to the Situation Room in the underground section of the west wing of the White House. He wore a comfortable dark blue shirt underneath a navy blue sweater, informal beige chinos and white jogging shoes. He sat down slowly in his usual chair at the middle of the conference table, then leaned his elbows on the polished wooden tabletop, and rested his chin on his hands. The large array of television screens on the wall that could provide video connectivity to anywhere in the world was silent. No one was manning the communications console that, in the past, had provided secure voice connections to any and all of the world’s leaders. Before him, one of the bright red numeric clocks on the wall ticked off the seconds. The numbers on the clock confirmed that day had now passed into darkness in Washington D.C., while the one below it showed that it was time for a new day of desperation to dawn across Asia.

  He lightly rubbed his right hand over the armrest of his chair and took in the new furniture. The room had been significantly remodeled since it had originally been built under the orders of President Kennedy all those long years ago. He could feel that these chairs weren’t like the old ones. They weren’t made of leather. The room now looked more like it was designed for high-powered business planning sessions than as a war-room for creating strategies that could save the nation. For a moment he recalled the memories of his youth. He had been very young during the Cuban missile crisis – a time when nuclear war seemed imminent. He shook his head slowly. JFK actually had it easy, he said to himself, I wonder what he would do if he were here now? Then he laughed softly. He never really understood the real priorities anyway…

  He held up his copy of the List and read the names again to himself. The List held the names of a very select group of people. Almost all had been named because they possessed a particular skill or because they held a key position in government or industry. They met very rarely and only in times of extreme crisis. They hadn’t convened in this room since the triple assassination crisis in Europe almost three years ago.

  President Cranston had crossed off most of the names earlier in the afternoon. It’s too late for most of these people to do anything now, he had said to himself as he crossed them off. Of the names that remained on the list only one didn’t fit into any particular category. That was Charlie Goodfellow. He was on the list because he and the President had known each other since they were in college together, and that was good enough. Good old Charlie, he thought to himself while he awaited the arrival of the small group, always dependable. Sure he’s made a mistake now and then. That last one was a big one too, but with Charlie you always know where his loyalty lies, and that is more important than anything. Charlie was on the short list, as were a few others. They were people he could depend on now, in these last hours.

  As the numeric clock readout changed from 19:59:59 to 20:00:00, there was a soft knock on the door. Then it opened and a group of seven people walked in. Unlike the President who greeted them, the men wore coats and ties and all had polished their shoes for the occasion. The only woman in the group was dressed more informally, but her air of self-confidence more than made up for her lack of formality in clothing.

  “Gentlemen, and madam,” the President said when they were all seated, “Let me get right to the issue at hand. I don’t need to tell all of you that we are facing a crisis of historic proportions. This disease, Asian Fever, has been expanding rapidly. As I’m sure you all know, most of Southeast Asia has been devastated and the rest of Asia is probably not far behind. In our own United States the city of Honolulu, in particular, has been hard hit. Satellite surveillance photos, taken earlier today, show the scenes of death and destruction there all too clearly. The speed with which the catastrophe occurred in Honolulu is due, no doubt, largely to its close links to Southeast Asia. It must be that large numbers of people carrying the disease entered Hawaii before we had even thought to put any controls in place…and that is why the disease progressed there so quickly” He paused and looked around the room. Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Gentlemen, that is no reason for us to relax. Computer projections for the course of the disease in continental America, and the whole world for that matter, do not look encouraging. In fact they are bleak. There are already thousands of cases in our major cities and the number is growing daily and rapidly. People are on the verge of panic everywhere. Our economy,
our way of life, is on the edge of ruin, gentlemen.”

  He paused again and looked around expectantly at each of them, but no one indicated that they had anything to say. “I know you don’t have any simple solutions. I certainly don’t, but I need your ideas now. We need to do something to stop this disease. Does anyone have anything at all to suggest?” There was only silence.

  “Harry,” he said turning to Dr. Harry Fields, the director of the CDC, “we’ve talked several times already. Is there anything new you can tell us? Is there any hope for a cure or something that can at least slow the disease? Can’t your people do anything? Surely there is something that can be done, if only to buy us time!”

  “Sir, we are working simultaneously on two things: a cure and a vaccine to prevent the disease. Even so, we are facing major obstacles. The disease organism is a retrovirus. That is very, very bad news. You may recall that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a retrovirus and I’m sure you know how difficult it has been to find either a cure or vaccine for that disease. We’ve been working on that problem for what? Twenty years? More? I don’t know. I’m sorry. It doesn’t look good. We have no quick answers, sir.”

  President Cranston’s lips parted slightly as he stared at Harry, but he said nothing for several seconds. “Charlie?” the President said at last, turning to Charles Goodfellow, the UNAPS representative in the meeting. “What about you? Can your people help in any way at all?” There was a tone of resignation in his voice as if he already knew the answer.

  “Well, sir. I’m sure we can do something,” Charles said with an air of confidence in his voice. “As you know our expertise is in dealing with exactly these types of outbreaks.” He turned for a moment over towards Harry, and then back to the President. “Of course we’re not in the vaccines and cures business like the CDC. We’re in the people management business, and we’ve found that proper population control measures are essential. Quite a bit can be done to slow or sometimes even stop the advance of diseases. You just have to have a good plan. And, you need to have a really good understanding of the situation.”

  “I see,” the President said with a slight smile towards Charlie, “so do you think you might be able to step in and stop this disease in its tracks – at least here in America?”

  Charlie smiled reassuringly at the President, “Sir, I have a high degree of confidence that some very valuable things can be done. I can’t promise that we can save everybody, but my guess is we can save some and because of that our nation will be able to weather the storm and in the end we’ll be stronger than ever.”

  The President nodded and turned to the person sitting beside him, Admiral Walter Mason, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “What do you think, Admiral? Is there anything the military can do to help too?”

  “Yes, sir!” the admiral said. “While we don’t have a cure either, we can certainly do crowd control; we can provide emergency transportation where needed; we can provide food from our stockpiles; we can provide medical assistance with our mobile hospitals; and we can provide security as needed. I believe we could be a significant factor for success and we would be happy to have UNAPS on our team, helping us in this regard. We stand ready to take charge of the situation upon your orders.”

  President Cranston nodded his head at the Admiral but said nothing. He turned next to a group of three men who sat at the far end of the conference table. “Gentlemen, you are three of the country’s leading experts on economic matters. I think we would all agree that a strong economy is the heart of society. Even if everyone were to survive this disease an economy in chaos would only lead to more suffering and death. I am well aware of the toll this disease is taking on the world economy and what it is now starting to do to our own. Is there anything we can do to mitigate the damage? The threat to the health of our economy is as important as the threat to our physical health.

  “Well, sir.” replied Robert Brinkman, the chairman of Brinkman, Stevens, and Bridges, the largest investment firm in the United States, “First of all, I agree with you. We need to preserve the fundamentals of our economic system. There would be utter chaos without it. However, I believe I speak for my two colleagues here when I say that in many ways we are powerless to control the entire economic impact of this terrible disaster. As a whole the nation is bound to suffer great economic hardship for some time to come. The best we can probably do is what, in military parlance, would be called a triage operation. We have to try to save those that have the best chance of survival. It is a difficult decision similar to what battlefield surgeons have to make all the time, but it has to be done. Having given this subject considerable thought we believe that there are indeed some protective steps that can be taken by and for a small number of some of America’s leading families, those that account for some of the more significant wealth. If we can save these people and their economic capabilities the nation should be able to recover and regain its strength when the course of the disease abates.”

  “I see, and are you taking those steps?”

  “Oh, yes. Defensive measures are already being taken, although quietly. We don’t want to alarm the general population and certainly not the average investor.”

  “No, of course not,” President Cranston replied as he quickly glanced at his watch before looking back at him, “What sort of defensive measures?”

  “Their assets are now being converted into tangibles such as gold, diamonds, mining reserves, water reserves, anything that has innate value. We are disposing of all currency dependent holdings.”

  “What about U.S. Treasury Bills?” President Cranston asked in surprise, “Aren’t those a safe place for their money too? I thought that U.S. treasuries were always the safest thing anyone could own.”

  The three men looked at each other and chuckled. “Oh, no,” Mr. Brinkman said, “Good heavens. No. I don’t think so. I wouldn’t advise that!” he chuckled again. “I wouldn’t worry, sir. When this all passes over the old order will be preserved if that’s what you’re worried about. You can depend on us.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” The President said, glad that these men possessed such deep knowledge. He turned to the seventh member of the group, a middle aged woman who wore a gray skirt, and a white blouse with a red and blue scarf loosely fastened around her neck by a gold and emerald encrusted brooch. She was the lead editor for the East-West Consolidated News Networks, an organization that, through the various media it owned, provided the news to over ninety percent of the American population.

  “Nancy, you might be the most important person here right now. What do we tell the people now? We can’t have panic in the streets. We need order. We need to preserve what we have and we need to come through this thing with the capability to move onward again. We will need to rebuild after the storm passes.”

  “Yes sir, I agree. I expect we’ll soon be educating the people with several televised “specials” on the disease where we will highlight what research is being done at the CDC.” She turned and nodded to Harry, “ …and then we’ll certainly be talking with Mr. Goodfellow at UNAPS to show the American people that the entire world, the CDC, the UN, the military, everyone is working together on this. They are not alone.”

  “Good, very good. Show some progress too, OK?”

  “Certainly, sir. Is there anything in particular you think would be appropriate?”

  “How about interviewing some survivors?” the President said with an earnest look around the table. “I think that would be most encouraging, don’t you?”

  “Sir… I…I’m afraid we don’t know of any,” she replied.

  “Nancy, you need a survivor. You know what I mean? You need one. The people need one…” he said softly.

  “Yes, sir. I understand. We’ll find one. Guaranteed. We’ll find one…”

  “Good.”

  President Cranston took a deep breath and looked around at each of them. Then he said, “I have to leave all of you tonight.”

  “Where are you
going?” Charlie asked.

  “Don’t ask me where I’m going. Please.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I have to do this alone. It…It’s for the good of the country…I have things that must be done that only I can do.” He turned to Charles Goodfellow, “Charlie, I’m leaving you in charge of this massive effort to protect the American population from this awful disease. I know you can do it, Charlie. If anyone can pull this off, you can. Right, Charlie? I mean that’s what you people do over at UNAPS, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” Charlie nodded his head and beamed with pride.

  “Yes, and don’t forget you have all these people here to help you,” President Cranston replied. Admiral Mason was glaring at Charlie. “You too, admiral. You’ll answer to Charlie while I’m gone – at least in this regard. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Admiral said sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

  “Thank you, sir.” Charlie said to the President, “Thank you. You won’t be disappointed.”

  “I know it, Charlie, I know it. We have an understanding, you and I, of priorities.” He took a last look at the people around the table and then stood up. “Gentlemen…and lady! I’m sorry, Nancy; I keep saying gentlemen, don’t I? I have to leave now, please feel free to remain and discuss your future course of action. I’ll be in touch…” Without another word President Cranston quickly stood up and walked out of the room.

  Minutes later, as the members of the List, were leaving via the South Portico of the White House, President Cranston went to the rear, delivery entrance of the White House and fastened the buttons on his black overcoat. The evening had turned cold with a brisk wind now blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. He turned to his wife, who stood next to him. There were tears running down her cheeks. He reached over and buttoned the top button of her coat and kissed her on the forehead. “It’ll be alright, Grace. Believe me.”