by Tom Clancy
“There is no precise answer. There cannot be, because we do not know the ease of transmission for this virus yet. If it is an aerosol, and there is reason to suspect that it is—well, we’ve got a hundred computer models we can use. Problem is deciding which one. Worst case? Twenty million deaths. At that point, what happens is that society breaks down. Doctors and nurses flee the hospitals, people lock themselves in their homes, and the epidemic burns out pretty much like the Black Death did in the fourteenth century. Human interactions cease, and because of that the disease stops spreading.”
“Twenty million? How bad was the Black Death?” Martin asked, his face somewhat ashen.
“Records are sketchy. There was no real census system back then. Best data is England,” Pickett replied. “It depopulated that country by half. The plague lasted about four years. Europe took about one hundred fifty years to return to the 1347 population level.”
“Shit,” breathed Interior.
“Is it really that dangerous, General?” Martin persisted.
“Potentially yes. The problem, sir, is that if you take no action at all, and then you find out that it is that virulent, then it’s just too late.”
“I see.” Martin turned. “Mr. President, I do not see that we have much of a choice here.”
“You just said it was against the law, damn it!” HUD shouted.
“Mr. Secretary, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and although I think I know how the Supreme Court would rule on this, there has never been a case in point, and it could be argued, and the process would have to deal with it.”
“What changed your mind, Pat?” Ryan asked.
“Twenty million reasons, Mr. President.”
“If we flout our own laws, then what are we?” Cliff Rutledge asked.
“Alive,” Martin answered quietly. “Maybe.”
“I am willing to listen to arguments for fifteen minutes,” Ryan said. “Then we have to come to a decision.”
It was lively.
“If we violate our own Constitution,” Rutledge said, “then nobody in the world can trust us!” HUD and HHS agreed.
“What about the practical considerations?” Agriculture objected. “People have to eat.”
“What kind of country are we going to turn over to our children if we—”
“What do we turn over to them if they’re dead?” George Winston snapped back at HUD.
“Things like this don’t happen today!”
“Mr. Secretary, would you like to come up to my hospital and see, sir?” Alexandre asked from his seat in the corner.
“Thank you,” Ryan said, checking his watch. “I am calling the issue on the table.”
Defense, Treasury, Justice, and Commerce voted aye. All the rest voted no. Ryan looked at them for a long few seconds.
“The ayes have it,” the President said coldly. “Thank you for your support. Director Murray, the FBI will render all assistance required by CDC and USAMRIID to ascertain the focal centers of this epidemic. That has absolute and unconditional priority over any other matter.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Mr. Foley, every intelligence asset we have goes into this. You will also work in conjunction with the medical experts. This came from somewhere, and whoever did it has committed an act of war, using weapons of mass destruction against our country. We need to find out who that was, Ed. All the intelligence agencies will report directly to you. You have statutory authority to coordinate all intelligence activities. Tell the other agencies that you have my order to exercise it.”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
“Secretary Bretano, I am declaring a state of national emergency. All Reserve and National Guard formations are to be activated immediately and placed under federal command. You have this contingency plan in the Pentagon.” Ryan held the CURTAIN CALL folder up. “You will execute Option Four, SOLITARY, at the earliest possible moment.”
“I will do that, sir.”
Ryan looked down the table at the Secretary of Transportation. “Mr. Secretary, the air-traffic-control system belongs to you. When you get back to your office, you will order all aircraft in flight to proceed to their destinations and stop there. All aircraft on the ground will remain there, commencing at six o’clock this evening.”
“No.” SecTrans stood. “Mr. President, I will not do that. I believe it to be an illegal act, and I will not break the law.”
“Very well, sir. I will accept your resignation effective immediately. You’re the deputy?” Ryan said to the woman sitting behind him.
“Yes, Mr. President, I am.”
“Will you execute my order?”
She looked around the room without really knowing what to do. She’d heard it all, but she was a career civil servant, unaccustomed to making a hard call without political coverage.
“I don’t like it, either,” Ryan said. The room was invaded by the roar of jet engines, an aircraft taking off from Washington National. “What if that airplane’s carrying death somewhere? Do we just let it happen?” he asked so quietly she could barely hear.
“I will carry out your order, sir.”
“You know, Murray,” the former—he wasn’t sure yet—SecTrans said, “you could arrest the man right now. He’s breaking the law.”
“Not today, sir,” Murray replied, staring at his President. “Somebody’s going to have to decide what the law is first.”
“If anyone else in the room feels the need to leave federal service over this issue, I will accept your resignations without prejudice—but please think what you are doing. If I’m wrong on this, fine, I’m wrong, and I’ll pay the price for that. But if the doctors are right and we do nothing, we’ve got more blood on our hands than Hitler ever did. I need your help and your support.” Ryan stood and walked out of the room as the others struggled to their feet. He moved fast. He had to. He entered the Oval Office, turned right to the presidential sitting room, and barely made it to the bathroom in time. Seconds later, Cathy found him there, flushing down a bowlful of vomit. “Am I doing the right thing?” he asked, still on his knees.
“You’ve got my vote, Jack,” SURGEON told him.
“You look great,” van Damm observed, catching POTUS in rather an undignified posture.
“Why didn’t you say anything, Arnie?”
“Because you didn’t need me to, Mr. President,” the chief of staff replied.
General Pickett and the other physicians were waiting when he came back into the office. “Sir, we just had a fax from CDC. There are two cases at Fort Stewart. That’s the 24th Mech’s home base.”
50
SPECIAL REPORT
IT STARTED WITH NATIONAL Guard armories. Virtually every city and town in America had one, and in each was a duty sergeant, or perhaps an officer, sitting at a desk to answer the phone. When the phone rang, a voice from the Pentagon spoke a code word that designated an activation order. The duty person in the armory would then alert the unit commander, and more calls were made, branching out like the limbs of a tree, with every recipient detailed to call several others. It usually took an hour or so for everyone to get the word—or nearly everyone, as some were inevitably out of town, traveling for either work or vacation. Senior Guard commanders usually worked directly for the governors of the several states, as the National Guard is a hybrid institution, partly a state militia and partly United States Army (or Air Force, in the case of the Air National Guard, which gave many of the state governors access to state-of-the-art fighter aircraft). These senior Guard officers, surprised by the activation orders, reported the situation to their governors, asking for guidance which the state executives were as yet in no position to give, since mainly they didn’t know what was going on yet, either. But at the company and battalion level, officers and men (and women) hurried home from their civilian jobs, citizen soldiers that they were, donned their woodland-pattern BDU fatigues, buffed their boots, and drove to the local armory to form up with their squads an
d platoons. Once there they were startled to see that they were supposed to draw weapons and, more disturbingly, their MOPP gear. MOPP, for Mission-Oriented Protective Posture, was the chemical-warfare equipment in which they had all trained at one time or another, and which every person in uniform cordially detested. There were the usual jokes and good humor, stories of work, tales of spouses and children, while the officers and senior non-coms met in conference rooms to find out what the hell was going on. They emerged from those brief meetings angry, confused, and for the better informed of them, frightened. Outside the armories, vehicles were fired up. Inside, TV sets were switched on.
IN ATLANTA, THE special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Division drove with sirens screaming to CDC, followed by ten more agents. In Washington, a number of CIA and other intelligence officers drove more sedately to the Hoover Building to set up a joint task force. In both cases, the job was to figure out how the epidemic had started and from that to try to determine its point of origin. These people were not all civilians. The Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency were mainly uniformed organizations, and among that grouping grim-faced officers let everyone know that something new in American history had taken place. If this truly were a deliberate attack against the United States of America, then a nation-state had made use of what was delicately termed a “weapon of mass destruction.” Then they explained to their civilian counterparts what had been U.S. policy for two generations for responding to such an eventuality.
IT WAS ALL happening too fast, of course, since emergencies are by definition things for which one cannot plan terribly well. That extended to the President himself, who walked into the White House press room, accompanied by General Pickett of USAMRIID. Only thirty minutes earlier the White House had told the major networks that the President had an announcement to make, and that on this occasion, the government would exercise its option to demand airtime instead of requesting it—since the 1920s, the government had adopted the position that it owned the airwaves—thus supplanting all the talk shows and other programming which preceded the evening news. Lead-in commentary told viewers that nobody knew what this was about, but that there had been an emergency Cabinet meeting only minutes before.
“My fellow Americans,” President Ryan began, his face in most American homes, and his voice in every car on the road. Those who had become accustomed to their new President took note of the pale face (Mrs. Abbot hadn’t had time to do his makeup) and grim voice. The message was grimmer still.
THE CEMENT TRUCK had a radio, of course. It even had a tape and CD player, since, work-vehicle or not, it had been designed for the use of an American citizen. They were in Indiana now, having crossed both the Mississippi River and Illinois earlier in the day on their trek to their nation’s capital. Holbrook, who had no use for the words of any President, hit the scan button, only to find that the same voice was on all the stations. That was sufficiently unusual that he stayed with one of them. Brown, driving the truck, saw that cars and trucks were pulling over—not many at first, but more and more as the speech progressed, their drivers, like himself, leaning down to listen to the radio.
“ACCORDINGLY, BY EXECUTIVE order of the President, your government is taking the following actions:
“One, until further notice, all schools and colleges in the country will be closed.
“Two, all businesses except for those providing essential services—the media, health care, food, law-enforcement, and fire protection—will also be closed until further notice.
“Three, all places of public assembly, theaters, restaurants, bars and the like, will be closed.
“Fourth, all interstate travel is suspended until further notice. This means all commercial air travel, interstate trains and buses, and private-passenger automobiles. Trucks carrying foodstuffs will be allowed to travel under military escort. The same is true of essential supplies, pharmaceuticals and the like.
“Fifth, I have activated the National Guard in all the fifty states and placed it under federal control to maintain public order. A state of martial law is now in force throughout the country.
“We urge our citizens—no, let me speak more informally. Ladies and gentlemen, all that is required for us to weather this crisis is a little common sense. We do not yet know how dangerous this disease is. The measures I have ordered today are precautionary in nature. They seem, and indeed they are, extreme measures. The reason for that, as I have told you, is that this virus is potentially the most deadly organism on the planet, but we do not yet know how dangerous it is. We do know that a few simple measures can limit its spread, no matter how deadly it is, and in the interest of public safety, I have ordered those measures. This action is being taken on the best scientific advice available. To protect yourselves, remember how the disease is spread. I have General John Pickett, a senior Army physician and an expert in the field of infectious diseases, to provide medical advice to all of us. General?”; Ryan stepped away from the microphone.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” Holbrook shouted. “He can’t do that!”
“Think so?” Brown followed an eighteen-wheeler onto the shoulder. They were a hundred miles from the Indiana-Ohio border. About two hours driving this pig, he thought. No way he’d get there before the local Guard closed the road.
“I think we better find a motel, Pete.”
“SO WHAT DO I do?” the FBI agent asked in Chicago.
“Strip. Hang your clothes on the door.” There was no time and little spare room for the niceties, and he was, after all, a physician. His guest didn’t blush. Dr. Klein decided, on full surgical garb, long-sleeve greens instead of the more popular sort. There were not enough of the plastic space suits to go around, and his staff would use all of those. They had to. They got closer. They handled liquids. They touched the patients. His medical center now had nine symptomatic patients who tested positive. Six of those were married, and of the spouses, four tested positive for Ebola antibodies. The test gave an occasional false-positive reading; even so it was not the least bit pleasant to tell someone—well, he did that often enough with AIDS patients. They were testing children now. That really hurt.
The protective outfit he gave the agent was made of the usual cotton, but the hospital had taken a number of sets and sprayed them with disinfectant, especially the masks. The agent also was given a pair of laboratory glasses, the broad plastic ones known to chemistry students.
“Okay,” Klein told the agent. “Don’t get close. No closer than six feet, and you should be completely safe. If she vomits or coughs, if she has a convulsion, stay clear. Dealing with that sort of thing is our job, not yours. Even if she dies right in front of you, don’t touch anything.”
“I understand. You going to lock the office up?” She pointed to the gun hanging with her clothes.
“Yes, I will. And when you’re done, give me your notes. I’ll run them through the copying machine.”
“How come?”
“It uses a very bright light to make copies. The ultraviolet will almost certainly kill any virus particle that might find its way to the paper,” Professor Klein explained. Even now in Atlanta, rapid experiments were under way to determine just how robust the Ebola particles were. That would help define the level of precaution that was necessary in hospitals first of all, and perhaps also provide useful guidance for the general population.
“Uh, Doc, why not just let me make the copies?”
“Oh.” Klein shook his head. “Yes, I suppose that will work, too, won’t it?”
“MR. PRESIDENT.” IT was Barry of CNN. “These steps you’re taking, sir, are they legal?”
“Barry, I do not have the answer to that,” Ryan said, his face tired and drawn. “Whether they’re legal or not, I am convinced that they are necessary.” As he spoke, a White House staffer was passing out surgical masks for the assembled reporters. That was Arnie’s idea. They’d been procured from the nearby George Washington University Hospital.
“B
ut, Mr. President, you can’t break the law. What if you’re wrong?”
“Barry, there’s a fundamental difference between what I do in my job and what you do in yours. If you make a mistake, you can make a retraction. We just saw that, only yesterday, with one of your colleagues, didn’t we? But, Barry, if I make a mistake in a situation like this, how do I retract a death? How do I retract thousands of deaths? I don’t have that luxury, Barry,” the President said. “If it turns out that what I am doing is wrong, then you can have at me all you want. That’s part of my job, too, and I’m getting used to that. Maybe I’m a coward. Maybe I’m just afraid of letting people die for no good reason when I have the power to prevent it.”
“But you don’t really know, do you?”
“No,” Jack admitted, “none of us really knows. This is one of those times when you have to go with your best guess. I wish I could sound more confident, but I can’t, and I won’t lie about it.”
“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 THE 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 (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.