by Tom Clancy
“This is rather unusual for me.” He was younger than Chavez, John was surprised to note, and eager in rather a shy way. “Who exactly are you chaps?”
“CIA,” Clark told him.
“Indeed!”
“Indeed, Doctor,” Clayton said from the front seat. His eyes checked the mirrors. They were clear. Just to make sure, he took the next left, then a right, and then another left. Good.
“Are you allowed to tell people that?” MacGregor asked as the car pulled back onto what passed locally as the main drag. “Do you have to kill me now?”
“Doc, save that for the movies, okay?” Chavez suggested. “Real life ain’t like that, and if we told you we were from the State Department, you wouldn’t believe us anyway, right?”
“You don’t look like diplomats,” MacGregor decided.
Clark turned in the front seat. “Sir, thank you for agreeing to meet with us.”
“The only reason I did so—well, the local government forced me to disregard normal procedures for my two cases. There’s a reason for those procedures, you know.”
“Okay, first of all, could you please tell me all you can about them?” John asked, switching on the tape recorder.
“YOU LOOK TIRED, Cathy.” Not that it was all that easy to tell through the plastic mask. Even her body language was disguised.
SURGEON looked over to the wall clock behind the nursing station. She was technically off duty now. She would never learn that Arnie van Damm had called the hospital to make sure the timing went right for this. It would have enraged her, and she was mad enough at the whole world already.
“The kids started arriving this afternoon. Second-generation cases. That one in there must have got it from his father. His name is Timothy. He’s in the third grade. His dad’s on the next floor up.”
“Rest of the family?”
“His mom tested positive. They’re admitting her now. He has a big sister. She’s clean so far. We have her sitting over in the outpatient building. They set up a holding area there for people who’ve been exposed but don’t test out. Come on. I’ll show you around the floor.” A minute later they were in Room 1, temporary home of the Index Case.
Ryan thought he must be imagining the smell. There was a dark stain on the bedclothes which two people—nurses, doctors, he couldn’t tell—were struggling to change. The man was semiconscious, and fighting the restraints that held his arms to the bed bars. That had the two medics concerned, but they had to change the sheets first. Those went into a plastic bag.
“They’ll get burned,” Cathy said, pressing her helmet against her husband’s. “We’ve really dialed up the safety precautions.”
“How bad?”
She pointed back to the door and followed Jack into the corridor. Once there, with the door closed behind them, she poked an angry finger into his chest. “Jack, you never, ever discuss a patient’s prognosis in front of them, unless you know it’s good. Never!” She paused, and went on without an apology for the outburst: “He’s three days into frank symptoms.”
“Any chance?”
Her head shook inside the helmet. They walked back up the corridor, stopping in some more rooms where the story was dismally the same.
“Cathy?” It was the dean’s voice. “You’re off duty. Move,” he commanded.
“Where’s Alexandre?” Jack asked on the way to the former physicians’ lounge.
“He’s got the floor upstairs. Dave has taken this one himself. We hoped Ralph Forster would get back and help out, but there aren’t any flights.” Then she saw the cameras. “What the hell are they doing here?”
“Come on.” Ryan led his wife into the changing room. The clothing he’d worn to the hospital was bagged somewhere. He put on scrubs, in front of three women and a man who didn’t seem all that interested in ogling any of the females. Leaving the room, he headed for the elevator.
“Stop!” a female voice called. “There’s a case coming up from ER! Use the stairs.” And obediently, the Secret Service Detail did just that. Ryan led his wife down to the main floor, and from there out front, still wearing masks.
“How are you holding up?”
Before she could answer, a voice screamed, “Mr. President!” Two Guardsmen got in the way of the reporter and cameraman, but Ryan waved them off. The pair approached under armed scrutiny, uniformed and plainclothes.
“Yes, what is it?” Ryan asked, pulling his mask down. The reporter held the microphone at full arm’s length. It would have been comical under other circumstances. Everybody was spooked.
“What are you doing here, sir?”
“Well, I guess it’s part of my job to see what’s going on, and also I wanted to see how Cathy is doing.”
“We know the First Lady is working upstairs. Are you trying to make a statement to the nation—”
“I’m a doctor!” Cathy snapped. “We’re all taking turns up there. It’s my job.”
“Is it bad?”
Ryan spoke before she could explode at them. “Look, I know you have to ask that question, but you know the answer. These people are extremely ill, and the docs here, and everyplace else, are doing their best. It’s hard on Cathy and her colleagues. It’s really hard on the patients and their families.”
“Dr. Ryan, is Ebola really as deadly as everyone has been saying?”
She nodded. “It’s pretty awful, yes. But we’re giving these people the best we got.”
“Some have suggested that since the hope for the patients is so bleak, and since their pain is so extreme—”
“What are you saying? Kill them?”
“Well, if they’re really suffering as much as everyone reports—”
“I’m not that kind of doctor,” she replied, her face flushed. “We’re going to save some of these people. From those we save, maybe we can learn to save more, and you don’t learn anything by giving up. That’s why real doctors don’t kill patients! What is the matter with you? Those are people in there, and my job is fighting for their lives—and don’t you dare tell me how to do it!” She stopped when her husband’s arm squeezed her shoulder. “Sorry. It’s a little tough in there.”
“Could you excuse us for a few minutes?” Ryan asked. “We haven’t talked since yesterday. You know, we are husband and wife, just like real people.”
“Yes, sir.” They pulled back, but the camera stayed on them.
“Come here, babe.” Jack embraced her for the first time in more than a day.
“We’re going to lose them all, Jack. Every one, starting tomorrow or the next day,” she whispered. Then she started crying.
“Yeah.” He lowered his head on hers. “You know, you’re allowed to be human, too, Doctor.”
“How do they think we learned anything? Oh, we can’t fix it, so let ’em all die with dignity. Give up. That’s not what they taught me here.”
“I know.”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes on his shirt. “Okay, back under control now. I’m off duty for eight hours.”
“Where are you sleeping?”
A deep breath. A shudder. “Maumenee. They have some cots set up. Bernie’s up in New York, helping out at Columbia. They have a couple hundred cases there.”
“You’re pretty tough, Doctor.” He smiled down at his wife.
“Jack, if you find out who did this to us ...”
“Working on it,” POTUS said.
“KNOW ANY OF these people?” The station chief handed over some photos he’d shot himself. He handed over a flashlight, too.
“That’s Saleh! Who was he, exactly? He didn’t say and I never found out.”
“These are all Iraqis. When the government came down, they flew here. I have a bunch of photos. You’re sure of this one?”
“Quite sure, I treated him for over a week. The poor chap died.” MacGregor went through some more. “And that looks like Sohaila. She survived, thank God. Lovely child—and that’s her father.”
“What the hell?” Chavez ask
ed. “Nobody told us that.”
“We were at the Farm then, weren’t we?”
“Back to being a training officer, John?” Frank Clayton grinned. “Well, I got the word, and so I went out to shoot the pictures. They came in first class, by God, a big ol’ G. Here, see?”
Clark looked at it and grunted—it was almost a twin to the one they were using for their round-the-world jaunt. “Nice shots.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Let me see that.” Chavez took the photo. He held the light right up against it. “Ninja,” he whispered. “Fucking ninja... ”
“What?”
“John, read those letters off the tail,” Ding said quietly.
“HX-NJA ... my God.”
“Clayton,” Chavez said, “is that cellular phone secure?”
The station chief turned it on and punched in three digits. “It is now. Where do you want to call?”
“Langley.”
“MR. PRESIDENT, CAN we talk to you now?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, sure, come on.” He needed to walk some, and waved for them to follow. “Maybe I should apologize for Cathy. She’s not like that. She’s a good doc,” SWORDSMAN said tiredly. “They’re all pretty stressed out up there. The first thing they teach ‘em here, I think it goes primum non nocere, ‘First of all, do no harm. ‘It’s a pretty good rule. Anyway, my wife’s had a couple of hard days in there. But so have all of us.”
“It is possible that this was a deliberate act, sir?”
“We’re not sure, and I can’t talk about that until I have good information one way or the other.”
“You’ve had a busy time, Mr. President.” The reporter was local, not part of the Washington scene. He didn’t know how to talk to a President, or so others might think. Regardless, this one was going out live on NBC, though even the reporter didn’t know that.
“Yeah, I guess I have.”
“Sir, can you give us any hope?”
Ryan turned at that. “For the people who’re sick, well, the hope comes from the docs and the nurses. They’re fine people. You can see that here. They’re fighters, warriors. I’m very proud of my wife and what she does. I’m proud of her now. I asked her not to do this. I suppose that’s selfish of me, but I said it anyway. Some people tried to kill her once before, you know. I don’t mind danger to me, but my wife and kids, no, it’s not supposed to happen to them. Not supposed to happen to any of these people. But it did, and now we have to do our best to treat the sick ones and make sure people don’t get sick unnecessarily. I know my executive order has upset a lot of people, but I can’t live with not doing something that might save lives. I wish there were an easier way, but if there is, nobody’s told me about it yet. You see, it’s not enough to say, ‘No, I don’t like that.’ Anybody can do that. We need more right now. Look, I’m pretty tired,” he said, looking away from the camera. “Can we call it a day for now?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Sure.” Ryan turned away, walking south, just wandering really, toward the big parking garages. He saw a man smoking a cigarette there, a black man about forty, in defiance of the signs that prohibited the vice within sight of this shrine of medical learning. POTUS walked up to him, heedless of the three agents and two soldiers behind him.
“Got a spare?”
“Sure.” The man didn’t even look up as he sat on the edge of the brick planter, looking down at the concrete. His left hand held out the pack and a butane lighter at arm’s length. By unspoken consent they didn’t sit close together.
“Thanks.” Ryan sat down about four feet away from the man, reaching to hand the items back.
“You, too, man?”
“What do you mean?”
“My wife’s in there, got the sickness. She work with a family, nanny, like. They’re all sick. Now she is, too.”
“My wife’s a doc, she’s up there with ’em.”
“Ain’t gonna matter, man. Ain’t gonna matter at all.”
“I know.” Ryan took a long pull and let it out.
“Won’t even let me in, say it too dangerous. Takin’ my blood, say I gotta stay close, won’t let me smoke, won’t let me see her. Sweet Jesus, man, how come?”
“If it was you who was sick, and you knew that you might give it to your wife, what would you do?”
He nodded with angry resignation. “I know. The doctor said that. He’s right. I know. But that don’t make it right.” He paused. “Helps to talk.”
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
“The fuckers did this, like they say on TV, somebody did this. Fuckers gotta pay, man.”
Ryan didn’t know what to say then. Somebody else did. It was Andrea Price:
“Mr. President? I have the DCI for you.”
That turned the man’s head. He looked at Ryan in the yellow-orange lighting. “You’re him.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack answered quietly.
“You say your wife is workin’ up there?”
A nod. A sigh. “Yeah, she’s been working here for fifteen years. I came in to see her, and see how it is, how it’s going. I’m sorry ...”
“What’d’ya mean?”
“They won’t let you in, but they let me in.”
He grimaced. “Guess you gotta see, eh? Tough what happened with your little girl last week. She okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. At that age, well, you know how it is.”
“Good. Hey, thanks for talking with me.”
“Thanks for the smoke,” the President said, standing and walking to Agent Price. He took the phone. “Ed, it’s Jack.”
“Mr. President, we need you back. We have something you need to see,” Ed Foley told him. He wondered how he would explain that the evidence was hanging on the wall of a conference room in CIA Headquarters.
“Give me an hour, Ed.”
“Yes, sir. We’re getting it organized now.”
Jack hit the END switch on the phone and handed it back. “Let’s move.”
53
SNIE
BEFORE FLYING HOME, everyone had to be decontaminated. Hopkins had set up a large room with separation of the sexes this time. The water was hot, and stank of chemicals, but the smell gave Ryan a needed sense of safety. Then he donned a new set of greens. He’d worn them before, when he’d attended the births of his children. Happy connotations. No longer, he thought, as he headed for the Suburban for the drive back to Fort McHenry and the helicopter hop back to the White House. At least the shower had enlivened him. It might even last a few hours, POTUS thought, as the VH- 3 lifted off and turned southwest. If he were lucky.
IT WAS THE most lackluster performance in the history of the National Training Center. The troopers of the 11th Cav and the tankers of the Carolina Guard had blundered about for five hours, barely executing the plans that both had set up. The replay in the Star Wars Room showed cases where tanks had been less than a thousand meters apart and in plain sight, yet hadn’t exchanged fire. Nothing had worked on either side, and the simulated engagement had not so much ended as stopped by apathetic consent. Just before midnight, the units formed up for the drive back to their respective laagers, and the senior commanders went to General Diggs’s home on the hill.
“Hi, Nick,” Colonel Hamm said.
“Hi, Al,” Colonel Eddington replied, in about the same tone of voice.
“And what the hell was that all about?” Diggs demanded.
“The men are coming a little unglued, sir,” the Guardsman replied first. “We’re all worried about our people back home. We’re safe here. They’re in danger there. I can’t blame them for being distracted, General. They’re human.”
“Best thing I can say is that our immediate families seem to be safe here, General,” Hamm agreed with his older comrade in arms. “But we all got family back in the world.”
“Okay, gentlemen, we’ve all had a chance to cry in our beer. I don’t like this shit, either, y’hear? But your job is to lead your peopl
e, and that means lead, God damn it! In case you two warrior chiefs haven’t noticed yet, the whole fuckin’ United States Army is tied up in this epidemic—except us! You two colonels want to think about that? Maybe get your people thinking about it? Nobody ever told me soldiering was an easy job, and damned sure command isn’t, but it is the job we do, and if you gentlemen can’t get it done, well, there are others who can.”
“Sir, that isn’t going to work. Ain’t nobody to relieve us with,” Hamm pointed out wryly.
“Colonel—”
“The man’s right, Diggs,” Eddington said. “Some things are too much. There’s an enemy out there we can’t fight. Our people’ll come around once they have a chance to get used to it, maybe get some good news for a change. Come on, General, you know better. You know history. Those are people out there—yes, soldiers, but people first. They’re shook. So am I, Diggs.”
“I also know that there are no bad regiments, only bad colonels,” Diggs retorted, with one of Napoleon’s best aphorisms, but he saw that neither man rose to the bait. Jesus, this really was bad.
“HOW WAS IT?” van Damm asked.
“Horrible,” Ryan replied. “I saw six or seven people who’re going to die. One of ’em’s a kid. Cathy says there’ll be more of them showing up.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Pretty stressed, but okay. She really let a reporter have it.”
“I know, it was on TV,” the chief of staff informed him.
“Already?”
“You were on live.” Arnie managed a smile. “You looked great. Concerned. Sincere as hell. You said nice things about your wife. You even apologized for what she said—really good, boss, especially since she looked wonderful. Dedicated. Intense. Just like a doctor is supposed to be.”
“Arnie, this isn’t theater.” Ryan was too tired to be angry. The reviving effects of the shower, disappointingly, had already worn off.
“No, it’s leadership. Someday you’re going to learn that—shit, maybe not. Just keep goin’ like you’re goin’,” Arnie advised. “You do it without even knowing it, Jack. Don’t think about it at all.”