“And how long have you known the President?” The question came from the Prime Minister of Kenya, pleased to find a black admiral in the room.
“We go back quite a ways, sir,” Robby Jackson replied.
“Robby! Excuse me, Admiral Jackson,” the Prince of Wales corrected himself.
“Captain.” Jackson shook his hand warmly. “It’s been a while, sir.”
“You two know—ah! Yes!” the Kenyan realized. Then he saw his counterpart from Tanzania and moved off to conduct business, leaving the two alone.
“How is he doing—really, I mean,” the Prince asked, vaguely saddening Jackson. But this man had a job. Sent over as a friend in what Robby knew to have been a political decision, he would, on his return to Her Britannic Majesty’s embassy, dictate a contact report. It was business. On the other hand, the question deserved an answer. The three of them had “served” together briefly one hot, stormy summer night.
“We had a short meeting with the acting chiefs a couple of days ago. There’ll be a working session tomorrow. Jack’ll be okay,” the J-3 decided he would say. He put some conviction behind it. He had to. Jack was now NCA—National Command Authority—and Jackson’s loyalty to him was a matter of law and honor, not mere humanity.
“And your wife?” He looked over to where Sissy Jackson was talking with Sally Ryan.
“Still number two piano for the National Symphony.”
“Who’s the lead?”
“Miklos Dimitri. Bigger hands,” Jackson explained. He decided it would be impolitic to ask any family questions of his own.
“You did well in the Pacific.”
“Yeah, well, fortunately we didn’t have to kill all that many people.” Jackson looked his almost-friend in the eye. “That really stopped being fun, y’know?”
“Can he handle the job, Robby? You know him better than I do.”
“Captain, he has to handle the job,” Jackson answered, looking over at his Commander-in-Chief-friend, and knowing how much Jack detested formal occasions. Watching his new President endure the circulating line, it was impossible to avoid thinking back. “Long way from teaching history at the Trade School, Your Highness,” the admiral observed in a whisper.
For Cathy Ryan, it was more than anything else an exercise in protecting her hand. Oddly she knew the formal occasion drill better than her husband. As a senior physician at Johns Hopkins’s Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute, she’d had to deal with numerous formal fund-raisers over the years, essentially a high-class version of begging—most of which occasions Jack had missed, often to her displeasure. So, here she was, again, meeting people she didn’t know, would never have the chance to like, and not one of whom would support her research programs.
“The Prime Minister of India,” her protocol officer said quietly.
“Hello.” The First Lady smiled her greeting, shook the hand, which was blessedly light.
“You must be very proud of your husband.”
“I’ve always been proud of Jack.” They were of the same height. The Prime Minister’s skin was swarthy, and she squinted her eyes behind her glasses, Cathy saw. She probably needed a prescription change, and she probably got headaches from her out-of-date one. Strange. They had some pretty good doctors in India. Not all of them came to America.
“And such lovely children,” she added.
“How nice of you to say that.” Cathy smiled again, in an automatic sort of way, to an observation that was as perfunctory as a comment on the clouds in the sky. A closer look at the woman’s eyes told Cathy something she didn’t like. She thinks she’s better than me. But why? Because she was a politician and Caroline Ryan a mere surgeon? Would it be different had she chosen to become a lawyer? No, probably not, her mind went on, racing as it sometimes did when a surgical procedure went bad unexpectedly. No, it wasn’t that at all. Cathy remembered a night right here in the East Room, facing off with Elizabeth Elliot. It was the same supercilious mind-set: I’m better than you because of who I am and what I do. SURGEON—that was her Secret Service code name, which had not displeased her at all, really—looked more deeply into the dark eyes before hers. There was even more to it than that. Cathy let go of her hand as the next big shot came through the mill.
The Prime Minister departed the line and headed for a circulating waiter, from whom she took a glass of juice. It would have been too obvious to do what she really wanted to do. That would come the next day, in New York. For now she looked at one of her fellow Prime Ministers, this one representing the People’s Republic of China. She raised her glass a centimeter or so, and nodded without smiling. A smile was unnecessary. Her eyes conveyed the necessary message.
“Is it true they call you SWORDSMAN?” Prince Ali bin Sheik asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes, and, yes, it is because of what you gave me,” Jack told him. “Thank you for flying over.”
“My friend, there is a bond between us.” His Royal Highness was not quite a chief of state, but with the current illness of his sovereign, Ali was taking over more and more of the Kingdom’s duties. He was now in charge of foreign relations and intelligence, the former schooled by Whitehall, the latter by Israel’s Mossad, in one of the most ironic and least-known contradictions in a part of the world known for its interlocking non sequiturs. On the whole, Ryan was pleased by that. Though he had much on his plate, Ali was capable.
“You’ve never met Cathy, have you?”
The Prince shifted his gaze. “No, but I have met your colleague, Dr. Katz. He trained my own eye doctor. Indeed, your husband is a fortunate man, Dr. Ryan.”
And the Arabs were supposed to be cold, humorless, and disrespectful of women? Cathy asked herself. Not this guy. Prince Ali took her hand gently.
“Oh, you must have met Bernie when he went over in 1994.” Wilmer had helped establish the eye institute in Riyadh, and Bernie had stayed five months to do some clinical instruction.
“He performed surgery on a cousin who was injured in a plane crash. He’s back flying. And those are your children over there?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” This one went into the card file as a good guy.
“Would you mind if I spoke with them?”
“Please.” The Prince nodded and moved off.
Caroline Ryan, he thought, making his mental notes. Highly intelligent, highly perceptive. Proud. Will be an asset to her husband if he has the wit to make use of her. What a pity, he thought, that his own culture utilized its women so inefficiently—but he wasn’t King yet, might never be, and even if he were to become so, there were limits to the changes he could make under the best of circumstances. His nation still had far to go, though many forgot how breathtakingly far the Kingdom had come in two generations. Even so, there was a bond between him and Ryan, and because of that, a bond between America and the Kingdom. He walked over to the Ryan family, but before he got there he saw what he needed. The children were slightly overwhelmed by everything. The smallest daughter was having the easiest time of it, sipping at a soft drink under the watchful eye of a Secret Service agent, while a few diplomatic wives attempted to talk to her. She was accustomed to being doted on, as so small a child ought to be. The son, older, was the most disoriented, but that was normal for a lad of his age, no longer a child but not yet a man. The eldest, Olivia to the briefing documents but Sally to her father, was dealing well with the most awkward age of all. What struck Prince Ali was that they were not used to all this. Their parents had protected them from Jack’s official life. Spoiled as they undoubtedly were in some ways, they did not have the bored, haughty look of other such kids. You could tell much of a man and woman by examining their children. A moment later, he bent down over Katie. Initially she was taken aback by his unusual clothing—Ali had feared frostbite only two hours before—but in a moment his warm smile had her reaching up to touch his beard while Don Russell stood a meter away like a watch-bear. He took the time to catch the agent’s eye, and the two traded a quick look. He knew th
at Cathy Ryan would be watching, too. What better way to befriend people than to show solicitude to their children? But it was more than that, and in his written report to his ministers, he would warn them not to judge Ryan by his somewhat awkward funeral speech. That he was not the usual sort to lead a country didn’t mean that he was unfit to do so.
But some were.
Many of them were in this room.
SISTER JEAN BAPTISTE had done her best to ignore it, working through the heat of the day to sunset, trying to deny the discomfort that soon grew into genuine pain, hoping it would fade away, as minor ailments did—always did. She’d come down with malaria virtually her first week in this country, and that disease had never really gone away. At first she’d thought that’s what it was, but it wasn’t. The fever she’d written off to a typically hot Congo day wasn’t that, either. It surprised her that she was afraid. For as often as she’d treated and consoled others, she’d never really understood the fear they had. She knew they were afraid, understood the fact that fear existed, but her response to it was succor and kindness, and prayer. Now for the first time, she was beginning to understand. Because she thought she knew what it was. She’d seen it before. Not often. Most of them never got this far. But Benedict Mkusa had gotten here, for what little good it had done. He would surely be dead by the end of the day, Sister Maria Magdalena had told her after morning mass. As little as three days before she would have sighed—but consoled herself with the thought that there would be another angel in heaven. Not this time. Now she feared that there might be two. Sister Jean Baptiste leaned against the door frame. What had she done wrong? She was a careful nurse. She didn’t make mistakes. Well.
She had to leave the ward. She did so, walking down the breezeway to the next building, directly into the lab. Dr. Moudi was, as usual, at his workbench, concentrating as he always did, and didn’t hear her walk in. When he turned, rubbing his eyes after twenty minutes on the microscope, he was surprised to see the holy woman with her left sleeve rolled up, a rubber strip tight around her upper arm, and a needle in her antecubital vein. She was on her third 5cc test tube, and discarding that, expertly drew a fourth.
“What is the matter, Sister?”
“Doctor, I think these need to be tested at once. Please, you will wish to put on a fresh pair of gloves.”
Moudi walked over to her, staying a meter away while she withdrew the needle from her arm. He looked at her face and eyes—like the women in his home city of Qom, she dressed in a very chaste and proper manner. There was much to admire about these nuns: cheerful, hardworking, and very devoutly in service to their false god—that wasn’t strictly true. They were People of the Book, respected by the Prophet, but the Shi’a branch of Islam was somewhat less respectful of such people than ... no, he would save those thoughts for another time. He could see it in her eyes, even more clearly than the overt symptoms which his trained senses were beginning to discern, he saw what she already knew.
“Please sit down, Sister.”
“No—I must—”
“Sister,” the physician said more insistently. “You are a patient now. You will please do as I ask, yes?”
“Doctor, I—”
His voice softened. There was no purpose in being harsh, and truly this woman did not deserve such treatment before God. “Sister, with all the care and devotion you have shown to others in this hospital, please, allow this humble visitor to show some of it to you.”
Jean Baptiste did as she was told. Dr. Moudi first donned a fresh pair of latex gloves. Then he checked her pulse, 88, her blood pressure, 138/90, and took her temperature, 39-all the numbers were high, the first two because of the third, and because of what she thought it was. It could have been any of a number of ailments, from trivial to fatal, but she’d treated the Mkusa boy, and that luckless child was dying. He left her there, carefully picking up the test tubes and moving them to his laboratory bench.
Moudi had wanted to become a surgeon. The youngest of four sons, all nephews of his country’s leader, he’d waited impatiently to grow up, watching his elder brothers march off to war against Iraq. Two of them had died, and the other had come back maimed, later to die by his own despairing hand, and he’d thought to be a surgeon, the better to save the lives of Allah’s warriors, so that they could fight another day in His Holy Cause. That desire had changed, and instead he’d learned about infectious diseases, because there was more than one way to fight for the Cause, and after years of patience, his way was finally appearing.
Minutes later, he walked to the isolation ward. There is an aura to death, Moudi knew. Perhaps the image before him was something of the imagination, but the fact of it was not. As soon as the sister had brought the blood sample, he’d divided it in two, sending one carefully packed test tube by air express to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., the global center for the analysis of exotic and dangerous agents. The other he’d kept in cold storage to await developments. CDC was as efficient as ever. The telex had arrived hours earlier : Ebola Zaire was the identification, followed by a lengthy set of warnings and instructions which were entirely unnecessary. As was the diagnosis, really. Few things killed like this, and none of them so fast.
It was as if Benedict Mkusa had been cursed by Allah Himself, something Moudi knew not to be true, for Allah was a God of Mercy, who did not deliberately afflict the young and innocent. To say “it was written” was more accurate, but hardly more merciful for the patient or his parents. They sat by the bedside, dressed in protective garb, watching their world die before their eyes. The boy was in pain—horrid agony, really. Parts of his body were already dead and rotting while his heart still tried to pump and his brain to reason. The only other thing that could do this to a human body was a massive exposure to ionizing radiation. The effects were grossly similar. One by one at first, then in pairs, then in groups, then all at once, the internal organs became necrotic. The boy was too weak to vomit now, but blood issued from the other end of his GI tract. Only the eyes were something close to normal, though blood was there as well. Dark, young eyes, sad and not understanding, not comprehending that a life so recently begun was surely ending now, looking to his parents to make things right, as they always had during his eight years. The room stank of blood and sweat and other bodily fluids, and the look on the boy’s face became more distant. Even as he lay still he seemed to draw away, and truly Dr. Moudi closed his eyes and whispered a prayer for the boy, who was just a boy, after all, and though not a Muslim, still a religious lad, and a person of the Book unfairly denied access to the words of the Prophet. Allah was merciful above all things, and surely He would show mercy to this boy, taking him safely into Paradise. And better it were done quickly.
If an aura could be black, then this one was. Death enveloped the young patient one centimeter at a time. The painful breaths grew more shallow, the eyes, turned to his parents, stopped moving, and the agonized twitches of the limbs traveled down the extremities until just the fingers moved, ever so slightly, and presently that stopped.
Sister Maria Magdalena, standing behind and between mother and father, placed a hand on the shoulder of each, and Dr. Moudi moved in closer, setting his stethoscope on the patient’s chest. There was some noise, gurgles and faint tears as the necrosis destroyed tissue—dreadful yet dynamic process, but of the heart there was nothing. He moved the ancient instrument about to be sure, then he looked up.
“He is gone. I am very sorry.” He might have added that for Ebola this death had been merciful, or so the books and articles said. This was his first direct experience with the virus, and it had been quite dreadful enough.
The parents took it well. They’d known for more than a day, long enough to accept, short enough that the shock hadn’t worn off. They would go and pray, which was entirely proper.
The body of Benedict Mkusa would be burned, and the virus with it. The telex from Atlanta had been very clear on that. Too bad.
RYAN FLEXED HIS han
d when the line finally ended. He turned to see his wife massaging hers and taking a deep breath. “Get you something?” Jack asked.
“Something soft. Two procedures tomorrow morning.” And they still hadn’t come up with a convenient way of getting Cathy to work. “How many of these things will we have to do?” his wife asked.
“I don’t know,” the President admitted, though he knew that the schedule was set months in advance, and that most of the program would have to be adhered to regardless of his wishes. As each day passed, it amazed him more and more that people sought after this job—the job had so many extraneous duties that it could scarcely be done. But the extraneous duties in a real sense were the job. It just went round and round. Then a staffer appeared with soft drinks for the President and First Lady, summoned by another who’d heard what Cathy had said. The paper napkins were monogrammed—stamped, whatever the process was called—with the image of the White House, and under it the words, THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE. Husband and wife both noticed that at the same moment, then allowed their eyes to meet.
“Remember the first time we took Sally to Disney World?” Cathy asked.
Jack knew what his wife meant. Just after their daughter’s third birthday, not long before their trip to England ... and the beginning of a journey which, it seemed, would never end. Sally had fixed on the castle in the center of the Magic Kingdom, always looking to see it no matter where they were at the time. She’d called it Mickey’s House. Well, they had their own castle now. For a while, anyway. But the rent was pretty high. Cathy wandered over to where Robby and Sissy Jackson were speaking with the Prince of Wales. Jack found his chief of staff.
“How’s the hand?” Arnie asked.
“No complaints.”
“You’re lucky you’re not campaigning. Lots of people think a friendly handshake is a knuckle-buster—man-to-man and all that. At least these people know better.” Van Damm sipped at his Perrier and surveyed the room. The reception was going well. Various chiefs of state and ambassadors and others were engaged in friendly conversation. There were a few discreet laughs at the exchange of jokes and pleasantries. The mood of the day had changed.
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