by Tom Clancy
It felt as though her entire body were being twisted and crushed and burned at the same time. She needed to move, to do something to make things different, just to make the pain come briefly from a new direction, and so briefly relieve that which tormented her, but when she tried to move she found that every limb was restrained with Velcro-coated straps. The insult of that was somehow worse than the pain, but when she tried to object it only caused violent nausea that started her gagging. At that indication the blue-coated spaceman rotated the bed—what sort of bed was this? she wondered—which allowed her to vomit into a bucket, and what she saw there was black, dead blood. It distracted her from the pain for a second, but all the distraction told her was that she could not survive, that the disease had gone too far, that her body was dying, and then Sister Jean Baptiste started praying for death, because this could have only one end, and the pain was such that the end needed to come soon, lest she lose her faith in the process. The prospect sprang out into her diminished consciousness like a jack-in-the-box. But this childhood toy had horns and hooves. She needed a priest at hand. She needed where was Maria Magdalena? Was she doomed to die alone? The dying nurse looked at the space suits, hoping to find familiar eyes behind the plastic shields, but though the eyes she saw were sympathetic, they were not familiar. Nor was their language, as two of them came close.
The medic was very careful drawing blood. First he checked to see that the arm was fully restrained, unable to move more than a centimeter. Then he had a comrade hold the arm in his two strong hands, careful himself to keep those hands well away from the needle. With a nod of agreement, the first selected the proper vein and stabbed the needle in. He was lucky this time. The needle went right in on the first try. To the back of the needle-holder he attached a 5cc vacuum tube, which took in blood that was darker than the usual purple. When it was full, he withdrew it, and set it carefully in a plastic box, to be followed by three more. He withdrew the needle next, and placed gauze on the puncture, which wouldn’t stop bleeding. The medic released the arm, noting that their brief grasp had discolored the skin badly. A cover was placed on the box, and the first medic walked it out of the room, while the second went to the corner to spray his gloves and arms with dilute iodine. They’d been fully briefed on how dangerous this duty was, but in the way of normal men they hadn’t really believed it, despite all the repetitions and the films and the slides. Both men believed it now, every cursed word, and to a man the army medics wished and prayed for Death to come and spirit this woman off to whatever destination Allah had planned for her. Watching her body disintegrate was bad enough. The thought of following her in this horrid journey was enough to quail the stoutest heart. It was like nothing they’d ever seen. This woman was melting from the inside out. As the medic finished cleaning the outside of his suit, he turned, startled by her cry of pain, as if from an infant tortured by the hands of the devil himself. Eyes open, mouth wide, a rasping, liquid cry escaped into the air and penetrated the plastic of his suit.
The blood samples were handled quickly, but under the greatest care, in the Hot Lab up the corridor. Moudi and the project director were in their offices. It wasn’t strictly necessary for them to be in the lab for this, and it was easier for them to view the tests without the hindrance of the protective garb.
“So fast, so remarkably fast.” The director shook his head in awe.
Moudi nodded. “Yes, it overwhelms the immune system like a tidal wave.” The display on the computer screen came off an electron microscope, which showed the field full of the shepherd-staff-configured viruses. A few antibodies were visible on the screen, but they might as well have been individual sheep in a pride of lions for all the good they might do. The blood cells were being attacked and destroyed. Had they been able to take tissue samples of the major organs, they could have found that the spleen was turning into something as hard as a rubber ball, full of little crystals which were like transport capsules for the Ebola virus particles. It would, in fact, have been interesting, and maybe even scientifically useful, to do laparoscopic examination of the abdomen, to see exactly what the disease did to a human patient over measured time intervals, but there was the danger of accelerating the patient’s death, which they didn’t want to risk.
Samples of her vomitus showed tissue fragments from her upper GI, and those were interesting because they were not merely torn loose, but dead. Large sections of the patient’s still-living body had already died, come loose from the living remainder, and been ejected as the corporate organism fought vainly to survive. The infected blood would be centrifuged and deep-frozen for later use. Every drop that came out was useful, and because of that, more blood was dripped into her via rubber IV tubes. A routine heart-enzyme test showed that her heart, unlike that of the Index Patient, was still normal and healthy.
“Strange how the disease varies in its mode of attack,” the director observed, reading the printout.
Moudi just looked away, imagining that he could hear her cries of anguish through the multiple concrete walls of the building. It would have been an act of supreme mercy to walk into the room and push in 20ccs of potassium, or just to turn the morphine drip all the way open and so kill her with respiratory arrest.
“Do you suppose the African boy had a preexisting cardiovascular problem?” his boss asked.
“Perhaps. It wasn’t diagnosed if he did.”
“Liver function is failing rapidly, as expected.” The director scanned the blood-chemistry data slowly. All the numbers were well out of normal ranges, except the heart indicators, and those but barely. “It’s a textbook case, Moudi.”
“Indeed it is.”
“This strain of the virus is even more robust than I’d imagined.” He looked up. “You’ve done well.”
Oh, yes.
“... ANTHONY BRETANO has two doctorates from MIT, Mathematics and Optical Physics. He has an impressive personal record in industry and engineering, and I expect him to be a uniquely effective Secretary of Defense,” Ryan said, concluding his statement. “Questions?”
“Sir, Vice President Kealty—”
“Former Vice President,” Ryan interrupted. “He resigned. Let’s get that right.”
“But he says he didn’t,” the Chicago Tribune pointed out.
“If he said he had a talk with Elvis, would you believe that?” Ryan asked, hoping that he’d delivered the prepared line properly. He scanned faces for the reaction. Again, all forty-eight seats were filled, with twenty more reporters standing. Jack’s scornful remark made them all blink, and a few even allowed themselves a smile. “Go ahead, ask your question.”
“Mister Kealty has requested a judicial commission to ascertain the facts of the matter. How do you respond to that?”
“The question is being investigated by the FBI, which is the government’s principal investigative agency. Whatever the facts are, they have to be established before anyone can make a judgment. But I think we all know what is going to happen. Ed Kealty resigned, and you all know why. Out of respect for the constitutional process, I have directed the FBI to look into the matter, but my own legal advice is absolutely clear. Mr. Kealty can talk all he wants. I have a job to do here. Next question?” Jack asked confidently.
“Mr. President”—Ryan nodded fractionally at hearing the Miami Herald say that—“In your speech the other night, you said that you’re not a politician, but you are in a political job. The American people want to know your views on a lot of issues.”
“That makes good sense. Like what?” Jack asked.
“Abortion, for one,” the Herald reporter, a very liberated woman, asked. “What exactly is your position?”
“I don’t like it,” Ryan answered, speaking the truth before thinking about it. “I’m Catholic, as you probably know, and on that moral issue I think my Church is correct. However, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land until such time as the Supreme Court might reconsider the ruling, and the President isn’t allowed to ignore the rulings of t
he federal courts. That puts me in a somewhat uncomfortable position, but as President I have to execute my office in accordance with the law. I swore an oath to do that.” Not bad, Jack, Ryan thought.
“So you do not support the right of a woman to choose?” the Herald asked, smelling the blood.
“Choose what?” Ryan asked, still comfortable. “You know, somebody once tried to kill my wife while she was pregnant with our son, and soon thereafter I watched my oldest child lying near death in a hospital. I think life is a very precious commodity. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. I’d hope that people would think about that before deciding to have an abortion.”
“That doesn’t answer the question, sir.”
“I can’t stop people from doing it. Like it or not, it’s the law. The President may not break the law.” Wasn’t this obvious?
“But in your appointments for the Supreme Court, will you use abortion as a litmus-test issue? Would you like to have Roe v. Wade overturned?” Ryan scarcely noticed the cameras changing focus, and the reporters concentrating on their scribbled notes.
“I don’t like Roe v. Wade, as I said. I think it was a mistake. I’ll tell you why. The Supreme Court interjected itself into what should have been a legislative matter. The Constitution doesn’t address this issue, and on issues where the Constitution is mute, we have state and federal legislatures to write our laws.” This civics lesson was going well. “Now, for the nominations I have to make to the Supreme Court, I will look for the best judges I can find. That’s something we will be addressing shortly. The Constitution is sort of the Bible for the United States of America, and the justices of the Supreme Court are the—theologians, I guess, who decide what it means. They aren’t supposed to write a new one. They’re supposed to figure out what it means. When a change in the Constitution is needed, we have a mechanism to change it, which we’ve used more than twenty times.”
“So, you will select only strict-constructionists who are likely to overturn Roe. ”
It was like hitting a wall. Ryan paused noticeably before answering. “I hope to pick the best judges I can find. I will not interrogate them on single issues.”
The Boston Globe leaped to his feet. “Mr. President, what about where the life of the mother is in danger, the Catholic Church—”
“The answer to that is obvious. The life of the mother is the paramount consideration.”
“But the Church used to say—”
“I don’t speak for the Catholic Church. As I said earlier, I cannot violate the law.”
“But you want the law changed,” the Globe pointed out.
“Yes, I think it would be better for everybody if the matter was returned to the state legislatures. In that way the people’s elected representatives can write the laws in accordance with the will of their electorates.”
“But then,” the San Francisco Examiner pointed out, “we’d have a hodgepodge of laws across the country, and in some areas abortion would be illegal.”
“Only if the electorate wants it that way. That’s how democracy works.”
“But what about poor women?”
“It’s not for me to say,” Ryan replied, feeling the beginnings of anger, and wondering how he’d ever gotten into this mess.
“So, do you support a constitutional amendment against abortion?” the Atlanta Constitution demanded.
“No, I don’t think that’s a constitutional question. I think it is properly a legislative question.”
“So,” the New York Times summarized, “you arepersonally against abortion on moral and religious grounds, but you will not interfere with women’s rights; you plan to appoint conservative justices to the new Supreme Court who will probably overturn Roe, but you don’t support a constitutional amendment to outlaw freedom of choice.” The reporter smiled. “Exactly what do you believe in on this issue, sir?”
Ryan shook his head, pursed his lips, and bit off his first version of an answer to the impertinence. “I thought I just made that clear. Shall we go on to something else?”
“Thank you, Mr. President!” a senior reporter called loudly, so advised by the frantic gestures of Arnold van Damm. Ryan left the podium puzzled, walked around the corner, then another until he was out of sight. The chief of staff grabbed the President by the arm, and nearly pushed him against the wall, and this time the Secret Service didn’t move a muscle.
“Way to go, Jack, you just pissed off the entire country!”
“What do you mean?” the President replied, thinking, Huh?
“I mean you don’t pump gas in your car when you’re smoking a cigarette, God damn it! Jesus! Don’t you know what you just did?” Arnie could see that he didn’t. “The pro-choice people now think you’re going to take their rights away. The pro-life people think you don’t care about their issue. It was just perfect, Jack. You alienated the whole fucking country in five minutes!” Van Damm stormed off, leaving his President outside the Cabinet Room, afraid that he’d really lose his temper if he said anything more.
“What’s he talking about?” Ryan asked. The Secret Service agents around him didn’t say anything. It wasn’t their place—politics—and besides, they were split on the issue as much as the country was.
IT WAS LIKE taking candy from a baby. And after the initial shock, the baby cried pretty loud.
“BUFFALO SIX, this is GUIDON SIX, over.” Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Masterman—“Duke” to his peers—stood atop “Mad Max II,” his M1A2 Abrams command tank, microphone in one hand, and binoculars in the other. Before him, spread over about ten square miles in the Negev Training Area, were the Merkava tanks and infantry carriers of the Israeli army’s 7th Armored Brigade, all with yellow lights blinking and purple smoke rising from their turrets. The smoke was an Israeli innovation. When tanks were hit in battle, they burned, and when the MILES gear receptors recorded a laser “hit” they set off the marker. But the idea had been for the Israelis to count coup that way on the OpFor. Only four of Masterman’s tanks and six of his M3 Bradley Scout tracks were similarly “dead.”
“GUIDON, BUFFALO,” came the return call from Colonel Sean Magruder, commander of the 10th “Buffalo” Armored Cavalry Regiment.
“I think this one’s about concluded, Colonel, over. The fire sack is full.”
“Roger that, Duke. Come on down for the AAR. We’re going to have one really pissed Israeli in a few minutes.” Just as well the radio link was encrypted.
“On the way, sir.” Masterman stepped down off the turret as his HMMVW pulled up. His tank crew started back up, heading down toward the squadron laager.
It didn’t get much better than this. Masterman felt like a football player allowed to play every day. He commanded 1st “Guidon” Squadron of the 10th ACR. It would have been called a battalion, but the Cav was different, to the yellow facings on their shoulder straps and the red-and-white unit guidons, and if you weren’t Cav, you weren’t shit.
“Kickin’ some more ass, sir?” his driver asked as his boss lit up a Cuban cigar.
“Lambs to the slaughter, Perkins.” Masterman sipped some water from a plastic bottle. A hundred feet over his head, some Israeli F-16 fighters roared past, showing outrage at what had happened below them. Probably a few of them had run afoul of the administrative SAM “launches.” Masterman had been especially careful today siting his Stinger-Avenger vehicles, and sure enough, they’d come in just as he’d expected. Tough.
The local “Star Wars Room” was a virtual twin to the original one at Fort Irwin. A somewhat smaller main display screen, and nicer seats, and you could smoke in this one. He entered the building, shaking the dust off his chocolate-chip cammies and striding like Patton into Bastogne. The Israelis were waiting.
Intellectually, they had to know how useful the exercise had been to them. Emotionally, it was something else. The Israeli 7th Armored was as proud an outfit as any in the world. Practically alone, it had stopped an entire Syrian tank corps on the Golan Heights back in 1973, and t
heir current CO had been a lieutenant then who’d taken command of a headless company and fought brilliantly. Not accustomed to failure, he’d just seen the brigade in which he’d practically grown up annihilated, in thirty brutal minutes.
“General,” Masterman said, extending his hand to the chastened brigadier. The Israeli hesitated before taking it.
“Not personal, sir, just business,” said Lieutenant Colonel Nick Sarto, who commanded the 2nd “Bighorn” Squadron, and who had just played hammer to Masterman’s anvil. With the Israeli 7th in the middle.
“Gentlemen, shall we begin?” called the senior observer-controller. As a sop to the Israeli Army, the OC team here was a fifty-fifty mix of experienced American and Israeli officers, and it was hard to determine which group was the more embarrassed.
There was, first, a quick-time replay of the theoretical engagement. The Israeli vehicles in blue marched into the shallow valley to meet GUIDON’S reconnaissance screen, which leapfrogged back rapidly, but not toward the prepared defense positions of the rest of the squadron, instead leading them away at an angle. Thinking it a trap, the Israeli 7th had maneuvered west, so as to loop around and envelop their enemies, only to walk into a solid wall of dug-in tanks, and then to have Bighorn come in from the east much faster than expected—so fast that Doug Mills’s 3rd “Dakota” Squadron, the regimental reserve, never had a chance to come into play for the pursuit phase. It was the same old lesson. The Israeli commander had guessed at his enemy’s positions instead of sending his reconnaissance screen to find out.