The Rationing

by Charles Wheelan

“None of this information is technically classified,” the Chief of Staff replied. “The intelligence agencies are not involved.” She had a calming effect on him; that was part of her job.

  “Okay, fine,” the President said. “She can bring her mother if she wants to. Let’s go.”

  The tenor of the meeting was entirely different from previous days. There was an odd mix of formality and passive aggression, with periodic bursts of comic interruption by the Strategist, who liked the Speaker even less than the President did. “We’ll know a lot more tomorrow when we get the results of the NIH sampling,” the Chief of Staff said, directing the remark to the Speaker.

  “Yes, I got the briefing,” the Speaker said. “Aren’t we neglecting the real elephant in the room here?” she asked. The rest of us looked at her blankly until she continued. “The Health Research and Infrastructure Bill?”

  “Just tell us what you’re talking about,” the Strategist said impatiently.

  The Speaker continued, “That was the bill that outsourced our production of lifesaving drugs to private companies like Centera Biomedical Group.”

  “Okay, that was a mistake, obviously,” the Strategist said. “But the horses aren’t just out of the barn on this one, they’re shitting up and down Main Street.”

  The Speaker fixed her stare on the President. “You supported it.”

  “Probably,” the President answered, throwing up his hands. “That was, what, eight years ago?”

  “Seven.”

  “Okay, what’s your point?” the President asked.

  “We knew that bill was a bad idea at the time,” the Speaker said.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” the President asked. We were five minutes into the meeting and he already sounded beleaguered.

  “The progressive caucus,” she answered stonily.

  The Strategist started to clap, slowly and loudly. “Cut it out,” the President snapped. He turned back to the Speaker. “Do you realize what we’re dealing with here?”

  “Of course I do. I’m just saying that some part of our response must involve facing up to how we got here.”

  “A government warehouse caught on fire in Long Beach,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “And?” the Speaker prompted.

  “We’ve already arrested the Centera executives,” the President said. “Obviously we can’t publicize that.”

  “What about those of you who entrusted America’s health to a greedy pharmaceutical company?” she asked.

  “Oh, for fuck sake,” the Strategist blurted out. This time the President did not cut him off. “Is there anything with you that is not political? Anything?”

  The President was calmer. Perhaps he had been bracing himself for this. He turned to the Chief of Staff and asked, “What’s the number?”

  “We’re still waiting for the NIH data, so it hasn’t changed—”

  “I know. What is it?”

  The Chief of Staff opened up her laptop and looked at the screen. “Actually, several big Dormigen shipments have come in from Europe. One from Brazil.”

  “What’s the number.” It was not really a question, the way he said it.

  “Just over 1.3 million.”

  The President turned back to the Speaker. “Do have any comprehension of what that means?” He spoke slowly. His voice was tinged with anger and disrespect.

  “My understanding is that the Chinese have offered enough Dormigen to cover the gap,” she said.

  “Yes, if we want to abdicate our foreign policy to them for the next fifty years,” the President replied with just a hint of sarcasm. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “You’re not going to let 1.3 million Americans die, I assume,” the Speaker replied confidently.

  “That’s why we’re here!” the Chief of Staff yelled. “That’s what we’re doing right now. That’s why we’ve been meeting every day for hours on end. We’re looking for a way forward.” She grew calmer as she spoke, but I could see that her hands, still holding the laptop, were shaking slightly.

  “Of course, I understand,” the Speaker said, offering up her best impression of sincerity. “Thank you for all your hard work on this.”

  The President, provoked by the patronizing tone, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Can we just cut to the chase here? What is it you want?” he asked.

  “This is not about me,” the Speaker said calmly. “Can’t you see what is happening here? The country is in the midst of what may become the worst crisis of the twenty-first century, and you have locked yourselves in this room, as if the rest of the government has no say in what’s happening.” She looked slowly around the room before continuing. “You cannot possibly think this is okay.”

  The Chief of Staff said, “We have a tough balancing act. We are trying to deal with the situation without causing a panic.”

  “Maybe you’ve convinced yourselves of that,” the Speaker said. “Here is what I see: A small group of people trying to cover up a crisis that the President and all the other corporate lapdogs in Congress set in motion. You put the health of the nation in the hands of a greedy pharmaceutical company, and now here we are.”

  “Very nice,” the Strategist said. “Have you run that language by a focus group? I bet it tests very well.”

  The President said, “Let me ask again, because time is really important here: What do you want?” He enunciated each word in the question slowly and clearly.

  “It’s not what I want, it’s what needs to happen. This is not about me,” the Speaker said, prompting smirks around the room. The Strategist laughed out loud. The Speaker turned to him and said sharply, “I’m not seeing the humor here.”

  The President stared at the Speaker stonily, waiting for her to continue, which she eventually did. “Two things need to happen,” she said. “First, Congress needs to be involved. This is a matter of national importance. The people in this room should not be making these kinds of decisions alone. Also—”

  The Secretary of Defense interrupted, “With all due respect, Madam Speaker, nothing that we’re discussing here falls within the purview of Congress. Health and Human Services manages the Dormigen stock. That’s an executive agency. The President has complete authority to negotiate with other governments. Congress has no authority over any of this.”

  “You are completely missing the point,” the Speaker answered sharply. “Congress is the elected representative body of the American people.” She turned suddenly to look at the Strategist, who had begun humming “God Bless America.”

  “Seriously?” the Speaker asked incredulously.

  “Congress can’t paint a hallway in less than a month,” the Strategist said. “And five hundred and thirty-five people cannot possibly keep anything confidential. We are running out of Dormigen and a million people could die if we don’t figure out what the hell to do. One million people. We invited you here because we want and need your input. But there is no way that Congress can make these decisions. It’s just not realistic.”

  “Congress needs to be meaningfully involved,” she said.

  “I appreciate that,” the President offered noncommittally. “What was your second point?” I had long since forgotten that she had a second demand.

  The Speaker continued: “When this situation is resolved, there has to be a public accounting of how we got here.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “It means that if we dodge a bullet here, as I fully expect we will, the American people need to know how close we came to complete disaster. And who was responsible, obviously.”

  “I’m glad you think we’re going to dodge the bullet,” the President said.

  “One phone call to Beijing and it’s all over,” the Speaker said.

  “It’s that simple, is it?” the President asked facetiously.

  “Okay, thank you, everyone,” the Chief of Staff said. “We’ll know more tomorrow when we get the NIH data. Thank you, Madam Speaker. We
will take all this under advisement.”

  As the participants filed out of the room, the Strategist pulled the President and the Chief of Staff aside. “We need to get our legal counsel on this,” he said.

  “I know,” the President acknowledged. “And the National Security people, if there is any chance we may be doing some kind of deal with China.”

  “I’ll set up the meetings,” the Chief of Staff said.

  The Strategist nodded toward the door of the Oval Office, where the Speaker was talking to the Secretary of Defense. “You know what she’s going to do with this,” he said. “This is one big political gift for her. It’s what she’s been waiting for her entire life. She’s going to ride in on a government-issued horse—”

  “Yeah, I picked up on that,” the President said tartly.

  “I’d say we have about twelve hours before this starts leaking,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “That will be a complete clusterfuck,” the Strategist said.

  “We need a communications strategy,” the Chief of Staff answered, a new level of weariness creeping into her voice.

  “There are already too many people involved,” the President said.

  “I know,” the Chief of Staff agreed. “But if this thing leaks and we’re not prepared, the public reaction will be a complete disaster.”

  The Strategist chuckled sardonically. “I’ve got our message: ‘Don’t worry, America, only one million of you are at risk of dying.’ Or maybe we should put a more positive spin on it: ‘Three hundred and thirty-nine million Americans probably won’t die.’ ”

  The President smiled, grasping at the humor. “Or we can just loan the Chinese the Sixth Fleet for a while. How bad could that be?”

  “I’ll work up something with the Director of Communications,” the Chief of Staff said.

  The President nodded in acknowledgment. After a moment he asked the Strategist, “Did I really vote to privatize the Dormigen production?”

  The Strategist shrugged. “I can’t remember. It was a huge bill. I have no idea what all was packed in there, but I suspect the Speaker did her research on this one.”

  “Yeah.”

  25.

  AS THE PARTICIPANTS FILED OUT OF THE MEETING, THE President walked to the window of the Oval Office that looked out on the Rose Garden. He did that sometimes, separating himself from the group but not yet ready to sit down at his desk and get back to work. The Majority Leader paused in the doorway and then walked back and joined the President by the window. “Welcome to my world, Mr. President,” he offered. The President looked at him somewhat quizzically, neither welcoming his presence nor sending him away. “The Speaker,” the Majority Leader continued. “I have to deal with her more often than you do. Just about every goddamn day, and sometimes she still amazes me.” The President nodded and smiled slightly, implicitly welcoming the Majority Leader’s presence. “Can I offer you one piece of advice?” the Majority Leader asked.

  “About the Speaker?” the President replied.

  “Mm-hmm,” the Majority Leader confirmed.

  “Wrap her in a carpet and drop her off a boat twenty-five miles out to sea,” the President suggested.

  The Majority Leader gave a deep, genuine laugh. “Oh, I’ve felt that urge,” he said, still chuckling. “But I’ll give you a different nautical metaphor. You’ve got to let her run away from the boat.”

  “I have no fucking idea what that means,” the President said, albeit with an odd warmth for him.

  “You’re not a fisherman?” the Majority Leader asked.

  “My idea of fishing consists of going to Whole Foods and buying whatever is on sale,” the President replied. “Now I can’t even go to Whole Foods,” he added.

  “If you’re fishing for game fish, like tuna or swordfish,” the Majority Leader explained, “they can take hours to land after you’ve hooked them. If you try to wrestle them into the boat too quickly, you’ll wear yourself out, or break the line.”

  “One more reason to buy tuna at Whole Foods.”

  “True enough. But if you like the fight, what you learn is that you have to let the fish wear itself out. Sometimes it dives deep, or swims away from the boat. That’s what I mean by letting it run. It doesn’t feel right, to let the fish get farther away from you, but eventually that fish is going to exhaust itself. That’s when you reel it in.”

  “I like the idea of putting a hook in the Speaker’s mouth, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Other than that, I still have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” the President said. His tone was not hostile; rather, it invited the Majority Leader to continue.

  “One thing I’ve learned about people like the Speaker is that sometimes it’s better to let them talk than to try and shut them up,” the Majority Leader explained. “We had this nasty fellow back in Pekin. He was an out-and-out racist, but he was generally smart enough to dress up his repugnant thoughts in respectable clothing. He was making all kinds of trouble at the high school—stuff about how our kids needed to be taught by teachers who were ‘culturally similar,’ which was really just veiled talk about race. He didn’t want any black teachers. The problem was, people were starting to listen.”

  “And?” the President asked with genuine interest.

  “I was president of the school board and I kept trying to figure out how I could shut him up. One day over Sunday supper, my dad says, ‘If you let him talk long enough, people will see him for what he is.’ So I invited the guy to address the Rotary Club, to make a recommendation about what kind of teachers would be most appropriate for Pekin High.”

  “That was bold.”

  “The first fifteen minutes, I thought I’d made a horrible mistake. He had fancy slides and test score data. Everyone in the room was nodding along. But then he kept going. He started talking about how some races are genetically inferior and should be relegated to certain low-skill professions.”

  “He was running away from the boat,” the President offered.

  “You’re telling me,” the Majority Leader said, pleased that the President had embraced his metaphor. “I could feel the room turning. The longer he talked, the more mortified they became. I could see it in their eyes. I didn’t even have to offer a rejoinder. At the end of his talk, I just said, ‘Thank you for coming today. I’m pleased you all could get a deeper understanding of Mr. Mason’s views on this subject.’ The guy never caused any serious trouble again.”

  “Okay, but the Speaker is wily and we don’t have much time,” the President said. “She could really do a lot of damage here.”

  “I agree. But you have to resist the impulse to try to muscle her into the boat,” the Majority Leader warned.

  “You’ve caught a lot of tuna in your day, have you?” the President suggested.

  “I do pretty well.”

  26.

  I ARRIVED AT THE NIH OFFICES BEFORE DAWN. SOMEHOW I had lost my key card, and I had to search the lobby for a security guard to buzz me in. “Something’s going on up there,” he said as he tapped his pass on a pad beside the elevator. “They’ve been working all night.” Tie Guy met me at the elevator. He had not shaved in several days and his face had an oily sheen. He was not wearing shoes. “Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee or something?” I asked.

  “That’s the last thing I need,” he said. “If I have any more caffeine I might have a heart attack.” I looked around the floor. A few people were working at computers, but most of the people I could see were loitering happily, as if they were working on a group project in graduate school—which, as far as they knew, was broadly similar to what they were doing. A young woman walked toward us, typing intently on her phone. When she noticed Tie Guy she said, “Hey, we’re going out for breakfast. You want to come?”

  “No, thanks. I need to review the slides,” he said. We had agreed that Tie Guy would brief me as soon as he was finished analyzing the new data. At eight, the NIH Director would arrive and we would do a more formal b
riefing for her. The Director and I would then do a briefing at the White House later that morning.

  “How does it look?” I asked.

  “The data are pretty good,” he said. “The numbers are more or less what I expected. No huge surprises, but there are some quirky patterns. We might be able to exploit the patterns to get some traction.”

  My phone beeped, not my normal phone, but the secure TransferPhone that the White House had given me a few days earlier. It was text from the Chief of Staff: “Please keep briefing to four or five slides, eight tops.” I looked at my watch. It was five-fifteen in the morning. How long had she been up?

  Tie Guy nodded at my clunky black device. “So you’re carrying one of those now, are you?” he said.

  “So it would appear,” I replied, hoping to defuse the situation with humor. “Looks like we’ll need a short version of the presentation, maybe five slides.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked incredulously, almost yelling. “I’ve been up all night. My deck has one hundred and seventeen slides.”

  “We need a summary,” I said.

  “Who is ‘we’?” he asked.

  “It’s a working group the Director pulled together,” I said.

  “Five slides?”

  “Yeah. Maybe seven or eight, if you really need them.”

  Tie Guy looked at me, shaking his head as he processed the request. “Either these people are really, really important, or they’re complete fucking idiots.”

  “They’re not complete fucking idiots.”

  “Then I’ve got work to do,” he said, walking away angrily.

  “Show me what you have,” I said, following him. “I can help you winnow the slides.”

  Tie Guy walked into a small conference room littered with the detritus of meals past. He moved a half-empty coffee cup out of the way and opened his laptop. Without looking up from the screen, he motioned to an open pizza box with one slice left in it, the cheese hardened and congealed. “There’s pizza if you want it,” he said.

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  Tie Guy projected his presentation on the white wall, clicking quickly through some introductory slides: the team members, a mission statement, and so on. “Cut all that,” I said. He nodded, still refusing to make eye contact with me. He clicked through a few more slides, stopping at a map of the United States with a purple blotch running across the northern part of the country from west to east, starting at the Rockies and stretching all the way through New England. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.