by Tom Clancy
“I don’t follow.”
Scull rubbed his head again.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m in another country conducting a risk analysis from a corporate perspective, I first pretend I’m from Mars, throw every preconception I have from my mind. Make like a sponge and soak up everything I can. You with me so far?”
She nodded.
“Now I’ve been there long enough to get a sense of what the place is about, and I notice a potential problem. Some political, economic, or social instabilities that could threaten our company interests,” he went on. “I examine the cause or causes, trace their origins. It can be complicated. There are always buried issues and agendas. But I focus on the ones that are exposed. Follow their threads. Most often, they’ll lead to others that aren’t so visible. And then I follow them. And when I know everything I can within whatever time frame’s imposed on me, I spin the threads into a regional profile and scenario plans. Then make my recommendations on what our investment strategy should be.”
“Okay, I’ve still got you,” Megan said. “Now help my chronically prosaic mind with the rest.”
Scull thought for a moment.
“Say you’re a medical sherlock. There’s a disease you don’t recognize, you want to trace its origin, same’s I’d do with some radical political movement in Frickfrackistan,” he said. “So you start looking at how the person you’re treating might’ve acquired it. Where’s he been lately? Who were his contacts? You maybe hit on another case that can be linked to him, you can pretty much surmise the sickness is communicable. The next step is to figure out its vectors. How it’s spreading. Whether it jumps from rodents to people. Or rodents to insects to people like bubonic plague. Or gets passed directly from person to person. Name your route. The main thing is that once the information’s in your pocket, you’re on the way to finding your germ. And then you can maybe come to terms with it. Figure out how to deal with the thing.” He looked from Megan to Pete. “You see where I’m coming from?”
The other two were nodding, Megan with her eyebrows raised.
They sat in pensive silence again.
Then, from Nimec: “Where do we start?”
Scull turned sideways in his chair and rapped his fist on the wall.
“Right here, Petey. UpLink HQ,” he said. “Where the hell else but the boss’s home away from home?”
Palardy was dreaming he was in the hospital. Or at least he thought it was a dream. It was hard to tell sometimes what was real and what wasn’t. Like the day he’d gone into Gordian’s office with the syringe. That had seemed as if it was a dream, too. He remembered how he’d seemed to be floating in space as he walked through the door, his sense of unreality. Of being inside and outside himself at once. And that was how he felt now. So maybe it was all in his mind. Not just the bad things that had happened to him lately, the things he’d done, but everything since Brazil. The gambling, his selling those blueprints to the space station facility to make his vig, his wife leaving him… and then back to the U.S.A. and more bets, more shylocks, more betrayals demanded of him and carried out. All a dream, every minute of it. Every hour, day, week, and month, right up to and including his coming down with the sickness. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life was…
Life…
Was life. Or something like that.
In the dream he’d been slipping into and out of tonight, these latest installments of his dream of life, or life of dream, whatever, he was in a hospital bed, tucked between clean sheets, feeling loads better. The fever was gone. Gone, the glands in his throat swollen to the size of golf balls. And the heaves and coughs and the blood that had started coming out of him with the coughing, red streaks in his phlegm, then clots, streaking the sink when he spat into it, darkening the water of his toilet, staining the bowl even after he’d flush and flush and flush…
Gone, all gone. Pain and trouble down the drain. The doctors had treated him, the nurses were tender and attentive, and he was comfortable, on the way to being cured. And whenever he opened his eyes and found himself back in his apartment, lying alone in his bed, twisted up in his soiled, wet, stinking sheets, his head on a pillow soaked with bloody discharges from his nose and mouth, whenever he’d opened his eyes and seemed to wake alone, so alone, Palardy would force himself back into that other place, that place of comfort, where the physicians were skilled and the nurses were kind, and he was getting better, so much better, in a warm, clean bed. And then the only thoughts to disturb him would be about the message in a bottle, the riddle sent to himself and not to himself, so people would be able to figure out what happened to him in case anything bad did happen.
That message, that payback, that whopping fuck-you to his betrayers… the problem was that it could come right back at him, be a disaster for him if things turned out okay and he recovered, if it was found before he got released from the hospital to intercept it.
Definitely a thought to intrude on his peace of mind, intrude on his dream, jolt him back to the lonely reality of the apartment where he lay wretched and shivering and very possibly dying in his own bodily filth.
In fact, it was pulling him back there right now, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. Because in the present snippet of his dream of sweet mercy and healing, a nurse had been about to care for him, quietly entering his room, softly coming around his bedside, and oh, and oh, and oh, although he couldn’t quite see her features, Palardy was sure she was beautiful, like his wife on their honeymoon, when they’d made their first baby, beautiful like his wife, and he didn’t want to leave her, he didn’t want to…
Palardy opened his eyes. Unsure of his bearings, his sense of place confused. He seemed to be back in his apartment, in his moist and jumbled bed. Sometimes it was hard to be positive on awakening. The shades were drawn to keep the sun from lancing into his eyes. The lights were out for the same reason, that terrible pain in his eyes. The room was so dim, it was hard to know. But he thought he was in his apartment. Awake now. And yet he still had the feeling somebody was with him, near his bed.
He blinked rapidly. If this was his own place, if he was no longer in the dream, then nobody belonged inside it except him.
Who could be…?
Suddenly afraid, Palardy struggled to lift himself on his elbows, craning his head from side to side.
Initially, he thought the man standing to his left was disfigured. His face smashed and flattened. Then he thought his eyes still might be blurry with sleep, and blinked some more to clear them.
And then he realized the man was wearing a mask.
A stocking mask.
His fear mounting exponentially, Palardy summoned what little strength remained in his body and raised it higher off the mattress.
And was shoved back down by a black-gloved hand on his chest.
The hand held him.
Pressed hard against his ribs.
Kept him from moving at all.
He tried to speak but could only groan through his scaled, blue lips. Then tried again as the man’s free hand reached into a pouch or a bag on his belt… reappeared with something that finally unlocked his vocal cords…
“Who?” he managed. “Why…?”
Palardy would die without an answer to the first question.
As for the second, his conscience had already answered it for him.
SEVENTEEN
VARIOUS LOCALES NOVEMBER 15, 2001
From Reuters Online:
Spokesperson insists Roger Gordian has not suffered stroke
Web Posted at 1:14 p.m. PST (2114 GMT) SAN JOSE—Reports that UpLink International CEO Roger Gordian was hospitalized for a massive stroke last weekend were denied this afternoon by a corporate spokeswoman. “There has been a rash of false speculation that I would like to dispel. Mr. Gordian is undergoing thorough tests after experiencing some dizziness and physical discomfort while doing yard work at a family member’s house Sunday,” longtime UpLink executive Megan Breen told Reuters, reading from a prepa
red statement. “He’s a very active man and may have overexerted himself, but I can positively assure you that a stroke is not suspected by his doctors.”
Ms. Breen offered no specifics about Gordian’s condition and present location but added that he was fully alert and had expressed his eagerness to return to work.
The billionaire defense contractor and communications entrepreneur became the subject of ill-health rumors when information surfaced yesterday that he had unexpectedly canceled several meetings with key Senate and business leaders…
* * *
After hearing Lieberman summarize Roger Gordian’s symptoms and lab results over the phone, Eric Oh, his colleague at public health, became concerned enough to ask him to fax over the case report the instant they hung up.
Oh waited at his machine, plucking each page out of the tray as it was transmitted. His hurried reading prompted him to make an equally fast callback.
His impressions corresponded to Lieberman’s — Oh’s version of gut radar, which he’d dubbed his “Spidey sense” in homage to his favorite childhood comic book character, was giving him physical tingles. He urged that a fresh specimen of Gordian’s blood be transported to the renowned virology lab at Stanford Medical School in nearby Palo Alto for examination and recommended that Lieberman follow the usual guidelines for a potential biohazardous threat and ship a second viable sample, dry-iced, to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
“I’d also appreciate you getting another tube of sera to the research facility at Berkeley,” he said. “I consult with researchers there pretty often, and we have a good working relationship.”
“I’ll need to make matters official,” Lieberman said. “Advise the departmental chairs, obtain their authorizations.”
“Think you can rustle them together this afternoon?”
“I’ll give it my best.”
“One more thing before I forget — Gordian’s X-rays. The reports note you’ve had series taken every twelve hours. Can I see your originals? From the initial images to the most recent. I’ll send them right back to you tomorrow morning.”
“No problem.”
“Great, they should give me a better sense of how this has evolved,” Oh said. “The material’s out to Stanford within the hour, I’ll drive down to personally sign for it and get cracking.”
“I thought you mentioned you were taking Cindy out for an Italian dinner tonight.”
“She got used to losing me to an electron microscope and assay plates the day our honeymoon ended, Eli.”
* * *
It was late afternoon when Pete Nimec stepped out of the elevator to find Gordian’s admin staring at his office door from behind her desk.
“Norma,” he said. “How you holding up?”
She turned to him slowly as he approached.
“As best I can, Pete,” she said. “Has Mrs. Gordian gotten in touch with you again?”
He shook his head. “We assume she will after that government epidemiologist has a look at things.”
Norma was quiet.
“I don’t want to think about him not being in there.” She indicated Gordian’s office with her cheerless eyes. “And somehow I can’t think about anything else.”
Nimec looked at her.
“I know,” he said.
“Nothing seems right,” she said. “It’s so strange. He’s one of those people I’ve taken for granted will always be with us. I can’t imagine him being seriously ill. He’s so much larger than most…” She paused. “I’m sorry. Of course it doesn’t make sense.”
He reached across the desk and touched her shoulder.
“Maybe not,” he said. “But you aren’t alone. Everybody who cares about him feels that way a little.”
She put her hand on his and let it rest there a moment.
“Thank you.”
He nodded in silence.
“It’s incredible how much Mr. Gordian is able to manage,” she said then. “I’ve spent the past two afternoons canceling his appointments. That luncheon with senators Richard and Bruford from the Armed Services Committee. Meetings with senior executive board members. With a representative from the Silicon Valley Business Alliance. I can’t tell you how many others.”
“You have to field a lot of questions from the press since that stroke story appeared?”
“Enough,” she said. “I’ve stayed with Megan’s official explanation to the letter. Dizziness, maybe too much yard work, routine tests.”
“That’ll hold a while,” he said.
“And hopefully we won’t have any reason to go beyond it.”
“Hopefully.” He paused. “Norma, while we’re on the subject of Gord’s schedule, I need a favor. Something Vince Scull thinks might be important to the doctors. Would you be able to provide a list of his verifiable contacts over the past couple, three weeks? The ones with whom he physically connected, that is.”
She looked at him.
“Yes, I log all his engagements into an electronic scheduler,” she said. “The calendar automatically appears when I turn on my computer every morning. I input whether the date is kept, missed, or reshuffled. Occasionally, Mr. Gordian will have me enter a list of talking points beforehand. Or his handwritten impressions of how the meeting went.”
“I won’t ask for Gord’s private notes. Just the names of people he met and who they work for. Maybe where their meetings took place. Can you swing that for me right now?”
“Pete, I’ll do anything to help. Now, later, don’t hesitate to check with me for whatever information you want,” Norma said. The thought that she could be of use had given her a kind of animation. “Would you like a printout or disk?”
“A copy of each sounds good to me.”
“You’ve got them,” she said, then slipped a rewritable CD into her drive and began tapping on her keyboard.
* * *
“I’m sorry, truly sorry, but I can’t help you with that information,” said Carl VanDerwerf from behind his desk. His job title at UpLink was Managing Director of Human Resources.
“An’ I’m tellin’ you I got to have it,” said Rollie Thibodeau from the seat opposite him.
The two men stared at one another, clearly at an impasse.
“We have to be sensitive to the privacy of our employees,” VanDerwerf persisted. “Moreover, there are state and federal laws. You may not be aware of the penalties we could incur. The liabilities were someone to press a suit about your prying into their personnel records for confidential details—”
Thibodeau held a hand in the air to interrupt him.
“Never mind these people’s ages, work experience, or whether they like to pole vault or pole dance in their rec time. Doesn’t matter to me if somebody’s a kleptomaniac, nymphomaniac, single, married, divorced, a bigamist, or takin’ care of his or her shut-in Aunt Emma,” he said. “Just give me the names of employees in this building who took sick days the past couple weeks, and the departments where they work. You got to have that on file.”
VanDerwerf produced an exasperated sigh. “Certainly we do. For payroll and insurance purposes. But if you’d allowed me to finish my sentence a moment ago, you would know the law requires that we keep an individual’s medical background confidential.”
“Nobody’s talkin’ background. Thibodeau said. ”What you got your neck poked out for? Just let me know who’s called in sick lately. An employee does or doesn’t choose to get into the reason why, it be up to him.“
VanDerwerf sighed again.
“Sir, just as you are responsible for our corporate security operations, I supervise all phases of personnel function. At all levels from senior executive to mail room clerk. My decisions must be guided by UpLink’s established policies and procedures and by applicable government regulations.” He pursed his lips, ran a finger across his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache. “Now, I’m not denying that unanticipated situations will sometimes arise that demand judgment calls. Should you care to explain
the basis of your request… address my own need to know if it is associated with rumors circulating about Mr. Gordian’s condition… I’m sure we can reconcile our differences in a mutually amenable, commonsense manner.”
Thibodeau glowered. “You sayin’ it ain’t okay for me to ask a fella straight on whether he had a cold or a sprained ankle last week, but it’s fine for you to stick your bill into the boss’s affairs through a third party?”
“That is an oversimplification rendered in insulting terms. My capacities include oversight of UpLink’s health-care costs, and Mr. Gordian is covered by our corporate policy. The wall of silence surrounding his absence stands to put me in a difficult position with our provider. I merely suggest we trade off—”
“I heard enough, you officious little prick.” Thibodeau pushed off his chair and stood over the desk. “Talk about insults, what do you call wastin’ my time, pretendin’ to be grieved up over employees’ rights when you only lookin’ to talk trash—?”
“That was not my intention—”
“Come see!” Thibodeau boomed, thrusting a finger at him. “You don’t commence to turn over what I gotta have, you’ll know how a bug feels when it’s been stepped on with a hikin’ boot.”
VanDerwerf blinked, rapidly stroking his mustache, spots of color on his cheeks and forehead.
Then he released his third and longest sigh yet.
“Okay,” he said in ruffled capitulation. “My staff’s ready to leave for the day. I’ll have them get the names to your office first thing tomorrow morning.”
Thibodeau shook his head and sat.
“Best make that your office in fifteen minutes,” he said and glanced at his wristwatch. “Meanwhile, I’ll just make myself comfortable an’ wait for them right here.”
* * *
True to his promise, Eric Oh was at the Stanford lab in time to receive the radiographs and diagnostic specimen from Lieberman.
They arrived via special courier a little after five o’clock, the serum packed separately in accordance with international requirements for transport of fluid, tissue, cultures, and other substances believed to contain etiologic agents — live microbial organisms that were potential causes of infectious disease in human beings.