Michael Palmer: A Heartbeat Away

“Yes, the virus is affecting me more each hour,” Allaire said. “And yes, I chose to refrain from broadcasting its terrible effects. But I did so to keep all of you from panicking while we worked around the clock to find a cure. I did not mislead you because I wanted to deceive, but because I felt in my heart that I had a duty to protect you.”

“Don’t believe this insanity,” Ellis bellowed. “The bill must be passed if you want to live. The cure is with Genesis, and only I have access to it!”

Allaire glanced over at his wife and daughter.

“Genesis, whoever they are, doesn’t have any cure, Ursula,” Allaire said, patiently. “They never did. They are thieves and terrorists. They don’t have the technology, or capability, to deliver treatment for a virus this complex. My administration created this nightmare in the misguided hope that we could do away with all forms of torture. We developed the WRX virus, and we are the only ones capable of stopping it.”

“You’re lying.… You’re lying…,” Ellis kept repeating, but there was no longer any force behind her words.

“Genesis needed to buy time, Ursula. Time for us all to die. So they played you. They used your pathetic lust for power to turn you into their puppet. We have the cure. That’s why I have brought all these brave people back into the chamber—to prove to you that soon the infection will be a thing of your past. Soon we can begin to repair our lives. And we have one person to thank for that.”

Allaire gestured to the man in the biosuit, who made his way slowly up to the rostrum. Then the man released the clasps and Velcro holding on his helmet, and eased it off, exposing himself to the contaminated air they were all breathing.

The man had a worn, grizzled face, but his eyes were bright. It took a few seconds for Ellis to place him. But when she did, it was as if an icy hand had gripped her heart.

The man was Griffin Rhodes.

One by one, at intervals of five minutes, three rented sedans pulled in through the rear garage doors of the S&S Trading Co. Five men, all in black, exited the garage through an inner door and entered the large storehouse on the street side.

Waiting anxiously around a makeshift biochemistry lab, complete with immunoelectrophoresis, mass spectrometry, and a chemist, were Roger Corum, Colin Whitehead, and Marguerite Prideaux.

The leader of the mercenaries withdrew five large glass jars from the cooler, each one carefully labeled and containing a slightly opaque straw-colored liquid. The group of them then joined two other men dressed in black, one of whom was operating an impressive pair of videoconferencing screens. On the screens, waiting at their desks in opulent offices, were Song Xi in Beijing, China, and Ibn al-Basarth in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The four men and Prideaux, each worth tens of millions, formed the secret international cartel which called itself Genesis. The group had been Corum’s brainchild, as was taking the names from the Old Testament. Their organization had one goal and one goal only: profit. After this operation was complete, and Paul Rappaport was sworn in as president, there would be no need for Genesis to continue to exist. The American people and their new leader would take care of the rest.

“So, any trouble?” Corum asked the head of the squad.

“Two casualties on their side is all,” the man replied matter-of-factly. “Unavoidable.”

“No problem. Is Rappaport okay?”

“Fine. He was just as clueless and frightened as the rest of them.”

“So,” Song Xi asked, in near-perfect English, “Secretary Rappaport still has no idea that Genesis is all about getting him and his policies put into the White House?”

“Not only him and his policies,” Prideaux replied, “but thanks to the work of Genesis, an American public ready to cooperate with them, and expand the country’s security system to the tune of billions of dollars.”

“Tens of billions,” Whitehead corrected, punctuating the words with a cough.

“And of course,” al-Basarth said, “who better to provide the new identification system, and surveillance cameras, and anti-alien barriers, and electronic monitoring, than our companies—already leaders in our fields.”

“I’ll bet my own government won’t be far behind,” Xi said. “I think the world is ready for a little isolationism. Paranoia equals profit. Who first said that?”

“I did,” Corum, Prideaux, and Whitehead answered in unison, and all of them laughed.

“How are we doing?” Corum asked the chemist, a man named Falicki.

Falicki had worked for him before. In fact, it was he who first put Corum in touch with the late Matt Fink. There would be no need to silence Falicki or any of the men. Their salaries would see to that.

“Almost there.”

The computer printer chimed, and soon began to spit out results from the mass spectrometer analysis, taken from the serum that Paul Rappaport had brought with him to Washington from Kalvesta.

His brow furrowed as Falicki studied the readout.

“Well?”

“It appears this is the authentic antiviral treatment,” the chemist announced. “The serum contains the properties we expected to find, as well as the adjuvant we knew the virologist had included. I would like to be certain that what is contained here is the precise drug that your Dr. Rhodes injected himself with, but this is as close as we are going to get. Insofar as I can determine, I believe this is the real deal, Roger. Congratulations.”

Corum flinched when he heard a loud pop behind him. He turned to see a now beaming Prideaux holding an open magnum of champagne with foam gushing out its mouth.

“Zees eez cause for celebration, non ?” she said, purposely adding a dense French accent, when in truth she had very little.

Whitehead applauded and everyone in the warehouse joined in. There would be no last-second miracle cure for James Allaire and his administration. The doomsday survivor had been aptly chosen. The decision to get Rappaport, himself, to request the undesirable position by putting stress on his mentally ill daughter had been brilliant, Corum reflected. Absolutely brilliant.

“Xi, Ibn,” Corum said to the men watching the events via video, “if you have any celebratory drinks nearby, I suggest now is the time to pour them. Along with Mr. Whitehead and Mlle. Prideaux, we are soon to appear on lists of the wealthiest men—and women—in our countries.”

Prideaux handed over the magnum to the head of the mercenary force and passed out flutes she had purchased in the package store. Then she raised her glass toward the two grinning men half a world away. The group assembled in the old warehouse did the same, and Song and al-Basarth responded in kind.

“To the trade show in Las Vegas, and the evening when the visionary Roger Corum first brought us all together,” Prideaux said while hoisting her glass.

“To the trade show,” everyone sang out.

“Speech, Roger,” Whitehead demanded.

Corum stepped forward, glass raised once more.

“I think we owe Speaker of the House Ellis a few moments of grateful silence for being such a perfect foil, and for obviously not being aware of the folk tale of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox.”

“What is this folk tale?” Song asked.

“Well, Br’er Fox was about to eat Br’er Rabbit when the Rabbit started crying and carrying on that the Fox could do anything he wanted to, up to and including having the rabbit for dinner. ‘But please,’ the shrewd rabbit begged, ‘just don’t throw me in that there briar patch.’ Well, Br’er Rabbit had caused Br’er Fox so much grief over the years that Fox decided he could always catch another meal. But he could not always cause his nemesis such terrible and feared discomfort.”