Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

"SO, HOW'D WE do, coach?" Jack asked with a smile.

"The ice got pretty thin, but I guess you didn't get wet," Arnie van Damm said with visible relief. "You hit the interest groups pretty hard."

"Isn't it okay to trash the special interests? Hell, everybody else does!"

"It depends on which groups and which interests, Mr. President. They all have spokespersons, too, and some of them can come across like Mother Teresa after a nice-pill—right before they slash your throat with a machete." The chief of staff paused. "Still, you handled yourself pretty well. You didn't say anything they could turn against you too badly. We'll see how they cut it up for tonight, and then what Donner and Plumber say at the end. The last couple of minutes count the most."

THE TUBES ARRIVED in Atlanta in a very secure container called a «hatbox» because of its shape. It was in its way a highly sophisticated device, designed to hold the most dangerous of materials in total safety, multiple-sealed, and spec'd to survive violent impacts. It was covered with biohazard warning labels and was treated with great respect by the handlers, including the FedEx deliveryman who'd handed it over this morning at 9:14.

The hatbox was taken to a secure lab, where the outside was checked for damage, sprayed with a powerful chemical disinfectant, and then opened under strict containment procedures. The accompanying documents explained why this was necessary. The two blood tubes were suspected to contain viruses which caused hemorrhagic fever. That could mean any of several such diseases from Africa—the indicated continent of origin—all of which were things to be avoided. A technician working in a glove box made the transfer after examining the containers for leaks. There were none he could see, and more disinfectant spray made sure of that. The blood would be tested for antibodies and compared with other samples. The documentation went off to the office of Dr. Lorenz in the Special Pathogens Branch.

"GUS, ALEX." Dr. Lorenz heard on the phone.

"Still not getting any fishing in?"

"Maybe this weekend. There's a guy in neurosurgery with a boat, and we have the house pretty well set up, finally." Dr. Alexandre was looking out the window of his office at east Baltimore. One could see the harbor, which led to the Chesapeake Bay, and there were supposed to be rockfish out there.

"What's happening?" Gus asked, as his secretary came in with a folder.

"Just checking in on the outbreak in Zaire. Anything new?"

"Zip, thank God. We're out of the critical time. This one burned out in a hurry. We were very—" Lorenz stopped when he opened the folder and scanned the cover sheet. "Wait a minute. Khartoum?" he muttered to himself.

Alexandre waited patiently. Lorenz was a slow, careful reader. An elderly man, rather like Ralph Forster, he took his time with things, which was one of the reasons he was a brilliant experimental scientist. Lorenz rarely took a false step. He thought too much before moving his feet.

"We just had two samples come in from Khartoum. Cover sheet is from a Dr. MacGregor, the English Hospital in Khartoum, two patients, adult male and four-year-old female, possible hemorrhagic fever. The samples are in the lab now."

"Khartoum? Sudan?"

"That's what it says," Gus confirmed.

"Long way from the Congo, man."

"Airplanes, Alex, airplanes," Lorenz observed. If there was one thing that frightened epidemiologists, it was international air travel. The cover sheet didn't say much, but it did give phone and fax numbers. "Okay, well, we have to run the tests and see."

"What about the samples from before?"

"Finished the mapping yesterday. Ebola Zaire, Mayinga sub-type, identical with the samples from 1976, down to the last amino acid."

"The airborne one," Alexandre muttered, "the one that got George Westphal."

"That was never established, Alex," Lorenz reminded him.

"George was careful, Gus. You know that. You trained him." Pierre Alexandre rubbed his eyes.

Headaches. He needed a new desk light.

"Let me know what those samples tell you, okay?"

"Sure. I wouldn't worry too much. Sudan is a crummy environment for this little bastard. Hot, dry, lots of sunlight. The virus wouldn't last two minutes in the open. Anyway, let me talk to my lab chief. I'll see if I can micrograph it myself later today—no, more likely tomorrow morning. I have a staff meeting in an hour."

"Yeah, and I need some lunch. Talk to you tomorrow, Gus." Alexandre—he still thought of himself more as «Colonel» than "Professor" — replaced the phone and walked out, heading off to the cafeteria. He was pleased to find Cathy Ryan in the food line again, along with her bodyguard.

"Hey, Prof."

"How's the bug business?" she asked, with a smile.

"Same-o, same-o. I need a consult, Doctor," he said, selecting a sandwich off the counter.

"I don't do viruses." But she did enough work with AIDS patients whose eye troubles were secondary to their main problem. "What's the problem?"

"Headaches," he said on the way to the cashier.

"Oh?" Cathy turned and took his glasses right off his face. She held them up to the light. "You might try cleaning them once in a while. You're about two diopters of minus, pretty strong astigmatism. How long since you had the prescription checked?" She handed them back with a final look at the encrusted dirt around the lenses, already knowing the answer to her question.

"Oh, three—"

"Years. You should know better. Have your secretary call mine and I'll have you checked out. Join us?"

They selected a table by the window, with Roy Altman in tow, scanning the room, and catching looks from the other detail members doing the same. All clear.

"You know, you might be a good candidate for our new laser technique. We can re-shape your cornea and bring you right down to 20–20," she told him. She'd helped ramrod that program, too.

"Is it safe?" Professor Alexandre asked dubiously.

"The only unsafe procedures I perform are in the kitchen," Professor Ryan replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, ma'am." Alex grinned.

"What's new on your side of the house?"

IT WAS ALL in the editing. Well, mostly in the editing, Tom Donner thought, typing on his office computer. From that he would slide in his own commentary, explaining and clarifying what Ryan had really meant with his seemingly sincere… seemingly? The word had leaped into his mind of its own accord, startling the reporter. Donner had been in the business for quite a few years, and before his promotion to network anchor, he'd been in Washington. He'd covered them all and knew them all. On his well-stuffed Rolodex was a card with every important name and number in town. Like any good reporter, he was connected. He could lift a phone and get through to anyone, because in Washington the rules for dealing with the media were elegantly simple: either you were a source or a target. If you didn't play ball with the media, they would quickly find an enemy of yours who did. In other contexts, the technical term was "blackmail."

Donner's instincts told him that he'd never met anyone like President Ryan before, at least not in public life… or was that true? The I'm-one-of-you, Everyman stance went at least as far back as Julius Caesar. It was always a ploy, a sham to make voters think that the guy really was like them. But he never was, really. Normal people didn't get this far in any field. Ryan had advanced in CIA by playing office politics just like everyone else—he must have. He'd made enemies and allies, as everyone did, and maneuvered his way up. And the leaks he'd gotten about Ryan's tenure at CIA… could he use them? Not in the special. Maybe in the news show, which would contain a teaser anyway to make people watch it instead of their usual evening TV fare.