Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

"Tell Taiwan we're behind them?"

"Okay, if you do that, and it gets out, and the PRC ups the ante, we have thousands—hell, close to a hundred thousand citizens over here, and they're hostages. I won't go into the trade considerations, but that's a big chip in political-economic terms."

"But if we don't back Taiwan up, then they'll think they're on their own and cornered—"

"Yes, sir, and the same thing happens from the other direction. My best suggestion is to ride with it. I deliver the demand, Taipei says no, then I suggest that they suggest the issue is held in abeyance until the issue of the airliner is determined. For that, we call in the U.N. We, that is, the United States, call the question before the Security Council. That strings it out. Sooner or later, their friggin' navy's gotta run out of fuel. We have a carrier group in the neighborhood, and so nothing can happen, really."

Ryan frowned. "I won't say I like it, but run with it. It'll last a day or two anyway. My instinct is to back up Taiwan and tell the PRC to suck wind."

"The world isn't that simple, and you know it," Adler's voice told him.

"Ain't it the truth. Run with what you said, Scott, and keep me posted."

"Yes, sir."

ALEX CHECKED HIS watch. Next to the electron microscope was Dr. Clemenger's notebook. At 10:16, she lifted it, made a time notation, and described how both she and her fellow associate professor confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus. On the other side of the lab, a technician was running a test on blood drawn from the wife of Patient Zero. It was positive for Ebola antibodies. She had it, too, though she didn't know it yet.

"They have any children?" Janet asked, when the news arrived.

"Two, both away in school."

"Alex, unless you know something I don't… I hope their insurance is paid up." Clemenger didn't quite have the status of an M.D. here, but at moments like this she didn't mind. Physicians got to know the patients a lot better than the pure scientists did.

"What else can you tell me?"

"I need to map the genes out a little, but look here." She tapped the screen. "See the way the protein loops are grouped, and this structure down here?" Janet was the lab's top expert on how viruses were formed.

"Mayinga?" Christ, that's what got George.. And nobody knew how George had gotten it, and he didn't know now how this patient…

"Too early to be sure. You know what I have to do to run that down, but…"

"It fits. No known risk factors for him, maybe not for her, either. Jesus, Janet, if this is airborne."

"I know, Alex. You call Atlanta or me?"

"I'll do it."

"I'll start picking the little bastard apart," she promised. It seemed a long walk from the lab back to his office. His secretary was in now, and noticed his mood.

"DR. LORENZ IS in a meeting now," another secretary said. That usually put people off. Not this time: "Break in, if you would, please. Tell him it's Pierre Alexandre at Johns Hopkins, and it's important."

"Yes, Doctor. Please hold." She pressed one button and then another, ringing the line in the conference room down the hall. "Dr. Lorenz, please, it's urgent."

"Yes, Marjorie?"

"I have Dr. Alexandre holding on three. He says it's important, sir."

"Thank you." Gus switched lines. "Talk fast, Alex, we have a developing situation here," he said in an unusually businesslike voice.

"I know. Ebola's made it to this side of the world," Alexandre announced. "Have you been talking to Mark, too?"

"Mark? Mark who?" the professor asked. "Wait, wait, back up, Alex. Why did you call here?"

"We have two patients on my unit, and they've both got it, Gus."

"In Baltimore?"

"Yes, now what—where else, Gus?"

"Mark Klein in Chicago has one, female, forty-one. I've already micrographed the blood sample."

In two widely separated cities, two world-class experts did exactly the same thing. One pair of eyes looked at a wall in a small office. The other pair looked down a conference table at ten other physicians and scientists. The expressions were exactly the same. "Has either one been to Chicago or Kansas City?"

"Negative," the former colonel said. "When did Klein's case show up?"

"Last night, ten or so. Yours?"

"Just before eight. Husband has all the symptoms. Wife doesn't, but her blood's positive… oh, shit, Gus…"

"I have to call Detrick next."

"You do that. Keep an eye on the fax machine, Gus," Professor Alexandre advised. "And hope it's all a fucking mistake." But it wasn't, and both knew it now. "Stay close to the phone. I may want your input."

"You bet." Alex thought about that as he hung up. He had a call to make, too. "Dave, Alex."

"Well?" the dean asked.

"Husband and wife both positive. Wife is not yet symptomatic. Husband is showing all the classic signs."

"So what's the story, Alex?" the dean asked guardedly.

"Dave, the story is I caught Gus at a staff meeting. They were discussing an Ebola case in Chicago. Mark Klein called it in around midnight, I gather. No commonalties between that one and our Index Case here. I, uh, think we have a potential epidemic on our hands. We need to alert our emergency people. There might be some very dangerous stuff coming in."

"Epidemic? But—"

"That's my call to make, Dave. CDC is talking to the Army. I know exactly what they're going to say up at Detrick. Six months ago it would have been me making that call, too." Alexandre's other line started ringing. His secretary got it in the outer office. A moment later, her head appeared in the doorway.

"Doctor, that's ER, they say they need you stat." Alex relayed that message to the dean.

"I'll meet you there, Alex," Dave James told him.

"AT THE NEXT call on your machine, you will be free to complete your mission," Mr. Alahad said. "The timing is yours to decide." He didn't have to add that it would be better for him if Raman erased all his messages. To do so would have appeared venal to one who was willing to sacrifice himself. "We will not meet again in this lifetime."

"I must go to my workplace." Raman hesitated. So the order had really come, after a fashion. The two men embraced, and the younger one took his leave.

"CATHY?" SHE LOOKED up to see Bernie Katz's head sticking in her office door.

"Yeah, Bernie?"

"Dave has called a department head meeting in his office at two. I'm leaving for New York to do that conference at Columbia, and Hal's operating this afternoon. Sit in for me?"

"Sure, I'm clear."

"Thanks, Cath." His head vanished again. SURGEON went back to her patient records.

ACTUALLY THE DEAN had told his secretary to call the meeting on his way out the door. David James was in the emergency room. Behind the mask he looked like any other physician. This patient had nothing at all to do with the other two. Watching from ten feet away in a corner of the ER already set aside for the situation, they watched him vomit into a plastic container. There was ample evidence of blood. It was the same young resident working this one, too.

"No traveling to speak of. Says he was in New York for some stuff. Theater, auto show, regular tourist stuff. What about the first one?"

"Positive for Ebola virus," Alex told her. That snapped her head around like an owl's.

"Here?"

"Here. Don't be too surprised, Doctor. You called me, remember?" He turned to Dean James and raised an eyebrow.

"All department heads in my office at two. I can't go any faster, Alex. A third of them are operating or seeing patients right now."

"Ross for this one?" the resident asked. She had a patient to deal with.

"Quick as you can." Alexandre took the dean by the arm and walked him outside. There, dressed in greens, he lit a cigar, to the surprise of the security guards, who enforced a smoking ban out there.