Charles Wheelan - The Rationing

“There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate those reports,” I said firmly. “None.”

“But you can’t tell me what is happening. If you’re not sure, how can you rule out terrorism?”

“This is a public health crisis; it’s not a terrorist attack,” I said. I immediately regretted using the word “crisis” and repeating the terrorism charge.

“Given we have a crisis on our hands, as you’ve said, what should our listeners be doing now?” the New York host asked.

I heard the producer’s voice in my earphones: “Forty-five seconds.”

I answered, “The administration is making progress on the Dormigen front—we are getting commitments from other countries, and we are also making progress on the virus—”

“So the government is going to solve this crisis?”

“There are experts—”

“Aren’t these the same people who got us into this situation?”

“Well, no…” I stammered without any sense of where I was going with the answer.

The producer said in my earphones: “Twenty seconds and we’re out.”

The New York host continued, “The government is supposed to have a stockpile of Dormigen and now they don’t? Am I missing something?”

“I don’t think of it that way.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” he said. “While we are waiting for the government to rescue us, what can individual listeners do?”

“Anyone who feels they may be ill with symptoms consistent with Capellaviridae —”

“Those symptoms are on our website,” he interrupted.

“—should seek medical attention.” I heard a click as the New York station muted my microphone, ensuring the host the last word.

He concluded the segment: “Grim news from the nation’s top expert on the virus attack. Government help is on the way. If you feel ill, head to a clinic or hospital, where there probably won’t be enough medicine to help you. This is criminal incompetence, people.”

The station went dead in my earphones. I exhaled audibly. I heard the producer’s voice, “Don’t worry about it. That guy’s an asshole. I’m going to connect you to Cleveland in about twenty-five seconds.” The assistant took down the paper sign in the window that read NYC and replaced it with CLEVELAND. “Only thirteen more to go,” the producer said.

CLEVELAND WENT BETTER, OTHER THAN MY UNFORTUNATE description of Capellaviridae as “elegant.” Nashville was another jackass host who would not let me complete a full sentence. I got steadily better at steering the conversation in the direction I wanted it to go. There was a forty-five-second break between Nashville and Chicago Public Radio. I sat back in my seat, trying to calm myself. The assistant pasted CHICAGO in the window. The producer said in my earphones, “You’re doing great. Don’t let these guys get to you. They’re just sitting on their asses with a microphone. You’re actually doing something about the problem.” I nodded to acknowledge the pep talk. The producer continued, “Hey, one other thing. Bloomberg is reporting that the Chinese ambassador to the United States is going to give a news conference in Washington at two. Something about Dormigen. We’re on in fifteen.”

The Chicago host had seen the same Bloomberg report. After the introduction, she asked, “Do we know for certain what the size of the Dormigen gap is right now?”

I hedged: “I’m not privy to that information. I do know the number is a moving target and it’s moving in the right direction. My understanding, based on the President’s speech, is that we are close to closing the gap.”

“And China is apparently prepared to offer whatever Dormigen the nation may need?” the Chicago host offered. “We are told that’s what the Chinese ambassador is going to announce this afternoon. Can America breathe a sigh of relief?”

“I don’t know any of the details regarding the Chinese offer.”

“It seems fairly straightforward, no?”

“It depends what they ask in return,” I said. “As you know, the President was on his way to Australia to sign the South China Sea Agreement. The Chinese government has been consistently hostile to that collective security arrangement with our allies in the region.”

“So the Chinese government might ask the U.S. to scrap the South China Sea Agreement in exchange for the Dormigen?” the host asked sensibly.

“As I said, I’m not privy to the details.”

The host probed more deeply: “Some officials in Beijing are saying on background that the Chinese government made this offer many days ago. Were you aware of any such offer?”

“I’m a scientist, not a diplomat.”

“I understand that, but in the course of discussions about this crisis, was there any mention of an offer by China to cover the Dormigen gap?”

“Those discussions are all confidential.”

This was public radio. The host was more persistent and appreciably smarter than most of the bloviaters who had been vomiting in my headphones for the past hour. She had also found her way to exactly the right question. She continued, firmly but not rudely, “What I’m left to infer is that the Chinese government is offering Dormigen with strings attached. Is it fair to say the President may be in a position where he has to trade off American lives against our future security arrangements in East Asia?”

“We’ll know more about that at two,” I said.

At that moment, the Secretary of State was working the phones to find out what the Chinese deal was going to look like. The Chinese Embassy in D.C. had alerted the news media that there would be “a major announcement regarding a Chinese gift of Dormigen to our American friends” but had made no formal contact with their U.S. counterparts to offer the details. When the Secretary of State reached the Chinese Ambassador, he was tight-lipped about the forthcoming announcement. “This is unprecedented,” the U.S. Secretary of State shouted into the phone.

The Chinese Ambassador remained unruffled. “We would like to speak directly to the American people,” he said.

“How are we supposed to react, if we don’t know the terms of the deal?” the Secretary of State asked angrily.

“This is not a ‘deal.’ It is an act of generosity on the part of the Chinese people to cement our ongoing friendship with the American people.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” the Secretary of State warned. “If I want propaganda, I’ll read the People’s Daily . When are we going to know what you want?”

“President Xing will present a new U.S.-China Friendship Agreement immediately after the press conference.”

“Can you summarize for me what will be in this ‘Friendship Agreement’?” the Secretary of State asked.

“As I said, we would like to speak directly to the American people.”

The Secretary of State hung up without saying goodbye, much to the surprise of the National Security Adviser and the Strategist, both of whom were in the room with her. The Strategist asked, “Did you just hang up on him?”

“He’ll get over it,” the Secretary of State replied.

“So much for U.S.-China friendship,” the Strategist said, finding a certain levity in the situation that neither the Secretary of State nor the National Security Adviser shared.

“It’s clever,” the National Security Adviser offered. “They’re going to wave the miracle cure in front of the public and then we have to explain why we may not take it.”

“We have to get out in front of it,” the Secretary of State answered. “We need people to understand when they’re watching that there is a price to be paid. We need people to be skeptical when they hear—”