A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [142]
Pallid, cachectic Colin Whitehead answered for the group. He was an Ivy League intellectual—Yale, Rappaport thought he remembered.
“We aren’t sure,” Whitehead said. “We’ve had to shut down all laboratory video feeds in order to get the new board and the updated equipment installed. All we can monitor for about another three or four hours are conversations within the various rooms down there, and also the phones.”
A coughing jag cut Whitehead’s explanation short. Rappaport heard the mucus rattling in the man’s chest and grimaced. Ivy League or not, he detested smokers. The stench was bad enough, but he found the weakness of the habit even more reprehensible. Once his antiterrorism program was underway, with all that it entailed, he would turn his attention to shoring up borders and intensifying the war on drugs. Included in that war would be a jihad against smoking and smokers.
Marguerite Prideaux picked up where Whitehead had left off. Her French accent was pleasing to the secretary, as was her shapely body, and her self-confidence.
“It seems the virologist working at this moment down below us believes that he has a cure for the infection in your Capitol building,” she said. “And he has now intentionally exposed himself to the virus to prove it.”
“And do you believe from this conversation you recorded that he has a cure?”
Corum spoke up again.
“We unfortunately don’t have the video to confirm what is going on in the lab right now, but the answer to your question is yes. He sounds quite confident, actually.”
“I can still call down to Rhodes, yes?”
“Of course. The intercom will reach him in any room, and because he might still be helmeted, and wouldn’t hear as well over the rushing air, lights will flash all over to tell him there’s a call.”
“You people think of everything,” Rappaport said.
“Competition is fierce in our field,” Prideaux replied. “We must stay always one step ahead.”
“I feel exactly the same about politics,” the secretary said, chuckling. “Listen, for the time being, I’m going to assume Rhodes is onto something. But he’s as slippery as a greased eel, and I don’t trust him. I’m going to call down on the intercom and see if I can get some information from him. Meanwhile, see if you can get the video monitors working in the lab ahead of schedule. I don’t have the least desire to go down there and put on one of those biosuits. If Rhodes survives what he’s done, I’ll have to confirm it, and then get in touch with the president. Getting a direct look at him will help.”
CHAPTER 63
DAY 9
2:00 P.M. (EST)
Angie’s headache was not nearly as bad as the doctors had predicted it might be. There was a mild throbbing above her eyes where the fracture was, but nothing more—at least not yet.
As instructed in the fax from Griff, she had taken the subway from the station across the street from the hospital, but switched trains four times, twice to backtrack to previous stops. At each station, Angie subtly surveyed the crowd for anybody whom she had seen before. Her throat was dry and tight, and her heart beat like a drumline, but still she maintained what she thought was a calm, measured exterior. In a previous incarnation as an investigative reporter, she had learned a good many tricks of the trade of how to follow or avoid being followed. Some of those she employed now.
Convinced that she was alone, she finally took a cab from Columbus Circle to Penn Station, and boarded the Acela, the express train to Washington. The first-class car was nearly full, but she had managed to get a single separated by a table from another single.
The instructions in the fax had been explicit in every respect, but reading it left Angie concerned. After their long, loving early morning on the phone together, she had expected to get a follow-up call from Griff telling her that things were still going well with the treatment he and his computer program had created. Instead, a few hours after their conversation had ended, she had a surprise visitor—Wu Mei, the stunning young charge nurse from the Riverside Nursing