A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [44]
“Enough!” Salitas barked, slamming his fist down.
“Gary, please. Dr. Rhodes is angry with us. He doesn’t see our responsibility to the people of this country the way we do. And at the moment, that’s okay. We need him, Gary. We all need him.… Dr. Rhodes?”
“We need to be thinking if, not when,” Griff answered. “I have no real basis for guessing what this virus does in people. We’ve had some contagion disasters with Dr. Chen’s monkeys, but never any leaks involving humans.”
The exchange of queer looks between the president and his defense secretary lasted only a moment, but Griff caught it, and wondered about it.
Did they know something he didn’t?
He filed the unasked question away. Allaire and Salitas had already shown themselves capable of lying if they deemed it necessary. Griff felt certain they would not hesitate to lie to him.
“My lab,” he asked. “What’s the status?”
“Your man Melvin Forbush has been serving as a watchman at the lab. We just got ahold of him. He’s started getting the place operational.”
“We have a support team of CDC virologists being deployed to the Vertias lab as well,” Salitas said.
“Cancel them,” Griff replied curtly. “I don’t need anyone’s opinions but my own. What I need are blood samples from twenty or thirty infected hosts. All exposure levels. Between Melvin, my computers, and the lab, if it can be done, it will be done. It’s my work. I’m the only one you need.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Allaire said. “We have your lab notebooks. I’m sure our scientists can do something with them.”
“In that case, I want Sylvia Chen to head up the other team.”
Again an exchange of glances.
“Um … Dr. Chen disappeared … two days after your arrest,” the president said. “We haven’t heard from her since. We suspected she might have been an accomplice of yours, but we still really have no evidence to support that.”
“Have you had people out looking for her? The FBI?”
“Of course.”
“And are they still looking?”
“Some are.”
“Some?”
“A few officers are still on the case.”
“Damn. I just spent a significant percentage of my life locked in a concrete box while you stop looking for the one person who might—”
“I’ve heard about enough!” Salitas exploded, leaping to his feel and charging toward Griff. His cheeks were flushed, the veins in his neck protruding.
“Gary! Dammit, leave him be! He has a right to be upset about this one. I’m sorry, Dr. Rhodes. Sylvia Chen’s trail was ice-cold, and I needed every agent looking for Genesis.”
“Tell your pal there to spend a couple of days in solitary at the Alcatraz of the Rockies,” Griff said. “Then he can come at me, provided he has the strength left to do so. Do you have any idea what this Genesis wants? Is it a group or a person?”
“Almost certainly a group—domestic, most likely. No idea what their agenda is except to sow fear and discord.”
“Religious fanatics?”
“Maybe. We’re betting some sort of fundamentalists.… So, do we have an agreement or not?”
Griff doodled for a time on a sheet of yellow legal paper.
“So, you’ve got scientists to make sure I do the work,” he said finally, “and military guard dogs to make sure I don’t make a run for it. Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s about it,” Allaire said. “I’m prepared to set you free no matter what the results of your research, provided our people tell me you put in the effort. A full presidential pardon.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I’ll put you back in prison, and you’ll have the blood of seven hundred people on your hands while you rot there.”
The force behind Allaire’s words seemed to shake the room.
“Then I have one demand of you,” Griff said. “Since we really don’t trust one another, I want everything I do to be documented by a third party—someone unassociated with your administration. A reporter. That way there can be no misunderstandings or covert efforts to change fact into fiction. Consider it an insurance policy on your word.”
“I’ll make some calls.”
“No need,” Griff said. “Get me Angela Fletcher.”
“The science reporter for The Post?” Allaire asked.