A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [73]
She wondered how Allaire, assuming he was behind this sham, would respond.
The virologist is dead. Killed when we blew up his transport helicopter. You have no other option.
Not only was that an interesting response, but a most unexpected one as well. Ellis knew all about the helicopter disaster. The explosion shook the chamber walls and incited some panic among an already jittery group.
“Nothing about the explosion will derail our plans for a rapid resolution to this challenge,” Allaire had told a meeting of the leaders of Congress.
Ellis wouldn’t believe him until she had questioned Sean O’Neil. It took a little prodding, but finally the agent revealed that the explosion had killed a pilot, copilot, and a decoy of the virologist who had been chosen to develop an effective treatment for the virus that was threatening them.
Clearly, the president had nothing. His iron-fisted quarantine was born out of panic, which meant that Harlan Mackey’s death was no accident.
Ellis tensed. This was Genesis who was contacting her. She felt absolutely certain of it. If they were to provide her with the cure, she would assume the stature of a savior.
Destiny.
Ellis studied the sheet of demands again. They were ridiculous—over the top. Under normal circumstances, any lawmaker championing a bill with these provisions would be committing political suicide. But these were hardly normal circumstances.
Genesis had organized the legislative demands into three broad categories: national security, immigrant rights, and privacy.
The national security mandates called for the immediate cessation of unchecked spying on ordinary Americans, as well as the abolishment of the Patriot Act, and a rewrite of the ECPA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The impact of such a bill would be profound. It would make it illegal to monitor communication on the Internet. Wiretapping, in all but the most extreme cases, would be abolished. And the legislation currently in committee to establish a national ID program would be scrapped.
Who are these people? Ellis wondered again.
In addition to the security demands, they called for the dismantling of the immigration and naturalization service, ending all discrimination against immigrants, along with sweeping changes that would essentially erase our borders with Mexico and Canada. They also insisted on the installation of consumer privacy protections, which would make surveillance camera footage a civil rights violation unless it was related to preventing robbery.
This was truly toxic legislation.
But what we have all been exposed to was equally toxic as well.
These demands were coming from Genesis, Ellis concluded. And although she did not personally support any of their proposals, given the circumstances and the stakes she could champion the effort nonetheless. Flexibility was at the very heart of good politics. Once she was sworn in as president, the country would see only a hero—a hero who had done what their elected leader could not.
Even if I were to succeed in passing this legislation, Ellis typed, you could not meet your obligation. I am not the POTUS and therefore, not elected to lead the country, or sign this bill into law.
You are third in the succession order, came the reply. With our help, there will be no one for you to succeed.
Ellis felt another jolt of adrenaline. Her mind danced with images of her taking the presidential oath—images of such vivid and glorious detail that she believed, for just a moment, they had actually occurred. Genesis sounded as if they had the resources to make it happen. She had to take the ride. There was, however, one glaring problem that still needed to be addressed.
It must be me who secures the treatment, she typed.
The exchange that followed occurred in rapid succession.
Genesis: Your job is to get the legislation passed. We’ll provide the drug. You can decide how to explain where it came from.
Ellis: