Executive orders - Tom Clancy [230]
What? Alexandre asked in immediate alarm.
Lost at sea in a plane crash. They were evidently flying her to Paris to see Rousseau. No further cases, Alex. We dodged the bullet this time for a change, Lorenz assured his younger colleague.
Better, Alexandre thought, to crunch in a plane crash than bleed out from that little fucker. He still thought like a soldier, profanity and all. Okay.
So, why did you call?
Polynomials, Lorenz heard.
What do you mean? the doctor asked in Atlanta.
When you map this one out, let's think about doing a mathematical analysis of the structure.
I've been playing with that idea for a while. Right now, though, I want to examine the reproduction cycle and-
Exactly, Gus, the mathematical nature of the interaction. I was talking to a colleague up here-eye cutter, you believe? She said something interesting. If the amino acids have a quantifiable mathematical value, and they should, then how they interact with other codon strings may tell us something. Alexandre paused and heard a match striking. Gus was smoking his pipe in the office again.
Keep going.
Still reaching for this one, Gus. What if it's like you've been thinking, it's all an equation? The trick is cracking it, right? How do we do that? Okay, Ralph told me about your time-cycle study. I think you're onto something. If we have the virus RNA mapped, and we have the host DNA mapped, then-
Gotcha! The interactions will tell us something about the values of the elements in the polynomial-
And that will tell us a lot about how the little fuck replicates, and just maybe-
How to attack it. A pause, and a loud puff came over the phone line. Alex, that's pretty good.
You're the best guy for the job, Gus, and you're setting up the experiment anyway.
Something's missing, though.
Always is.
Let me think about that one for a day or so and get back to you. Good one, Alex.
Thank you, sir. Professor Alexandre replaced the phone and figured he'd done his duty of the day for medical science. It wasn't much, and there was an element missing from the suggestion.
* * *
24 - EXPERIMENTS
IT TOOK SEVERAL DAYS TO get everything in place. President Ryan had to meet with yet another class of new senators-some of the states were a little slow in getting things done, mainly because some of the governors established something akin to search committees to evaluate a list of candidates. That was a surprise to a lot of Washington insiders who'd expected the state executives to do things as they'd always been done to appoint replacements to the upper house just as soon as the bodies were cold-but it turned out that Ryan's speech had mattered a little bit. Eight governors had realized that this situation was unique, and had therefore acted in a different way, earning, on reflection, the praise of their local papers, if not the complete approval of the establishment press.
Jack's first political trip was an experimental one. He rose early, kissed his wife and kids on the way out the door, and boarded the helicopter on the South Lawn just before seven in the morning. Ten minutes later, he left the aircraft to trot up the stairs onto Air Force One, technically known to the Pentagon as a VC-25A, a 747 expensively modified to be the President's personal conveyance. He boarded just as the pilot, a very senior colonel, was making his airline-like preflight announcements. Looking aft, Ryan could see eighty or so reporters belting into their better-than-first-class leather seats-actually some didn't strap in, because Air Force One generally rode more smoothly than an ocean liner on calm seas-and when he turned to head forward, he heard, And this is a nonsmoking flight!
Who said that? the President asked.
One of the TV pukes, Andrea replied. He thinks it's his airplane.
In a way, it is, Arnie pointed out. Remember that.
That's Tom Donner, Callie Weston added. The NBC anchor. His personal feces are not odorific, and he uses more hair spray than I do. But part of it's glued on.