Executive orders - Tom Clancy [306]
But-
If you pursue this, we will have to ask you to leave the country.
MacGregor flushed. He had a pale, northern complexion, and his face too easily showed his emotional state. This bastard could and would make another telephone call, and he would have a policeman-so they called them here, though they were decidedly not the civilized, friendly sort he'd known in Edinburgh-come to his house to tell him to pack his things for the ride to the airport. It had happened before to a Londoner who'd lectured a government official a little too harshly about AIDS dangers. And if he left, he'd be leaving patients behind, and that was his vulnerability, as the official knew, and as MacGregor knew that he knew. Young and dedicated, he looked after his patients as a doctor should, and leaving them to another's care wasn't something he could do easily, not here, not when there were just too few really competent physicians for the patient load.
How is Patient Saleh?
I doubt he will survive.
That is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Do we have any idea how this man was exposed to the disease?
The younger man flushed again. No, and that's the point!
I will speak to him myself.
Bloody hard thing to do from three meters away, MacGregor thought. But he had other things to think about.
Sohaila had tested positive for antibodies also. But the little girl was getting better. Her temperature was down another half a degree. She'd stopped her GI bleeding. MacGregor had rerun a number of tests, and baselined others. Patient Sohaila's liver function was nearly normal. He was certain she'd survive. Somehow she'd been exposed to Ebola, and somehow she'd defeated it-but without knowing the former, he could only guess at the reason for the latter. Part of him wondered if Sohaila and Saleh had been exposed in the same way-no, not exactly. As formidable as a child's immune defenses were, they were not all that much more powerful than a healthy adult's, and Saleh showed no underlying health problems. But the adult was surely dying while the child was going to live. Why?
What other factors had entered into the two cases? There was no Ebola outbreak in Iraq-there had never been such a thing, and in a populous country like that-didn't Iraq have a bio-war program? Could they have had an outbreak and hushed it up? But, no, the government of that country was in turmoil. So said the SkyNews service he had at his apartment, and in such circumstances secrets like this could not be kept. There would be panic.
MacGregor was a doctor, not a detective. The physicians who could do both worked for the World Health Organization, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and at CDC in America. Not so much brighter than he as more experienced and differently trained.
Sohaila. He had to manage her case, keep checking her blood. Could she still infect others? MacGregor had to check the literature on that. All he knew for sure was that one immune system was losing and another was winning. If he were to figure anything out, he had to stay on the case. Maybe later he could get the word out, but he had to stay here to accomplish anything.
Besides, before telling anyone, he had gotten the blood samples out to Pasteur and CDC. This strutting bureaucrat didn't know that, and the phone calls, if they came, would come to this hospital and to MacGregor. He could get some word out. He could tell them what the political problem was. He could ask some questions, and relay others. He had to submit.
As you wish, Doctor, he told the official. You will, of course, follow the necessary procedures.
* * *
32 - RIPPLES AND WAVES
THE PAYOFF WAS THIS morning, and again President Ryan suffered through the ordeal of makeup and hair spray.
We should at least have a proper barber chair, Jack observed while Mrs. Abbot did her duty. He'd just learned the day before that the presidential barber came to the Oval Office and did his job at the President's swivel chair. That must be a real treat