Executive orders - Tom Clancy [344]
Nothing more in Zaire?
Nothing, Gus confirmed. That one's over. It's a head-scratcher, Alex. Same disease turned up in two different places, two thousand miles apart, two cases each, two dead, one dying, one apparently recovering. MacGregor has initiated proper containment procedures at his hospital, and it sounds as though he knows his business. You could almost hear the shrug over the phone.
What the Secret Service guy had said over lunch was right on target, Alexandre thought. It was more detective work than medicine, and this one didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, like some sort of serial-murder case with no clues. Entertaining in book form, maybe, but not in reality.
Okay, what do we know?
We know that Mayinga strain is alive and kicking. Visual inspection is identical. We're running some analysis on the proteins and sequences, but my gut says it's a one-to-one match.
God damn, what's the host, Gus? If we could only find that!
Thank you for that observation, Doctor. Gus was annoyed-enraged-in the same way and for the same reason. But it was an old story for both of them. Well, the older man thought, it had taken a few thousand years to figure malaria out. They'd been playing with Ebola for only twenty-five or so. The bug had been around, probably, for at least that long, appearing and disappearing, just like a fictional serial killer. But Ebola didn't have a brain, didn't have a strategy, didn't even move of its own accord. It was super-adapted to something very limited and exceedingly narrow. But they didn't know what. It's enough to drive a man to drink, isn't it?
I imagine a stiff shot of bourbon will kill it, too, Gus. I have patients to see.
How do you like regular clinical rounds, Alex? Lorenz missed them, too.
Good to be a real doc again. I just wish my patients had a little more hope. But that's the job, ain't it?
I'll fax you data on the structural analysis on the samples if you want. The good news is that it seems pretty well contained, Lorenz repeated.
I'd appreciate it. See ya, Gus. Alexandre hung up. Pretty well contained? That's what we thought before But then his thoughts shifted, as they had to. White male patient, thirty-four, gay, resistant TB that came out of left field. How do we stabilize him? He lifted the chart and walked out of his office.
SO I'M THE wrong guy to help with the court selections? Pat Martin asked.
Don't feel too bad, Arnie answered. We're all the wrong guy for everything.
Except you, the President noted with a smile.
We all make errors of judgment, van Damm admitted. I could have left with Bob Fowler, but Roger said he needed me to keep this shop running, and-
Yeah. Ryan nodded. That's how I got here, too. So, Mr. Martin?
No laws were broken by any of this. He'd spent the last three hours going over the CIA files and Jack's dictated summary of the Colombian operations. Now one of his secretaries, Ellen Sumter, knew about some rather restricted things-but she was a presidential secretary, and besides, Jack had gotten a smoke out of it. At least not by you. Ritter and Moore could be brought up on failure to fully report their covert activities to the Congress, but their defense would be that the sitting President told them to do it that way, and the Special and Hazardous Operations guidelines appended to the oversight statute give them an arguable defense. I suppose I could get them indicted, but I wouldn't want to prosecute the case myself, he went on. They were trying to work on the drug problem, and most jurors wouldn't want to hurt them for doing so, especially since the Medellin cartel came apart partly as a result. The real problem on that one is the international-relations angle. Colombia's going to be pissed, sir, and with very good reason. There are issues of international law and treaties which applied to the activity, but I'm not good enough in that field to render an opinion. From the domestic point of view, it's the Constitution, the supreme law of