Executive orders - Tom Clancy [486]
Take your pick, Gus. This was a senior physician, not a lab tech. As the magnification was adjusted, the picture was instantly clear. This blood sample was alive with the tiny strands. And soon it would be alive with nothing else. Where's this one from?
Chicago, Lorenz answered.
Welcome to the New World, he told the screen as he worked the fine control to isolate one particular strand for full magnification. You little son of a bitch.
Next came a closer examination to see if they could subtype it. That would take a while.
AND SO HE has not traveled out of the country? Alex was running down his list of stock questions.
No, no he hasn't, she assured him. Just to the big RV show. He goes to that every year.
Ma'am, I have to ask a number of questions, and some of them may seem offensive. Please understand that I have to do this in order to help your husband. She nodded. Alexandre had a quiet way of getting past that problem. Do you have any reason to suspect that your husband has been seeing other women?
No.
Sorry, I had to ask that. Do you have any exotic pets?
Just two Chesapeake Bay retrievers, she replied, surprised at the question.
Monkeys? Anything from out of the country?
No, nothing like that.
This isn't going anywhere. Alex couldn't think of another relevant question. They were supposed to say yes to the travel one. Do you know anybody, family member, friend, whatever, who does a lot of traveling?
No-can I see him?
Yes, you can, but first we have to get him settled into his room and get some treatment going.
Is he going to-I mean, he's never been sick at all, he runs and doesn't smoke and doesn't drink much and we've always been careful. And then she started losing control.
I won't lie to you. Your husband appears to be a very sick man, but your family doctor sent you to the best hospital in the world. I just started here. I spent more than twenty years in the Army, all of that in the area of infectious diseases. So you are in the right place, and I am the right doc. You had to say things like that, empty words though they might be. The one thing you could never, ever, do was take hope away. The phone rang.
Dr. Alexandre.
Alex, it's Janet. Antibody test is positive for Ebola. I ran it twice, she told him. I have the spare tube packaged to go to CDC, and the microscopy will be ready to go in about fifteen minutes.
Very well. I'll be over for that. He hung up. Here, he told the patient's wife. Let me get you out to the waiting room and introduce you to the nurses. We have some very good ones on my unit.
This was not the fun part, even though infectious diseases was not a particularly fun field. In trying to give her hope, he'd probably given her too much. Now she'd listen to him, thinking that he spoke with God's voice, but right now God didn't have any answers, and next he had to explain to her that the nurses would be taking some of her blood for examination, too.
WHAT GIVES, SCOTT? Ryan asked across thirteen time zones.
Well, they sure as hell tossed a wrench into it. Jack?
Yes?
This guy Zhang, I've met him twice now. He doesn't talk a hell of a lot, but he's a bigger fish than we thought. I think he's the one keeping an eye on the Foreign Minister. He's a player, Mr. President. Tell the Foleys to open a file on the guy and put a big flag on it.
Will Taipei spring for compensation? SWORDSMAN asked.
Would you?
My instinct would be to tell them where they could shove it, but I'm not supposed to lose my temper, remember?
They will listen to the demand, and then they will ask me where the United States of America stands. What do I tell them?
For the moment, we stand for renewed peace and stability.
I can make that last an hour, maybe two hours. Then what? SecState persisted.
You know that area better than I do. What's the game, Scott?
I don't know. I thought I did, but I don't. First, I kinda hoped it was an accident. Then I thought they might be rattling their cage-Taiwan's, I mean. No, it's