Executive orders - Tom Clancy [488]
We have two patients on my unit, and they've both got it, Gus.
In Baltimore?
Yes, now what-where else, Gus?
Mark Klein in Chicago has one, female, forty-one. I've already micrographed the blood sample. In two widely separated cities, two world-class experts did exactly the same thing. One pair of eyes looked at a wall in a small office. The other pair looked down a conference table at ten other physicians and scientists. The expressions were exactly the same. Has either one been to Chicago or Kansas City?
Negative, the former colonel said. When did Klein's case show up?
Last night, ten or so. Yours?
Just before eight. Husband has all the symptoms. Wife doesn't, but her blood's positive oh, shit, Gus
I have to call Detrick next.
You do that. Keep an eye on the fax machine, Gus, Professor Alexandre advised. And hope it's all a fucking mistake. But it wasn't, and both knew it now.
Stay close to the phone. I may want your input.
You bet. Alex thought about that as he hung up. He had a call to make, too.
Dave, Alex.
Well? the dean asked.
Husband and wife both positive. Wife is not yet symptomatic. Husband is showing all the classic signs.
So what's the story, Alex? the dean asked guardedly.
Dave, the story is I caught Gus at a staff meeting. They were discussing an Ebola case in Chicago. Mark Klein called it in around midnight, I gather. No commonalties between that one and our Index Case here. I, uh, think we have a potential epidemic on our hands. We need to alert our emergency people. There might be some very dangerous stuff coming in.
Epidemic? But-
That's my call to make, Dave. CDC is talking to the Army. I know exactly what they're going to say up at Detrick. Six months ago it would have been me making that call, too. Alexandre's other line started ringing. His secretary got it in the outer office. A moment later, her head appeared in the doorway.
Doctor, that's ER, they say they need you stat. Alex relayed that message to the dean.
I'll meet you there, Alex, Dave James told him.
AT THE NEXT call on your machine, you will be free to complete your mission, Mr. Alahad said. The timing is yours to decide. He didn't have to add that it would be better for him if Raman erased all his messages. To do so would have appeared venal to one who was willing to sacrifice himself. We will not meet again in this lifetime.
I must go to my workplace. Raman hesitated. So the order had really come, after a fashion. The two men embraced, and the younger one took his leave.
CATHY? SHE LOOKED up to see Bernie Katz's head sticking in her office door.
Yeah, Bernie?
Dave has called a department head meeting in his office at two. I'm leaving for New York to do that conference at Columbia, and Hal's operating this afternoon. Sit in for me?
Sure, I'm clear.
Thanks, Cath. His head vanished again. SURGEON went back to her patient records.
ACTUALLY THE DEAN had told his secretary to call the meeting on his way out the door. David James was in the emergency room. Behind the mask he looked like any other physician.
This patient had nothing at all to do with the other two. Watching from ten feet away in a corner of the ER already set aside for the situation, they watched him vomit into a plastic container. There was ample evidence of blood.
It was the same young resident working this one, too.
No traveling to speak of. Says he was in New York for some stuff. Theater, auto show, regular tourist stuff. What about the first one?
Positive for Ebola virus, Alex told her. That snapped her head around like an owl's.
Here?
Here. Don't be too surprised, Doctor. You called me, remember? He turned to Dean James and raised an eyebrow.
All department heads in my office at two. I can't go any faster, Alex. A third of them are operating or seeing patients right now.
Ross for this one? the resident asked. She had a patient to deal with.
Quick as you can. Alexandre took the dean by the arm and walked him outside. There, dressed in greens, he lit a cigar, to the surprise of the security guards,