Executive orders - Tom Clancy [490]
DR. RYAN?
Yes? Cathy looked up.
The meeting in Dr. James's office has been moved up, her secretary said. They want you over there right now.
I guess I better head over, then. She stood and headed for the door. Roy Altman was standing there.
Anything I need to know about? SURGEON'S principal agent asked.
Something's up. I don't know what it is.
Where is the dean's office? He'd never been there before. All of the staff meetings she'd attended recently were in Maumenee.
That way. She pointed. Other side of Monument Street in the admin building.
SURGEON is moving, going north to Monument. The agents just appeared out of nowhere, it seemed. It might have seemed funny except for recent events. If you don't mind, I'll stand in the room. I'll keep out of the way, Altman assured her.
Cathy nodded. There was no fighting it. He'd hate the dean's office for all the big windows there, she was sure. It was a ten-minute walk over, almost all of it undercover. She headed outdoors to cross the street, wanting a little fresh air. Entering the building, she saw a lot of her friends, either department chairmen or senior staffers standing in as she was doing. The director-level people were always traveling, one reason why she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to be that senior herself. Pierre Alexandre stormed in, wearing greens, carrying a folder, and looking positively grim as he almost bumped into her. A Secret Service agent prevented that.
Glad you're here, Cathy, he said on the way past. Them, too.
Nice to be appreciated, Altman observed to a colleague, as the dean appeared at the door.
Come in.
One look at the conference room convinced Altman to lower the shades with his own hands. The windows faced a street of anonymous brick houses. A few of the doctors looked on with annoyance, but they knew who he was and didn't object.
Calling the meeting to order, Dave James said, before everyone was seated. Alex has something important to tell us.
There was no preamble: We have five Ebola cases in Ross right now. They all came in today.
Heads turned sharply. Cathy blinked at her seat at the end of the table.
Students from someplace? the surgery director asked. Zaire?
One auto dealer and his wife, a boat salesman from Annapolis, three more people. Answering your question, no. No international travel at all. Four of the five are fully symptomatic. The auto dealer's wife shows antibodies, but no symptoms as yet. That's the good news. Our case wasn't the first. CDC has cases reported in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Dallas. That's as of an hour ago. Total reported cases is twenty, and that number doubled between ten and eleven. Probably still going up.
Jesus Christ, the director of medicine whispered.
You all know what I did before I got here. Right now I imagine they're having a staff meeting at Fort Detrick. The conclusion from that meeting will be that this is not an accidental outbreak. Somebody has initiated a biological-warfare campaign against our country.
Nobody objected to Alexandre's analysis, Cathy saw. She knew why. The other physicians in the room were so bright that sometimes she wondered if she belonged on the same faculty with them-she had never considered that most of them might harbor the same thoughts. All of them were world experts in their fields, at least four the very best there was. But all of them also spent time as she did, having lunch with a colleague in a different field to exchange information, because, like her, they were all truly fanatical about learning. They all wanted to know everything, and even though they knew that such a thing was impossible, even within one professional field, that didn't stop them from trying. In this case, the suddenly rigid