Sophia and stopping her killers. You can continue on the rest of your life still hauling around your precious load of anger if that's what you want. I don't have time. I've got something far more important to do. I'm going to stop this scourge, and I don't need you to help me do it.”
He had taken her breath away. She was silent, stunned that her rage at him showed so much. Also, she felt guilty, which she was not ready to admit. “I could turn you in. Right now, I could go to Donoso, whisper in his ear, and he'd have the military police waiting for you when we land in Turkey. Don't look at me like that, Jon. I'm just laying out the alternatives. You say you don't need me, and I say you do. But the truth is, I don't play dirty with people I respect, and I respect you for everything I've seen in Iraq. Which means even if you and I can't work out something, I'll say nothing to Donoso.” She hesitated. “Sophia loved you. That's important, too. I may never get over Mike's death, but that won't stop me from working cooperatively with you. For instance, do you have any idea what you're going to do once I get us into the United States?”
Smith scratched his chin. All of a sudden the potential had shifted. “You can get me into the United States?”
“Sure. No problem. I'll be offered a transport or some other military flight back home. I'll take you with me. Those U.N. credentials are perfect.”
He nodded. “You think you can get your hands on a computer with a modem, too, before we arrive?”
“Depends. For how long?”
'With luck, a half hour. There's a Web site I need to check to find out where to meet my friends. They've been investigating certain aspects of the situation while I've been gone. Assuming they survived, of course.
“Of course.”
She stared at him, relieved and surprised at his pragmatism. He was a lot more complicated than she had suspected. Also a lot more decisive.
She was almost ready to apologize when he said, “You're tired. I can see it in your face. Get some sleep. We've got a busy day tomorrow.”
He had ice in his veins. But that was what she needed. Without ever saying so, he had agreed to work with her. As she turned away and closed her eyes, she said a silent prayer that they would succeed.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
At last count, nearly a million had died worldwide. Tragically, hundreds of millions were ill with the symptoms of a heavy cold that could be the first onslaught of the deadly virus no one had a scientific name for yet. Hysteria swept across the hemispheres like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the United States, hospitals were flooded with the ill and the frightened, and the loss of confidence over the past few days had driven down the stock market by a shocking fifty percent.
In President Castilla's private office in the White House Treaty Room, a row of colorful Kachina dolls with feather headdresses and leather loincloths stood on the marble mantelpiece. As he studied them, he could almost hear the heavy, rhythmic stamp of Indian feet and the hortatory medicine chants to save the world.
He had left the frantic West Wing to find respite in his home office so he could polish an important speech he was scheduled to deliver to a dinner of Midwest party leaders in Chicago next week. But he could not write. The words seemed trivial.
Would any of them even be alive next week?
He answered his own question: Not unless some miracle stopped the raging pestilence that had been loosed upon the world, and that would take more than the dances and chants of Kachinas, real or imaginary.
He pushed the legal pad and its offending words away. He was about to stand and leave the room when a heavy knock sounded on the closed door.
Samuel Adams Castilla stared at it. For a second, he held his breath. “Come in.”
Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard entered, not running but walking very fast. Behind him, HHS Secretary Nancy Petrelli trotted to keep up. White House Chief of Staff Charles Ouray strode in after her. Bringing up the rear was Secretary of State Norman Knight, who carried his metal-rimmed reading glasses as if he had just pulled them from his nose. He looked solemn and uneasy.
But Surgeon General Oxnard's heavy jowls quivered with excitement. “They're out of danger, sir!” His thick mustache pumped up and down as he continued, “The volunteer virus victims… Blanchard's serum cured them. Every last one!”
Nancy Petrelli was triumphant in a baby-blue knit suit: “They're recovering rapidly, sir. All of them.” She nodded her silver head. “It's like a miracle.”
“Thank God.” The president slumped back into his chair as if he had suddenly gone weak. “You're absolutely sure, Jesse? Nancy?”
“Yessir,” Nancy Petrelli assured him.
“Absolutely,” the surgeon general enthused.
“What's the status at Blanchard?”
“Victor Tremont is waiting to be told to start shipping the serum.”
Charles Ouray explained, “He's waiting for the FDA to approve it.” The White House chief of staff's voice had an ominous tone. He crossed thick arms over his round paunch. “Director Cormano over there says that'll take at least three months.”
“Three months? God in heaven.” The president reached for his phone. “Zora, get me Henry Cormano over at the FDA. Right now!” He returned the handset to its cradle. He stared at it, outraged. “Are we all to perish under our own stupidity?”
The secretary of state cleared his throat. “The FDA is there to protect us from the mistakes of overeagerness and fear, Mr. President. That's why we have the agency.”
The president's lips turned down with irritation. “There's a time to know when the fear is so big and so real that the protection is irrelevant, Norm. When the caution is more dangerous than the possible mistake.”
The phone buzzed, and President Castilla snatched it.
“Cormano?” he began and then sat in smoldering silence, foot tapping impatiently, as the FDA director stated his case. At last the president snapped, “Okay, Cormano, hold it. What can happen that's worse than what is happening? Uh-huh. Dammit, it's horrible now.” He listened for another angry minute. “Henry, listen to rne. Really listen. The rest of the world will approve this serum now that it's cured victims of a virus you scientists can't even tell me where it came from. You want Americans to be the only ones continuing to die while you `protect' them? Yes, I know that's unfair, but it's what they'll say and it's true. Approve the serum, Henry. Then you can write a long memo blasting me with why you didn't want to and what a goddamned ogre I am.” He paused to listen, gave up, and shouted, “No! Do it now!”
Castilla slammed the phone into its cradle and glared at everyone in the Treaty Room until his gaze settled on the surgeon general.
He barked, “When can they ship?”
Jesse Oxnard shot back, “Tomorrow afternoon.”
“They'll need to pay their costs,” Nancy Petrelli pointed out. “Plus a reasonable return on investment. It's what we agreed to, and it's fair.”
“Money will be wired tomorrow,” the president decided, “right after the first batch leaves their lab.”
“What if a nation can't pay?” Nancy Petrelli asked.
“Advanced nations will have to cover the impoverished nations' costs,” the president told them. “It's been arranged.”
