down on Dyson’s leg, jamming it before he could bend the knee. At the same time, he swung his right arm up, slapping the FBI agent hard in the groin. Dyson grunted, leaning over the top of the CTU agent. Tony bolted upright, the back of his skull slamming into the bottom of Dyson’s jaw, and the FBI man staggered back a step. Tony lifted his right knee and stomped Dyson hard in the chest, and Dyson flew backward into the wall of the surveillance room. He dropped to the floor, leaving a small wet stain on the cinder blocks behind his head.
Tony doubled over and threw up.
It took a determined man to travel from UCLA Medical Center to CTU Los Angeles in ten minutes. It took an even more determined man to make someone else do it. But eleven minutes after Jack made the call, an ambulance rolled up to the building, sirens wailing, and a team of doctors poured out, running like their own lives depended on speed. Jack and Nina Myers held the doors open for them, waving them through security.
“Hurry up!” he yelled.
“Dr. Viatour!” said the lead physician, his white coat swirling up behind him and his face scrunched into a look of serious displeasure. “It would have been faster if you’d come to us!”
“Can’t. I’ll explain while you work.”
Three technicians rolling a stack of awkwardly piled equipment followed.
“What we’re gong to do is called CAPD. Instead of regular hemodialysis, this system actually uses the peritoneal wall in the abdomen to help filter—”
“Great.” Jack nodded. “And it only takes a half an hour?”
Dr. Viatour recoiled at his brusqueness. “Yes. Give us a few minutes to set you up, then we’ll time the filtering for thirty minutes. Is there some sort of—?”
“Just make it thirty minutes,” Nina said. “That’ll be the longest Jack’s ever sat still anyway.”
Jack hustled the medical team into the conference room like a muleskinner driving a team. “Go, go!” he yelled.
Dr. Viatour glared at him. “Sir, we’re a dialysis unit, not an ER team.”
“Right now you’re an ER team,” Jack said flatly. “Lives depend on this. Go!”
Dr. Viatour scampered back to his equipment.
“Jack, what do we do about your daughter?” Chris Henderson asked as they waited. “If she’s really been infected with something…”
Jack shook his head. “I’m going to get her.”
“What?” Chris said, shocked at Jack’s response. “If that’s what you want, we can bring her in.”
“I’ll do it,” Jack said. “Whatever al-Libbi’s got planned, he’s done his job well.” He picked me up with no problem, and he shot Kim full of something without her even knowing it. This tracking thing is pretty sophisticated, too. He says he’s watching her, and I believe him. He may have injected her with the same thing he gave me. And she doesn’t know she’s involved. I want to take care of it.”
“What kind of infection can it be?” Nina asked. “Maybe CDC will have a cure for it—”
Chris sat down in a chair and leaned his elbows onto his knees. “I’ve been thinking about that. It doesn’t fit his MO. Ayman al-Libbi is a bomb maker. He blows people up. He drops grenades into crowds of women and children. He doesn’t stab people with delayed reaction infections or whatever, and shoot up Federal agents with space age tracking devices. None of it fits.”
Dr. Viatour reappeared. “Okay, look, the actual process takes thirty minutes, but we normally do a lot more prep work on our patients.”
“Just do it,” Jack growled.
Viatour shrugged. He held up a long thin tube. “Okay. We’re going to insert this catheter into your abdomen and pump you full of a dilute salt solution. As your blood passes through the peritoneal membrane in your abdomen, the salt solution will filter out impurities. Lie down on the table.”
Jack lay down on the table, filled his lungs with air, and let out a huge breath.
The real meetings didn’t even take place at the Federal Building. The eight world leaders would have a perfunctory meeting at the Federal Building later in the day, but the real work would take place in secluded rooms far from the noise of contention. The protestors had chosen the Federal Building as a symbol of governmental abuse, and because the Century Plaza Hotel was private property and so the owners could deny them access without cause.
So while thousands gathered on all sides of the Federal Building, half a mile away at the Century Plaza Hotel, in a conference room guarded by multiple rings of security, eight men who controlled massive areas of the globe sat in discussion about the future of the world.
Well, thought President Barnes, not really
French President Jacques Martin was, as usual, talking. “…I want the language on the environment revised by our staff,” he intoned in his heavily accented baritone. “If it is not, we will issue our own statement. I want it clear that France considers these environmental concerns to be important.”
Russian President Novartov smiled. He had the hungry look of a predator. His smile came across as a threat. “Wasn’t it France that blew up a Greenpeace vessel?”
“Years ago.” Martin brushed the comment aside. “The environmental constituency grows. I want them to know we are acting.”
Barnes raised a finger. “You want them to
China. The word hung in the air like an impolite comment the group could neither ignore nor accept. China was the loutish neighbor down the street that no one wanted to invite to the party, but everyone wanted to be friends with.
“Look,” Christopher Straw said obsequiously, “let’s take this down to brass tacks, shall we? We’re not really letting them in without addressing the human rights issues, are we? I can’t imagine voting for it.”
“I find myself agreeing with the Prime Minister,” Novartov said, as though the fact surprised him. “China still has much change to do in its human rights record before sitting at the table.”
Schlessinger of Germany shifted in his seat. “This is a waste of time. We will all have our finance ministers, our trade representatives, and others, debate the real issues of the day. You know as well as I that China will not be denied.”
“I do not know it,” Novartov replied curtly. But he softened his tone almost immediately. “But, in the end, I will listen to our collective wisdom, of course.”
“The world turns, Mr. President,” Martin rumbled. “It will not be stopped.”
Barnes sat back in his chair. He wasn’t comfortable with philosophical talk; he especially disliked Martin’s pompous French pseudo-intellectualism. But he also knew the Frenchman was right. China was coming at them all like a tidal wave, and if it wasn’t invited into the G8 it would eventually make the G8 obsolete.
Of course, there were other truths floating around, unspoken truths. Like the fact that Russia couldn’t care less about China’s human rights record. Russia wanted to exclude China because the two countries’ rivalry went back decades, and Novartov had no interest in allowing his hated opponent to the southeast to grow any stronger if he could help it. The Russian President’s gut reaction — snapping at Schlessinger — interested Barnes more than his soft-sell follow-up. He wondered what Novartov had in mind for his next move. The human rights issue was a convenient cover for all of them to use — it allowed them to bully China (if China could be bullied at all) into making trade concessions.
“But again, the environment,” Martin began when no one else spoke up. “You must be aware that five thousand people came up from South America, mostly from Brazil.
