'Ah.' She smiled, pleased at the news. 'I have heard of the sickness that has broken out in your country. This is very sad. And so you are here to ask about poor Benedict Mkusa, Sister Jean, and Sister Maria Magdalena. But I fear we cannot be of much help to you.'
'Why is that, Sister?'
'Benedict died and his body was cremated on government order,' Sister Mary Charles explained.
'Jean was taken ill, yes, but she left for Paris on a medical evacuation flight, you see, to visit the Pasteur Institute. The airplane crashed into the sea, however, and all were lost.'
'All?' Clark asked.
'Sister Maria Magdalena flew off also, and Dr. Moudi, of course.'
'Who was he?' John inquired next.
'He was part of the World Health Organization mission to this area. Some of his colleagues are in the next building.' She pointed.
'Moudi, you said, ma'am?' Chavez asked, taking his notes.
'Yes.' She spelled it for him. 'Mohammed Moudi. A good doctor,' she added. 'It was very sad to lose them all.'
'Mohammed Moudi, you said. Any idea where he was from?' It was Chavez again.
'Iran—no, that's just changed, hasn't it? He was educated in Europe, a fine young physician, and very respectful of us.'
'I see.' Clark adjusted himself in his seat. 'Could we talk with his colleagues?'
'I THINK THE President's gone much too far,' the doctor said on TV. He had to be interviewed in a local affiliate since he was unable to drive from Connecticut to New York this morning.
'Why is that, Bob?' the host asked. He'd come in from his home in New Jersey to the New York studio off Central Park West, just before the bridges and tunnels had been closed, and was sleeping in his office now. Understandably, he wasn't very happy about it.
'Ebola is a nasty one. There's no doubt of that,' said the network's medical correspondent. He was a physician who didn't practice, though he spoke the language quite well. He mainly presented medical news, in the morning concentrating on the benefits of jogging and good diet. 'But it's never been here, and the reason is that the virus can't survive here. However these people contracted it— and for the moment I will leave speculation on that aside— it can't spread very far. I'm afraid the President's actions are precipitous.'
'And unconstitutional,' the legal correspondent added. 'There's no doubt of that. The President has panicked, and that's not good for the country in medical or legal terms.'
'Thanks a bunch, fellas,' Ryan said, muting the set.
'We have to work on this,' Arnie said.
'How?'
'You fight bad information with good information.'
'Super, Arnie, except that proving I did the right thing means people have to die.'
'We have a panic to prevent, Mr. President.'
So far that hadn't happened, which was remarkable. Timing had helped. The news had mainly hit people in the evening. For the most part, they'd gone home, they had enough food in the pantry to see them through a few days, and the news had shocked enough that there had not been a nationwide raid on supermarkets. Those things would change today, however. In a few hours people would be protesting. The news media would cover that, and some sort of public opinion would form. Arnie was right. He had to do something about it. But what?
'How, Arnie?'
'Jack, I thought you'd never ask.'
THE NEXT STOP was the airport. There it was confirmed that, yes, a privately owned, Swiss-registered G-IV business jet had indeed lifted off with a flight plan taking it to Paris via Libya, for refueling. The chief controller had a Xerox copy of the airport records and the aircraft's manifest ready for the visiting Americans. It was a remarkably comprehensive document, since it had to allow for customs control as well. Even the names for the flight crew were on it.
'Well?' Chavez asked.
Clark looked at the officials. 'Thank you for your valuable assistance.' Then he and Ding headed for the car that would take them to their aircraft.
'Well?' Ding repeated.
'Cool it, partner.' The five-minute ride passed in silence. Clark looked out the window.
Thunderheads were building. He hated flying in the things. 'No way. We wait a few minutes.' The backup pilot was a lieutenant colonel. 'We have rules.'
Clark tapped the eagles on his epaulets and leaned right into his face. 'Me colonel. Me say go, air scout. Right the fuck now!'
'Look, Mr. Clark, I know who you are and—'
'Sir,' Chavez said, 'I'm only an artificial major, but this mission's more important than your rules. Steer around the worst parts, will ya? We have barf bags if we need 'em.' The pilot glared at them, but moved back into the front office. Chavez turned. 'Temper, John.'
Clark handed over the paper. 'Check the names for the flight crew. They ain't Swiss, and the registration of the aircraft is.'
Chavez looked for that. HX-NJA was the registration code. And the names for the flight crew weren't Germanic, Gallic, or Italian. 'Sergeant?' Clark called as the engines started up.
'Yes, sir!' The NCO had seen this man tear the driver a new asshole.
'Fax this to Langley, please. You have the right number to use. Quick as you can, ma'am,' he added, since she was a lady, and not just a sergeant. The NCO didn't get it, but didn't mind, either.
'Cinch those belts in tight,' the pilot called over the intercom as the VC-20B started to taxi.
IT TOOK THREE tries because of electrical interference from the storm, but the facsimile transmission went through the satellite, downlinked to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and reappeared in Mercury, the Agency's communications nexus. The senior watch officer had his deputy run it to the seventh floor. By that time, Clark was on the phone to him.
'Getting some interference,' the watch officer said. Digital satellite radio and all, a thunderstorm was still a thunderstorm.
'It's a little bumpy at the moment. Run the registration number and the names on that manifest. Everything you can get on them.'
'Say again.'
Clark did. It got through this time.
'Will do. Somebody's got a file on this. Anything else?'
'Back to you later. Out,' he heard.
'SO?' DING ASKED, reefing his belt in tighter as the G took a ten-foot drop.
'Those names are in Farsi, Ding—oh, shit.' Another major bump. He looked out the window. It was like a huge arena, a cylindrical formation of clouds with lightning all over the place. It wasn't often he looked down at that. 'The bastard's doing this on purpose.'
But he wasn't. The lieutenant colonel on the controls was scared. Air Force regulations not to mention common sense prohibited what he was doing. The weather radar in the nose showed red twenty degrees left and right of his projected course to Nairobi. Left looked better. He turned thirty degrees, banking the executive jet like a fighter, searching for a smooth spot as he continued the climb-out. What he found wasn't smooth, but it was better. Ten minutes later the VC-20B broke into sunlight.
One of the spare pilots turned in her front row seat: 'Satisfied, Colonel?' she asked.
Clark unbuckled his belt in defiance of the sign and went to the lavatory to splash water in his face. Then he knelt down on the floor next to her and showed her the paper that had just been transmitted. 'Can you tell me anything about this?' She only needed one look.
'Oh, yeah,' the captain said. 'We got a notice on that.'
'What?'
'This is essentially the same aircraft. When one breaks, the manufacturer tells everybody about it—I mean, we'd ask anyway, but it's almost automatic. He came out of here, flew north to Libya, landed to refuel, right? Took
