Red (10 page)

He stopped and scanned the room. They were in a freeze frame.

A man in the front voiced the thought screaming through each of their minds. “That's . . . that's impossible.”

The president didn't respond.

“Is that possible?” the man asked.

Bob leaned over to Thomas. “Jack Spake, ranking Democrat,” he whispered.

“Is what possible?”

“Shipping our weapons in two weeks.”

“We're analyzing that now. But they've been . . . selective. They seem to have considered everything.”

“And you're telling us that with the brightest scientists and the best health-care professionals in the world, we have
no
way to deal with this virus?”

The president deferred to his secretary of health. “Barbara?”

“Naturally, we're working on that.” Feedback squealed and she backed off before regaining the mike. “There are roughly three thousand virologists in our country qualified to work on a challenge of this magnitude, and we're securing their, um, assistance as we speak. But you have to understand that we're dealing with a mutation of a genetically engineered vaccine here—literally billions of DNA and RNA pairs. Unraveling an antivirus may take more time than we have. Raison Pharmaceutical, the creator of the vaccine from which the virus was adapted, is providing us with everything they have. Their information alone will take a week to sort through, even with the help of their own geneticists. Unfortunately, their top geneticist in charge of the project has gone missing. We believe she has been kidnapped by these same terrorists.”

The magnitude of the problem was beginning to settle in.

A dozen questions erupted at once, and the president insisted on a semblance of order. Questions on the virus were fired in salvos and answered in fashion.

What about other forms of treatment? How does the virus work? How fast does it spread? How long before people start dying?

Barbara handled them all with a professionalism that Thomas found admirable. She showed them the same computer simulation that he'd seen in Bangkok, and when the screen went blue at the end, the questions came to a halt.

“So basically, this . . . this thing isn't going away, and we have no way to deal with it. In three weeks we'll all be dead. There's nothing . . . nothing at all that we can do. Is that what I'm hearing?”

“No, Pete, we're not saying that,” the president said. “We're saying that we don't know of any way to deal with it. Not yet.”

To their right a man with black hair and a perfectly round face stood. “And what happens if we give in to their demands?”

Bob leaned over. “Dwight Olsen. Senate majority leader. Hates the president.”

The president deferred to the secretary of defense, Graham Meyers.

“As we see it, giving in to their demands is out of the question,” Meyers said. “We don't deal with terrorists. If we were to hand over the weapons systems they've demanded, the United States would be left defenseless. We assume that these people are working with at least one sovereign nation. In the space of three weeks, that nation would hold enough power to manipulate whomever it wishes through threat of force. They would essentially enslave the world.”

“Having a military doesn't give a nation control of the world,” Olsen said. “The USSR had a military and didn't use it.”

“The USSR had an opponent with as many nuclear weapons as they did. These people intend to disarm anyone with the will to deter them. You have to understand, they're demanding the delivery systems, the nukes, even our aircraft carriers, for crying out loud! They may not immediately have the personnel to man a battle group, but if they have our delivery systems, they won't need to. They're also demanding evidence, very detailed I might add, that we have disabled all of our early warning systems and long-range radar. Like the president said, we're not dealing with Boy Scouts here. They seem to know what they're talking about.”

“What if one of the other countries hands over their weapons?” someone asked.

“We're doing our best to make sure that doesn't happen.”

“But the alternative to handing over our weapons is death, right?” Dwight Olsen again.

The president reasserted himself. “Both are death. The only alternative that has any merit in my mind is to beat them up-front before the virus does its damage.”

“The virus is already doing its damage.”

“Not if we can find them and the antivirus in the next three weeks. It's the only course of action that makes any sense.”

“Which I can assure you we're working on as we speak,” CIA Director Phil Grant said. “We've temporarily suspended all other cases, over nine thousand, and directed all of our assets at locating these people.”

“And what are your chances of doing that?” Olsen asked.

“We'll find them. The trick will be to find the antivirus with them.”

The president leaned forward into his mike. “In the meantime, I think it's important that we confront this in the strictest of confidence. We need some ideas. Anything you can think of—I'm all ears. I don't care how crazy it sounds.”

A kind of mad chaos overtook the room for the next hour.
They all
seemed to function in it, but to say they controlled it would be wrong,
Thomas thought.
The chaos controlled them.

He watched the verbal sparring, taken by it. It was not so different from his own Council. Here was an advanced civilization doing precisely what his own people did, exploring and vigorously defending ideas, not with swords, but with tongues as sharp as swords.

He stopped keeping track of who asked questions and who answered, but he mulled each one carefully. Americans really did have a kind of uncommon resourcefulness when pressed.

“It would seem that slowing the spread of the virus could at least buy us time,” a handsome woman in a navy business suit observed. “Time is both our greatest enemy and our greatest ally. We should shut down travel.”

“And cause widespread panic? A threat of this magnitude would bring out the worst in people.”

“Then offer them another reason,” the woman responded. “Issue a heightened terror alert based on information we can't disclose. They'll assume we're dealing with a bomb or something. Ground air travel and shut the airports. Stop all interstate travel. Anything we can to slow the spread of the virus. Even a day or two could make the difference, right?”

Barbara, the secretary of health, responded. “Technically, yes.”

No one objected.

“Frankly, we might be better off concentrating on the antivirus and the means to distribute it on short notice. Getting a vaccine out to six billion people isn't an easy chore.”

“But you're saying that everyone here is supposedly infected?” someone asked. “Shouldn't we isolate whatever command and control hasn't been infected? Keep them in isolation as long as is necessary.”

“Can you insulate people from this thing?” someone else asked.

“There has to be a way. Clean rooms. Put them on the space shuttle and send them to the space station for all I care.”

“To what end? What good are a couple hundred generals in the space station if the rest of the world is dying?”

“Then isolate the scientists who are working on the antivirus. Or give the space station the codes to launch a few well-aimed nukes down the throats of whoever's caused this thing if it ever gets to that.”

To what end?
Thomas wondered. Retaliation felt hollow in the face of death. The debate stalled.

“We lead this country, we die with this country if it comes down to that,” the president finally said. “But I don't see the harm of insulating a thread of command and control and as many scientists as possible.”

The chaos gradually gave way to a sober tension. Crisis sometimes divided and sometimes united. Now it united.

At least for the moment.

THE MEETING was two hours old when the question that brought Thomas forward was finally asked.

The blue-suited woman. The smart one. “How do we know that they actually have an antivirus?”

No answer.

“Isn't it possible that they're bluffing? If it takes us months to create a vaccine or an antivirus, how is it they have one? You said the Raison Strain is a brand-new virus, less than a week old, a mutation of the Raison Vaccine. How did they get an antivirus in under a week?”

The president glanced toward Thomas near the back, then nodded at Deputy Secretary Gains, who stood and walked to an open mike. He'd spoken only a few times during the entire discussion, deferring to his superior, Secretary of State Paul Stanley, as a political courtesy, Thomas assumed.

“There's more to this. Nothing that changes what you've heard, but something that may assist us in a more . . . unconventional way. I hesitate because I'm about to open Pandora's box, but considering the situation, I think it best to go ahead.”

Any trace of desire Thomas had to speak to this group suddenly vacated him. He was no more a politician than he was a rat.

“Roughly two weeks ago a man called one of our offices and claimed that he was having some strange dreams.”

Thomas closed his eyes. Here they went.

“He came to the conclusion that the dreams were real, because in his dreams there were history books that recorded the histories of Earth. He could go to these history books and learn who won the Kentucky Derby this year, for example. Which he did
, before
the Derby was run, mind you. And he was right. Actually made over three hundred thousand on the long shot. The information in the history books from his dream world was real. Exact.”

Thomas was a little surprised there weren't at least a few snickers.

“The reason he called our offices was because he learned something rather disturbing, namely, that a malicious virus named the Raison Strain would be released around the world this week. Again, this was nearly two weeks ago, before the Raison Strain even existed.”

They were at least listening.

“No one listened to him, of course. Who would? He went to Bangkok and took matters into his own hands. For the past week he has been feeding us a steady diet of facts, all in advance of their happening.”

He paused. No one was moving.

“I flew to Bangkok yesterday on the request of the president,” Gains said. “What I have seen with my own eyes would leave you in shock. Like me, you've probably come to the conclusion that our nation is in a very, very bad place. The situation seems hopeless. If there's any one person who can save this country, ladies and gentlemen, it might very well be Thomas Hunter. Thomas?”

Thomas stood and stepped into the aisle. He walked toward the front, feeling self-conscious in the black slacks and white shirt he'd purchased at the mall on their way here from the airport. He must look very, very strange.
Here is the man who has seen the end of the world
. He was as disconnected from their reality as the Hulk or Spiderman.

He covered the mike. “I'm not sure this is going to do any good,” he said quietly. The president held him with a steady gaze.

“Make them believe, Thomas,” Gains said. “Let them ask their questions.” He offered an anemic smile and stepped aside.

Thomas faced the audience. Twenty-three sets of eyes, as unsure and awkward as he was, stared at him.

He felt sweat bead on his forehead. If they knew how uncertain he felt, his information would fall on deaf ears. He had to play his part with as much conviction as he could muster. It didn't matter if they accepted him or liked him. Only that they heard him.

“I know this all sounds pretty crazy to some of you, maybe all of you. And that's okay.” His voice sounded loud in the still room. “My name is Thomas Hunter, and the fact is, no matter how I know what I know—no matter how incredible it sounds to you—I do know a few things. If you follow what I'm about to tell you, you may have a chance. If you don't, you'll probably be dead in less than twenty-one days.”

He sounded far too confident. Even cocky. But it was the only way he knew in this reality.

“Should I continue?”

“Continue, Thomas,” the president said behind him.

His reservations fell like loosed chains. The plain truth was that he probably had more to offer the country than any other person in this room. And not because he wanted to carry such a responsibility. He had nothing to lose. None of them did.

“Thank you.”

Thomas strolled to his right, then remembered the mike and walked back, studying them. He may get only one shot at this, so he would give it to them in a language that would at least cause a stir.

“I've lived a lifetime in the past two weeks. I've also learned some things in that lifetime. In particular, that most men and women will yield to the strong currents sucking them into the seas of ruin. Only the strongest in mind and spirit will swim against that current. A bit philosophical maybe, but it's what some people say where I come from, and I agree.”