Ice Age

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Dick’s right,’ agreed the president, at once. ‘You’re more than ever the eyes and ears now, Paul.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ accepted Spencer. It wasn’t anything he didn’t already know, wasn’t prepared for.

  They were approaching the covered verandah on the garden side of the White House. Partington said: ‘Quite obviously Paul’s got a twenty-five hour a day job. It’s going to put a lot of extra pressure on you, Dick.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Morgan, seeing another unsettling opportunity. ‘Paul takes a lot off my shoulders. Maybe it’ll be necessary to bring somebody else in … on a temporary basis, of course.’

  Cheap shot, asshole, thought Spencer, as an idea completely formed in his mind. He actually smiled. ‘Nice to know I’m indispensable, Dick. But I think we’ve got to think it through carefully. If I just disappear from the office … but am around as much as ever, which I’m going to need to be, to keep you fully up to speed, Mr President … there’ll be the sort of rumours we’re trying to avoid …’ He let in the pause, which Partington predictably filled.

  ‘What you got in mind?’

  ‘A positive reassignment, in title at least,’ declared Spencer.

  Partington stopped walking along the verandah, bringing the other two men to a halt with him. Standing as they were, Morgan and Spencer were facing each other literally over the President’s head. Morgan was stone-faced, expressionless. Partington said: ‘Reassignment as what?’

  ‘Special advisor,’ announced Spencer. ‘Covers everything without saying anything. And prevents any gossip before gossip or rumour is allowed to start.’

  ‘That’s good. You think it’s good, Dick?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Morgan, with no alternative.

  ‘Congratulations,’ laughed Partington. ‘People are going to think you got a promotion.’

  And I’m the first of them, thought Spencer.

  Fulfilling it at once, it was Spencer who gave the background to the Antarctic discovery and what was taking place at Fort Detrick after the initial speechless response of the Cabinet newcomers to the photographic evidence. Partington only took over when they returned from the projection room to the Oval Office, recounting the apparent second outbreak in Alaska, the already en route American rescue operation and his conversations with the British and French premiers.

  ‘We don’t know what it is, where it’ll break out next or how to stop it,’ declared Partington. ‘All we do know is that we’re looking at a medical or biological horror … a potential catastrophe …’

  ‘Do the British and the French properly know that, too?’ at once questioned Robin Turner, the Secretary of State. Turner was an urbane, white-haired, white-moustached man who’d been the Ivy League infusion into Georgetown University, where he’d been the acclaimed professor of international affairs and from which he’d been plucked by Partington to achieve the president’s intention to be equally acclaimed, by carefully following the man’s academic advice. So far in the presidency, Turner had not been tested to produce anything more than suggest what would have occurred to Partington anyway, but on television and at press conferences Turner looked and sounded impressive.

  ‘They will, when you show their ambassadors here what you’ve just seen on film. And after that taken them to Fort Detrick, to see their own nationals,’ said Partington.

  ‘You really think we stand a chance of concealing this?’ demanded Turner, doubtfully shaking his head in advance of the answer.

  ‘I think for all the obvious reasons we’ve got to try, for as long as possible.’

  ‘There’s a risk of a huge public backlash,’ warned the political theorist.

  ‘Against the risk of a huger – now worldwide – public panic,’ countered Partington, pleased with the discussion going on record. ‘That’s the fear of Paris and London. Mine, too.’

  Partington brought Amanda O’Connell into the discussion by announcing that she would be the chairperson of the governmental crisis committee that would now include British and French, just as the scientific group at Fort Detrick would be headed by an American. Paul Spencer was introduced as the liaising conduit between the two groups.

  Amanda O’Connell had waited patiently for her specific participation to be set out, because Amanda O’Connell was a person who always waited, although rarely patiently, before intruding or committing herself, preferring always to assess the intrusion or commitments of others. She was aware, because Amanda was professionally a very astutely aware woman, that her inherent, second-look reserve had, in the early months of Henry Partington’s presidency, led to her being considered – openly described even – as nothing more than a politically correct totem to feminism. Which, in those early months, she had accepted herself to be in theory, although not in practice. From her staff-starved, bowel-basement quarters which even Amanda referred to as the roaches’ rest room, she’d not once, so far, failed to advise or warn the man high above in this office, in which she was now sitting for the first time, of any scientific or environmental development of which he should have been informed, which is how she’d finally earned herself her place in Cabinet.

  The totem disparagement, which she’d learned to turn against her critics, was very much in her mind as she dissected with the biologist’s skill befitting her Master’s degree, the contents of the previous hour’s conversation, grateful to Partington for dominating it because it had given her analysis time. From the photographic evidence, which was the only proper, available evidence upon which she had to make a judgement, this was scientifically and medically a plague-like illness that – because its transmission was for the moment unknown – could be even worse than AIDS. So much, so far, for science and medicine: not her priority. America – and Partington – had been landed with it because the first outbreak had occurred in a US base in Antarctica. But not landed for long. Amanda, whose university exchange year in Sienna had given her a surface knowledge of European political history to go with that of her own country and who found it easier to compare Partington to the small-statured Machiavelli than Truman, was unsettled by the president’s demeanour. She thought the serious-faced, sonorous-voiced gravitas was just slightly off-key. If there was a hidden agenda, then the newly elevated Paul Spencer, to whom she hadn’t before existed but whose eyes at that moment moved from appraising her tits to meet hers, would be the ledger clerk.

  Responding to the president’s introduction, Spencer smiled and said: ‘I’m sure we’re going to work together just great.’

  ‘I’m sure we are,’ said Amanda, although looking at Partington. ‘Where, exactly, is the political group to work from? It obviously can’t be from here. Or, I wouldn’t think, from Fort Detrick.’

  ‘Blair House,’ announced Partington, at once.

  ‘I want to go to Maryland, though. Tomorrow, before anyone arrives from Europe,’ decided Amanda. In a question that was more loaded than it appeared, she went on: ‘I wonder if it’ll be practical for the two groups, when we’re properly set up, to work so far apart?’

  ‘Here’s where any political group should be,’ said Partington. ‘I’ll want you as close as possible and the British and French will want to be next to their embassies.’

  Exploring still she said: ‘Whoever comes from London and Paris will presumably be from their science ministries, possibly with support staff.’

  Partington looked at her blankly. ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘This is an unknown. Whatever, whenever the outcome, there’ll need to be the fullest scientific research papers publicly available. Proper records.’

  From the briefest spasm that crossed Spencer’s face Amanda knew it hadn’t occurred to anyone. Spencer said hurriedly: ‘The medical research is being carried out at Fort Detrick. Pelham will know the needs well enough.’

  ‘I hope he will,’ said Amanda, mildly. ‘I think it’s something about which we should be politically aware. I’ll remember to raise it at our first meeting: ensure it’s minuted …
’ She inserted the pause. ‘Which brings us to another point. If we’re going to be the host country, I’m going to need a secretariat.’ Was it possible – conceivable – that she could get her own properly designated, properly recognized department? There was no reason why she shouldn’t allow herself the thought, improbable though it might be. At least achieve sufficient recognition to lift herself out of the roaches’ rest room.

  Turner said: ‘There’ll certainly need to be a full publishable account when everything becomes public: diplomatically as well as scientifically.’

  His official record – his place – in the whole affair, Partington realized furiously. Something that should have been anticipated – already have been organized – by Morgan or Spencer instead of circling around each other, sniffing their asses like dogs on heat.

  Quicker to read the president’s body language than his former deputy, Morgan said: ‘You’ve surely got that in hand, haven’t you, Paul?’

  ‘Now that I know it’ll be Blair House everything will be set up, ready, by tomorrow,’ assured Spencer.

  It was Amanda who in turn read the body language between the two men and mentally filed the antagonism away, along with everything else. To Spencer she said: ‘I’ll take my own staff from here. And let you know what extra people and facilities I want, as the situation becomes clearer.’

  ‘And that can’t be soon enough,’ said the Secretary of State.

  Patricia hadn’t spoken for a long time, although her face quite frequently twisted as if she were in pain. Stoddart sat, encumbered and uncomfortable, as close to her bed as possible, her hand enclosed in both of his although still not really able to feel her fingers. It was difficult to keep the sleeves and gloves from snagging some of the leads to which she was attached. They were as much to keep her alive as to monitor every bodily function: it had to be close to two days since she’d become unable to eat or drink normally. Very little hair remained and the skin on her face and arms was crumpled and wizened.

  There was a fresh grimace and her eyes opened. In immediate alarm she tried to twist her head to where she knew he would be sitting, but the brain scan band stopped her turning completely.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Stoddart.

  She relaxed, moving her hand slightly between the gloves. ‘I can’t see you, not very well … just a kind of fuzzy outline.’ Her voice was thick, the words clogging. ‘Am I very ugly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am if I’m anything like Jane and the others, at the station.’

  ‘You’re not,’ he lied. If anything, her appearance was worse.

  ‘They found out anything yet? About it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I was hoping …’ she began, then stopped.

  ‘There’s still time … a lot of time …’

  Patricia didn’t speak for several moments, breathing quickly. ‘Remember what I told you, about being scared at the end.’

  ‘That’s not something to talk about now.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Patricia, insistently. ‘I’m frightened now, Jack. Very frightened.’

  ‘We’re going to be all right,’ said Stoddart, desperately. ‘They’re working on something here … any minute now …’

  ‘Keep safe, Jack.’

  ‘Yes.’ His throat blocked.

  ‘I want …’ she managed, but had to stop. She slightly raised her head, moving her mouth to form the words.

  ‘Don’t … just rest …’ he said, and she went back against the pillow and the alarm bells went off on two machines as the brain and heart monitors stretched out in straight, even lines.

  The three suited figures did not hurry into the suite or attempt any resuscitation. Two began gently disconnecting the tubes and leads. The third – the woman doctor who’d examined him – said to Stoddart: ‘She’s dead. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know,’ said Stoddart.

  ‘They’re all dead now.’

  Eight

  Amanda O’Connell, who’d been the innocent party to the divorce, wasn’t involved in any relationship and was comfortable looking after herself. She had expected to go to Fort Detrick alone but the newly appointed presidential aide had demanded to take her, insisting as the White House meeting broke up the previous night (‘we really do need to get to know each other’) that the journey to Maryland gave them time to talk. Amanda had accepted at once, although by the time he called for her at her Georgetown apartment – clearly expecting to be invited up for breakfast coffee, which he wasn’t – she’d read all the salvaged material from the Antarctic field station and what little there was so far from Fort Detrick itself. Amanda’s introduction to the jungle law of Washington mating had begun as a college graduate intern at the White House and she wasn’t surprised at Paul Spencer’s renewed sexual appraisal as she got into his car, although from his eagerness she guessed he’d be a prematurely ejaculating failure which she had neither wish nor intention of finding out. What she did intend discovering, observing her own far more practical Washington jungle law, was if there really was a second agenda and to achieve that she was quite prepared to give Spencer as much false hope as was necessary.

  Amanda was encouraged by how anxious Spencer appeared to be to impress her, talking in sound bites of horrors and catastrophes and time limits for cures and preventions, and it was when he was unnecessarily stressing that urgency (‘it can’t become a plague’) as they were climbing the memorial parkways towards the Beltway that Amanda isolated a phrase that had more meaning than much of what he’d so far said.

  ‘American medical breakthrough?’ she queried. ‘According to what I’ve read and what was said last night, Detrick haven’t got anywhere yet.’

  Spencer looked quickly across the car. ‘Just a way of talking. We’re heading everything up, after all.’ She was very smart as well as having legs that went on for ever.

  ‘Heading up what’s intended to be a joint medical investigation, surely?’

  ‘I hope that’s what it’ll turn out to be but something like this could easily become xenophobic. I think you should be careful about that, among whatever political grouping is set up.’

  ‘You think?’ qualified Amanda, heavily again. ‘What’s the President think?’ There was definitely a message here: one not being particularly well delivered, if indeed the man had been deputed the messenger. She turned fully to look across the car at Spencer now, even though the movement rode her skirt up slightly higher.

  ‘Having been with him from the beginning I’m pretty good at tuning in to the President’s thinking,’ Spencer said, smiling confidentially.

  The faithful servant, ensuring his master’s hands remained clean, judged Amanda. Maybe it was time Paul Spencer really did get to know her better: to know, from the outset, that she got out of the subterranean roaches’ rest room often enough to see things very clearly in the Washington political daylight. ‘What other telepathic conversations have you had with Henry Partington about this?’

  Spencer looked sharply across the car this time. ‘Just sharing a few thoughts … impressions … that’s all …’ This wasn’t going as he’d intended. She was treating him like an office boy!

  ‘Let’s go on doing just that,’ said Amanda, deciding to get things as she wanted between them from the beginning. ‘We have got a terrible situation here. One we can’t estimate … guess or know what to do about … We get it wrong, politically, we’re as dead as the poor bastards who’ve caught it. So here’s how I want you and I to work. I don’t want telepathy or clairvoyance or innuendo. You got something to tell me the President doesn’t think he can tell me himself, I want it straight. That way we don’t get any misunderstanding because we can’t afford misunderstandings … you with me so far?’

  What the fuck rules did this woman imagine she was playing by? Spencer was abruptly, totally, disoriented. Thank God – whoever He was – there were only two of them, no proof of anything said or suggested, ‘I think maybe we’re getting off on the wron
g foot here,’ he tried, anxiously.

  ‘No!’ Amanda rejected. ‘We’re getting off on the right foot. Just so you know how right, let me tell you where we’re at. If I – politically – head up whatever group is being established, I don’t need to be velvet-gloved into knowing how important it is that we, America, come out in front. That I come out in front. Which is where I am always going to be –’ she finally tugged down her skirt ‘– with or without you. I’d rather it be with you – with us both on the same side, because there are going to be too many other sides – and if it’s going to be with you, then I want to know all the backdoor, smoke-filled-room shit. That way we both stand a chance of surviving. Try the bullshit you tried a little while back and one of us isn’t going to make it. And I’m definitely going to make it. There’s no risk of your misunderstanding that, is there?’

  Spencer drove for several moments without replying, half thoughts swirling around his mind like leaves in a wind. If the merest suggestion of this conversation – this little-boy ultimatum lecture – ever reached Morgan, became as much as a vague rumour, Amanda O’Connell would be right: he’d be a dead man. Resurrection, knee-bending survival time. ‘I’m glad we’ve cleared the air.’

  Let him back in with a little face-saving grace, decided Amanda: he wouldn’t need to be told, either, that there was no future ogling her legs and tits. ‘I’m glad, too. Anything else I need to know before we get there?’

  She had him by the balls in quite a different way from that which Spencer had intended and he didn’t like it. ‘Stoddart is to head the medical investigation.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ she protested at once. ‘He isn’t a clinician. It should be Pelham.’

  ‘It’s not hands-on. It’s an administrative function. Stoddart is the only survivor of what was supposed to be a rescue but wasn’t …’

  ‘… So it’ll play well later, in the media?’ she anticipated. ‘Deflect the heat, even …?’

  ‘And I heard before we left Washington that his girlfriend was the last victim to die … during the night,’ completed Spencer, matching the cynicism.