“Yes. That’s what I was told it would be,” Gray answered hesitantly.
“Well, you and I have very different definitions of ‘first-class accommodations.’ Whoever told you that is so totally full of shit it’s not funny. Picture trying to live inside an oven—a small, humid oven with no windows you can open.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve shoved us inside a friggin’ tent, Gray. We’re in a goddamned tent in the summertime sun in Washington. Have you ever been inside a tent in the heat and in the humidity of a Washington summer? I’m sure you have, but you probably blocked all memory of it out because it was so awful.
“And they’ve erected that tent on what looks like the former landing strip at this base, which is blacktop. Have you ever been on blacktop as the sun heats it? It warms up. It warms up and it holds its heat. So we are baking from above as well as from below.
“We are baking. I don’t know how else to describe it. And now, since you are the one responsible for this hell, the sound of your voice disgusts me, so I really don’t want to talk to you, see you, hear you, or even think about you. So fuck off.”
David disconnected the call and did not hear from his husband again that afternoon. But apparently his brief conversation with his husband had accomplished something. Throughout that afternoon, David noticed a buzz of activity outside their protective area. It was miserably hot, so he wasn’t interested in moving much.
Washington summers were noted for the 3 Hs: hazy, hot, and humid. That summer was no exception. And whoever had thrown together their quarantine facility had not made adequate allowances for air conditioning. So David lay on his bed sweating, as did the other two men.
At dinnertime that evening, David was surprised when a new bubble figure entered and called them all together.
“Gentlemen. We have received new orders.”
Oh, this was going to be good.
“We are moving you to a better facility for the type of care you need.”
“Where?” the pilot asked.
“We’re moving you to the National Institutes of Health.”
“When?” his agent asked.
“Now.”
“Why didn’t we go there initially?” David chimed in.
“I do not know for sure, but I believe there was a desire to keep the news of your quarantine quiet.”
“Where are these orders coming from?” David’s agent asked.
“Directly from the White House.”
SO RATHER than having dinner, they were escorted to a helicopter that stood waiting for them. Accompanied by three people in mobile hazmat suits, they flew half an hour to Bethesda, Maryland, landing at the NIH hospital.
David knew the facility well, having done a rotation through there during his training many years earlier.
Wearing face masks, David and the others were directed where to go. The pathway they followed to enter the hospital had been cleared of all personnel except for those in hazmat gear. David and the other two men were shown to standard hospital rooms, separate from one another. The air was comfortable as David flopped onto the bed and sighed. He might finally be able to get some sleep that night.
His calm was immediately erased, though, when he tried to open the door to his room only to find it locked. Son of a bitch! He was locked in like a convict in a prison.
WHEN GRAY next called David, his first question was, “Are things more comfortable now?
“Yes, a bit.”
“What else do you need? Tell me; I’ll get it for you.”
“To come home.”
“I can’t do that,” Gray said with a sigh.
It took all of his focus to keep his anger in check, but David did it, instead telling his husband, “Something for entertainment, perhaps. And to be allowed out of our rooms so we can talk to one another.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
While entertainment options were brought in within an hour, the news on being together was not as good.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you will need to remain here in your own room.”
“Like a prisoner in isolation?”
“Each of your rooms has the necessary air filtration, but the hallways do not.”
“Even if I hold my breath?” David joked.
The bearer of this news did not laugh.
Every hour around the clock, someone entered his room to check on his condition. David’s hopes for a good night’s sleep were just that, hopes, since each time they entered, they woke him to check his vitals. In the morning, he endured a battery of questioning and testing. A person in a hazmat suit drew a blood sample, took his temperature, and swabbed his mouth for saliva samples.
DAVID WAS pissed. He assumed the other two men were as well, but that was only a guess, since he couldn’t see them or talk with them. At least in the tent, they had been able to talk if they wanted to, but that was no longer an option.
First thing in the morning of their first full day at the NIH Hospital, David’s iPad beeped, alerting him to an incoming call.
“Yes?” he said when Gray’s image popped up on the screen.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes. Your doing?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” David said, his voice flat and unanimated. “Do you know that the doors are locked and we can’t see one another or talk to one another?”
“Yes, I was told about that.”
“You ever felt like a convict in a prison? I know what it feels like now,” David groused.
“I really am sorry about this, David. I want you here as much as you want to be here.”
“Yeah, right,” David said, frustrated.
That call did not last very long.
To occupy some of his time, David dealt with his students and his administrative duties by video link-up to the university. He even taught a senior honors seminar on infectious-disease outbreaks via video link. Teaching gave him something to do to pass the time.
There were several things he couldn’t do in quarantine, but primarily they came down to working his weekly ER shifts, exercise, and working with his karate trainer. There was just no way he could even practice his karate on his own in the very limited space they had been provided, and their keepers were not about to let them out to roam around outside.
When David received his monthly bill from his karate instructor by e-mail a few days later, it happened to arrive the same day as his payroll direct-deposit receipt arrived. One glance at his paycheck was all he needed to see that his income was taking a huge hit while he was sequestered in hell. But while his income was down, his expenses were not, so he did the only thing he could think to do. He forwarded the bill from his karate instructor to Gray’s chief of staff and told him that because he had insisted David had to be quarantined, someone in the chief of staff’s office was going to have to pay the fee for the service he wasn’t able to utilize, especially because while imprisoned his income was taking a big hit. He told the man that he couldn’t afford to pay for something he was prevented from using.
He also made a point of cc’ing Gray on the order and told him, via separate e-mail, that if he ever found out that Gray had paid the bill out of his own funds, there would simply be hell to pay. He reiterated the point that if the chief of staff wanted David quarantined, then he needed to find the money to cover the fall-out expenses and that this was just the first.
David wasn’t surprised when the chief of staff himself sent David an e-mail arguing the point. David laughed when he read the man’s logic. “We are already covering the extraordinary costs of establishing and maintaining the containment facilities in which you are housed, including the cost of meals, security, and disposal of hazardous waste. To expect us to do even more is simply unconscionable.”
Needless to say that argument carried no weight with David, as he was all too eager to argue via a series of heated e-mails that went back and forth between the two men. He had precious little else
to do with his time.
Then David had a great idea: he decided to bill for his work on-site at the plane. But he didn’t stop there; he billed for his consultation time in the Situation Room, for his time to and from the plane. Then he doubled the amount he had for time onboard the airplane, citing hazardous conditions. He billed by the hour for all of the time they’d been held on the helicopter and being processed into quarantine. He sent that bill off to the White House.
And then, since he wasn’t able to work while quarantined, he decided to bill for twenty-four hours a day for the days they were locked up. When he totaled it all up, it made for a whopper of a bill for professional services. He wrote it up and forwarded the final bill to Gray and his chief of staff and a number of other people in the administrative chain of command. He wasn’t surprised to hear nothing from them regarding the bill.
When he didn’t receive a response, David sent a second notice and then a third notice, which even included a penalty and interest. He also sent a daily bill for another twenty-four hours of professional services. Every day he sent a reminder as well as another new bill. On his fourth notice he included a warning that the overdue account would be turned over to a collection agency for action—as well as shared with the Washington Post, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, and a number of other newspapers.
That message brought about an e-mail from someone in Gray’s office, advising him that his bill for professional services was “under review.” David did receive an e-mail from his karate instructor confirming receipt of his monthly payment. David hadn’t paid him, so his billing idea had accomplished something. He didn’t expect to ever see a penny from the other bill. What he wanted to accomplish with that was to inform Gray and the people around him that David’s time was money, and a lot of money at that.
He was not surprised to open his e-mail one day later and find a formal e-mail from someone in the administration—it was not a name he recognized or even a position he knew of—that informed him that it would not be possible to pay him for the consulting work he had done as part of the recent Marburg crisis. The reason cited was that it would not be appropriate for him to be paid, since payment would constitute a conflict of interest for the President. The argument made sense, but it pissed him off, nonetheless. The e-mail included several paragraphs thanking him profusely for his service to the nation during a national crisis.
He kicked himself daily for agreeing to go to that airplane, and he certainly wouldn’t make that mistake a second time. He wanted to wad up the e-mail when he got to the end, but he couldn’t because it was on his screen and not on a piece of paper.
David caught up on reading all of the journal articles he had been meaning to read. He read numerous fiction books that he’d wanted to read but never really thought he ever would have time to do so. He tried in the limited space of his room to do some exercise, but there was only so much he could do given the space constraints and the lack of equipment or weights.
After one of his conversations with Gray that was as unpleasant as most of them had been, David got an unexpected phone call from Gray’s chief of staff. Instantly worried that something was wrong, David immediately answered.
“Hello?”
“Okay, we need to talk. This is how it’s going to be.”
“Who is this?” David asked, just to be difficult.
“You know damned well who this is. Now shut up and listen. I don’t want you giving the President any more grief about you being quarantined. Do you understand me?”
“No, I don’t. What goes on between my husband and myself is none of your fucking business.”
“Anything that impacts the President is my business,” he told David. “And this, and you, are impacting the President. So here are the facts. We couldn’t have you come back here and be around him. This bug is so virulent that there was unanimous agreement among the senior staff that it would be better to play it safe and keep you and the President apart until we could absolutely guarantee that you were not carrying the virus.”
“First,” David said, cutting in, “Marburg is only transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, same as with Ebola and the same as with HIV. Simply breathing the air of someone who has Marburg is not going to expose you to the disease. Marburg, Ebola, AIDS, and the other viruses in their families are not aerosolized. They cannot be transmitted in the same way that a cold can.”
“At the moment that’s true, but these viruses have changed, evolved, morphed as they’ve taken root in the human population. Look at how many variations of HIV there are now. We started with one and now we’re tracking something like, what, a couple dozen variations?”
“Something like that, but that is not the case with this one. We tested and knew within five minutes that this was the classic virus, as I told you multiple times throughout testing.”
“If this was the one where the virus evolved and became capable of infecting you and others through the air, you becoming sick and then perhaps passing it on to the President could have catastrophic effects on our nation. I’d probably be pissed off too if I was in your shoes, but I’d suck it up and deal with it for the greater good. So, are we clear?” he asked David.
“I understand what you’re saying,” David told him, “that I’m supposed to hate you and blame you for this fucked-up mess. No problem, I already do”—which was apparently enough to get the man to finish the call and hang up. David spent quite some time that day reflecting on what he’d heard. He just wished they’d been that up front with him going into the situation, rather than spring it on him without a single word of warning.
He accepted a couple of calls from Gray in the days that followed. He was civil during those calls but couldn’t bring himself to be anything more. He answered questions with one or two words. He still felt utterly betrayed by his husband for the way the whole thing had been handled. He wouldn’t have called his tone cordial, but he would have called it neutral, which with time might become civil and accommodating.
He might have projected pissed-off with Gray, but with those who came in to check on him each day he tried to be upbeat and cheerful. But about two weeks into their three weeks of enforced isolation, the usually upbeat and moderately unflappable David was one day definitively not either of those things. His mood was dark, he was uncommunicative, and he spent most of the day lying on his bed or sitting in his chair not doing any of his usual work, and not taking part in any of his usual activities. He didn’t talk with his students, he didn’t eat, and he didn’t make any calls to anyone.
The constant watchers assigned to monitor the status of those in quarantine must have noticed his change in behavior. “Dr. Hammond? Are you not feeling well?” one of his watchers inquired early in the afternoon.
“I’m fine,” he told them without looking at them. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve been much less active today.”
“I don’t feel like being active today. There’s not a lot of room for activity anyway.”
“Are you noticing an increase in temperature? Any change in symptoms?” the person asked him, as if he hadn’t already answered them.
“I told you a moment ago that I’m physically fine. There has been no change in my temperature any of the hundreds of times it has been taken since I was shoved in here. I’m just in a bad mood, and I’m trying to not take it out on innocent, unsuspecting folks. Now, go away and leave me alone.”
The same questions were repeated numerous times during the day by any number of people, always eliciting the same basic response.
Late that evening, David’s computer beeped at him, indicating that he had an incoming call.
“Yes?” he answered flatly after accepting the call but not bothering to look at the camera.
“Hey, babe.”
David didn’t respond, forcing Gray to continue if they were to have a conversation.
“I hear you’re a little under the weather today.”
>
“That’s news to me,” David said flatly, still not looking at the camera.
“You’re okay?”
“As okay as I can be while in prison.”
“You…,” Gray started, but hesitated.
“I what?” David snapped.
“You sound down.”
“Yeah, so? You would be too if you were in this situation.”
“What’s wrong?” Gray asked. “I know you’re really unhappy with me, but you sound more down than usual.”
David slowly raised his head to be able to just look at the camera. He didn’t say a word, his face a blank mask disguising whatever was going on inside his mind.
“Really? You’re asking me that? Come on, Gray. Think. You’re a smart man.” David was silent while Gray on his end was silent as well, apparently thinking but obviously not getting what David wanted him to get. “You got something to say?” David asked. “If so, say it. If not, go away.”
“I really thought you’d be over being mad at me by now,” Gray said.
For the first time in a long while, David smiled. “Well, you thought wrong, Mr. President. First of all, it was a bad decision. Second, it was very poorly handled. Third, it was absolutely unnecessary. Fourth, it was deceitful. In other words, you lied to me. To the best of my knowledge, you’ve never lied to me before. I know I’ve never lied to you. And you also lied about what we were going to have when we got there. You’ve lied to me countless times. I feel betrayed, used, and deceived, and I hate that.
“Some direct, up-front communication would have been so helpful because I could have told you how unnecessary all of this was. I cannot imagine the expense that is basically all for nothing. This cannot be a cheap undertaking. I have no idea who’s paying for all of this, but it is going to cost a boatload of money. And all for nothing. An absolute waste of huge amounts of money, time, earning potential, and relationships.
“But the basic underlying fault is in the way this was handled. To not have a hint of what was going on until we landed in the middle of the night somewhere other than where we thought we were going—we thought we were being hijacked. Do you have any idea how that felt?” David took a deep breath to calm himself before going on. “But I’m trying to move past that.”
Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits Page 110
