A Heartbeat Away

by Michael Palmer

  Seemingly without thought for herself, Angie knelt down, wiped the woman’s makeup and perspiration away with a piece of cloth, smoothed her hair, and then, to Griff’s horror, dexterously refastened the brooch.

  “We’re here to do what we can to help,” Angie said softly.

  The woman regained an ort of composure.

  “I’m frightened,” she sobbed.

  “I know. I know. You’re going to be okay. What’s your name?”

  “Emily. Emily Wells. My husband’s a congressman from Utah. First term. He was ill tonight and gave me his ticket.”

  “Well, why not try and do what you can to help some of the others, Emily. It will make the time pass more quickly. I’m Angela Fletcher, from The Post. This man behind me is a world-famous virologist. He’s here to help figure this whole thing out.” Angie took the woman’s hand. “Be strong. There are a lot of people working to get you out of here.”

  “Th … thanks.”

  Angie helped Emily Wells to her feet and guided her over to where several others were dispensing rations.

  Griff saw that some of those approaching them from the left were among the group who had come at him earlier. Quickly he led Angie away, but not before she could reassuringly pat several people on the shoulder and help one older, disoriented man find a bottle of water. The soldier whose biosuit had been torn moved in and helped control the angry, frustrated crowd.

  “You’re doing fine, ma’am,” he said to Angie, in response to her unasked question about him.

  “Remember what I said,” Griff implored her as they retreated from the hall. “Don’t get distracted.”

  “There are so many of them.”

  “That’s only one of three rooms. We’re going to do everything we can to help them, Ange, but you won’t be able to help anybody if they tear your suit like they did to that poor soldier back there. Now, let’s go see Allaire.”

  “What did you tell him that got him to bring me in?”

  They were led into the waiting area by the Hard Room.

  “I told him that you were here as a neutral party to document my movements. Our deal is that even if I don’t come up with anything, he’ll pardon me provided you report that I tried my best.”

  “I’m not exactly a neutral party, Dr. Rhodes. Does he know about us? Our past, I mean.”

  “No. I just told him that our paths had crossed before and that you have the knowledge and awareness I need, in addition to a public approval rating that is probably higher than his.”

  “So he doesn’t know a thing?”

  Griff glanced over at the soldiers and felt confident they were too far away to overhear them.

  “Nope. Believe me, he’s got more important things to worry about.”

  At that moment the Hard Room wall glided open and President Allaire stepped out. He looked worn.

  “Miss Fletcher, my pleasure,” he said, extending his hand and then introducing her to Gary Salitas. “I’ve very much enjoyed your work over the years—especially as an M.D. and something of a science nerd.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Are you still seeing that insurance lobbyist? Collins, right? Bill Collins?”

  Angie paled at the notion that the president would know such personal details of her life.

  “We stopped—um—dating several months ago. How did you—?”

  “Your friend Dr. Rhodes, there, became a person of interest to our government when he started working on a top-secret virology project. Then, nine months ago, when he was videotaped stealing canisters of the virus that was eventually to get us into this mess, he became a person of what we call extreme interest. We know more about him than he probably knows about himself, and as you are a well-known media person associated with Dr. Rhodes, we made it a point of getting to know you, too.”

  “Well, now,” Angie said, realizing that Allaire was issuing a thinly veiled warning to both her and Griff. “I find that just a little unsettling.”

  “Please don’t worry, Ms. Fletcher. Knowledge about the people we’re dealing with is what keeps our government strong. The professionals who are paid to do this for us are very good at their jobs. If we had to, we could probably pull up what Dr. Rhodes had for breakfast on the day of your last birthday, which happens to be—” Allaire checked a sheet of notes on the table in front of him “—May twenty-ninth. We also know about your time together in Africa, as well as your visit a few years ago to see him on his boat in Key Largo. You were researching a story and stayed the night.”

  “I don’t like this,” Griff said, feeling his face hot and flushed beneath his hood.

  Allaire leveled a steely gaze at him.

  “Rhodes, I frankly don’t care what you like or don’t like. To me, until you prove otherwise, you’re a terrorist who, for whatever reason, has placed your interests above your country’s. Do you think you could have just picked someone to report to us and we would blithely invite her in here? We know enough about Ms. Fletcher to trust that unlike you, she is likely to place the needs and security of her country above her own. Am I wrong about that, Ms. Fletcher?”

  “No, sir,” Angie said, with firm conviction. “No, you’re not. What I report back to you will be what is happening. But I want to say again how unpleasant it feels to learn my life has been investigated to such an extent by my own government.”

  “Objection noted,” Allaire said dismissively. “Okay, then, Dr. Rhodes, I hope I’ve made my point about the measures I am willing to take in the interests of national security. With that in mind, I am giving you one warning and one warning only: If you want to stay away from the inside of that cell at Florence, then don’t fuck with me again.”

  CHAPTER 20

  DAY 2

  12:30 P.M. (EST)

  The only virus poisoning the Capitol, Ursula Ellis believed, stood on two legs with his hands resting on the House of Representatives lectern. She glared down at Jim Allaire from her perch atop the tribune and felt her hatred for the man shift into overdrive. Looking away, she made eye contact with Leland Gladstone, who was already in position on the House Chamber floor. Her aide gave her a discreet thumbs-up sign. She tried to suppress her smile. A nod to Gladstone was the signal that his message had been received.

  Soon enough, Ellis thought. Soon enough.

  Allaire ordered the three hundred people held captive inside the House Chamber to retake their seats, and Ellis delighted in seeing how his usually unflappable demeanor had waned. He looked gray and pinched. The mood in the room was reflecting his plummeting popularity.

  “I promised you an update as soon as I had information to share,” Allaire said through the PA system. “At this very moment, there is a team of specialists on site, who are experts in all facets of the virus we may have been exposed to.”

  A senator jumped to his feet.

  “You said ‘may,’ sir. Is there doubt that we’ve been exposed? Could this all be for nothing?”

  The question rattled Allaire, who fumbled with his words before correcting himself. “We’ve almost certainly been exposed to something,” he said. “The nature of the pathogen, however, is still in question. Cultures and other attempts at nailing down the germ are under way.”

  Ellis silently applauded the representative from South Dakota for asking what she herself had long been thinking. Allaire prattled on. Half-truths and outright lies.

  “The biocontainment suits you have seen are being used as a precaution,” Allaire said in response to a specific question. “In addition to examining some of you, this team of specialists will be taking blood samples. Those samples will be used to assist in determining a timetable for our release. We have to be certain there is no widespread public health threat before we give the green light to evacuate the Capitol. In the meantime, we’re working on removing seats to provide for more adequate sleeping arrangements. Also, I know the lines to use the bathroom have been long, so we’ll be providing portable waste facilities as well.”

  �
�What about contacting our families? My cell phone is useless. What in the hell did your people do?… And why?”

  The man stood on his seat, waving his cell phone defiantly. The crowd cheered until he was quickly subdued by two Secret Service agents, who clearly had not been told that transmission had been blocked on those cell phones they hadn’t already confiscated. Ursula watched with pleasure as the agents pried the device from the man’s grasp.

  The mood inside the Capitol was worsening. Everybody wanted out—everyone, except perhaps for Ellis, who needed Allaire to keep the crowd imprisoned inside. Politics 101 dictated that the more people felt oppressed, the easier they would be to turn. It was her duty to expose the truth about this man, and Allaire’s mounting paranoia played perfectly in her favor.

  “I understand you’re very concerned about your families,” Allaire was rambling on. “We’re working on that issue, but it’s going to take some time. Rest assured, my White House staff is getting word out to your families as I speak, informing them of the situation and sharing my personal commitment that we will resolve this crisis as quickly and efficiently as possible. Soon you’ll be able to make calls yourself. We’re working on setting up a phone bank and bringing in medications for those of you who need them. For national security reasons there will be limits on the sort of information you can share.”

  Ellis cringed. This was America, dammit, not some backwater third world dictatorship. Allaire’s wife and daughter sat center to the president on the chamber floor, gazing lovingly up at him. Ellis wondered what their expressions would be in another couple of minutes.

  “I know this isn’t the update that you wanted,” Allaire continued. “I know you were hopeful I would say that the crisis has passed and we can now all go. It is my deepest regret to inform you that is not the case.”

  It was time. Leland Gladstone stood and raised his hand. Ellis’s heartbeat responded to an adrenaline rush.

  “Mr. President,” Gladstone called out, “I found medication belonging to Senator Harlan Mackey in the bathroom. I went to give it to him, but could not find the senator here in the House Chamber. Has he been relocated to another part of the Capitol, sir?”

  Ellis held her breath. She wondered what might happen to Gladstone in the aftermath of what was soon to follow. Whatever Allaire might to do her aide, Ellis would make it her first priority to undo.

  “Yes. Senator Mackey has been relocated,” Allaire said. “You can provide the medication to my physician, Dr. Bethany Townsend, and she’ll see that he gets it.”

  “Oh, good,” Gladstone said. “So the video I have isn’t of Senator Mackey.”

  Ellis bristled from the same sense of pride she felt whenever her own gifted children excelled at something special. Allaire took a staggered step backward, but soon regained his composure.

  “What video?”

  “Here, I’ll show you.”

  Gladstone hit the power on the digital projector he had hidden underneath his seat. He had found the projector inside a locked cabinet in the press gallery, precisely where Ursula said it would be. Sean O’Neil had provided her with the key, and Gladstone found cables there to connect the machine to his BlackBerry.

  The stiletto of light filled a portion of the House Chamber’s side wall. The grainy image was of the Capitol’s east exit walkway at night.

  “What is this? What is the meaning of this?” Allaire thundered, his face reddened.

  Gladstone bore in.

  “In the initial confusion after the outbreak, I somehow ended up on the second floor of the Capitol. I was taking some video of this ordeal when … well, when this happened.”

  Gladstone pointed toward the makeshift screen, which now displayed footage of a man stepping into the frame. The man took a few steps forward. His back was turned to the camera. But the moonlight and glow from streetlamps lining the walkway bathed him in a dim light. Those who knew Mackey could easily match the build of the man in the video to that of the senator.

  Mackey took another step forward, and then paused and swung around so that he was facing Gladstone’s camera. The focus wasn’t sharp, but some in the chamber gasped at the man they knew was Mackey. He called out something, but there was no sound on the recording. The BlackBerry camera angle tilted down to capture the man trying, and failing, to pull open the locked exit door.

  “Stop this at once!” Allaire cried out.

  Several Secret Service agents charged down the aisle toward Gladstone.

  Mackey took a step forward and raised his hands to shield his face. Just as the agents reached Gladstone and the projector, Mackey’s head snapped back. A spray of blood exploded from a lemon-sized hole that materialized on the back of his skull. The picture bounced wildly and then went dark.

  The agents snatched the projector from Gladstone, then looked sheepishly at the president for guidance.

  Ursula Ellis took that as her cue to act. She leapt to her feet and reached for her microphone.

  “Mr. President,” her forceful voice boomed out, “I believe it is time for you to tell us the truth.”

  CHAPTER 21

  DAY 2

  1:00 P.M. (EST)

  James Allaire and his advisors had absorbed a direct hit.

  Flanked by Secret Service agents, he left the House Chamber to a chorus of appalled cries from those who had watched the murder of Harlan Mackey. Through the microphone, he had promised to provide a full explanation, but his words were nearly drowned out.

  The moment he got clear of the lectern, he ordered Sean O’Neil to detain both Gladstone and Ellis for questioning. It was a decision Gary Salitas staunchly opposed.

  “You’re going to divide the people into camps by doing that,” Salitas warned, “and not just by party affiliation. If you isolate Ellis, you’re just going to give her that much more power.”

  Allaire grumbled under his breath.

  “Well, what do you suggest I do, Gary?”

  Salitas reaffirmed his loyalty by placing a gentle hand upon Allaire’s shoulder.

  “I suggest we figure out a way to explain what that punk just broadcasted. But tread lightly here, Jim. Ursula Ellis is not someone to be underestimated.”

  Allaire grudgingly rescinded his order. Then he bit back his anger at the House speaker, and returned with his team to the Hard Room. There were other pressing matters on which they needed to focus.

  “So what you’re saying, Hank,” he said to the chief of the Capitol Police force, “is that you’ve rechecked the official attendance list for possible fraud.”

  Tomlinson nodded.

  “I have, sir.”

  “And you found no anomalies, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “That’s correct,” Tomlinson replied.

  “And the security cameras? You’re suggesting playback showed no suspicious activity inside the chamber prior to the start of my address.”

  Again Tomlinson nodded.

  “Yes, sir. There was no suspicious activity whatsoever.”

  Allaire gritted his teeth. He felt his anger at Tomlinson growing, and drew in several calming breaths. WRX3883 could cause erratic behavior and even serious aggression. Was he just upset at Tomlinson’s lack of progress, or was he experiencing a physiological change? He shuddered at the possibility. Subtly, he checked for telltale markings on his palm.

  Nothing.

  What would he do if they suddenly showed up?

  “Well, where does that leave us, Hank?” he managed. “These aren’t phantoms we’re dealing with here. These are real flesh and blood terrorists. We need to know what vulnerability of ours they exploited. It may be our best way of tracking them down.”

  “My team is open to suggestions, Mr. President,” Tomlinson said. “We want to catch who did this as much as everyone here.”

  Cameras monitoring the space outside the Hard Room picked up the arrival of Griff and Angie along with the six armed men accompanying them. Allaire motioned for Salitas to let the group inside. Griff and An
gie entered, each carrying a box of what Allaire assumed would contain the collected blood samples. A sea of blue biocontainment suits followed Griff and Angie into the secret room. For several tense moments the hum of breathing apparatuses punctuated an otherwise silent gathering.

  “What’s the status of C Group?” Allaire asked Griff.

  Griff turned toward the president. Though Griff’s face was partially obscured by his suit’s visor and thick beard, Allaire could see the distress brewing in the man’s eyes.

  “They’re starting to show signs of respiratory difficulty and disorientation,” Griff said. “No fatalities to report, but it’s still early.”

  “And Admiral Jakes?” Allaire asked.

  “He’s not well. None of them are.”

  “Thank you.”

  Griff hesitated a moment, then added, “I heard about what happened in the House Chamber. I heard about a video—”

  Allaire raised his hand.

  “Not now, Dr. Rhodes,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how these terrorists got the virus inside the Capitol in the first place. You know this virus best. Any theories how it could have been done?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself,” Griff said. “I have to believe there’s a connection between Genesis obtaining WRX3883 and my being framed for the theft.” Griff paused there. He and Allaire held an uncomfortable stare for a moment before he continued. “As to how they pulled this off, well, I have no good theories at this time.”

  The president rose from his seat and turned his back to the room. Allaire stayed silent while his mind worked feverishly to concoct a plausible scenario. Then he spoke aloud, uttering a Latin phrase, one his medical school professors often quoted.

  “Res ipsa loquitur,” Allaire said. He repeated the phrase twice more, once with his back to the room, and again after turning around to face them all.

  “What are you saying, Mr. President?” Tomlinson asked.

  There were other confused looks.

  “Res ipsa loquitur is Latin. It means ‘the thing speaks for itself,’ ” Allaire explained. “In malpractice lawsuits, prosecuting attorneys who successfully argue res ipsa loquitur are guaranteed a significant payday. You see, our court of law is based upon the premise that we’re innocent until proven guilty. Res ipsa loquitur turns that premise on its head. It says, because something happened and normally that something shouldn’t have happened, you, the accused, are guilty of causing it to happen. Therefore, you are guilty of malpractice. Res ipsa loquitur.”