A Heartbeat Away (5 page)

The White House chief of staff nodded.

“Jordan and Hank, stay here for a few minutes. You, too, Doc. The rest of you have your assignments. Stay calm, delegate to others, and remain in control of the situation. You are the leaders here. I expect you to lead. Good luck.”

With the press of a button, the hydraulics concealing the Hard Room kicked in and opened the wall.

Gary Salitas remained behind as well, though he had not been asked. The room emptied out, and the hydraulic doors closed. Those asked to remain took their seats again.

The president sighed, then inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.

“Well, my friends,” he began, “I need to start by saying that what I just shared in this room is not exactly the truth.”

CHAPTER 6

DAY 1
10:05 P.M. (EST)

Angela Fletcher had ridden only half of her daily ten miles on the stationary bike when the high-def broadcast of the State of the Union Address on her new Sony went dark. Using the remote, she switched channels on her cable box, but got the same black screen on all the networks. Other channels, those not broadcasting the president’s address, seemed to be working perfectly. The major networks, however, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News included, were all broadcasting the same thing, which was nothing at all.

From her perch atop the bike, surrounded by a mélange of houseplants, every one of which she could name, Angie turned her set off, then on again, and did the same with the cable box. In that time, the stations managed to display their version of a technical difficulty announcement, letting viewers know they were working on the problem.

Angie hopped off the bike and crossed her airy living room to the kitchen, where she grabbed a bottle of vitamin-enhanced flavored water from the fridge. At thirty-eight, despite her disciplined vegetarian lifestyle and deep knowledge of herbs and nutrition, she knew her metabolism had begun to slow. The changes in her hips told her so every day, even though it was likely that she was the only one aware of them.

The bike and a set of weights were her way of battling back. Best of all, for someone who struggled to sit through most movies, plays, and concerts, the equipment allowed her to multitask to her heart’s content. E-mail and riding. CNN and lifting. Reading and pedaling. Unless she were asleep, at the most five hours a night, she always seemed to be doing something, and something else at the same time. That trait had been a constant source of dismay and even annoyance to her boyfriend, Bill Collins. But
had been
were the operative words now that Collins was a thing of her past.

On her way back into the living room, Angie grabbed her BlackBerry to check e-mail. Nothing about the loss of signal had arrived in her inbox. Just the usual digital mountain of PR pitches from some of the brightest minds in science. They all wanted the same thing—a story in her paper,
The Washington Post,
and more important, for the paper’s respected science reporter, Angie Fletcher, to cover whatever latest breakthrough or discovery they felt needed covering.

Angie tried the television again. Nothing new. She had voted for Allaire, as had most of her friends, and like them, she had been looking forward to tonight’s speech. She loved that his background was at least as much about medicine and science as it was about politics. In addition, his oratory skills could make a laundry list sound important, so Angie felt more than a little disappointed to be missing any part of the first State of the Union message of his second term.

Figuring that Webcasts might be working, she used her BlackBerry and tried CNN.com and then her own paper’s Web site. Both ran virtually identical headlines in bold lettering:
Broadcast Interruption at State of the Union Address
. Utterly curious now, Angie checked, but could not find, any links to a more detailed explanation.

It had been six months or so since she had moved from Georgetown to the refurbished brownstone in the highly desirable Dupont Circle area of D.C. Her neighbor in 2B, the unit directly below her one-bedroom condo, worked at the White House, and Angie considered asking if he had heard anything unusual going on at the Capitol. Instead, she decided to towel off and cab it.

She darted into the kitchen, still clutching her BlackBerry, then suddenly paused to grab a spray bottle from the counter to spritz her herb garden, which seemed nearly ready to harvest, at least the mint anyway. The queen of ADD, Collins had called her, more than once.
So what,
she thought, racing into the bedroom to throw on a pair of slacks and a bulky fisherman’s sweater.

She hurried back into the living room and over to Horace, on whom she kept her coat, hat, and gloves. The movers had said nothing about hauling an adult human skeleton, but she did notice them exchanging uneasy glances when they unpacked him.

Over the months she had dated Collins, a lobbyist for the insurance industry, he continually found it odd that she had a skeleton in her living room, and that her cluttered bedroom looked like a college dorm. But she assured him that Horace had everything to do with an innate curiosity for all things biological and not some Goth fetish he needed to fear, and that her bedroom was always impeccably neat—just not when he happened to be there.

Collins’s lack of appreciation for Horace should have been a sign right from the start, but he was urbane, witty, and handsome as hell—clearly in the top ten of D.C. eligibles, as her girlfriends had ranked him. That was undoubtedly why she had hung on as long as she did, although ultimately, it was he who had decided they should “see other people.” As tired as Angie was of dating, and as anxious as she was to connect with a mate for life, and as aware as she was of the statistics on maternal age and fertility, the breakup was a two-ton weight off of her back.

She slipped her toasty peacoat off of Horace’s shoulders and grabbed the red wool cap from the top of his stand. There was something going on at the Capitol complex. She could feel it. Her instinct for news was what made her one of the most sought-after reporters at
The Post.
She understood that any story breaking on Capitol Hill would be covered by the political and national teams, and would probably have nothing to do with her expertise in science and technology. But the thought of missing out on an event unfolding in her own backyard was unacceptable, and the sudden, specific, universal loss of signal from the State of the Union screamed “Event!”

Having decided to spring for a cab, she was searching for her purse underneath the piles of stuff on her kitchen chairs, when her phone rang. She frowned at the name on her caller ID. Before she met Bill, it had been John Davis, chief of staff to one of the more powerful congressmen on the Hill. Davis had pursued Angie with such intensity that it made her at first uninterested and soon, uneasy. He had not called since her last plea just a few months ago that as nice as he was, it simply wasn’t going to happen between them—especially since she was dating someone else. She let his call go to voicemail.

Then he called again.

Strange, even for someone as persistent as John, she thought. He had to know she was watching the president’s speech. In fact, unless he had been fired, he had to
be
at the president’s speech. Perhaps he had lost the signal and did not get put through to voicemail. When he called for a third time, she answered.

“John?”

“Angie! Thank God you’re there,” Davis said in a coarse whisper. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

It sounded as though he were afraid somebody might overhear.

“John, what’s going on? I’m on my way to the Capitol right now to see why all the broadcasts have gone dead.”

She located her purse, grabbed the brush on the chair beside it, and pulled it twice through her shoulder-length hair—reddish brown that day, and most of the time. Then she gathered it back in a ponytail and secured it with a scrunchie, flashing for a pleasurable moment on how annoyed Collins was when she wore it that way.

“I don’t think you’ll get within five hundred yards of this place,” Davis was saying, “but I need your help. I think I may have been exposed to something. We all have.”

“We all? What are you talking about?”

“I’m at the Capitol and I’m talking about everybody at the State of the Union Address having been exposed to something biological, a virus, Allaire said.”

“Oh my God!” The news sent Angie’s heart racing. “Are you all right?”

“For now, maybe. But I’ve started coughing and I’m really freaking out. We all are.”

“Hang on a second.”

She pulled on her peacoat and hat, and grabbed one of the ubiquitous spiral-bound notebooks that dotted the landscape of her life.

“You still there?” Davis asked.

“I’m here, I’m here. Now try to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know. It was some sort of biological weapon or something, we’ve been told. Allaire said Genesis has something to do with it.”

“Damn. John, I can barely hear you. Can you speak up?”

“I can’t. I don’t want to be spotted. The Secret Service and Capitol Police are confiscating all our cell phones. I’m guessing Allaire doesn’t want to start a panic.”

“Is that why the broadcast went dark?”

“I didn’t know it had.”

With her phone tucked beneath her ear, Angie rubbed on some ChapStick, scribbled some notes in a shorthand only she could decipher, and turned the television back on. CNN was reporting only that something had occurred inside the House Chamber and they were working hard to get more information. Someone’s grainy, shaky cell phone transmission filled the screen.

Angie heard sirens blaring in the background and watched with widening eyes as the commotion unfolding within the camera’s view intensified. She remembered having the same sickening feeling when the first reports of the 9/11 attacks began trickling in. Something truly horrible was taking place now as it did back then.

“Where are you exactly, John?” she asked. “What sort of attack was it? Is anybody hurt? When did it happen?”

“Slow down, Angie. Slow down.”

“Are you sure it was Genesis?”

“Angie, I’m afraid I’m going to die. I’m afraid we’re all going to die.”

Angie’s heart beat faster.

“I want to help you, John. Just try and help me help you.”

“O … okay.”

“How did the attack occur? How was the virus delivered? Did you see it?”

Davis coughed. Angie shivered at the sound.
Was that a symptom of the infection?

“I saw it. There were like misty plumes of smoke coming out of people’s bags and briefcases and purses, from some sort of microbomb, it sounded like. Massachusetts Congresswoman Dawn Bloom, two rows in front of me, had one go off right beside her.”

Angie stuffed her gloves inside her laptop case, and dropped in the ChapStick, half a dozen pens, and another notebook.

“What’s happening now?”

Davis partially stifled another cough.

“The president has ordered everybody back to their original seats. He’s blocked the doors with armed guards. Angie, I’m really scared. You know more about bioweapons than anybody I know. What the hell could it be? Oh, shit, I think they’ve spotted my phone. I’m going to keep talking as long as I can.”

“John, I’ll do whatever I can to find out and help.” Davis coughed again—deep, moist, and racking. “John, are you okay? Talk to me!”

“They’re here for my phone.… Listen, you bastards! This is America. We have laws. You can’t do this!”

The line went dead.

CHAPTER 7

DAY 1
11:00 P.M. (EST)

The small group remaining in the Hard Room exchanged surprised looks except for Gary Salitas, whose attention remained fixed on Allaire.

The friendship between the two men dated back nearly twenty-five years, to the meeting of a select presidential commission on drug abuse in the inner city. The meeting, one of a number of such showcases to which Salitas had been invited over the years, was also among the more frustrating, with each of the political and academic lights determined to impress or outdo the others in terms of their rhetoric and posture.

Just when Salitas had been wondering if he could endure the rest of the afternoon, a lean, angular man stood up without asking to be recognized and began to speak. His name plaque read
JAMES ALLAIRE, M.D.; CLEVELAND, OHIO
, and he was angry. He was angry that people were speaking of Latin American cartels and minimum prison terms, of deposing dictators and passing stiffer new laws; of more presidential select commissions. But not once had anyone mentioned the abject hopelessness of inner-city children. Not once had anyone suggested a connection between drug use and classroom size. Not once had anyone offered the blueprint for a partnership between business, industry, and programs designed to provide every one of those children with a computer.

Allaire spoke for less than five minutes that day, but his eloquence, conviction, and the power of his words were unforgettable. And by the time the physician from Ohio had finished his remarks, gathered his notes, and strode from the room, Gary Salitas had vowed to hitch his wagon to the man’s star.

To this day, not once had Salitas regretted that decision.

“I will explain as much as I can in a moment,” the president began. “First, though, I want to be certain you know Jordan Lamar.” He nodded toward the stocky, baby-faced man several seats to Salitas’s right. “Jordan’s official title is architect of the Capitol. Jordan, this is my personal physician, Dr. Bethany Townsend, head of the White House Medical Unit.”

“We’ve met,” Lamar said, shaking Townsend’s hand and making certain that she knew the fifth member of the group, Hank Tomlinson, the chief of the fifteen-hundred-member Capitol Police force.

“Okay, then,” Allaire said. “Between the two of them, these men know every detail of the Capitol complex, from the surrounding topology to the nature and location of the facilities, passageways, and points of entry and egress. As of this moment, I am ordering a joint operation, to be conducted between the Capitol Police Board, represented by Jordan and Hank, and the military, coordinated by Secretary Salitas. It will be known as Operation Guardian Eagle, and its goal will be the neutralization of what Genesis has done here tonight.”

“And what does that have to do with the military?” Tomlinson asked.

“The remaining Joint Chiefs of Staff will assist us with Guardian Eagle. But they will be strictly on a need to know basis, and my orders will be transmitted to them through Secretary Salitas. As of now, the only people to be made fully aware of Guardian Eagle are seated right here in this room. Is that understood? Good. Gary, I’m authorizing you to deputize any military, National Guard, or other federal law enforcement officials you deem necessary. FBI, NSA, CIA—you have all of our personnel and resources at your disposal.”

“Yes, sir,” Salitas said.

“I want a secure perimeter established around the entire Capitol complex. Station sharpshooters and flamethrowers facing every exit. Jordan will make sure you don’t miss any. Use barricades to establish a secondary perimeter to keep the public back. Use force if need be to accomplish that.”

“Understood.”

The president turned away momentarily, gathering his composure. When he turned back, his jaw was set, his lips bloodless.

“One more thing,” he said. “Anybody who leaves this building, and I mean
anybody,
including every one of us, is to be given one verbal warning and only one to go back inside. Then they are to be shot dead on the spot, and their body immediately incinerated and disposed of as biohazard.”