The Coward's Way of War (6 page)

He gazed around the hospital room.  It was bland, painted a boring yellow-white, with nothing in the room apart from a bed and some complicated-looking equipment.  He had been transported to the facility – he had no idea where he was, or even if he was still in New York – and pushed right into the sealed compartment, having been stripped of everything he had been wearing.  They’d even taken his wedding ring and refused to return it to him.

“This is not a prison,” the doctor said.  He wore a spacesuit-like protective garment, rather like the MOPP suits that Al had worn back in the Iraq War.  His face was completely hidden behind the goggles.  “This is an emergency medical centre operated by FEMA, among others.  While you are not a prisoner, Sergeant, honesty compels me to admit that we cannot actually permit you to leave.”

“Sounds rather like a prison to me,” Al said, flatly.  He deliberately looked away from the doctor, towards the mirror that took up most of one wall.  Unless he missed his guess, it was a one-way window, allowing them to stare at him through the glass.  He lifted his hand and waved towards it; unsurprisingly, there was no response.  “How long do you intend to keep me here?”

The doctor took his arm in a surprisingly gentle grip and pressed a hypodermic needle against his wrist.  “As long as necessary,” he said, flatly.  “We will keep you here until we know if you have been infected, at which point we will know how to deal with you.”

Al waited until the doctor had finished drawing blood and then leaned back on the bed, staring up towards the ceiling.  “Doctor,” he said, “let’s not bullshit around, shall we?  That poor girl was infected with smallpox, right?”

“Yes,” the doctor said.  He sounded surprised that Al had recognised it, even though it had been an essential part of the NBC course he’d taken in the Marines.  “The presence of the disease has been confirmed.”

Al nodded.  “But I have been immunised against smallpox,” he argued.  “You should let me out and back onto the streets.  I'm going to be needed.”

“There are several problems with that,” the doctor said.  “There is no way to know if the injection you received several years ago is still effective, or even if it was effective against this particular variant of smallpox in the first place.  If it is not effective, you are almost certainly infected and will infect others if we allowed you out of the room.  We will hold you here until we are sure that you can be released without posing a danger to others.”

“I guess I can't argue with that,” Al said, finally.  He had to admit that the doctor had a point.  “Even so...do you have any idea how long I am going to have to remain here?”

The doctor shrugged.  “Smallpox has a standard incubation period of up to fourteen days,” he said.  “We should be able to tell if you have been infected sooner, through blood tests and...ah...other methods.  If you don’t show any symptoms in a couple of weeks, we should be able to release you without further ado.”

“I see,” Al said, wondering what had happened to Pearson.  The rookie had to be scared out of his mind.  “Is there any way I can talk to my family?”

“I’m afraid not,” the doctor admitted.  “We don’t want to panic them unduly.  After a few days, we should be able to link you up with the other possibly-infected people, which will allow you at least something of a social life.  We can arrange for television and even video games if you wish.”

Al wanted to argue, but he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere.  He sank back on the bed and sighed.  “Just get me cleared and out of here as soon as possible,” he said, tiredly.  It had been a long day.  “I want to go home.”

***

“
I think that this might interest you, sir,” Mija Cat said, as she entered the editor’s office.  “It’s about the developments reported last night down in that apartment block.”

Her editor looked up with apparent interest.  It was incredibly difficult to do something in complete secrecy in the modern world, not when cell phones allowed a witness to alert the media and digital cameras allowed them to record it for posterity.  The
New York Times
had received alerts almost as soon as the police had set up a cordon around the apartment block, although they hadn't been able to find out what was actually going on, or even if it was important.  The public wouldn't be interested in yet another drug bust or investigative operation.  Mija, as one of the paper’s junior reporters, had been given the task of investigating the reports, if only to see if there was a story in them or not.

“Oh good,” he said, slowly.  He hadn't expected much to come of it and hadn't bothered to conceal that opinion.  Mija hadn't expected anything else.  As a junior reporter, without the prestige of senior reporters, she couldn't expect anything apart from the shit jobs.  And, if it proved to be something newsworthy, there was a good chance that her editor would take it from her and give it to someone more experienced and popular.  “What have you found out?”

“Well, they’re saying nothing directly,” Mija admitted.  She found the editor rather terrifying, even though he hadn't made a pass at her; hell, she hadn't even caught him staring at her breasts or ass.  The editor blew a smoke ring and waited for her to continue.  “If it was a successful operation, or even a case of mistaken identity, they would have said something, wouldn't they?”

The editor managed to look impatient while chewing on one end of his cigar.  “So I spoke to a few of our contacts in the NYPD,” Mija continued, nervously.  “The ones who would talk to me said that a pair of policemen had gone into the building and then called for an ERT – an Emergency Response Team.  The team was barely on its way, accompanied by a small army of policemen, when the feds came in and took over.  The ERT was told to remain outside, the area was sealed and then they waited for the feds to arrive.”

“Curious,” the editor said, thoughtfully.  “And what do you deduce from that?”

“Nothing, sir,” Mija admitted, “so I dug deeper.  The feds are apparently holding everyone involved somewhere, including the policemen and some members of the ERT.  The neighbours said that everyone had simply been taken away, without apparent cause.  That is...odd, to say the least.  There was no reason to arrest everyone...”

“They took them all without a warrant,” the editor deduced.  He smiled for the first time.  Stories about abuse of government powers always went down well with the readers.  “Do you know where they were all taken?”

“No,” Mija said, “but we did get an image of one of the people being taken away.”

She held out a printed image an amateur photographer had taken with a standard digital camera.  It showed an elderly gentleman being helped into a van by a man wearing a spacesuit, while other men – wearing similar garb – stood around and waited for the locals to be removed.

“Son of a bitch,” the editor said, in astonishment.  “Those are MOPP suits.”

Mija’s puzzlement must have shown on her face, for the editor deigned to explain.  “MOPP suits are worn when there’s a biological hazard,” he explained.  “A chemical spill or an infectious disease...”

“Yes, sir,” Mija said.  She hadn't known what the suits were called, but she had deduced what they were for.  “I checked with a couple of our sources and discovered that the Mayor had been in conference with some of the feds, including experts from Atlanta and Washington.  There’s a total black-out on news about the apartment block, but the feds are still working there, which means...”

“That there was a biological hazard there,” the editor said.  He looked up at her.  “You do know what this means, don’t you?”

Mija nodded.  “I guessed that someone caught something nasty,” she said, “so I checked the building registry.  There were five people in the building who could reasonably be expected to travel abroad on a regular basis.  I checked with their places of employment and three of them had called in sick.”

“Very good, Mija,” the editor said.  He stood up and motioned towards the door.  “We will follow this up personally and your input will be noted.”

“Sir, with all due respect, this is my story,” Mija said.  “I think that...”

“This is not something you can follow up on,” the editor said.  “You will allow me to choose a reporter who is skilled at extracting truth from government officials.”

Mija recognised the dismissal and left his office, struggling to keep her face expressionless until she reached her cubical. The editor would assign someone else and her scoop would be stolen.  Slowly, carefully, she accessed her computer and brought up her blog.  The editor’s pet reporters would discover that they’d been scooped, even if they never knew who had beaten them, or why.

It never occurred to her that, in doing so, she could cause a panic.

...Every single person expects the President to give 100% of his or her attention to their project, their concern or their interests.  What complete nonsense!  The P
resident cannot afford to becoming bogged down by micromanagement, nor could even the most enthusiastic micromanager handle all of the responsibilities of being President.  The President doesn't have to juggle balls.  The President has to juggle chainsaws
.

- Press Secretary Fiona Dü
rst

Washington DC, USA

Day 5

Doctor Nicolas Awad waited impatiently outside the Oval Office, barely aware of the pair of burly Secret Service agents keeping a careful eye on him.  His use of a Top Secret code to gain access to
the President had ensured that they let him through the security with the minimum of caution – although they had insisted on confiscating both his briefcase and the pistol he’d carried on his belt – but they weren't happy about it.  Personally, Nicolas suspected that security would be tightened up considerably once they realised what was happening in New York.  The chances were that there were infected people in Washington already, walking around unaware that they were dying from a disease they might never have known existed.

The President’s personal secretary stepped out of the Oval Office and looked over at him.  “Doctor, the President and her Cabinet will see you now,” she said.  “If you will come with me...”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Nicolas couldn't avoid a thrill as he stepped into the Oval Office.  It was the very centre of his country’s political system, the office of the most powerful person in the world; somehow, he felt very small and tiny compared to the weight of history that hung in the air.  In the Oval Office, President Bush had ordered the invasion of Iraq and planned the surge that had ended the insurgency and produced a viable post-war Iraq.  President Reagan had plotted the economic destruction of the Soviet Union, while President Roosevelt had led his country against the Axis powers and President Lincoln had fought to hold his country together.  The men and women facing him, the President’s Cabinet, seemed to loom large in front of him, even though they were politicians.  He found himself hoping that they had the strength and resolve to get through the coming days, for he knew that only prompt action had a hope in hell of preserving the United States as a functional entity.  The country itself was at stake.

“Madam President,” he said, feeling tongue-tied for the first time since he had been a very small child.  The President, Head of State and Head of Government, seemed to dominate the room.  He found himself speaking with more bluntness than he had intended.  “The country is under attack.”

President Paula Handley had not been expected to win the nomination, let alone the Presidency, but a damaging sexual scandal had torpedoed her rival’s campaign before he had forced her to bow out of the Presidential race.  Unlike her predecessor, she had a reputation for being truthful and trustworthy – everyone’s favourite grandmother, one reporter had called her – and if there were skeletons in her closet, no one had been able to find them.  The United States rarely trusted its political leaders, yet President Handley had a remarkably good and stable approval rating.  Her opponent might grumble that she had won only because of third party candidates and a general lassitude among his party’s supporters, but there was no doubting her determination.  Nicolas only hoped that she was competent and resolute.  The smallpox crisis would be her first major test as President.

At forty-one years old, she was a widow, much to the relief of the White House Protocol Office, who would have struggled to find a role for a First Husband.  Her husband, a US Army Major, had been killed on active service, leaving an angry and determined woman to go into politics and, as she’d said in her campaign speeches, to ensure that American soldiers received the support they needed from their country.  Her dark hair, which was starting to shade to grey under the pressures of her office, was tied up neatly in a bun, giving her a vague impression of being a schoolmistress.  Nicolas met her blue eyes and was impressed by their firmness, although he knew that the eyes were not always the windows of the soul.  Politicians, in his experience, tended always to believe the best and keep one eye on their chances of re-election.  The President might balk at doing whatever was necessary to save the country.