I looked around as if expecting the entire scene — the transport, the Marines — to turn into some massive joke. Food? This was about food? I knew I was not supposed to anger Burke further, but the petty infraction made me hot. I started to demand to know what food could have to do with anything important, but Burke cut me off as cleanly and surgically as a drill sergeant reaming out a new recruit.
“You decide what is important. You, as usual, did not think of consequences. I warned you. I told you clearly and concisely what would happen if you violated orders. Do you remember that conversation, Colonel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You recall my exact words?”
His words had been Leavenworth prison, a place which, for any reason, is no laughing matter. “I do recall.”
“But you couldn’t listen, could you? So let me tell you what happened because you, once again, thought you knew better than everyone else. You violated orders in front of the nurses. You gave an order that resulted in a nurse turning on a bedside telephone in a patient’s room!”
Uh-oh, I thought, remembering what I’d told that nurse. Do whatever you have to do. Get that woman her meal. I’d assumed that the nurse would make any phone call herself. It had never occurred to me that the nurse might let the patient make a call.
“That’s right. The patient gets the phone. The nurse was called out of the room.”
Now I was the one feeling sick, seeing where this was going.
“She didn’t call the restaurant, sir?”
“Oh, she did, after she called her brother, who works at the L.A. Times. Within the hour the White House was getting calls asking about the quarantine of an American town, outbreak, terrorist attack.”
Oh shit.
“The Times got hold of satellite shots of the base, troops all around it. They sent a reporter in a car. The car got turned around at a roadblock.”
Oh shit, shit, shit.
“It went viral. Let’s see, Joe. White House hiding outbreak! Possible airborne pathogen! FAA stops all flights to Nevada and Southern California! And, Joe, because this happened at a military base, you should have seen the foreign reaction, Korea, Iran, they loved it. U.S. violates germ warfare treaty! We were set to release the news our way. It was going to be orderly. Every blogger in the world got it early. We lost control before it even started.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not finished. Next, and we still can’t find who is doing this, Wikileaks released transcripts of our meetings, with a message of support for patients locked up in Nevada. And support for the gallant doctors who risked their lives while I tried to stop you from feeding the patients!”
“Christ.”
“Demonstrations at bases. Governors calling for calm. Half of Congress screaming for an investigation. No one believes the President.”
“Nobody’s claimed credit, sir?”
He snapped, “Half the world thinks we did it to ourselves.”
“Sir?”
“What?”
“Was it one of our programs?”
“You dare to ask me that even now?”
“Sir, it is a legitimate question.”
The screen showed him going purple. He said nothing for an instant. I’d gone too far. Then he said, very slowly and distinctly, “It is not, and has never been, one of our programs.”
Then I realized the even greater consequences. I saw why there had been no air traffic when we took off, why roads below were clear. “Sir, it’s not just that news got out. It’s spreading if you’re shutting down flights and roads. How bad is it?”
“Seven more cities. Over eleven thousand dead. Over forty thousand infected so far and climbing and CDC predicts even that number could explode.”
It was cold in the plane but I had begun sweating. He was right. Completely right. I’d made the panic worse because of a stupid sandwich. I had not kept my mouth shut, or if I had to open it, I’d shown disdain for those in control. I’d made the President’s job harder, Burke’s job worse. The news would have broken anyway. But now my bosses had to fight rumor and blame as much as disease.
“I warned you,” Burke said. “Ray! Put Chris on!”
I looked to my left, where she’d gone paler at the word spreading. She was thinking about Aya. The truth hit us simultaneously. The troops in this plane, the troops in the planes around us, were quarantine or protection troops, moving east. To where? Chicago? Denver?
“I’m disappointed in you, Chris,” Burke said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You were there. You stood right beside him. You could have stopped it, or tried to, and you said nothing.”
“I have no excuse.”
“Goddamnit, Chris. I trusted you.”
“I know. I know. You did. You’re right.”
“You said you’d control him.”
“I did.”
This was the instant he’d decide our fate. Maybe her agreeing saved us. Maybe Burke liked her to start with. Maybe he figured, if I lock away one, I have to punish all. Or maybe he was the type who wanted to spend his rage verbally. In any event, I felt the smallest hint of his fury subsiding, the faintest whiff of second chance.
Considering what he could have done to us, what he did was small.
“You’re off the unit,” he said. “Rush? Nakamura? You’ll work as medical doctors for the duration. I need doctors with experience and that’s the only reason you’re not in jail. If you come out of this alive,” he said, “we’ll talk about what happens to you next. No travel. No investigations. You’ll be at a hospital, and if you don’t stay there, I don’t care how much experience you have, I’ll bury you. Rush? You did just what I expected. Chris? You didn’t, and for that, I’m sad. You’re not qualified to supervise anyone. You’re out. You’ll be local, too. No investigation work.”
He clicked off.
I asked Ray, “Where are we going?”
“Don’t you know? You helped write the protocol, Joe. Never use local troops in an outbreak. They may have relatives in town and be reluctant to use force. We’re headed for the capital. It’s under semilockdown.”
Eddie frowned. “My family is in Boston.”
“You should have thought of that before. It hit Capitol Hill, FedEx Field, even some kids from a high school science fair. Washington’s the worst.”
Chris gasped. “Which high school?”
“Wilson.”
Chris groaned and leaned forward and tried to draw her hands in to protect her stomach. The cuffs prevented that.
Ray Havlicek sighed. “This isn’t the way anyone figured it could happen.”
“It never is,” said Eddie.
“Wikileaks? The war games never included Wikileaks. Fucking Wikileaks!” said Ray.
Chris whispered, “Aya.”
Chris was shaking in her seat.
ELEVEN
Just before the food riot started, Admiral Galli was showing us around Washington.
The troops had turned it into a different city. The buildings were the same, but the feel was like one of those permanent Hollywood sets, where the mood changes each time a different film is shot. One day love on the rooftops. The next, same rooftops, but revolution. Until now, D.C. had existed as a stage for power or calculation, importance and glitter. But the few faces in the street, mostly covered by surgical masks; the shuttered shops; idling police cars; and ambulances stationed in traffic circles beneath snow-dusted statues of dead generals — it all reflected raw fear.