“How controlled would this be, Murray? If we let them hatch, would anyone know?”
Vanessa’s head snapped around in confusion. She started to speak, but Gutierrez held up a finger, cutting her off.
“How controlled, Murray?”
All Murray had to do was steer Gutierrez away from allowing the triangles to hatch. All he had to do was fall in line behind Vanessa, and she’d back off.
But they still didn’t know the location of the next gate. For that they needed a hatchling. Dawsey would come through—he had to come through.
And besides… Murray fucking hated Vanessa Colburn.
“Well, sir, I’ll be blunt,” Murray said. “The media already knows about the flesh-eating bacteria. If someone dies from that…” He spread his hands. “These things happen.”
Vanessa shook her head patronizingly. “These things do not just happen.”
“Vanessa,” Gutierrez said, “do me a favor and shut the fuck up.”
The look on her face might be the same one she’d have if Murray whipped out his cock and asked for a blow job with whip cream and ice cubes.
“On a scale of one to ten, Murray,” Gutierrez said, “how bad do we need to know what we’re up against?”
“One to ten? Try four hundred thirty-two. We’re facing some kind of invasion here. I think the time for tea and crumpets is long past.”
He looked hard at the president. Just two weeks in, was John Gutierrez already seeing beyond his idealism?
Only one way to find out, and that was to force the issue. Murray pulled out his phone and held it up.
“Mister President, please, I have to get your decision or soon there won’t be any point to this discussion. Saying nothing is the same thing as telling me to let them hatch. If you don’t mind a little advice from an old man, sir, don’t let indecision decide things for you. Make a call and live with it.”
Gutierrez stared off into nothingness, looking at something not inside the room.
“Let them hatch,” he said.
Murray typed LET IT RIDE into his cell phone with a thumb speed that would have drawn admiration from Betty Jewell in her texting prime. He hit send.
Vanessa shook her head. She had the look of a person about to explain something obvious to a loved one who just doesn’t get it. “Mister President,” she said. “John, I… we can’t do this.”
Gutierrez laughed. Murray heard the anguish in that laugh. “Vanessa, are you flinching? I never thought I’d see the day. I always knew that sooner or later I’d have to send people to their deaths. Every now and then, I’d kid myself, let myself hope that maybe my administration would be the lucky one, that a decision of mine wouldn’t result in flag-draped caskets. Sending soldiers to die is difficult, but dying is part of a soldier’s job. They understand that when they sign up. You know what’s even harder to deal with? Realizing that there is an American woman named Bernadette Smith, age twenty-eight, mother of three, a Christian who volunteers at her church, and that I’m going to knowingly let her die in the most horrible way imaginable.”
Vanessa shook her head. “Mister President, I insist th—”
He pounded the desk with his right fist. “You insist? You insist? Who is the fucking president here?”
“You are, John,” she said quietly.
“That’s Mister President,” Gutierrez said.
Vanessa looked down. “You are, Mister President.”
“Do you know why I’m the president of the United States of America, Vanessa?”
She shook her head.
“One, because I’m smart enough to hire and listen to people like you. And two, because I’m smart enough to know when not to listen to people like you. The hardest decision is usually the necessary decision, and that decision has just been made. Now get out.”
Vanessa looked at Murray, then back at the president. Murray wondered if she was going to cry.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again.
“You… you want us to leave?”
“No,” Gutierrez said. “Just you. I need to talk to Murray.”
She did the double look again, first at Murray, then at Gutierrez who stared back, his face immobile.
Vanessa Colburn stood and walked out of the Oval Office so fast she almost broke into a run. The door shut behind her. Silence hung in the air.
“What about Montoya’s weather report?” Gutierrez asked. “Any luck finding this invisible satellite?”
“Not yet,” Murray said. “But we’ve got a lot of resources focused on it, sir. We’re trying to extrapolate possible locations. We’re hopeful we can find something soon.”
Gutierrez nodded slowly. He’d asked about the satellite in almost a perfunctory manner.
Murray calmly waited. He’d done this dance before.
“Am I doing the right thing?” Gutierrez asked finally. His stony expression broke. Murray could see the pain, the indecisiveness on the man’s face. “Murray, tell me straight. You’ve been doing this for a long time, right?”
“Yes, Mister President.”
“Am I doing the right thing, letting that woman die?”
“I don’t decide right and wrong. You do, sir. I just give you the information to make decisions, then carry out those decisions.”
“I see. And does that gigantic line of bullshit help you sleep at night?”
“No sir,” Murray said. “But a Xanax or two sure as hell does.”
Gutierrez sank back in his chair. He drained the glass of scotch, then set it down so hard that one of the ice cubes shot out and skidded across the desk. Murray walked to the drink cart, grabbed the bottle of Macallan, then poured the president a double.
“If it’s any consolation, Mister President, it makes me very proud, and very hopeful, that this decision is so hard for you. I’ve served five presidents before you. For some of them, I watched decisions like this become… become easy.”
Gutierrez stared at Murray for a second, then raised the glass in a salute. “Thank you, Murray. Now go take care of this.”
“Yes, Mister President,” Murray said, and walked out.
BOXERCISE
Margaret paced in the computer room, which was tough to do considering she could only walk about five steps before she had to turn a 180. The PVC fabric on her legs zip-zipped as she walked. She was still wearing the suit, sans helmet, in order to save time when she had to go back in for surgery. Dew was already out of his. She’d never seen him in scrubs before.
Clarence walked into the control room.
“Did you reach Murray?” she asked. “Is it okay with him if we go ahead and save this woman’s life now?”
Clarence looked at Dew, then back at her.
“What’s the problem?” she asked. “Come on, guys, chop-chop. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Dew looked at the floor. Clarence’s face was a blank.
“You can’t operate,” Clarence said.
“What are you talking about? We’ve got everything we can get from her.”
“Not everything,” Clarence said. “Not yet.”
She stared at him for a moment. Understanding flared up, but part of her fought it down. She didn’t want to believe what she was hearing.
“You… Clarence, you can’t be serious. You don’t think we’re going to let those things hatch out of that woman, do you?”
“We have orders,” he said.
Clarence had known what Murray’s answer would be. That’s why he’d insisted they wait, delay the surgery. If he hadn’t fed her that bullshit about keeping people in the loop, she’d already have Bernadette Smith on the operating table.