THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT official took a whole day to arrive, doubtless delayed, Dr. MacGregor suspected, by a pile of paperwork on his desk, a fine dinner, and a night with whatever woman spiced up his daily life. And probably the paperwork was still there on his desk, the Scot told himself.
At least he knew about the proper precautions. The government doctor barely entered the room at all—he had to come an additional, reluctant step so that the door could be closed behind him, but moved no farther than that, standing there, his head tilting and his eyes squinting, the better to observe the patient from two meters away. The lights in the room were turned down so as not to hurt Saleh's eyes. Despite that the discoloration of his skin was obvious. The two hanging units of type-O blood and the morphine drip told the rest, along with the chart, which the government official held in his gloved, trembling hands.
"The antibody tests?" he asked quietly, summoning his official dignity.
"Positive," MacGregor told him.
The first documented Ebola outbreak—no one knew how far back the disease went, how many jungle villages it might have exterminated a hundred years earlier, for example—had gone through the nearest hospital's staff with frightening speed, to the point that the medical personnel had left the facility in panic. And that, perversely, had helped end the outbreak more rapidly than continued treatment might have done—the victims died, and nobody got close enough to them to catch what they had. African medics now knew what precautions to take. Everyone was masked and gloved, and disinfection procedures were ruthlessly enforced. As casual and careless as many African personnel often were, this was one lesson they'd taken to heart, and with that feeling of safety established, they, like medical personnel all over the world, did the best they could.
For this patient, that was very little use. The chart showed that, too.
"From Iraq?" the official asked.
Dr. MacGregor nodded. "That is what he told me."
"I must check on that with the proper authorities."
"Doctor, I have a report to make," MacGregor insisted. "This is a possible outbreak and—"
"No." The official shook his head. "Not until we know more. When we make a report, if we do, we must forward all of the necessary information for the alert to be useful."
"But—"
"But this is my responsibility, and it is my duty to see that the responsibility is properly executed." He pointed the chart to the patient. His hand wasn't shaking now that he had established his power over the case. "Does he have a family? Who can tell us more about him?"
"I don't know."
"Let me check that out," the government doctor said. "Have your people make copies of all records and send them to me at once." With a stern order given, the health department representative felt as though he had done his duty to his profession and his country.
MacGregor nodded his submission. Moments like this made him hate Africa. His country had been here for more than a century. A fellow Scot named Gordon had come to the Sudan, fallen in love with it—was the man mad? MacGregor wondered—and died right in this city 120 years earlier. Then the Sudan had become a British protectorate. A regiment of infantry had been raised from this country, and that regiment had fought bravely and well under British officers. But then Sudan had been returned to the Sudanese—too quickly, without the thne and money spent to create the institutional infrastructure to turn a tribal wasteland into a viable nation. The same story had been told in the same way all over the continent, and the people of Africa were still paying the price for that disservice. It was one more thing neither he nor any other European could speak aloud except with one another—and sometimes not even then—for fear of being called a racist. But if he were a racist, then why had he come here?
"You will have them in two hours."
"Very well." The official walked out the door. There the head nurse for the unit would take him to the disinfection area, and for that the official would follow orders like a child under the eye of a stern mother.
PAT MARTIN CAME in with a well-stuffed briefcase, from which he took fourteen folders, laddering them across the coffee table in alphabetical order. Actually they were labeled A to M, because President Ryan had specifically asked that he not know the names at first.
"You know, I'd feel a lot better if you hadn't given me all this power," Martin said without looking up.
"Why's that?" Jack asked.
"I'm just a prosecutor, Mr. President. A pretty good one, sure, and now I run the Criminal Division, and that's nice, too, but I'm only—"
"How do you think I feel?" Ryan demanded, then softened his voice. "Nobody since Washington has been stuck with this job, and what makes you think I know what I'm supposed to be doing? Hell, I'm not even a lawyer to understand all this stuff without a crib sheet."
Martin looked up with half a smile. "Okay, I deserved that."
But Ryan had set the criteria. Before him was a roster of the senior federal judiciary. Each of the fourteen folders gave the professional history of a judge in the United States Court of Appeals, ranging from one in Boston to another in Seattle. The President had ordered Martin and his people to select judges of no less than ten years' experience, with no less than fifty important written decisions (as distinguished from routine matters like which side won in a liability case), none of which had been overturned by the Supreme Court—or if one or two had been overturned, had been vindicated by a later reversal in Washington.
"This is a good bunch," Martin said.
"Death penalty?"
"The Constitution specifically provides for that, remember. Fifth Amendment," Martin quoted from memory: " 'Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. So with due process, you can take a person's life, but you can only try him once for it. The Court established the criteria for that in a number of cases in the 70s and 80s—guilt'trial followed by penalty trial, with the penalty phase dependent upon 'special' circumstances. All of these judges have upheld that rule—with a few exceptions. D here struck down a Mississippi case on the basis of mental incompetence. That was a good call, even though the crime was pretty gruesome—the Supreme Court affirmed it without comment or hearing. Sir, the problem with the system is one that nobody can really fix. It's just the nature of law. A lot of legal principles are based on decisions from unusual cases. There's a dictum that hard cases make for bad law. Like that case in England, remember? Two little kids murder a younger kid. What the hell is a judge supposed to do when the defendants are eight years old, definitely guilty of a brutal murder, but only eight years old? What you do then is, you pray some other judge gets stuck with it. Somehow we all try to make cohesive legal doctrine out of that. It's not really possible, but we do it anyway."
"I figure you picked tough ones, Pat. Did you pick fair ones?" the President asked.