"Nothing more in Zaire?"
"Nothing," Gus confirmed. "That one's over. It's a head-scratcher, Alex. Same disease turned up in two different places, two thousand miles apart, two cases each, two dead, one dying, one apparently recovering. MacGregor has initiated proper containment procedures at his hospital, and it sounds as though he knows his business." You could almost hear the shrug over the phone.
What the Secret Service guy had said over lunch was right on target, Alexandre thought. It was more detective work than medicine, and this one didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, like some sort of serial-murder case with no clues. Entertaining in book form, maybe, but not in reality.
"Okay, what do we know?"
"We know that Mayinga strain is alive and kicking. Visual inspection is identical. We're running some analysis on the proteins and sequences, but my gut says it's a one-to-one match."
"God damn, what's the host, Gus? If we could only find that!"
"Thank you for that observation, Doctor." Gus was annoyed—enraged—in the same way and for the same reason. But it was an old story for both of them. Well, the older man thought, it had taken a few thousand years to figure malaria out. They'd been playing with Ebola for only twenty-five or so. The bug had been around, probably, for at least that long, appearing and disappearing, just like a fictional serial killer. But Ebola didn't have a brain, didn't have a strategy, didn't even move of its own accord. It was super-adapted to something very limited and exceedingly narrow. But they didn't know what. "It's enough to drive a man to drink, isn't it?"
"I imagine a stiff shot of bourbon will kill it, too, Gus. I have patients to see."
"How do you like regular clinical rounds, Alex?" Lorenz missed them, too.
"Good to be a real doc again. I just wish my patients had a little more hope. But that's the job, ain't it?"
"I'll fax you data on the structural analysis on the samples if you want. The good news is that it seems pretty well contained," Lorenz repeated.
"I'd appreciate it. See ya, Gus." Alexandre hung up. Pretty well contained? That's what we thought before… But then his thoughts shifted, as they had to. White male patient, thirty-four, gay, resistant TB that came out of left field. How do we stabilize him? He lifted the chart and walked out of his office.
"SO I'M THE wrong guy to help with the court selections?" Pat Martin asked.
"Don't feel too bad," Arnie answered. "We're all the wrong guy for everything."
"Except you," the President noted with a smile.
"We all make errors of judgment," van Damm admitted. "I could have left with Bob Fowler, but Roger said he needed me to keep this shop running, and—"
"Yeah." Ryan nodded. "That's how I got here, too. So, Mr. Martin?"
"No laws were broken by any of this." He'd spent the last three hours going over the CIA files and Jack's dietated summary of the Colombian operations. Now one of his secretaries, Ellen Sumter, knew about some rather restricted things—but she was a. presidential secretary, and besides, Jack had gotten a smoke out of it. "At least not by you. Ritter and Moore could be brought up on failure to fully report their covert activities to the Congress, but their defense would be that the sitting President told them to do it that way, and the Special and Hazardous Operations guidelines appended to the oversight statute give them an arguable defense. I suppose I could get them indicted, but I wouldn't want to prosecute the case myself," he went on. "They were trying to work on the drug problem, and most jurors wouldn't want to hurt them for doing so, especially since the Medellin cartel came apart partly as a result. The real problem on that one is the international-relations angle. Colombia's going to be pissed, sir, and with very good reason. There are issues of international law and treaties which applied to the activity, but I'm not good enough in that field to render an opinion. From the domestic point of view, it's the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The President is Commander-in-Chief. The President decides what is or is not in the country's security interest as part of his executive powers. The President can, therefore, take whatever action he deems appropriate to protect those interests— that's what executive power means. The brake on that, aside from statutory violations that mainly apply inside the country, is found in the checks and balances exercised by the Congress. They can deny funds to prevent something, but that's about all. Even the War Powers Resolution is written in such a way as to let you act first before they try and stop you. You see, the Constitution is flexible on the really important issues. It's designed for reasonable people to work things out in a reasonable way. The elected representatives are supposed to know what the people want, and act accordingly, again, within reasonable limits."
The people who wrote the Constitution, Ryan wondered to himself, were they politicians or something else?
"And the rest?" the chief of staff asked.
"The CIA operations? Not even close to any sort of violation, but again the problem is one of politics. Speaking for myself—I used to run espionage investigations, remember— Mr. President, what beautiful jobs they were. But the media is going to have a ball," he warned.
Arnie thought that was a pretty good start. His third President didn't have to worry about going to jail. The political stuff came after that, which was, for him, a first of sorts.
"Closed hearings or open?" van Damm asked.
"That's political. The main issue there is the international side. Best to kick that one around with State. By the way, you've got me right against the edge here, ethically speaking. Had I discovered a possible violation against you in any of these three cases, I'd be unable to discuss them with you. As it is, my cover is to say that you, Mr. President, asked me for an opinion on the possible criminal violations of others, to which inquiry I must, as a federal official, respond as part of my official duties."
"You know, it would be nice if everybody around me didn't talk like a lawyer all the time," Ryan observed crossly. "I have real problems to deal with. A new country in the Middle East that doesn't like us, the Chinese making trouble at sea for reasons I don't understand, and I still don't have a Congress."
"This is a real problem," Arnie told him. Again.
"I can read." Ryan gestured to the pile of clippings on his desk. He'd just discovered that the media graced him with early drafts of adverse editorials scheduled to run the next day. How nice of them. "I used to think CIA was Alice in Wonderland. That's not even Triple-A ball. Okay, the Supreme Court. I've read over about half of the list. They're all good people. I'll have my selections this time next week."
"ABA is going to raise hell," Arnie said.
"Let 'em. I can't show weakness. I've learned that much last night. What's Kealty going to do?" the President asked next.
"The only thing he can do, weaken you politically, threaten you with scandal, and force you to resign." Arnie held his hand up again. "I'm not saying it makes sense."
"Damned little in this town does, Arnie. That's why I'm trying."
ONE CRUCIAL ELEMENT in the consolidation of the new country was, of course, its military. The former Republican Guards divisions would keep their identity. There had to be a few adjustments in the officer corps. The executions of previous weeks hadn't totally expunged undesirable elements, but in the interest of amity, the new eliminations were made into simple retirements—the departure briefings were forcefully direct: Step out of line and disappear. It was not a warning to be disregarded. The departing officers invariably nodded their submission, grateful to be allowed to live.
These units had mainly survived the Persian Gulf War—at least a majority of their personnel had, and the shock of their treatment at American hands had been assuaged by their later campaigns to crush rebellious civilian elements, replacing part of their swagger and much of their bravado. Their equipment had b^en replaced from stocks and other means, and that would soon be augmented as well.