He was out of water now.
“So now this radical step had to produce results. There was an early slip, too—much of the Wilderness Organism’s model-building was done in NDCC computers, and this was stumbled on by a brilliant doctor, Mark Spiegelman. When taps and monitors showed that he had, in fact, discovered the domestic origins, a minor flunky in the security apparatus at Fort Dietrick panicked and had the security men murder him. It was clumsy and needless, since part of the plot was to show that the thing was indeed of domestic origin. His real crime was that he had discovered the truth too soon; it’d been planted there for later, more carefully planned discovery.
“My own team was charged with solving the mystery. I was chosen because of my impeccable reputation, if I do say so myself, and my heart condition, which would prove a convenient out if I stumbled onto the wrong things or if I followed the script and retired. Now, using the handouts I got from the conspirators, I was to slowly crack the case. Plants I placed in the large body of radicals were spotted and allowed to pass, apparently undetected. They were even spread around, to make sure that I would get word on each team before it was to hit a major city. Of course, some casualties were to be anticipated, but most we got, and the communicability of the strains was kept low. We failed to get word on the Chicago and New Orleans teams, as you know, but seem to have only localized hits. Ten, twenty thousand people in Chicago, less than a third of that in New Orleans. We also almost missed the one for D.C., but got lucky. One assumes that the important people all had their shots, anyway.
“To take the blame, Dr. Sandra O’Connell and Dr. Joe Bede were put under drugs and placed under conditions where suicide would result. We rescued Dr. O’Connell, but not Bede. One assumes that there is now a list of the ‘ringleaders’ of this conspiracy, that a purge in government and elsewhere will turn these traitors up, and that these will include a large part of Congress and other agencies not under control. Using this as a guise, the Institute personnel will now totalitarianize the nation and hold it in their absolute grip for remolding. Only one thing stands in their way, though, and it’s formidible. It’s something that will have to be faced here and now, which is why I am here.”
He paused and looked around. “Can I have some more water, please?” he asked, holding out his glass. President Wainwright smiled, took the glass, personally refilled it, brought it back and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, drinking a bit.
“And what stands in the way of this conspiratorial group?” the President asked him. “If what you say is true, then it would seem that they’ve won.”
Jake Edelman looked up at them and smiled. “The friends of Mickey Mouse,” he said.
Most of them met with blank stares, but Attorney General Gaither and Admiral Leggits both looked up in surprise. Wainwright looked at them quizzically.
“An underground group,” Gaither explained. “Using the most elaborate codex device we’ve ever seen. We’ve identified a number of them, but the codexes are self-destructing and they’ve been deep-probed and conditioned, all of them. Dig deep enough and you turn their minds to garbage, but you don’t get any information.”
Wainwright was intrigued. “Why Mickey Mouse?” he asked.
“That’s what their leader sounds like over the phone,” Leggits put in. “I almost interrupted a conversation in the Pentagon. He was a good officer, too,” he added, a trace of sadness in his voice.
“And you are a friend of Mickey Mouse?” Wainwright asked Jake.
The Chief Inspector shook his head from side to side. “No, Mr. President, I am not. I am Mickey Mouse.”
There was an uproar. It took more than a minute to calm everybody down. Wainwright was still in command here, though, and still confident. After all, Edelman was here. Alone. But that very fact suggested that there were things still to know, things that would make him admit everything openly and sign his own death warrant.
“All right, Inspector, let’s play no more games,” Wainwright said. “What are you trying to tell us?”
Edelman reached into his case and brought out a blue spray can. It looked very much like the one on the front pages of all the newspapers—a spray aerosol can in baby blue.
“When we first discovered the truth, we created our organization, feeling that if one agency could use government and bureaucracy, then so could the other. Most Americans, even those in positions of relative power, find the current emergency abhorrent. When shown evidence of this conspiracy, they are only too willing to help fight it. My team raided Camp Liberty a week ago, several days ahead of your anonymous tip. We also raided the NDCC bunkers, and we have made a lot of changes at Dugway Proving Grounds, and moved a lot of stuff. Further, loyal researchers at NDCC and NIH have been working on a problem for me for a month, since before I even guessed the scope and breadth of this thing. Ever since I discovered the computer models for the Wilderness Organism, from the day of O’Connell’s and Bede’s kidnap. We worked on it, discovering just exactly the correct sort of radiation necessary to make the Wilderness Organism cultures mutate slightly. And what do you know? They found not only the mutating method, but at the same time the simple, quick treatment killed the bacteriophage! We then wiped the Wilderness Organism clean out of the computers, to avoid making your mistake.”
H W Secretary Meekins was the first to see it, and she was appalled. “You mean that current strains won’t disappear in a day? They’ll continue to live and multiply?”
Edelman nodded. “And they’ll be mutated, beyond the vaccine’s effectiveness. There will be no defense. Oh, don’t worry. It won’t destroy the world, I’m assured. There is sufficient radiation from the sun alone to mutate it into harmlessness in a matter of a few days. But, I think, a few hundred strategic releases all over the country will be sufficient to eliminate most human life in North America.”
Again they were in an uproar. Wainwright’s eyes kept going to the blue cannister in Jake’s hand. “That can—that is the new stuff?” he asked nervously.
Edelman felt much better. That question was what he’d waited for.
“Yes, it is. This is the stuff that makes you feeble-minded,” he told them cheerfully. “Washington wouldn’t even notice. This spray can alone is sufficient to, say, infect the entire White House area if I push the little wax-sealed plunger here. See?”
Many were on their feet now. The Secretary of State started for him, angry and panicked, but was stopped by two of his fellows.
When they’d calmed down again, Jake continued. “The friends of Mickey Mouse have the cylinders.
I don’t even know who they are, nor does anybody know them all. We’ve all been deep-probed and blocked, so I haven’t any idea how anybody would know. We voted on it—you remember voting, don’t you? We decided that we’d rather have death for us and our children than live under your new order. Man will survive. But we won’t. And you won’t. And if I don’t walk out of here, at the proper time, they will know your answer.”
Wainwright was shaken, as were the others. None of them could take their eyes off the small blue can in Jake Edelman’s hand.
“And you expect us to surrender, to expose ourselves?” Wainwright said. “Hell, man, you might as well push that button. We’re dead anyway.”
Now it was Jake Edelman’s turn to smile. “No, sir, I do not. What I propose is a simple compromise, the art of political expediency. We have the names of all the Institute personnel. It was simple, once we cracked your computer code. We will be watching you. But—here is what I propose you do. I propose you change that speech of yours for tomorrow. I propose that, instead, you outline the plot exactly as you were going to—use the same scapegoats you intended to, except keep it to the dead and those quickly silenced. Then announce that the plot has been completely and thoroughly broken. Democracy is saved, freedom is restored. Slowly you will lift the state of emergency, and all constitutional guarantees are back in force right now. The computer ID system will be phased out. Military controls will be lifted. Slowly, the country will return to normal. Tell the people that Abraham Lincoln suspended constitutional guarantees during the Civil War, and instituted military government to save the nation, as you have. He then ended those measures; now you will, too. Slowly, over the next year, the majority of you in this room will retire or leave for better opportunities. After all, Mr. President, you’re nearing the end of your second term. It’s natural. You’ll retire a hero, an elder statesman. They’ll sing songs and write epic plays about you.