Esposito looked back at his desk phone. The line that had been blinking cut off for two seconds, then started to blink again. The doctor picked up the receiver and punched the button.
“It’s positive,” Matty said.
Esposito could almost see the hope drain from his colleagues’ faces. His own face, though, remained neutral, a part of him having accepted the fact he’d come down with SF-B.
“What about my test?” Carol asked.
Paige checked her results. “Also positive.”
Carol collapsed into her chair. “Oh, God.”
That seemed to be the trigger everyone was waiting for as panicked conversations broke out all over the room. Before Esposito could do anything about it, his phone rang.
He picked it up. “What?”
“The results?” Wayne Kovacs asked.
“Positive.”
“Just you or both?”
“Both.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Would it have been better if it were just me?”
“That’s not what I meant,” the assistant director said. “Michael, we can’t let you out of there.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I locked us down?” He hung up.
For a few seconds, he seriously considered giving up and letting everyone do what they wanted. But he couldn’t. This was bigger than the people gathered in the room with him, whether they were infected or not.
He raised his hands. “Everybody, quiet.”
No one seemed to hear him.
“Hey!” he shouted, and let out a shrill whistle. “Quiet!”
That did the trick.
“We have two choices,” he said.
“Die or die?” someone suggested.
“We don’t know if we’re all going to die.”
“Ninety-nine percent mortality rate,” Norman Chu shot back.
“That was the first wave of SF-A,” Esposito said. “We don’t know if SF-B will behave the same.”
“So it could be even higher,” Chu said.
“Or lower,” Esposito said. “The thing is, there’s a chance one or more of us will be able to walk out of this room when this is all over. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
An uneasy quiet fell over the room, everyone staring at him.
“We can feel sorry for ourselves until this is over, or we could try to get some work done, and make some progress for those who’ll be taking on the task after us. Maybe even take advantage of our situation. We’re all test subjects now.” He paused. “You can each choose what you want to do, but I’m going to work.”
The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds. Then Ralph said, “We should run tests on everyone right away. Establish a baseline of those infected and not infected. Then we pull blood every half hour so we can chart progress.”
“Excellent idea. So I take it you’re with me.”
Ralph looked around at his peers and nodded.
“I’m with you, too,” Cindy said.
“Me, too,” Paige announced.
By the time they finished going around the room, everyone, even Norman Chu, had agreed to continue.
“Keep detailed notes,” Esposito said, once they’d divided up the work. “Clear, understandable notes. Assume you’ll never be able to speak to whoever will use them. If any of you have something you want to run by the group, shout it out. Anything else?”
No one said anything.
“Let’s get to work.”
As he sat back down, he absently moved the box from Dearing Laboratories — a fictitious name used by the Resistance — onto the shelf behind his desk to get it out of his way, never knowing that three vials of the vaccine they were trying to create were inside.
“That’s confirmed?…Then have them run it again!..Yes, again…Call me as soon as you have the results.” The director of the CDC hung up the phone.
The others gathered around the table — the president’s chief of staff; his national security advisor; the attorney general; and the secretaries of Homeland Security, Defense, and Health and Human Services — were all staring at him, waiting. Like him, they were all wearing surgical masks.
“The preliminary test is positive,” the director said.
The secretary of defense blanched. “Good God.”
“I’ve ordered a second test to be sure. I’m told that only two people in the lab are experiencing symptoms, and even those are mild at this point.”
“What’s the chance the first test could be wrong?” Dale Gilford, the president’s chief of staff, asked.
The director hesitated. “It’s unclear. The test was developed based on the original strain of Sage Flu, and even then it would occasionally misidentify a case of everyday flu as Sage.”
“Give me a number.”
The director didn’t answer right away. He looked uncomfortable, as if he’d been backed into a corner. Finally he shrugged. “Ten percent.”
“Ten percent that it’s wrong.”
“Yes.”
Gilford stood up. “I’m having the president moved to Camp David.”
One of those who’d tested positive was Dr. Michael Esposito, who’d been sitting in this very room a little over twelve hours before. Even more troubling, he’d had an in-person briefing with the president. If Esposito was showing signs now, that must mean he’d already been infected or perhaps became infected while he was in Washington.
Which meant the virus had entered the White House.
“Maybe he should be flown directly to Lark River,” the secretary of Homeland Security suggested.
Lark River was the code name for a secret underground facility not far outside the capital where the president could stay for months, protected from the world outside.
“I’ll suggest it,” Gilford said. “But he won’t go for it. Not unless there’s no choice.”
“Gil,” the national security advisor said. “There may be no choice. This thing is spreading. Fast.”
Gilford acknowledged the advisor with a solemn nod and walked out of the room. While the head of the NSA was right, Gilford knew his boss. The president would feel like he was running away if he went to Lark River. He would want to stay someplace more visible to the American public. Even Camp David was going to be a fight.
As he walked through the West Wing, he saw a group of staffers huddled together, talking. When they spotted him, their conversation ceased, and all eyes turned to the chief of staff. He passed by, grim-faced, but said nothing.
Eva Bennett, the president’s secretary, looked up as Gilford approached her desk. Standing beside the doorway to the Oval Office was one of the president’s secret service agents.
“He’s talking to the British PM right now,” Ms. Bennett said. “He should be off in a minute or two.”
“He needs to be off now,” Gilford said. “We need to initiate Rollout.”
Immediately, the secret service agent raised his cuff to his mouth and relayed the order. Within seconds, his associates would be preparing for the president’s departure.
Ms. Bennett had always been a rock, no matter what crisis they’d faced in the past. But for the first time ever, Gilford saw fear in her eyes.
“We’ll leave as soon as he’s ready,” he said as he opened the door to the Oval Office.
The president was sitting behind the Resolute desk, his chair swiveled so that his back was to the door. Holding the phone to his ear, he looked over his shoulder and gave Gilford a nod of acknowledgment.
“We need to talk. Now,” Gilford said, keeping his voice low so that the prime minister wouldn’t hear him.