No, I want to know what happened back there.
You didn’t listen to me and nearly got yourself killed.
I know that part, where did you come from. You were fifty miles away, how did get to me?
My Jeep was fifty miles away; I was only a few miles away, and if you had done what I asked, you would have driven right past me. Phil suddenly saw through Amanda’s eyes as she sat alone in the dark desert, waiting first for him and then for Reisch. Frustration, concern, and anger filling her mind as he turned the police cruiser around and closed on Reisch. I almost didn’t make it. If you hadn’t shorted out your engine you’d be dead now.
God watches out for fools and idiots, he thought, trying to fight the narcotic fog. What did you do to him? The memory of Reisch’s head exploding replayed in Phil’s mind.
Very dramatic, she said, sharing the memory.
Phil was suddenly Amanda again and they were running up a dark and wet highway. From the top of a small hill, he watched as his body flipped through the air crashing into the fence, and then the memory froze and dissipated. Hey, we were just getting to the interesting part.
You don’t see the rest until you’re ready, Phil.
Chapter 61
Emil St. Clair closed the first edition volume of Dickinson and waited for the intruder to come into the light. “I guess I won’t be finishing this tonight,” he said as the man dressed in black stepped between him and the fireplace.
“You failed, Monsieur St. Clair. More than that, you were exposed.” The accent was European, but the language was English.
“Yes, I agree with you on both accounts. Did you find the vials?”
“I have them. Perhaps you should have hidden them a little better.”
“I doubt that it would have made any difference. Still, I have appreciated the extra time.”
“We are not barbarian, just businessmen, ” the dark man said and fired two silenced rounds.
* * *
“So they just dropped him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the name David Moncrief pinned to his jacket?” the president asked Kyle Stanley.
“Yes,” Stanley answered. It was a rather ignominious end to the life of the former French ambassador to Spain.
“I met St. Clair once. He was short and pompous.” The president didn’t add the word rich; it was an uncomfortable fact that St. Clair had been a financial supporter of his first presidential race. “Do we know any more about him and his seven friends?”
The Cabinet members only stared back at the president, and it was the director of the FBI who answered. “If I may, sir?” Stanley asked the attorney general. “Very little. We have made a formal request to the Russians to interview Igor Nachesha, but it seems that he has disappeared.”
“So this Group of Eight may be recruiting more than one new member,” the president said. “What do a French diplomat and a Russian oil baron stand to gain by attacking the United States?” He silently polled the room, but no one had an answer they wanted to share. “I’m guessing we will continue to try and answer that question?” All the heads in the room began to nod.
“Well, for now it’s over. This Reisch fellow is a red spot on a New Mexican road, and we have the virus and vaccine. There are no more new chapters or twists that are going to keep me awake at night, are there? ” He asked his advisors.
Once again the Cabinet remained quiet, and it was left to General McDaniels to answer, “Yes, it’s over.”
“Eight dead in L.A., 636 in Seattle, and God save us, more than nineteen thousand in Colorado.” The president dropped the report on his desk. “Christ, we’ve had shooting wars with fewer casualties.”
“It could have been a lot worse,” the secretary of health added.
“A lot worse,” Kyle Stanley whispered to himself.
“So how does this cure cancer?” the president asked the secretary.
“Not all cancers, and not even in everyone. Most leukemia, maybe lymphoma and a few others, but not all. Its biggest impact is going to be on stroke and spinal cord injury. If we can eliminate the lethal aspects of the Colorado Springs virus, we probably will be able to treat, maybe even cure them.”
“That is really good news; I’ll bet Dr. Avanti never dreamed that he would be extending human life instead of extinguishing it.” For a moment, he smiled. ”We still have an issue, though, don’t we?” The president’s Cabinet allowed him to take the lead; it was usually the vice president who led the weekly meeting. “A security risk that no one, not even the framers of the Constitution, could have anticipated.”
The attorney general and the president’s national security advisor exchanged a glance
“Any idea how many of. . I don’t even know what to call them?” The president panned the room for suggestions.
“Dr. Rucker said that the German called them the ‘Evolved’ and the ‘Chosen,’” Kyle Stanley answered.
“So by extension, we are not evolved and have been excluded. I think we should find another term.” Everyone in the room nodded their heads. ”I guess we can figure that one out later. Any estimate on their total number?”
The secretary of health opened up his presidential briefing folder. “We think that this change will occur in about one in four who survived the Colorado Springs virus and in all those who survived the original EDH1 virus.” He turned several pages. “The population of Colorado Springs is about four hundred thousand. About half developed a clinical infection, so that means roughly fifty thousand.
“In Los Angeles and Seattle just under thirty thousand people were infected with the EDH1 virus; most will survive and probably change as well.”
“Somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty thousand potential weapons of mass destruction,” the president summed up. The seven men shared a thoughtful and solemn moment. “So how do we control them?”
* * *
Nathan Martin was busy typing away at his computer. He had enough information about the Hybrid virus, or EDH1, he still hadn’t decided what to call it, to fill a computer hard drive. He could spend an entire career dissecting the nano-sized virus and eventually unlock the answers that had eluded him his entire professional life. Adam Sabritas would ultimately finish the work that he had started. When the young man had become as old as Nathan was, he would probably be awarded the Nobel Prize for the discoveries that would come in time. It was ironic that they had Jaime Avanti’s warped vision of humanity to thank for it. It was also an uncomfortable fact that Nathan didn’t think that Jaime was all that far from the truth.
“You have to be kidding me. Not again!” His secretary shouted loud enough to pull Nathan out of his thoughts. “Oh, General,” a suddenly very different Martha Hays said.
Martin stood, leaned to peek out his door, and found the ever-silent Captain Winston standing next to a large uniformed officer. He listened as General McDaniels thanked his secretary for her work and insight over the past month.
“Is he in?” the general asked politely.
“Of course sir, go right in,” Martha said, obviously forgetting for whom she worked.
McDaniels walked into Martin’s office. “Make yourself at home,” Nathan said, still standing at his desk, which was covered by hundreds of files and articles. “We’ve been hard at it,” he answered McDaniels’s gaze at his desk.
“I was on my way to Chicago and I thought I would stop in and say hello.”