“You do,” Skylar snapped as she stepped forward, “and I’ll kill you, Mr. Baxter. And you know I mean it.”
By seven p.m. President Dorn was so sick he had to be transported by ambulance from the White House to the ICU at Walter Reed. Despite his rising fever, he was hoping to see Shannon to give her encouragement.
But Shannon was already gone. The Ebola virus had taken her life an hour before.
Jack stared through the thick glass at Karen, who lay unconscious on the hospital bed, quarantined. She had been injected with the Ebola virus shortly before being rescued, but was not expected to live.
He bowed his head until it came to rest on the glass. If she died, it would all be on his shoulders — which made everything even worse, if that were possible.
His cell phone rang, and he pulled it slowly from his pocket. Troy was calling. At least one of them was doing better.
“Hello, Jack,” Troy whispered.
Jack took Troy’s hand as he reached the bedside. “Hello, brother.” Troy and Karen were being treated in the same hospital in Washington. Jack had simply needed to take the elevator up two floors to get to Troy’s room. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” Troy smiled weakly. “I’m going in for more surgery tonight, but they say I’m going to make it.”
“You’re indestructible. You always were.”
“I don’t know about that,” Troy said softly, “not anymore, anyway.” He glanced up. “How’s Dad?”
“Still in intensive care,” Jack answered. “You were right. Maddux knifed him in the neck. He’s lost a lot of blood. It’s still touch and go. The doctors are saying fifty-fifty, but I think they always exaggerate to the good.”
“What about Baxter?” Troy motioned deliberately at the TV on the wall. “He’s in jail, right?”
“Yes, as an accessory to Chief Justice Bolger’s murder.”
“What about President Dorn?”
“They took him to Walter Reed thirty minutes ago. It looks like he’s contracted the Ebola virus as well, though you won’t hear about it on television. The administration is keeping that very quiet, for national defense reasons, of course.”
“Of course.” Troy took a deep, troubled breath. “What about Karen?”
Jack’s lower lip trembled involuntarily as waves of emotion welled up inside him. “It doesn’t look good, Troy.” He forced back the tears. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Troy suddenly seemed upset. “You okay? You need a nurse?”
Troy shook his head. “I have to tell you something.”
“My God, what is it?” Tears were suddenly falling down Troy’s cheeks. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother cry. “What’s happening?”
“I had to tell you this face-to-face, man-to-man, and maybe most important, brother to brother. You are my brother, Jack. More than that, my God, you’re the person I’m closest to in the world.”
Jack stared at Troy so hard everything else in the room faded to nothing. “What the hell?” he whispered, as the pounding of blood in his head became so hard his vision blurred with his heartbeat. “What’s going on?”
Troy held up the vial. “Someone gave me this,” he explained with a shaking voice. “It’s an antidote to the Ebola virus. It is enough to save only one person. Daniel Gadanz sent it to me to put me in hell.”
“Give it to me, Troy!” Jack shouted. “Give it to me right now so I can save Karen!”
“I can’t, Jack,” Troy gasped. “I have to save the president. I took an oath.”
“You cannot be serious.”
Troy coughed hard several times. “I’m absolutely serious. I’m sorry, Jack. I had to tell you this face-to-face. I owed you that.”
Jack lunged for the vial. “Give me that vial.”
“Nurse,” Troy yelled as loudly as he could. “Nurse, help me!”
CHAPTER 40
Chief Justice Henry Espinosa relaxed in a wingback chair of his office at the Supreme Court, waiting patiently.
Two hours ago his office had been swept for listening devices by members of the Secret Service, and they’d determined it to be pristine.
One hour ago the office had been swept by an electronics expert Espinosa had known personally for years and trusted completely. As he’d watched, the man had found and disconnected three tiny listening devices.
The knock on his office door was firm and authoritative.
Espinosa rose from the chair and moved across the thick rug. “Hello, Stephen,” he said politely as he opened the heavy door. He was still wondering when those devices had been planted and why the official experts hadn’t found them — or if they were the ones who’d planted them. “Please come in.”
Stephen Hudson had been David Dorn’s vice president. In less than an hour Hudson would be inaugurated and become the country’s forty-fifth president.
Dorn and Hudson had never been close, Espinosa knew. The ticket had been arranged by party leaders purely for political purposes, purely to garner votes. Hudson was a fair-haired senator from California who didn’t even get along with Dorn, but he’d served his purpose. He’d guaranteed the state’s truckload of fifty-five electoral votes for Dorn — and sealed the election.
Then, for all intents and purposes, Dorn had cut Hudson loose. Since the election, they’d met only four times, and Hudson had become little more than a figurehead. He’d tried to lead several high-profile employment initiatives, but he’d gotten no support from the White House, and the initiatives had withered on the vine before ever getting traction.
For the last year Hudson had accepted his situation and eased all the way into the background. But his role was about to change dramatically, and Espinosa was about to initiate the change.
“I won’t be calling you Stephen much longer,” Espinosa said with a smile when they were seated, facing each other. “Very soon it will be Mr. President.”
Hudson’s eyes gleamed. “Sometimes life works in strange ways, Henry.” He leaned forward. “Now tell me why I’m in here meeting with you alone when I’m being inaugurated by you in forty minutes.”
Espinosa leaned forward as well. Typically it would have been the outgoing president and his chief of staff who would have called this meeting just prior to the inauguration. But that wasn’t possible this time.
“I need to tell you about one of the most tightly held secrets of the office you are about to take over,” Espinosa explained in a hushed voice. “I need to tell you about Red Cell Seven.”
CHAPTER 41
Jack grinned from ear to ear as he rushed into the private room of the New York City hospital.
Bill smiled back weakly from the bed. He’d finally awakened from his coma forty minutes ago.
“I love you, Dad,” Jack mumbled as he leaned down to gently hug his father, while Cheryl looked on with a huge smile of her own.
Bill had lost a tremendous amount of blood, but he was finally out of the woods. Despite his age, Bill Jensen remained a very tough man.
“I love you, too, son,” Bill murmured, tears coming to his eyes as Jack pulled back from their embrace. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a hero. Your mother’s been telling me everything.”
“Skylar McCoy was the hero.”
“Don’t do that. She was a hero, definitely. But this country owes you a huge debt of gratitude as well. I’m very proud of you, son.”
“Thanks.” It was amazing to finally hear those words come from his father’s mouth. It seemed as if he’d been waiting a lifetime.