Then, Blackmon had asked everyone to leave. Everyone except Murray.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been alone with a president. Going on four decades, now, Murray had been summoned to this office to discuss things that could have no record of being discussed.
Blackmon had her left leg crossed over her right, the hem of her stiff dress suit perfectly positioned over her left knee. In her lap, she had an open folder. Blackmon preferred paper over electronics whenever it was convenient — one of the few things about her that Murray found admirable.
She shut the folder and looked up at him. “The first delivery of inoculant will be here tomorrow afternoon. Deliveries to military facilities will start arriving tomorrow night, and it will take a week before we reach them all. The first civilian deliveries are scheduled to arrive in major cities two days from now. I’m burning every last scrap of political capital I have on this, Director Longworth, so I have to put you on the spot — I want to know what Cheng saw when he tested it on his crawlers.”
Now Murray understood the reason for the one-on-one meeting. In the wake of the Los Angeles’s attack, Murray had given Captain Yasaka a clear order — send Tim Feely down to the lab to process the bodies and have him package tissue samples to be sent to Black Manitou. Feely had been in such a rush that he’d only prepared samples from Petrovsky; an unfortunate choice, considering Margaret’s insistence that Walker’s hydras might be humanity’s final solution.
The end result: crawlers had escaped the task force, because Murray had orchestrated it.
The transport had been risky, of course, but had gone off without a hitch. Cheng’s team had a brain-dead woman on Black Manitou Island, which they were using to cultivate the crawlers for research and testing. Crawlers and test subjects alike were locked down in conditions that made BSL-4 precautions look about as difficult to pass through as airport security. Cheng and his team were just as sequestered on their island as Margaret, Clarence and Feely were on the Coronado.
Murray could count the people who knew about the Black Manitou crawlers on two hands — and leave three fingers to spare. And that number included the president and himself. Murray hadn’t even told Margaret. Apparently, neither had Feely: something the man seemed to think was a favor to Murray. Feely had called in that imaginary marker during the argument with Cheng over who got to name the yeast. Murray could give a wet shit about the name of the damn stuff, so Feely got what he wanted. Besides, that had pissed off Cheng, and Murray hated Cheng.
“Doctor Cheng tested the inoculant directly on the crawlers harvested from Charles Petrovsky’s corpse,” Murray said. “The substance dissolved the crawlers with one hundred percent efficiency. However, his team euthanized the subject and performed an autopsy — the inoculant had no effect on removing the infection from her brain. As Montoya and Feely predicted, once the infection reaches the brain, it’s too late.”
“So it’s not a cure, and we still don’t know if it prevents infection,” Blackmon said. “Can we test it on lab animals? See if it really does inoculate them?”
Murray shook his head. “The crawlers only survive in humans, Madam President. We don’t know why. They don’t even survive in primates.”
Blackmon nodded. She fell silent, stared off.
Murray waited. He already knew what she was going to ask.
She looked at him. “The SEALs on the Coronado took the inoculant yesterday, did they not?”
Murray nodded.
Blackmon sighed. Murray had seen that before, too — a leader’s reluctant acceptance that he or she had to put someone directly in the line of fire.
“We need a volunteer,” she said. “Get one of those SEALs to Black Manitou, inject him with the crawlers. We have to know for sure if this actually works.”
She wasn’t fucking around. But to directly expose a serviceman to that risk… the soldier Murray had once been bristled at the thought.
“Madam President, we have a little time to keep testing the—”
“Now, Director Longworth. We’ve already turned a huge sector of our economy over to making the inoculant. If it doesn’t work, then we have to put all resources behind Doctor Montoya’s hydra theory.”
Murray nodded again. The president was right, of course — protecting a single soldier wasn’t worth the wait. Four sunken navy ships and over a thousand dead sailors were ample enough evidence for that.
“I’ll take care of it, Madam President.”
“Thank you, Director Longworth.”
He’d been dismissed. He left the Oval Office.
The president had given him an order. Maybe one of Klimas’s men would actually volunteer. Knowing those crazy-ass SEALs, they probably all would.
Murray hoped the inoculation worked.
Hell, for once, he’d even pray.
THE HANGOVER
Steve Stanton threw up. Again. At least this time he’d made it to the toilet.
When his stomach finally relaxed, he slumped down on his butt. He wondered how much dried urine from hotel residents past he was now sitting in.
It wasn’t the first time he’d gone drinking, but he’d never partied that hard before. Now, he was paying the price.
His head pounded so bad it hurt to move. His throat felt sore. His body ached.
Becky had left a few hours earlier. Sometime around noon, if he remembered correctly. What a night.
He, Steve Stanton, had gone out to a bar, met a girl and got laid. He could hardly believe it.
But now, oh, man… his head.
He had to stand up, then make his way back to bed. He’d sleep the day away, or at least try to.
Tomorrow, maybe, he’d feel better.
THE HANGOVER, PART II
Cooper took the wet washcloth off his forehead, flipped it, then gently set it back in place, sighing as he felt the fabric’s coolness against his skin.
He was getting too old for this shit. He was certainly old enough, experienced enough, to know what awaited him at the business end of ten beers and six shots.
Cooper glanced at the room’s other bed. It held one occupant: the waitress from Monk’s. He didn’t remember Jeff bringing her back with them, nor did he remember hearing anything during the night. He didn’t remember seeing her when he’d stumbled to the bathroom for the washcloth. How far gone did he have to be to not know his best friend was tagging a hot waitress just a few feet away?
A loud, sawing snoring sound came from the foot of the beds, by the TV on the dresser. Cooper slowly lifted himself up on his elbows. There was Jeff, buck naked, lying on the floor on top of his jeans and AC/DC shirt.
“Strong work,” Cooper said.
He lay back and closed his eyes, tried to manage his throbbing head. It hurt to swallow. Had he been screaming all night? He wasn’t sure, because he couldn’t really remember anything after that sixth beer.
Yes, he was old enough to know better. After he slept this one off, he’d make changes. Sure, he’d promised himself the same thing a hundred times before, but this time would be different.
THE COOL KIDS
Maybe Tim wasn’t so unlucky after all.
He’d worked on Black Manitou long before it had been a government-owned facility. That had been his first job out of college, working for a civilian biotech company engaged in questionable research. That research had gone south: people had died in horrible ways. He’d almost died himself.