“How can you put a price on something like this,” Rod said, marveling at the trophy even more.
“You know, if you like it that much, you can borrow it and put it over the fireplace.”
Out of the corner of his eye Bill saw “the look” again. He knew it was because Janice wanted them over by the new couch. Mostly because she liked the way, from the new seating area, the living room windows looked out upon the sun setting on the lake at this time of day.
“Judy, would never let me do that, unless you can convince her somehow that it’s Chinese modern.”
That little man-to-man admission made Bill wonder if a surgeon being married to the Surgeon General caused a problem. Could Judy pull rank and order her husband around? And was he duty bound to follow her directives? Clean the windows, drive my mother to the store, book a trip to Hawaii. Nah, no surgeon ever got henpecked.
“Bill, will you get the cognac and the glasses from the cabinet?” came the order from Bill’s “general.”
As Bill poured the cognac into the decanter, Judy couldn’t help but comment, “Janice, I have to know, did you use a decorator? I love the way this room just flows. That chair is perfect, and situating this area to take full advantage of this breathtaking view… all of it, really comfortable, yet beautifully done.”
Janice was beaming and gave the slightest of looks to Bill when Judy mentioned “her view.” “I am so glad you like it. I pretty much just start with some ideas that I get from magazines and then add a few touches.”
After several minutes discussing home decorating, remodeling and Chinese modern motif, Judy opened a new conversation. “There could be a shortage of flu vaccine this season.”
“How could something like that happen?”
“How all bad things happen, Bill — politics.”
“I think I am going to enjoy this,” Janice said swirling the contents of the decanter.
“There won’t be a final opinion until Monday,” Judy continued, “but preliminary reports indicate that our British supplier may have been sending us contaminated batches.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Could be shoddy adherence to quality control.”
“Or sabotage.” Rod added.
Bill glanced over at Rod. “Why would you say that?”
“I know that company; they took over a plant in Liverpool that had some problems in the past, but they revamped the management, kicked out the dead wood, and were doing well for almost a year. This could have been the work of some disgruntled employee they cut when they took over.”
Judy shook her head in frustration. “In any event, these production issues could render half of our vaccines useless.”
“Half?” Bill said.
“It will take six months to test all known shipments of this vaccine. That will freeze half our inventory and put us well past this year’s flu season.”
“And how does England play into keeping America healthy?”
“Better living through geo-politics. It seems we needed to send more trade to England, so a whole handful of stuff that the U.S. made was suddenly outsourced to the U.K.”
“For England’s support for the war in Iraq, I bet?” Janice said.
“That didn’t hurt, but this policy can be traced back to the 90’s. Anyway, if the British supply is tainted, then millions of Americans will be unprotected this year. I had some preliminary projections run and it could mean 25,000 more deaths in the high-risk groups.”
Bill shook his head. “I still can’t believe we don’t make enough vaccines here.”
“We used to make enough, but over-regulation and pork barrel Congressional hooey left the U.S. high and dry and the drug companies became reluctant to do risky cost-plus contracts with the government without protection from litigation.”
“Add to that Congress, being full of lawyers and ‘wanna-be’ lawyers, launching liability insurance into orbit for any company that still wanted to produce drugs in this country,” injected Janice who had felt the sting of prohibitive malpractice rates in her own profession.
“How long would it take to retool another source?” Hiccock asked.
“Retooling is what Detroit does,” Rod said. “It takes the Motor City seven years to change a design. The drug industry isn’t even close to that. It takes twenty years to bring a new drug to market.” Rod finished his Pinot Grigio, got up, and walked over to the dry bar. “Can I refresh yours, Bill?”
“No thanks; I’m good.” He looked back to Judy. “I’m missing something. We already have the drug. We just need to replicate it.”
Judy’s eyebrows arched and then she set the hook. “That’s where you can help.”
“Me?”
“Get the President to fast-track the Prescription Medications Emergency act.”
“I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I left a copy of H.R. 7631 out in the foyer. It should make for a good bedtime story.”
Bill sat and let the last swallow of cognac dissolve in his mouth. “Was I just set up?”
“Aw Bill, would a friend do that?”
Thud. Five pounds of legislation, addendums, and amendments makes a considerable sound when heaved onto a nightstand at 1:30 a.m. Bill’s miscalculation in throw weight startled Janice out of a deep sleep.
“What’s going on…? Why are you still up?”
“Next time friends are coming over with homework let’s remember not to serve wine, or serve them dinner either. In fact, let’s never have them over again.”
“Sounds like you have a real page-turner of a bill there.”
“Who writes this stuff?”
“Every prescription drug company in the world, or their lobbyists. Now go to sleep; that’s enough civics class for one night. I am expecting a slammer of a headache tomorrow and I want to be well rested for it.” Janice reached across him and up to the lamp on the nightstand. Her breast smothered his face as she strained for the switch. She uncoiled back to her side, fluffing her pillow, and trying to get back to sleep.
Bill started thinking. A few years back, that would have been enough provocation to initiate some serious lovemaking. Why not now?
Why not now?
He snuggled over, found her, and ended any concern about a headache.
“Seventy-two hours. That still leaves a twelve-hour margin of safety.”
“And the thermal element itself?”
“Time released and not unlike the basic structure of heated shave cream.”
“No chance of detection?”
“Our Chinese friends and their Pyrex glass copies will insulate the contents.”
“Then we are ready?”
“Yes; we just need to place the active strains in all twenty-four jars.”
“Keep me informed when the shipment is ready?”
“Yes, Sheik.”
The next morning, Bill put out a Point of Information bulletin over his SCIAD network. The network was one of his inventions. In much the same way national security depended on the free and open exchange of data, ideas, and suppositions between agencies, so did a strong scientific defense. He had seen first hand the impact of the first big-science attack on America and it wasn’t pretty. It took a long time even to determine that America was being attacked and people paid for that with their lives. A network like SCIAD might have made a dramatic difference.
The name was a double-entendre of sorts; SCIAD was the shorthand for his White House role, but like all scientists, Hiccock acronymed it out: Scientific Community Involved in America’s Defense. Because it was his pet project, and because very few in Congress or the Administration understood the first thing about it, he was able to make up all the ground rules. Bill was proud of SCIAD’s layered architecture, which guided the flow of ideas. The real trick that kept SCIAD from denigrating into nothing more than an Intranet version of the Internet was its structure. It was all too simple for any jackass to publish anything on the web, without provenance, peer review, or proper methodology. Add to that the wonders of PhotoShop and other graphic programs, and any “whack job” can make their junk science look as good as real science. The SCIAD network had built-in gatekeeping and content filtering, with verification and authentication.