“Not all of them,” the president said. “Just the ones we sent in reaction to the nuke. And I want it done now. Immediately.”
Manny saw Ben roll his eyes and struggle to keep from yelling. Ben looked like a teenager on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum because he had been told he couldn’t get a new cell phone. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs firmly believed the only appropriate response was to keep the Chinese in line with a show of troop strength, and he’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours trying to make sure it happened. Interestingly, Billy didn’t look too put out. The secretary of defense merely seemed curious.
“Madam President?” Billy said. “Let’s say that we’re wrong about the Chinese trying to expand their territory, and that Alex is right that they dropped the nuke to contain some sort of biological weapon. Okay? Alex is right. So why the hurry? Maybe Alex is right, maybe Alex is wrong, but either way, it won’t hurt to let the deployment play out and then reel everybody back in with a little patience. If Alex is wrong, the smart play is to have our troops deployed, and if Alex is right, then we can order everybody back and start dealing with the shifting realities on the ground.”
Manny sat up straight. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting it out. “The flu.”
Billy stared at him. “Pardon me?”
“The flu,” Manny said. “If it is a bioweapon, maybe it’s not contained by the blast. We act like it’s a flu pandemic. The big one.”
“Ding.” Steph had a grim smile. “Three points for Manny. How quick can we get moving on this? Quarantine zones and soldiers in place? I don’t want anything rolled out yet, but I want everything ready to move.”
There was a moment of quiet in the room. Despite everything, Manny’s first thought concerned the political ramifications. “This is going to be a disaster. You might get a brief bounce in the spirit of patriotism, but if we have to deploy troops at home, you are going to get killed in the polling.”
Steph actually smiled at him. “Not my biggest worry right now, Manny. I think this might be the time where we have to ask if we care about doing what is right or if everything is about getting the political win.”
“The latter. It’s always about the political win,” Manny said, but only because he knew Steph expected it of him. Despite her laugh, she looked as though she was feeling the weight of the presidency. He couldn’t stop himself from worrying about the political ramifications, but if it was some sort of virus that had run amok to the point where the Chinese were willing to go nuclear, the political fallout—he almost laughed at the thought of fallout—of having to enforce quarantines and of billeting troops in the cities was going to be less of an issue in the next election than the problem of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands, of dead Americans. Fucking Chinese and fucking bioweapons. There was a part of him that longed for the good old-fashioned wars where men dug trenches and died in the conventional manner.
Still, the president and the others laughed at Manny’s predictable reply. He started to speak again, but there was a knock on the door followed by the entrance of the president’s personal secretary. “Excuse me, Madam President,” she said. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but he’s absolutely insisting.”
“Who?”
“The director of the agency. He says he has to talk to you about Bill Henderson.”
Manny couldn’t see it, but he knew Steph was rolling her eyes. She certainly appreciated the fund-raising work Henderson had done on her behalf, but the truth of the matter was that the news of his plane crash was just swallowed up by the apparent willingness of the Chinese to break out the nukes. They’d release the statement, and at some point she’d answer questions about the crash, and she’d go to Minneapolis for his funeral, but with the Chinese thing, Henderson’s funeral just wasn’t the most important thing going on. He was about to tell the president’s secretary that Steph would call back, but the president spoke first.
“What about Henderson?”
When the secretary hesitated, Manny got a bad feeling.
The secretary wasn’t the sort of woman who hesitated.
“The director,” she said, “insists that he has to talk to you.” She paused as if picking her words very carefully. “He says that Mr. Henderson may have been eaten by spiders.”
At that, the president’s head lifted up and Steph stared at the secretary. Manny realized they were all staring at the secretary.
“Spiders?” Manny heard his own voice but wasn’t actually convinced he was the one asking. “Spiders. As in, you know, bugs?”
“Spiders,” the secretary confirmed. “The director seems quite . . . rattled.”