A Heartbeat Away (36 page)

CHAPTER 69

DAY 10
2:00 A.M. (EST)

Griff stood at the rostrum, looking out over the nearly seven hundred survivors, all of them infected to one degree or another with the WRX virus. The moment in the lab when he saw the concentric red circles on his palm was among the most frightening, soul-crushing he had ever experienced, not only because his research had failed, and people were going to die, but because he had seen Angie for the last time. For nearly an hour he had sat there in his office, motionless, staring at the wall, and planning what he might do to end his life as soon as symptoms of the virus began to become manifest.

Then, suddenly, the miracle began to unfold.

Over another hour, the dreadful markings began to vanish, until finally, after nearly three hours, they were gone altogether. By then he had already contacted the president by fax through Angie, and had asked him to begin laying the trap that was going to confirm or disprove Paul Rappaport’s involvement with Genesis.

The mood inside the House Chamber was an odd mix of bewilderment and buoyancy. Some in the vast room were hugging. Some were crying. And some were merely standing motionless, staring up at the strange tableaux.

Ellis stood frozen on the stage, her eyes looking furiously at Griff. Several of the Capitol Police force had moved in close to her, awaiting orders from their chief or from the president. Griff had helped the weakened vice president into the speaker’s chair. Then he opened the cooler and extracted a large jar of opaque serum and held it aloft for all to see.

But before he could speak, a man’s voice hollered out from somewhere near the middle of the crowd.

“Get in line! There might not be enough!”

Suddenly, driven by primal survival instincts, and in all likelihood by the effects of the virus as well, the crowd began to surge forward.

“Wait!” Griff cried into the microphone. “Everybody stop! There’s enough. There’s enough for each of you.”

But his words had no effect. People, some violently shoving, others already on the floor crawling, had reached the stairs to the rostrum. The police moved in and the Secret Service began to form ranks about the president and vice president.

But before any of the people reached Griff, three ear-splitting bangs stopped the milling crowd and silenced the hall. Leland Gladstone was standing behind him. The still-smoking barrel of the gun he had fired into the air he now held against Griff’s temple.

Ellis’s aide quickly ripped the cooler from Griff’s hand and handed it to her. The Capitol Police surrounding the speaker moved away.

“This is yours, Madam Speaker,” Gladstone said. “You’ve worked too hard for it. We can’t stop now. We mustn’t stop now.”

Ellis took the cooler from her aide, and pulled out one of the sterilized jars. The chamber remained silent, all eyes fixed on the precious serum. Ellis faced the assembly while Gladstone, wild-eyed, continued to shift the gun toward anyone who moved.

“You have all been fooled,” Ellis cried out. “And you continue to be fooled. What is this?” She shook the bottle for emphasis. “You’re going to let this charlatan inject you with this when I have promised you the real treatment? You are going to trust this … this hermit, and not me? Haven’t I shown you the truth? The truth about Senator Mackay? The truth about the Senate Chamber? Haven’t I done my part to expose the lies of this president? And yet you still rush for this concoction? Either the content of this jar is useless, or it will quicken our deaths. But I can assure you of one thing—this is not a cure! Only Genesis has the cure. Only Genesis and the bill I’ve presented can save your lives, not this bottle of lies.”

Allaire, who had been ushered off the stage by the Secret Service, pushed himself through the cluster of bodies surrounding him.

“You need to stop this, Ursula,” he said in a calm voice. “What you have there cannot be replicated. Surely you want to save the lives of all these good people. You need to give the serum back and allow us to administer it. You must.”

“I must save these people from you!” Ellis cried out.

Gary Salitas, who had been on his cell phone, leaned over and whispered to the president. Allaire turned to the crowd.

“I have just been informed that the gang of terrorists calling itself Genesis has been captured. Several of them are dead. The rest are on their way to jail.” He shifted his attention back to Ellis. “They admitted that they were using you, Ursula. They have no serum.”

Some cheered, others continued to stare at the speaker.

Allaire’s announcement was the final straw for her.

“Lies!” she shrieked. “All lies.”

She raised the bottle above her head and hurled it into the crowd, where it shattered on the carpet. A second jar disintegrated against the head of a tall, balding man, sending a gruesome mix of blood and serum cascading over him.

Before anyone could move, she had thrown a third jar, this one smashing on the metal frame of a bed.

There was a gunshot, loud and echoing. Ellis’s head snapped back as the bullet tore through her, exploding out the back of her skull. Blood, brains, and bone splattered over the rostrum as she crumpled to the floor by the seat that had been hers for so long.

Gladstone, his eyes widening, still with the gun in his hand, took a shot in the center of his face, the bullet following a path almost identical to the one that had killed Ellis. He instantly fell lifeless across her body, his blood mixing with hers.

A short distance away, Sean O’Neil held his smoking pistol, preparing for the follow-up shot that would not be necessary.

Allaire rushed to Griff, his expression panicked.

“You said the serum couldn’t be replicated,” he said. “You said this was a one-time deal. Can you possibly stretch out what’s left? Can you make it be enough for all of us?”

Griff raised his hands to quiet the crowd. Then, as the cries and commotion settled down, he turned to the president and grinned.

“President Allaire,” Griff said into the microphone, “the antiviral treatment that I developed cannot be replicated. That is true.”

“No! Don’t let us die!” somebody shouted.

Others echoed the fear, and again the frightened, emotional crowd began to unravel.

“Please,” Griff called out to them. “You’ve all been through enough. Please listen.” An uneasy silence returned. “The serum cannot be replicated,” he continued, “so I could not trust myself to be the one to bring it here. Genesis had too many eyes and ears for me to believe they could not get to me, which is why the mixture I carried into the chamber was a ruse, not the antiviral treatment I developed.” He nodded toward the door to the Senate Wing and a solidly built man in a biocontainment suit stepped forward. “Let me introduce to all of you Sergeant Chad Stafford of the United States Army—the one person I knew we could all trust with our lives. The serum in his backpack is enough for every one of you.”

Applause and cheers started in the back of the crowd and rolled toward the soldier like thunder. In addition to his backpack, he held an assault weapon at the ready. People moved aside to allow him to pass as the cheering grew even more intense. All business as usual, Stafford climbed the rostrum stairs and stood next to Griff, who turned to the man and shook his hand.

“Glad you found the place okay,” he said.

EPILOGUE

The Inn at Coco Island, American Samoa, was unlike any vacation destination in the world. Built on stilts, ten feet above the vagaries of the South Pacific winds and tides, on the eastern end of the island, the inn was the only structure on the two-square-mile atoll, save for the home of innkeeper Jarvis H’malea, located on the far west end. The inn had only one suite—six rooms. It was owned by a consortium of Vegas casino heads and serviced by H’malea and his family. Rental was $50,000 a week, with a minimum stay of two weeks.

The closely guarded guest list at the Inn at Coco Island read like a who’s who in entertainment, business, and sports, and the ability to pay the tariff and sea plane fare did not guarantee an applicant a vacation there. The fine, white sand was legend, and the palms were reputed to produce the largest, sweetest coconuts to be found anywhere.

In the ten years H’malea had been the steward at the inn, he had successfully honored demands—dietary and otherwise—from some of the most eccentric, uncompromising men and women in the world. But the request from the two guests flying in now was unique—a king-sized mattress, placed in a grove of palms, on a small bluff facing east toward the sunrise.

The new E. S. Kluft Beyond Luxury Sublime mattress had been flown to Pago Pago from the Kluft factory in California, brought over to the inn by boat, and paid for, H’malea’s Vegas contact had told him, by some sort of special act of the United States Congress. At first, H’malea was sure the man was pulling his leg, but that was before the mattress, with a pricetag in the mid-forties, was off-loaded.

The seaplane materialized as a dot in the perfect late morning sky. H’malea, thumbs in the beltloops of his khakis, strode along the pier past indescribably blue water with visibility of over two hundred feet. His two guests had requested nothing more than peace and quiet, and, of course, the mattress, but they would have access to SCUBA equipment, kayaks, small sailboats, a hot tub, and a luxuriously stocked wine cellar and kitchen, with or without H’malea’s skill as a chef.

The drone of the engine could be heard now as the pilot banked smoothly into the light southerly breeze. H’malea knew of the events at the U.S. Capitol, and that the passengers had been central in keeping the death toll down and in saving the lives of the president and vice president, as well as close to seven hundred others. But he knew few of the details. Nor would he bother Angela Fletcher or Dr. Griffin Rhodes to fill him in.

On board the seaplane, Angie looked down from her seat by the pilot.

“I told you I didn’t like large groups of people, Dr. Rhodes,” she said into her mouthpiece. “What is that mob doing down there on the pier?”

“I’ll speak to him about crowd control,” Griff said.

Three weeks had passed since the last of the victims of WRX3883 had been treated and, after a day, sent through decontamination, out of the Capitol, and back to their lives. Although he would have preferred his role remain anonymous, Griff knew that would never be the case. Angie had spent most of the time at her keyboard, writing a series of articles for
The Post
and a proposal for what her new literary agent said would be the book of the century.

Before Angie began her writing, though, and before Griff accepted his newly acquired celebrity; and before he submitted to extensive debriefing from the president and his advisors, including Homeland Security Secretary Paul Rappaport, the two of them bundled into her silver Miata and drove to a small farm near Beckley, West Virginia.

“Melvin were never much for keeping in touch,” Kyle Forbush told them over a lovingly prepared dinner of pork, beans, boiled greens, and homemade bread, “but he called from time to time and came home every other Christmas or so. We knew from early on that he were more, I don’t know, unusual, than the other boys his age. If he had stayed and worked in the coal mine like we expected him to, chances are he would have been beaten to a pulp in the first month. He did his last year in high school living with my sister in Morgantown, and then put hisself through bug school—that’s what I called it—working in a video store. He were a real nice boy and a good son. We’re sad to hear of his passing.”

Forbush and his wife knew surprisingly little of the events at the Capitol, but they were pleased and impressed that President Allaire and the senators from West Virginia had declared an upcoming Wednesday Melvin Forbush Day, and would all be traveling to Beckley to celebrate.

The pilot swooped in with practiced ease, and tied up at the pier. Thirty minutes later, Griff and Angie were alone on their mattress, wearing nothing but sunscreen.

“Considering that I made this place up,” he said, “it’s hard to believe it really exists.”

“I’m proud that you allowed Congress to do something for you in addition to the medal and the citation. I’m also pleased that because our trip is privately donated—a little from each of them and from the Cabinet—I don’t have to write an exposé about it. I’m also glad the president paid for the mattress himself.”

“It’s a little out of character for me to say he owes me,” Griff said, stroking a wisp of her hair from her forehead, “but he does.”

In a contrite, impassioned speech to the world, Allaire had come completely clean about the WRX3883 virus and his role in developing it. He admitted to making choices under pressure that he might otherwise not have made, including the unjust imprisonment of the man who had subsequently saved his life and that of his family and so many others. He also promised his quick resignation should public opinion demand it.

In an affirmation of honesty from politicians, his next approval poll was the highest of any during his presidency.

Griff and Angie made love that afternoon, and again that night beneath an unending sea of stars. Days passed during which they slept and healed, and swam and ate and read, and drank coconut milk. Over that time, they spoke almost nothing of Kalvesta nor the Capitol.

On the fifth or sixth day, they were surprised by the appearance of a thin, white and tan dog—thirty pounds or so, and an indefinable mix of breeds. He ambled between the palms, and settled down for an hour just off the foot of the Kluft Beyond Luxury Sublime mattress. He allowed himself to be patted, and nuzzled them without being intrusive. Then, in no particular hurry, he left the way he had come. The next day, he returned and departed in the same way … and the next.

On the tenth day, after breakfast and well before their visitor made his appearance, Angie moaned happily and nestled herself tightly against Griff’s chest.

“I haven’t asked you because you never brought it up,” she said, “but have you given any more thought to Allaire’s offer to have you take over as the director of the CDC?”

“It’s in Atlanta,” he replied.

“I know that, you big goof. I would move there if you took the job.”

He kissed her on the mouth.

“And I would move to Washington for you. In fact, that’s what I’m going to do if you want me to. It would only be for four years, but that will be enough time for you to finish your book and for us to decide if it’s appropriate for us to lend our gene pools to the world.”

This time she kissed him—long and deeply.

“Now that would be something to write about,” she said, beaming. “But what do you mean, four years?”

Griff’s tanned face crinkled in the grin that Angie loved the most.

“I’ve been saving something for you,” he said, “and this seems as good a time as any to spring it on you. I made a deal with Allaire.”

“A deal?”

“At the moment, he’s coping with a presidential-sized load of guilt, so I decided to take advantage of it. If you say yes, you’re looking at the newest member of the President’s Cabinet—the first secretary of the Department of Animal Welfare.”

Angie threw her arms around him.

“Oh, baby, that’s incredible! Absolutely wonderful news. Do you know what the job will entail?”

“I was sort of hoping you’d help me fill in the blanks on the trip home.”

“My brain’s already exploding. You can deal with cruelty and exotic pets, and zoo standards, and the feeding and housing of premarket hoofed livestock and chickens, and a tax credit for neutering and spaying, and of course experimentation, and—”

“Hey, not until the ride home.”

She held his face close to her own.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll think of something we can do in the meanwhile. One thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“Have you considered that creation of this post will put you squarely at number eighteen on the ladder of presidential succession?”

* * *

THAT EVENING
, Jarvis H’malea made his scheduled every-third-day visit to the inn. He seemed especially pleased that there was nothing either of his guests needed that he hadn’t already provided for them.

“Tell me something,” Griff asked, after the steward had shared some grilled sea bass and a delicious bottle of chardonnay with them on the verandah, “your dog has been a welcome visitor at this end of the island almost every day. What’s his name?”

“I have no idea,” H’malea replied. “And he’s not my dog. In fact, if he stays on Coco Island much longer, he’s going to be the death of me.”

“Explain,” Angie said. “Where could he possibly have come from?”

“A few days before you showed up,
he
showed up. Strolled into our house just like he always lived there. No boats are allowed inside the reef, and of course, no one other than guests are permitted on the island. But I can’t prevent boats from anchoring outside the reef. Almost certainly, the dog came from one of them. I sent several radio messages, and my wife has been listening for one ever since, but there’s been nothing. Not a word. And for the last four days there’s been no one anchoring.”

“So why is he going to be the death of you, Jarvis?” Angie asked.

“I can’t breathe when I’m within five feet of him. Some sort of allergy, I guess. I can’t stop wheezing and coughing. Say, I don’t mean to sound forward, but as you can tell, I’m desperate. I don’t suppose you two would like to take him along with you when you leave.”

Griff and Angle took only seconds to conduct a silent poll.

“As a matter of fact,” Griff said …