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here, I'm going to call the Vice President back, but I'm not going to tell her yet about the possibility of
Tomlin's involvement. I'm afraid it might leak. But once we know, I want to see if the three of us can get
a joint national broadcast audience after we release the data to the net."
"That might hell, it probably will get me a court martial, Colonel Christian said,  but assuming all this
stuff is true, I'll do it. Goddamn, I should have gone into business with my Dad, like he wanted me to.
Not that business is going to be very good for a long time to come, but it would sure as hell be safer!"
Doug called Teresa and told her to allow the armed blacks to enter the CDC and accompany anyone
they wanted to as part of the bargain he had struck. Then he made that call to Santes.
* * * *
Vice President Santes was alarmed at first that it was Doug Craddock's wife calling her, but only
momentarily. June quickly explained part of what Doug had done and that the pain killing drugs had
finally put him to sleep in the midst of dialing her number.
"So the hostages have been released and a truce is in place for the time being?"
"Yes, Mrs. Vice President, but there's more he needs to do, and I think he's the only one who can make
everyone work together. But please, don't let any of this get out yet. There's other parts of the overall
problem he hasn't got settled yet, particularly what else Johannsen knows, and he still needs some time
with Amel the CDC Director when she gets out of surgery. June still didn't have any idea of what else
Amelia might know. Whatever it was, if anything, she hadn't told either her or Doug before the attack
happened. Either she had reason to keep silent or events had overtaken her before she could speak and
she had been scared to confide it to anyone while being held captive. And it might very well be nothing,
as Doug had suggested. As if there wasn't enough already.
"Alright. Give everyone there my thanks for working with me. I'll tell the president the hostages have been
released and we have a temporary truce but that we need more time to work out details."
"Thank you ma'am. We should know more in another day or so. I'll tell Doug to call you as soon as he's
awake again. But he has to go into surgery soon himself."
"I see. That was a heroic thing he did, just to hear about it. Good bye now. Have someone call me back
every six or eight hours to keep me informed."
"Yes ma'am, I will."
June thumbed the phone off, wondering at the way events shaped a person's life. Just a few short weeks
ago she never could have imagined that she would not only be married again, but that she and her
husband would be talking to the Vice President of the United States over one of her private lines!
It was dark as the former hostages made their way back to the science building, accompanied by the
men and women selected by Qualluf to go with them. June wanted nothing more than get under a shower
and into clean clothes, but she forced herself to ignore her bodily needs for the time being. It had
suddenly occurred to her that not only had she been talking to the Vice President, but that she and Doug
were temporarily in charge of CDC operations. Or she and Teresa until Doug was back on his feet. It
was a humbling thought, and a frightening one at the same time.
"We should dress his wounds, Doug's nurse said.  All the doctor did was put in a couple of quick
stitches to hold the wounds closed and load him up on antibiotics and pain killer. He's going to need
surgery, too."
How to tell a nurse that sometimes what seemed urgent to a medical person had to take a back seat to
considerations much more important. June wanted to take care of Doug, but she knew he had to have
some rest, too. She wondered ... maybe his surgery could be done under a local anesthetic so he
wouldn't be incapacitated for a long period like a general anesthetic would do.  He needs to rest more
than anything. And then he has to either stay awake or be capable of being woken up. Would you please
go talk to the doctor who treated him first and see if the work he needs could be done under a local?"
The nurse nodded dubiously, but went to ask, wondering what had gone on in that closed room she had
been barred from. Something very important, evidently.
* * * *
Tomlin was barely listening to the president. Damn it, that was my last best chance to take him out,
he thought. Now what? Security, that's the key. The guard force at the CDC must have taken lots of
casualties. Maybe if he got authority to augment it with his own agents? No, better yet, get the Santes
bitch out of the way and have the military take over dealing with the blacks. Then...
"Edgar, what's wrong with you? the president asked irritably. He was suffering badly from lack of sleep
and his National Security Director was off in la-la land.
"Oh, sorry, Mr. President. I was just thinking, now that the situation in Atlanta has calmed down, perhaps
Vice president Santes could be relieved of those duties and given something else to do. Anything to get
her out of the way.
"Like what? There's nothing else she can do that I can't do better. Besides, she said there's still a lot of
issues to be resolved. I extended the deadline for her and the army until the end of the week. So long as
she's doing well there, why move her? Marshall was grudgingly sincere in his praise, despite never
having liked the idea of a woman in a position to take over running the country. He was so depleted of
energy that he didn't question why his national security director was so interested in removing the vice
president from the Atlanta impasse.
"Well, all right, but I really think..."
"No, and that's the end of it. I need your attention concentrated on security for the whole country, not
just one little segment of it. Don't you understand yet how violent and unpredictable the blacks are? The
ones still alive, that is. Besides, Santes as much as hinted that the CDC security director might be able to
come up with a solution that will quiet that damned Church of Blacks down. I sure don't want to spoil her
chances if that's true. If we can stop their agitation, we can use the army to better purposes elsewhere.
Now let's get back on track here. I have to go on the hookup to the U.N. in an hour."
"Yes, sir, Tomlin responded, trying desperately to sound matter-of-fact while inwardly he roiled with
fear of being found out.
"Good. Now go over your border security again. I don't want some damn Arab sneaking in here and
popping me just because the Jews are killing them all. Why haven't we been able to close our borders?"
Tomlin knew the president was asking him to fix a problem that had been ignored or given short shrift by
congress for the last hundred years. There was no fix, not until the draft expanded the army by orders of
magnitude and that couldn't be done overnight.  Mr. President, it's a better bet to increase your security
rather than try to keep the borders sealed. We still can't do it. And to keep Arabs out, we'd just about [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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