all the flights are grounded. I don’t know what else I can do.”
Jill burst into tears. For a long while, Henry just listened to her cry. She was afraid. She was going crazy trying to protect the children. Henry’s own eyes were brimming, and when he spoke again, his voice quivered. “It’s not fair for you to have to take care of everything,” he said.
“ ‘Fair,’ ” Jill said, spitting the word out. “You don’t know what it’s like here.”
“Tell me.”
“I never thought people would behave like this. Everybody is afraid to help each other, and nobody really knows what to do. Those who have hoarded food won’t share it, or money, either. There were some community food banks, but they closed, I guess because nobody wanted to stand in line with other people, or else the food just ran out. It’s everybody for themselves.”
“Listen, Jill, I’ll be home soon, I promise. I do have contacts. Catherine is doing what she can, so is Maria. Everybody wants to get me home. It will happen, I promise.”
“People are escaping the quarantine, I hear about them. Can’t you just drive across the desert and go to some other country?”
“The borders are sealed. There are air patrols along the Iraq border and probably others. I don’t know that the situation is any better in Yemen. It can’t last forever. The irony is that I’m the one who advocated for this. Now that it’s too late to stop the spread of Kongoli, I’m trapped.”
“Oh, God, I want you here so much,” Jill said. “I know I’m being selfish. The only important thing is that you have to find a way to stop this disease. It’s overwhelmingly terrifying. And I know you’ll say it’s not just you, but it is just you, Henry.”
25
Preserving the Leadership
The vice president was on a tear. “What went wrong? We had this virus licked,” he said accusingly, looking directly at Lieutenant Commander Bartlett.
“Apparently not, sir,” she said. “It went occult for a couple weeks, which isn’t uncommon. As you may remember, we talked about this last week when you suggested that everyone go back to work.”
The vice president glared at her, but it was clear to Tildy by now that Bartlett never made insinuations or veiled threats. She was a pure scientist, and her allegiance to truth-telling set her in opposition to everyone else in the room. Tildy had come grudgingly to admire her implacable integrity.
“In a single day, this economy has lost—what is it, two trillion dollars? In a day! One fucking day! I don’t know when we can open the markets again. And you tell me how many people have already died,” the vice president said, once again holding Bartlett responsible, but he wasn’t pausing for her answer. “We’ve got hospitals closing their doors, turning people away! We can’t even bury people fast enough. How did we get to be so totally unprepared for this?” It was a rhetorical question. “It’s a goddamn mess,” he concluded, setting aside his evangelical piety. “What’s your name again?”
“Bartlett, sir. Lieutenant Commander Bartlett.”
“You have that antibody stuff that you talked about?”
“The monoclonal antibodies, yes, sir. We’re testing them in ferrets.”
“Fuck that. From what you say, this is our best hope for creating some kind of immunity. Washington is infested with this crap. We need to preserve the leadership.”
What leadership? Tildy thought. The president had been almost entirely absent in the debate about how to deal with the contagion, except to blame the opposing party for ignoring public health needs before he took office.
“Okay, Bartlett, here’s the deal,” the vice president continued. “I want you to report to the White House tonight and bring a dose of that stuff for the president.” He thought for a moment. “And his family members.”
“Should I bring an injection for you as well, sir?”
Tildy was amazed that Bartlett could ask that question with no inflection whatsoever. Everyone stared at the table while the vice president considered his response. It’s the last life raft on the Titanic, Tildy thought. Do you save yourself or your humanity?
“How many shots of this stuff do we have?” he asked.
“About two hundred,” said Bartlett. “We can’t guarantee the safety or effectiveness of any of them right now. And every person is different, with different levels of immunity. The correct dosage is unknown.”
“Two hundred.” The vice president drummed his fingers on the cabinet table. “Two hundred. Who to save. Hmm.”
Tildy decided to put him out of his misery. “You should take it,” she offered. “For