going to say: Tomorrow there will be federal troops in American cities, protecting property and government offices. Health care will be nationalized. Tented infirmaries will be set up in shopping mall parking lots. The Red Cross will take charge of a massive volunteer program. And drug companies will be commandeered and made to focus exclusively on developing a vaccine—not just for Kongoli but for any strain of influenza, providing lifetime protection. The president will invoke the Allied victory in the Second World War and the elimination of smallpox as achievements that had also seemed impossible at the time. He will guarantee that the U.S. government will apply the full force of its mighty powers to protect its citizens and other peoples of the world against the greatest plague humanity has ever known.
All the channels were carrying the president’s speech, which was to be broadcast from the Oval Office. On CNN, the panel of commentators were all wearing white masks and rubber gloves, which was bound to provoke a reaction, since those items were in short supply even in hospitals. The commentators spoke in somber tones, but it was also clear that they thrilled to the occasion. Years in the future, this scene of masked commentators would be part of the retrospectives. The commentators would always be tied to this historic moment. It would be in their obituaries.
Finally, the president appeared at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. He appeared deeply tanned, either from extra sessions in the tanning bed or an extra-heavy layer of pancake. Still, Tildy thought, he looked nervous. Perhaps he was awed by the challenge. He was also aware of the furor caused by the Post story that Tildy had planted about his family getting inoculated.
“My fellow Americans,” he said, a half note higher than his usual register, “once again we face an enormous challenge. Once again, the world looks to America because only we can do it. And we will do it, we will conquer this disease, I guarantee you.” The president batted away a nettlesome fly.
“Tonight I am announcing major changes in how our country will be run in the face of this terrible crisis,” he continued. “First, let me say, our constitutional system will survive this test.” The president was now reciting the litany of actions that he was putting into effect, and his energy seemed to rise. “Martial law,” he said, thumping the desk forcefully. “I know, I know how it sounds, but a great man who once sat in this office said we’ve got nothing to fear but—”
As the president was speaking, what appeared to be a tear spilled down his cheek. The president furtively wiped it away, but another tear followed, and just at the same moment Tildy and the president and the American people realized that it wasn’t tears, it was blood. The president’s eyes were bleeding. Before he could finish the sentence, the transmission cut off.
Twenty seconds later, Tildy’s secure phone rang. “We’re invoking COOP,” the voice said, referring to the Continuity of Operations Plan. The president was still alive, but deemed unable to govern, so the vice president assumed office. At that very moment, he and the senior cabinet members were being removed to Mount Weather. Buried in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains was a miniature city, with twenty underground office buildings, some three stories tall. In addition to its own sewage treatment and power plants, Mount Weather had a radio and television studio (part of the Emergency Alert System), a crematorium, and sleeping quarters for the president, cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices. They were airlifted the forty-eight miles from Washington. Several of them simply refused to leave their families, and one was already too sick to make the trip (no one with symptoms would be allowed in any case). The speaker of the House of Representatives, next in line for presidential succession, was relocated to Camp David, where there was another bunker—under Aspen, the presidential lodge—with access to a vast Defense Department installation carved out of the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.
Tildy later learned that, because the vice president had been exposed to the president’s illness, when he arrived at Mount Weather he was placed inside a large plastic ball, used in embassies to protect against biological attacks. The vice president, now the most powerful man in the world, was being fed through a tube, and inside that sanitized balloon he was running America.
From the window of her condo on the waterfront, Tildy could see the empty