them down."
Ouray nodded. "Emily's right, Mr. President. I've talked to the folks over at the State Department. They're getting very worried back-channel questions from Europe, and from the Japanese, too. Our friends want some firm assurances that these stories are false - and just as important, that we can prove that they're false."
"Proving a negative?" Castilla shook his head in frustration. "That's not an easy thing to do."
"No, sir," Emily Powell-Hill agreed. "But we're going to have to do our best. Either that, or watch our alliances begin crumbling, and see Europe pull even further away from us."
For several minutes after his two closest advisers left, Castilla sat behind his desk mulling over different ways to reassure European public and elite opinion. His face darkened. Unfortunately, his options were very limited. No matter how many of its federal labs and military bases the U.S. opened to public inspection, it could never hope to completely calm the tempest of Internet-fed hysteria. Crackpot rumors, damning exaggerations, doctored photos, and outright lies could circle the globe with the speed of light, far outpacing the truth.
He looked up at the sound of a light tap on his open door. "Yes?"
His executive secretary poked her head in. "The Secret Service just called, Mr. President. Mr. Nomura has arrived. They're bringing him in now."
"Discreetly, I hope, Estelle," Castilla reminded her.
The faint trace of a smile crossed her normally prim and proper face. "They're coming through the kitchens, sir. I trust that is discreet enough."
Castilla chuckled. "Should be. Well, let's just hope none of the night-
shift press corps folks are foraging there for a midnight snack." He stood up, straightened his tie, and pulled on his suit coat. Being ushered into the White House past the kitchen trash cans was a far cry from the impressive ceremony that usually accompanied a visit to the American president, so the least he could do was greet Hideo Nomura with as much formality as possible.
His secretary, Mrs. Pike, opened the door for the head of Nomura PharmaTech just a minute or two later. Castilla advanced to meet him, smiling broadly. The two men exchanged quick, polite bows in the Japanese manner and then shook hands.
The president showed his guest to the big leather couch set squarely in the middle of the room. "I'm very grateful you could come at such short notice, Hideo. You flew in from Europe this evening, I hear?"
Nomura smiled back civilly. "It was no great trouble, Mr. President. The benefits of owning a fast corporate jet. In fact, it is I who should express my thanks. If your staff had not contacted me, I would be the one begging for a meeting."
"Because of the catastrophe out at the Teller Institute?"
The younger Japanese man nodded. His black eyes flashed. "My company will not soon forget this cruel act of terrorism."
Castilla understood his anger. The Nomura PharmaTech Lab inside the Institute had been completely destroyed and the immediate financial loss to the Tokyo-based multinational company was staggering, close to $100 million. That didn't include the cost to replicate the years of research wiped out along with the lab, and the human cost was even higher. Fifteen of the eighteen highly skilled scientists and technicians working in the Nomura section were missing and presumed dead.
"We're going to find and punish those responsible for this attack," Castilla promised the other man. "I've ordered our national law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to make it their top priority."
"I appreciate that, Mr. President," Nomura said quietly. "And I am here to offer what little help I can." The Japanese industrialist shrugged. "Not
in the hunt for the terrorists, of course. My company lacks the necessary expertise. But we can provide other assistance that might prove useful."
Castilla raised a single eyebrow. "Oh?"
"As you know, my company maintains a rather substantial medical emergency response force," Nomura reminded him. "I can have aircraft en route to New Mexico in a matter of hours."
The president nodded. Nomura PharmaTech spent huge sums annually on charitable medical work around the world. His old friend Jinjiro began the practice when he founded the company back in the 1960s. After he retired and entered the political world, his son had continued and even expanded its efforts. Nomura money now funded everything from mass vaccination and malaria control programs in Africa to water sanitation projects in the Middle East and Asia. But the company's disaster relief work was what really caught the public eye and generated headlines.
Nomura PharmaTech owned a fleet of Soviet-made An-124