her much more than she would have liked. Barnett was a woman whose only true human emotion seemed to be ambition. She was interested solely in information that could advance her status, increase her personal wealth, or destroy the careers of her rivals. Everything else was just noise to her. And that laser focus had worked. It was almost certain that she would be the next leader of the free world.
“And I assume you’ve met Colonel Statham?” Alexander continued, picking up on the tension between the two women and trying to diffuse it.
“Of course,” Kennedy said, turning with a genuine smile toward the army officer. Despite being a bit overweight and barely five foot four, he was in many ways the Mitch Rapp of deadly diseases. Statham had spent his career seeking out the most terrifying pathogens Mother Nature could dish out. Everything from Ebola to plague to rabies. He had endless stories about things like extracting a foot-long worm from his own leg, being swept over a waterfall while trying to reduce his runaway fever in an Asian river, and being chased through the bush by a hippopotamus. Not surprisingly, he was extremely popular at cocktail parties.
“Gary,” she said as he took her hand warmly. “I thought you were in Africa.”
His eyes lit up at the mention. “We’re working on an Ebola vaccine. Just initial testing, but it’s promising.”
“Are we ready?” Alexander said, clearly feeling one of the microbiologist’s infamous digressions coming on.
“Yes, sir,” Statham said.
“Then you have the floor,” he said, motioning for everyone to sit.
“I didn’t bring the ISIS videos because I figure everyone’s watched them too many times already. My team’s gone over them with a fine-toothed comb and, combined with the Agency’s analysis, I think we have a pretty good idea of what happened.”
“And?” Christine Barnett said, already starting to sound impatient. Undoubtedly, she was looking for ammunition for another attack on the administration of the man sitting next to her.
Despite this, neither Alexander’s expression nor his body language even hinted at his deep hatred for Barnett. He’d resigned himself to the fact that she would likely be his successor and he was committed to doing his best to make sure she was prepared for the job.
And while Kennedy admired his effort, she also understood that it was a waste of time. The presidency demanded less a specific skill set or background than it did a type of person. Unfortunately, Christine Barnett would never be that woman.
“Doctors Without Borders was working on an outbreak of a very dangerous SARS-like virus in the village,” Statham continued, unflustered. “The three medical personnel that Halabi snatched had stopped the spread and had victims corralled in a building that they’d converted into a treatment facility. It’s clear that ISIS knew about it and they sent extremely well-trained and well-prepared troops. Even our Delta guys were impressed by their plan and how it was carried out.”
“What plan?” Barnett said.
“I was just getting to that. If you combine all the existing videos into one timeline, you can get a pretty good blow-by-blow. All of Halabi’s men were wearing protective gear and they nailed all the doors in the village shut, starting with the treatment facility. They didn’t touch anything and after the villagers were sealed up, they burned the buildings.”
“Are we certain there were no survivors?” President Alexander asked.
“As certain as we can be,” Kennedy responded. “As you know, Mitch took a team there and confirmed that the entire village was burned. Also, there’s a significant amount of open desert around it, making it unlikely that a hypothetical survivor could have reached the next-closest population center. Having said that, we’re monitoring all of them for unusual activity that could suggest the illness has spread.”
“Is there any point to sending another team to have a more in-depth look?” Alexander asked.
She shook her head. “The Saudis obliterated that village five days ago.”
“Nothing’s certain in this business,” Statham interjected. “But with the fire, the protocols used by ISIS, and the isolation, I think we probably dodged this bullet.”
Barnett actually laughed at that. “So we don’t have to worry about some village in the middle of nowhere with the flu. All we have to worry about is that ISIS now has a sophisticated bioweapons lab manned with Western experts. Is that how you define dodging a bullet? What were those people doing in a terrorist-controlled area of Yemen anyway?”
“Putting themselves in harm’s way to help sick people and make sure a potentially catastrophic disease didn’t