I’ll talk to him and get back to you.”
“Very well, Officer Fox, I apprec—”
She switched off the walkie-talkie.
Moving slowly, like someone awakening after surgery, she got to her feet, closed the door, crossed to the teacher’s desk, pulled out the chair, and crawled into the footwell. It was a tight, dark space that smelled of shoe polish, crayons, and old coffee. Dez pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and laid her head down. Sobs shuddered through her whole body and tears steamed hot and thick down her face.
“Oh, God,” she wept. “JT.”
The shakes began then.
Dez crammed a fist into her mouth to block the scream that tried to tear its way out of her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The president returned to his office and there received an endless flow of advisors, including generals of different wattage; planners from FEMA; senators from Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio; scientific advisors; the senior members of his staff; and Scott Blair. Over and over again, Scott Blair.
His desk began piling up with reports on everything from estimated casualties—the current guess was more than nine thousand—to letters from heads of state expressing sympathy and offering assistance. The offers were rote lip service that carried as little actual weight as people at a funeral suggesting the bereaved call on them if there’s anything they can do. Most people wouldn’t want to take that call, and that was doubly so in global politics. Besides, the quickest way for his administration to look even weaker than it was would be to ask for help from another country.
However, that was secondary.
When he was alone for a few minutes, the document that caught and held the president’s attention was the estimated loss of life. He read the numbers, then closed his eyes and winced as if each digit gouged a fishing hook under his skin.
Nine thousand people.
Three times as many people than died in the fall of the Twin Towers.
Nearly twice as many as died during the Iraq War; more than twice the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Nine thousand. All in one day, on American soil.
On his watch.
During 9/11 he’d been a junior senator from a midwestern state, and he’d been at home when the tragedy happened. He met with dozens of groups of citizens, from a few dozen at a Rotary Club to tens of thousands at a memorial service in a baseball stadium. He saw something in each one of them, something that connected them, one to another, while also binding them to that moment in time. It was a pervasive, shared wound that would never really heal. The scar itself would hurt, and it would continue to hurt for years, possibly for the lifetime of each person who’d lived through that terrible day. Even now, so many years later, if you mentioned the Towers or 9/11, there was a flicker behind the eyes. Not exactly pain, but a memory of pain, an awareness of that scar gouged into the national soul.
Now this.
Nine thousand people dead. Not from a foreign enemy or fanatics prosecuting a radical ideology, but from within the U.S. government. Illegal bioweapons research. Military action against civilians.
It wouldn’t matter that the research was initiated before his presidency and conducted without his knowledge. He would still be blamed.
It didn’t matter that the Colonel Dietrich’s attack on Stebbins and the school were desperate measures to prevent the pathogen from spreading and killing millions. If your dog gets out of the yard and bites people, you get no sympathy. You’re still to blame.
Which meant that in the eyes of the public he was the villain of this piece.
It would destroy him. His career, his credibility, and his legacy.
The only chance he had, the only way he could imagine to save some shred of his presidency, would be to prove that Volker acted alone and without sanction, that the man was mentally
“Very well, Officer Fox, I apprec—”
She switched off the walkie-talkie.
Moving slowly, like someone awakening after surgery, she got to her feet, closed the door, crossed to the teacher’s desk, pulled out the chair, and crawled into the footwell. It was a tight, dark space that smelled of shoe polish, crayons, and old coffee. Dez pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and laid her head down. Sobs shuddered through her whole body and tears steamed hot and thick down her face.
“Oh, God,” she wept. “JT.”
The shakes began then.
Dez crammed a fist into her mouth to block the scream that tried to tear its way out of her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The president returned to his office and there received an endless flow of advisors, including generals of different wattage; planners from FEMA; senators from Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio; scientific advisors; the senior members of his staff; and Scott Blair. Over and over again, Scott Blair.
His desk began piling up with reports on everything from estimated casualties—the current guess was more than nine thousand—to letters from heads of state expressing sympathy and offering assistance. The offers were rote lip service that carried as little actual weight as people at a funeral suggesting the bereaved call on them if there’s anything they can do. Most people wouldn’t want to take that call, and that was doubly so in global politics. Besides, the quickest way for his administration to look even weaker than it was would be to ask for help from another country.
However, that was secondary.
When he was alone for a few minutes, the document that caught and held the president’s attention was the estimated loss of life. He read the numbers, then closed his eyes and winced as if each digit gouged a fishing hook under his skin.
Nine thousand people.
Three times as many people than died in the fall of the Twin Towers.
Nearly twice as many as died during the Iraq War; more than twice the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Nine thousand. All in one day, on American soil.
On his watch.
During 9/11 he’d been a junior senator from a midwestern state, and he’d been at home when the tragedy happened. He met with dozens of groups of citizens, from a few dozen at a Rotary Club to tens of thousands at a memorial service in a baseball stadium. He saw something in each one of them, something that connected them, one to another, while also binding them to that moment in time. It was a pervasive, shared wound that would never really heal. The scar itself would hurt, and it would continue to hurt for years, possibly for the lifetime of each person who’d lived through that terrible day. Even now, so many years later, if you mentioned the Towers or 9/11, there was a flicker behind the eyes. Not exactly pain, but a memory of pain, an awareness of that scar gouged into the national soul.
Now this.
Nine thousand people dead. Not from a foreign enemy or fanatics prosecuting a radical ideology, but from within the U.S. government. Illegal bioweapons research. Military action against civilians.
It wouldn’t matter that the research was initiated before his presidency and conducted without his knowledge. He would still be blamed.
It didn’t matter that the Colonel Dietrich’s attack on Stebbins and the school were desperate measures to prevent the pathogen from spreading and killing millions. If your dog gets out of the yard and bites people, you get no sympathy. You’re still to blame.
Which meant that in the eyes of the public he was the villain of this piece.
It would destroy him. His career, his credibility, and his legacy.
The only chance he had, the only way he could imagine to save some shred of his presidency, would be to prove that Volker acted alone and without sanction, that the man was mentally
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