The White Plague (40 page)

An ability to make himself understood in almost any company and in four languages.

A rich family willing to back his campaign.

A wife, May, who appealed to both young and old feminists for her outspoken wit. (Older women liked her also because she looked what she was, a feisty, independent grandmother.)

The back-room support of the Ohio Democratic Machine plus that maverick record gave him immediate appeal to Independents and Liberal Republicans.

Finally, there were the crowning facts: a rich, compelling baritone voice coupled to a dignified appearance. He looked like a senator and he talked like one.

On the platform, Samuel Benjamin Velcourt was a
presence
and he knew how to project himself on TV.

The effect had been devastating – a landslide victory in a year when Republicans were making new gains everywhere except in the presidency.

In an Akron columnist’s words: “Voters were saying they liked this guy’s style and they wanted him in the Senate to keep an eye on the bastards.”

A British observer of the election had commented: “The wonder is he sat so long on the back benches.”

Within two months of entering the Senate, Sam Velcourt pulled out of the ruck, proving that all those years in the ranks had really taught him how the system worked.

He worked it with the hand of an impresario drawing the most from the talent available to him.

It surprised very few to see him tapped for the vice-presidency in Prescott’s second campaign. They needed Ohio, someone with Republican appeal, an energetic campaigner with an attractive wife, who also was willing to campaign, a man with his own power base – all of those things which really determine how candidates are chosen. Only Velcourt’s maverick tendencies bothered the national organization. 

Adam Prescott had tipped the scales. “Let’s park him there and see how he works. Anyway, another term in the Senate and there’ll be no stopping him. We might as well get him in close where we can keep an eye on him.”

“He scares the hell out of the State Department,” a presidential aide had said.

This had amused Prescott. “It’s good for State to be scared. But he doesn’t strike me as one to use an axe. A little surgery here and there, maybe, but no big pools of blood.”

Prescott’s assessment had proved correct on all counts and, when the plague struck late in that second term, they had worked like two halves of the same machine. Velcourt’s military friends had proved most invaluable then, an essential part of Prescott’s own authority.

Velcourt thought of these things as he stood at the window of the Blue Room looking out toward the light traffic on Executive Avenue South. It was early evening and he had been sworn in as President less than three hours before, a quiet ceremony at the edge of the Rose Garden, minimal fuss and only pool coverage by the media – two reporters, one TV camera, two still cameras and one of those from the White House itself.

Velcourt knew he was going to miss the pragmatic decisiveness of his predecessor. Adam had been a tough and experienced political in-fighter, a man who kept personal doubts carefully concealed.

I tend to show my doubts,
Velcourt thought
. I’ll have to watch that.

A Harvard professor had once told the younger Velcourt: “The uses of power require a certain measure of inhumanity. Imagination is a piece of baggage you often can’t afford to carry. If you begin thinking about people in general as individuals, that gets in your way. They are clay to be shaped. That’s the real truth of the democratic process.”

In spite of such thoughts, or perhaps in contrast to them, Velcourt found the view in front of him pleasant. May was safe upstairs. One of their daughters had survived up in the Michigan Reserve and they had only grandsons.

It was an evening made for love songs, he decided. One of those soft evenings after a cold spell and with the promise of more warmth to come. Pastoral, Velcourt labeled it – quietly pastoral: the cattle munching away at the tall pasture that had been the White House lawn. Guitar music, that was what it needed. Everything muted, not a hint of violence. Nothing to remind him of those ranked bodies burning at the capital’s eastern perimeter. He could see the orange glow when he looked in that direction.

The fire’s pungent cleansing would end soon and enfolding darkness would erase the scene from sight – but not from memory.

Clay,
Velcourt reminded himself.

No miracles kept Washington plague-free. It was simply that the area was occupied by people capable of brutal decisions. Manhattan was no different and it had the added advantage of a water perimeter no longer spanned by bridges, the tunnels blocked, and that outer buffer zone with its black fire lanes.

All the “safe” places waiting out the plague had at least this thing in common and one other common characteristic as well: There were no mobs inside.

The mob that had assaulted Washington’s perimeter less than an hour after Adam’s death had thought a few pieces of armor and some automatic weapons might win them through the Washington Barrier. The attackers had been incapable of imagining the inferno effect from flaming splashes of Newfire, the hell temperatures and immunity to ordinary retardants. Although it provided no feelings of absolute security, Newfire was making a big difference in the landscape. Melted concrete tended to sober those who saw it. Velcourt did not try to fool himself, though: Individuals would still try to penetrate the barriers. All it took was one infected individual and the plague was past the barriers. A very tenuous way to survive, Velcourt thought.

He turned toward the darkening room and the open door to the lighted hallway. Secret Service agents could be heard in low-voiced conversation out there. The sound reminded Velcourt that there were things to do, decisions to be made.

There was a stirring in the lighted hallway, hurrying footsteps. A Secret Service agent leaned in and said: “Mister President?”

“I’ll be out soon,” Velcourt said. “The East Room.”

The Cabinet and the heads of the special committees had arrived with their reports for the new President. They would meet just down the hall where all the impedimenta of audiovisual presentation had been laid out. It promised to be a long session. There would be special emphasis on one particular problem – the new Jewish Diaspora. Only a handful of diehards had remained in Israel. The ones in Brazil would have to be fed and housed. It must be a madhouse down there in Brazil, Velcourt thought. God! When will the Jews ever find a home? The ones who had stayed behind had promised to fight their way across the desert and restore the flow of Saudi oil. Foolishness! The plague had driven energy requirements to a fraction of their former level. Who traveled anymore? A lot of the survivors lived communal lives. Only the Barrier Command needed great quantities of oil, and the Soviet Union was carrying most of that load.

Velcourt could hear another voice in the hallway now, the voice for which he had been delaying, Shiloh Broderick. The aging Broderick had come over from his Washington town house with a request that he be allowed to “brief the President.” Along with the full-protocol request there had been a “Dear Sam” note recalling their past association. Without ever stating it openly, the note made clear who had sent Shiloh Broderick to “brief the President.”

On a whim (
After all, I am the President!
), Velcourt said: “Send Broderick in. Tell the others to get started without us. They can hash out some of their differences before I go in.”

Velcourt bent and turned on a single floor lamp over a comfortable chair and seated himself opposite it in the shadows. Broderick, when he entered, saw the setup and understood.

“Don’t get up, sir.”

Shiloh had aged greatly since they had last met, Velcourt noted. He walked with an old man’s limping gait, favoring the left leg. There were new and deeper wrinkles in his lean face, the wavy hair gone completely gray. The corners of his eyes looked moist. The narrow mouth was even more severe.

They shook hands while Broderick stood and Velcourt remained seated. Broderick took the chair under the light, its downward-pointing reflector bathing him in an unkind glare.

“Thank you, Mister President, for seeing me ahead of the others.”

“I didn’t move you ahead, Shiloh. I moved the others back.”

This brought an appreciative chuckle.

Velcourt could see Shiloh debating whether to address the President as Sam. All of that diplomatic training won out.

“Mister President, I don’t know if you appreciate the opportunity that has been presented to us of settling the Communist Question once and for all.”

Oh, shit!
Velcourt thought.
And I thought his people might come up with something new.

“Get it off your chest, Shiloh.”

“You realize, of course, that they still have some agents in place even here in Washington.”

“Immunity is a word without its old meanings nowadays,” Velcourt said.

Broderick sniffed, then: “You’re saying that we have our people over there, too. However, I was addressing a different situation. The Soviets and the United States are now confined to leopard spots of plague-free communities. A comparison of the relative vulnerability of these population centers shows us clearly at the advantage.”

“Is that so?”

“It certainly is, sir. We have more scattered communities of smaller population. Have you focused on that?”

Jesus Christ! Was he going to bring up old First Strike?

“My predecessor and I talked about this at some length.” Velcourt’s tone was dry. “But surely you’re not…”

“Not atomics, sir. Bacteriological!”

“And we blame it on O’Neill, of course.” Velcourt’s tone was even drier.

“Exactly!”

“What do Soviet agents have to do with this?”

“We give them a trail to follow, a trail that proves we are blameless.”

“How would you propose to infect the Soviets?”

“Birds.”

Velcourt suppressed a grin, shaking his head.

“Migratory birds, Mister President,” Broderick said. “It’s just the kind of thing this Madman…”

Velcourt no longer could suppress his laughter. His whole body shook with it.

“What is it, Mister President?”

“Right after I was sworn in, Shiloh, I called the premier and we had about a half hour of discussion – the commitments already made are still standing, what new options there may be – that sort of thing.’”

“Good move,” Broderick said. “Allay their suspicions. Who was your translator?” He coughed, realizing his faux pas. “Sorry, sir.”

“Yes, we spoke in Russian. The premier thinks I have a Georgian accent. He finds it very helpful that I speak his language. Minimizes misunderstandings.”

“Then why did you laugh just now?”

“The premier was at great pains to tell me about a recent proposal of his military. I leave it for you to guess the content of that proposal.”

“Infected birds?”

Another chuckle shook Velcourt.

Broderick leaned forward, his manner intense. “Sir, you know you can’t trust them to keep their word on a damned thing! And if they’re already –”

“Shiloh! The Soviet Union will follow its own best interests. As will we. The premier is a pragmatist.”

“He’s a lying son-of-a-bitch who –”

“All of that! And he knows, of course, that I have not always been fully candid with him. Didn’t you say one time, Shiloh, that this was the essence of diplomacy – creating acceptable solutions out of lies?”

“You have a good memory, sir, but the Communists mean to do us in. We can’t afford to relax for a…”

“Shiloh, please! I don’t need lectures on the dangers of communism. We all have a more immediate danger in front of us and, thus far, we’re cooperating well in the search for some way of preventing human extinction.”

“And what if they’re first to find a cure?”

“Some of our people are working in their labs, Shiloh, and some of their people are with us. We even have Lepikov and Beckett together in England. Communication is open. I talked to Beckett myself last week before… Well, we’re communicating. Of course, each of us listens to these communications. I don’t suppose this will lead to the millennium but it is one hopeful sign in a world beset by the threat of extinction. And if there’s an advantage to be gained, Shiloh, from this cooperation, an advantage gained without compromising our mutual efforts, I will take that advantage.”

“With all due respect, sir, are you assuming they don’t have research facilities that are kept completely secret from us?”

“With all due respect, Shiloh, are you assuming we don’t have similar establishments?”

Broderick sat back, steepled his fingers and put them against his lips.

Velcourt knew who Broderick represented – certain very powerful and very wealthy people, a large contingent in the bureaucracy and retired from it, people whose careers had been predicated on “being right even when they were wrong.” In a bureaucracy, Velcourt had learned early, the simple fact of being right did not win popularity contests, especially if someone higher up in the hierarchy was thus proven wrong. People who gained power in a bureaucracy, Velcourt had noted, tended to be media-minded. They wanted headline items, the more dramatic the better. Simple answers, no matter how wrong they might be proven later. Drama, that was the thing – a most powerful advantage in a conference room, especially when presented in the driest and most analytical terms. Broderick had made a career on this one fact.

Velcourt said: “You’ve been out of government for a long time, Shiloh. I know you have important contacts, but they may not be telling you everything they know.”

“And you are?” There was anger in the old diplomat’s voice.

“I have adopted a policy of increasing candor – not complete, but trending that way.”

Shiloh Broderick absorbed this in silence.

The plague had produced a new kind of consciousness in most powerful people, Velcourt had noted. It was not just adapting to a sequence of new political situations but a different level of awareness, more penetrating. It put survival first and political games second. Politics had been reduced to its most personal level:
Who do I trust?
Whenever that question was asked at a life-and-death level, there could be only one answer:
I trust the people I know.