“Tom shares that opinion, and so do I.”

What about the president? he thought. “I appreciate that, but the cat is out of the bag. My people tell me there’s a fifty-fifty chance the preclinical trials will fail. The ribozyme is depressingly versatile. It seems to have an affinity for thirteen or fourteen different messenger RNAs. So we stop SHEVA, but we end up with myelin degradation…multiple sclerosis, for God’s sake!”

“Ms. Cross reports that they’ve refined it and it’s more specific now. She personally assured me there was never any chance of MS. That was just a rumor.”

“Which version is PDA going to let them test, sir? The paperwork has to be refiled—”

“PDA is bending on this one.”

“I’d like to set up a separate evaluation team. NIH has the people, we have the facilities.”

“There’s no time, Mark.”

Augustine closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He could feel his face turning beet red. “I hope we draw a good hand,” he said quietly. His heart was hammering.

“The president is announcing speedier trials tonight,” the vice president said. “If the preclinical trials are successful, we’ll go to human trials within a month.”

“I wouldn’t approve that.”

“Robert Jackson says they can do it. The decision’s been made. It’s done.”

“Has the president talked to Frank about this? Or the surgeon general?”

“They’re in constant touch.”

“Please have the president call me, too, sir.” Augustine hated to be put in the position of having to ask, but a smarter president would not have needed the reminder.

“I will, Mark. As for your response…follow what the NIH brass says, no division, no separation, understood?”

“I’m not a rogue, Mr. Vice President,” Augustine said.

“Talk with you soon, Mark,” the VP said.

Kennealy came back on the line. He sounded miffed. “Troops are being trucked in now, Mark. Hold on a second.” His hand cupped over the receiver. “The VP is out of the room. Jesus, Mark, what did you do, chew him out?”

“I asked him to have the president call me,” Augustine said.

“That’s a hell of a note,” Kennealy said coldly.

“Will someone please tell me if we learn about another baby, out of the country?” Augustine said. “Or in? Could the State Department please coordinate with my office on a daily basis? I hope I am not treading water here, Tom!”

“Please don’t ever talk to the VP like that again, Mark,” Kennealy said, and hung up.

Augustine pressed the call button. “Florence, I need to write a cover letter and a memo. Is Dicken in town? Where’s Lang?”

“Dr. Dicken is in Atlanta and Kaye Lang is on campus. At the clinic, I believe. You’re supposed to meet with her in ten minutes.”

Augustine opened his desk drawer and took out a legal pad. On it he had sketched the thirty-one levels of command above him, thirty between him and the president — a bit of an obsession with him. He sharply slashed off five, then six, then worked his way up to ten names and offices, tearing the paper. If worst came to worst, he thought that with a little careful planning he could possibly eliminate ten of those levels, maybe twenty.

But first he had to stick out his neck and send them his report and a coverage memo, and make sure it was on everybody’s desk before the shit was airborne.

Not that he would be sticking his neck out very far. Before some White House lackey — maybe Kennealy, greasing for a promotion — whispered in the president’s ear that Augustine was not a team player, he strongly suspected there would be another incident.

A very bad incident.

48

The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda

Burying herself in work was the only thing Kaye could think of to do right now. Confusion blocked any other option. As she left the clinic, walking briskly past the outdoor tables full of Vietnamese and Korean vendors selling toiletries and knickknacks, she looked at the task list in her daybook and ticked off the meetings and calls — Augustine first, then ten minutes in Building 15 with Robert Jackson to ask about the ribozyme binding sites, a cross-check with two NIH researchers in Buildings 5 and 6 helping her in her search for additional SHEVA-like HERV; then to half a dozen other researchers in her backup list to solicit their opinions -

She was halfway between the clinic and the Taskforce center when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse.

“Kaye, this is Christopher.”

“I don’t have any time and I feel like shit, Christopher,” she snapped. “Tell me something that will make me feel good.”

“If it’s any consolation, I feel like shit, too. I got drunk last night and there are demonstrators out front.”

“They’re here, too.”

“But listen to this, Kaye. We have Infant C in pathology now. It was born at least a month premature.”

“It? Ithad a sex, didn’t it?”

“He. He’s riddled inside and out with herpes lesions. He had no protection against herpes in the womb — SHEVA induces some sort of opportunistic opening through the pla-cental barrier for herpes virus.”

“So they’re in league — all out to cause death and destruction. That’s cheerful.”

“No,” Dicken said. “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I’m coming up to NIH tomorrow.”

“Give me something to go on, Christopher. I don’t want another night like the last two.”

“Infant C might not have died if his mother hadn’t contracted herpes. They may be separate issues, Kaye.”

Kaye closed her eyes, stood still on the sidewalk. She looked around for Farrah Tighe; in her distraction, she had apparently walked out without her, against instructions. No doubt Tighe was frantically searching for her right now. “Even if they are, who will listen to us now?”

“None of the eight women at the clinic have any herpes or HIV I called Lipton and checked. They’re excellent test cases.”

“They aren’t due for ten months,” Kaye said. “If they follow the one-month rule.”

“I know. But I’m sure we’ll find others. We need to talk again — seriously.”

“I’ll be in meetings all day, then at the Americol labs in Baltimore tomorrow.”

“This evening, then. Or doesn’t the truth mean much now?”

“Don’t lecture me about truth, damn it,” Kaye said. She could see National Guard trucks moving in along Center Drive. So far, the protesters had kept to the northern end; she could see their signs and banners from where she stood beside a low grassy hill. She missed Dicken’s next few words. She was fascinated by the distant crowds on the move.

“ — I want to give your idea a fair chance,” Dicken said. “The LPC carries no possible benefit for a simple virus — why use it?”

“Because SHEVA’s a messenger,” Kaye said, her voice soft, between dreamy and distracted. “It’s Darwin’s radio.”

“What?”

“You’ve seen the afterbirth from the Herod’s first-stage fetuses, Christopher. Specialized amniotic sacs…Very sophisticated. Not diseased.”

“Like I said, I want to work on this more. Convince me, Kaye. God, if this Infant C is just a fluke!”

Three blunt little popping sounds came from the north end of the campus, small, toylike. She heard the crowd let out a startled moan, then a distant, high scream.

“I can’t talk, Christopher.” She shut the phone with a plastic clack and ran. The crowd was about a quarter of a mile away, breaking up, people pushing back and scattering along the roads, the parking lots, the brick buildings. No more pops. She slowed to a walk for several steps, considering the danger, then ran again. She had to know. Too much uncertainty in her life. Too much hanging back and inaction, with Saul, with everything and everybody.

Fifty feet from her she saw a stocky man in a brown suit dash out of a building’s rear service door, arms and legs going like windmills. His coat flapped up over a bulging white shirt and he looked ridiculous, but he was quick as a bat out of hell and heading right for her.