“Then keep them in Level Four isolation until you know. But at least get them home.”

“Sir, that’s where the risk comes in,” said Profitt. “In just bringing them home. The CRV’s not like the shuttle, which you guide down to a specific landing strip. They’d be coming home in far less controllable vehicle—essentially a pod with parachutes. What if something goes wrong? What if the CRV breaks up in the atmosphere, or crashes on landing? This organism would be into the air. The wind could carry it anywhere! By then, it will so much human DNA in its genome, we won’t be able to fight it. It will be too much like us. Any drug we use against it would kill humans as well.” Profitt paused, letting the impact of his words in. “We can’t let emotions affect our decision. Not with so much at stake.”

“Mr. President,” cut in Leroy Cornell, “with all due respect, may I point out that this would be a politically disastrous move. The public will not allow five heroes to die in space.”

“Politics should be our last concern right now!” said Profitt. “Our first priority is public health!”

“Then why the secrecy? Why have you cut NASA out of the loop? You’ve shown us only parts of the organism’s genome. Our life-sciences people are ready and willing to contribute their expertise. We want to find a cure every bit as much as—even more than-you do. If USAMRIID would just share all its data with us, we could work together.”

“Our concern is security,” said General Moray. “A hostile country could turn this into a devastating bioweapon. Giving out Chimera’s genetic code is like handing out a blueprint for that weapon.”

“Meaning you don’t trust NASA with that information?”

General Moray met Cornell’s gaze head-on. “I’m afraid NASA’s new philosophy of sharing technology with every two-bit country under the sun does not make your agency a good security risk.”

Cornell flushed with anger but said nothing.

Profitt looked at the president. “Sir, it is a tragedy that five astronauts must be left up there to die. But we have-to look beyond that, to the possibility of a far great. er tragedy. A worldwide epidemic, caused by an organism we’re just beginning to understand. USAMRIID is working around the clock to learn what makes it tick. Until then, I urge you to stay the course. NASA is not equipped to deal with a biological disaster. They have one planetary-protection officer. One. The Army’s Biological Rapid Response Team is prepared for just this sort of crisis. As for NASA operations, leave that under the control of U.S. Space Command, backed up by the Fourteenth Air Force. NASA has too many personal and emotional ties to the astronauts. We need a firm grip on the helm. We need absolute discipline.”

Profitt slowly looked around at the men and women seated at the long table. Only a few of these people did he truly respect. Some were interested only in prestige and power. Others had earned a seat here because of political connections. Still others were easily swayed by public sentiment. Few had motives as uncomplicated as his.

Few had suffered his nightmares, had awakened soaked with sweat in the darkness, shaken by the terrible vision of what they might face.

“Then you’re saying the astronauts can never come home,” said Cornell.

Profitt looked at the NASA administrator’s ashen face and felt genuine sympathy. “When we find a way to cure it, when we know we can kill this organism, then we can talk about bringing your people home.”

“If they’re still alive,” murmured the president.

Profitt and Roman glanced at each other, but neither responded.

They already understood the obvious. They would not find a cure in time.

The astronauts would not be coming home alive.

Jared Profitt wore his jacket and tie as he walked through that sweltering day, but he scarcely noticed the heat. Others might of the miseries of a D. C. summer. He did not mind the soaring temperatures. It was winter he dreaded, because he was so sensitive to cold, and on frosty days his lips would turn blue and he’d shiver under layers of scarves and sweaters. Even in summer he kept a sweater in his office to combat the effects of the air conditioner.

Today the temperature was in the nineties, and perspiration gleamed on all the faces he passed on the street, but he did not remove his jacket or loosen his tie.

The meeting had left him deeply chilled, both in body and soul.

He was carrying his lunch in a brown paper bag, the identical lunch he packed every morning before he left for work. The route he walked was the one he always took, west toward the Potomac, the Reflecting Pool on his left. He took comfort in the routine, familiar. There were so few things in his life that offered much reassurance these days, and as he grew older, he found himself adhering to certain rituals, much as a monk in a religious order to the daily rhythm of work and prayer and meditation. In many ways, he was like those ancient ascetics, a man who ate only to his body and dressed in suits only because it was required of him.

A man for whom wealth meant nothing.

The name Profitt could not be further from the reality of the man.

He slowed his pace as he walked along the grassy slope past the Vietnam War Memorial, and gazed down at the solemn line of visitors shuffling past the wall etched with names of the dead. He knew what they were all thinking as they confronted those panels of black granite, as they considered the horrors of war, So many names. So many dead.

And he thought, You have no idea.

He found an empty bench in the shade and sat down to eat. From his brown bag he removed an apple, a wedge of cheddar, and a bottle of water. Not Evian or Perrier, but straight from the tap. slowly, watching the tourists as they made the circuit from to memorial.

And so we honor our war heroes, he thought. Society erected statues, engraved marble plaques, raised flags. It at the number of lives lost on both sides in the slaughterhouse of war.

Two million soldiers and civilians dead in Vietnam. Fifty million dead in World War II. Twenty-one million dead in World War I. The numbers were appalling. People might ask, Could man have a more lethal enemy than himself?

The answer was yes.

Though humans could not see it, the enemy was all around them. Inside them. In the air they breathe , the food and water they ate and drank.

Throughout the history of mankind, it has been their nemesis, and it would survive them long after they have vanished from the face of the earth. The enemy was the microbial world, and over the centuries, it has killed more people than all of man’s wars combined.

From A.D. 542 to 767, forty million dead of the plague in the Justinian pandemic.

In the 1300s, twenty-five million dead when the Black Death returned.

In 1918 and 1919, thirty million dead of influenza.

And in 1997, Amy Sorensen Profitt, age forty-three, dead of pneumococcal pneumonia.

He finished his apple, placed the core in the brown bag, and carefully rolled his rubbish into a tight bundle. Though the lunch had been meager, he felt satisfied, and he remained on the bench for a while, sipping the last of the water.

A tourist walked by, a woman with light brown hair. When she turned just so and the light slanted across her face, she looked like Amy. She felt him staring, and she glanced his way. They eyed each other for a moment, she with wariness, he with silent apology.

Then she walked away, and he decided she did not look like his dead wife after all. No one did. No one could.

He rose to his feet, discarded his trash in a receptacle, and began to walk back the way he’d come. Past the wall. Past the uniformed veterans, gray and shaggy now, keeping vigil. Honoring the memory of the dead.

But even the memories fade, he thought. The image of her smile across the kitchen table, the echo of her laughter—all those were receding as time went by. Only the painful memories hung on. A San Francisco hotel room. A late-night phone call. Frantic images of airports and taxis and phone booths as he raced across the country to reach Bethesda Hospital in time.