Cheng froze. He looked left and right, saw that everyone was waiting for his answer. He licked his lips.
“Um, we’re working on it.”
Blackmon slapped the table again. “How long?”
Murray was just as much at fault as Cheng for this, but he couldn’t help take a tiny bit of satisfaction at watching the attention wh.o.r.e suffer. You wanted the big time, hot shot? This is what it’s really like.
Cheng had no choice but to meet the president’s burning gaze.
“We have to locate the individuals who had that experimental stem cell therapy,” he said.
Blackmon’s nostrils flared, her lips pressed into a thin line. The most powerful human being on the planet had eyes only for Cheng.
“I’m gathering you’ve found none so far,” she said. “And the only way that could happen is if you haven’t actually looked.”
She turned on Murray, pointed at him. “This is on you, too, Longworth.”
“It is,” he said. “I’ll take charge of the search personally.”
“Director Vogel,” Blackmon said. “You’re now in charge of that search. I don’t care what you have to do to find those people. Get the details from Murray and make it happen.”
Vogel nodded. “Yes, Madam President.”
She turned her attention back to Cheng. “From what you’ve told me, the hydra strain could be just as bad as what we’re already dealing with. But if this spins out of control and my choices are hydras or the destruction of the United States of America, you know G.o.dd.a.m.n well which one I’ll pick.”
Blackmon sat still for a moment, gathering herself. Murray wanted to crawl across the table and kiss her. He looked around the room, saw similar sentiments etched on the faces of America’s elite; at that moment, no one gave a rat’s a.s.s if Sandra Blackmon was Republican or Democrat, civilian or a vet, male or female. She was the right person in the right place at the right time. Everyone believed in her.
She took a breath, visibly calmed herself. “The hydra strain is one contingency plan, but that’s not enough. I want everyone working on worst-case scenarios. I want to know just how bad it can get, and I want to know what we’re going to do if it gets that way.”
In the face of an utter catastrophe, it defied logic that Murray felt optimistic — and yet, he did. It wouldn’t be easy, and he knew many would die, but they were going to beat this thing.
They were going to win.
MISTER BLISTER
Cooper took another bite of his egg-white omelette. Room-service breakfast, and it tasted d.a.m.n good. He wasn’t sure if it was thirty-seven dollars good, but this was on Steve’s tab so he didn’t really care.
He still felt c.r.a.ppy — exhausted, weak, like his whole body was rebelling against him — but at least his appet.i.te had returned. He was turning the corner. One more good, long sleep, and he’d be right as rain.
Jeff, on the other hand, had gotten worse.
“Buddy-guy, you got to eat something,” Cooper said. He pointed his fork at the hamburger sitting on the tray in front of Jeff’s bed. “Feed a cold, starve a fever, bro.”
“Got a fever, too,” Jeff said. “Dude, I hurt so G.o.dd.a.m.n bad.”
His eyes were swollen, almost crusted shut.
“Jeff, I know you don’t want to see a doctor while you’re on vacation, but—”
A loud thump-whoof came from outside the curtain-covered window, followed by the faint, constant cry of a car alarm.
Cooper put his fork down and walked to the window. He opened the heavy curtains, looked down to wintry Wabash Avenue far below.
“Jeff, come take a look at this.”
Jeff did, groaning as he pushed himself out of bed and joined Cooper at the window.
Fifteen floors down, flames billowed out of a black-and-white cop car. One cop lay on the pavement, unmoving, his heavy winter jacket on fire and billowing up greasy black smoke. Another cop stood near the car, aiming his pistol at running pedestrians.
“Holy s.h.i.t,” Jeff said again. “I think he’s—”
Filtered by the distance and by a thick window that wouldn’t open, the cop’s firing gun sounded like the tiny snap of bubble wrap.
A woman fell face-first onto the slushy sidewalk. She rolled to her back, holding her shoulder.
The cop turned, aimed at a running man: snap. The man kept running, angling for a brown delivery van parked half up on the sidewalk. Snap. The man stumbled, slammed into the van’s side. He slid to the ground.
The cop strode toward him with a steady, measured pace.
“Jesus,” Jeff said. “That cop … he’s killing people.”
Cooper heard sirens approaching; thick, long echoes bounced through downtown Chicago’s city canyons.
The cop reached the fallen man, pointed his gun at the man’s head. Cooper couldn’t breathe — fifteen stories up, there wasn’t anything he could do but watch.
Then, the cop put the gun away. He knelt down and put his face on the fallen man’s, held his head in what looked like a pa.s.sionate kiss. The man kicked and struggled, but the cop kept at it, ignoring the feeble punches that landed on his shoulders and back.
Jeff shook his head. “What the f.u.c.k? Johnny Badge shoots him down, now he’s performing mouth-to-mouth?”
Cooper didn’t say anything. The burning cop car continued to pour black smoke into the sky, the greasy column rising up right in front of their window. The woman was crawling across the sidewalk, a trail of blood marking her path.