Pandemic Page 19

Like Porter, Blackmon took her time to think things through. She didn’t rush. That made the two of them get along quite well. For the bystanders, however, watching them converse was like watching paint dry.

Blackmon had swept to power amid anti-Democratic fervor aimed at President Gutierrez, who had made the fatal mistake of trusting in the intelligence of the American people. An alien pathogen had turned regular Joes and Janes into psychopaths, had sp.a.w.ned a nightmarish version of little green men, and Gutierrez told the people the truth.

What an idiot.

Half the country hadn’t believed him then. Even less believed him now. Blackmon had been merciless in her campaign, citing Gutierrez’s inability to keep the country safe, hammering on the fact that, as president, he’d “allowed” the worst disaster in American history. Those things alone should have been enough, but she’d gone one step further. Without coming out and actually saying it, her allusions and insinuations made her stance clear: since G.o.d created everything, and the Bible was the immutable word of G.o.d, and the Bible didn’t talk about aliens, well, then there couldn’t be aliens — therefore Gutierrez was lying.

Murray had watched, stunned, as a man who told the truth was washed out of office by a nation that didn’t want to believe humanity was not alone in the universe. Blackmon hadn’t rallied just the Bible thumpers. No, you couldn’t win in America anymore if you only paid attention to the religious Right. You also needed the Koran thumpers, the Talmud thumpers, and the thumpers of all moldy old books suitable for thumping. She found a way to gather all of those people into her fold without alienating her Christian base. Countering her strategy, practically every scientist in the country stood firmly behind Gutierrez. They trotted out papers and studies and formulas that proved he was telling the truth, yet that didn’t matter.

When it comes to politics and tragedy, in the end people need someone to blame.

A nation aching with loss and reeling with disbelief had chosen Blackmon. Piousness and ultraconservative views felt like the perfect counter to the science-minded liberal who ran the show when a mushroom cloud blossomed over Detroit.

When the landslide election results came in, Murray had hoped Blackmon’s religious rhetoric was just a way to get her into power. It was politics, after all — say whatever you have to say to get elected. But Murray had come to realize that her brilliant election strategy wasn’t a show.

Sandra Blackmon believed.

In closed-door meetings like this, President Blackmon accepted that America had nearly been invaded by some kind of strange force. She also acknowledged that Gutierrez had played the only card available to stop a disaster that could have taken out the entire Midwest, possibly the nation, maybe the entire world. The problem was, she didn’t believe that force came from somewhere other than Earth. Most of the time, she acted like the attack had to have come from another country: Russia, China, maybe even India (for which she had an inexplicable hatred).

Sometimes, however, the president of the United States of America said things that made it sound like she thought the attack was Satanic in nature. The fact that she might believe that, and she had her finger on the b.u.t.ton? The thought made Murray’s b.a.l.l.s — what were left of them, anyway — shrivel up into little fear-peanuts that tried to crawl up into his belly and hide.

Blackmon turned to André Vogel, a man who — in Murray’s humble opinion — should have walked around with a coating of slime all over him and his fancy clothes.

“Director Vogel,” she said. “What about spies? Any more information on Lieutenant Walker’s background? Could she have been turned?”

“It’s possible,” Vogel said. “So far, however, we have nothing.”

Murray knew that people sometimes said his department, the Department of Special Threats, was the second-most-important government organization you’d probably never heard of. The first? The Special Collections Service. Part NSA, part CIA and all black-budget, Special Collections existed well outside the framework of official government business. André Vogel was exactly the kind of shifty motherf.u.c.ker needed to run it.

“Walker seems to be as red, white and blue as they come,” Vogel said. “Naval Intelligence and the FBI are looking into the entire crew of the Los Angeles, Madam President. That’s a big job. But if a foreign power is at the root of this, we will find out.”

Typical Vogel-speak: casually mention the difficulty of the task, but also promise results.

Blackmon leaned back in her chair. “What about the Chinese? The NSA reported there was chatter shortly after the attack. Can we be sure the Chinese weren’t involved?”

Vogel shook his head. “No, Madam President, we can’t be sure. We’re listening. They know something crashed into Lake Michigan five years ago. President Gutierrez informed the whole world that we had visitors, so it’s easy for the Chinese to put two and two together. Regardless, though, they can’t do anything with that knowledge. Even if they had a sub within a hundred miles of our coast, they couldn’t get it through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and into the Great Lakes.”

“They’ve got money,” Murray said. Heads turned to look at him, eyebrows raised because he’d spoken out of turn. He ignored them all, just stared at Vogel.

“The Chinese have more money than they know what to do with,” Murray said. “Do we really know for sure they couldn’t just quietly hire locals to go down and get the thing?”