A Heartbeat Away

CHAPTER 20

The only virus poisoning the Capitol, Ursula Ellis believed, stood on two legs with his hands resting on the House of Representatives lectern. She glared down at Jim Allaire from her perch atop the tribune and felt her hatred for the man shift into overdrive. Looking away, she made eye contact with Leland Gladstone, who was already in position on the House Chamber floor. Her aide gave her a discreet thumbs-up sign. She tried to suppress her smile. A nod to Gladstone was the signal that his message had been received.

Soon enough, Ellis thought. Soon enough.

Allaire ordered the three hundred people held captive inside the House Chamber to retake their seats, and Ellis delighted in seeing how his usually unflappable demeanor had waned. He looked gray and pinched. The mood in the room was reflecting his plummeting popularity.

“I promised you an update as soon as I had information to share,” Allaire said through the PA system. “At this very moment, there is a team of specialists on site, who are experts in all facets of the virus we may have been exposed to.”

A senator jumped to his feet.

“You said ‘may,’ sir. Is there doubt that we’ve been exposed? Could this all be for nothing?”

The question rattled Allaire, who fumbled with his words before correcting himself. “We’ve almost certainly been exposed to something,” he said. “The nature of the pathogen, however, is still in question. Cultures and other attempts at nailing down the germ are under way.”

Ellis silently applauded the representative from South Dakota for asking what she herself had long been thinking. Allaire prattled on. Half-truths and outright lies.

“The biocontainment suits you have seen are being used as a precaution,” Allaire said in response to a specific question. “In addition to examining some of you, this team of specialists will be taking blood samples. Those samples will be used to assist in determining a timetable for our release. We have to be certain there is no widespread public health threat before we give the green light to evacuate the Capitol. In the meantime, we’re working on removing seats to provide for more adequate sleeping arrangements. Also, I know the lines to use the bathroom have been long, so we’ll be providing portable waste facilities as well.”

“What about contacting our families? My cell phone is useless. What in the hell did your people do?… And why?”

The man stood on his seat, waving his cell phone defiantly. The crowd cheered until he was quickly subdued by two Secret Service agents, who clearly had not been told that transmission had been blocked on those cell phones they hadn’t already confiscated. Ursula watched with pleasure as the agents pried the device from the man’s grasp.

The mood inside the Capitol was worsening. Everybody wanted out—everyone, except perhaps for Ellis, who needed Allaire to keep the crowd imprisoned inside. Politics 101 dictated that the more people felt oppressed, the easier they would be to turn. It was her duty to expose the truth about this man, and Allaire’s mounting paranoia played perfectly in her favor.

“I understand you’re very concerned about your families,” Allaire was rambling on. “We’re working on that issue, but it’s going to take some time. Rest assured, my White House staff is getting word out to your families as I speak, informing them of the situation and sharing my personal commitment that we will resolve this crisis as quickly and efficiently as possible. Soon you’ll be able to make calls yourself. We’re working on setting up a phone bank and bringing in medications for those of you who need them. For national security reasons there will be limits on the sort of information you can share.”

Ellis cringed. This was America, dammit, not some backwater third world dictatorship. Allaire’s wife and daughter sat center to the president on the chamber floor, gazing lovingly up at him. Ellis wondered what their expressions would be in another couple of minutes.

“I know this isn’t the update that you wanted,” Allaire continued. “I know you were hopeful I would say that the crisis has passed and we can now all go. It is my deepest regret to inform you that is not the case.”

It was time. Leland Gladstone stood and raised his hand. Ellis’s heartbeat responded to an adrenaline rush.

“Mr. President,” Gladstone called out, “I found medication belonging to Senator Harlan Mackey in the bathroom. I went to give it to him, but could not find the senator here in the House Chamber. Has he been relocated to another part of the Capitol, sir?”

Ellis held her breath. She wondered what might happen to Gladstone in the aftermath of what was soon to follow. Whatever Allaire might to do her aide, Ellis would make it her first priority to undo.

“Yes. Senator Mackey has been relocated,” Allaire said. “You can provide the medication to my physician, Dr. Bethany Townsend, and she’ll see that he gets it.”

“Oh, good,” Gladstone said. “So the video I have isn’t of Senator Mackey.”

Ellis bristled from the same sense of pride she felt whenever her own gifted children excelled at something special. Allaire took a staggered step backward, but soon regained his composure.

“What video?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

Gladstone hit the power on the digital projector he had hidden underneath his seat. He had found the projector inside a locked cabinet in the press gallery, precisely where Ursula said it would be. Sean O’Neil had provided her with the key, and Gladstone found cables there to connect the machine to his BlackBerry.

The stiletto of light filled a portion of the House Chamber’s side wall. The grainy image was of the Capitol’s east exit walkway at night.

“What is this? What is the meaning of this?” Allaire thundered, his face reddened.

Gladstone bore in.

“In the initial confusion after the outbreak, I somehow ended up on the second floor of the Capitol. I was taking some video of this ordeal when … well, when this happened.”

Gladstone pointed toward the makeshift screen, which now displayed footage of a man stepping into the frame. The man took a few steps forward. His back was turned to the camera. But the moonlight and glow from streetlamps lining the walkway bathed him in a dim light. Those who knew Mackey could easily match the build of the man in the video to that of the senator.

Mackey took another step forward, and then paused and swung around so that he was facing Gladstone’s camera. The focus wasn’t sharp, but some in the chamber gasped at the man they knew was Mackey. He called out something, but there was no sound on the recording. The BlackBerry camera angle tilted down to capture the man trying, and failing, to pull open the locked exit door.

“Stop this at once!” Allaire cried out.

Several Secret Service agents charged down the aisle toward Gladstone.

Mackey took a step forward and raised his hands to shield his face. Just as the agents reached Gladstone and the projector, Mackey’s head snapped back. A spray of blood exploded from a lemon-sized hole that materialized on the back of his skull. The picture bounced wildly and then went dark.

The agents snatched the projector from Gladstone, then looked sheepishly at the president for guidance.

Ursula Ellis took that as her cue to act. She leapt to her feet and reached for her microphone.

“Mr. President,” her forceful voice boomed out, “I believe it is time for you to tell us the truth.”