A Heartbeat Away

CHAPTER 69

Griff stood at the rostrum, looking out over the nearly seven hundred survivors, all of them infected to one degree or another with the WRX virus. The moment in the lab when he saw the concentric red circles on his palm was among the most frightening, soul-crushing he had ever experienced, not only because his research had failed, and people were going to die, but because he had seen Angie for the last time. For nearly an hour he had sat there in his office, motionless, staring at the wall, and planning what he might do to end his life as soon as symptoms of the virus began to become manifest.

Then, suddenly, the miracle began to unfold.

Over another hour, the dreadful markings began to vanish, until finally, after nearly three hours, they were gone altogether. By then he had already contacted the president by fax through Angie, and had asked him to begin laying the trap that was going to confirm or disprove Paul Rappaport’s involvement with Genesis.

The mood inside the House Chamber was an odd mix of bewilderment and buoyancy. Some in the vast room were hugging. Some were crying. And some were merely standing motionless, staring up at the strange tableaux.

Ellis stood frozen on the stage, her eyes looking furiously at Griff. Several of the Capitol Police force had moved in close to her, awaiting orders from their chief or from the president. Griff had helped the weakened vice president into the speaker’s chair. Then he opened the cooler and extracted a large jar of opaque serum and held it aloft for all to see.

But before he could speak, a man’s voice hollered out from somewhere near the middle of the crowd.

“Get in line! There might not be enough!”

Suddenly, driven by primal survival instincts, and in all likelihood by the effects of the virus as well, the crowd began to surge forward.

“Wait!” Griff cried into the microphone. “Everybody stop! There’s enough. There’s enough for each of you.”

But his words had no effect. People, some violently shoving, others already on the floor crawling, had reached the stairs to the rostrum. The police moved in and the Secret Service began to form ranks about the president and vice president.

But before any of the people reached Griff, three ear-splitting bangs stopped the milling crowd and silenced the hall. Leland Gladstone was standing behind him. The still-smoking barrel of the gun he had fired into the air he now held against Griff’s temple.

Ellis’s aide quickly ripped the cooler from Griff’s hand and handed it to her. The Capitol Police surrounding the speaker moved away.

“This is yours, Madam Speaker,” Gladstone said. “You’ve worked too hard for it. We can’t stop now. We mustn’t stop now.”

Ellis took the cooler from her aide, and pulled out one of the sterilized jars. The chamber remained silent, all eyes fixed on the precious serum. Ellis faced the assembly while Gladstone, wild-eyed, continued to shift the gun toward anyone who moved.

“You have all been fooled,” Ellis cried out. “And you continue to be fooled. What is this?” She shook the bottle for emphasis. “You’re going to let this charlatan inject you with this when I have promised you the real treatment? You are going to trust this … this hermit, and not me? Haven’t I shown you the truth? The truth about Senator Mackay? The truth about the Senate Chamber? Haven’t I done my part to expose the lies of this president? And yet you still rush for this concoction? Either the content of this jar is useless, or it will quicken our deaths. But I can assure you of one thing—this is not a cure! Only Genesis has the cure. Only Genesis and the bill I’ve presented can save your lives, not this bottle of lies.”

Allaire, who had been ushered off the stage by the Secret Service, pushed himself through the cluster of bodies surrounding him.

“You need to stop this, Ursula,” he said in a calm voice. “What you have there cannot be replicated. Surely you want to save the lives of all these good people. You need to give the serum back and allow us to administer it. You must.”

“I must save these people from you!” Ellis cried out.

Gary Salitas, who had been on his cell phone, leaned over and whispered to the president. Allaire turned to the crowd.

“I have just been informed that the gang of terrorists calling itself Genesis has been captured. Several of them are dead. The rest are on their way to jail.” He shifted his attention back to Ellis. “They admitted that they were using you, Ursula. They have no serum.”

Some cheered, others continued to stare at the speaker.

Allaire’s announcement was the final straw for her.

“Lies!” she shrieked. “All lies.”

She raised the bottle above her head and hurled it into the crowd, where it shattered on the carpet. A second jar disintegrated against the head of a tall, balding man, sending a gruesome mix of blood and serum cascading over him.

Before anyone could move, she had thrown a third jar, this one smashing on the metal frame of a bed.

There was a gunshot, loud and echoing. Ellis’s head snapped back as the bullet tore through her, exploding out the back of her skull. Blood, brains, and bone splattered over the rostrum as she crumpled to the floor by the seat that had been hers for so long.

Gladstone, his eyes widening, still with the gun in his hand, took a shot in the center of his face, the bullet following a path almost identical to the one that had killed Ellis. He instantly fell lifeless across her body, his blood mixing with hers.

A short distance away, Sean O’Neil held his smoking pistol, preparing for the follow-up shot that would not be necessary.

Allaire rushed to Griff, his expression panicked.

“You said the serum couldn’t be replicated,” he said. “You said this was a one-time deal. Can you possibly stretch out what’s left? Can you make it be enough for all of us?”

Griff raised his hands to quiet the crowd. Then, as the cries and commotion settled down, he turned to the president and grinned.

“President Allaire,” Griff said into the microphone, “the antiviral treatment that I developed cannot be replicated. That is true.”

“No! Don’t let us die!” somebody shouted.

Others echoed the fear, and again the frightened, emotional crowd began to unravel.

“Please,” Griff called out to them. “You’ve all been through enough. Please listen.” An uneasy silence returned. “The serum cannot be replicated,” he continued, “so I could not trust myself to be the one to bring it here. Genesis had too many eyes and ears for me to believe they could not get to me, which is why the mixture I carried into the chamber was a ruse, not the antiviral treatment I developed.” He nodded toward the door to the Senate Wing and a solidly built man in a biocontainment suit stepped forward. “Let me introduce to all of you Sergeant Chad Stafford of the United States Army—the one person I knew we could all trust with our lives. The serum in his backpack is enough for every one of you.”

Applause and cheers started in the back of the crowd and rolled toward the soldier like thunder. In addition to his backpack, he held an assault weapon at the ready. People moved aside to allow him to pass as the cheering grew even more intense. All business as usual, Stafford climbed the rostrum stairs and stood next to Griff, who turned to the man and shook his hand.

“Glad you found the place okay,” he said.