The Rationing

33.

DURING OUR SHORT BREAK, THE HOUSE SPEAKER approached the President and told him she was prepared to force his hand on the China situation, either by congressional action or in the courts. Their conversation was calm enough that none of the rest of us even knew it was happening. The President calmly rebuffed her. Congress has no authority to conduct diplomacy, he said. The White House Legal Counsel joined their sidebar conversation. “You have no grounds for action in the courts, either,” he pointed out. “You can sue the President to stop him from doing something—if he were giving away American Dormigen, for example. But you can’t sue to make him do something, at least not in this case.”

The Speaker’s top legal adviser, who had been following her around silently like a lapdog ever since she attended her first meeting, nodded in agreement. The Speaker stared malevolently at the President. “You are making a huge mistake,” she said. “Thousands of people are going to die, and it will all be on you.”

“I haven’t decided anything yet,” the President said. “But as always, I appreciate your input.” The Speaker turned abruptly and walked away. We do not know exactly where she went, or who she called. We do know that shortly thereafter, Claire Yegian, the most notoriously dogged member of the White House press corps, texted the Communications Director for a comment on “the Hawaii tragedy” with a link to a local news story: three children, all under seven, had died from “flu-like symptoms.” Their father, a widower who had moved the family from Cleveland to Honolulu for a new start after his wife was killed in a car accident, was demanding an investigation. The tragedy of three dead children, combined with the father’s allegations that some dangerous disease was afoot, was getting traction.

The Communications Director texted back, “President sends deepest condolences, but this is clearly not WH [White House] business.”

Yegian’s chilling response came right back: “I have it on highest authority that it is.”

The Communications Director called her. “Who’s your source?” he asked, without exchanging pleasantries.

“Give me a break,” Yegian said, miffed that he would even ask.

“Then let me ask you this: Might it be someone who wants to run for president herself?”

“Something’s going on,” Yegian insisted. “That I know. Now I’ve got three dead kids under strange circumstances and a high-level source saying the White House knows something—”

“You can’t corroborate that,” the Communications Director said tersely.

“Not yet.”

“The President sends his deepest condolences for this family tragedy,” the Communications Director said, and then hung up. He walked quickly to the corner of the room where the President was speaking with the First Lady. I had not noticed her come in; this was the first time I had seen her in person. She was taller than I thought, maybe because of the heels, and elegantly made up, with dark black hair pulled back in a tight bun. She was wearing large diamond stud earrings. Later, when she appeared in public, they would be gone. I was watching the couple from across the room, unaware of what they were talking about, when the President wheeled in my direction and pointed at me. There was fierceness in his eyes, more than just anger, that I had not seen before. “I thought you said this was like the flu,” he said loud enough to stop other conversations. I found myself walking, almost involuntarily, to where the Communications Director was huddled with the President and the First Lady. “Three kids—three little children—all dead. That’s not the flu,” the President repeated as I joined them.

“Focus,” the First Lady snapped at him. And then, more calm and measured: “These things happen. Tragedies happen.” In that moment I appreciated what it means to be the partner of someone who carries the weight of the White House.

“The Speaker is leaking like a sieve,” the President said angrily. “Now goddamn Claire Yegian—”

“You just need time, honey,” the First Lady said. “I can buy you time.”

“Three children?” the President repeated. “The guy loses his wife and then all of his children? That’s not the flu… His whole family.”

“Did they seek treatment?” I asked. The President ignored my response. The Communications Director shook his head no, leaving me confused as to whether he was answering my question or trying to tell me to stop talking.

“Do you have any idea how bad this could get?” the President asked. We all recognized it as a rhetorical question.

“You need to keep doing what you’re doing,” the First Lady said, almost sternly. I realized that the architect of the “Mac ’n Cheese Massacre” was no stranger to hard decisions, if in less deadly situations. “Okay?” she added.

“I think this is a bad idea,” the Communications Director said.

“Nobody asked you,” the First Lady answered. Under different circumstances this might have been funny, as the Communications Director’s entire job consisted of offering advice on these matters.

“Are you sure?” the President asked.

“Twenty minutes,” she replied.

Having walked into the conversation, I had no idea what was afoot. But roughly twenty minutes later I understood. The First Lady held an impromptu news conference on the White House lawn. “I have just two short statements,” she began. “First, the President and I would like to extend our heartfelt condolences to Cliff Barnhill for his tragic loss in Honolulu. The President and I read this story and were so deeply saddened. Please, please let this be a reminder to all Americans to seek treatment immediately if you feel ill—always better to err on the safe side. The flu season is not over, and we are working with Hawaii public health officials to learn why the illness was so virulent in the Barnhill case.

“Second, the President and I will be spending some time apart.” There was an audible gasp from the assembled press corps. The photographers and camera operators pressed closer. “I will be leaving immediately to spend time with my parents in New Hampshire. I would ask that you respect our privacy with regard to this situation.” She paused and grasped the podium, as if for emotional support. One of the photographers, paid to notice the small things, realized that she was not wearing her wedding ring. He moved toward the podium and shot a close-up of the ringless finger. It was unseemly, so close that a pale band was visible where the ring had shielded her finger from the sun, but this was the money shot. Home Depot Media began blasting out the image three minutes later.

The First Lady’s motorcade left the White House with a parade of media vehicles in tow. Claire Yegian’s editor texted, “Go to NH.”

34.

THE STRESS AND FATIGUE WERE EVIDENT AROUND THE CONFERENCE table. On breaks, the White House staff would swoop in to clear away plates and cups, but the room still had the stale feel of a common area in a college dormitory during finals. The Majority Leader had finally taken off his jacket. The Strategist had loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. The room was cool, but many of us looked like we had been sitting in the same place for too many hours (and probably smelled that way, too). I wanted real food, some exercise of any kind, and a shower. It was not going to happen anytime soon. As soon as I left the room, I would have to get on a plane and fly to New Hampshire.

The Chief of Staff called us back to order. “I want to thank the Acting Secretary for bringing up the issue of how we might distribute our stock of Dormigen if we were to come up short,” she said. “I know we hope it will not come to that, but I agree that we ought to plan for every contingency.”

“Don’t we have some system for allocating scarce medicine?” the Strategist asked.

“No,” the Acting HHS Secretary said. “We have situations where individuals cannot afford the medicines that are available, but we do not have any policy governing scarcity. It’s just not something that typically happens.”

“What about donor organs?” the Strategist asked.

“That’s a whole separate system that has a lot to do with matching the tissue type of donors and recipients. It really doesn’t offer us much guidance.”

“So how do we distribute Dormigen right now?” the Strategist asked. It was interesting to watch his mind work, like a precocious child who cannot help but ask more questions. Others in the room were clearly eager for the Acting Secretary to start his presentation, but the Strategist was oblivious to the looks that were being exchanged across the table.

“Dormigen is no different than Band-Aids or aspirin,” the Acting Secretary answered. “It’s expensive, yes, but it’s plentiful. When the supply is running low, you order more. And when you order more, it comes. No one has ever considered anything different.”

The Chief of Staff steered us back on track. “Why don’t you tell us what you have in mind?” she said to the Acting Secretary.

The Acting Secretary stood and buttoned his suit jacket over his sizable stomach. It was a gesture of formality that I found oddly affecting, as it seemed to signal some kind respect for the moment. “Mr. President, members of the Cabinet Working Group, thank you for this opportunity to present my ideas. I’m particularly appreciative since, as you all know, I’m merely a placeholder in this position.” These opening remarks were not as stilted as they may now seem. Like the small gesture of buttoning his suit jacket, the formality of the Acting Secretary’s remarks gave a certain gravitas to the moment, which was all the more noteworthy because of his normal levity. The Acting HHS Secretary had been the person least in awe of the President throughout this process, yet here he was showing the most deference to our situation when it came his turn to make a recommendation. “I don’t have a fancy presentation,” he continued.

“Good,” said the President. “Just tell us what you want to tell us.”

The Acting Secretary nodded respectfully. He looked around the table slowly, almost as if to generate suspense. “My idea is very simple, though don’t for a second think I haven’t given it a great deal of thought. I propose that the available doses of Dormigen be allocated to those who need it based on a lottery. Everyone with a Social Security number is eligible. We will draw numbers—electronically, I assume—and the persons with the Social Security numbers selected will receive the available doses.”

“People are going to live or die based on a lottery?” the Speaker asked scornfully.

“My dad went to Vietnam because of a lottery,” the Acting Secretary said, not missing a beat. He had obviously anticipated that question.

There was silence around the table, and not even much movement, as if the cabinet had been frozen in place, or was posing for one of those old-fashioned photos that required stillness for twenty seconds. The Majority Leader spoke first. “A lottery? That doesn’t feel right.”

“Which one: for Vietnam or for Dormigen?” the Acting Secretary asked pointedly.

“Hold on a second,” the Strategist interjected. “Why don’t we just sell the stuff? Supply and demand. That’s what we do when we have a shortage of anything else.”

“You can’t be serious,” the House Speaker said.

“Why can’t I be serious?” the Strategist said. I could not tell if he was being literal, or if he was just trying to provoke her.

“You propose that we give a lifesaving drug only to those who can afford it?” she said, genuinely incredulous.

“Hello! Welcome to America!” the Strategist said loudly, almost yelling but not quite. “That’s what we’ve been doing with health care for the last eighty years.”

“It’s not the same thing,” the Speaker said.

“Really? I passed at least four homeless guys on my way here this morning. Do you think those guys are sleeping on the street because they have a special affinity for the outdoors?” The Strategist was more visibly emotional than I had seen him. I could not tell if he was angry because of the social injustice of the situation, or because the Speaker refused to accept his logic.

“They’re mentally ill,” she said. “They have substance abuse problems.”

“Then why don’t they get treatment? Because it would conflict with their regular golf game?”

The Speaker paused, taking a breath to calm herself before she responded. “I have supported higher funding for those programs at every turn. I sponsored many of those bills.”

“Did they pass?” the Strategist asked.

“Ask the President about that,” the Speaker replied tartly.

“Did they pass?” the Strategist repeated.

“Usually not,” the Speaker answered. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

Because the room was so quiet and still, we all noticed as the President shifted in his seat and took off his reading glasses. He stared at the Strategist with an expression I had not seen; his whole bearing seemed to soften, as if the White House porters had whisked away the anger and frustration of the past week along with the coffee cups and dirty plates. “John, I appreciate what you’re saying,” the President said. He rarely called staffers by their first names, so I noticed when he did. “You’re right. You are absolutely right.”

“Don’t patronize me,” the Strategist warned.

“I’m not patronizing you,” the President said. “God knows I’ve learned that lesson.” There was some chuckling around the table. Even the Strategist smiled slightly. The President continued, “There is no doubt that we have a system in which…” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Life is not fair.”

“Life is not fair anywhere, Mr. President, but it is uniquely American to deprive poor people of basic necessities that we as a society could easily afford to provide for them.” The Strategist was calmer now, having had a chance to express his thoughts. The President nodded in acknowledgment but said nothing. I could not for the life of me figure out what was happening. The Strategist was no flaming leftie; if anything, he had been the most caustic critic of some of the Speaker’s proposals. He described the $22 minimum wage proposal as “a policy designed by a kindergarten student who had been hit on the head during block-building hour.” That was his exact comment. For obvious reasons, journalists loved interviewing the Strategist, and for equally obvious reasons, the White House tried to make sure it happened as infrequently as possible.

I looked at the Chief of Staff, but her expression betrayed nothing.

Finally, the President spoke again, “John, how is auctioning off Dormigen going to make any of that any better?”

“It would hold a mirror up to society,” he answered. “It would say, ‘This is what we have become. We are the richest society in the history of civilization, but if you can’t afford the basic necessities of life, you’re fucked.’” The Strategist was emotionally taut. He was speaking like a first-year college student in a late-night bull session, but his thoughts were coming from a much deeper, more emotional place. I thought he might cry, which seemed almost inconceivable based on all that I had seen and read about his detached, ironic view of the world.

Some of us began unconsciously looking down the table to the Acting Secretary of HHS, perhaps because he still technically had the floor, but more likely because he had the highest emotional intelligence of the group. Maybe he was the guy who could say the right thing as we confronted this awkward situation. The Acting Secretary fixed his warm gaze on the Strategist. “John, I wish you could have met my dad,” he said. “Let’s just say that when he came back from Vietnam, he was one angry man. Actually, if I’m being honest, he was pretty angry on the way over, too, but when he came back—one very angry black man. Because, shit, if it’s bad to be poor and white in this country, it really sucks to be poor and black.”

“Yes,” the Strategist said, inviting him to continue.

“He’d watch the news and read his newspaper, sitting in this big armchair with a footstool, right in front of the television. And he would tell anyone in earshot everything that was wrong with the country. I’d be running around the house looking for a chemistry book or my football cleats, and he’d insist on reading some article out loud. He’d yell, ‘Did you see what that clown Bush did?’ And then he’d read me the article, stopping after every paragraph to offer commentary, like some kind of talk radio show in our living room.

“So one day my mom comes home and tells us she’s running for the school board. Truth be told, there were three open seats and only three candidates, so really she volunteered for the school board. But her name was on the ballot, and we all went together and voted for her, and then she was on the school board. Bless my mother, she was a kind soul, never one for direct confrontation, but don’t get me wrong, that woman could get her point across. So when my dad started grumbling about some injustice or another, she would say, ‘Can you read that to me when I get back, honey, because I’ve got a meeting to get to.’ My sisters and I would look at each other and smile, because we knew what she was really saying was, ‘If you’re so upset about the situation, why don’t you get your big fat black ass out of that chair and do something?’”

The Strategist smiled, as did others around the table. The Acting Secretary continued, “Something changed after my mom joined the school board. She served for fourteen years and she made a lot of difference. We could see it. She’d say one night over dinner, ‘We need a better library,’ and then two or three years later, we’d be sitting at some ribbon-cutting for a new library. Don’t get me wrong, my dad still spent a lot of time in that chair. He died there. I mean he literally died in that chair. But he lived to see me get elected mayor, and he lived to see Barack Obama become president. I spent the better part of a day trying to get him a ticket to the inauguration, and we went together. When it was over, and we were still sitting in our seats, he turned to me and he said, ‘You need to keep doing what you’re doing.’

“Now, to be clear, he was right back in his chair the next week, yelling at the television. But that’s the phrase that stuck with me: ‘You need to keep doing what you’re doing.’” The Acting Secretary paused and looked around the table. “I’m sorry. I’ve gone on for too long.” He turned to the Strategist. “John, I am sorry about your brother. I really am. For what it’s worth, that’s exactly the kind of thing that would get my dad all riled up. It’s just plain wrong. But you know, and I know, that this is not the time to make that point.”

“I know,” the Strategist said. “Thank you.”

“And as bad as our situation is here, we got to keep doing what we’re doing,” the Acting Secretary added.

No one said anything. It was as if only the Acting Secretary and the Strategist had permission to speak. What could any of the rest of us add? The tenor of the room had changed for the better, though it would not necessarily last. In that moment, I felt part of something bigger. We would do our best to muddle through. We would join the ranks of other Americans who had muddled through. Maybe sensible people trying to muddle through is the best we can hope for, I thought. Muddling through won World War II. It got us through the Great Depression and the Trump presidency.

At the time, all this was just a feeling. I could not have articulated those thoughts in the Cabinet Room. Even now I struggle to put words against that fleeting sense of goodwill and purpose. The scientist in me says that the Acting Secretary’s inspiring speech caused a little burst of dopamine in my brain. But maybe that, too, is part of muddling through. Eventually the Chief of Staff said, “I think we all need a short break.”

I was growing more politically aware, noticing subtle cues and comments that had escaped me just a few days earlier. Our short break, which on the surface looked like any other group of adults lingering near coffee and pastries, was in fact more like a group of political animals gathering near a watering hole. The Majority Leader, with a Danish in each hand, was huddled in a corner with the Secretary of Defense. As I walked by, they were discussing some kind of defense appropriations bill. The Defense Secretary was making a passionate case for something, and the Majority Leader seemed to be agreeing with him.

The National Security Adviser stood alone on one side of the room, a solitary creature in this political tableau. Her work typically rose above this kind of political give-and-take, and she was too disciplined to eat pastries just because they happened to be there.

The Chief of Staff had made herself a cup of tea and was now using the break to answer as many calls and e-mails as possible. The mundane details of governing did not stop just because we were in crisis. She sat in a chair by the wall speaking on her phone with someone I assumed to be her assistant. “No, no, no,” I heard her declare emphatically. “Tell the Prime Minister if they announce more settlements, the President will veto the whole foreign aid bill. Period.” She listened for a brief time and then issued more instructions. “Fine. Add Chile to the itinerary and cancel the fundraiser. What else?” She listened again and then exclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s the only open appointment they had this month. Tell her if she can’t make it to the orthodontist, I’m taking her phone away all weekend.” I was struck by how similar the Chief of Staff’s tone was in dealing with the Israeli settlement-building and her teenage daughter skipping an orthodontist appointment. In both cases, I found her threats to be entirely credible.

If the pastry table was a political watering hole, the Speaker was the predator loitering on the periphery, looking for an opportunity to strike. A coffee break was not to be wasted on tea or phone calls; it was ten minutes to be used for political advantage. I watched her watching the room, like I was on some kind of political safari. Her gaze settled on the Acting HHS Secretary, who was talking to the Strategist. The Acting Secretary had his arm draped over the Strategist’s shoulder in a supportive way. I could hear snippets of what they were saying, something about the Vietnam War. From across the room, the Speaker watched intently, waiting for the right moment. It wouldn’t surprise me if her breathing slowed and her pupils dilated. After about a minute, the Acting HHS Secretary said, “Get something to eat, John.” The Strategist nodded and turned toward the pastry table. Almost immediately the Speaker walked briskly toward the Acting Secretary, who was now standing alone near the wall. The Acting Secretary took a step toward the coffee and pastries; the Speaker quickly inserted herself between him and the food table, making it appear that they came face-to-face by serendipity. In my mind, I could hear the narrator on the Discovery Channel explaining (with a cool South African accent), “The Speaker, an adept hunter, has injected herself between the Acting Secretary and the pastries, cutting him off from his fellow cabinet members and leaving him effectively pinned against the far wall of the room.”

The Speaker got right to the point. “We’re wasting our time here,” she said.

“How’s that, Madam Speaker?” the Acting HHS Secretary replied respectfully.

“This is a matter for Congress to decide,” she said in a tone that bordered on accusatory.

“You’ve made that point,” the Acting Secretary replied without emotion. “Would you like some coffee?” He took a step to move around her toward the table, but the Speaker moved quickly to block his path. He was a large man and she was a relatively small woman, so the effect was almost comical. Still, he was not going to get his coffee unless he physically moved her out of the way. “What do you want?” he asked, losing patience.

“Look, you’re new at this,” the Speaker said with transparent insincerity. “Maybe you’re a little over your head.” The Acting Secretary laughed loudly, drawing looks from elsewhere in the room. (There was not a lot of other laughter.) The Speaker leaned closer. “What’s so funny?” she challenged.

“I spent seventeen years working with a city council,” the Acting Secretary said. “The people in this room, they’re just like the city council. Some are smarter. Some are meaner. They’re all better dressed. But at the end of the day, politics is politics.”

“I can make things very hard for you,” the Speaker said.

“Really?” the Acting Secretary replied. His tone suggested he was unsurprised by the threat but curious what form it would take.

“You may be an executive branch appointment, but don’t think for a second that I couldn’t make your job go away.”

“Like today?”

“Like that,” the Speaker said, snapping her fingers to emphasize the point.

The Acting Secretary exhaled audibly, acknowledging the threat, and then took his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his jacket. He pushed a single button, presumably speed dial, and waited for an answer. The Speaker looked on, wary and confused. The volume on the Acting Secretary’s phone was loud, perhaps on purpose, and I could here the answer: “Pro shop, Dustin speaking.”

“Hey, Dustin, it’s Charles Mingo here. How do things look this afternoon after three?”

“I’ve got three-ten, three-twenty, or three-fifty?” Dustin replied.

“Fantastic,” the Acting Secretary said. “Will you hold three-ten for me and put my clubs on a cart? Looks like I’m going to get fired, in which case I really want to take advantage of this beautiful spring day.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Mingo.”

The Acting Secretary hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. “Now all my bases are covered,” he said jauntily to the Speaker.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she challenged.

“Oh, I do. I most certainly do.”

35.

MAYBE I WAS THE ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM WHO DID NOT know what had happened to the Strategist’s brother. During the break, after the Acting Secretary arranged for his tee time, I did a quick Internet search; the details were easy to find. The Strategist’s older brother had spent his career in Army intelligence, doing two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. During the Afghanistan tour, he had been riding in an armored vehicle that drove over an improvised explosive device. Everyone in the vehicle survived. The injuries were not life-threatening, but the Strategist’s brother had taken a serious blow to the head. After he returned to the States, he began to suffer crippling headaches, mood swings, depression. There was a lot of finger-pointing after the fact, but the gist of the story is that he never got the treatment he needed—a sadly typical story, as the Strategist would say. I could not tell from my quick reading whether his brother fell through the bureaucratic cracks, or if there simply were not enough resources to provide the support he needed. (I suppose the Strategist would argue that it is a false distinction: if you put enough resources against a problem, there will be fewer cracks.) In any event, it ended badly. His brother was shuffled through various facilities, eventually to a group home in New Jersey where no one was responsible for monitoring his daily meds. On a particularly cold night in February, he walked out the front door and disappeared. Three days later, the police found him frozen to death on a park bench.

The Acting Secretary resumed his presentation, the essence being that any temporary shortage of Dormigen should be managed by lottery. “We are talking about a couple of days here, at most,” he reminded us. At that moment, the door to the Cabinet Room opened and the President’s scheduler stepped demurely into the room. She signaled to get the Chief of Staff’s attention, but it was the President who responded. “What?” he said impatiently.

“Prime Minister Abouali’s people want to know if this is still a good time for his impromptu visit,” the scheduler explained.

“Oh, Christ,” the President said. At the same time, the Chief of Staff looked quickly at her watch; an expression of panic swept across her face. The President continued, “It’s hard to imagine a worse time, frankly.”

The National Security Adviser said, “Sir, given the Saudi situation, we need to give Abouali some face time. It’s important to his credibility in the region. He just needs to be able to tell his people that he met with the President of the United States—”

“Five minutes in the Oval Office,” the President agreed. “That’s it.”

“That will work just fine,” the National Security Adviser assured him.

“Okay, five minutes, everybody, while I try to make the Palestinians feel better about themselves,” the President announced.

As the President and the National Security Adviser walked out of the room, the Chief of Staff motioned subtly to the President’s scheduler. The two of them walked to a corner of the Cabinet Room. “Can you call Dan and tell him that I won’t be able to make the lacrosse banquet?” the Chief of Staff asked the scheduler.

“Of course.”

“Please order a bouquet of balloons for Maddie—you know, the big helium ones,” the Chief of Staff instructed. The scheduler made a note to herself on her phone and the Chief of Staff continued. “And get one balloon for each of the five seniors. There is a list with their names on my desk.”

“Where is the banquet?” the scheduler asked.

“Dan can give you all that information.”

“Got it,” the scheduler said officiously. “Anything else?”

“Can you find me a new family?”

“Pardon?”

“I’m kidding,” the Chief of Staff said with more sadness than humor. “Thank you for this. Make sure it doesn’t get charged to the White House. Dan can give you a credit card number.”

“Of course.”

36.

WHEN THE PRESIDENT RETURNED TO THE CABINET ROOM, he made an offhand comment about the political incompetence of the Palestinians, and then, for the third time, the Acting Secretary of HHS gave a brief summary of his plan to allocate Dormigen by lottery should a shortage arise. “Hundreds of thousands of people will be affected,” the Senate Majority Leader said.

“Yes. Some will get Dormigen, some won’t,” the Acting Secretary explained. “But if you do it by lottery, or some other random mechanism, at least it will be fair and transparent.”

“It’s so callous,” the House Speaker said.

The President interjected impatiently, “There’s not really a kindhearted solution here. If we don’t have enough Dormigen, we don’t have enough Dormigen. That problem is not going away.”

“But some people are sicker than others,” the Chief of Staff said, though she made it sound like a question.

“Yes,” the Acting Secretary answered. “I think it would be up to the medical establishment to screen out anyone who doesn’t really need Dormigen.”

“Or those who are too sick to benefit from it,” the Strategist added.

“That’s right,” the Acting Secretary agreed.

“Every citizen is eligible?” the House Speaker asked.

The Acting Secretary answered, “That’s for the people in this room to decide. I would propose that all citizens be included, maybe everyone with a Social Security number.”

“Just a little background here,” the Secretary of Defense interjected. “We have two million prisoners in this country. With the exception of a small number of illegal immigrants serving sentences for violent crimes before they are deported, every one of those prisoners has a Social Security number.”

“Of course,” the Acting Secretary said. “Every American citizen has a Social Security number, as do all permanent residents, temporary workers, and so on.”

“So you’re proposing that all of these folks are eligible for your Megaball drawing?” the Defense Secretary asked.

“I said nothing about a Megaball drawing,” the Acting Secretary said, firmly but respectfully.

“Megaball, Powerball, Dormigen-ball. We can call it whatever we want,” the Secretary of Defense said dismissively. “If it’s a big deal when the Powerball jackpot gets to four hundred million, I can assure you that when we draw numbers to save lives, it’s going to attract a lot of attention. We can get that cute girl to prance across the stage and pull balls out of the giant drum—”

“What’s your point?” the President asked.

“My point is that where I come from—and probably where all of you come from—we’ve got guys in prison who raped little girls, cut them up into pieces, put them in a car trunk, and then set the car on fire.”

“We get that,” the President said.

“That is not hypothetical. I did not make that up. That was an actual case that went to trial while I was an officer at Fort Benning.” The Secretary of Defense looked around the table before his gaze came to rest on the Acting HHS Secretary, who returned the gaze but did not reply. The Secretary of Defense looked around the table again, clearly agitated by the silence. “You understand my point, don’t you?” he asked to no one in particular.

“Go on,” the Acting HHS Secretary said.

“What do you mean, ‘Go on’? Is this not obvious? These guys have Social Security numbers. Child molesters have Social Security numbers.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And there are ninety-five-year-old men with Alzheimer’s in nursing homes who don’t know what century this is who have Social Security numbers.”

“Yes, assuming they are citizens or legal residents,” the Acting Secretary answered dispassionately.

“Oh, for Christ sake!” the Defense Secretary said, looking down the table at the President. “What happens when those numbers get pulled? What happens when the media gets wind of the fact that we’ve got a finite amount of Dormigen, and we’re giving it out to some of society’s least attractive characters—people on death row? Just think about that irony for a minute! Just the notion that we would even consider putting those lives ahead of productive citizens… Where do I begin? How do I explain to some law-abiding, hardworking American taxpayer that his children have less chance of being protected against this terrible disease because we decided to protect murderers and rapists?” Again, the Defense Secretary looked slowly around the table, locking eyes with each participant as his gaze went around the table. He finished with the President. “Am I wrong here?”

The Acting Secretary broke the silence. “Obviously I’ve thought about all that.”

“And you still proposed this idea?” the Defense Secretary asked, followed by some kind of grotesque chuckle.

“It could be a starting point,” the Chief of Staff interjected. “The lottery has a certain fairness about it. There is no reason that we can’t put some limitations on who would be eligible.”

“Like murderers and child molesters?” the Defense Secretary asked sarcastically.

“It’s harder than it sounds,” the Acting Secretary answered.

At that moment, the door to the Cabinet Room opened and the President’s scheduler reappeared. The conversation paused and all eyes turned in her direction. “Who’s dropped by this time?” the President said angrily.

The scheduler, clearly uncomfortable, looked at the Chief of Staff. “I’m sorry to interrupt, ma’am. The florist says their helium tank is broken. They can’t do balloons.”

The President exclaimed, “The helium tank is broken? It’s just one fucking crisis around here after another.” This was not an attempt at humor, though there was some uncomfortable laughter around the table.

“Just do flowers for all of them,” the Chief of Staff said, ignoring the President.

“Okay. I’m sure that will be very nice,” the scheduler said, withdrawing from the Cabinet Room as quickly as possible and pulling the door closed behind her.

“Now that we’ve managed the helium shortage successfully, where were we on Dormigen?” the President asked. That’s one thing about the President: he could be articulate in a brutally cutting kind of way. Most in the room turned their attention back to him, but I could not help but continue to look at the Chief of Staff, whose expression betrayed some combination of sadness, anger, and resolve. If I were to guess, she had come to an agreement with herself years ago: she would forgive the President’s rude outbursts because they were a response to the stress of a job that most other people could not or would not take on. The sad part was that the flowers were not going to mollify her daughter anyway (nor would helium balloons, for that matter).

The Acting HHS Secretary continued, “I was saying that it’s difficult to make a blanket determination as to who deserves to get Dormigen and who does not.”

“I don’t think it’s that hard at all,” the Secretary of Defense said angrily. There were subtle nods of approval around the table.

“It’s harder than it sounds,” the Acting Secretary repeated. His voice betrayed not a hint of frustration. If the Speaker of the House was a carnivore who lay in wait for weak members of the herd and then leaped for their jugular, the Acting Secretary was an entirely different kind of predator, but a predator nonetheless. In a Discovery Channel context, he would be one of those large insects that disguises itself as a branch or a leaf and then stays absolutely still until its prey does the nature equivalent of flopping onto a dinner plate. That afternoon in the Cabinet Room, some of the smartest people in the world were walking into an ambush, without a hint of what awaited them.

“I’m perfectly willing to go there,” the Defense Secretary said confidently. “And based on the reaction around the table, so is everybody else.”

“Do you agree that there is some merit to the lottery idea?” the President asked.

“Absolutely. I commend the Secretary for getting us to that point,” the Secretary of Defense said.

“Acting Secretary,” the Acting Secretary corrected him, causing laughter around the table.

“Well, I would vote to confirm you,” the Defense Secretary said earnestly. The tension from their previous exchange had evaporated. He continued, “I believe that we ought to place limits on eligibility.” Again, there were nods of approval around the table.

The Acting Secretary was still standing. “Fair enough,” he said. “Since I still have the floor and there seems to be a consensus that a simple lottery is not a good idea, I would propose that we discuss who would be eligible and who would not.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” the Chief of Staff said.

The Acting Secretary walked to a corner of the room and dragged a whiteboard closer to the conference table. “I’m on record as proposing that everyone with a Social Security number be eligible for the Dormigen drawing.”

“Wow, it even has alliteration: Dormigen drawing,” the Senate Majority Leader interjected.

The Acting Secretary smiled and then continued. “Why don’t we use this time to identify the broad groups who should be excluded from eligibility.” He turned to the whiteboard and wrote Child Molesters in red marker.

“It’s broader than that,” the Secretary of Defense said, mildly peeved again. “There is no reason we should be giving out scarce medicine to anyone who has committed a serious crime, a felony.”

“So, felons?”

“Fine.”

“What about ex-offenders?” the Acting Secretary asked.

“What do you mean by that?” the Defense Secretary asked.

The House Speaker answered, “Someone who committed a crime, did the time, and has now returned successfully to society.”

“Once a felon, always a felon,” the Senate Majority Leader answered.

“Not in the eyes of the law,” the House Speaker said. “They have done their time and returned successfully to society.”

“That’s not the point,” the Secretary of Defense responded. His tone had turned analytic, more like for a military briefing, or at least how I would imagine a military briefing to be. “Suppose you have a deadly conflict going on around you. You have a bunker, but there is not enough room to keep everyone safe. Who goes in the bunker? It’s not about fairness, necessarily. Lots of people deserve a spot in that bunker. It’s about who you want in there with you, and more important, who you want with you when the conflict is over. Who comes out of the bunker to rebuild society?”

The President said, “We’re talking about a few days without Dormigen. We are not going to have to rebuild society here.”

“Yes, but I take the point,” the Acting Secretary said. “You’re saying we should try to choose the strongest and most capable. This should be about merit, of some sort,” the Acting Secretary said.

“Yes, that’s it. Thank you,” the Defense Secretary answered, relieved that his point of view was finally getting some traction. It was not, of course. The Acting Secretary was merely disguising himself as that twig, luring everyone in the room closer and closer, until they realized at the last moment that he was in fact an insect disguised as a twig, and then it would be too late.

“Once a felon, always a felon,” the Acting Secretary repeated. “Are we in agreement?” There were nods of assent around the table and he wrote Felons on the whiteboard.

“Well, no,” the House Speaker said. All heads turned in her direction.

“If we can’t agree to exclude felons, we’re not going to get anywhere,” the President said.

The Senate Majority Leader added, “There is no way I can defend any plan that puts felons ahead of law-abiding citizens.”

“Felons or ex-felons?” the Chief of Staff asked.

“Both,” he said.

The House Speaker said, “It makes me uncomfortable, given the racial makeup of our prison population. But let’s go on. We can come back to this.”

The Acting Secretary continued, “Based on our earlier discussion, I suppose we need some kind of age limit. Is that right?”

“I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to be giving scarce medicine to eighty-year-olds,” the Senate Majority Leader offered.

“Those are the people who need Dormigen the most,” I reminded the group. “They are the ones for whom Capellaviridae is most likely to be fatal.”

“But still,” the Secretary of Defense insisted, “there’s just not a lot of runway there, if you know what I mean.”

“So what’s the cutoff? Sixty-five? Seventy?” the Acting Secretary asked the group.

“I’m not sure we have to choose that now,” the Chief of Staff said.

“When are we going to do it?” the President asked, essentially correcting her.

“Let’s say sixty-five,” the Speaker of the House suggested.

“That feels kind of young to me,” the Senate Majority Leader said, generating chuckles around the room, since we all knew he was well north of sixty-five. “Seriously, there is a lot of human capital invested in folks over sixty-five.”

“So seventy?” the Acting Secretary asked.

“Let me take the other side of that,” the Defense Secretary answered. “Every time you give a dose to a sixty-nine-year-old, there is one less dose for a thirty-nine-year-old, who has a lot more life ahead of him.”

“Sixty-five?” the Acting Secretary asked.

“Let’s just say sixty-five and move on,” the Senate Majority Leader offered.

“Agreed,” the President said.

“There is a case to be made that it should be lower,” the Defense Secretary said.

“Make it sixty-five for now. Move on,” the President said, more emphatically this time.

The Acting Secretary wrote >65 in red on the board.

“Just to clarify, does someone who is sixty-five get the Dormigen or not?” the Chief of Staff asked.

The Acting Secretary answered, “As I’ve written it, only folks over sixty-five are excluded. So if you’re sixty-five, you get the Dormigen, but we could say that you have to be under sixty-five.”

“I was just asking,” the Chief of Staff said.

“Boy, that would make your sixty-sixth birthday really suck, wouldn’t it?” the Strategist interjected. “Happy birthday, Grandpa, I bet you wish you were one day younger.” He was back to his old self.

“Okay, next,” the Acting Secretary said, looking around the table. “Or are we done?”

“Who else do you want in the bunker?” the Defense Secretary asked.

“College graduates?” the Chief of Staff asked.

“That would exclude about sixty-five percent of the country,” the Speaker of the House pointed out, after which a silence settled over the table.

“Do you want college graduates in the bunker with you or not?” the President asked.

“I’ve met plenty of college graduates who couldn’t find the entrance to the bunker if it had a sign over it,” the Senate Majority Leader said.

“You can say that again,” the Defense Secretary added.

“Well, what about high school dropouts?” the Chief of Staff asked, hoping to move the discussion along.

“Have we made a decision about college graduates?” the Acting Secretary asked, his red dry erase marker poised over the big whiteboard propped up on the easel.

“It might be easier to think about this going the other direction,” the Chief of Staff said. “Maybe high school dropouts are excluded?” Her tone suggested some reservations with the idea.

“You can’t get into the military without a high school degree,” the Defense Secretary pointed out.

“There is a significant difference between getting into the military and getting the medicine that might save your life,” the Speaker of the House said sharply.

“I was just providing information,” the Defense Secretary said.

“Do you know what the impact would be on our minority populations if we were to exclude high school dropouts?” the Speaker asked.

“I’m not sure this should be about race,” the Defense Secretary said.

“Pardon me?” the Speaker of the House said, her faux-Hispanic hackles clearly up.

“We’re trying to decide what to do here based on what’s best for the country. I don’t see what race or ethnicity has to do with it,” the Secretary of Defense said calmly.

“Of course you don’t,” she replied accusingly.

“Easy,” the President warned.

The Strategist said, “If I may state the obvious, passing out Dormigen using any kind of educational credentialing as a criterion is going to have a huge adverse impact on every minority population in this country. The same is true if we exclude felons. Your ‘bunker’ is going to be full of old white guys.”

“They can’t be over sixty-five,” the Acting Secretary interjected with flawless timing. There were uncomfortable smiles around the table.

“We are not excluding anyone from receiving Dormigen based on race, sex, or ethnicity,” the Defense Secretary said firmly. “I’m proposing a criterion based strictly on educational attainment. That’s entirely defensible. The racial implications are what they are.”

“You don’t think it would be a problem if our stocks of Dormigen went disproportionately to white middle-class Americans? Or is that the point?” the Speaker asked.

“That’s out of line,” the Defense Secretary said.

“I agree,” said the President.

The Strategist interjected, “There are a fair number of people, especially minorities, who don’t attend college, or don’t graduate, because they can’t afford it. Obviously we would be compounding that disadvantage.”

“I agree,” the President said.

“On the other hand,” the Strategist continued, “the Swedes and the Canadians, and I think some of the other Nordic countries, have built their entire immigration strategy around this idea of giving preference to the most desirable. You get points for having an advanced degree, points for having a job, points for speaking the language. You literally add up the points to see if you qualify for a visa.” This was one thing the Strategist was famous for: holding elaborate arguments with himself.

“That’s different,” the Chief of Staff said, almost reflexively.

“Is it?” the Strategist asked. “I’ll be honest, I’m still agnostic on all this. But those are some pretty enlightened societies. They have a finite allotment of visas, and they have no problem giving preferential treatment to those most likely to succeed.”

“If you define success strictly in economic terms,” the Chief of Staff said.

The Strategist replied, “It’s not like high school dropouts are knocking it out of the park in other respects.”

“And you die if you don’t have enough points?” the House Speaker asked.

The Strategist shrugged. “I’m just saying: It’s not crazy to give advantage to the most productive citizens. We’re trying to put people in lifeboats here and we don’t have enough seats.”

“Perhaps we should set the education question aside for a minute,” the Acting Secretary said. The eyes around the table turned back to his whiteboard, which still had only two criteria on it, age and felony status.

“Dropping out of high school is different,” the Senate Majority Leader said. “That’s a personal decision, and it tends to have a high cost for all of us.”

The Chief of Staff stared thoughtfully at the whiteboard. “I just need to say that I’m uncomfortable with this ‘bunker’ idea that we’ve implicitly adopted. I’m not sure it’s our job to pass out a lifesaving medicine based on merit.”

“You can choose whatever metaphor you like,” the Defense Secretary said. “We’ve just got to pass out a finite amount of Dormigen.”

The Chief of Staff said, “We don’t administer any other kind of health care that way. That’s not how an emergency room works. If there has been a shoot-out, and a police officer and a gangbanger get brought into the ER at the same time, nobody asks who is who.”

The Strategist said, “It’s usually pretty easy to tell.”

“Come on, you get my point,” the Chief of Staff insisted. “With triage, we always ask who needs care most urgently, not who deserves it most. The drunk driver gets care, right next to the family he crashed into.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” the Senate Majority Leader said. “Most of my constituents would say that we ought to leave the drunk driver lying on the table until everybody with even the smallest scratch has been treated.”

“Hold on,” the House Speaker said. “When did high school dropouts become drunk drivers?”

The Senate Majority Leader replied, “I’m just saying that I don’t necessarily have a problem using merit as a criterion here.”

The President leaned forward in his seat and tapped his pen several times on the table. He did it unconsciously—the pen-tapping—but the rest of us had learned, perhaps unconsciously as well, that he did it right before he was about to speak. “This situation is different than an emergency room,” the President said. “The thing about an ER is that you don’t have time, and some people are always in worse shape than others. So it makes sense to use scarce resources wherever they are likely to do the most good. We have some time—not enough, but we can make a plan here that prioritizes who gets care, if we so choose.”

The Acting Secretary pointed at the whiteboard with the marker. “What about disabilities?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” the House Speaker asked.

“Should that disqualify someone from getting the Dormigen, or make them lower priority?” the Acting Secretary asked, his voice perfectly steady, so as not to offer any opinion one way or the other.

“What kind of disabilities are we talking about?” the Senate Majority Leader asked.

“We’re not talking about anything yet,” the Acting Secretary said, “but I guess I would start with profound physical or mental illness.”

The House Speaker exclaimed, “That’s repugnant. It’s like Nazi Germany.” Someone entering the room might mistake the Acting Secretary for a staffer, the designated scribe for the group. Yet he had deftly steered the discussion in the direction he had hoped it would go. The group was marching steadily along the branch to where the stick bug had disguised itself, waiting silently.

The Strategist said, “Well, letting a healthy sixty-seven-year-old die is no picnic. The bottom line here is that we don’t have enough Dormigen—”

“We might not have enough Dormigen,” the President interjected. “This is all hypothetical.”

“It’s making me sick,” the House Speaker said. “We should agree to the China deal right now. This is horrible, horrible—and unnecessary.”

The Chief of Staff said calmly, “We need to have this discussion in order to frame our options.”

“Let me just add one thing.” At first I could not tell where the voice was coming from—not from the table. The White House Legal Counsel had been sitting against the wall, behind the President. This was the first time he had spoken, other than private conversations with the President and the Chief of Staff. He was slim, with a neatly trimmed gray beard, almost overly neat, like an affectation. He had been an appellate lawyer with a long and distinguished record of arguing cases in front of the Supreme Court before the President asked him to join his staff. I had a vague recollection that they knew each other from law school, or perhaps college. Those of us around the table turned toward the voice; the President had to turn his chair around. The White House Counsel continued, “I do not believe any plan that excludes felons would pass constitutional muster.”

“Oh, Christ,” the Senate Majority Leader exclaimed.

The President nodded, acknowledging the possibility. “Okay, walk us through that,” he said.

All eyes went back to the White House Counsel, who paused for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “Denying felons Dormigen, or ex-felons, would be perceived—correctly, to my mind—as part of their sentence,” he explained. “You have been sentenced to two years for assault, for example, and now, in addition to that prison time, we are making you ineligible to receive a lifesaving drug. In the eyes of any federal judge, liberal or conservative, that amounts to changing the sentence for a crime after the fact. That would be constitutionally prohibited, for violating due process and probably for creating a law ex post facto.”

“This would be considered part of the sentence, and you can’t change the sentence after the fact, especially after someone has already served their time,” the Strategist said, translating the legal-speak for the rest of us.

“Yes, more or less,” the Legal Counsel said.

“Now you’re telling us that?” the Senate Majority Leader said, exhaling audibly.

“What about using an age limit of some sort?” the President asked.

“I think you would be on firmer legal ground there,” the White House Counsel answered. “But it’s not bulletproof.”

I looked to the other end of the room, where the Acting Secretary was still standing near his whiteboard and easel. For all our meandering discussion, there were still only two items on his list: >65 and Felons. Now, without saying anything, he drew a red line through Felons.

The sun had dropped low on the horizon, creating a softer light in the Cabinet Room and reminding us of how long we had been in that room. “Should we stop to order dinner?” the Chief of Staff asked.

“I think we can finish up,” the President said. “I’d like some closure here.”

“Maybe a short break?” the Chief of Staff asked.

“Let me float an idea first to see if we can get some consensus,” the President replied, more genial than usual. “Remember, we are only adopting a contingency plan. We are not recommending a course of action. We can decide what we want to do vis-à-vis China in the morning—or, I guess, by the end of day tomorrow, is that right?” The Chief of Staff nodded yes, and the President continued. “So this would be our recommendation if we have to ration the available Dormigen. We will do everything in our power—everything responsible in our power, I guess I should say—to avoid such a situation. But this would be our plan, should the need arise, yes?”

The House Speaker said, “I still believe this is a decision for Congress. I want that to be clear.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” the President said. “Believe it or not, I agree with you.” The House Speaker looked surprised, and then vaguely suspicious. The President continued, “A decision of this magnitude ought to come from Congress, even if that’s not where the authority over the Dormigen technically resides. On the other hand, I think any discussion in Congress would be longer, more contentious, and less productive than what we’ve been sitting through this afternoon.” The President looked at the House Speaker and then the Senate Majority Leader. “Would you agree?” he asked.

“I think that’s right,” the Senate Majority Leader said.

“What are you saying?” the House Speaker answered, wary of walking into a trap.

“I would propose that this group make a recommendation for Congress to approve. Maybe it’s an up-or-down vote. Maybe there could be some modest amendments. I would leave that to the two of you.”

“What exactly are we recommending?” the House Speaker asked.

“We’re not there yet,” the President said. “This is just about process. I want to agree on a process first.”

“I would be comfortable with that,” the Senate Majority Leader said. “I think it’s a sensible approach.”

“What about China?” the House Speaker asked. “That’s how we make this whole problem go away. There is no need to be rationing anything.”

“China is my decision,” the President said firmly. “Congress has no authority over foreign policy decisions, and, frankly, I don’t have confidence that Congress would be in a position to weigh the long-term implications of our complete capitulation in that part of the world.”

“But you can?” the House Speaker said.

“I don’t have to get reelected,” the President asked.

“Maybe that’s a problem,” the House Speaker said.

The President ignored her and continued, “As I was saying, if we get into a position where we have to ration Dormigen, I would like this group to make a recommendation with regard to how we allocate the available Dormigen, and I would like Congress to ratify that decision, perhaps with modifications—I’ll leave that to the two of you.” He looked first at the Speaker and then at the Senate Majority Leader. The latter nodded in agreement; the Speaker waited warily to hear more. “There is no way Congress can take up this issue from scratch, in a short amount of time,” the President said. “I think the Acting Secretary has made a powerful point here this afternoon, namely that any attempt to ration Dormigen using anything more than the most basic criteria is fraught with problems. If necessary, I propose that we ration Dormigen based on age alone, drawing a cutoff as necessary depending on the size of our shortage.” The President paused and looked around the table to take stock of the room.

After a moment, the Secretary of Defense said, “In my heart, I believe there has to be a better way, but for the life of me I can’t seem to pin it down. I’m persuaded that we ought to keep it simple. I support what you’re proposing.” The others nodded in agreement.

The President continued, “If the plan to ration by age is rejected, either in the courts or by Congress, then I think the only alternative is to use some kind of lottery. We should make that explicit up front.” The President looked to the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader. “Would you be comfortable taking that to the Congress?” he asked.

“It would be an unnecessary tragedy to get to that point,” the Speaker said.

“One step at a time,” the President said. “I need to be wheels-up for Canberra at about this time tomorrow.”

“I would be comfortable presenting that plan to the Senate,” the Majority Leader said.

“Yes,” the House Speaker agreed.

There was a moment of palpable goodwill in the room, a sense that we had taken a long journey and arrived at our destination. Although the view at the top may not have been as glorious as we had hoped, we were nonetheless standing there together. I began to admire the President’s style. He did not row, he steered. The rest of us thrashed about, hour after hour, as he sat at the end of the table saying relatively little. Then, when the destination was in sight, he pointed toward a spot on shore and urged us to make the last few strokes necessary to get there. The Chief of Staff said, “Thank you, everyone. I know it’s been a long day. We’re going to talk through the China option in the morning—”

The President cut her off, his geniality gone. “We’re not done yet. How bad is it? What’s our death toll?” There was no answer from the table. “From Capellaviridae,” he added. “I assume we have data on this.”

“Our Dormigen stocks are still robust everywhere,” the Chief of Staff assured him.

“But they’re not going to the hospital,” the President said emphatically, almost yelling. “This family in Hawaii…” He looked to the Director of the NIH. “How many?”

“The data are very rough,” the NIH Director replied. “Any estimate at this point is just an approximation.”

“How many?”

The NIH Director looked at her phone and took a shallow breath. “Somewhere in the range of twelve hundred.”

“Jesus Christ,” the President exclaimed. The collective body language around the table suggested similar shock.

“It’s worse than we thought?” the President asked.

“I wouldn’t say that—not the virus,” the NIH Director responded. “Our behavioral models… we may have overestimated how likely it is that people who fall sick would seek treatment.”

“Because you’ve covered it up!” the Speaker yelled. “People don’t know it’s a problem because you’re hiding it from them.”

The President said calmly, “The First Lady made a statement about seeking treatment—”

“Hah!” the Speaker retorted. “I’m sure that’s what the public will remember from that dishonest circus show. You’ve killed twelve hundred people—”

“That’s enough,” the Chief of Staff said.

The Speaker was not to be deterred: “You’ve killed twelve hundred people, and that’s before the Dormigen stocks run out. When that happens, twelve hundred is going to feel like a rounding error. We’re talking tens of thousands of deaths—an American Hiroshima. Tell the American people what is happening, accept the offer from China, and make this problem go away. Anything else is totally irresponsible.”

All eyes around the table turned to the President, who remained silent. Maybe I saw doubt in his eyes; some of the anger appeared to have dissipated. And then, from the other end of the table, “Ninety thousand.” It was the Strategist, reading from his phone. “Hiroshima deaths. Between ninety and one hundred and forty thousand. A lot of it was radiation sickness—”

“We’re not going to have an American Hiroshima,” the President said firmly. There was another long silence, during which many of us did the math. For all the Speaker’s hyperbole, her Hiroshima comparison was not wildly off base.

“Telling people could make it worse,” the Strategist said, as if he were thinking out loud. “Yes, it probably would.”

“Says you?” the Speaker challenged.

“Anyone with the sniffles would rush to get a prescription,” the Strategist explained.

“We’d blow through our Dormigen stocks even faster,” the Chief of Staff said, “and a lot of it would be wasted.”

“I’m sure the nation will be grateful to you for keeping them uninformed,” the Speaker said bitterly.

“Where are we on the virus?” the President snapped. Before the NIH Director could answer, he continued, “The brightest minds in the country can’t do better than this? We’re going to sit here tomorrow morning and try to decide whether Americans are going to die, or if we’re going to go hat in hand to Beijing and cede half the world to an authoritarian regime. That’s a shitty decision that I really don’t want to have to make. Give me something better.”

The goodwill in the room had dissipated quickly. The President stared at the NIH Director, though it was not clear if he was expecting a response. She offered one in any event. “We have a complete genetic sequence of Capellaviridae,” she said. “We have a medical team working around the clock to test treatments other than Dormigen. As soon as we finish here, Max is headed to New Hampshire to speak to one of the world’s foremost virologists.” The heads around the table turned toward me. I had said virtually nothing in these meetings, other than answering the occasional technical question, or passing along requests to the research teams.

“Why weren’t you talking to this guy last week?” the President asked.

It was clear I had to say something, but my tongue felt awkward and I had the sensation of looking down on myself in the Cabinet Room, struggling to formulate an answer. I am no great athlete, but I played enough Little League to know what it feels like to choke, the physical sensation of the body tightening up in the moment when it needs to perform some task that should be simple, but for the pressure: throwing from shortstop to first base with two outs or tapping in a two-foot putt to win a match. I understood the physiology; I had read articles on it in graduate school. Now I had that choking feeling, struggling to form a basic sentence. By thinking about the act of speaking, as opposed to just answering, the act became all the more difficult. It was as if someone had pushed me onto a stage in front of ten thousand spectators and said, “Tell them a joke. And make it funny.”

The silence probably felt longer than it was. The NIH Director cocked her head slightly, as if to indicate, “Say something.”

“Viruses are like criminals,” I began. “We piece together clues that explain how they operate, why they do what they do. As the clues accumulate, we close in.” I realized, even in the moment, that I was speaking just like Professor Huke. That was exactly what he would say; maybe it was something he had said.

“Yes, well, this is a serial killer on the loose, so I would appreciate it if you could convey the urgency of the situation,” the President said.

“I’m confident Professor Huke will be able to help us,” I replied. Of course, I had no such confidence.

37.

IT WAS DARK WHEN I WALKED OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE. Some of the humidity had gone out of the day. Most of the staff had returned home and there was an unusual calm. I was aware of the click of my shoes on the asphalt as I walked toward the waiting car. I had packed a bag early that morning, but I had been rushed. Now I tried to remember if it had the things I would need, which was not much, really. As I approached the car, the driver opened the rear door and took the small duffel from my hand. “I’ve got to catch a plane—” I began.

“Yes, sir. I have the directions,” he replied.

I was bone-tired. The car was already cool; the driver must have had the air-conditioning running, which was not environmentally friendly but felt really good. I slumped back against the seat and fell asleep before we left the driveway. I was awakened when we reached the security perimeter at Joint Base Andrews. The driver spoke briefly to the soldier manning the gate, who peered through the window at me in the backseat and then waved us through. I do not think I had ever been on a military base, and I know I had never been on a private plane. We drove around a perimeter road to another gate, where the driver used a passkey to let us onto the tarmac.

“Right there, sir,” the driver said, pointing to a soldier standing stiffly near a small Air Force jet. As I got out of the car, the driver moved quickly to take my small bag from the trunk and hand it to the waiting soldier.

The soldier, now holding my duffel, said, “This way,” and motioned toward the jet. The door was open and the stairs were down. “You can go ahead and climb aboard,” he directed. The plane had six or eight seats. I sat down on one of them near the front. Almost immediately the Captain emerged from the cockpit and introduced himself. “We’re headed to Lebanon, New Hampshire, tonight. Is that right?” he asked. I nodded yes. I remember seeing some humor in the question. What if I got on the wrong plane? Would I wake up after a long, comfortable flight and see Beirut out the window? The Captain continued, “We have a beautiful night for flying. It should be about two hours. Make yourself comfortable. My copilot is doing some paperwork, but he’ll be back to introduce himself shortly.” The soldier who had met me on the tarmac climbed aboard. With a remarkable economy of effort, he pulled the stairs up and shut the plane door. It could not have been more than a minute before we were rolling along, headed for a tiny airport in New Hampshire.

“Welcome aboard,” the soldier said as he buckled himself into a seat on the other side of the cabin.

I was self-conscious of being the only passenger with three crew members. “Sorry to make work for the three of you,” I said.

He waved his hand dismissively. “We have to do the training hours anyway. Might as well take someone where they need to go.”

The plane accelerated along the runway and we were airborne almost instantly. I looked out the window and marveled at the beauty of D.C. by night. I tried to locate the White House, thinking that the President was probably still there meeting with different advisers, maybe the China group, or maybe the Saudi experts, or maybe staffers discussing some challenge I knew nothing about. Then I fell asleep.

I woke up when we touched down for landing. As we taxied, I recognized the Lebanon airport—one tiny single-story building, smaller than most houses. A woman in a fluorescent yellow and orange vest motioned for our plane to park near the terminal building, which was dark but for one light over the door. The soldier handed me my duffel as I walked down the stairs onto the dark, empty tarmac. The Captain cut the engines, and then it became quiet, too. The woman in the fluorescent vest walked over to me. “The terminal is locked up,” she said. “You’ll have to walk around. Do you have a ride?”

I did not. I was not accustomed to flying into an airport that had been locked up for the night. “I’ll call someone for you,” she offered. Twenty minutes later I was in my room at the Hanover Inn, opposite the Dartmouth College green and a short walk from Professor Huke’s house. I had not packed anything to sleep in, or my toiletries, but there were some clean clothes for the next day. The front desk sent me up a toothbrush and a razor. I lay down and tried to figure out what I was going to ask Huke in the morning. The truth was that Huke knew less about lurking viruses than I did—my fake optimism in the Cabinet Room notwithstanding. He was the scientific equivalent of a general practitioner; I was the specialist. But maybe his broad view could help. Maybe I was so deep in the tunnel that I needed someone on the surface with a view of the whole landscape who could tell me that I was burrowing in the wrong place. I was groping at straws, I knew. Yet those sanguine thoughts would prove eerily prescient.

38.

SPRING WAS IN THE AIR ON THE DARTMOUTH CAMPUS, IF not necessarily visible. The trees were bare, and the grass was still brown, but the weather was unseasonably warm. This was “mud season” in New England, when the snowmelt and new rain made a mess of things before the trees and flowers finally caught up with the rest of the country. The day was sunny and the few students walking across the green opposite the hotel were dressed more for July than for April; I suppose that is part of the optimism of spring, having just emerged from a New England winter. Much to my surprise, there was a New York Times box just outside the hotel in the same place it had been when I was a student, perhaps for the old alums who liked the sensation of reading a real newspaper. I paused to peruse the headlines, noting with amusement that some members of Congress were calling for hearings to examine whether the President had passed classified information to his Colombian mistress.

I had been to Huke’s house once before, when he invited our senior seminar to his home for dinner. It was not far from campus, about five or six blocks up a hill leading out of town. The day was perfect for walking. I let my mind wander as I went, trying to formulate questions to steer the conversation. I turned down a narrow street with small, well-kept houses relatively close together. There was no sidewalk but also no traffic, so I walked in the middle of the road. As I approached Huke’s house, he emerged from the side yard pushing a small wheelbarrow. He waved hello and hustled over to greet me. “Isn’t it too early to plant?” I asked as he approached.

“Oh, yes,” he said jauntily. “Nothing goes in the ground until Mother’s Day, but it’s never too early to start cleaning up. We don’t get many days like this in April.”

Huke’s house was a small ranch with a sunroom in the back. I had spent so much time in “McMansions”—soaring foyers and enormous great rooms—that Huke’s house seemed quaint by comparison. Yet it was so comfortable and tidy that I found myself wondering why anyone would want anything bigger, especially if one could just stroll to work in the morning. I was reminded of Sloan’s comment long ago about the “academic lifestyle.” I paused near a set of bookshelves, perusing the eclectic titles. “You can have anything you want,” Huke offered. “I have boxes more in the basement. I had to clean out my office when I retired.”

We sat at a small table in front of a window looking out at the woods behind the house. Professor Huke’s wife brought us tea and croissants. “They’re from King Arthur Flour,” she offered. It was a little café across the river in Vermont, where I used to go to work when I was a student.

“So, you have a virus puzzle, have you?” Huke asked. He nodded as I explained what we had learned about this lurking virus: the numbers, the regions affected, the dust mite vector, the bizarre pattern of cases that turned virulent. “Very exciting!” he said, slapping his knee. I had not told him about the Dormigen shortage, or the twelve hundred people who had died so far, or the marathon meetings at the White House, or the looming decision about the South China Sea Agreement—so of course he would think Capellaviridae was exciting. I found his scientific exuberance refreshing despite the circumstances.

“And you’re certain that you’re not dealing with a mutation?” he asked.

“We’ve sequenced the virus when it’s benign, and we’ve sequenced the virus when it turns virulent—identical DNA.”

“The vector, the dust mite, that’s a subspecies?” he asked. I nodded yes and Huke continued, “You do have a puzzle on your hands.” There was a pause as Huke sipped his tea, and then stared out at the woods behind the house. Eventually he said, “If this were a midterm, what would I ask?”

I felt a pang of annoyance at the pedantic nature of the question. I was tempted to point out how far this was from an academic exercise. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken an exam,” I demurred.

“My classes were always about viruses, not people,” he said. “Sure, humans were often the hosts, but viruses were the stars. So, what I would ask you on a midterm is: ‘What’s in it for the virus?’ Right? Viruses exist to propagate themselves, as do other species—like this dust mite, so I might look there, too. What’s in it for them? How is this a successful evolutionary strategy?”

“That seems to be the mystery with all lurking viruses,” I answered. “Why would you kill your host when you’ve got a perfectly good thing going? The lurking viruses seem to turn evolution on its head.” Huke made eye contact, acknowledging my point. I continued, having found what felt was a perfect metaphor: “It’s like you’re living free in someone’s house. They do your laundry. They cook your meals. And then one day you get up and kill the owner of the house. It makes no sense.”

“I agree. That’s not how nature works,” Huke said firmly. “We’re missing something.” He was growing excited and he slapped his leg again. “I envy you!”

I laughed. “It’s been a lot of work, to be honest.”

“Capellaviridae kills its host some of the time, but not usually,” Huke mused. “That’s a clue.”

“Yes.”

“One of the species involved has to benefit from this strange arrangement,” Huke prodded. “Maybe it’s Capellaviridae, maybe it’s this dust mite. Something here has to help one of them reproduce more successfully in the long run. Start with first principles, right?”

“What if that’s not what’s happening?” I asked.

“Then you have no hope,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like solving a murder with no motive. You have no idea where to begin looking. But that’s not usually the case, is it? Always start with the jealous boyfriend!”

We chatted amiably for a while longer before I excused myself. “I’m off to physical therapy,” Huke said. “My shoulder. Last year it was my knee. That’s what happens when you get old.” He walked with me to the front door and then out into the front yard. The sun was higher and the day had continued to warm up. “Not bad for April,” Huke said. I offered thanks and promised to pass along whatever I learned. His excitement was still palpable.

I turned and walked self-consciously across the damp front lawn toward the road, my dress shoes sinking into the grass. Just as I reached the asphalt road, Huke said loudly, “Wait a minute. One more question.” I turned and took a few steps back toward him. “The dust mite, it bites, yes?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Most dust mites don’t bite.”

“Correct.”

“So what happens if you get bit by this particular dust mite, other than the virus?” he asked.

“We’ve been focusing on the virus,” I said.

“Does it itch?” Huke asked.

“The dust-mite bite?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“For goodness’ sakes, find out!” Huke advised. “Because if this dust mite is a real pest, humans will try to get rid of it. And when that happens, nature always fights back!”

I thought about Huke’s parting comment as I walked back to the Hanover Inn. A taxi was waiting for me; the bellman had already put my duffel in the trunk. As soon as I got in the backseat, I called Tie Guy on his cell phone. “I have a different angle,” I said without exchanging pleasantries. “This dust mite: How do you get rid of it?”

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “People are already infected—”

“No, no, no,” I said. “I just want to know what people have been doing to try to get rid of the dust mite.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look,” he replied, obviously puzzled.

“Because nature always fights back,” I added.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

39.

I MET SLOAN AT A STARBUCKS IN BETHESDA. SINCE GRADUATION, we had seen each other infrequently and usually as part of a large group: weddings, reunions, and so on. We had swapped the occasional e-mail, but for all intents and purposes we had fallen out of touch. We never spoke about the night during senior week when we crossed the platonic boundary. Sloan had suggested the Starbucks because it was near her hotel. In hindsight, everything about the meeting was wrong. After I landed at Joint Base Andrews, I had to take a taxi across Washington at rush hour; she walked a block. And why a coffee shop, when we had years to catch up on? I should have at least suggested dinner. I was starving, not having eaten anything since the croissants with Huke. In any case, I had overeagerly accepted Sloan’s invitation, and now here I was accepting all of her terms.

During law school, Sloan had dated a guy a class ahead of her who was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. If the media reports were correct—and I have no reason to believe they were not—she also had a “serious romantic entanglement” with her constitutional law professor in her third year. None of these relationships left Cambridge with her. In New York, she had taken up with a prominent staff writer for The New Yorker, which is highly relevant for all that came next. I took a $65 WeGoNow and arrived at the appointed Starbucks about fifteen minutes early. I lingered near a professional couple sitting opposite one another; both were working their devices frenetically between large sips of coffee. They seemed more likely to get up and leave than the elderly couple a few seats over, whose cups were empty but seemed in no rush to go anywhere. The professional couple soon stood up to leave, and I took their table. (I was right about the elderly couple. They were still sitting there when Sloan and I left.)

Sloan was more or less on time. She spotted me and offered a beaming smile. After waiting in line for a black coffee, she made her way to the table and gave me a big hug. “This is great!” she said. “So how are you?” We did the usual catching up. It was a delightful conversation, diminished only slightly by the fact that Sloan glanced at her watch periodically. I would have stayed there all night, even as I grew ever hungrier. I explained the rudiments of my Ph.D. dissertation and talked about my work in the lab. “But you’re not teaching?” Sloan said. The tone suggested it was a question, but it was more of an observation, and it had layers and layers of significance. This was the first reference either of us had ever made to that starry night during senior week when we had pronounced our life plans.

There was so much implicit in what Sloan had just asked, or said. On that lovely evening, she had predicted that she would go to law school and then enter journalism. And here she was, a Harvard Law grad, checking her watch because she was due back at the New York Times. I had said I wanted to teach at a place like Dartmouth, yet the closest I had been to a classroom on campus since graduation was my meeting with Professor Huke. I knew, even if Sloan did not, that my job talks at various colleges and universities had not gone well. My only offer had been at the University of Nebraska—not even at the main campus in Lincoln, but one of the satellite campuses. My work at the lab was, in the eyes of most academic scientists, significantly less prestigious than a post at a top research university.

“I really like what I’m doing,” I offered, trying hard not to sound defensive.

“That’s great,” she said. The reply felt slightly patronizing, or maybe I just perceived it that way.

“I like applied science,” I explained. “I get to work on real problems, stuff that affects people’s lives.”

Sloan nodded, smiled, and sipped her coffee. “Do people ever move from what you’re doing into teaching posts? Could you still end up at Dartmouth?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’d want to do that,” I answered.

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Really?”

“It’s too academic,” I said. I paused, because somewhere in the recesses of my brain there was a safety alert telling me to stop talking. I felt a physical warning from my body, as if I were getting too close to a steep ledge. I kept talking anyway. I felt an overwhelming need for Sloan to appreciate my work, to acknowledge that I had not failed the grand plan that I laid out on that inimitable, sex-charged evening during senior week. “I was with the President yesterday,” I said.

At that point, the dam holding back my urge to say too much had broken.

“Of the United States?” Sloan asked with a quizzical look.

“What other president would it be?” I asked facetiously.

“That’s cool, like a photo op?” she asked.

“The whole day.”

Sloan put down her coffee. She never looked at her watch again. “What were you doing?” she asked.

“I can’t say,” I replied. “I don’t mean to be a jerk about it. All I can tell you is that something is happening and I’m right in the middle of it. I never dreamed that my work would have this kind of significance.” That was all I told her about what was going on. The reality, of course, is that Sloan is smart and ambitious. She could put two and two together, especially with all the resources of The New York Times at her disposal. More important, she was dating a staff writer at The New Yorker, which was where the first piece on “the Outbreak” would run. I was not quoted in that piece, directly or indirectly. When I was asked at the first congressional inquiry whether I had had any contact at any time with any person representing The New Yorker, I answered no—truthfully. To this day, I do not know if the meeting with Sloan was a coincidence or not. The whole journalism community knew that something was afoot at the White House. The cleverer ones realized it was probably something more than a presidential mistress. If Sloan had seen a leaked copy of the White House logs, she would have recognized that I was spending time there. And if I was at the White House, it was probably not to help the President of the United States disentangle himself from a relationship with a Colombian diplomat.

Our strategy throughout the crisis had been to keep each part of our response compartmentalized. Tie Guy knew about Capellaviridae but had no idea about the looming Dormigen shortage (despite his ongoing suspicions that something was up). The senior management at Health and Human Services knew about the Dormigen shortage but had never heard of Capellaviridae. With two sentences I had delivered to Sloan a journalistic gold mine. I was “the guy” on lurking viruses; she knew that. It was the crucial puzzle piece. All the others were in plain view. The warehouse fire in Long Beach was a matter of public record. Presumably some quick research turned up the fact that the fire that had seriously injured Bobo the chimpanzee had also destroyed a large proportion of the government’s Dormigen stock. The Centera arrests were not publicized but they were still public record. Sloan walked out of the Starbucks with a Rosetta stone for the whole story: the connection between Long Beach and Centera and the lurking virus. Since each involved party was unaware of the larger crisis, they all spoke freely when contacted by reporters. When Sloan called Professor Huke the following morning, he talked to her for half an hour about “this thrilling new virus.” And so on.

Sloan and I said a pleasant goodbye outside Starbucks with another platonic hug. We vowed to stay in touch. Once the story broke, the White House dictated whom we spoke to in the media and what we told them. Later, when the various inquiries and commissions began their work, my lawyers would not let me speak with Sloan. When those verdicts arrived (paving the way for this book), I finally was in a situation where I could just pick up the phone and call her. By then, she had been promoted and was coordinating all of the New York Times investigative pieces. I left a message—a semi-rambling request to catch up “after all this.” She did not call back. I sent a text a week or so later and did not get a reply to that, either. Once I called her office at the Times, where an intern dutifully took a message. I never heard back. I have since learned that Sloan married the guy from The New Yorker. I was not invited to the wedding.