“So what? I’d still trust his judgment more than anyone else on the ground in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s not your call to make,” said Ruddy.
Blair stiffened. “Mr. President, may I speak with you privately?”
The president scowled. “All right, that’s enough. I don’t want you two throwing rocks. This isn’t the time or place.”
Ruddy folded her arms and said nothing.
“Please, Mr. President,” said Blair, not budging. “Two minutes.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Ruddy, but the president held up his hand.
“If you don’t mind, Sylvia?” said the president.
She stared at him as if he’d kicked her. Then she turned on her heel and stalked about, slamming the door behind her. The president sighed.
“That’s going to cost me.”
Blair shifted to stand between the president and the closed door, forcing himself into the line of sight. The president sat back in his chair and gestured for him to speak.
“Two minutes, Scott.”
“Permission to speak candidly?”
“You keep asking that.”
“I keep needing to.”
They regarded each other, then the president nodded. “Go ahead.”
Blair leaned his fists on the edge of the desk. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What?”
“This isn’t like you,” said Blair, his voice low and even. “This isn’t even close to you. Yesterday you were in command, you were the voice of reason while all hell broke loose. Now you’re fumbling at the edges of this thing. Wait, hear me out. You said I could speak my mind and this may be the last chance I have.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on firing you.”
“Christ, who cares about that? How can you still think that this is about politics or anything but a crisis? Sam Imura knows biohazardous threats better than anyone currently on U.S. soil. Anyone. He trained most of the people in the NBACC teams. He wrote their field response protocols. While Simeon Zetter was playing hide-and-seek with the Taliban, Imura was hunting—and bagging—world-class bioterrorists and he did so for four different people who sat in the chair on which you are currently resting your ass.”
The president didn’t respond, but his face grew steadily redder.
“Sam said that the checkpoints along the Q-zone aren’t adequate. There are a couple of thousand local and state police itching to be a part of this. I know that we pulled them because we didn’t want to deal with the complications of jurisdiction and we were afraid of how they’d react if they found out our ground forces had to terminate infected police officers inside Stebbins. That’s yesterday’s news and it does not matter. What matters now is getting armed, trained men and women to reinforce that Q-zone while there is still time. The National Guard reinforcements won’t cross into Stebbins sooner than two hours. We can put a thousand police officers on that line in twenty minutes.”
“And we’d lose all control of the situation in terms of media and—”
“—and that doesn’t matter.”
The president shook his head. “Scott, while I commend you on your passion, I simply do not agree that we are in danger of losing control of the situation. I’ve known Simeon Zetter too long and too well to doubt his word.”
“So have I, and it’s not his word that I doubt. It’s his ability to properly assess this kind of situation.”
The president spread his hands. “I’m not convinced, Scott. Sorry.”
Blair really wanted to hit him.
He wanted to kill him.