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  Thomas sat alone on his horse staring down the deserted canyon, still unnerved by the devastation they had wrought upon the enemy. This enemy of Elyon.

  His whole army had gathered above, seven thousand including those who’d arrived in the night. They began to chase the fleeing enemy with a chant of victory.

  “Elyon! Elyon! Elyon!”

  After a few minutes the chant changed. From the west toward the east, a single name swept along the long line of warriors. The chant grew until it filled the canyon with a thunderous roar.

  “Hunter! Hunter! Hunter!”

  Thomas slowly turned his horse and walked up the valley. It was time to go home.

  8

  CRISIS WAS a strange beast. At times it united. At times it divided.

  For the moment, this particular crisis had at least forced a few of Washington’s elite to lay aside political differences and submit to the president’s demands for an immediate meeting.

  Clearly, a virus was neither Democrat nor Republican.

  Even so, Thomas sat at the back of the auditorium feeling out of place in this company of leaders—not because he was unaccustomed to leadership, but because his own experience in leadership was vastly different from theirs. His leadership had more to do with strength and physical power than with the manipulative politics that he knew would assert itself here.

  He gazed out over the twenty-three men and women whom the president had gathered in the conference hall off the West Wing. Thomas had flown westward, over the Atlantic, and with the time change arrived midday in Washington. Merton Gains had left him with the assurance that he would be called upon to address their questions soon. Bob Stanton, an assistant, would answer any questions in the meantime. Bob sat on one side, Kara on the other.

  Funny thing about Kara. Was he older than her now, or still younger? His body was still twenty-five, no denying that. But what about his mind? She seemed to look to him more as an older brother now. He’d given her the details of his victory using the black powder, and she’d mostly listened with a hint of awe in her eyes.

  “They’re late,” Bob said. “Should’ve started by now.”

  Thomas’s mind drifted back to the victory in the Natalga Gap. There, he was a world-renowned leader, a battle-hardened general, feared by the Horde, loved by his people. He was a husband, and a father to two children. His fifteen years as commander had been gracious to him, despite the misjudgments that William was kind enough to remind him of.

  The chant still echoed through his mind. Hunter, Hunter, Hunter.

  And here he was what? The twenty-five-year-old kid in the back who was going to talk about some psychic dreams he was having. Grew up in the Philippines. Parents divorced. Mother suffers from manic depression. Never finished college. Mixed up with the mob. No wonder he’s having these crazy dreams. But if President Robert Blair says he goes on, he goes on. Privileges of the office.

  A tall gray-haired man with a beak fit for a year bird walked on the stage and sat at a long table set up with microphones. He was followed by three others who took seats. Then the president, Robert Blair, entered and walked to the center seat. The meeting had the aura of a press conference.

  “That’s Ron Kreet, chief of staff, on the left,” Bob said. “Then Graham Meyers, secretary of defense. I think you know Phil Grant, CIA. And that would be Barbara Kingsley, health secretary.”

  Thomas nodded. The big guns. The front row was crowded with vaguely familiar faces. Other cabinet members. Senators. Congressmen. Director of the FBI.

  “Not often you get such a broad spectrum of power in one room,” Bob said.

  Ron Kreet cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming. As all of you know, the State Department received a letter by fax roughly fourteen hours ago that threatened our nation with a virus now known as the Raison Strain. You’ll find a copy of this fax and all other pertinent documents in the folder you were given.”

  It was clear that not all of them had read the fax. A number flipped open their folders and shuffled through papers.

  “The president has asked to speak to you personally on this matter.” Kreet faced Robert Blair. “Sir.”

  Robert Blair had always reminded Thomas of Robert Redford. He didn’t have as many freckles, but otherwise he was a spitting image of the actor. The president leaned forward and adjusted his mike, face relaxed, stern but not tense.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice.” His voice sounded shallow. Blair shifted his head to one side and cleared his throat.

  “I’ve thought of a dozen different ways to proceed, and I’ve decided to be completely candid. I’ve invited a panel to answer your questions in a moment, but let me summarize a situation that we’re now opening up to you.”

  He took a deep breath. “A group of unconventional terrorists, whom we believe to be associated with a Swiss, Valborg Svensson, has released a virus in numerous cities throughout the world. These cities now include six of our own, and we believe that number will increase with each passing hour. We have verified the Raison Strain in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington.”

  The room was still enough to pick out heavy breathers.

  “The Raison Strain is an airborne virus that spreads at an unprecedented rate. It is lethal and we have no cure. According to our best estimates, three hundred million Americans will be infected by the virus within two weeks.”

  The room itself seemed to gasp, so universal was the reaction.

  “That’s . . . what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, Peggy, that if all the people in this room weren’t infected ten minutes ago, you probably are now. I’m also saying that unless we find a way to deal with this virus, everyone living between New York and Los Angeles will be dead in four weeks.”

  Silence.

  “You knowingly exposed us to this virus?” someone demanded.

  “No, you were probably exposed before you set foot in this building, Bob.”

  Then noise. Lots of it. A cacophony of bewilderment and outrage. An older gentleman stood to Thomas’s left.

  “Surely you can’t be sure of this. The claim will cause a panic.”

  A dozen others offered slightly less restrained agreement.

  The president lifted his hand. “Please. Shut up and sit down, Charles! All of you!”

  The man hesitated and sat. The room quieted.

  “The only way we’re going to make it through this is to focus on the problem. My blood has been drawn. I’ve tested positive for the Raison Strain. I have three weeks to live.”

  Smart man, Thomas thought. He’d effectively if only temporarily shut down the room.

  The president reached to one side, lifted a ream of paper, and stood it on end using both hands. “The news doesn’t get any better. The State Department received a second fax less than two hours ago. In it we have a very detailed and extensive demand. The New Allegiance, as they call themselves, will deliver an antivirus that would neutralize the threat of the Raison Strain. In exchange they have demanded, among other things, our key weapons systems. Their list is very specific, so specific that I’m surprised. It demands that the items be delivered to a destination of their choosing in fourteen days.”

  He lowered the paper with a gentle thump. “All of the nuclear powers have been given the same ultimatum. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a group of schoolboys or some half-witted terrorists we’re dealing with. This is a highly organized group that has every intention of radically shifting the balance of world power in the next twenty-one days.”

  He stopped and scanned the room. They were in a freeze frame.

  A man in the front voiced the thought screaming through each of their minds. “That’s . . . that’s impossible.”

  The president didn’t respond.

  “Is that possible?” the man asked.

  Bob leaned over to Thomas. “Jack Spake, ranking Democrat,” he whispered.

  “Is what possible?”

  “Ship
ping our weapons in two weeks.”

  “We’re analyzing that now. But they’ve been . . . selective. They seem to have considered everything.”

  “And you’re telling us that with the brightest scientists and the best health-care professionals in the world, we have no way to deal with this virus?”

  The president deferred to his secretary of health. “Barbara?”

  “Naturally, we’re working on that.” Feedback squealed and she backed off before regaining the mike. “There are roughly three thousand virologists in our country qualified to work on a challenge of this magnitude, and we’re securing their, um, assistance as we speak. But you have to understand that we’re dealing with a mutation of a genetically engineered vaccine here—literally billions of DNA and RNA pairs. Unraveling an antivirus may take more time than we have. Raison Pharmaceutical, the creator of the vaccine from which the virus was adapted, is providing us with everything they have. Their information alone will take a week to sort through, even with the help of their own geneticists. Unfortunately, their top geneticist in charge of the project has gone missing. We believe she has been kidnapped by these same terrorists.”

  The magnitude of the problem was beginning to settle in.

  A dozen questions erupted at once, and the president insisted on a semblance of order. Questions on the virus were fired in salvos and answered in fashion.

  What about other forms of treatment? How does the virus work? How fast does it spread? How long before people start dying?

  Barbara handled them all with a professionalism that Thomas found admirable. She showed them the same computer simulation that he’d seen in Bangkok, and when the screen went blue at the end, the questions came to a halt.

  “So basically, this . . . this thing isn’t going away, and we have no way to deal with it. In three weeks we’ll all be dead. There’s nothing . . . nothing at all that we can do. Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “No, Pete, we’re not saying that,” the president said. “We’re saying that we don’t know of any way to deal with it. Not yet.”

  To their right a man with black hair and a perfectly round face stood. “And what happens if we give in to their demands?”

  Bob leaned over. “Dwight Olsen. Senate majority leader. Hates the president.”

  The president deferred to the secretary of defense, Graham Meyers.

  “As we see it, giving in to their demands is out of the question,” Meyers said. “We don’t deal with terrorists. If we were to hand over the weapons systems they’ve demanded, the United States would be left defenseless. We assume that these people are working with at least one sovereign nation. In the space of three weeks, that nation would hold enough power to manipulate whomever it wishes through threat of force. They would essentially enslave the world.”

  “Having a military doesn’t give a nation control of the world,” Olsen said. “The USSR had a military and didn’t use it.”

  “The USSR had an opponent with as many nuclear weapons as they did. These people intend to disarm anyone with the will to deter them. You have to understand, they’re demanding the delivery systems, the nukes, even our aircraft carriers, for crying out loud! They may not immediately have the personnel to man a battle group, but if they have our delivery systems, they won’t need to. They’re also demanding evidence, very detailed I might add, that we have disabled all of our early warning systems and long-range radar. Like the president said, we’re not dealing with Boy Scouts here. They seem to know what they’re talking about.”

  “What if one of the other countries hands over their weapons?” someone asked.

  “We’re doing our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “But the alternative to handing over our weapons is death, right?” Dwight Olsen again.

  The president reasserted himself. “Both are death. The only alternative that has any merit in my mind is to beat them up-front before the virus does its damage.”

  “The virus is already doing its damage.”

  “Not if we can find them and the antivirus in the next three weeks. It’s the only course of action that makes any sense.”

  “Which I can assure you we’re working on as we speak,” CIA Director Phil Grant said. “We’ve temporarily suspended all other cases, over nine thousand, and directed all of our assets at locating these people.”

  “And what are your chances of doing that?” Olsen asked.

  “We’ll find them. The trick will be to find the antivirus with them.”

  The president leaned forward into his mike. “In the meantime, I think it’s important that we confront this in the strictest of confidence. We need some ideas. Anything you can think of—I’m all ears. I don’t care how crazy it sounds.”

  A kind of mad chaos overtook the room for the next hour. They all seemed to function in it, but to say they controlled it would be wrong, Thomas thought. The chaos controlled them.

  He watched the verbal sparring, taken by it. It was not so different from his own Council. Here was an advanced civilization doing precisely what his own people did, exploring and vigorously defending ideas, not with swords, but with tongues as sharp as swords.

  He stopped keeping track of who asked questions and who answered, but he mulled each one carefully. Americans really did have a kind of uncommon resourcefulness when pressed.

  “It would seem that slowing the spread of the virus could at least buy us time,” a handsome woman in a navy business suit observed. “Time is both our greatest enemy and our greatest ally. We should shut down travel.”

  “And cause widespread panic? A threat of this magnitude would bring out the worst in people.”

  “Then offer them another reason,” the woman responded. “Issue a heightened terror alert based on information we can’t disclose. They’ll assume we’re dealing with a bomb or something. Ground air travel and shut the airports. Stop all interstate travel. Anything we can to slow the spread of the virus. Even a day or two could make the difference, right?”

  Barbara, the secretary of health, responded. “Technically, yes.”

  No one objected.

  “Frankly, we might be better off concentrating on the antivirus and the means to distribute it on short notice. Getting a vaccine out to six billion people isn’t an easy chore.”

  “But you’re saying that everyone here is supposedly infected?” someone asked. “Shouldn’t we isolate whatever command and control hasn’t been infected? Keep them in isolation as long as is necessary.”

  “Can you insulate people from this thing?” someone else asked.

  “There has to be a way. Clean rooms. Put them on the space shuttle and send them to the space station for all I care.”

  “To what end? What good are a couple hundred generals in the space station if the rest of the world is dying?”

  “Then isolate the scientists who are working on the antivirus. Or give the space station the codes to launch a few well-aimed nukes down the throats of whoever’s caused this thing if it ever gets to that.”

  To what end? Thomas wondered. Retaliation felt hollow in the face of death. The debate stalled.

  “We lead this country, we die with this country if it comes down to that,” the president finally said. “But I don’t see the harm of insulating a thread of command and control and as many scientists as possible.”

  The chaos gradually gave way to a sober tension. Crisis sometimes divided and sometimes united. Now it united.

  At least for the moment.

  THE MEETING was two hours old when the question that brought Thomas forward was finally asked.

  The blue-suited woman. The smart one. “How do we know that they actually have an antivirus?”

  No answer.

  “Isn’t it possible that they’re bluffing? If it takes us months to create a vaccine or an antivirus, how is it they have one? You said the Raison Strain is a brand-new virus, less than a week old, a mutation of the Raison Vaccine. How did they get an antivirus in unde
r a week?”

  The president glanced toward Thomas near the back, then nodded at Deputy Secretary Gains, who stood and walked to an open mike. He’d spoken only a few times during the entire discussion, deferring to his superior, Secretary of State Paul Stanley, as a political courtesy, Thomas assumed.

  “There’s more to this. Nothing that changes what you’ve heard, but something that may assist us in a more . . . unconventional way. I hesitate because I’m about to open Pandora’s box, but considering the situation, I think it best to go ahead.”

  Any trace of desire Thomas had to speak to this group suddenly vacated him. He was no more a politician than he was a rat.

  “Roughly two weeks ago a man called one of our offices and claimed that he was having some strange dreams.”

  Thomas closed his eyes. Here they went.

  “He came to the conclusion that the dreams were real, because in his dreams there were history books that recorded the histories of Earth. He could go to these history books and learn who won the Kentucky Derby this year, for example. Which he did, before the Derby was run, mind you. And he was right. Actually made over three hundred thousand on the long shot. The information in the history books from his dream world was real. Exact.”

  Thomas was a little surprised there weren’t at least a few snickers.

  “The reason he called our offices was because he learned something rather disturbing, namely, that a malicious virus named the Raison Strain would be released around the world this week. Again, this was nearly two weeks ago, before the Raison Strain even existed.”

  They were at least listening.

  “No one listened to him, of course. Who would? He went to Bangkok and took matters into his own hands. For the past week he has been feeding us a steady diet of facts, all in advance of their happening.”

  He paused. No one was moving.

  “I flew to Bangkok yesterday on the request of the president,” Gains said. “What I have seen with my own eyes would leave you in shock. Like me, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that our nation is in a very, very bad place. The situation seems hopeless. If there’s any one person who can save this country, ladies and gentlemen, it might very well be Thomas Hunter. Thomas?”