The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Grocery store tenderizer doesn’t work on bones,” he said. “Congo-X does. Whenever it finishes turning the meat into sort of a mush—perhaps strengthened by taking nutrition from that process—it attacks bones. They are turned into mush. When the entire process is completed, what is left is a semisolid residue, which then enters sort of a coma. Forgive the crudeness, Mr. President, but what remains bears a strong physical resemblance to what one might pass when suffering from diarrhea: a semisolid brown, or brownish black, mass.”

“And what happens to that?”

“It apparently receives enough nutrients from the atmosphere to maintain life—I hesitate to use that term but I cannot think of another—for an indefinite period. If it is touched by flesh, the process begins again.”

“The only way it is contagious, so to speak, is if there’s physical contact with it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“When it is in the dormant, coma stage, yes, sir. But when it is feeding, so to speak, on flesh, it gives off microscopic particles which, if inhaled, also start the degenerative process.”

“How can it be killed?”

“My initial tests suggest the only way it can be killed is by thorough incineration at temperatures over a thousand degrees Centigrade. The residue, I am coming to believe, may then be encased in a nonporous container. Glass or some type of ceramic would work, I think, but there one would have the risk of the glass or ceramic breaking. Aluminum seems to form a satisfactory barrier. As a matter of fact, I used simple aluminum foil to isolate the material I brought out of the Congo; I had nothing else. And the Congo-X material that was sent to my laboratory today was wrapped in aluminum foil.”

“Like a Christmas turkey?” President Clendennen asked.

“More like, I would say, Mr. President, cold cuts from a delicatessen. Very carefully, so there was little or no risk that the foil could be torn. The people who sent me the Congo-X obviously seem to know what they are doing.”

“And who, would you guess, Colonel, were the people who sent you the Congo-X? More importantly, why do you think they did?”

“I’ve given that some thought, Mr. President,” Hamilton said.

&n

bsp; “And?”

The tone of impatience in the President’s voice was clearly evident.

“They wanted us to know that the attack on the Fish Farm was unsuccessful,” Hamilton said. “That they have Congo-X. We have to presume they know a great deal more about it than I have been able to learn in the few days I’ve had to work with it. They are making the point that the threat which existed before we learned of the Fish Farm and attempted to destroy it exists now.”

“Why wouldn’t they try to keep that secret, so they would have the element of surprise if they decide to use Congo-X on us?”

“That’s the question to which I have given the most thought,” Hamilton said. “It was self-evident that they wanted us to know we failed, and that they have Congo-X. The question is, why?”

“That’s the question I asked, Colonel,” the President said.

“I think they want something from us,” Hamilton said, very seriously.

“And what, Colonel, do you think that might be?”

“I have no idea,” Hamilton said. “Absolutely no idea.”

President Clendennen looked around the Oval Office.

The Honorable Natalie Cohen, secretary of State; Ambassador Charles M. Montvale, director of National Intelligence; the Honorable John J. Powell, director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and the Honorable Mason Andrews, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, were sitting on the chairs and couches around a glass-topped coffee table. Not one had said a word during the “bad news” exchange between the President and Colonel Hamilton.

“Odd,” Clendennen said to them. “I would have bet two bits to a doughnut that y’all would be falling all over yourselves to offer sage political advice and profound philosophical opinions concerning our little dilemma.”

No one responded.

The President grunted, then announced: “One, I believe everything Colonel Hamilton has told us about this terrible substance. Two, we are not about to react to this threat the way my predecessor did. We bombed everything in a twenty-square-mile area of the Congo into small pieces and then incinerated the pieces. Since somebody still has enough of a supply of this stuff to share it with us, I think we have to concede that the only thing that bombing did was bring us within a cat’s whisker of a nuclear exchange and give those people who don’t like us much anyway good reason to like us even less.

“So what we’re going to do now is proceed very carefully and only when we’re absolutely sure of what we’re doing. I will now entertain suggestions as to how we can do this.” He paused, and then went on: “You first, Andrews.”

There was no immediate reply.

“Well?” the President pursued, not very pleasantly.

“Mr. President,” Mason Andrews said. “In addition to the obvious, I think we have—”