Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

They all nodded or looked away. That was the thing they all knew. Somehow, no matter how careful they were, they'd end up in hand-to-hand combat with a guy who tore off their mask and sneezed in their face. This wasn't a safe time to be in Africa, even if you were authorized to kill anybody you saw.

And the worst thing was, even if they didn't catch the disease they still couldn't go home. The end of this assignment meant going into quarantine themselves, until it was fully demonstrated that they did not have the disease. Only where would the quarantine be? Gitmo? The Cubans would draw the line at that. It would have to be on board a ship at sea,

which wouldn't be allowed to dock until everybody on board had been clean for a month or two—or until everybody on board had either died of the disease or caught it and survived.

But as soldiers, their survival depended on not thinking too far ahead. If they had wanted a safe life, they wouldn't have joined up with Reuben when he formed this jeesh, and they wouldn't have brought Cole into their Bones and Noodles training so that President Torrent would know about their capabilities when he needed them.

They also knew that the chance of the quarantine of a continent actually working was slight. Somebody would get out. Some small boat or plane would sneak through from Sudan into Egypt, or from Mali to Algeria, and it would erupt from there to the whole world.

But maybe not. Maybe this would work. Maybe by fighting here, they were saving the lives of billions of people all over the world. That was a job worth doing. And even if they failed, it was better to die trying than just to sit back and let it happen.

Cole wondered. Does President Torrent really expect the quarantine to fail? How could it possibly benefit him if it did? How would cutting the world's population in half accomplish any goal that he could possibly have?

If the guys really believed this—if it wasn't just Babe—then did it mean they were crazy? Or that Cole was crazy not to see what they were seeing?

They weren't crazy. They might be wrong, but whatever had them thinking ugly thoughts about Torrent wasn't a hallucination.

What did they know that they hadn't told him?

CHRISTIAN CHARITY

I took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States. If the nictovirus reaches our shores before we develop a vaccine, it is highly unlikely that our present form of government would survive such a devastating crisis. The worldwide economy certainly would not, and since our national prosperity and safety depends on that network of trade, we would suffer a collapse as well. A slow, shortsighted, soft-handed government could not stand against the waves of fear and violence that would come.

Slow, shortsighted, and soft-handed are the hallmarks of democratic republics like ours. That's the kind of government we Americans like, because it doesn't bother us much. And that's why I'm determined to do everything I can to prevent the plague from spreading through the world and causing a collapse that could, in the long run, kill as many people as, and be more destructive of civilization than, the nictovirus.

When there is nothing we can do to save a drowning man, our responsibility becomes to save ourselves.

It wasn't the largest news story, but it was there on every network. Three hundred Baptists and a scattering of members of other churches, demonstrating as near to the White House as the security forces allowed. They carried signs:

Matthew 25:40: Let Us Help Them!

*** Mr. President, We Are Not Afraid!

Christians help the sick

God has not forgotten Africa! Neither will we!

Matt. 9:35: Let Us Follow Him!

Some of the signs were hand-lettered, but most were machine-printed so they could be read easily on television sets.

The commentaries were predictable. Fox News gave a sympathetic interview to one of the leaders of Christians Going to Africa. Every other network interviewed the craziest-looking individual protesters. But the message got out either way.

"We're not afraid to die," said the leader of CGA. "We all die eventually. We're afraid of facing God without having done all we could to help his children."

Cecily got home to find Mark sitting in front of the television set, and it was obvious he had been crying. He didn't look up when she walked in the house, so after she set down her purse and the mail on the kitchen table, she came back into the living room and sat down beside him, saying nothing at all.

He was watching the MSNBC coverage, which was almost fawningly supportive of President Torrent's position. Two commentators were talking to each other. "It's like President Torrent is the parent of teenagers, and he has to say, 'If everybody else was jumping off a bridge, would you want to do it, too?'"

"President Torrent is trying to keep the rest of the world safe from this terrible epidemic, and these people want to run the risk of spreading it, just so they can feel better about themselves."

"So you're saying that they aren't actually being generous, they're—"

"It's a very selfish thing to do."

"Of course, they would be risking their own lives, if they were allowed to go to Africa."

"What do they think three hundred untrained caregivers could do in a continent of a billion sick and dying people?"