Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

"Yes," said Drew. "That's why we didn't discuss it with you."

"Just went ahead and infected me," said Cole.

"You're our commander," said Mingo. "We're a jeesh. All for one, one for all."

Cole turned to Cat. "How did you catch it?"

"Not the way those clowns from Muslim Nigeria caught it, if that's what you're thinking," said Cat. "I just caught it."

"But not by accident."

Cat raised his eyebrows. "Can't say," he said.

"Well hey, thanks for maybe killing me, Cat."

"No sweat," said Cat. "We saved one another's lives often enough before, at the mountain, you know, and here in Africa, that I figured your life was mine and mine was yours."

"Well great," said Cole. "Now we've got to be quarantined and—"

"No sir," said Drew. "No need for a quarantine. Not when the whole base has already been exposed."

"It's kind of like a vaccine," said Arty. "Except that you get the real disease."

"What gave you the right?" Cole demanded.

"It's going to happen," said Drew. "Catching the nictovirus. No matter how President Torrent does with his attempted quarantine. The nicto won't respect his little boundaries, it's coming eventually, and so we're going to go through it right here on this base, where we can look out for one another."

"Everybody's going to be too sick to—"

"Don't be such a pessimist, Cole," said Mingo, walking back toward the three-story College of Medical Sciences building that served as barracks and headquarters.

"You going to include this in your report to Torrent?" asked Arty cheerily.

"Not likely," said Cole. "I need you bastards too much to court-martial you. If any of you live, that is."

"That's what we're counting on," said Cat, with a wink. Followed by another sneeze. "Oh my," he said. "I'm really starting to feel under the weather."

Praying for rain is such a bad idea. Even in the midst of a terrible drought, someone will say, Of course I want it to rain, but not today.

Politics is the art of simultaneously satisfying groups with conflicting goals. The traditional way of accomplishing this is to speak to the groups separately, lie, and then, if you are caught, deny it. You count on the voters to forget or lose interest or change their minds, and they almost always come through for you.

In our time, between national television and the internet, contradictions are more easily caught, so now the best method of pleasing everyone is to promise nothing while seeming to promise everything. New Deal, New Frontier, Change, Progress, Morning in America—there is no limit to the willingness of voters to ascribe to the vague slogan whatever goal is dear to their hearts.

In times of crisis, however, where something is at stake beyond the next election, real decisions must be made. Some voters will discover that their most precious goals are not as important to you as someone else's. Even if you solve the crisis and avert certain disaster, they will never forgive you for having treated their aspirations with contempt. Govern long enough, resolve enough crises, and a large majority will wish to be rid of you.

This natural depletion of popularity only happens to statesmen. Political hacks never have to face the problem, because they never actually make a decision.

The temptation is to eliminate politics entirely and retain power without regard for the next election. This is always done with the intention of governing well; you can take the long view, act for the future, see things through to completion. The newly fledged dictator-for-life will always make wise decisions, he is sure.

But the praying-for-rain problem doesn't go away, it simply takes a different form. Now, instead of uniting to throw you out at the next election, your opponents and rivals conspire to have you killed. In order to forestall them and continue with your most excellent governing, you must find them and kill them first. The bloodbath begins.

People do not have enough appreciation for lying and vague politicians. In their avoidance of commitment, they rarely do much harm. It is the honest statesman who becomes a tyrant, not the hack.

Cecily did not have to go to Italy and travel with Catholic Charities there. Instead, she was included in the military flights that President Torrent arranged as part of his "wholehearted national support for people who volunteered to go to Africa to help victims of the nictovirus."

One thing about Averell Torrent—when he changed his mind, he changed it all the way. In his press conference the morning after she walked out of the White House strategy meeting, he already had much of his plan worked out. Military nights, military prefab housing where needed, including decent sanitation, and regular supply flights bringing food and medicine, both for the volunteers and for the people they would care for.

He didn't even claim that it was his own idea. "My goal was to keep everybody safe, even the people who didn't want to be protected. But some of my advisers told me in no uncertain terms that you don't tell Americans not to do what faith and compassion tell them they must do.