88

Arlington, Virginia

The wedding party spread out over much of the half-acre backyard. The day was warm and misty, alternating patches of sun and light overcast. Mark Augustine stood in the reception line beside his bride for forty minutes, smiling, shaking hands, giving polite hugs. Senators and congressional representatives walked through the line, chatting politely. Men and women in unisex black-and-white livery carried trays of champagne and canapes over the golf-green manicured lawn. Augustine looked at his bride with a fixed smile; he knew what he felt inside, love and relief and accomplishment, all slightly chilled. The face he showed to the guests, to the few reporters who had picked winning tickets in the press pool lottery, was calm, warmly loving, dutiful.

Something had occupied his mind all day, however, even through the wedding ceremony. He had flubbed his simple lines of declaration, provoking mild laughter in the front rows in the chapel.

Babies were being born alive. In the quarantine hospitals, in specially appointed Taskforce community clinics, and even in private homes, new babies were arriving.

The possibility that he was wrong had occurred to him lightly, in passing, a kind of itch, until he heard that Kaye Lang’s baby had been born alive, delivered by a doctor working from emergency bulletins issued by the Centers for Disease Control, the very same epidemiological study team that had been put in place at his orders. Special procedures, special precautions; the babies were different.

So far, twenty-four SHEVA infants had been dropped off at community clinics by single mothers or parents the Task-force had not been tracking.

Anonymous, alive foundlings, now under his care.

The reception line came to an end. Feet aching in the tight black dress shoes, he hugged his bride, whispered in her ear, and motioned for Florence Leighton to join him in the main house.

“What did Allergy and Infectious Diseases send us?” he asked. Mrs. Leighton opened the briefcase she had carried all day and handed him a fresh fax page.

“I’ve been waiting for an opportunity,” she said. “The president called earlier, sends his best wishes, and wants you at the White House sometime this evening, earliest convenience.”

Augustine read the fax. “Kaye Lang had her baby,” he said, looking up at her, eyebrows peaking.

“So I heard,” Mrs. Leighton said. Her expression was professional, attentive, and revealed nothing.

“We should send her congratulations,” Augustine said.

“I’ll do that,” Mrs. Leighton said.

Augustine shook his head. “No, you won’t,” he said. “We still have a course to follow.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Tell the president I’ll be there by eight.”

“What about Alyson?” Mrs. Leighton asked.

“She married me, didn’t she?” Augustine answered. “She knows what she’s getting into.”