Oath of Office

Dr. Ryan’s eyes flew wide. Her lips puckered in a mock pout. “Really?” For one of the most talented ophthalmic surgeons in the world, she played the part of breathless bimbo incredibly well. Both hands now clutched the sheet on each side of her pouting chin. Her perfectly manicured nails were painted a deep red called I’m Not Really a Waitress. Amazingly, the White House press office had been able to keep the name of the color under wraps.

Her breasts rose and fell beneath the sheets as she heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Darn! If it’s not your birthday, then what am I supposed to do with this present?”

* * *

Eighteen minutes later, Ryan turned slightly to glance at his bedside clock and heaved a sigh of his own. Cathy’s arm trailed across his chest, her leg over his thigh, warm, so they no longer needed the sheet. Soft breaths puffed against his neck.

She chuckled softly.

“What?” he said.

Ryan couldn’t see her face, but he’d known her long enough to feel the tensing of her skin when she smiled. “You ever think what it would be like if there was some crisis of impending doom right now and the Secret Service had to burst in here with Arnie?”

“Now would be better than five minutes ago,” Ryan offered, considering the real possibility that his chief of staff might barge into the presidential bedroom if the threat was great enough.

“Maybe a little better,” Cathy said. “But not much.”

Ryan shrugged. “It’s different for you, hon. You’d be embarrassed, cover up with the sheet. I, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud. It would be a guiltless way to proclaim, ‘Hey, the leader of the free world’s still got it.’”

“Oh, you still got it.” She nuzzled in closer, shuddering a little. “Anyway, I can’t just lie around here all day. I need to get to the hospital.”

“I know,” Ryan said. “I’ll hear it later in the briefing, but you docs must talk about this stuff. Fill me in on the latest expert opinions about this epidemic.”

Cathy reached down for the sheet and pulled it up to her chest before collapsing back on her preferred stack of three down pillows. Ryan knew she was envisioning a map of the United States and the number of deaths in each area. If the victim happened to be a child, she’d see the name. Her brain worked that way, recalling pictures of information — pages she’d read, images she’d seen — with a near-photographic memory. Though she specialized in diseases and injuries of the eye, Cathy had been asked by her husband to be the face of the media campaign providing education and information on the recent outbreak of a virulent strain of influenza.

“One hundred and thirty-seven,” she said. “That’s in the U.S. and Canada. But there are two hundred — plus reported sick enough to hospitalize. We’re having some luck with antivirals, maybe even stemming the tide, but it’s too early to know for sure. First responders, military, essential personnel, hospital staff — they should all be vaccinated by the end of this week or early next. The CDC is doing a terrific job of pushing out everything we have on hand, basically attempting to throw a bucket of sand on the fire and smother it all at once. The trouble is, Jack, we’re going to run out of sand, in the near term at least. We usually recommend vaccinating the very young and the elderly, but this stuff is hitting primarily healthy people in the prime of life, much like the pandemic of 1918.”

“The Spanish flu,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, well, Spain got a bad rap,” Cathy said. “Given that same line of reasoning, they could call this the American flu, since we publish our findings to the world in hopes that everyone can stop it. There were certainly other countries with similar outbreaks in that same year, but Spain was the one that reported the illness.” She let her head fall sideways against the pillow, looking directly at him. “As I said, this virus affects a vital portion of the workforce, the doctors, nurses, and pharmaceutical techs who would normally be the ones leading the fight. The 1918 pandemic killed more people than both World Wars combined — almost five percent of the world’s population. It was virulent stuff, Jack. And this strain has the potential to be even worse. Unchecked, it’ll burn through the best and brightest within months, maybe even weeks…”

Ryan groaned.

Cathy nudged him in the arm. “See what I did there?”

“What?”