Wired (19 page)

A cold soberness returned to Sarah's eyes and for a moment anger flashed across her face. Shaking her head, she walked out
and closed the door with a slam.

Graham dropped into his desk chair like a boulder falling off of a mountain. He had never given this woman even a hint of
interest, and she had walked in like the office paramour, sent to him like an order from the delicatessen up the street.

On second thought, Sarah had been flirtatious, occasionally, but she had sounded like she truly cared. He remembered other
times when the woman had been warm and genuine.

Reaching into his bottom drawer, Graham pulled out a bottle of bourbon Frank Bridges had given him over a year ago and untwisted
the cork on the bottle. He started to pour himself a drink and then heard explosive laughter and women giggling in the outer
office. He stopped. The last thing he needed was the same addled brain as those people in the outer office.

Graham started go get up and take a peek out of his door, but decided against it. He put the cork back in the bottle, set
it back in the drawer, and closed it.

For the next couple of hours, he worked on some unfinished paperwork and tried to ignore the sounds of the pandemonium and
hubbub going on beyond his walls. No matter what he heard, he wasn't going out until the uproar subsided.

A quiet knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in,” he said.

The door opened slightly and Sarah Cates stuck her head in. “May I speak to you?”

Graham braced himself.

The woman's entire countenance had changed. Sarah had sobered up and looked almost like she had been crying. With her head
down, she quickly slipped into the chair in front of his desk. “I want to offer you an apology.”

Graham studied her. Sarah looked more broken than disingenuous or manipulative. “Yes?” Graham tried not to sound abrasive.

“I was drinking, but I should never have said what I did.” Sarah bit her lip. “I am sure you may want to replace me or move
me to another person's office and if you do, I will understand.” She stopped and looked at the floor. “I'm very sorry.”

Graham said nothing partly because he couldn't think of what he ought to say.

“I care about you.” Sarah looked up slowly with pain in her eyes. “But you are right. I want you to know that I respect your
sense of propriety and I won't ever do anything like this again.” A tear ran down her cheek. “I should never have been drinking.”

“Sarah,” Graham said with sincerity. “Let's both go back to work and forget this happened. I hope we can go on down the road
without this encounter damaging either of us.”

Sarah nodded. “Yes… yes… thank… you.” She walked out of the room with her head down.

Graham heaved a deep sigh. He had never been a party boy and his mother had imparted a sense of right and wrong that sometimes
got in his way, but he was more than relieved that this unexpected road jam seemed to have been cleared away. He would need
to avoid all appearances of impropriety in every possible way. If Bridges did run for national office and these contacts with
Carson kept coming, Graham knew he couldn't afford anything but the best of reputations. He didn't want to go from being the
office pariah because of a death to having the reputation of the office playboy. This was not a good morning.

M
INUTES BEFORE NOON
Jackie phoned. “Matthew called and wants to bring a friend to our house for supper tonight. He says she is a Jewish woman
in his New Seekers group.”

“Good! Excellent!”

“Matt thinks we could have an important conversation with her.”

“And I don't care what Mary comes up with this evening or what the school assigns, you tell that girl to be at the table with
the rest of us.”

“I will. Graham, are you all right? You sound a little on edge.”

Graham started to be candid, but stopped. “I have many things on my mind,” he said “I'm struggling with what's happened to
our family.”

“Don't worry, Graham.I want you to know that I've made my peace with what Matthew is telling us. I'm open to whatever the
Bible says.”

“Well, that's the best news I've heard this morning! Good. I'll look forward to this evening. See you then.” He hung up the
phone. Maybe the morning would turn out better than he thought.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Graham took the back stairs out of his office and left for Arlington Heights. Most of the
staff was long since smashed and nothing was going on that involved him. He didn't want any more nonsense and needed to think
alone. Walking along the river in the Ship Canal would give him time to make sense out of everything happening to him.

From what he had seen in the last week, it was now clear to Graham that the mayor would do anything that Border Camber Carson
told him. The idea of attaching nanomachines to people and adding more surveillance cameras had fit a plan already unfolding
when Graham entered the discussion. The bottom line meant Chicago would actually be run out of the back pocket of this Middle
Eastern oil magnate. Wiring the city with an all-encompassing surveillance system would give Carson an extraordinary ability
to control all of Chicago. The thought remained almost unimaginable. At the least, he would make sure his family stayed unmarked.

The buzzing of his cell phone stopped Graham. He pulled the phone out of his pocket.

“Peck here.”

“Graham, this is Frank. You've let the office?”

“Yeah, we seem to be having nothing but an endless party today. I cut out.”

“Know what you mean. That's why I left. Graham, I'm deeply concerned. Something terrible has happened overnight.”

Graham took a deep breath. “Not again!”

“Fortunately not in Chicago,” Bridges said, “but I got a report from lsrael. You know those missile attacks that started the
nuclear exchange?”

“Of course.”

“Apparently something else was at work. Smallpox has broken out in Israel and is sweeping through Jerusalem.”

“Smallpox? I thought the last time anyone talked about that disease was back when we were getting ready for war with Iraq
when Saddam Hussein was alive.”

“That's my recollection, but it's happened. They tell me that only Russia and the United States kept samples of smallpox in
their germ warfare laboratories, but other countries may have gotten hold of the germs. Looks like someone also shot a missile
loaded with the disease into Israel.”

“Oh, no! That's horrible.”

“They tell me about one-third of all the victims die and that the disease leaves terrible effects on survivors. It's highly
Contagious. I'm terrified it could come our way; virtually nobody is immune today.”

Graham cursed. “That idea is too awful even to think about.”

“You can see what could happen if one suicide bomber flew in here from some rogue country armed with smallpox. Before anyone
knew what was happening a third of this country could be dead!”

Graham shifted his cellular phone, pushing it closer to his ear. “What are you going to do?”

“I've already contacted the White House to see if any vaccine is available and they are scrambling to find out. At the least,
we need to quarantine our city from Middle Easterners until this is settled.”

“How can we do that? We have airplanes coming and going all day long from Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, you name it. Are you
going to shut the airport down?”

“What else can we do?” Bridges asked.

“I don't know, but I don't think that option will work.”

“Graham, I want you to think this through. Late tomorrow morning I must talk on the holographic transmitter with Carson. I
need to have something meaningful to say to him.”

“This is going to be tough. I'll have to sleep on it.”

“I understand,” Bridges said. “Don't hesitate to call me if you wish. We've got to have some response in the morning.”

“Okay,” Graham said resolutely and flipped the cell phone off.

The river bounced against the walls of the canal in a leisurely flow. The current seemed to move in a peaceful, gentle roll
as if these waters forever remained indifferent to the globe's problems. Bridges could say what he wanted, but possibilities
of the outbreak of smallpox were everyone's nightmare. Where would it ever stop?

Graham turned back toward the entrance to the Metro train station. Today he would not take the Express. Maybe the long ride
would be good for him. He hoped this woman Called Adah Honi that Matthew was bringing with him would have something important
to say.

P
EERING AROUND THE EDGE
of the kitchen door, Jackie watched the living room while Matthew talked with Jennifer Andrews and the unusual woman he called
Adah Honi. No one had met Jennifer before and the young woman looked like a good friend for Matthew. Jackie knew Matt had
girlfriends during high school, but he had not been big on dating, which was a relief to his parents. Obviously, this little
blonde caught his eye with her sparkling personality.

But the Jewish woman was a complete unknown. Speaking with an obvious, but pleasant accent, the woman had a long, narrow face
with a fashion model's profile. Adah was small, but walked with authority as if she knew where she was going at every moment.
Her fingers were long and narrow, with an artistic flair. Her black hair had been combed back in a straight line that accentuated
her high forehead. Penetrating black eyes imparted a striking appearance and gave the impression that nothing went unobserved.

“Jackie!” Graham shouted from upstairs. “I'll be down in a moment.”

“We have plenty of time,” Jackie called back, but wished he would hurry up. She really didn't want to say anything because
Graham had been under plenty of pressure and he didn't need any more at home. On the other hand, the food could cool.

Jackie worried about her husband. His world had been scattered and no one seemed to pay any attention to the way the breakup
had affected Graham; those crazy people at work wouldn't even talk to him about Maria's death. The incident at the children's
school must have pushed him nearly over the edge, and now this smallpox epidemic was staring him in the face. Graham had always
been the stiffupper-lip type who pushed on regardless of what happened around him. He bore the load no matter what anyone
else said or did, but he tended to be oblivious to certain emotional considerations, like failing to notice the feelings of
others. He could wall the world out, but it was still there… like their daughter Mary.

“Hi, Mom!” George yelled from the back porch. “Here comes Mary. She's home!”

The back door slammed and Mary came in looking like a typical fourteen-year-old trying to appear twenty-five. “Do I have to
be a part of this religious circus tonight?” She slammed her books on the table. “I'd rather eat by myself.”

“Stop it!” Jackie demanded in a whisper. “You try that line on your father and you'll go to war with him. Get your stuff in
your room and be back in here in two minutes.”

“Oh, Mother!”

“And get that excessive lipstick off. I swear you seem…”

Mary shot out of the room, apparently having forgotten to wipe her lips off before she came in the back door.

Graham came down the back stairs and hurried into the kitchen, kissing Jackie on the neck. He had changed into a gray sweater.
“What a day!” he sighed. “You'd think winning the election would be enough, but I tell you…” He stopped. “Enough about the
office. Let's go in and have supper with these people Matthew brought with him. I want to hear what they have to say.”

After a couple of minutes of polite conversation, the family and their guests settled around the dinner table. Marry sat to
one side with a frown on her face, but no one paid any attention to her, so she didn't have the effect she intended.

“Well, I'm ready to start.” Graham smiled and reached for a bowl of beans. “Anybody hungry?”

“Dad,” Matt said. “I think we ought to say a blessing tonight.”

“A blessing?” Graham blinked several times, trying to grasp what he had heard.

“A prayer,” Matt said. “The people in the New Seekers group pray before they eat.”

“Oh, yes!” Graham puckered his lip and tried to act like this was an old family custom. “Yes, indeed! A prayer? Well! Who
would like to say it?”

“Why don't we ask Adah?” Matthew suggested. “She's a special guest tonight.”

“Certainly.” Graham nodded to the young woman. “Would you do the honors?”

Adah smiled and bowed her head. “Blessed art thou, O Lord God of the universe who gives us bread. We thank you for the food
we eat today. Amen.”

“Well, that was easy enough!” Graham said with too much enthusiasm and began passing around the bowls of food. “Adah, I understand
you came here from Israel to study?”

“Yes, Northwestern offered opportunities.”

“Good!” Graham started the meat around. “You had some sort of family problem if I understand correctly. Have I got that right?”

The smile slowed faded from the young woman's face. “Yes, Father was a merchant who always built good relations with the Palestinians.
In fact, Abba worked near the West Bank town of Nazlat Issa.” Adah spoke in a flat, factual voice as if she were describing
the scenery. “Mother went with him when an altercation broke out with Israeli army officers. The soldiers fired tear gas and
rubber-coated steel pellets and then someone opened up with a machine gun.” Her steady tone started to fade. “Both my parents
were killed in the battle.” She looked down at her plate.

“I see.” Graham's happy-go-lucky ringmaster voice ceased. “We understand,” he said soberly and reached over to pat her on
the top of her hand. “I suppose you know about what happened in our family?”

Adah took a deep breath. “Yes, Matthew told us about the death of your mother. Our hearts are heavy for you.”

“Adah,” Jackie said. “I don't think we ought to waste any time. Matthew has told us some of what he has learned from your
group. We didn't grow up in the church–we've never heard of these strange ideas, like a ‘Rapture’ or the moon taking on a
red glow. Matt showed us in the Bible the passages about today's wars and terrible struggles happening everywhere. We don't
know what to make of this.”