The Last Human (a novel)

Adrian tossed the modified chemical warfare suit on a chair. "We have to find everyone if we're going to stop this thing. I had to use the Bureau of the Census. They know everyone and every damn nook and cranny in the country."

"The Census! Sacrosanct as that is? Even a minor scandal can topple this Ryland charade. At a very bad time."

"I know. I know. I know," Adrian said. "But what can we do?" He turned to Lionel and looked at him with a frown for a second. "There's a real possibility that we can end up like New Sumer. Everyone dead!" He looked out of the Oval Office window. "Every damn human being, young and old, large and small: Dead! And now Asia, Africa rapidly following. Europe, Japan, Latin America starting to succumb." He turned back to Lionel.

"This isn't any old national emergency. The world has never seen anything like this before."

"Okay," Lionel nodded with a touch of apology and then a sigh. "Maybe if Europe and Japan had put something in place sooner..."

Adrian waggled a cautioning finger at his brother-in-law. "Let's not kid ourselves.

This just buys a little time. People will be people. Too many are going to slip through and spread it.

They both turned to glance at the poster on the tripod.

"Okay. I'll do my best," Lionel said.

Idris and Clara arrived in Washington a few days later. Lionel had by then secured a house in Georgetown and was commuting from there to the White House every day. For a week, Clara, Idris, and he virtually camped out in their own barren house. Finally their furniture arrived from California. After another few days of unpacking and putting away, daily living was back to a semblance of normal.

For the first several weeks the BV isolation and prevention program was in early organization stages and perfunctory. Lionel Verney put in normal days driving through Washington traffic to and from the White House. He spent most of his energy ironing out kinks over the telephone and in computer-generated messages.

Adrian remained the visible White House Chief of Staff while secretly running the country as its effective president. It allowed him some freedom of movement that because of Secret Service security concerns would denied to a sitting president. He was able to avoid media invasions and slip out into the field.

In Washington DC he saw first hand the state of readiness, or lack of it. He went across the Potomac to visit one of the thousands locations to which all medical units in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard and all available veterans administration medical personnel in the United States had been assigned. The visit did nothing to lift his spirits. The Army medical unit was spit-polished, perfunctory, untrained in