Plenary Session of the Senate Emergency Action Oversight Committee,

Closed Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mark Augustine waited patiently in the antechambers until called to take his seat. It was duly noted that he was the former director of Emergency Action. The nine senators assembled for this unusual evening session—five Republicans and four Democrats—exchanged edgy pleasantries for a few minutes. Two of the Democrats observed, for the record, that the current director was late. As well, Senator Gianelli was not present.

The chair, Senator Julia Thomasen of Maryland, expressed her aggravation and wondered who had called the meeting. No one was clear on that.

The meeting began without the director and Gianelli, and lacking any obvious point or focus, soon devolved into a testy debate about the events that had led to Mark Augustine's dismissal three years earlier.

Augustine sat back in his chair, folded his hands in his lap, and let the senators argue. He had come to the Hill to testify fifty-three times in his career. Power did not impress him. Lack of power impressed him. Everyone in this room, as far as he was concerned, was almost completely powerless.

And—if the rumors were true—what they did not know was about to bite them right on the ass.

The minority Democrats held sway for a few minutes, deftly entering their comments into the record. Senator Charles Chase of Arizona began the questioning of Augustine as a matter of senatorial courtesy. His questions soon led to the role of the state of Ohio in the death of SHEVA children.

“Madam Chair,” bellowed Senator Percy from Ohio, “I resent the implication that the state of Ohio was in any way responsible for this debacle.”

“Senator Percy, Senator Chase has the floor,” Senator Thomasen reminded him.

“I resent the entire subject area,” Percy bellowed.

“Noted. Please continue, Senator Chase.”

“Madam Chair, I am only following the line of questioning begun last week by Senator Gianelli, who is not, I hope, indisposed today, not with a virus, at least.”

No laughter in the Senate chamber. Chase continued without missing a beat. “I mean no disrespect to the honorable senator from Ohio.”

Senator Percy flipped his hand out over the chamber as if he would have gladly tossed them all through a window. “Personal corruption should not reflect ill on such a fine state.”

“Nor am I impugning the reputation of Ohio, which is where I was born, Madam Chair. May I continue my questions?”

“What in hell made you move, Charlie?” Percy asked. “We could use your eagle eye.” He grinned to the nearly empty room. Only a grandstanding senator—or an aging vaudevillian—could imagine an audience where there was none, Augustine mused. He unfolded his hands to tap his finger lightly on the table.

“Chair asks for a minimum of unchecked camaraderie.”

“I'm done, Madam Chair,” Percy announced, sitting back and wrapping his hands behind his neck.

Augustine sipped slowly from a glass of water.

“Perhaps our questions should be more pointed, dealing more with responsibility and less with geography,” Thomasen suggested.

“Hear, hear,” Percy said.

“When you were in charge of the school system for Emergency Action, did you supply all schools—even state-controlled schools—with the federally mandated allotments for medical supplies?” Chase continued.

“We did, Senator,” Augustine said.

“These supplies included the very antivirals that might have saved these unfortunate children?”

“They did.”

“In how many states was there sufficient supply of these antivirals to treat sick children?”

“Five; six, if we include the territory of Puerto Rico.”

“My state, doctor, was one of those five?”

“It was, Senator,” Augustine said.

The senator paused to let that sink in. “The supply of antivirals was sufficient to take care of the children in our custody—our care. Arizona did not lose nearly as many children as most. And that supply was insured because Arizona did not seek to control and divert the federal allotments and allocations for Emergency Action schools, a hijacking sponsored by the Republican majority, if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, Senator.” Augustine tapped his finger again on the table. Now was not the time to bring up Arizona's current record. There were rumors that the children of dissidents were being warehoused in schools there. He no longer had access to the lists, of course.

“Is it fair to say that you lost your job because of this fiasco?” Chase asked.

“It was part of the larger picture,” Augustine said.

“A large part, I presume.”

Augustine gave the merest nod.

“Do you continue to consult for the Emergency Action Authority?”

“I serve as adviser on viral affairs to the director of the National Institutes of Health. I still have an office in Bethesda.”

Chase searched his papers for more material, then added, “Your star is not completely out of the firmament in this matter?”

“I suppose not, Senator.”

“And what is the authority's budget this year?” Chase looked up innocently.

“You of all people should know that, Charlie,” Senator Percy grumbled.

“Emergency Action's budget is not subject to yearly congressional review, nor is it available for direct public scrutiny,” Augustine said. “I don't have exact figures myself, but I would estimate the present budget at over eighty billion dollars—double what it was when I served as director. That includes research and development in the private and public sector.”

Thomasen looked around the room with a frown. “The director is tardy.”

“She is not here to defend herself,” Percy observed with amusement. Thomasen nodded for Chase to continue, and then conferred with an intern.

Chase closed in on his favorite topic. “Emergency Action has become one of the biggest government programs in this nation, successfully fighting off all attempts to limit its scope and investigate its constitutionality in a time of drastic fiscal cutbacks, has it not?”

“All true,” Augustine said.

“And with this budget, approved by both Republican and Democratic administrations year after year, EMAC has spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers to defend its questionable legality, has it not?”

“The very best, Senator.”

“And does it pay any attention to the wishes of Congress, or of this oversight committee? Even to the extent that the director arrives on time when summoned?”

Senator Percy from Ohio exhaled over his microphone, creating the sensation of a great wind in the chamber. “Where are we going, Madam Chair? Haven't we enough black eyes to go around?”

“We lost seventy-five thousand children, Senator Percy!” Chase roared.

Percy riposted immediately. “They were killed by a disease, Senator Chase, not by my constituents, nor indeed by any of the normal citizens—the true citizens—of my great state, or this fine country.” Percy avoided the hawklike gaze of the senator from Arizona.

“Dr. Augustine, is it not the scientific conclusion that this new variety of virus—hand, foot, and mouth disease—arose within the so-called normal adult population, in part through recombination of ancient viral genes not found within SHEVA children?” Chase asked.

“It is,” Augustine said.

“Many prominent scientists disagree,” Percy said, and lifted his hand as if to fend off the sudden rap of the gavel.

“And did you predict that just the reverse would happen, fourteen years ago, a statement that practically led to the creation of Emergency Action?”

“The reverse being . . .” Augustine said, lifting his brows.

“That the children would create new viruses that would kill us, Doctor.”

Augustine nodded. “I did.”