"I'm surprised at you. I was briefed by the FBI and the CIA and all the federal agencies and departments and I was never told a word of this," the new President sniffed. "I'm surprised they withheld it from me."

"They didn't withhold anything. They just didn't know about it was all. Now let me finish. So after all the deaths in Pennsylvania, we had scientists come up with a vaccine that could offset the poison."

"Well, why haven't you given it to the American people? I can't understand any of this. This delay. This deception."

"We tried to give it to all the American people. Remember the swine-flu program?"

The new President nodded.

"Well, there's no such thing as swine flu. We invented that just to have a reason to inoculate the whole country against this poison. And then the goddam press shot down the swine-flu program with their harping about a few meaningless statistical deaths. So our asses are back in the sling." The big balding man rubbed his hand over the top of his head and scratched himself behind the right ear.

"Well, then make it mandatory that everyone gets a shot," the new President said. "Put it into law."

The ex-President smiled thinly. "Can you imagine the roar about trampled rights? After Watergate? The lawyers would break down our doors and string us all up as fascists. And I just don't think you can go ahead and tell the American people that there's a deadly poison somewhere in their food chain and we don't know where it is. Especially since there haven't been any more deaths since that convention. Maybe whatever it was passed off, and it's over now."

The smaller Southerner looked trapped in his chair, as if the full responsibility of his job was weighing on him for the very first time.

"What do we do?" he asked.

"What do you do?" answered the ex-President. "You're the President now."