“I’ve quietly sold all our stock relating to Nick’s health care companies and reinvested the money in competitors who’ll benefit from Chism’s death. Valuations are already starting to move based on the rumors coming out of Uganda. We’ve made millions since the markets opened and stand to make tens of millions more. And so do a lot of other people. I don’t think a lot of tears will be shed around the world if Nicholas Ward takes a hit.”

What she said was an understatement of truly grand proportions. Ward was looking to transform health care worldwide, and Chism’s vaccine research was one of the cornerstones of that effort. Combined with Ward’s work in medical artificial intelligence and his ideas about decentralizing and democratizing the medical industry, they had the status quo under serious threat. Further, wealth creation seemed to be becoming an increasingly zero-sum game. Every time Ward won, there was some billionaire or corporation that lost. Virtually no one could keep up with him and the few who could, he hired.

“But all that hinges on him really being dead,” Cook pointed out.

She nodded. “There’s opportunity here for us. The question is do we want to exploit it. So far, we’ve been fairly conservative in our actions. But we’re only three and a half years from the next election. At some point, we’re going to have to move forward.”

“Explain.”

“First, there’s no question that we need to send a team to Uganda to try to find Chism. We know how Ward feels about us but to date he hasn’t gotten too deeply involved in politics. We don’t need him rethinking that and staking out a position against your administration. I think we both agree there’s no chance of turning him into an ally, but if we do him this favor, we might be able to neutralize him as an enemy.”

“So, we try to get Chism back?” the president said.

“I didn’t say that.”

He thought for a moment. “So, we just put on a show.”

“It’s a bit of a tightrope walk but I imagine a doable one. Make enough of an effort to impress Ward but not so much that we have any chance of succeeding. And make sure that the right people know they owe us for that failure.”

“So, we send in an inadequate force with the excuse that we prioritized stealth and didn’t want to create an incident with the Ugandan government. Maybe we even lose a few of them. That’d make our commitment look even greater. Ward would have a hard time complaining about the failure of a rescue mission that ended up with American soldiers in body bags.”

“Agreed,” Catherine said.

“What about Kennedy? She’ll see through it.”