Lyons shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t think so. Ever since Clinton the First, the president has always been subjected to random drug-testing and tox-screening by the Secret Service, assisted by the staff at Walter Reed.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” muttered Scheisskopf. “When I was young and just out of West Point, I knew some officers who served under Billyboy. Apparently, his nasal passages were as slick as an ice rink.”
“His medical records are still classified as top secret even to this day,” Jenner told them. “I imagine some of those presidential tox screens down through the years showed up some interesting results.”
“Well, Hillary used to test positive for testosterone supplements she took,” said Lyons. “She was pretty much a man when she died.”
“She always was,” said Jenner. “But go on, Agent Lyons.”
Lyons nodded and did so. “If a president doesn’t voluntarily comply, then the Secret Service has to covertly collect, uh, specimens, which I won’t get into, but this president has always given voluntary blood samples. We stepped it up after the Bagwell incident. The president himself was concerned that Mr. Bagwell’s behavior might have been biochemical in origin and somebody might have been slipping him a chicky, so to speak. The last time was six days ago, and his blood work came back positive only for Viagra and some alcohol. I have to say in all honesty that President Wallace has never been a drug user, whatever else his… well, he’s never used drugs, and if Georgia Halberstam or anyone else is doping him, it’s not something that’s showing up on his tests. Mr. Bagwell and Kanesha Knight were clean, too. Makes you wonder if the Northmen really do have some sort of alien mind control weapon that drives people insane.”
“This is America. Our whole world is insane,” said Hugh Jenner broodingly. Down the hall, three Secret Servicemen suddenly appeared from the West Wing below, marching in lockstep, led by the huge negro Jimbo Hadding, who looked like a refrigerator in an Armani suit. They walked up to the men in the hall. “Uh, boss man sent for me,” said Hadding apologetically to Lyons.
“Nothing unusual in that, James,” said Lyons. “You are his personal agent, after all.”
“Yes sir, Agent Lyons. But this morning he talking crazy,” explained Hadding. “He says you and Mr. Jenner whacked them Jews last night. I told him that can’t be, because when there’s any killing to be done around the White House I’m the one who’s gone be doing it. I’m the nigga who put de black in black ops, so to speak.”
“True,” said Lyons. “Did he believe you?”
“I think so,” said Hadding. “But the man’s mind ain’t right this morning. I can tell.”
“Well, we’ve had some bad news from the front,” said Jenner. “Gentlemen, I think we need to get to the Situation Room.”
As they left, Lyons leaned over and said to Hadding, “Jimbo, Georgia Halberstam is now under a Code Two security watch. Last night’s events have made people around here a bit more inclined to listen. When you’re not actually escorting the president today, I want you to keep up with her whereabouts and follow her around on your phone. I’ll send you the feed from the control room. Know where she is at all times, and every second you don’t have your eyes on the president, they should be on her. Dig it?”
“Mos’ def,” said Hadding.
Back in the Situation Room in the West Wing, Admiral Hector Brava turned off the room’s internal electronic recording system. “A few words in private, Mr. Vice President,” he said. “Is the president going to be all right?”
“Is he flipping his lid?” asked Scheisskopf more bluntly.
“For the moment, yes, but can you blame him?” Jenner told them. “Hunter Wallace’s whole career has been aimed at this one moment. Today was supposed to be his hour of triumph. On the nation’s birthday, he was supposed to announce that the nation was whole again. Now all that’s in the crapper, and when the true dimensions of what has happened finally sink in, the entire country is going to be out for his blood. Including Congress, of course. No Congressional waiver on a third term for our Hunter, and even though he only has a few months left in office, he will almost certainly be impeached out of sheer political bloodlust for revenge, probably successfully for once. The Clintons could all three slither out of it, but Wallace is no Clinton, and this fuck-up is too big for him to dodge. Somebody’s got to carry the weight for the first outright defeat this country has ever known. If they don’t impeach they’ll wait until he’s out of office and then prosecute him for criminal incompetence or treason by negligence or something of the kind, and he’s made enough enemies so we could see the spectacle of a former president actually doing hard time and giving up the booty.”
“Not our first defeat, actually, if you want to look at the historical record,” said Brava. “There was the War of 1812 and Vietnam. Hell, the British burned this very house to the ground, and yet today most people don’t even remember, and those who do think we won that war. We eventually withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan with armed enemies still in the field against us, which goes against every military definition of victory despite how the politicians may spin it. Maybe the president can spin this?”
“Yeah, well, President James Madison also had the Battle of New Orleans to end that ridiculous little 1812 spat on a high note,” pointed out Jenner. “Even though it was fought two weeks after the war ended. Tell me, gentlemen, do either of you have any ideas on how we can throw our president a quick victory in the next few hours that he can spin on TV as an American triumph and get all the yay-hoos chanting ‘USA! USA!’?”
“No, sir,” admitted Brava.
“Nor do I. But the trouble is, Wallace thinks he has one to hand,” said Jenner grimly. “He’s got that damned briefcase and those nuclear attack codes, or he will have if he calls the Pentagon and has Patterson bring them, and we have no legal authority to stop him if he does. The fear of losing his legacy and his reputation before history may push him into doing what the kikes and the dyke couldn’t.”
“But we can talk to him? Is he sane?” persisted Scheisskopf.
“Jesus, I hope so!” said Jenner.
Had Hugh Jenner been able to see into the presidential bedchamber he would have been much more disturbed and much less sanguine about Hunter Wallace’s sanity. The normal morning routine was for Georgia to get up early, take a quick shower, get dressed, and leave before the president’s own valet arrived at 7 a.m. to lay out fresh underthings, a new shirt and tie, and a newly dry-cleaned suit for the chief executive’s workday. Now Wallace was throwing on his clothes from yesterday and making a bollocks out of knotting his tie in the mirror. Unshowered, unshaven, his hair wild and uncombed, he looked like a rabid gopher.
He was also muttering to himself. Georgia watched him from the bed. “What’s up, Hunter?” she asked, although she had sneaked a peek at the news on her phone and she already knew what was up. She had wondered how she would feel when she heard that Angela Herrin and Ronald Schiff and Elmore Pettis were dead because of her, and to her surprise, she didn’t feel a thing. It was part of the job. I guess I must be getting into this Mata Hari gig, she though to herself. “Secret pre-dawn conferences in the hallway? Sounds serious.”
She expected him to tell her about his two staff members who had been blown away the night before. Instead, he turned to her with wild eyes and said, “They’re trying to destroy me.”
“Huh?” she asked in surprise. “Who’s trying to destroy you? The Northwest Republic?” Well, they are, she thought.
“Them too, but mostly my own Vice President and those moron Pentagon generals who are too stupid to win a simple war and now they’re going to try and blame it all on me they never believed in my vision they never really understood what I understood that you have to get on the right side of the Chosen of God and God will bless one’s endeavors that goes for nations as well as individual people but they’re too stupid to understand now they’ve fucked it all up and they think they’re going to drag me down and mak
e me carry the weight for this no way José uh uh ain’t happening well by God we’ll see who’s fucking President of these here goddamned United States…” Hunter Wallace was still jabbering to himself in the same monotone as he shambled out the door, his fingers still twitching spasmodically at his throat trying to tie his necktie.
Georgia stared after him, and then pulled her phone out of her purse. She quickly texted You broke his brain and then covered it with an obscene cartoon and added a text to Talia I love the smell of Anal-Ease in the morning! and sent it off, smiling to herself at Robert Campbell’s probable reaction on receiving it. She’d learned in the past few months that Bobby was a bit of a prude, a species of person who no longer existed in the U.S.A. She attributed this to his growing up in a society that was struggling back to sanity and decency, and she had come to envy his ability to be shocked and offended by anything. It was a trait she and all Americans had lost long ago. She got up and headed for the shower.
Several minutes later, Special Agent in Charge Lee Lyons got a call from the control room. “Sir, this is Agent McMann,” said the voice in his ear. “Right after POTUS departed the residence, FWOTUS sent out a video text to her stepsister Talia Halberstam. I’m forwarding it to your phone.” Lyons waited a few moments, and saw the cartoon.
“What the hell is that?” asked Lyons, staring at it.
“Oh, that’s from that new Shep Silverstein cartoon show, sir,” said McMann. “Silly Little Buggers, the one about the gay school children.”
“Oh, yeah. I saw a few of those. They’re pretty funny. So she’s sending her sister sodomy jokes at six in the morning?” asked Lyons.
“I checked her phone log, sir, and she and Talia Halberstam do a lot of texting back and forth,” said McMann.
“Run it through a decrypt program,” ordered Lyons. “You have all her other outgoing texts and video texts archived?”
“Of course, sir,” said Agent McMann. “Standard procedure.”
“Run them all through decrypt while you’re at it,” Lyons told him. “Get back to me with what you find, if anything.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Then the whole game changed. President Hunter Wallace stuck his disheveled head out of the Oval Office door and said, “Lee, I’m expecting Colonel Patterson and two other officers to be arriving from the Pentagon in about twenty minutes. When they arrive, please let them through. Until then I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Uh, yes, sir,” said Lyons, stunned at what he heard. “Would you like the mess to send up some breakfast?”
“Yes, that would be nice,” said Wallace. “Angela’s dead now, and she’s not here to ride my ass about my eating and my weight, so tell the kitchen I’ll have a Denver omelet with a side of about six strips of bacon and sausage patties, orange juice, whole wheat toast with real butter and lots of those little plastic packs of grape and apricot jelly. Oh, and a pot of coffee with real cream and sugar.” The president closed the door.
So that’s what a head of state eats in the early morning hours before he kills ten or twenty million people, mused Lyons. I wonder what Stalin had for breakfast? The Secret Service man pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and called Vice President Jenner. “Sir, this is Lyons,” he said. “I thought you should know that the president has called for the football. Lieutenant Colonel Patterson is on his way with two other officers, presumably in compliance with the launch protocols.”
In the situation room, Jenner put down the phone, aghast. “He’s called for the football!” he told Brava and Scheisskopf. “Patterson and two officers will be here in a matter of minutes.”
“What officers?” demanded Scheisskopf. “He already has two of the most senior field grade officers in the military right in the building to countersign the launch order!”
“Would you do it, at least in time for his speech this afternoon, so he can tell the world how he blew up the big bad Nazis and sorry if you live a little too far west and you and your kids end up glowing in the dark?” asked Jenner. “It doesn’t have to be you two, you know. The statute just says two field grade officers have to certify to the White House military attaché, before he turns over the briefcase and the keys to the briefcase, that the president appears to be lucid, in control of his faculties, and not under the influence of alcohol or fucking methamphetamine. The statute doesn’t specify which two field grade officers. Wallace isn’t Bill Clinton and he’s not under the influence, he’s just crazy as a shithouse rat. I don’t know who these two unnamed officers accompanying Lieutenant Colonel Patterson are, but I would imagine they have been pre-selected for their political reliability. A last present from Angela Herrin before the Northmen caught up with her last night. God, I hope that bitch died hard!”
“God damn it!” cursed Brava.
“Admiral, the Pentagon has done studies to extrapolate and predict what would happen if we ever did actually use nuclear weapons against the NAR, am I correct?” asked Jenner.
“Of course, sir,” said Brava. “It’s ironic. One of the objections that other racists used to throw up against the whole Northwest idea, back in the ’oughts and ’teens when they were all just a bunch of assholes playing with their computers on the internet, was that the Party could never establish a successful independent nation in the Northwest because the U.S. government would simply nuke any such country. The idiots who were jabbering this clearly didn’t have clue one as to the reality of just what strategic nuclear weapons are for and what they can do. For the United States to use nuclear weapons anywhere on the North American continent, no matter what the provocation, would be like taking out an attacker by detonating a bomb strapped to your own body. Yeah, you can stop the assailant from hurting you, but blowing yourself up in the process kind of defeats the whole purpose. Same with this nuclear strike the president is apparently going to order. The prevailing jet stream in North America blows west to east, and the wind does not recognize the Northwest Republic’s border or stop at the Mississippi. Even if only a few of those missiles got through the Northmen’s plasma ray devices, the fallout would continue on across the upper two thirds of North America, across the Atlantic, over to Europe, etcetera. Wallace probably has this common layman’s idea that a nuclear device is just a big firecracker that makes a mushroom cloud and leaves a really big hole in the ground. If more than a handful of the warheads detonate, we could be contaminating the entire northern hemisphere and rendering it uninhabitable, which is basically the last remaining economically and industrially productive part of the world that’s still functioning, other than the odd southern hemisphere exceptions like Australia and New Zealand. The fabric of what remains of Western civilization is very thin and weak, Mr. Jenner. Hunter Wallace could be about to bring it all down, not just the Northwest. China and India would step forward to fill the gap and that’s all she wrote for the United States and Europe and for… well…”
“Better not say it,” recommended Jenner. “They may have the Situation Room bugged as well. Alien technology or not, Admiral, do you think this Bluelight thing the Northmen have can stop all two hundred of our nuclear missiles?” asked Vice President Jenner.
“I just don’t know, sir,” said Brava, shaking his head. “They sure as hell did a number on our jets, and even more to the point on our Tomahawks and other Cruises. The number of missiles that actually got through was less than ten percent, and some of those appear to have been knocked off course by hits from the enemy plasma rays.”
“So let’s guesstimate on the high side and assume a survival rate of ten percent,” said Jenner. “Out of two hundred missiles that means twenty nuclear warheads would get through. That’s still enough to cause the kind of world-altering radiation contamination and environmental damage the planet can’t afford, and depending on where they hit, it might not even win us the war. It might just piss the sons of bitches off. Then they retaliate with their gas and their germs out of suitcases, all over the country.”
“It’s closer to two
hundred and fifty missiles if Wallace shoots the whole wad, which he’ll probably do,” said Scheisskopf.
“I thought we had thousands of nuclear warheads?” asked Jenner.
“We do, sir,” said Scheisskopf. “Back in the twentieth century we were turning them out like lollipops.”
“They’re that old?” asked Jenner in surprise.
“Yes, sir,” said Scheisskopf. “They’ve been sitting gathering dust in their bunkers since the 1950s, some of them. We have no shortage of nukes, but what we’re short on is functioning ICBMs. Bear in mind, Mr. Vice President, this system has been in existence for almost seventy-five years now, but it’s never actually been tried, and so no one knows how or even if it will work in the real world. We used to test-fire the missiles on occasion, out over the Nevada desert, but all the environmentalists and peace creeps screamed and hollered and demonstrated, so we haven’t even done that in decades. There’s never been any serious nuclear threat to this country since the 1990s, at least not from abroad. You can’t shoot down a hadji on a Greyhound bus carrying a tactical nuke in the luggage compartment with a three-stage rocket costing eight hundred million dollars a pop, at today’s inflated rates. So when the time came every year to see who got the short end of the budget stick, guess who kept getting shorted? But don’t worry. Two hundred and fifty missiles aimed at the Pacific Northwest can do damage enough to drop us all deep in the shit, even if only half a dozen of them get through and detonate. For example, suppose we miss Seattle and hit Vancouver?”
“Is that possible?” asked Jenner, aghast.
“We know that some of the incoming Cruises weren’t destroyed, but were knocked off course,” said Scheisskopf. “Vancouver is just a hop, skip and a jump across the straits from Seattle.”
“Who knows?” said Brava with a shrug. “Most of this equipment is at least fifty years old, some of it older. The fire and mission control computers in those silos belong in a museum. Ray gun fire or not, it’s possible a missile might miss a target, yes, sir. But if even one gets through to Seattle, Vancouver and most of inhabited British Columbia will be contaminated by radioactive fallout and dust particles. If Spokane gets splattered good, the fallout and contaminants will fuck up the inhabited southern twenty percent of Alberta and do a number on Calgary.”
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