Boyle slid a file across her desk. Sachs could see the big fat “F” circled in red. “This is Jennifer’s U.S. Constitution final,” Boyle explained. “Not only could she not name all of the current members of the president’s Cabinet, she couldn’t even name one. Not even the Secretary of Education.”
Boyle raised a perfectly waxed eyebrow.
Sachs studied the exam for a minute and then put it down.
“Well, I’d probably miss that one, too, if the answer wasn’t me,” she said. “But you know all the rest, Jennifer. What’s going on?”
“Globalization,” Jennifer said with all seriousness. “The U.S. Constitution is obsolete. To quote Socrates, I’m not a New Yorker or an American, but a citizen of the world.”
If Principal Boyle wasn’t just as serious as Jennifer, Sachs would have burst out laughing. But she kept a straight face and addressed her daughter. “Maybe, darling. But most of the world’s democracies have constitutions based on oursunless you want to live in a police state, and condemn the rest of humanity to the same fate, you’d better learn which way is up.”
“What planet are you from, Mom?” Jennifer made a dramatic, sweeping gesture with her hand, the back of which still bore an admission stamp from some event. “Look around you. Have you seen this government school? This IS a police state. My Bill of Rights didn’t keep the government from sucking in your tax dollars, nor Ms. Boyle from opening my private locker and going through my diary, or kicking me out of the school dance last Friday.”
“School dance?” Sachs repeated, looking at Jennifer. “You never told me about a dance. Did you go with—”
“She was wearing thong underwear,” Boyle declared, cutting her off. “Highly visible underwear, I might add.”
Sachs stared at her 13-year-old daughter, trying to process this ambush of zingers from Boyle. “You were wearing a thong?”
“Well, duh.” Jennifer was non-apologetic. “Everybody at the dance could see my thong after Ms. Vice Squad here lifted up my skirt.”
Sachs stared at Boyle. “You looked under my daughter’s skirt?”
“Whatever,” said Jennifer. “Can we get going already?”
“We should move along,” Boyle helpfully agreed, clearly looking to delay the inevitable, ugly parent-teacher conference with Sachs. “Everybody’s in the gymnasium.”
Sachs looked at both of them, not sure whom she was more furious at. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s not keep them waiting. I’ll deal with you later, ladies. Both of you.”
6
President Rhinehart and his military attaché hurried down a long sub-basement corridor beneath the East Wing. At the end of the corridor stood a Marine guarding a steel door. Rhinehart slid a security card through an electronic key slot next to the door. The red light turned off. A green light flashed on. There was a beep and a loud click. The vault opened.
Inside the bunker, the White House Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser and assorted military aides were arguing around the conference table. They rose in unison when the president entered and looked around.
Rhinehart said, “Where’s Bald Eagle?”
“The Central Locator said all eighteen designated presidential successors were due in town for the speech,” said Stan Black, his Chief of Staff. “So I sent the Secretary of Defense to a base inspection in California.”
As he spoke, the Marine stepped inside and closed the vault door behind him with a definitive thud, sealing them all inside.
“Lucky for him,” Rhinehart mumbled.
Jack Natori, his National Security Adviser, said, “We’ve got the Pentagon on speaker, Mr. President.”
Rhinehart said, “What the hell is going on, Bob?”
General Sherman’s voice boomed on speaker. “NEST teams picked up trace uranium in the Metro railyards where a security guard was found de this morning by D.C. police,” Sherman said. “It matches the SS-20 core profile. We think the SS-20 or, more likely, its warhead, came into Baltimore on a freighter and then was offloaded to the train to D.C.”
“Where is it now?”
“God knows. Probably in some van cruising the streets as we try to get a lock on its location.”
Rhinehart took a breath. This was real. “What else are we doing about it, Bob?”
“Everything, including preparing for a detonation,” Sherman said. “Army and Air Force choppers at the Pentagon heliport are airlifting 44 selected personnel. The civilians will go to Mount Weather to establish a new government. The military officers are heading to Raven Rock to conduct the war.”
“That’ll take thirty minutes,” Rhinehart said. “I thought we only had five.”
Natori checked his watch. “Four minutes now.”
Rhinehart said, “The vice president is taking my chopper to Andrews right now.”
Natori shook his head. “He’ll barely get off the ground before we disappear in a mushroom cloud.”
The military attaché then placed the football on the table, dialed the combination and removed a binder — Federal Emergency Plan D.
Rhinehart stared at it for a long, hard moment. He forgot what the D actually stood for, but it always made him think of “Doomsday.” He had reached this point in emergency drills only twice before as president. As seriously as he had taken the drills, neither experience had prepared him for what he was feeling now.
The State of the Union is shit, he thought. It wasn’t him anymore, nor his administration, nor the coming election, nor even his wife and children. It was about America and her survival — her military, government and economy. Her future was in peril right now, and if this was his last act as president, he would do anything necessary to secure the fate of the free world.
“Guess we should call FEMA and go through the presidential succession bullshit,” he finally said. “Which button am I supposed to push?”
A fresh-faced Army colonel showed him on a console. “This one, Mr. President.”
7
Sachs could hear the noise of the gymnasium from a distance as she walked with Jennifer down the long, dim hallway. It did feel like a prison, dammit. Jennifer quickened her pace so that Sachs had to catch up with her. Boyle fell a few, safe steps behind.
“So you gonna kick Doctor Boyle’s ass?” Jennifer asked her.
“Later,” Sachs said. “But it’s your ass that started all this.”
Jennifer seemed even more sullen. “So that’s why you came?”
“Of course not,” Sachs said. “You think I’d miss a chance to—”
“Give a speech?”
“See my daughter.” said nothing. Their footsteps echoed loudly down the empty corridor. Judge Jennifer had found her mother guilty and would condemn her for her sins for the rest of her life.
Sachs tried again. “So how’s Aunt Dina treating you?”
“She took off for the Bahamas with her French racing boyfriend,” Jennifer said. “I’m alone at the house with old Carla her housekeeper.”
“What?” Sachs said, feeling she was arriving just in time to save her daughter.
“Dad was much cooler,” Jennifer said. “You sure she’s his sister?”
Sachs said, “Well, you won’t have to stay with her much longer.”
“I heard. You’re getting canned. Hope that doesn’t mean I have to put up with The Wuss.”
The Wuss was Raleigh Westcott, a man Sachs briefly dated after her husband and Jennifer’s father Richard had died in the 9/11 attacks. All Sachs could say was, “You know they don’t make them like your Daddy.”
“Well, I’m not waiting for Superman anymore,” Jennifer said. “Why can’t you hook up with someone like Brad Marshall?”