The Hammer of God

“We’re in lockdown, sir. You hold an NCA ranking and need to be made nuclear safe.”

The words “nuclear safe” didn’t have as much of a chilling effect on Hiccock’s spine as he would have imagined. His first thought was whether he told Janice that he loved her at the end of their phone call. The elevator landed and opened to an antiseptic hallway. There, another agent waited with his hand on an earpiece. Agent Somers handed Bill over.

“Follow me,” the new agent said. He turned and walked to the end of the hall. “May I see your ID, sir?”

Bill fished it out of his wallet. The agent inspected the green dot added to his card after President Mitchell and he had an adventure aboard the USS Princeton. The man then checked the photo against Bill’s face in the most non-personable way Bill had ever seen.

“Look in here with your right eye, sir. Focus on the red spot in the center and hold it there till it beeps.”

Bill knew the device was scanning his retina. The agent then spoke into his sleeve-mounted microphone. “Sitch Room entrance; Quarterback confirmed.”

Bill had never heard his Secret Service code name spoken aloud before. There was a mechanical sound and the door before them unlatched. Behind it was a marine with his hand on the butt of an M-4 in a quick-draw holster. The agent held up Bill’s ID to the “gyrine” who used his own retinas to scan Bill’s features and make the low-tech decision that Bill was not a duplicitous foreign national or some such dime novel bullshit. The little portico they stood in opened onto the world’s most dangerous conference room, located in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House.

A woman he had not met before greeted Bill, introducing herself as Assistant National Security Advisor Reese.

“Mr. Hiccock, sit here please.”

There were two other men in the room, the Secretaries of Treasury and Homeland Security. Bill looked at the seat at the head of the table. The desk plaque read, POTUS. The current designee of that seat, the President of the United States, had survived a historical Congressional challenge in the aftermath of an election scandal that Bill had revealed. But James Mitchell’s luck never failed him as a fighter pilot during Desert Storm and it didn’t fail him in the trenches of possible impeachment. The main witness in defense of Mitchell was Professor Robert Parnes, the architect of the Internet process that had millions of Americans unintentionally vote for Mitchell. He testified that at no time was Mitchell or his campaign aware of or in any way involved in the process. At the same time, the American public considered Mitchell the heroic leader who stopped the worst wave of terrorist attacks that had ever beset the country. There wasn’t a drop of public sentiment looking for his head on a pole. Congress, not being deaf to this public adulation, quickly mopped up the proceedings after Parnes’ admissions. The country then went back to its business and Mitchell went back to work.

The door opened again and the Secretaries of Defense and State entered to the same scrutiny that Bill received, despite their internationally known visages. In front of Bill was a booklet entitled “Crisis Team Management.” He noticed it had been updated a week earlier and below the date read, “#26 William Hiccock.” The number related to his ordinal ranking in the echelon of succession to the President in terms of the National Command Authority. Despite the constitutional order of succession for actually being President, the Cold War architects of Mutually Assured Destruction decided to mix up the deck a little by allowing the creation of the NCA, peopled at the pleasure of the President. Technically, the Chief Executive could appoint any U.S.-born citizen, from the Vice President to a dogcatcher in Duluth to the order of succession to “the button.” Therefore, if the twenty-five people on the list ahead of Bill were to meet their maker as nuked crispy critters, the decision and authority to launch a nuclear war or retaliation would fall to him. Billy Hiccock, the kid from the Bronx, who could throw a football well enough to win a Heisman at Stanford and throw numbers around well enough to earn a Doctor of Scientific Methodology from M.I.T. and become the President’s trusted science advisor, was now in line to destroy the world. Wouldn’t mom be proud! The awesome powers of that responsibility made the number twenty-six seem as daunting as if the number were two.

Within five minutes, there were fourteen key NCA designees in the room in addition to staff and technicians. Bill knew that six other NCA assets were linked to the room from various “safe locations.” The Vice President called in from his ultimate nuclear-safe perch, Air Force 2, at 35,000 feet above Indianapolis.

The Chief of Staff entered and took his seat in the chair reserved for the President. He quickly scanned a clipboard, nodded, and then removed his glasses.