The Hammer of God

“First let me tell you that this is a drill. The President is fine and in no danger. Second, our response time is up from the last National Emergency Simulation Exercise. We beat our old mark by a minute and a half with eighteen NCA members secured within four minutes of the emergency action message transmission. For those of you who have been through this a couple times, thank you, and you can return to your duties. For Mr. Hiccock, Mr. Rassing, and Mrs. Chulk, I am going to ask you to stay and let the team familiarize you with what happens when we crash the White House like this.”

Hiccock breathed easy. The world was safe for now. No attack/counterattack scenarios to wipe out all life as we know it. Just a few more procedures for him to learn and, no doubt, a few more nightmares to have. He spent the next forty-five minutes learning about SIOP, Pave Paws, authenticator codes, and other stuff most people thought went away with the Cold War.

?§?

Meanwhile, Surgeon General Judy Pearson was studying a report titled The Treatment of Infant Pancreatic Cancer through Genetically Engineered Cell Remanufacture when her deputy barged into her office.

“What’s up, Bob?”

“Bad news, boss.”

When her deputy finished giving her the details, Pearson’s immediate instinct was to call the White House. Instead, her eyes fell on her calendar and her impending dinner. She decided she’d prepare for dinner early.

“Bob, get me a copy of H.R. 7631 — stat!”

It was no ordinary jar of cold cream. The Princess Briana label insured that only the faces of the most well-to-do women would ever feel its deep-cleansing emollients tingle as it beautified, moisturized, and rejuvenated their already too-well-pampered skin.

Chang Su admired the work of her team. They were specially chosen to make this jar by the commissar of the village who was also the head of the factory. It was an honor to serve the PRC in this fashion. Normally she would copy lesser brands and then the factory would run thousands of cases. In this case, though, her instructions were to make only twenty-four of these. They were perfect replicas of the actual jar in every way except that they were 1/32nd of an inch smaller than the original because they were made from a different material. The label was easier to resize but the unique jar required three attempts to get just right. Capitalism not being embraced in China, she never calculated the cost per unit benefit of such an intense effort to derive so few jars. The intended customer however, was glad to pay as much for two dozen jars as others paid for a whole truckload of the knockoffs that had become the stock in trade of the new Chinese economy. The amber colored jars were packed for shipment and tomorrow would be driven by truck four hundred miles to the provincial capital where they would then be sent by airplane to Beijing.

Another job well done.

CHAPTER THREE

Compounds And Elements

For Bill, dinner that night was pleasant but uneventful. How can a mere dinner compete with a call to the Situation Room to possibly save or end the world? Their guests were the Surgeon General, Judy Pearson, and her husband, Rod, a thoracic genius and head of surgery at George Washington University Hospital. Janice had recently joined the staff there, so to Bill’s way of thinking, this was a four-point connect with Judy and Bill working for the current President and Janice and Rod working in a hospital named after the first.

After dinner, Bill found Rod in the living room, pursuing the artifacts in the “shrine:” what Janice and he called the wall of built-in bookcases that held the mementos of Bill’s illustrious college football career.

“I saw that game!”

Bill looked to see what Rod was talking about. He was looking at a game ball and a picture of his team. “I got knocked out in the first half, sat out two quarters until the team doc pronounced that I only had my bell rung, no concussion.”

“Yeah, and you came back with a vengeance. Two touchdown passes in the last four minutes!”

Three, Bill corrected in his head but let it go, “I had a great line taking the hits for me. I guess my having been knocked out of the game earlier brought out their paternal instincts to protect me.”

Rod swooned as he turned to Bill’s Heisman Trophy. “How great must it be to have one of these?”

“I was offered two million for it by some oil tycoon,” Bill said matter-of-factly as he got “the look” from Janice, who was chatting up Judy on the sectional. “I guess they were all out of them on E-bay,” Bill added.

“How can you put a price on something like this,” Rod said, marveling at the trophy even more.

“You know, if you like it that much, you can borrow it and put it over the fireplace.”