The Hammer of God

At the morgue, the London police were baffled that no relatives came forward to claim the four deceased Middle Eastern men from the wreck the day before. A check of their papers indicated that one DOA was Egyptian and another Saudi. The two men riding in the front were both Yemeni. The Knightsbridge address that one of them had on him was the only available information about their local whereabouts. Immigration confirmed that they gave the same address on their entry forms when they disembarked their various aircraft.

At around six p.m., the owner of the house at that address returned to find a car from Scotland Yard idling by the curb. All Mustafa Nasser could tell the authorities was that the four men lived in the apartment downstairs for two months and were religious students. A search of the apartment led to nothing with which to notify next of kin. It was decided that the entire matter would be turned over to the Office of the Foreign Secretary. The two drivers of the cement trucks did not have their status questioned and so it was never discovered that the company they drove for was connected through circuitous routes of finance to Bin Laden Construction.

Those reviewing the case decided it was nothing more than a most unfortunate accident. And so it was entered into the official coroner’s records and police files. Sealed in that file, destined never to be opened again, was any hope of the authorities divining the men’s true reason for being in Liverpool that night.

CHAPTER TWO

Phantom Down

Edicts from the office of the Surgeon General of the United States tend to cause havoc or calm in a medical community comprising doctors, nurses, and hospitals, as well as major multi-national corporations, governmental industrial policymakers, and a wide variety of others with financial and social interests. “Take nothing lightly” was the oath that supplanted the Hippocratic Oath for the doctor who became Surgeon General. So it was with more than mild interest that Judith Pearson, the current occupant of the office, read the final report from the “guessers.” They were advocating a major focus on a strain of catalysis barracylium as the epicenter of this year’s flu vaccines. Every year the flu virus metamorphoses into strains different from the year before. Using worldwide data ranging from random blood testing to the mortality rate of sparrows in Asia, the “guessers” guess which strain will take the lead in this year’s round of epidemiology. Impressively, the prognosticators at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta had a good track record of nailing the ever-changing bugs.

Judith initialed the document and put it in her outbox and then went on to review a report on new techniques for laparoscopic surgery. It would be a day of reading and catching up on “the pile.” The only other thing on her calendar was dinner tonight with the President’s science advisor, William Hiccock.

A few blocks away at the White House, Bill Hiccock’s day was filled with committee meetings and one-on- ones with various members of the scientific community, each auditioning some new innovation, discipline, or discovery for Bill’s (and, by extension, the President’s) blessing. Bill used to look forward to high-level discussions and theoretical postulates like these. But ever since he became the sharp end of the scientific stick for the government, he could no longer enjoy the pure science of it. The “political science” of it had contaminated the game. Now he needed to identify the underlying agenda of the presenter. Bill could only set science policy and fund internal administration policies. He couldn’t muster a dime for a third-party test tube without Congressional funding. This was where the politics really came in. There were only three men of science in the entire body, two MDs, long out of practice, and a former civil engineer. Most of the rest were lawyers. As far as Bill knew, none of them was ever elected for spending money on “Big Science.” That meant that even a cure for cancer would have to undergo the political proctoscope.

A welcome interruption was the call from his ex-wife and current girlfriend (not to mention head of psychology at George Washington University), Janice Hiccock.

“Don’t forget we have dinner with the Pearsons at eight.”

“No problem. It’s a regular day, so I should be home by seven or so. Should I pick up anything?”

“No. I have everything… maybe some white wine. We only have the two bottles left from last month.”

“Got it. See ya later…love you.”

“Love you too…”

As Bill hung up the phone, his aide Cheryl entered his office and announced it was time for his next meeting, handing him the briefing folder. He started to leave his office, then abruptly returned to his desk and jotted “Pinot Grigio” on his desk calendar.

There was a noise in the outer corridor, but Bill barely paid attention to it — until his national assets monitor went off. He never did learn all of the code words, but the CRT that listed each member of the administration indicated that Phantom (the President’s Secret Service name) had switched from a green “OK” to a red “down.” Bill barely had time to register this before a Secret Service agent entered his room flashing his ID.

“Sir, I am Agent Somers; you need to come with me right now.”

“What’s the…”

“Now, sir.” The agent put a vise-like grip on Hiccock’s arm and led him down the hall to the elevator. To Hiccock’s surprise, the elevator went down.

“Now can you tell me what’s going on?”

“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.