assist employers with the packing and removal of all items of value — principally from the Federal Government but also from private commerce. A special department was being set up to record when families vacated their homes and precisely where they would reside during the coming catastrophe.
The evacuation of the poorer areas was an even more pressing dilemma, especially with regard to those under criminal justice supervision. Many did not have their own transportation or a place to go. Local authorities were being instructed to provide both, somehow — buses, trains, and reception areas, utilizing schools and community halls beyond a 20-mile radius. They were already contacting towns and cities in nearby counties to the west and northwest, where the Blue Ridge Mountains leave Virginia and cross the border into Maryland.
The President’s seven o’clock speech was dramatic. The East Coast population, already stunned by the resignation of President McBride, now had to swallow the enormous significance of the mega-tsunami. The entire concept was so outrageous that people seemed unable to grasp this mammoth intrusion — the specter of the destruction of the entire East Coast of the United States unacceptable and unimaginable.
People sat transfixed in front of their television screens as President Bedford outlined the opening steps everyone had to take in order to survive and preserve what must be preserved.
The first signs of panic began almost as soon as he concluded the address. The White House switchboard was jammed by thousands of calls. The largest number of viewers in living memory hit the wires to the television networks, demanding more information. There was a late-night run on gasoline, lines quickly forming up and down the East Coast as people prepared to fill up and move inland, right now, never mind October 9.
On the heels of the President’s announcement, the Department of Transportation announced that as of Monday morning, October 5, all ports and airports on the East Coast would be closed to incoming ships and aircraft — except for those aircraft specifically designated for evacuation purposes.
The London tabloids, five hours ahead of Washington, set the tone for the media bonanza, ruthlessly joining together the two American news stories, and the papers appeared on the streets by two o’clock, East Coast Time, on Wednesday morning, September 30.
MAC CRACKS UNDER TERRORIST THREAT, shouted the London
U.S. PRESIDENT MCBRIDE QUITS
WHITE HOUSE TYRANT MORGAN RECALLED
One single large photograph of the new President was captioned: PAUL BEDFORD TAKES THE OATH WITH ADMIRAL ARNOLD MORGAN AT HIS SIDE.
It was in fact a dazzling front page, and all the twenty-four-hour American television news channels were showing it before 3 A.M. The
On a bright October afternoon of pure political theater, Charles McBride resigned yesterday as the 44th President of the United States. He left secretly by Navy helicopter from the lawn outside the Oval Office.
Minutes later, Vice President Paul Bedford was sworn into office before a select group of military chiefs, which included the former National Security Adviser Admiral Arnold Morgan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Tim Scannell, and the heads of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.
Senator Edward Kennedy was also in attendance for the ceremony, which was conducted by Judge David Moore, who had been specially appointed by the Supreme Court.
Fifteen minutes into his Presidency, Paul Bedford summoned the White House Press Corps to the Briefing Room, where he explained that his predecessor had suffered a nervous breakdown and was under medical supervision at Camp David.
He then revealed that the United States has been under a monumental threat from a Middle Eastern terrorist group that has already blown up Mount St. Helens, the giant volcano in Washington State, and then exploded the simmering Caribbean volcano on the island of Montserrat on Monday night.
The threat to the U.S.A. was to erupt the Cumbre Vieja on the Canary Island of La Palma, thus setting off a mega-tsunami across the Atlantic that would wipe out the American East Coast and greatly harm the shores of Western Europe and North Africa — unless the American President agrees to move its entire military force out of the Persian Gulf area, and strong-arm Israel into conceding an Independent State of Palestine, vacating the left bank territories.
So far as we know, the United States has made no effort to comply with these demands, and is believed to be conducting a massive search in the Atlantic to find a nuclear submarine apparently containing the terrorists and submerge-launch cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
The terrorists’ threat, that horrendous prospect of a mega-tsunami, is believed to have proved too much for President McBride, who was reported to have collapsed on hearing the news that the terrorists had hit Montserrat on Monday, carrying out a previous threat, almost to the minute.
President Bedford has vowed to catch the submarine and destroy it, and has announced plans to evacuate the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Scientists say that from the moment of impact in the seas off La Palma, there would be only nine hours before New York City went under more than 100 feet of water.
On the opposite page was an large picture of Admiral Morgan in Naval uniform, beneath the headline — THE RETURN OF THE IRON MAN. The accompanying story began:
Admiral Arnold Morgan, the former nuclear submarine commander who held the last Republican Administration together, was called yesterday out of retirement and summoned to the White House by the new Democratic President.
The White House confirmed that the Admiral has been appointed Supreme Commander of Operation High Tide, the code name for the massive submarine hunt currently under way in the Atlantic to locate and take out the terrorist warship…
Since the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been reluctant to admit there was any connection between the McBride resignation and the threat from Hamas, the U.S. television networks had been reluctant to join the two stories. The devil-may-care treatment of the situation by the London papers, however, gave them all the Dutch courage they needed, and by breakfast time, there was no doubt in the minds of Americans: Charles McBride had cracked, and wimped his way out of the Oval Office, afraid to face the personal torment of ordering his fleet into action to destroy an aggressor. Worse yet, he may not have had the courage to order an evacuation of the big cities and coastline communities. And there were several newspaper and television features on Arnold Morgan, “The Man the U.S. Government apparently cannot do without.”
There were various headlines on the same drift:
ADMIRAL MORGAN — THE LION OF THE WEST WING
THE DAY ADMIRAL MORGAN FACED DOWN CHINA
ARNOLD MORGAN — AMAN FOR TROUBLED TIMES
ADMIRAL MORGAN — PATRIOT OR A GLOBAL GAMBLER?
MORGAN — THE MAN WHO FLEXES AMERICA’S MUSCLE
What no one wrote, anywhere in the world, was that President McBride had been frog-marched out of the Oval Office by a Detail from the United States Marine Corps, while the Service Chiefs looked on.
It had been a military coup of the kind that usually happens in those restless countries around the world in
