Crisis Point

Almost Ready

A week before Thanksgiving in 2049 my Executive Officer and I were summoned to a briefing in the Pentagon. The meeting was scheduled for the Wednesday, with the implicit assumption that we might end up working over the holiday. I wasn't happy at the prospect, for the first time in several months Mary would be back in the US and we'd managed to book a long weekend together. She told me that she had something special planned for us.

The instructions said we had to come prepared for a maximum security briefing of war plans. We would be going into the cocoon, our unofficial name for the top secret briefing room. No electronics of any kind were allowed, nor were paper notebooks or any other way of taking notes. If you were expected to act on something later then you would be issued a numbered and controlled version, either on a special chip or a paper version (the really seriously classified material still only came on special paper).

My battalion was based in Santa Fe, near the US Space Port. So we flew up to Washington after work on Tuesday and checked into the temporary officers accommodation at the Pentagon to ensure we were on station for the briefing.

In the morning we went to the cocoon twenty minutes ahead of the appointed hour and started to go through the security process. It took me two attempts to pass the scanner, searching through all the pockets on my flight suit before surrendering my multi-tool, flashlight and emergency rations from the survival pocket I'd forgotten to empty. I also had to surrender my name and unit patches to the guard who put them in a locker before handing me the key.

Once inside the cocoon I found General Hawkins' ADC, Colonel Hands from the Medical Center, and a couple of other staff officers that I did not recognize. A couple of minutes behind me Colonel Swinton came in with his XO and right behind him came General Hawkins, at which we all stood up.

'As you were Ladies and Gentlemen.' Hawkins waved us to sit down, taking the seat in the middle of the table himself. His ADC closed the door behind him and sealed us into the cocoon, we were now in a soundproof and electronics free bubble.

'Right, this is an off the record briefing and there won't be any notes. I'm also not doing introductions, if you don't already know each other it doesn't matter.' he said.

'We're here today for a final briefing on the war activation plans in the event that the President is incapacitated for any reason and we suspect that a foreign power is looking to take advantage of our loss of leadership.

'You all have a role to play in ensuring the safety and security of the United States of America. Do you have any questions before I begin?' Hawkins said.

There were no questions, and we spent the next three hours going through a number of likely scenarios and the responses that we were expected to make to them. Just before 13:00 General Hawkins dismissed us for lunch, as I rose to leave he said, 'Mike, can you stay back a moment, I've got a personal matter I want to discuss with you.'

'Sure.' I said, sitting back down.

Once the others left, closing the door behind them, the General said, 'Son, you know why we're here, don't you?'

I nodded my assent.

'If we don't do something quite soon we're both out of a job. US Space Force is scheduled to be shut down before the next election. The President is sure that we can use commercial operators to put satellites in orbit, and that the demilitarization treaties mean that we have no reason to put military assets in orbit.

'We've already noted that he has been behaving erratically and having panic attacks and mood swings. We've carried him through those and he's now on regular medication for it. So far it hasn't been serious enough to worry anyone, but we expect that won't last long.'

'So, as far as anyone on the outside is concerned he's got a track record of mental instability, and we've been helping him deal with it?' I said.

'That's correct.'

'So where do I come into this?'

'Well, that's why we're having this conversation. I fully expect that the President will have a serious mental breakdown during a national security incident sometime in the next few months. When he does, and I am 100% sure that he will, then we expect the Vice-President to invoke the provisions in the 25th Amendment to take over from the temporarily mentally-incapacitated President.

'When that happens we will invoke one of the war contingency plans that we have been discussing today. The most likely one is Plan Ford. So you need to ensure that your unit is prepared for that one without letting on that you expect it to be invoked in the next few months.'

'Have you briefed anyone else about this?' I asked.

'No, there are to be no general briefings, although we have updated a lot of the war contingency plans over the last couple of years. Those with specific roles are in the right places and know what they need to do. Everyone else will just be following a centrally prepared plan that was laid down years earlier just in case.' He said.

'I understand. I can do it without any problems, we've been practicing mobilization exercises on a monthly basis. I'll schedule some more in for the revised plan over the next few months.' I said.

'Excellent. Let's go get some lunch.'