“If not us, who? Our government is in chaos; who will hold them accountable? The people have a right to know what their government does.”
“Maybe, but remember the greatest forest fires can start from the smallest of sparks. Don’t start something you can’t contain,” Mark counsels.
“Listen,” Chris jumps in, “I’ll back you up entirely, Robert. But like it or not, you’ve just made yourself the most powerful person on the planet. Not only with the shield around us. You said it on global television. Every industry an alien empire sought to infiltrate to cripple us you’ve brought under one roof and entirely control. Arbor Ridge isn’t a company, it’s a nation state, and you’re its ruler. There’s no one, I, or Mark,” Chris gestures to his friend who nods along approvingly, “or anyone else for that matter, would want in your seat. But don’t lose sight of why you assembled these pieces in the first place. That’s all we are saying.”
Robert sits back down in his chair, absorbing their advice. “No, that’s a helpful reminder. Maybe…”
Just then a bulletin flashes across the television in Robert’s office as headlines appear across the screen: “WHITE HOUSE UNDER ATTACK?”
There is great commotion in Washington, D.C. Sirens are blaring. Phones are buzzing with alerts ordering all citizens to shelter in place. Fighter jets have been scrambled and can be heard making sweeps across the city, flying low in the sky. At least a half a dozen Apache and Black Hawk helicopters are circling low above the White House. Staffers from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), where much of a President’s Administration actually works, are staring out their office windows over towards the White House, watching the circling helicopters.
Each time that a helicopter gets near the White House to land, there are some scattered shots fired from snipers on the White House rooftop. There is no return fire from the helicopter, instead it flies back up in the sky. Onlookers from the EEOB are puzzled, asking among themselves why the anti-aircraft missiles that are deployed underneath the White House lawns aren’t being used. And why aren’t the helicopters firing back?
Suddenly, the snipers can be seen vacating the roof of the White House. Helicopters again attempt a landing. Two Black Hawks land on the South Lawn while another lands on the White House roof. Heavily armed soldiers hop out of the helicopters, dressed head to toe in black body armor, wearing oxygen masks, and carrying rifles. Each helicopter must house ten soldiers.
A sight few Americans could have ever dreamt is being played out on national television: The White House is being overrun by armed soldiers. And they are not even meeting much apparent resistance with no sounds of gunfire evident to those near the executive mansion.
The thirty men tasked with this assignment are members of an elite regiment of the Marine Corps Special Operations Command, led by Master Sergeant Jim Kelley, a twenty-four-year veteran of the Marines. His regiment was stationed on assignment in Northern Africa but had been brought back stateside to Texas early in the week after the alien spaceship appeared. He never thought he’d be asked to do this, but here he is, in one of the helicopters to land on the South Lawn. As is his custom, he’s first off the chopper and leads his men.
Kelley’s men make their way towards the back doors of the Oval Office. Typically, these doors are guarded by Marines, ceremonially, when the President is at work, but this brisk April morning, they are unattended. Kelley leads a group of ten men towards the most famous office on the planet. The group of ten from the helicopter fifteen yards east of Kelley will be swinging around the White House and proceed to the East Wing where they are to safely secure Neverian’s family, believed to be in the White House Residence. Another ten Marines will be making their way down from the roof level to provide support as needed.
This task should prove straightforward if proper communications have occurred, but every solider is tense as they venture across the lawn. Kelley leads his men to the Oval Office where the curtains have been closed to block any view. They kick the door open. There is no reaction from inside the room. Kelley leads his men in.
They are greeted by the sight of President Nick Neverian seated behind his desk. Members of his Secret Service Detail are guarding the doors, guns pointed at him. A junior military officer is seated at the far end of the room with a black suitcase between his legs under his chair. Kelley signals to two of his men who cross the room toward the nuclear football. Kelley says to the lead Secret Service agent, “Athena.”
The agent responds, “Catherine.”
The code being answered appropriately, Kelley orders his men at ease, and they remove their oxygen masks. Kelley walks in front of Neverian’s desk and says, “I have been ordered to tell you, Mister President, that the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet have invoked the 25th Amendment that you are unable to discharge the duties of the office. You have been temporarily removed from office with Vice President Larom assuming the powers.”
“Thank you, Officer,” Neverian blankly responds, staring off in the distance, emotionless. “Is my family safe?”
After a brief pause as Kelley radios the East Wing unit, he turns to Neverian and says, “Yes, sir. They are safe and being held in the East Wing.”
“Thank you.” Neverian flatly replies.
“I’ve been asked to keep you here for now.”
Half a world away in China, Arbor Ridge has successfully hacked into China’s state media, and Robert’s speech, including his allegations of complicity with Frozos by their government, has been airing while global media is focusing on developments at the White House. With an increasingly perilous situation domestically, President Li is fortunate to have completely consolidated power, politically. Seeing the situation in Washington D.C., Li senses an opening on the international stage. While Russian President Malvodov had pulled most of his troops back from the Russia-China border, China maintained its significant buildup within fifty miles of the border. Now, Li orders them to move across. He also orders troops to begin taking Mongolia. China will be moving westward.
Robert’s bluff to open the force field above a nation does not intimidate Li, for he has struck a deal with Frozos. Now, his only viable political future is one in which Earth joins the League of Planets. Bringing the planet to the brink of global war is the only viable path he sees, callous to the fact it puts hundreds of millions of lives in jeopardy.
Five hundred thousand Chinese soldiers are amassed on China’s western front, replete with heavy artillery, batteries of tanks, and a fleet of several hundred aircrafts. Li has transmitted orders that the attack is to commence in thirty minutes. Stage one will be aerial strikes on the Russian troops and their supply lines. Once weakened, the land assault will commence in stage two. As troops begin the race across Eastern Russia, stage three, the race across Mongolia will commence, in an effort to trap a large portion of Russia’s military between two Chinese armies.
Concurrently, China has moved its air defense to the highest possible level of alert and preparedness in the event Russian President Mikhail Malvodov does the unthinkable and launches a nuclear strike on China’s homeland. Russia has over 4,000 nuclear warheads, making it the second most potent nuclear power on the planet behind the United States. While Li is confident in his military’s ability to shoot down a handful of missiles at any one time, a mass launching from Russia would overwhelm its system. Li accordingly has decided to only use non-nuclear weapons in his attack in the hope Russia will respond in kind.
In his office, still with Mark and Chris, Robert picks up his ringing phone, his facial expression quickly turning to one of grave concern. “Okay, I’ll be right down,” he says before hanging up. He stands up, gesturing to his colleagues. “Come, let’s get downstairs. Something’s going on with China.”
After taking the secret elevator to Project Ridley, they enter a room next to Robert’s underground office, a room Mark and Chris haven’t been in yet. The r
oom must be thirty-five feet deep and sixty feet wide with auditorium style seating and is filled with several dozen workers in purple jumpsuits. The outfits look to be of the same material with the same Arbor Ridge insignia as the workers Mark and Chris had seen making the jets on these basement floors over the past few months, but those workers wore navy blue, not purple.
Robert leads them down the steps at the side of the room to the bottom. On the twenty-five-foot-high wall are a dozen television screens, monitoring news stations, the twelve towers and deep-water force field spires, as well as footage from the moon, and satellites in outer space.
“Hi, Jake Thornhill, this is Mark Morrison and Chris Bailey.” Robert introduces his co-founders to a man standing behind a desk who carries an aura of being in charge. He looks to be about sixty, but is as tough as nails and still cuts a lean military figure. His weathered face and tight grey hair reveal him as a man who has lived a fulsome and tiresome life in the arena. The three men exchange pleasantries. Robert sees the puzzled look on his friends’ faces and realizes he hasn’t explained what this room is.
“I’m sorry guys. You’re probably wondering what this all is. This is our command center. They helped to build and now monitor the force field on a minute by minute basis to ensure everything is secure. Jake spent over thirty years at the DIA and has been providing his intelligence expertise for us these past few years. We also will be running our communications efforts through here. So, Jake, what is it?”
Jake hands Robert a manila folder. “Well, sir, we’ve intercepted Chinese orders to begin invading Russia, it’s all in there. By air first, and then a ground invasion.”
“Wait, we’re spying on governments now?” an absolutely bewildered Chris asks.
“No more than they are trying to spy on us,” Robert calmly answers while thumbing through the documents—mostly photos of troop movements, and copies of orders.
“I warned you this would happen,” Mark says. “A cornered tiger is bound to bite, and you put Li in the corner.”
“He put himself there, Mark, the day he sold out his home to a foreign invader. I would normally do nothing, but we’re crippled,” Robert responds, pointing to the images of the White House, seemingly overrun by soldiers and helicopters. “I’ve been clear national borders are to be respected, and we’re going to ensure they are.”
“So you’ll turn off the force field above China?” Chris asks.
“Actually, we lack that capability,” Thornhill interjects.
“Yes, Chris, that was a bluff. Besides, Li doesn’t care because he’s thrown his fate in with Frozos. The fool doesn’t realize Frozos would blow them up anyway just to scare the rest of us. Okay, I think it’s time we show off Project Ridley a bit.”
“I know we’ve been building planes everywhere, but don’t we need pilots?” Chris asks.
“Chris, all these years of focusing on the numbers have robbed you of your imagination,” Mark responds, finding Chris’s obliviousness nearly as frustrating as Robert’s apparent cavalier attitude. “I’m sure we’ll find dozens of pilots in orange jumpsuits around here somewhere.”
“Red, actually,” Robert deadpans. “But we’re too far away, and we need to go undetected by everyone in the world except by the one person who we need to act like nothing is happening. Let’s send 250 planes out of the Moscow tower.”
As Thornhill is transmitting the order, another helicopter is landing at the White House.
Neverian has been sitting in the Oval Office for about twenty minutes since Jim Kelley and his Marines had informed him his Presidential powers had been temporarily turned over to Vice President Larom. During that time, not a word has been spoken, and everyone is finding the silence unbearably awkward. Minutes feel like hours. Finally, the rumbling of an engine can be heard in the background. Neverian knows that sound. He is about to look behind him when he remembers that the curtains had been drawn.
Another minute or so of silence passes, and then, led by her own Secret Service Detail, Acting President Larom walks into her new office. Neverian remains at his seat, but everyone in the room stands at attention. She is wearing a red dress and dark-blue blazer. She walks in front of Neverian’s desk and does not extend her hand to shake. Nor does he.
“Mister President,” she says, speaking clearly and deliberately, having precisely prepared her remarks, “Master Sergeant Kelly should have informed you that the Cabinet has invoked the 25th Amendment, which transferred the Presidential powers to me. An emergency Cabinet meeting was convened at 3:30 this morning. All members of the Presidential line of succession but Attorney General Braddock were in attendance. We reviewed materials provided by Robert Wilson and deemed you unfit to be President on a—”
“On what grounds am I unfit?” Neverian asks.
“You are not a natural born citizen, and we view you as disqualified from being President. The constitution does afford you an ability to contest this decision. However, the House and Senate are prepared to impeach and remove you from office this afternoon. You’ve lost. The choice you face is whether to do so with dignity.”
“I haven’t lost; the fight has barely begun. He is coming here and with him comes a reckoning. That said, I recognize the reality of the situation. And so I have resigned, effective immediately.”
He takes a paper out of a desk drawer, temporarily putting the Secret Service and Marines on edge. As he passes it to Larom, he asks, “Tell me. How does it feel to have hitched your coattails to an invader and cheated your way to the top?”
Larom ignores the question as Neverian is escorted out of the Oval Office. He is being taken, with his family, to a top secret military prison installation in Virginia.
As Neverian walks out, a contingent of senior military personnel walk in. One steps forward, “Madam President. There is a pressing situation in China.”
“Well, we have a pressing situation in the United States, too.”
“Yes, but we appear to be minutes from China invading Russia.”
Larom seems to age six months in six seconds as the gravity of the crisis she inherited fully sinks in. “What has Malvodov done in response?” she asks.
“Our intelligence hasn’t gathered anything yet, but he has been clear only Russians will rule Russians. We can’t rule anything out. We need to take decisive action,” the General replies.
At this point, a young aide, a woman of about thirty in the back of the room decides to step in, fearing a catastrophic mistake. “He won’t do anything!” she shouts.
The senior brass turn and give her cold icy stares. President Larom looks to her and asks, “Why are you so sure?”
The aide walks forward and hands her some satellite images of the Moscow Arbor Ridge tower. “At least a hundred planes have left the Arbor Ridge tower in Moscow. We can’t identify the models. They stayed on radar just long enough to be sure the Russian military saw them and disappeared.”
“Madam President,” the General interjects, “this country didn’t go through the pain of taking orders from an elected alien to following the lead of an unelected one.”
“I agree, General, but Mister Wilson did send us his evidence against Neverian eight hours before he told the public, which is why we are standing here. We will give him fifteen minutes to clean up his mess. He put Li in a box, foolishly. During that time, I will brief the American people on what the hell has happened to their government and you will draw up options for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” With that, the military officials proceed out and down to the Situation Room to prepare a response. As they leave, a press aide pops his head in the door.
“Madam President, the Chief Justice is here, and we’ve assembled the press in the briefing room.”
“Give me a moment, Mike,” the President replies.
“Take your time, Madam President,” the aide replies as he shuts the door. Larom stands alo
ne in the Oval Office, a room filled with historical moments. She kneels to the ground and says a brief prayer. Getting up, she heads out to meet the press and address the nation.
The press briefing room is filled to the brim with rows of reporters and cameras in the back. At the front, there is a blue lectern with the emblem of the White House behind it. Larom walks in alongside the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in his court robes, an elderly man of nearly eighty years who is about to swear in a President for the seventh time.
Standing behind the Lectern with the Chief Justice to her right, Larom begins, speaking confidently from prepared remarks that she barely has to reference. “At 3:37 this morning, I chaired a Cabinet meeting to determine if President Nick Neverian should be temporarily removed as President under the 25th Amendment of the constitution. Mister Robert Wilson had shared files that he discussed this morning with us at around 1:00 AM. Attorney General Brian Braddock was not invited over concerns he would inform the President of the meeting. As nonvoting participants, we included congressional leadership of both parties: the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, the Speaker of the House, and the House Minority Leader. At 4:44 AM, we voted unanimously to remove the President temporarily, due to the fact we believed he was not a natural born citizen. This action enjoyed the support of the members of Congress in attendance.
“I ordered the military and Secret Service to detain Neverian in the White House, and I am pleased to say that operation was conducted without any casualties. I arrived several minutes ago; when informed of these decisions, President Neverian voluntarily resigned the Presidency, and he and his family have been taken unharmed to a military facility. For the avoidance of any doubt, the live feed from a camera on our Marines who entered the Oval Office is being shared with the media as I speak. With that, I ask the Chief Justice to step forward, and I will take the oath of office.”
Robert Wilson and the Invasion from Within Page 9
