Final Finesse
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The applause gradually died down again, and the president stood before the podium, glanced at the teleprompters and began his speech.
“Madam Speaker, Vice President Keller, members of Congress, distinguished guests and fellow citizens. I begin tonight by saying the State of our Union is good.” This was followed by some clapping. He then went on to summarize achievements and challenges his administration had faced the previous year and to outline an extensive policy agenda.
After listing a number of domestic priorities, he said, “Focusing now on recent developments, we all know the havoc that was wreaked on our citizens when foreign agents sabotaged a number of our vital natural gas pipelines. I made several announcements as we all saw the trail of death and destruction followed by the disruption of supplies during a fierce winter storm. We saw the increase in prices, which, thankfully have now been reduced to a more manageable level. But we are cognizant of the need for a more comprehensive energy policy that will finally lead our nation to a sense of complete self-sufficiency.” Half of the audience once again jumped to its feet clapping loudly.
“My administration with be working with the Congress on a number of initiatives including the pursuit of more effective clean coal technology that cuts CO2 emissions, additional nuclear power plants that will be outfitted to use thorium as a fuel instead of uranium. As you all know, thorium cannot be reprocessed into nuclear weapons.
“In addition to expanded fracking projects, we will encourage the construction of new refineries along with technologies for solar, wind and hydro-electric power.” At this point, Senator Cassidy Jenkins led the applause.
Finally, we will allow our domestic oil and gas companies to commence drilling in a number of regions formerly off-limits to production.” At this announcement, the members on one side sat on their hands but Senator Harry Walker and other representatives seated near him stood up and cheered.
“And on the subject of our own supplies, I want to take a moment to recognize two individuals who are with us tonight. Two brave young people who not only led us to the culprits who had been sent here to attack our pipelines, but who risked their own lives when they worked to preclude one final attack.
“Now, presidents do not normally single out members of their own staff at events such as this. We all try to work hard for the benefit of all Americans. But, as you know, we often do invite American heroes so that we may thank them in public. And tonight we have one private citizen and one member of the White House staff to be honored tonight. So at this time, I would like to ask Mr. Hamilton Bainbridge Adams III to stand along with Miss Samantha Reid, whom I have just named as the new director of White House Homeland Security.”
He did? Samantha said to herself as she and Tripp stood up and a spotlight focused on the balcony.
“Did he have to use the entire name?” Tripp mumbled as they smiled and accepted the applause of the entire chamber.
They quickly sat back down, and the First Lady reached over to shake their hands as the president continued. “Mr. Adams saved an untold number of American lives when he disarmed explosives meant to contaminate our energy supplies with radio-active gas, materials smuggled into this country across our borders, which we are moving to seal in a much more productive fashion. Those materials were sent here by dark elements in a country to our South. Miss Reid was key to their discovery. Her superb analysis also led us to the identity of the saboteurs.
“I am pleased, as I’m sure you all are, to know that the good people of that country, when presented with the facts, went to the polls, exercised their rights and voted in a new administration—one that already has reached out to us and our companies with the hand of friendship.” This time members on both sides of the aisle stood and the president smiled to accept extended applause.
Tripp turned to Samantha and whispered, “I thought it was pretty wild when you told me the FBI learned it was Diosdado Rossi who orchestrated the last attack of radioactive gas and that el presidente evidently had nothing to do with it. But then he gets the blame for all of it, and now he’s history.”
Samantha leaned over and murmured, “Yes. Let’s just call that the FINAL FINESSE.”
*****
As Samantha Reid assumes her new position as director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, what crisis will occur?
-------------------------Turn the page for a preview of ------------------------
CASTLE BRAVO
By
KARNA SMALL BODMAN
CASTLE BRAVO–The actual code name for a Top Secret US Government project
CHAPTER ONE
THE WHITE HOUSE–PRESENT DAY
Could it happen here? Samantha Reid leaned over and studied the new classified report. It had been sitting on her desk in a special envelope when she arrived in the West Wing at 6:30 a.m.
The sun was just rising, creating wisps of light orange reflections on the Potomac River when she had pulled out of the garage below her Georgetown condo and headed toward the White House. She had been in a somber mood that morning as she mulled over the recent threats her Office of Homeland Security was investigating.
She had only been in the top job a few weeks and already it seemed that the tips, rumors, and intel traffic were pouring in like some restless diluvial tide. There were concerns raised by the CDC about a biological attack using a new strain of virus. The Transportation Department had issued an alert about security on the Acela, the popular train that ran from Washington, D.C. to New York and then on to Boston. There were stories of bombs set to go off in the Lincoln Tunnel, threats of poisons in the food supply, and one particularly vocal group had distributed instructions all over the internet describing how easy it would be to blow up trains transporting hazardous chemicals.
Bad as they all were, each one was fairly localized. They could kill a lot of innocent people and do terrible damage to a certain section of the country, but this … this could be catastrophic. This new report eclipsed all the other memos in her inbox. She stared at the last paragraph. “This could change life as we know it and set us back to the year 1910.”
Samantha pushed a long strand of dark brown hair out of her eyes, shoved the report back inside the envelope, tossed it into her safe and slammed it shut.
CHAPTER TWO
THE WHITE HOUSE
“Do you know where your money is?”
The six deputy directors of the White House Office of Homeland Security stared at their boss. Samantha often asked thought-provoking questions at their morning staff meetings, but what was she getting at this time?
“Do you mean what bank it’s in?” the head of the Borders and Transportation section asked.
“Is it really in a bank?” Samantha pressed.
“Well, sure it is. I get statements.”
Samantha looked around the small conference table in her second floor West Wing office. “Anyone else know where his money is? Today? Any day?”
“Sorry. I don’t get it,” her deputy, Jim Shilling said. “I wonder who’s on her grassy knoll this time?” he murmured to the staffer next to him. Then glancing at his watch, he said to Samantha, “I thought we were going to review the latest on our Chemical and Biological Readiness Program this morning and talk about that CDC warning.”
“I know that’s your directorate, and we’ll get to that in a minute,” Samantha answered. “But first, I’d like to know if any of you has a clue what you’d do if you actually did not know where your money was? You didn’t know, so you couldn’t get it. Not for food, not for medical care. Not for anything.”
Her question was met with a half dozen blank stares. She glanced down at a sheaf of notes she had in front of her marked Top Secret and continued. “Let’s say there was a massive power failure of some sort, and all the computers went down at once. None of the banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds, nobody had any record of their deposits, their assets, their payment schedules, their debts. Then what?”
“Then they w
ait until the power comes back on,” Jim said. “Besides, all the banks have back-up systems. We have power failures all the time after hurricanes, earthquakes, whatever. So what’s the big deal?”
“Back-up systems? Some New York banks have back-up systems in Jersey City. Too close,” Samantha said with a wave of her hand. “No. What I’m asking you to consider is a situation where all of the computers, the stock market, the ATM’s, the railroads, the cars, the hospitals with all of our new electronic medical records, the telephone system, the electricity grid, refrigeration, water treatment, in fact everything using electronics, all of it is fried and won’t work anymore. Not for a long while, maybe months, maybe as much as a year, until all the systems are repaired or replaced. No water, no food. Millions of Americans would die!”
“Hey, Samantha, you’re talking about an EMP attack, right? That’s never happened.” one staffer stated.
“Yes, I’m talking about an electro-magnetic pulse,” she said in a serious tone. “And that North Korean dictator did once issue an EMP threat, but that was a while back, and nobody paid enough attention. Now, finally, we have a few people who are paying attention. And that’s something we should focus on as well.”
“Okay, but look,” Jim countered, “If he, or anybody else, tried to stage an attack like that somewhere in our country, we’d flatten Pyongyang.”
“Wait,” her deputy for Energy and Nuclear Issues interrupted. “I know you’re talking about what happens when even a small nuke is detonated way up in the atmosphere. It sends out those magnetic waves, like massive micro-waves. We all know our military has developed some weapons using the same concept, just not with nuclear materials. But we don’t have any intel that says other countries are developing them too, do we?”
“She’s right about the Pentagon having some of those new E-weapons,” Jim volunteered. “They’ve had them for years. In fact, remember back at the beginning of the Iraq war, we knocked out an entire TV center in Baghdad with a single small E-bomb. Well that’s what they called it then. The Air Force dropped it to screw up their communications. But then we backed off.” He stared at Samantha and pressed on. “So, why are you bringing it up now when we’ve got so many other things to deal with? And besides, it’s never been used except for that one time. At least not any other time that I can remember.”
“Actually, it did happen a long time ago,” she replied.
“When?” A chorus of voices intoned all at once.
“Okay, I know it was before any of us were born,” Samantha said. “But I’m sure you all know about, or have read about, the series of nuclear tests our government conducted back in the 40s and 50s.”
“Sure. Weren’t they out in the Pacific somewhere?” the head of the Executive Secretariat asked.
“Yeah, the Marshall Islands,” Jim said. “We weren’t the only ones, though. The Russians, well the Soviets, they tested weapons too in Central Asia. And a bunch of people were exposed to radiation, right?”
“Yes, they were,” Samantha said. “But as I think back on it, we were trying to prove we had such powerful weapons, no one would ever attack us again.”
“Sort of, ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’,” Jim said with a sly grin.
Samantha raised one eyebrow and replied, “Something like that. But my point is that we set off those bombs, out in places like Enewetok, Johnston Island, Bikini Atoll where some of the effects actually rained down on another island, and one of the results was that over two-thousand miles away in Hawaii the streets lights dimmed, electrical systems were screwed up, circuit breakers were tripped, and there was permanent damage done to a telecommunications relay facility. And that was over half a century ago when we weren’t relying on computers and networks like we are today.”
“So why bring it up now? I haven’t heard about any new EMP threats out there.” Jim said.
“Well, I just did. There are threats. They just haven’t been carried out yet.” She glanced down at the papers in front of her. “This morning I got a classified memo from a contact at DOD about how, in addition to North Korea, Iran has been working on EMP weapons, and China is refining the technology as well. As for Iran, remember that high altitude Shahab III missile they tested a while back?” Her comment was met with silent nods. “And we’ve seen them practice the launch of a mobile ballistic missile from a ship in the Caspian Sea. What this means is that they could launch a small nuclear device high enough into space to trigger an EMP off one of our coasts if they wanted to. And I don’t even want to think about some terrorist group getting their hands on one.”
“So, bottom line, what are you suggesting?” Jim asked.
Samantha turned to face him. “What I’m saying is that since I read the latest intel, I’ve done more digging, and I believe this is a threat worth pursuing. Big time. We had a Commission that looked into these issues. It was appointed years ago, but nobody paid any attention to their reports either. They testified before the House Armed Services Committee and made a whole host of recommendations on ways to protect ourselves. But then that commission was disbanded. Congress didn’t want to appropriate any money to protect the grid or anything else, except some military installations and Air Force One.”
“So what are we going to do?” Jim asked. “You know we’ve got a ton of other stuff on our plate right now. I mean, that WMD panel is telling everyone to focus on biological threats.”
“And the DOT is about to put out new rules on train safety,” another staffer added. “We’re still trying to infiltrate that group that keeps threatening to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel. Well, the FBI is, I mean.”
Samantha nodded as she assessed the anxious looks of her staff. “Look, I know we’ve got a ton of issues right now. Things we have to coordinate with the agencies. But our job isn’t just to react to threats, but to anticipate them. And this EMP thing is really bugging me. What we need to do is rattle some cages. I’m going to bring this up on our inter-agency conference call this morning and ask for a threat assessment.”
“Sounds like a full-employment act for our Missile Defense Agency,” Jim remarked.
“They could be part of it,” Samantha said. “The trouble is, the difference between us and the bad guys is that while they make plans, we just keep having meetings and appointing commissions. And that’s not good enough. We’ve got to get this kind of threat on the president’s radar screen before some group or some country decides it’s time to set off a blast that could send this country back to the last century!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Didi Cutler
The Honorable Karna Small Bodman served on President Ronald Reagan’s White House staff for six years, first as Deputy Press Secretary and later as Senior Director of the National Security Council. At the time of her departure she was the highest-ranking woman on the White House staff. She also spent fifteen years as a reporter, television news anchor and political commentator in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and New York City. Later she was Senior Vice President of a Public Affairs firm. Now the author of five novels, please visit her website: www.karnabodman.com