The President

by Parker Hudson

  Five minutes later William, Mary, Rebecca, Jerry, Eunice, Leslie, her two crewmen, a secretary, twelve military aides, and several of the Secret Service agents all knelt in the ballroom and prayed together.

  At seven many members of the Fortson’s crew began descending the ladder from the quarter-deck to the pier. Hugh was on his way to check the five-inch gun mount on the stern, and he walked through the quarter-deck area just as many couples—heterosexuals, homosexuals, and lesbians—were kissing and saying good-bye. Many were crying. Hugh looked at who was going and who was staying and realized that in most cases the more senior member of each couple was in essence ordering the junior one to leave for more safety. I wonder how this would work in a ship’s fire? Or a collision? Too many awful decisions have to be made in an emergency. How can we have people in love with each other running around on a navy ship?

  Fifteen minutes later the captain and the executive officer descended the now empty ladder to the pier, summoned by a messenger. The ensign on the open line handed the receiver to Captain Robertson.

  “Captain, can you hear us? This is Vince Harley and Secretary of State Lanier Parks. Do you recognize our voices?”

  “Yes, sirs, I do.”

  “We’re going to say the same thing to your XO in just a minute, so there’s two-man recognition on both ends. If you’re ready, go ahead with the operation as planned, and may God bless you and your crew.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” He handed the phone to his second in command

  Thirty seconds later the two men bounded up the ladder, and the Fort-son prepared to get underway.

  At the same time the group in the ballroom stopped praying and turned on the televisions, giving prominence to Leslie’s U.S. Network. After watching for over thirty minutes, William stepped over to one of the tables and called Carrie at the White House.

  “Hello, dear. We found Rebecca, and she’s with us now. How are you and Katherine?”

  “We’re fine. She and Sarah enjoyed the helicopter ride. I’m glad about Rebecca, although I’d be happier if you were all safely out of New York.”

  Before William could respond, Jerry came over to him. “You aren’t going to believe this, but based on their exit polls and first returns, U.S. Network is projecting that we’ll take a majority of the House seats in New York State!”

  “Really?” William asked.

  “Yes, and now they’re saying the same thing about Pennsylvania and maybe even Massachusetts.”

  “What? Carrie, I’ll call you back. Are you watching this? Okay, I’ll call you right back.”

  At the central television William heard Ryan Denning saying, “Our exit polls show that Trent Patterson’s confession on our program this morning played a significant part in what we’re now predicting will be the president’s stunning victory in Pennsylvania.”

  William found it hard to believe, but then heard himself thinking, Don’t be amazed by God!

  A few miles away in the harbor, Sadim saw the same news and was appalled. That stupid, cowardly Trent Patterson. Wafik should never have used him! He looked at the television monitoring their stern and was glad to see the sleek helicopter that had recently landed. Maybe we will need it after all.

  Slowly, without a tugboat to help, the Fortson edged away from the pier, leaving behind about a fourth of her crew, many of whom waved good-bye in the night, some crying. The captain conned the ship from the starboard bridge wing as they backed out of their slip. Soon they were inching out into the Hudson River, the only vessel moving in the harbor, but still unseen either by Wafik or by Sadim’s radar.

  The crew had rigged special lighting to fool a visual observer. This night the Fortson had a new bright light on the nose and a single range light on the stack, plus white lights rigged all around the stern. With the rest of the ship darkened, the Fortson had the appearance of a much larger freighter.

  Five minutes later the captain turned the bow downriver, and the Fortson started her slow journey toward the harbor and the Bright Star.

  At that same moment Sadim saw on two different networks that Florida and Maine were projected to go to the president’s candidates. So far only two states appeared to be safe for the vice president, and each by only one congressman! Sadim’s disbelief slowly turned to anger. If the American people repudiate our demands, then they’ll get what they deserve! He was appalled by a report from a small town in Massachusetts, where they’d started ringing the bells in one church and the idea had spread to all the other churches in the area. Now, almost the entire state was ringing with church bells.

  In the ballroom below ground level, Mary watched, holding William’s hand, as their home state of North Carolina was projected to be squarely in the president’s corner at a little after eight. Tears formed in her eyes as a reporter tried to talk live from outside St. Stephen’s Church in Raleigh, where she had been the first member of their family to meet the Lord all those years before. The reporter was talking loudly because the famous bells of St. Stephen’s had joined what was now confirmed to be tens of thousands of churches all across the country, ringing in joy and defiance for what was beginning to look like an astounding victory for those who put their trust in the Lord.

  Sadim’s anger turned to rage ten minutes later when the key states of Ohio and Illinois were predicted to have majority delegations with a biblical worldview. He called the captain’s cabin on the telephone and simply said, “We’re going. Fax to Wafik.”

  Just then his surface alert console lit up, and he quickly looked at the radar screen to see a large blip coming out from behind the building clutter well up the Hudson River, five miles away. The computerized evaluator analyzed the contact’s size, slow speed, and the signature of its surface search radar and printed out “Freighter.”

  Sadim was not satisfied. As their own helicopter’s blades began turning on the stern and Sadim pulled the detonator box closer to him, he typed on the computer for faxing to Wafik, “What is that ship in the river?”

  Wafik had received the first message from the captain, and his heart had begun to race. He put the few things he needed in his bag and was about to leave the office, having seen the helicopter take off through his binoculars, when the second message came in. He put the bag down and walked to the windows, looked out but could see nothing in the lower portion of the Hudson River visible from his location. He wrote “Nothing moving here” on his laptop, pushed the fax button, picked up his bag, and left.

  He climbed the several flights of emergency stairs to the roof of the World Trade Center as he had practiced a month before, opened the top door with a key supplied by a maintenance man Wafik had befriended with cash several weeks earlier, and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He appeared to be alone.

  A minute later the jet helicopter appeared from the harbor below and was soon in its landing approach to the raised helipad at the center of the roof. As it came in, Wafik started to climb the stairs from the roof to the pad, but three men with guns suddenly materialized from the shadows, heading for the stairs themselves.

  Wafik dropped to his knees and fired his automatic machine pistol. He took out all three men in one long burst, just as the craft touched down. He replaced the clip and looked quickly around, then sprinted up the stairs for the copter, threw in his bag, and settled quickly into one of the five seats in the rear. In another second they were off again, departing just above the three bodies sprawled on the roof.

  The news in the ballroom grew even better. William had called Carrie again and was actually talking to Katherine when Tennessee and Kentucky went in their column. Then came news that Janet Sullivan would be a member of the new Congress in January.

  Ryan Denning was saying with a clear note of disbelief in his voice, “Without a sharp difference in the West it now looks like the president’s candidates could win a landslide victory in the House and also control the Senate, turning politics in this country completely around.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Daddy?” Katherin
e asked over the phone.

  “Yes, yes, it is. But you know what? I stand in awe of all the individual decisions it took to do this. Isn’t God just incredible?”

  “Yes, he is, Daddy. He is. He’s certainly been good to us.”

  The helicopter returned to the Bright Star with Wafik, and Sadim took one last look around the command center. He then inserted a key into the primary console and switched the defense setting to automatic and the detonate setting to automatic/remote. The bomb would now be triggered automatically in the case of a direct threat, or he could do it by radio with his hand-held detonator from up to twenty miles away.

  Sadim turned to the captain, who had joined him in the command center. “Let’s go. On the flight to the New Dawn, take a good look at New York. We’ll be the last few to see it!”

  The Fortson continued her slow and methodical advance, trying to look very much like a freighter and not at all like a warship. The captain was still conning the ship himself on the bridge. Thomas Dobbs was in charge of the combat information center, which for the moment had only a surface plot feeding from the civilian radar into the navy computer, but he still suggested course corrections to the bridge to bring their starboard side right alongside the port side of the Bright Star at a range of only three hundred feet.

  “Range three miles,” Dobbs relayed over the intercom.

  Hugh and Teri sat side by side at the missile console, both of their fingers required on the two triggers to fire the missiles when the time came. With Dobbs’s announcement, Hugh glanced to the right, and Teri looked his way. Their eyes met and locked. Then, without saying a word, they turned back to their console.

  Kolikov had been nervous before, but this was the worst time of all. They were still on the ship, but he knew the bomb could be set off by the computer thinking they were under attack. He knew there was a two-second delay built into that part of its threat evaluation so that no single piece of erroneous data could detonate it, but he also knew that computers could make mistakes. So he hurried to get into the back of the helicopter, and he hoped that Sadim would not linger.

  For his part Sadim stood by the helicopter and took one last look at the ship moving in the dark night toward them. It certainly looked like a freighter. And, he thought, whatever it is, it will be vaporized before it can do us any harm.

  He then handed their portable television to Wafik and crawled into the copter. He sat down and put the detonator between his feet, then flashed a thumb’s-up to the pilot. They began to lift off, much to the relief of Kolikov.

  “Mary, Rebecca, everybody.” William motioned for everyone to gather around. “This is wonderful news tonight, so far. We give God all the thanks and all the glory. But I’m afraid with each new victory for our team, we’re coming closer to a nuclear detonation in the harbor. So let’s pray again, please, giving thanks for the changed hearts and the courage of our voters and praying for protection for this city.”

  Again they gathered around, this time holding hands, and prayed.

  As the helicopter lifted off the Bright Star, Captain Robertson called out, “We’ve got an unfriendly helicopter departing the target. Henry, track him visually as long as you can. Feed the information to CIC. Thomas, be ready to find this guy quick when we bring up the radars. Hugh, are all the weapons systems ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hugh replied over the intercom.

  “Very well,” said the captain. “Bring the first two missiles out onto the rails.”

  Teri pushed several buttons on her console in CIC, and massive hydraulics in the front half of the ship engaged, opening huge blast doors and quickly running two of the especially modified missiles out onto the launcher. Once the missiles were in place, the launcher turned to the right and took up the slight angle of elevation that they had calculated from rough estimates should point them at the upper superstructure of the Bright Star, where everyone assumed the command and control equipment was located.

  Simultaneously a round was loaded into the five-inch gun on the stern, and the starboard Gatling gun was placed on manual.

  The Fortson was now only about three hundred yards off the port quarter of the Bright Star and closing quickly.

  On the Bright Star the threat computer recognized the presence of a surface target closing on its search radar, but the target did not yet present any specific threat. The software called for retaliation at one hundred yards, however, threat or not. And of course instant detonation of the bomb in the face of any hostile action.

  The helicopter rapidly opened up the range as it headed out to sea for its rendezvous with the New Dawn. Six miles. Eight miles. Kolikov felt better and better, and for the first time in two days allowed himself just a small thought about all his money.

  On the television balanced on Sadim’s lap, Ryan Denning was saying, “And so, ladies and gentlemen, based on the results that are already in, on our own extensive exit polls, and on the preliminary returns in the western states, the U.S. Network is now prepared to state that William Harrison has won his majority for Congress in what can only be called a stunning and frankly surprising landslide victory!”

  The faces of the men in the helicopter were grim as Sadim reached down to pick up the detonator.

  In the ballroom of the Park Empire Hotel there was hugging and crying. Mary and Rebecca embraced William as all three gave thanks to God. Leslie cheered and hugged Eunice so tightly that she almost crushed the new baby, who a few minutes before had been named William.

  In Washington, Carrie, Katherine, and Sarah embraced.

  All across America, tens of thousands of church bells pealed continuously.

  The bow of the Fortson was just about to break the invisible one-hundred-yard envelope around the Bright Star. Captain Robertson was getting a feel for the range. He had never targeted missiles manually before, and to hit the superstructure with blind missiles was going to take some real seat-of-the-pants guessing and a lot of luck.

  “All systems ready!” he said.

  In the back of the helicopter, now fifteen miles away, Sadim grasped the detonator in his fingers and started to bring it up to his lap. “Say good-bye to New York, my friends.” He smiled.

  The Fortson entered the exclusion envelope. The computer evaluator on the Bright Star still registered no terminal threat—there was no radar lock-on, no laser illumination. So the computer did not detonate the bomb. But the Fortson had come too close. There was no presence of an air threat; Teri had been right in deducing that the ship only had anti-air missiles. But the Gatling guns were called into action. After the mandatory two-second delay to determine if the threat remained constant, the stern Gatling gun suddenly opened fire on the Fortson and raked the ship’s starboard side from bow to midships.

  The Fortson, like an old man-o-war, could not return fire until her batteries were alongside. The first raking by the Gatling gun luckily was at an elevation which was well below the bridge but right at the level of the main deck. It did significant damage, but the ship’s weapons systems were still intact.

  Sadim lowered the detonator into his lap and prepared to push the two buttons. Unseen by anyone, a mighty wind came out of heaven and moved across the face of the earth.

  The Gatling gun waited its mandatory two seconds and recycled to fire another pass, this time aimed slightly higher. As the warship drew almost amidships, the gun raked the Fortson again, and this time a round damaged the starboard missile on the launcher and put rounds through the captain’s cabin and Hugh Harrison’s stateroom. Fortunately they were both at their duty stations one level above.

  Just before the detonator settled into Sadim’s lap, the helicopter was violently shaken by a strong wind, which the pilot had no way to anticipate. The copter was thrown from side to side, and the detonator rolled out of Sadim’s lap and onto the floor. Sadim cursed and reached for the detonator again as the shaking died down.

  Three lights went out on the console over Teri’s head. “We’ve lost the number one missile,�
�� she reported over the intercom.

  The Gatling gun swung back, waited, and then began its third run at a higher angle, which would devastate the bridge and CIC.

  Just then Captain Robertson yelled “Fire!” Teri and Hugh pulled their triggers simultaneously, and like a broadside of old, the one undamaged missile, the five-inch gun, and their own Gatling gun opened fire blindly at point- blank range.

  The five-inch shell only nicked the stern, but it was enough to detonate, destroying the Bright Stars Gatling gun as it was starting to fire again.

  The computer on board now realized it had been attacked and started the two-second clock to detonate the nuclear bomb.

  The single missile from the Fortson had been fired a split second too late; it was going to pass just in front of the freighter’s superstructure without exploding. But the same strong wind that had battered the helicopter blew across the harbor as well and turned the Bright Star ever so slightly at anchor, exposing another few inches of the port superstructure to the missile’s blind path. The warhead just grazed the exposed corner and exploded in a tremendous ball of fire, blinding everyone on the Fortson.