Lethal Trajectories

by Michael Conley

  McCarty mused, Collingsworth is a pimp and a lightweight, but I’ll need to keep my eye on him.

  “The financial markets are reeling and have dropped over 14 percent since the Chunxiao Incident,” continued Gleason. “The key driver is oil, and with oil now over $268 per barrel and pump prices around $7.00 per gallon, we can expect Congress to feel the heat from their constituents and react. A quick resolution of the crisis would be the best thing that could happen, but it’s unrealistic to think we’ll get back to the pre-crisis price of oil for quite some time.”

  McCarty ended the ensuing discussion just as Press Secretary Candace Pierson entered the room.

  “Folks,” McCarty said, “this has been a productive meeting. We’ve covered a lot of ground, and I’ve asked Candace to join us to help craft a statement I can read in the Rose Garden at four o’clock. I’d like it to emphasize our military and diplomatic responses, our peace efforts as an intermediary between China and Japan, and our desire for them to work through the UN. We’ll also want a strong statement of assurance to the American people and financial markets that our oil supply is unaffected by Chunxiao and there’s no reason to panic.”

  “Do you wish to comment on the president’s health, Mr. Vice President?” Pierson asked, perhaps hoping he would agree.

  “I think not, Candace.” Clayton replied. “I’m uncomfortable getting too specific about it; I’d just as soon we leave that to the official statements released by Walter Reed.” He could see everyone in the room was uncomfortable with this dodge, but what else could he do? He adjourned the meeting, advising the NSC that he would call the president and then return to review the statement they were to develop.

  Clayton left the Situation Room with three nagging concerns he was not prepared to share: First, he had a bad feeling about the president’s health. Second, he felt uneasy about the comments relating to Saudi Arabia’s stability—Chunxiao they could handle, but a destabilized Saudi Arabia was quite another story. And third, he didn’t think it advisable to tee up Peter Canton’s memo on climate-change at this time, but he knew it would soon be a frontline topic for the Situation Room. For now, first things first, he thought.

  After talking to Burkmeister, he returned to the Situation Room to review and edit his announcement. As he left for the Rose Garden, statement in hand, he felt the weight of the presidency for the first time and recalled the sign on Harry Truman’s desk that read The buck stops here. He stepped up to the lectern, adjusted the microphone and, wishing the president was here instead of him, said “Good afternoon and thanks much for coming….”

  14

  Mankato, Minnesota

  20 September 2017

  Veronica was disappointed and concerned as she left the principal’s office at Mankato East High School with Mandy. As a pastor, she had often been a part of meetings with authorities on behalf of members of her congregation, but this was different. It was her daughter she now had to represent.

  Mandy was sixteen and rebellious, and this was not the first time Veronica had visited the principal’s office to deal with one of her indiscretions. It was serious today, however, because she had been caught skipping school with friends; some of them were smoking pot. While Mandy was not among the accused pot-smokers, Veronica guessed that Mandy might have used before. Veronica was scared silly that Mandy was making the same poor choices she had as a teen.

  Not a word was spoken on the interminably long car ride home. Veronica reflected on Mandy’s suspension and the paper she had been assigned to write about her behavior as a precondition for readmission. Hopefully, this will be a learning moment for her, she thought.

  Pulling into the driveway to drop Mandy off before rushing off to her Life Challenges meeting, she told her daughter, “Honey, you know that you are grounded until you get back in school, and I want to have a serious talk with you about drugs and addiction when I get home tonight. Just know for now that I love you and we’ll deal with this together.”

  Tears came to Veronica’s eyes as Mandy gave her a kiss and said, “I love you, Mom, and I’m so sorry.” To her, Mandy was still that precious little six-year-old girl in pigtails asking Mom to pick her up, dust her off, and tell her that everything would be all right.

  Veronica left for church praying for strength to redirect her focus on the Life Challenges meeting. Tonight, she planned to change the meeting format, based on the volume of distraught calls she had received over the past week. The church parking lot was already busy as she arrived, a sure sign that all was not well in Mankato.

  Martha Earling, the church secretary, was at the door to greet her, and they quickly headed for the dimly lit church basement to move chairs, rearrange tables, and brew the coffee. A quick tally revealed the headcount had more than doubled, and she felt anxiety pangs as she walked to the front at six thirty sharp to start the meeting.

  “Good evening, folks. I’m so glad you’re here for our Life Challenges program. Please make yourself at home, and feel free to get up at any time for a cup of coffee or cookies.” After saying a short prayer, she said, “I’d like to change the format of the meeting tonight and have you choose the topic for discussion.” Seeing no objections, she continued.

  “I’ve heard from many of you this past week about your concerns with rising gasoline prices, personal finances, layoffs, making ends meet, and some of the scary things happening overseas. This definitely fits the purpose of our Life Challenges support group, and it might be helpful to get your concerns out on the table tonight rather than have me pick a topic. “What would you like to talk about tonight?” she asked, hoping for at least a couple of hands.

  She was surprised when at least a half dozen hands shot up in unison. “Mary, what would you like to talk about tonight?”

  Mary Inglebritson, the talker in her family, said, “We’re getting killed by the price of gasoline. It was over seven bucks a gallon when we filled up yesterday, and in a three-car family it’ll cost us over two hundred dollars a week for gas.” Others chimed in with similar complaints.

  “Lawrence, how about you, what would you like to talk about?”

  “I operate a small regional trucking firm with six drivers. They all have families, and I want to keep them employed, but my business is already off due to the economy. There’s no way I can pass off the higher gas costs to my customers, and I’m scared to death I’ll have to lay people off. I feel rotten and don’t know what to do.”

  Margie Schulstad didn’t even wait to be called before she blurted out “I listened to that Wellington Crane the other day, and he said we were on a one-way street to Armageddon and would soon be there if we don’t take a stand with our Japanese friends. I just finished reading Revelation in the Bible, and I’m wondering if we aren’t living in the end times. It’s scary.”

  Veronica was amazed at the outpouring. It seemed for every concern she noted, two more hands would go up in an endless procession of frustration and anxiety. She finally stopped to offer an observation.

  “There’s a pattern here, and I’ll try to summarize it. The common denominator is fear. We are fearful for our jobs, our futures, our families, our community, our ability to drive our cars with these awful gas prices, and even our very souls as some of us wonder if we’re living in end times.” Veronica could see she had connected with her audience.

  “As most of you know, I’m an alcoholic in a recovery program. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s this: dealing with our fears, shame, anger, guilt, resentments, insecurities, and other things is a lifelong challenge. The events causing them—things you’ve mentioned tonight like loss of a job, raging gas prices, frightening international events, or whatever—won’t go away. That’s a given, but what we can do is change the way we address our fears and deal with them. Is this something we should talk about tonight?” Veronica received an enthusiastic response.

  “Great!” she said. “Let’s start by not talking about the events per se, but rather about the fears that come ab
out as a result of the events. You know, like fear of losing something, fear of survival, fear of looking bad, fear of not getting our way—whatever specific fears you have. My guess is we’ll all be surprised at how many common fears we have. We are not alone in our fears. Who has a fear to share?”

  Getting the first person to talk was always a challenge, and she was more than a little surprised when at least ten hands went up.

  The emotional spigot ramped up to full as members’ suppressed fears poured out. The therapeutic value of this verbal catharsis was immediately obvious, and the usual ninety-minute meeting went into overtime. Veronica regretted the need to wrap it up at nine thirty, but she was pleased to see that many people stayed around after the meeting to talk, listen, share, and heal. She was concerned by the intensity of the feelings and fears expressed, and knew the agenda in the coming weeks would have to focus on how to deal with these fears.

  Driving home, she felt the strength of the group as she considered her fears. With emotions and mindset recalibrated, she felt better prepared for the conversation she would soon have with Mandy.

  Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

  20 September 2017

  Lyman Burkmeister had a life challenge of his own: staying alive long enough to transition Clayton McCarty into his job as president of the United States. He had spent the last several days taking tests, managing pain, and regaining strength, but he still felt lousy.

  Last night, as he sat in a cushy lounge chair in his corner suite at Walter Reed, he had been interrupted by three somber men: Doctor Toomay and two oncologists from the hospital. They had entered his room with worried looks on their faces.

  “By your grim expressions, I’d guess it doesn’t look good for the home team,” Burkmeister said with a bravado meant to disguise his fear. “Go ahead, fellas, give it to me straight. As president, I’m used to hearing troubling news on a regular basis.”

  Doc Toomay launched into a long medical dissertation on the president’s state of health, but he might as well have saved his words because nothing else registered with the president after the words terminal cancer and imminent were mentioned. Burkmeister was stunned. What am I hearing? How can this be? I’m the president! After what seemed like hours, his mind started to work the problem.

  “… and you have one of the most virulent forms of stage four pancreatic cancer we have ever seen, Mr. President.” Burkmeister could see that Doc Toomay was having difficulty separating his emotions from his clinical diagnosis.

  “How much time do I have left, Doc?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to say, Mr. President, these things can …”

  “Doc, cut the crap,” he interjected sharply, I’ve got a country to run, and I need to know how much time I have left to transition my presidency. Forget all the medical mumbo-jumbo and just tell me what your gut is telling you about my condition.”

  “You might have three months left, but it could well be less than that. I wish we could guarantee you a few weeks of better health so you could make all the preparations you’ll need to make, but we can’t. If we can have you for a couple more days, we can probably stabilize the pain and buy you a little time, but not much, I’m afraid.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I know this has been tough on you, but I needed to know the score.”

  With that, the president dismissed them. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts.

  He had always wondered what it would be like to be told you were going to die. Do you cry? Scream? Go into denial? What do you do? As a former CEO, governor, and president, the threat of a major crisis was not new to him. Work the problem, work the problem, he thought as he rocked back and forth on his chair in a desperate attempt to regain his emotional composure. Almost mechanically, he made a conscious effort to apply the coping mechanisms that had carried him through so many difficult times in the past.

  After attempting to decouple his emotions from the crisis with only limited success, he turned to his Commander-in-Chief and prayed reciting the Serenity Prayer he had learned somewhere so many years ago:

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

  Courage to change the things I can, and the

  Wisdom to know the difference.

  Meditating on those wise words, he concluded that he couldn’t change his diagnosis and could only pray for the ability to accept the inevitable. He could, however, set the tone and tempo of the presidential succession that must soon take place. I’m going to do everything that is humanly possible to make this a smooth transition for Clayton, he vowed. His first postdiagnosis decision, therefore, was to remain in the hospital for another couple of days, as the doctor had suggested—time to recover and to think it all out.

  He also knew the longest journey in the world was the one from the brain to the heart, the path that transformed an intellectual thought into a deep-in-the-gut belief. I’m going to die, and I might as well get used to the idea, he thought.

  After a restless and agonizing night of reflecting on his mortality and its rippling effects, he was more at peace with his fate. His brooding thoughts focused now on the presidential succession. Clayton McCarty was a good man, but the challenges of transitioning during the Chunxiao crisis would be formidable.

  15

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  21 September 2017

  Prince Mustafa labored through an evening reception with delegates from the Gulf Cooperative Council. He struggled to maintain a friendly face as he contemplated the crucial meeting he would soon have with his conspiratorial brothers.

  He excused himself early, under the pretense of not feeling well, and hastily left on a zig-zag route to his clandestine meeting. He had heard earlier today that security forces were picking up suspicious signals, and he was fearful of being followed. He was last to arrive and, following a short prayer, he started the meeting.

  “My brothers,” he said, with tension in his voice all could sense, “the time for jihad is near. Our preparations are well under way. Unfortunately, this has necessitated stepped-up communications, military movements, and money transfers and this, of course, creates a serious risk of discovery. I have it on good authority that our government—and possibly even one or more foreign governments—is getting suspicious of increased electronic traffic and other activities they can’t fully explain. We cannot maintain this high state of readiness for long; it is simply too risky. We will have to move soon or go underground for a long time to come. I want to do a complete run-through of our plan tonight to make sure we are fully prepared to strike soon. If not, we will shut it down. Am I clear?”

  “You are clear, Prince Mustafa,” said Prince Bawarzi. “Like you, I am concerned by the heightened risk of exposure from activities that have to be taken. I have been in constant communication with supportive brigade commanders, and they are conducting field maneuvers—even as we speak—that will better position them for our plan once launched.”

  “Thank you, my brother,” Mustafa said, not wishing to set Bawarzi off on one of his tangents. “I will be calling on all of you shortly for a readiness report, but first I wish to say a few things.

  “Permit me, if I may, to speak about our imminent revolution and jihad and why I believe it is precisely the right time in history for launching it.” He reached down for his bottle of water, never far from his side, and took a deep sip.

  “It is our solemn duty to protect the teachings of Allah. The infidels from the West, Israel, Iran and, sadly, within our own government and society, have worked against this effort. It is not getting better; it is getting worse. At the same time, our window of opportunity for carrying out the plan is limited. While Saudi Arabia is still the major force within OPEC and controls almost twenty percent of the world’s oil supply, the world will eventually migrate to alternative energy systems. Our oil will not be as coveted in the future as it is today. But at this moment we have extraordinary leverage because of our oil production and reserves, and we must u
se it while we still have it.” He waved off a comment that al-Hazari was about to make, not wishing to be interrupted.

  “I want you to think about this: while our population of thirty-one million people is small by global standards, we are large in many other important ways. Our kingdom is equal in land size to all of Western Europe, and we stand at the strategic crossroads of three continents—Europe, Africa, and Asia. Our proven oil reserves dwarf those of all other nations, and we have the unique ability to ramp up production even more. Our economy is powerful, and we have the most modern armed forces in the Middle East. We also have in our possession five nuclear bombs with delivery systems capable of hitting any target within 2,500 miles, as well as a supply of radioactive material sufficient to make good on our dirty bomb attack threats.”

  He refrained from mentioning that he himself had used his vast fortune to purchase nuclear weapons from North Korea and Pakistan on the black market, but they all knew the source of financing. They were warming to Prince Mustafa’s briefing.

  “Our most immediate enemies are, of course, the infidels from the West and their puppet, Israel. But, we are also challenged by Shiite apostates from Iran as they try to hijack the international Muslim community and use their nuclear weaponry to threaten other Arab nations. Iran is also trying to dominate OPEC, even though we produce almost five times the oil they do. Through our revolution and the jihad that follows, we will settle old scores and reestablish the supremacy of Allah in the hearts of all. It starts here in our homeland, but this will be nothing less than an international holy war—the mother of all jihads. There is no middle ground once we start. We either triumph or perish, and we will do anything and everything to accomplish our ends. May Allah be with us!”