William Tyree - Line of Succession

The Pentagon’s most powerful duo spent the afternoon in an aspen grove overlooking a busy game trail. They saw deer by the dozen and elk by the truckload. By dusk they had both bagged big bucks. They butchered the animals themselves, hauling the prime cuts out on their backs and leaving the rest for the coyotes.

They spent the evening eating venison, drinking 12-year-old cognac and smoking Dominican cigars by firelight. As always, the conversation eventually turned to politics. Wainewright was candid about his feelings about the President’s policies. That was no surprise. He waited until Farrell’s third glass of cognac to veer into the unexpected.

“Ed,” he said, using Farrell’s first name for the first time in ages, “There’s a movement among certain members of congress to remove the President.”

Farrell shook his head. “There’s not enough votes for impeachment. Trust me, I’m following it too.”

“I’m not talking impeachment,” Wainewright said.

The Vice-Chairman sipped his liquor. “Then what are you talking about?”

“Removal.”

Farrell laughed. “Careful,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re talking-”

“ Removal ,” Wainewright confirmed.

Farrell was quiet for a moment as the implications of the conversation dawned on him. He set his drink on the table, extinguished the cigar in an ash tray and replaced it with an unfiltered cigarette. “I take it you didn’t bring me out here just to hunt.”

The Chairman puffed his cigar and looked up at a bison head that his great-grandfather had killed. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to discuss it. No pressure at all.”

Farrell knew better. Wainewright had no patience for anyone that wasn’t rowing in the same direction that he was. This conversation was a test. If he didn’t seem amenable, he’d find himself out of the Joint Chiefs — or worse — by the end of the year.

“General,” Farrell said, “you’re a registered Republican, right?”

“I’m beyond the party system, Ed.”

Farrell took that to mean that Wainewright now considered himself a revolutionary. “So these members of Congress…” Farrell said, treading as lightly as he could. “They theoretically advocate drastic measures.”

“Not theoretically. It’s real, Ed. It’s obvious to everyone that the executive branch has accumulated too much power. Fact: we’re on track to suffer twelve thousand combat casualties this year, and we’ll have nothing to show for it but more enemies. Fact: our annual foreign aid to Israel and its neighbors alone costs us more in one year than it would cost to fix social security for the next ten years.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But still-”

“Fact: twelve states are running out of clean drinking water, and the President is doing nothing to stop it.”

The Vice-Chairman tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Was this the cognac talking, or was Wainewright for real?

“General,” he began, not quite comfortable with calling Wainewright by his first name, “these member of Congress you mentioned. Maybe we could help them get the votes they need.”

“Impeachment?” Wainewright laughed. “The Vice-President would just continue the same policies.”

“Point taken. But the line of succession would be the same regardless of how the President left office.”

Wainewright smiled. “We think alike, my friend. Which is why I told them that their plans were far too conservative. Removal by assassination is too short-sighted. They’re not thinking big.”

Farrell felt dizzy. “Big?’

“We’ve known each other for thirty-five years. You know I’m no secessionist, and I’m sure as hell not a socialist. You know I love this country. But you have to admit that we’re being outmaneuvered by emerging governments that combine free markets, a strong military and strong central government.”

“You mean China.”

Wainewright nodded. “Not just China. Fact: Russia is buying our debt and selling it back to us at prices we can’t even afford.” He pounded his fist on the table. “Russia, Ed!”

Farrell lit another cigarette. “I think it’s important to remember that we still live in the greatest country in the world.”

“Not even close. We’re at best the nineteenth or twentieth greatest country in the world. But there’s a powerful movement afoot, Ed. The fog is lifting.”

That night, Farrell went to bed so shaken that he could not sleep. By morning he had developed several stress boils on his neck, shoulders and back.

The cabin phone rang at 10:36 a.m. with the news that a car bomb in Santa Monica had killed 170 people. The Joint Chiefs were summoned to the White House for an emergency Security Council meeting. A helicopter took them to Fort Collins, where they boarded a private jet bound for Washington.

The NSC convened five hours later at the White House, where President Hatch informed them that, in response to Indonesian radicals claiming responsibility for the bombing, they would open up a new military front in Indonesia. The decision came despite the fact that the U.S. military was already stretched beyond capacity. It came without any proof whatsoever that Allied Jihad forces battling the government in Indonesia were behind the bombing. It came without any room in the country’s three-trillion-dollar deficit. But the public wanted revenge and the President had decided to take the fight to the terrorists. He wasn’t interested in the Joint Chiefs’ arguments to the contrary.

After the meeting, the two Generals shared a car back to the Pentagon. They were quiet until they entered the Pentagon parking garage. “About what you said last night,” Farrell said. “I’d like to discuss that more.”

Eleven days later General Farrell received an invitation to attend a private dinner at General Wainewright’s home near Alexandria. He was specifically instructed not to bring his wife or any other date. Upon pulling up to Wainewright’s home — a six-bedroom estate with Greek columns in front — a parking attendant led him inside, where Wainewright’s assistant, Corporal Hammond, swept his clothes with a metal detector and placed his phone in a safe near the front door.

He was led to a dining room where the other two Joint Chiefs — General Shufford of the Air Force and Admiral Bennington of the Navy — were already seated, along with the head of the House Foreign Intelligence Committee, the Secretary of the Interior, and junior senators from Texas, Georgia and Utah. The room was lit with ancient chandeliers and the walls were paneled with red and black leather.

“Welcome,” Wainewright said, gesturing for Farrell to sit next to him at the head of the table. He closed the door and locked it, leaving Corporal Hammond outside. “FYI, the walls and ceiling are soundproofed and the room was swept for bugs less than an hour ago. We are quite free to say what we must.”

General Wainewright spent the next 45 minutes explaining in detail how he had already arranged for the construction of a secret command facility in West Virginia from which to operate during the early stages of the operation. Then he outlined how he planned to utilize Ulysses and, indirectly, the Iranians to help achieve their goals. “This is nothing less than a second American Revolution,” he said.

Admiral Bennington was the first to raise his hand. His jowls framed his 62-year-old pale face into a nearly perfect rectangle. “I agree that our relationship with Israel is hurting us,” he said. “The drain on our economy is undeniable. But I’m not too keen on the Iranians.”

“I should remind everyone that during the first American Revolution, nobody wanted help from the French either.”