Джейсон Росс: The Last Air Force One

Power companies employed a perplexing array of software solutions—DigSilent, SKM, ERACS, CYME, ETAP, RSCAD and PSSE, just to name a few. The virus penetrated software like a lothario working a singles bar. First, it would try a pick-up line, then buy drinks, next, hit on the “ugly friend.” Eventually, the virus got into everyone’s pants.

Cincinnati and the surrounding areas were almost entirely spared, thus far. Baltimore and D.C. had gone entirely dark. The Carolinas and Georgia were experiencing rolling brownouts. In Indianapolis, they couldn’t even connect with cell phones—everything had gone down.

That made Dutch think about his in-laws. Sharon’s parents lived in Indianapolis in a posh retirement community twenty minutes outside the big city. The president got up from his chair and walked back to his family.

“Sharon, have you had contact with your folks?”

She looked up from the paperback novel she was reading. His wife loved thrillers, this one with a shadowy figure with a pistol on the cover. “No, I didn’t think we could call out on our phones during a WarFlight exercise. At least, that’s what they told us in the briefing.”

“I’m pretty sure you can connect in the comms center upstairs. They’ll manage the security. Go call your folks. I’m worried.”

“Is there a problem?” Sharon put down her book and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“The blackouts are hitting Indianapolis pretty hard. Let’s see if their cell phones work. They’re not getting connectivity within the city. Maybe Indianapolis didn’t have as good a battery backup system. Or maybe the virus got into the cell networks.”

Dutch and Sharon walked forward together toward the stairs at the front of the plane.

“What about your mom and dad in Bishop? Are you concerned with what’s happening in California?”

Somebody had been keeping Sharon briefed, Dutch noted.

“The town of Bishop is a hell of a long ways off the beaten path. I’m sure they’re getting some refugees up the backside of the Sierras, but I’d hate to be the guy who pushed his luck with my old man.”

“Still… I’ll go ahead and call them too.” Dutch and Sharon arrived at the staircase and Sharon climbed toward the comms center while Dutch continued on to the Oval Office.

“Ithink I’ve found a way to justify troops,” Zach Jackson announced. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll keep us out of trouble when Congress resumes. Protests are not the same as riots, and we’ve never seen a president respond to civil disorder with troops in EVERY major city. We could potentially be prosecuted.”

Like all lawyers, Zach generally couched things in terms of absurd future risk. Never had a president been incarcerated for a crime.

“Go on…” Dutch nodded to his attorney general.

“We can take two approaches. The Obama administration passed this bit of language where we can claim that there is a threat of radiological weapons being used against major U.S. cities. We don’t have any evidence of a threat other than the L.A. bomb, but that’s a carve out from Posse Comitatus and we can use it. It’s weak, but if we combine it with the stated purpose of the Insurrection Act—to prevent national rebellion—we could buy ourselves some wiggle room. It’s not entirely without precedent. They used the same logic to send in Army and Marines during the D.C. riots in ‘68 and the L.A. riots in ’92. We don’t have widespread riots to back us up, but hopefully, by the time troops are in position, you’ll have the riots you need.”

“Jesus, Zach. I’m hoping to stop riots, not use them.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you. If you stop the riots before they happen, then our legal justification evaporates.”

“What about the looting last night?” Dutch challenged.

“That helps, but it wasn’t enough to trigger states to call up guard units outside of California. It’s a huge stretch to call them riots, especially when they’re protesting racially-biased utility access. And I assume you’ll be sending troops into other cities that have no rioting at all. To my knowledge, we don’t have an invite from any governor or mayor other than California’s.” The attorney general held out his hands. “That’s all I’ve got. There’s non-inconsequential legal risk here, Dutch.”

“Thank you, Zach. What are our next steps?”

“I need to draw up a request for Sam to send troops to intercept nuclear devices that we both know don’t exist. Unfortunately, I’ll have to sign the request myself, so it looks like you and I are in this together.”

“Well,” the President joked, “if we wind up in prison, I’ll let you have the bottom bunk. How’s that sound?”

“That doesn’t sound funny, Mister President.”

Sam Greaney knocked on the door and walked into the awkward pause in the conversation.

“What’s the news? Are we rolling tanks or not?” Sam challenged, oblivious to the tension in the room.

Dutch tried to clear his mind, flipping back to a montage, three years earlier as he stumped along the campaign trail across the American South. He imagined the cities, waking up one by one as the sun rose across the country.

Charleston. Atlanta. Montgomery. Baton Rouge. Houston.

He pictured the young punks, sleeping off a night of mischief, in their beds, still living under their mothers’ roofs in crowded low-income housing. He pictured the single moms, alone in their mass-built duplexes on the fringes of the cities, wondering when the electricity would return. He thought about African American children, frightened at the kitchen table, staring at a box of cereal, tuned to their parents’ concern. He saw the retired pastor he’d met in New Orleans, his wife having just passed away. Dutch saw him wake up in his tiny urban home, flip the light switch and furrow his brow as nothing happened.

Dutch tried to take in all of America at once, three-hundred and twenty-five million people, and he weighed their fear, their vulnerability and their trust in him.

Most of them didn’t understand the law or the Constitution. What they understood was food, water and electricity. They knew when their house was too hot or too cold. They knew when a flood, a fire or an invisible blanket of fallout threatened their children.

Those Americans could no longer care for themselves with the lights out, except in small pockets of hardy folk like his mom and dad. Most would expect the government to care for them, and right now, Dutch was the government.

They would want him to take command of the situation, regardless of the law.

“Sam. Send the Army into every city over 100,000 people. Send them armed, but I want a total weapons lockdown. This is a show of force, nothing more. Please do it now.”

“Yes, sir.” Sam Greaney set his coffee mug on Dutch’s desk and walked out of the Oval Office.

As Dutch contemplated the decision he had just made, alone in his office, a gentle knock on the door broke his reverie.

“Come in, Sharon.”

“You okay, Dutch? You look shaken. And you need a shower.” Sharon smiled.

It amazed Dutch how Sharon still took his breath away—the only person who would tell the President of the United States that he needed a shower. Sharon moved through the world like gentle storm, lightly refreshing the land, but capable of bringing focused destruction when necessary. Somehow, she had taken a moment to “freshen up” which meant she looked like a million bucks, despite being on an emergency WarFlight on Air Force One.

Even in her mid-sixties, Sharon kept her hair long and colored in the fashion of the day. Right now, she wore it slightly-platinum blonde with a darker shade at the roots. Dutch had no idea what to call the coloring, but he saw it on younger women in the political circles of power. Sharon had maintained an excellent figure, especially considering the natural drift of age. She filled the role of first lady with impeccable poise and decorum, and everyone in the belt loop figured her for a beautiful political wife with a decorous, professional degree buried in her long-forgotten past.