Who's In Charge?

Source

"Accura¹ Niner-One, Acrobat on Guard." As soon as 1st Lieutenant Owens had switched to Guard frequency, he heard someone calling him. Checking his kneeboard, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, Acrobat was a Secret Service callsign!

"Tusker, hold off, I've got Acrobat on Guard."

He radioed his lead, she too switched to Guard and heard the call.

"Acrobat, Accura Niner-One."

"Niner-One, abort mission and Return to Base, immediately."

"Sir ..."

"Immediately, Niner-One. Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Four, Zulu."

She checked her kneeboard, the guy was legitimate. That was the correct abort code.

"Copy."

"You heard the man, Niner-Two, Romeo Tango Bravo."

"Two."

Colonel Mackay breathed a sigh of relief when control notified him that the Raptors had been called off. He looked to his left at his co-pilot, Major Williamson just shook his head. At that moment a voice from the back of the aircraft came over the intercom.

"Colonel, where's the nearest hospital?"

Williamson had the answer in seconds, "Sibley Memorial is a mile behind us, that's the closest with a helipad."

Mackay called back, "Sibley Memorial, what's the problem?"

"POTUS has had what appears to be a massive heart attack, he's barely got a pulse."

Mackay brought the aircraft around and had Williamson call in the emergency.

"We'll be there in less than five minutes."

The chief of the President's Security detail came forward to the cockpit and leaned over, speaking directly to Mackay. "Make it quick, I think the President is dead."

Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Ramirez led his detachment of three attack helicopters from HMLA-167, the Warriors, AH-1Z Vipers, also called Zulu Cobras, as they penetrated the airspace over Washington DC.

So far he didn't like what he saw, the major highways into the District were blocked by military units. He went low over one and recognized the troops manning that roadblock were from the Army. Others were manned by Marines.

At one point in their reconnaissance over the city they had been contacted on Guard by someone claiming to be the Commandant. Ramirez knew the Commandant personally, the guy on the radio, even with the crappy reception, was not the Commandant. He wondered what the hell was going on down there.

2nd Lieutenant Manny Gonzalez came on the intercom, "Was that guy claiming to be the Commandant for real?"

"No, Manny, I don't know who that was. I know the Commandant, that wasn't him. Maybe they've got that old prick locked up somewhere." There had been rumors of an admiral and a general being held in the brig at 8th and I. There were so many rumors flying around now that he didn't know what to believe.

The doctor came out into the waiting room, the White House Chief of Staff stood up, expecting to hear that the boss was dead. He looked expectantly at the surgeon.

"He's stable, but he's going to be out for a while. He suffered a massive heart attack, if you'd landed two minutes later, he'd be dead now. We've put him in an induced coma and ..."

"What?" the Chief of Staff nearly barked at the doctor.

That's when the chief of the President's security detail turned to one of his men and said, "Execute Plan Omega."

The Chief of Staff whirled around, "What the hell is that?"

"Sorry, Sir, you don't have a need to know."

"Wait a minute, while the President is ..."

"Sir, with respect, you are not the President, you are not in the line of succession to the Presidency. We are notifying those in the line of succession what has happened, we will try and contact the Vice President, but he's down in Louisiana with the Speaker of the House, for now the Vice ..."

The doctor stepped in between the two men, "You didn't know?"

"Know what?" the Chief of Staff barked.

The Secret Serviceman gestured to two of his agents, who had been riding in one of the other helicopters. They immediately took the Chief of Staff into custody and removed him from the room. The Service had protocol for this, none of which involved the universally disliked White House Chief of Staff.

"Well, doc, what don't we know?"

"The Vice President and the Speaker are both dead."

"What?"

"Their plane went down in the Mississippi Delta, NTSB is on the scene, they think it was mechanical failure, but all bodies on the plane have been recovered, there were no survivors."

The lead Secret Serviceman, one Sullivan Monroe, of Baton Rouge, LA, shook his head. One of his agents looked expectantly at him.

"Last I knew, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate was on Capitol Hill, can we get word to her?"

"I can try, Sir, but I'm betting we're going to have to go way down the list to find the next President. The situation is a mess out there, we've had reports of the Secretary of State resigning, the Secretary of the Treasury is nowhere to be found, the SecDef is holed up at Site R claiming to be in charge, and the Attorney General was arrested by some militia unit. No one knows her whereabouts either."

"Secretary of the Interior?"

"He's in West Virginia. He reported in just before we took off asking for orders. President told him to sit tight."

"Looks like he's it, for now. Where is he?"

"Site B."

"Can we get him to DC?"

"Sir, I'd recommend we send people there. Keep a detachment here to protect POTUS, another detachment to Site B to protect, well, I guess Secretary Nakagawa is now the interim POTUS."

The doctor, who had been listening in, asked, "Why don't you take this to Congress?"

Everyone in the room looked around, one of the junior agents spoke, "Are you sure you want those idiots in charge?"

¹ All callsigns are according to this site. And yes, I went back and updated the callsigns in an earlier post.