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"It means that we have it and the terrorists don't." Reimer commented. "At the same time, however, my people haven't had enough time to ascertain the specific configuration of the mass."
Jones waved her hands in front of her face and in an unusually conciliatory tone said, "Mr. Reimer, I'm sorry, but I'm not following you. Could you put this in simple English for those of us who don't have a technical background?"
"Simply put," Reimer sighed, "We don't know if this damn thing is critical and ready to blow or not." He could tell he'd finally got everyone's undivided attention. "We have to move cautiously with it. We can't simply rip open the door of the container and start rummaging around for the device. It could be booby-trapped, so my people are just now getting ready to X-ray the container in an effort to ascertain the configuration and design of the device."
The president cautiously folded his arms across his chest and said, "Give me your best-and worst-case scenarios."
Reimer shrugged, "Best case the thing never got this far."
"But it has," the president said firmly.
"Best case," Reimer shrugged again, "the device has yet to be armed, and it's relatively easy to secure and dispose of. Worst-case scenario someone is waiting for the container in Charleston and they discover that we're onto them."
"And?"
"They remotely detonate the device, sir, and in the blink of an eye the city of Charleston is history."
The president glanced up at his secretary of Homeland Security who had only minutes ago lobbied hard for locking down the city. He made a mental note to himself and addressed Reimer again. "What do you advise we do at this point?"
"Before we do anything, sir, we need to find out exactly what is in that container. That's going to take
a little bit of time and a lot of patience. Once we know what we're up against we can deal with it. We've got the Delta Force WMD render safe team on its way down from Fort Bragg, and until they're on site my team is more than capable of conducting diagnostics and design analysis."
"How much time are we talking?" asked Hayes.
"Within thirty minutes my people should have a pretty complete picture of what we're up against."
"And if it's armed and ticking?"
"We'll have an in extremis situation and Delta's going to have to work real fast, sir."
The president scratched his chin and said, "All right, Mr. Reimer. Good work and let us know the second you find anything else out."
* * *
Forty-Three
The dissention started almost immediately, and it was no surprise that it originated from Mount Weather, where Vice President Baxter, Secretary of the Treasury Keane, and DHS Secretary McClellan were cloistered. In hindsight, it had been a very bad idea to put the three of them in same location, for each man had a Chicken Little streak in him that under normal circumstances was barely tolerable, but in the midst of a real crisis could manifest itself as near hysteria.
Attorney General Stokes stayed out of it at first. He had been doing a lot of thinking over the last hour, and not just about the immediate events that were going to shape history. He was looking ahead to what the future might hold. The habit had been drilled into him by his mother. Every crisis has a moment where either things slide over the precipice, or disaster is averted. Most people run for cover, panic, overreact, or freeze, but the cunning find opportunity in the midst of chaos, and this crisis was a tectonic event. If this bomb went off, Stokes knew he would be forever associated with a president who didn't act fast enough.
Screw the Department of Homeland Security. The American people had only a vague concept of what it was supposed to do. The Department of Justice and the FBI were a different story. Citizens knew that domestically it was the president and then the attorney general who were in charge of protecting them.
And presidents were rarely sacrificed, at least not until the next election. Members of the president's cabinet were an entirely different story, however. When a full-blown crisis exploded they were used like vestal virgins in an attempt to satiate some pagan god on a far-flung piece of volcanic rock. First you were fed to the press, piece by piece. Your career and reputation in tatters, you were then sent packing back to wherever it was you came from, where you could count on people who once called you a close friend to treat you as if you had the plague. Yes, in Washington the mighty could fall fast and far, but Attorney General Martin Stokes had no intention of becoming a footnote to some modern-day Greek tragedy.
Always the realist, however, he understood that trying to dodge this particular bullet, this late in the game, would be futile. There was a remote chance that he could throw Secretary McClellan under the bus. Homeland Security was only in its infancy compared to the other cabinet-level departments, but had nonetheless already garnered a reputation as a place staffed by incompetents. Even so, with a disaster of this magnitude, it was likely that it would take more than one cabinet member to appease the wrath that would come down from the Hill, the press, and public in general. No, this thing was too big to get out of the way of. The best play was to cement his relationship with the president and hope that this Reimer fellow and his NEST people were as good as advertised.
The bickering from the Mount Weather facility had been going on for several minutes. Secretary McClellan was once again proposing that Charleston be locked down. Morning rush hour was underway, and with each passing minute, he argued, hundreds if not thousands of people were becoming targets. At a bare minimum he wanted the traffic coming into the city stopped. Secretary of the Treasury Keane said if they shut down Charleston, they would have to shut down the financial markets and get out in front of the likely panic.
Midway through this debate, Stokes noticed the absence of General Flood and Secretary of Defense Culbertson. He supposed they were busy dealing with the other three ships on their list. Stokes was about to jump into the fray when Vice President Baxter made the poor decision to bring politics into the equation.
"Robert," proclaimed Baxter, "We're up for reelection. If this thing goes off, and the press finds out we knew about it, and did nothing to secure the safety of the citizens of Charleston your administration is over."
Stokes knew Vice President Sherman Baxter well enough to know he wasn't a stupid man, so he supposed it was his pride that had finally got the best of him. It was no secret that President Hayes had all but shunned his vice president. The Electoral College had forced them into bed together, and, at first, things went well enough, but not for long. Baxter was from California and, as promised, he filled the campaign coffer and helped deliver the most prized state in the Union. After that, though, things went quickly downhill. Baxter had slowly but surely been isolated. It seemed he'd spent the majority of the last two years either abroad or raising money. On any issue of importance, he was noticeably absent.
Rumors circulated everywhere that he would be replaced on the ticket, and Stokes supposed he had chosen this as his moment to be heard. Stokes had his own plans, however, and so like a loyal knight, he jumped to the defense of his president.
In an unusually loud and forceful voice Stokes said, "I think everyone needs tocalm the hell down and leave politics out of this."