On Fire

The President is six stories underground, beneath the White House East Wing, the room popularly known as the bunker. To the government it is the President’s EOC, or Emergency Operations Center. Built long ago for Roosevelt, it is still the place where Presidents shelter at times of imminent threat. Considered able to survive any kind of attack, it cannot, of course, survive a direct nuclear hit.

  Today the executive briefing room is packed with officials from various agencies participating in a joint exercise. They are to coordinate with a variety of states and cities in the path of a hypothetical hurricane making its way up the East Coast. It is an exercise that has been drilled to by a number of the affected organizations now for over a year. This occasion is the penultimate debut of thousands of man hours of training at all levels of the United States government. After this, everything that happens will become a part of training packages, training packages that will be made available to other states and localities throughout the nation, government preparation in the guise of theater, or theater in the guise of government preparation, take your pick.

  Centered at the brightly lit table, the President has the mostly blue, round seal of the Office of the President of the United States affixed to the wall behind him. The Seal is flanked on one side by a screen showing the path of the hurricane as projected to sweep along the East Coast. On the other side is a TV screen showing a presumably current satellite view of the strengthening storm. Dressed in a blue jacket with the Presidential Seal on it, the President wears it over a white shirt, collar open, a studied, casual, yet official, look.

  A very concerned army general in fatigues sits on the President’s right, but to his left is the Director of FEMA. Around the rest of the table are about a dozen other federal representatives, mostly in blue jackets, all men except for two women. On the table before each of the attendees are large presidentially blue nametags, each with a long official title neatly embossed. Microphones have been placed around so that anyone wishing to may easily grab one. Their faces are gauntly shadowed by the room’s subdued lights but behind them in chairs lined up chock a block along the walls sit their deputy and assistant cohorts. The deputies and assistants sit on metal folding chairs in the dark created by turning down the can lights in the ceiling and just using the spots on the table. The deputies and assistants, ready to be called upon at a moment’s notice, follow what transpires carefully in order to be able to fill in any essential details that might be required by their bosses.

  High, next to one of the doors to the room, all of which are closed, is an electronic sign with luminous red letters stating “On Air”.

  But the sign has just blinked off.

  Everybody at the table understands the signal. They lean back in their chairs in concert. The people sitting around the edge of the room, despite their responsibility to miss nothing, also relax, some standing, others just stretching. The On Air sign has only been on for the last forty-five minutes, but to everyone in the room it seems much longer. The President has agreed to give the Raleigh people five minutes to pull together information on their state’s available emergency response.

  It’s not much time for a real break.

  The well-dressed woman sitting behind the President has been watching communications come in on her phone, relayed by the staff upstairs. As soon as they are signaled off air, she is up and leaning in to catch the President’s ear.

  “Mr. President, there’s been an incident in Poland,” she says with a slight but convincing trace of concern in her voice.

  Chapter 82