DAY I
THE WHITE HOUSE
Charlie walked into the President's outer office and Debbie Fiderer was already sat at her desk. Charlie looked at his watch.
"It's quarter to six on Sunday morning. What are you doing here?"
"What makes you think I ever leave. For all you know, I have a bed under this desk and spend my nights walking the halls and offices in quiet solitude." Charlie looked at her and raised and eyebrow, and Debbie shrugged. "I need the overtime. I wanna buy a Trans Am."
"A Trans Am?"
Debbie looked up from her paperwork at the tone of sarcasm in Charlie's voice.
"Yes, Mr Derisory, A Trans Am. What, you don't think a middle aged woman can own a muscle car?" Charlie looked confused. It was too early in the morning for a conversation this left field.
"I'm going in there to...I left something in there last night."
Debbie regarded him carefully.
"Really. What was it?"
"Important papers...of state."
"Oh, important papers of state" Debbie parroted. "You're going in there to hide his newspaper aren't you? Hoping he'd forget the score last night and that pressing matters of Government would mean that he'd forget the bet."
Charlie looked agast.
"You know it's probably a federal offence to use the intercom to eavesdrop on the President."
Debbie laughed.
"If only you knew. Anyway you're too late..." As she finished, President Bartlett came swooping out of his office.
"Mrs Fiderer, I thought I heard you talking to someone out here, someone whose voice carried the heavy tone of defeat." The President looked at Charlie and smiled. "Hand it over."
Charlie sighed.
"Before I do that Mr President, I should point out that it's illegal to bet on sporting events in the District of Columbia."
"Yeah yeah yeah. I'll pardon myself. 50 bucks please."
Charlie fumbled for his wallet.
"You do know that second touchdown wasn't - The running back went out of bounds."
"Write to the Big East Commisioner, I've got his address somewhere. In the mean time, Charles Xavier Young, ponder this. There are scientists at Stanford University right now, theoretical physicists no less, working on a paper attempting to prove the multiple universe theory. They say that there are innumerable alternate universes to this one, universes where the human race never evolved, where the Nazi's won World War II, where dinosaurs still rule the earth, however, in none of them does The University of South Dakota beat The West Virginia Mountaineers."
Debbie looked at Charlie.
"Seriously? I come from Sioux Falls and even I wouldn't take that bet."
Charlie handed over his money and the President snatched it away.
"Consider this a valuable life lesson my naive young assistant."
"Yes sir, Mr President. You do know my middle name isn't Xavier, right?"
"Well I'm sure I can decree it somewhere - I've got that power, right Debbie?"
Debbie smiled.
"I'm sure you have Sir. I'll dig out the paperwork."
The President stuffed Charlie's money in his jeans pocket.
"Now you can take your bitterly learned lesson and go home. It's Sunday, for crying out loud."
"Yes Sir, Mr President." Charlie was headed to the exit when Percy Fitzwallace burst through the door, with several high ranking military officers trailing behind him. The President looked at them all.
"Doesn't anyone ever go home in this place?" The look on Fitzwallace's face stopped him cold. "What is it?"
"Can we go into your office?, Sir?"
Bartlett showed them in and shut the door behind them, leaving Charlie and Debbie looking at each other, thoughts of bets and muscle cars and homes immediately replaced by growing disquiet.
THE OVAL OFFICE
"Mr President..." Fitzwallace began as they all sat down "...as you know, in 1980, President Reagan signed executive order 543, which authorised a CIA project called Operation Telegraph. Telegraph was aimed at giving us advanced early warning of a Soviet nuclear first strike by monitoring a range of internal Soviet 'triggers' that indicated an increased military posture. Since 1990, the CIA has continued to run Telegraph on a care and maintenance footing, and in the last few months we had started to pick up some alarming signals..."
"Come on Fitz" The President interrupted. "Relations with Russia are pretty cordial at the moment. I met Chigorin at the G8 summit three months ago. We had dinner. He's a modernist, he's a good guy."
"Mr President, Please." Fitzwallace cut the President off. "You'll know from your intelligence briefings that this autumn the Russian harvest failed. That's the third failure in five years. The WHO are predicting a technical famine in Russia this winter if they can't make up the shortfall on the open market. Kolarun has also been purging the army of high ranking generals. Last week, in a speech so low-key hardly anyone picked it up, he called for a reduction in military spending by 33% over the next five years. He's already made cuts equating to 15% since he came into office last year."
"Fitz, I know all this - I do read the national security briefing."
"I know sir. About two hours ago, The CIA listening station in Kharkiv in Ukraine started picking up hugely increased radio chatter from the Russian military. At around the same time, there were major power outages reported in Moscow, St Petersburg, Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. Approximately an hour ago, a Southeastern airlines 747 scheduled to land at Moscow international airport was informed by air traffic control that the airport was closed due to 'technical difficulties'. They are now en route to Minsk in Belarus, however, we've since heard that the same thing has happened to an Air France Airbus and a Czech Airlines 767. In response, the NSA did a satellite pass over Moscow airport 35 minutes ago. There are troops on the ground and APCs and tanks on the runway. Russian State TV and Radio went off the air ten minutes ago."
"Fitz..." The President said slowly, absorbing the rush of information, none of which he liked. "What are you saying?"
"Mr President. I think, and the CIA agree, that we appear to be in the early stages of a military coup in Russia."
The President stared at the military officers sat in a semi-circle in front of him. Their faces were like stone and didn't reflect the shock he was sure was laid out across his own.
"How sure are you?" He directed the question at Fitz.
"It's confused at the moment. State are trying to get hold of the Russian foreign ministry without success so far and the Russian Embassy doesn't have any more idea of what's going on than we do. Associated Press and the BBC are reporting troops on the streets in several Russian cities. There's no domestic TV and Radio...If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, Mr President..."
The President rubbed his eyes. Abbey was still asleep in the Residence, and for once Zoe was home too. He wasn't planning on being in that morning, he just couldn't resist putting one over on Charlie. Man, things went downhill fast in this job.
"We need to find Chigorin..." As the President began, Leo burst through the door of his office.
"There's a coup in Russia and we found out about it FROM THE BBC?" Leo didn't sit, but stood simmering at each of the military men in turn. "Remind me again, what was the annual budget for the CIA last year?" He noticed that the head of the CIA wasn't there. "Where the hell is Rollie?"
"He's fishing with his son in Montana." Fitz replied. "Leo, no-one's as pissed that we missed this as I am, but we can kick people around when the dust settles. Right now I'm more worried about the ballistic missile submarines hanging around off Chesapeake Bay and especially in finding out which side of this thing they're on." He turned to the President with Leo still glowering at him. "Sir, we have no idea where President Chigorin is, or even if he's still alive. With respect, that isn't our first problem."
"What is?" Leo had finally sat down and had calmed down a little.
"We need to know what level of support this has in the Russian armed forces. That'll tell us if this is going to be over quickly, or whether it won't..." Fitz left the implication hanging in the air.
"How?" The President asked.
"We don't have contacts in the Russian Army, but the Chinese do, so we'll talk to our contacts in Beijing." He looked at Leo and the President in Turn. "At some point, we'll need to think about appropriate defensive measures."
Leo and the President exchanged a glance. They weren't ready to go there yet.
"Get working on your contacts in the Chinese military. We'll meet in the Situations Room in half an hour. Lets get our facts straight before we start issuing orders." The President stood up indicating an end to the meeting. "And get George Rollie back here now, I don't care if the Montana Air National Guard have to fly him back themselves, get him here."
Fitz nodded.
"Thank you Mr President."
When they'd left, Leo and Jed sat back down.
"I sat with him, Leo. At the G8. He told me things were tough, but why didn't we see this coming? He's a decent guy trying to drag his country into the 21st Century."
Leo sighed and rubbed his neck.
"I know one thing, I'm gonna have Rollie's head on a stick after this thing is over." He paused. "We should get the staff in. This is going to break in the next half an hour and we need lines prepared. I'll also get Hutchinson and Berryhill in too."
"Let's also start briefing Max Lobell, I don't want the chair of the House Intelligence Committee spouting off about the CIA on 60 minutes before this thing is done. As soon as Berryhill gets here, he's getting the Russian Ambassador in a room." The President looked at Leo. "How did we miss this Leo?"
"I don't know Mr President. We dropped the ball on this one."
"Then let's pick it up. Fast".
THE WHITE HOUSE: OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF
"IT'S A COUP, LEO!" Toby shouted. "IT'S NOT THE SCORES OF THE IRISH TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP! WHAT ARE WE PAYING THE CIA TO DO?"
Toby, Josh, C.J. and Will sat in Toby's office. None were taking the news particularly well, but as usual, Toby was giving voice to their concern. Loud, penetrating voice.
"Well, first of all..." Leo began "...as second generation Irish American, I'm pretty sure there is no Irish Table Tennis championship..." Toby threw his hands in the air in exaspiration, but Leo continued. "...and secondly, you're not saying anything to me I didn't say to The President 15 minutes ago. We'll deal with the CIA later. Right now we need to work on this. The BBC broke the news half an hour ago and CNN are now running it as the lead story."
"I've already had calls from CNN, Fox and the Post." C.J. chipped in.
"We'll need to start answering some of them. We'll take the line that there's still considerable confusion in Russia at the moment, we're working with NATO allies and others to establish what's going on, but that we don't have anything concrete yet, and we'll provide a more detailed statement when we do." C.J. nodded as she wrote down the bones of her first press statement on the situation.
"Toby, Lewis Berryhill is coming in to meet the Russian Ambassador. I want you in the room." Toby looked exaspirated.
"Why? I don't speak Russian. You don't need me in there."
"I'd rather you were in there holding Berryhill's hand than walking the corridors here with access to sharp objects when Rollie arrives." Leo looked his Communications head in the eye. Toby remained unconvinced, but shrugged his shoulders in resignation. The Chief of Staff turned to Will.
"Will, you need to work with Berryhill's staff and C.J. to produce the text that the President will give in a televised address to the Nation tonight. Pass a first draft by Toby before 11am." Will nodded silently and looked over at C.J. Finally, Leo looked over at Josh.
"I want you to familiarise yourself with the Continuity of Government Act. Talk to Lobell and make yourself an expert." Josh looked agast.
"Leo, isn't that way over the top?"
"Probably, but in case it isn't, I don't want to be trawling through the Library of Congress with Lionel Tribbey whilst someone at Cheyenne Mountain is giving the President the bad news."
Josh nodded his head.
"I had Redskins tickets for this afternoon." He added plaintively. "They were on the third row, centre field. They were playing The Ravens."
"If this thing goes south, at least you won't be sat in an E-8 over the Barents Sea directing in air strikes." Will added gloomily.
"No-one's going to be directing anything anywhere." Leo said. "We don't know what's going on yet, so how about we keep the glass half full for now?"
Toby snorted, and it generated the first set of smiles of the morning.
"Sometimes..." he began, "...it's like we never met before this moment, Leo."
TBC...