Perspectives: Continuity: 365 part 3 (Second Edition)
*See Authors notes in 365 part 1
*Blue Oyster Cult I just saw your note, sure I'd be glad for the help. If any one else is interested as well let me know.
**** Continuity Chapter 3 ***
*** 365 Part 3 ***
December 21, 2007 12:07 AM EST Beach in front of the Grand Wailea Resort, Wailea Beach Maui, Hawaii
If not for the overwhelming mood of seriousness the scene unfolding would have looked somewhat comical Joshua Lyman with his wet curly hair frizzing all over, standing in his marine blue and lime green half wetsuit and Dona in her neon pink and black half wetsuit each being assisted in their stumbling out of the launch with very little grace by marines. Josh getting caught up in the tide and losing his balance didn't help appearances as he ended up being almost carried out of the surf under the watchful eye a marine guard detail with waterproof carbines. Standing on shore watching were 4 high ranking navy officers in dress uniform one of whom was holding 3 year old Sarah Lyman in her frilly white swim suit with red trim and lime green water wings, and in full tantrum mode, all surrounded by heavily armed marines in battle gear. Joining the scene was Adriana Lyman still in her black swim suite, black and gold dressing robe, big floppy black hat and sun glasses, as she escorted a very solemn Admiral Percy Fitzwallace Ret. in oversized blue and white floral print swimming trunks, an open red and white floral print Hawaiian shirt, and flip flops, and his pissed off wife who was yelling at the marines who were escorting them to the rest of the group.
"Fitz! You old hound dog, I didn't know you where on the island. Any idea what they want with a couple of obviously retired men such as our selves?"
"Frankly, Josh I am not in the mood for frivolities I was just told that there were a whole lot of bombings on the main land including at one of my granddaughters schools and that My wife and I probably weren't safe at our condo and then they dragged my ass out here. How bout you, you look like you are well briefed."
"Yeah they came and collected Dona and I while we were out for a swim and told us that president Berryhill issued orders for heightened security, oh yeah Leos some how involved and that the big bay-liner out there was holding a group of terrorists who were going to shell the hotel and I get to go kick them later."
"President Berryhill?..."
Admiral Grey stepped away from the other officers and joined the group of soon to be ex-civilians. "If you two gentleman are done chatting perhaps I can fill you all in on what's happened over the last couple of hours. Dr. Fitzwallace would you mind terribly taking this young lady to the children's pool area she has been wanting to go for the last 15 minutes but we wanted the Lymans to see that she was safe and in good hands before letting her go play. One of the men escorting you will be happy to pick you something up from the bar and get you a line out to St. Luis to check in with your family."
"What about my mother? I'm assuming your briefing is going to contain some classified information and I don't think she has a very high security clearance."
"Mr. McGarry's assistant has been cleared for all of this."
"Leo's assistant? What happened to Margaret Connelly?"
"Your new assistant is currently on a government gulf-stream jet which should touch down in 2 hours 42 minutes."
"What the fu.."
"Joshua this will probably go a lot smoother if you let him talk."
"Thank you Mrs. Lyman."
"Please call me Donna, she's also Mrs. Lyman and well it's just easier."
"Kay, so here is the situation, at 10:03 AM Eastern Standard Time a small mortar shell hit the east wing of the Whitehouse killing President Russell as well as three of his Secret Service detail and critically injuring the first lady. Since then there have been 164 separate attacks hitting a broad range of targets and new attacks are being reported at an alarming pace. We haven't had enough time to shortlist of who's behind this yet. So right now let's just talk about how bad our chain of command has been hit. If it hadn't been for President Berryhill's visit to Leo McGarry this morning we would now be looking 8 places down the order of secession to find our next president. Several members of both the senate and the house were killed or injured when the capital building was hit and part of the dome collapsed, but since congress was in recess it is not as bad as it could have been. Most of the cabinet was taken out in individual attacks or when the car bomb went off outside of the OEOB. A large portion of the staff in the executive branch was killed in the OEOB attack or when they blew up the hotel that President Berryhill was staying at. 5 members of the Supreme Court have been confirmed dead
Nancy McNally is still unconscious at GW, and several key leaders in the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, ATF, and FTA along with the Joint Chiefs and CINCNORTH/CINCNORAD were all killed when an explosion went off inside of the bunker where they were meeting or in individual attacks. The Pentagon was hit worse than it was during 9/11. The headquarters of the most of our investigation and intelligence agencies were hit, including the FBI. Russell's chief of staff and communication director both are safe for the moment. The enemy has good intel and apparently some inside access. We obviously have some traitors at some high levels and it is not just personnel from this administration that they are targeting, obviously they were targeting you, Leo McGarry's home was hit minutes after the secret service extracted the president and him, Epcot Center was one of the first places hit this morning and that is where the Zeigler's were scheduled to be this morning. We have not been able to reach them so we are currently listing them as missing. Former President Newman is dead as is his wife, but we were able to move Walken to safety before any attack could be made against him, though he apparently has not stopped yelling at his agents because his little dog was killed in the process, (though its possible that it was one of our people that killed it). Hoynes was only superficially wounded but we haven't recovered his ex-wife yet. We were also able to secure the 4 other Supreme Court Justices as well as several a large number of other federal appellate court judges. The most demoralizing civilian fatality so far for most of you to hear will be that they hit the farm of Josiah Bartlett over an hour ago and he was pronounced dead just 15 minutes ago."
"Dear god! How is Abby holding up?" Donna gasped as everyone else silently processed all of this information, pained grief was impossible to hide for everyone. Donna's face went from shock to outrage to puzzlement "Not that I don't appreciate you taking the time to tell us and everything but I still don't understand why you are here telling us all of this, none of us work in the white house anymore and this is a time when obviously the country needs all of the remaining commanders, you know commanding. Yet here we are a retired admiral, a former senior official, his wife and his mother all of whom obviously pulled from recreational activities to be briefed by the commander of the pacific fleet who by the way has traveled from a whole different island to do this. The obvious question is why?"
Admiral Grey looked at the young woman for a moment then lifted his eyes to meet her husbands who gave him a look of understanding and encouragement. He quickly scanned the faces of the others all of whom had either been briefed before or trained to know what this conversation actually was. He paused a second longer as he decided how to put this, he had been briefed by the President and by Leo McGarry on the importance of handling this correctly. This was going to be productive they needed to come willingly, and with their eyes wide open. "The president spoke with Andrea Blake earlier, she has expressed that if there is someone better to handle this situation who is willing to step forward she is more than happy to step down as white house chief of staff and serve as one of his chief deputies."
"One of?" Josh asked, half in surprise at this departure in the pitch he was expecting, and half out of trying to help in the set up for the suspected second half of the pitch before the sand that had managed to work its way into his wetsuit worked it's way into places it really didn't belong or caused his arm to start bleeding as it scraped around between his tight sleeves and his arm.
"Yes," Grey answered grateful that Lyman was so quick on the uptake, and slightly reassured that maybe this guy was worth all of this extra hassle. "The President feels that there is going to be a tremendous amount of work going through that office so it would be prudent to increase the number of people to handle it. Also he feels that there is a highly qualified candidate that would otherwise not be able to take the position do to the additional restrictions that would be placed on the sole deputy do to the heightened security."
"What kind of restrictions?"
"Well travel for one thing, and where they could be outside of the office at the same time. For instance if there was only one deputy she would not be able to go to any unsecured location were the chief of staff was at the same time, such as a public restaurant, park or other non cordoned off location."
"And since there are two?"
"Well as long as one of them follows those restrictions then the other wouldn't those same restrictions, in fact if they found it easier to meet outside the white house, say if one of them needed to take care of a sick child at home or say they wanted to have lunch together outside the office they would be able to do so."
"Or they could even live in the same house or if they wanted to, right?"
"That's correct Mr. Lyman."
"Ok so are you trying to tell us that the president wants Josh to be his Chief of Staff and that he wants me to be one of his deputies?"
"Well you have built quite the reputation of being a formable force when you work as partners that far exceeds the sum of the independently highly qualified parts. This country needs the best people it can find to do important jobs and we really can't be too concerned if the most productive way for that to happen is to have spouses working with each other. You have developed a system that works exceptionally well and it would be foolish of us to come in and try and change it."
"It's not like there was any other way we could have handled Leo's retirement." Dona mumbled quietly. She was devoting so much of her mental capacity to accepting that one of her biggest hero's had past away, that when Grey triggered the memory of how they're capacity as partners became common knowledge throughout the upper levels of the government, that she was not able to censor herself. She quickly tried to change topics by asking "What about Sarah?"
"The president has been quite insistent that all of the senior staff with young children should be able to do their jobs and be parents to their children. 24 hour day care and security will be available on site or near where ever either parent is working, so whether you are in the white house or abroad your daughter will be able to be near by and have some one looking after her."
"Security?"
"Yes I'm afraid each of you will have to have your own Secret Service Detail, as will everyone in a household of senior staff members"
"Secret Service? What? I can see for Josh and maybe even for me but for Sarah? What is the press going to say?"
"Mam, we were hurt pretty badly today and everything is indicating that we're going to be bleeding for a while. The president's staff and their families will continue to be high priority targets. We almost lost your husband once, and if we had not put such high security measures in place you all would likely have been hit by the mortar attack that those terrorists in that boat over there were planning. Mam this president has expressed flexibility with regard to any of your concerns except when it comes to insuring your safety or that of your daughter. He is willing to take the hit from the press rather than risk losing any more key members of his staff. Also you have some protection afforded by the previous administration. Did you ever wonder why you never were asked to return your NSA cards after you left your positions?"
"Not really, Josh said something about residual communication concerns and that it had something to do with his consulting work, and that I shouldn't worry too much about it."
"Well the short answer is technically neither of you left government service you are both still officially classified as senior presidential advisors who are on indefinite extended leave without pay. Despite how you all thought of each other Russell took Bartlett's advice and kept both of you on. President Russell refused to give up on bringing Mr. Lyman inside his inner brain trust. Which will expedite the process if you both accept our proposal, since Ms. Blake is on a month to month contract while Russell continued his recruitment efforts she doesn't have to resign or be demoted, (both of which would be poorly received by the public). Both of you will both be reassigned from senior advisors into your new positions and she will just be hired on to fill this newly created position after deciding not to renew her current position.
"Ok Admiral, you've effective demonstrated spent a good deal of time in D.C. before moving out here, and that you know how the game is played. So seeing as you are on the inside and considerably more up to date on what is going on than us, I've got a question, who else is being tapped to staff the Berryhill administration?"
"You're going have to be more specific mam, we've been hit in a lot of areas, what area are you asking about in particular?"
"Well let's start with senior staff, analysts, and advisors, you know, the people we will be working with most closely in whatever form we decide to come back in."
Josh, anxious to get out of his sandy and quickly drying wetsuit was starting to lose patience with the conversation spoke up as he pulled at his sleeves. "Specifically what I want to know is; who is functioning right now and isn't going to crumble because they are casualties to heavy personal losses, mental or emotional breakdown, or debilitating injuries? I know everyone is going to be thrown off their game by all of this. Some are walking wounded and some are suiting up to play. Since you're trying to put together a team I would just like to know what our options are for a starting lineup."
Donna who had managed to maintain a composed appearance up until Josh mentioned Mental and emotional concerns and her face instantly lost all the color it had gained from weeks in the sun. "Josh …I didn't think of… how are you….are you ok?"
Everyone stopped at that. Grey found out about Josh's PTSD while preparing for this meeting as one of the things to be on the watch for, the rest were there after Roslyn and saw Josh wrestle those demons. While everyone else stood there not knowing what to say next, Josh took a moment to reflect and assess his status and realized that he didn't notice any of the signals that he was starting to have an attack. Noticing everyone's uneasiness with concern and Donna's obvious panic he knew he had to kill this concern right away. He reached out and grabbed Donna's limp hand and said:
"Yeah, I'm doing ok. In fact I'm a doing a lot better than a lot of people right now. That is probably why I'm doing so well right now. I'm not guaranteeing that I won't have an attack later on the line, especially after I talk to Leo and Abby, but I'm good right now. Donna, you will know when I having a problem, probably before I do. As I promised you, as long as I have you and Sarah, I have al I need to get through anything.
Mom, Fitz, you have seen me when I was going through the worst of it, I trust you to call me if you see any of the signs and to listen to Donna if she tells you I need help, (and more importantly when I'm ok). Admiral I know we have only worked indirectly with each other and only met a few times, but as the saying goes "bloody wars and sickly seasons" you are about to come inside. I know your career highlights and you have undoubtedly been studying up on me recently, but more importantly I know your reputation for being a quick thinking, stand-up guy, (who trusts the people he's working with and knowing enough to know your limitations), and if we end up working together you're going to have to trust me to do the same. I know I don't have a reputation for acknowledging my own limitations, but I have a loving, talented, and freakishly strong wife who makes that happen whether I agree or not. Listen to her and trust her to let you know if I need anything.
As much as I would love to discuss my fear of rectangles or any other of my numerous psychoses, I hope we can table this conversation till later. Admiral you haven't answered my question yet, you don't have to list the whole bench but it would help me plan my next move if I knew who some of the players are."
"As I told you before, things are changing all the time and we are still in the early stage of most of our rescue operations at the various sites. For the moment all I can confirm are the Whitehouse Chief of Staff, Andrea Blake, Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Holcomb Communications Director William Bailey, Deputy Communications Director Eloise Snuffin, Rachel Warren Mrs. Russell's Chief of Staff, Cabinet Secretaries of Homeland Security, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and a few policy advisors including a couple of guys Leo kept referring to as the Vanilla Twins. We are still trying to contact the Zeiglers and some of the other Bartletteers that Leo gave us who have moved on to other things. I assume you will have some additions you think should be added to the list. We can have a better estimation for you by your briefing before we head out the airport."
"Yeah that going to be priority item, the sooner we track people down the easier it will be to appraise patterns in today's attacks see how many are targeting specific objectives vs. are decoys, or mass scare tactics. Even more importantly it will give us a starting place to assess where the leaks are so we can take appropriate corrective measures. How credible of a threat are we talking about here? Are we looking at one or to guys who looked the other way when they saw suspicious behavior, or are we looking at the possibility that we have one or more deep moles? What did you mean when you said there are people on the inside?"
"Sir we had a major explosion from a device place inside a secure conference room that was in a bunker fifty feet underground. The location of that meeting had only been decided 20 minutes before it started and up until today the only thing that bunker had been used for was to store a huge reserve of cash to be used to reestablish the currency after a nuclear war, backup computers designed to interface with world markets to help revitalize industry after an national crisis of previously unprecedented proportion, and archives of highly classified documents. Not to mention the fact that even though it was no longer part of the NCA command and control network, it still maintained the capacity and was considered to be a secondary backup site should the need arise. With all do respect less than a year ago you were Whitehouse Chief of Staff and still you wouldn't be able to get into that bunker until you were officially reinstated as COS and had at least 6 different official documents that identify you in that position your express reason for being at that site and what specific areas within that site you needed to access, or you were accompanying someone within the direct NCA or UCP command chains in the event of a verified eminent apocalyptic. At this time I can safely say with utmost assurance that we probably have multiple deep moles with extremely hi-level clearance as well as several active agents who are attacking this government from within its own infrastructure. The only questions is how, where, who, and most importantly how many are there and how much damage do they have the potential to create."
"Shit, okay that makes this more difficult. Have you already started shuffling people into secure locations?"
"Yes sir, each of the remaining cabinet secretaries has been moved individual secure undisclosed locations, as has former president Walken and the remains of Congress who were still in town and aren't in the hospital. President Berryhill is in the air and will remain up there for the next several hours. Other officials are…"
Josh suddenly went ridged at the thought that just dawned on him. Instantly sending warning bells off within Donna's mind, that he might be having an attack. But before she could reach him he went a little week in the knees. He grabbed an arm of both officers to stabilize himself, while still barely managing to keep the horror of his realization out of his shaken voice he cut them all off by saying. "Fitz tell me if I'm wrong but if the terrorists have people on the inside and they are targeting the command structure in a blazon full on assault and had already targeted the someone twice in one day then they probably are counting on him being dead or out of the way before they can proceed with the next phase of whatever this whole thing is. Then if I were them and I knew the procedure for protecting the President and had access to information like where that plane might be or where it was going to land and when then I might be mighty tempted to try to take him out again. You know since we are pretty much delivering him and anybody else in the government that they want to target directly into there well positioned waiting arms and all."
The group stopped cold at this for the first time instantly the immense weight of what was happening hit all of them. Up until then even though they were less than 200 meters away from the boat which two now injured men and one had just been taken into custody and another had been killed because they were about to blow up the building in which Dr. Fitzwallace had just entered with three year old Sarah Lyman and a couple of Admiral Grey's aides, the enormity of the situation was not real to them until that moment. The entire infrastructure that the United States federal government depended on was literally crumbling around them and the weight of what remained was going to have to be balanced on a few key pressure points and though they all looked the same some of them were mined with duplicity, and just waiting to take out another chunk and do even more damage till the whole thing collapses under its own weight.
Percy Fitzwallace was struck mute for only the third time in his life, for about 30 seconds all he could do was gesture before weekly get out "You know how much I hate telling you you're right as a general rule. Unfortunately this time I think you may actually be bringing up some legitimate concerns."
All three men were slipping back into their natural game mode, trading good natured barbs at each other and sarcastic humor, to keep the serious threats that were facing them from pressing to heavy on their shoulders they had been through this before in simulations and war games. They were veterans at this, they were professionals.
Both of the Mrs. Lymans were extremely strong competent women, and while neither of them had participated in the training for this that came was part of the deal when gaining unfettered access to the sit-room, they had spent years supporting and being strong for men that did. The shift came naturally to them and it didn't faze any of them that it was Adrianna that vocalized what had to happen next. "Well given this new concern perhaps we should table the effort to make sure that there is fit staff to facilitate the Berryhill administration's ability to do what is needed to maintain reassemble a nation and spend the next few minutes considering what the reassembled staff needs
TBC
Preview for 365 part 4
"Admiral unless you have other information that we need to hear before we consider your proposal, I think my wife and I need to discuss this with each other before we go any further and we probably will need to talk to Sarah as well. Fitz, you are probably going to need to have a similar discussion with your wife as well. …..."
"... A Chief of Staff to the President could never make the time to take his daughter to gymnastics or dance lessens. A member of the Cabinet would defiantly miss several recitals and meets. And there is no way the Vice President of the United States could plan a big party for his daughter's third birthday at storybook land only to scrap those plans and drag 25 toddlers their parents, not to mention about a dozen of her parents closest friends to the zoo at the last minute because when his daughter came downstairs that morning all she wanted to do for her birthday was go to the Zoo and tease the Elephants because one of the mean bad pelican men said something mean about her Grandpa Bartlett on TV and made her Mommy cry."