Transfer of Power

THE CRITICAL INCIDENT Response Group’s crisis management unit had set up their command post on the fourth floor of the Executive Office Building in a conference room that overlooked the West Wing of the White House.

The large wood conference table had been pushed against the inner wall and was covered with a half dozen phones, two radio-charger trays, and several laptops. The rest of the room’s furniture had been removed with the exception of about half of the chairs.

Against the two side walls, portable tables had been set up and were cluttered with more laptops, phones, televisions, and fax machines. Many of the phones had masking tape on the handsets and were labeled with black felt-tipped marker. Almost half of the phones were dedicated to the FBI’s Strategic Information Operations Center, or SIOCTHE SIOC, which fell under the purview of the Bureaus criminal investigative division, was charged with handling almost all of the Bureau’s high-profile cases. Maps of the White House compound and blueprints of the inner structure were pasted to the walls, and men and women in blue FBI polo shirts were busy pecking away at computers and talking into phones. Two negotiators who were fluent in Arabic were on-site and ready to man the phones for as long as the siege lasted.

Special Agent Skip Mcmahon stood at the window and glared at the spectacle taking place in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. He was fuming; actually pissed was the word he had been using repeatedly since around five A.M. Within hours of the terrorist attack on the White House the media had moved in and set up shop smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. They began broadcasting their live reports from right in front of the White House’s north fence. When Mcmahon had arrived on the scene, one of his first orders was to have the media moved back, way back.

Hours earlier, in the predawn darkness, Mcmahon had been attempting to steal some sleep on the couch in his office at the Hoover Building when one of his agents came in to inform him that a federal judge had intervened on behalf of the networks. Now, as Mcmahon looked down at Lafayette Square, the media circus was omnipresent. On the north end of the park, a mere hundred yards from the White House, the three networks and CNN were all broadcasting live from atop elevated platforms, and FOX was scrambling to join the group.

They were all there with their morning shows as if it were a goddamn state fair. Good Morning America, Today, CBS This Morning-all of them.

For the last two hours, Mcmahon had been fighting the urge to pick up the phone and start chewing ass about the judge’s ruling. He had instead decided it was a better use of his time and energy to wait until all of the big shots were together.

Mcmahon looked down at his watch. It was 8:34, and they should be arriving any minute.