demise of her last chance to take Munson. Waiting in the military terminal with her flunkies, who are now quivering, she demands to know if Air Force One is ready yet. She's told that it will be in a few minutes.
Fuming, she sits by herself and plots. She will not let this stand.
Time: 6:00 PM
As the locomotive clanks through Council Bluffs at 40 miles per hour, thousands of people line the right of way cheering. Munson steps out of the cab onto the walkway running along the side of the engine and waves.
The diesel gradually turns west over the Missouri Bridge and, now down to 30 miles an hour, switches onto the local track to Union Station. The engine glides majestically to a halt at the center of the platform. Thousands more await including a brass band, television cameras, the governor of Nebraska, a National Guard honor guard smartly at attention along with the commanding general of Orfutt.
In faraway San Francisco, a frazzled and vengeful DeWitt watches Munson's triumphal arrival. Her billionaires are pale and jittery. They know the game is lost but DeWitt will have revenge at any price. Her backers are too cowardly to intervene. No one has the nerve to tell her that it's over.
A minor flunky slips into the conference room that she's taken over and, in a soft, oleaginous, effusive voice, announces that AF1 is ready. She tells the others to get on the plane while she stays behind with her Air Force aide, a woman she hand picked for the job.
"I hate this damned country. I want Omaha and Kansas City wiped off the map."
"We don't control Offutt anymore, sir, and any aircraft we send that way would probably not stand a chance against the forces at Offutt."
"We got missiles, nukes?"
"You want to nuke Omaha and Kansas City?"
"Yes. Do it. It's the only way. Munson must die and the Convention must end."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Presidential authorization. Get the football."
"I can't do it!"
DeWitt calls a Secret Service guard from the next room and says, "Do it or Jimbo here will blow your fucking head off."
The agent pulls his SIG Sauer handgun and casually points it at the aide.
Shaken, the aide retrieves the so called football. After looking up the target codes, she carefully punches the numbers in, double checks, then enters her authorization code. Lights switch from green to amber and blink. A warning tone sounds followed by a recorded voice, "Nuclear launch authorization protocol initiated." The aide stands and gestures to DeWitt.
DeWitt positions herself behind the small computer screen and begins typing the presidential authorization code. She hits enter. A red light blinks rapidly and the voice says, "Presidential authorization accepted. Awaiting launch command."
DeWitt simultaneously hits the two interlinked red launch buttons and waits. After a minute, the mechanical voice announces, "Missile launch confirmed."
In a silo, in a field, in a prairie, a computer activates a missile launch protocol. Alarms clang, lights flash. Doors lock shut.
Stunned launch control officers stare in disbelief at their screens and then at one another. The computers reconfirm the launch authorization.
They look at one another from opposite ends of a long underground, bomb proof control console, shake their heads and simultaneously turn their launch keys.
Two great, heavy steel blast doors slide open revealing buried missile silos. In the underground bunker, reinforced doors slam shut. Air horns blast. Lights flash. Sirens wail.
A mechanical voice does a ten second countdown as automatic sequences ready the missiles. At zero, ignition. Two slender rockets burst to life and begin their ascent, slowly at first, then faster and faster, enveloped in brilliant, billowing shrouds of flame and smoke.
DeWitt grabs her cape and says, "Ok, shut that off and lets get back to D.C."
They walk out of the conference room to two cars waiting to take them to an idling Air Force One.
At the first car, at attention, is the commanding general of the base. A marine guard, holds the car door open. The general salutes as DeWitt flops in.
As DeWitt makes herself comfortable, the aide whispers to the general, of long acquaintance, "She just ordered Omaha and Kansas City nuked."
The general staggers a bit, his eyes bulge looking at his old friend, who nods slowly and grimly.
DeWitt's car drives off and as the second pulls ahead to take the general and the aide to the plane.
The general asks, "Did you?"
"No, of course not. There was a launch, but Omaha and Kansas City were not the targets."
The general, holding the door for the aide, says, "I have something I need to do."
As the aide's car pulls away, the general rushes back into the terminal building.
The aide arrives at Air Force One a few seconds after DeWitt. According to protocol, she discreetly waits while DeWitt lumbers up the stairs. Then she double steps up and Air Force One's doors finally are closed.
The staircase is driven away. The chocks are pulled from under the wheels, the engines start to rev up. The ground crew, waiving yellow electric torches, begins guiding the plane on a slow turn to the nearby taxiway.
Suddenly, shots explode from multiple directions. The front tires and several wing carriage tires burst. The plane drops to its wheel rims.
The pilot quickly kills the engines, inducing a cascade of whines as the turbines spin down. From all sides, squads of armed troops in open trucks arrive and take up positions around the plane, guns pointed at the bloated, disabled jet.
The stair ramp, attached to the back of a truck, is driven back up to the plane's door. A military aide inside the plane unbolts and swings open the wide door.
A detail of MPs jogs up the stairs, enters and, a few minutes later, a handcuffed DeWitt, screaming and cursing savagely, is unceremoniously frog marched down the stairs. Her fat billionaires, likewise cuffed, waddle not far behind.
The general walks up to her at the base of the stairs. Squirming and kicking under the restraints, she lets loose with a torrent of invective.
He orders her to be gagged. An MP quickly rips off a length of duct tape and slaps it across her face. Her eyes bulging, only grunts and muffled moans can now be heard.
"In the name of the Free States of America I place you under arrest for mass murder, treason, and crimes against humanity," the general announces in a loud voice.
"Take her away."
The MPs shove her and her retainers into a waiting military police wagon and they are quickly driven to the base stockade.
A few minutes later, in Utah, at the sprawling NSA headquarters, the jewel in DeWitt's crown of intimidation, bribery and spying, with its petabytes of ill gotten data, there is a sudden blinding flash.
No more NSA, just desert sand turned to glass. All the petabytes are now just metallic vapor.
DeWitt's aide, it appears, carelessly entered a different set of GPS codes than those for Omaha.
A few minutes later, the palatial presidential leadership bunker in the Maryland mountains likewise vaporizes.
Patriots Day, 2022
In emergency sessions state legislatures ratify the new constitution and Munson is elected interim President.
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