THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.

The president was eating a late breakfast due to an earlier-than-usual national security briefing that morning when a Secret Service agent entered the private dining room. He went straight to the president and whispered into his ear, then handed him a fax just received from the Department of the Navy and the FBI.

“They received these simultaneously?”

“Yes, sir, also the State Department, the Interior Department, the United States Coast Guard, the NSA, and the CIA, plus every news organization with a typewriter or a video camera. All the copies say the same thing.”

The president read the first of the faxes. His wife and daughter watched him as his jaw muscles clenched, and the blood slowly drained from his face.