The Trade of Queens by Charles Stross Page B

work. Nobody else in the national command structure had ever had the sheer brass balls to pull that particular trigger, to play power chords in the key of the Reichstag Fire on the instrument of state—
    â€œDr. James.”
    He tore his eyes away from the screen. “Sir?”
    WARBUCKS grinned humorlessly. “I want to know the status of SCOTUS as of this morning. I very much fear we’ll be needing their services later today and I want to know who’s available.”
    James nodded. “I can find out. Do you want me to expedite the draft order on Family Trade just yet?”
    â€œNo, let’s wait for confirmation. BOY WONDER will want to pull the trigger himself once we brief him, assuming he survived, and if not, I need to be sworn in first. Otherwise those bastards in Congress will—”
    â€œSir?” Jack Shapiro, off the NSA desk just outside the conference room, stuck his head round the door. “We’ve got eyeballs overhead right now, do you want it on screen?”
    WARBUCKS nodded. “Wait one, Andrew,” he told Dr. James. “Put it on any damn screen but Fox News, okay?”
    Two minutes later the center screen turned blue. Static replaced the CNN news crawl for a moment; then a grainy, gray, roiling turbulence filled the monitor from edge to edge. A flickery head-up display scrawled barely readable numbers across the cloudscape. Shapiro grimaced, his face contorted by the telephone handset clamped between neck and shoulder. “That’s looking down on the Ellipse,” he confirmed. “The chopper’s standing off at six thousand feet, two thousand feet south of ground zero—it’s one of the VH-3s from HMX-1, it was on station at Andrews AFB when…” He trailed off. WARBUCKS was staring at the picture, face frozen.
    â€œWhere’s the White House?” he demanded hoarsely.
    â€œAbout”—Shapiro approached the screen, pointed with a shaking finger—“there.” The splash of gray across more gray was almost unrecognizable. “Less than six hundred yards from ground zero, sir. There might be survivors—”
    Dr. James quietly pushed his chair back from the table, turned away from the screens, and stood up. A DISA staffer took over the chair even before he cleared the doorway. The corridor outside was cramped and overfull with aides and officers busily waiting to see the Man. All of them showed signs of agitation: anger and fear and outrage vying for priority. Patience, James told himself. The end times haven’t begun—yet. WARBUCKS would be a much better president than BOY WONDER (the bumbling dry-drunk scion of a political dynasty had inherited his dad’s presidential mantle but not his acumen); and in any case, a presidential martyrdom pardoned all political sins.
    Dr. James headed for the communications office. His mind, unlike almost everyone else’s, was calm: He knew exactly what he had to do. Find out where the surviving Supreme Court Justices were, locate the senior surviving judge, and get him here as fast as possible to swear in the new president. Then we can clean house. Both at home and in the other world God had provided for America, as this one was filling up with heathens and atheists and wickedness. There will be a reckoning, he thought with quiet satisfaction. And righteousness will prevail.
    *   *   *
    Steve Schroeder had barely been back at his desk for ten minutes when he received another visit. This time it was Riccardo, with two other men Steve didn’t recognize but who exuded the unmistakable smell of cop. “Mr. Schroeder,” said the tall, thin one. “Mr. Pirello here tells me you had a visitor this morning.”
    Steve glanced at Riccardo. His boss’s forehead was gleaming under the fluorescent tubes. “Tell him, Steve.”
    â€œYes,” Steve admitted. “Do you have ID?”
    The short fireplug in the