President Harwell finished his hurried breakfast in the White House residence area at seven before briskly walking toward his office. On most mornings he enjoyed the short stroll along the adjoining outside patio area for a moment of fresh air, and on Sunday’s he usually slept in a little bit later than all other days. However as he and the nation were now painfully aware, this was not a typical day. The meeting in the situation room the previous night had been long and grueling, and the emotions created by it were a far cry from the joy that he felt during the morning hours while back home in Seattle. Now on this particular Sunday, and most assuredly during the days and weeks ahead, that joy would be further suppressed. The task of identifying who had committed the terrorist attack, and then determining the best course of action toward that element, would be the most pressing issue on his agenda. Jordan Harwell knew that the subject matter would be more time consuming and draining than any other that he had experienced during his nearly two years in office, but such a necessity was part of the job for which he had been elected.

From the personal perspective of President Harwell, it had been comforting for him to learn during the briefing that he had not been a target of the terrorist attacks. That was proven via the thesis of agent Bishop when a lone helicopter scheduled to fly over Husky Stadium for a halftime parachute drop had aborted per the instructions to do so, and returned to base without incident. The crew and jumpers aboard were found to have no weapons of any kind on their persons, nor was the helicopter equipped with any explosive devices. The subsequent interviews conducted by the local FBI in Seattle of those aboard had been completed shortly after Air Force One had landed in Virginia, and revealed no malicious intent. An additional interview with the current University of Washington President had unearthed nothing tangible other than the man’s overall innocence, but he had been arrogant in his resounding displeasure of being questioned at all. Such a small bit of comfort at not being a target was perhaps the highpoint of the two hour briefing in the situation room, and although some progress and enlightenment on other fronts had come forth, there were still many questions left unanswered.

In most cases, several key members of the staff would either be enjoying a Sunday away from the office, or if not, would be engaged in a lighter workload than normal. That was not true on November fifteenth however, and Mrs. Dawson would be the first to prove it. While seated at his desk, President Harwell had a moment to reflect upon the memory of men from his joint chiefs of staff that he had personally, although inadvertently, sent to their death. Then while jotting a note of who he must call to send his condolences, his personal secretary of many years came into the oval office. With her customary professionalism she said, “Good morning Mr. President, what can I do to help?”

Knowing that she was rarely if ever present on a Sunday, let alone by five minutes after seven, he smiled and asked, “Mrs. Dawson, why are you here on a Sunday?”

“With all due respect Mr. President, this is not the time for me to have a day off. Now, what do you need me to do?”

The elderly woman meant well with her intent, and her loyalty was unwavering. As one of the few people who truly understood his humor, the President felt that he could be somewhat less guarded with his answer toward her. So he replied, “Well thank you for being here Mrs. Dawson. Although I’m not sure that we could classify this morning as a good one either personally or for the United States, with your help we shall press on.”

“Yes sir.”

Then he added, “I don’t suppose you could turn the clock back twenty-four hours for me? What I really need is for yesterday to have never happened.”

“I wish that I could do that for you sir, but that power lies beyond all of us.”

“Indeed. So, do you have my schedule for today?”

“Partially Mr. President, but I’m afraid that you will have a steady stream of people without scheduled appointments coming in all morning and afternoon. I hope some of them can provide you with the answers that you seek.”

“Thank you Mrs. Dawson, so do I. Now, who’s first?”

Throughout the course of the morning the President met with various individuals and small groups who provided him with information not easily absorbed. One such report revealed that the jet planes thought to be part of the terrorist escape from Colorado Springs had been lost, and that the Mexican authorities, as of the time of the report, had no idea as to their whereabouts.

The man providing President Harwell with the negative information said, “The jets were flying so low that radar lost their signal. Their course away from New Mexico suggested that they were heading for the Pacific coast, and many aircraft of that type and size would have the fuel range to do it. The jets would first have to climb in order to fly over the Sierra Madre Mountains, but using their last known course as a guide, then a good guess would be that they were headed for an airport in San Jose del Cabo, Mazatlán, or Puerto Vallarta.”

“Well that actually sounds like three guesses to me, but it’s a start. Have you and the Mexican government begun a search for the planes in any of those locations?”

“Yes sir. The state department is working on that and other avenues as we speak.”

“Very well, please keep me posted of the progress.”

“Yes Mr. President.”

Another morning briefing revealed that Major Bates, Captain Scribner, and the crews of the two helicopters flown over West Point were innocent of any wrong doing other than not being as attentive as they should have been. Their most notable attribute, if one could call it that, was their casual approach to the entire flight. In their belief, all events leading up to the drop must have been as they were intended to be, and as such, the men were of little help to the investigation. They simply missed any potential clues of slightly incorrect attire or weaponry that may have given them cause to abort the mission. Only one man, the corporal who had notified Major Bates of the New York National Guard soldiers training their weapons on the helicopter, was the exception by remembering something unusual.

When asked by the Federal agents who interrogated them all if he had noticed the surgical gloves while in flight, he replied, “Yes sir, I do remember seeing the gloves shortly after the men came aboard and we lifted off. I didn’t say anything about it or ask them why they were wearing the gloves because we were tightly crammed in and short on time. As it was we barely got everything ready for the seven of them to jump before reaching the designated drop zone.”

In the crews defense, they had been given a short time window by General Norgard to position the jumpers over West Point, with a continuing time pressed mission beyond that. Additionally, there were no fingerprints on the helicopter other than those that could be matched to the flight crews, ground support personnel, or other members of the military that had legitimate cause to leave them behind. The fourteen soldiers scheduled to jump from their helicopters had been found dead, and initial toxicology reports had revealed that their deaths must have been excruciating. Nothing tangible had been recovered from the three smoldering vehicles used to gain entry onto the facility from which the helicopters departed, and it was doubtful that anything ever would be. In reality General Norgard was the one guilty of improprieties, and would need to answer for his misuse of military hardware by sending the helicopters to Albany for an unsanctioned evening event. That separate investigation would probably cost him his single star via a demotion in rank, but it could wait for the time being.

Later in the afternoon, President Harwell finally received some tangible information with regard to body count, and it wasn’t good news. He had known from early reports that the military casualties at each of the three academies would be substantial, but he had also been led to believe that civilian loss of life had been minimal. Those figures, like most every statistic formulated by a government agency, could have a wide range of results depending on interpretation. In this case, the question became what constituted a civilian. Did it include members of the media and employees of the attacked facility, or did they fall into a different classification from those who had an actual ticket to sit in the stands at each game. For that matter, did family members accompanying military personnel in the stadiums create a separate category, or were all of the above to be lumped into one grouping?

As the President listened to the banter of the men and women who had been collecting the data, his aggravation level quickly rose. When he had heard enough, he finally asked quite bluntly, “Can any of you provide me with some numbers, or are you just wasting my time? This has been a tragic event in the history of our country, and I have been waiting for this important information. When I speak to a joint session of Congress tomorrow I would like to have some specifics, and the four of you are trivializing it by creating sub- groups of human souls that were lost. Now for the moment I really don’t care how you break it down, as you can always do that later in a more detailed report, but aside from those currently in uniform, how many people were killed?”

With a gulp of fear for having offended the President in the oval office of all places, the lead woman of the fact finding group spoke first. With voice cracking she said, “Yes Mr. President, sorry about that sir.”

After a deep breath and a sigh while staring at her worrisome eyes, Jordan Harwell replied, “Yes, fine. I apologize as well, and also understand that your team has been given a difficult task. Now could you please just think about those who have lost a loved one? They, along with the nation, will need answers. I can’t help them with that unless you give me something to work with. So now once again, start with the total civilian casualties before breaking them into sub-groups.”