White House victim of clear and present breach
United States of America moments from declaring war on makeover terrorists
In the early hours of Tuesday 4th January 2011, a call was received in the Washington Department of State. The communication, believed to be from a Presidential aide, concerned a fundamental security breach – targeted at the private resident of the Chief of Government. The incursion (believed to be confined to the White House premises) had been carried out without warning, completely undetected. Although benign, with no ballistics involved, presidential officials deemed the act to be a show of strength – a statement of the terrorists’ capability – and feared that repeat waves, more widespread in their scale and impact, could be expected. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised that the act was a real and present threat to national security.
Acting on reasoned assumptions collated at the time, and guided by a vigilance code established by President John F. Kennedy following the Cuban Missile Crisis, cabinet officials were assembled in the Oval Office at 05:00 (Eastern Standard Time). A lockdown initiative was instigated, with the country immediately placed in a high-alert defence condition (“DefCon”) 2.
By 06:45 Letitia A. Long, Head of the US Intelligence Agency, had briefed officials as to the cells likely to claim responsibility in the coming hours.
At 07:55, with no leads, hawkish dissenters grew frustrated with President Obama’s inaction. Turning inward, they closed ranks, and applied pressure on the Attorney General to sanction an immediate strike on China – the world’s largest exporter of the water, acrylic and oil based substances that may have been used in the attack.
At 07:59, following fierce exchanges within the Cabinet, an awkward consensus was reached. With the phone to his ear, the President patched through to the Pentagon.
As the penultimate digit in the firing code was relayed, the doors to the Oval Office were breached. The Chief Press Officer, without breaking stride, lunged for the desk on which the President’s phone was sitting and ripped the cables from the device. Getting to his feet, and wheezing profusely, the man reached for his side and drew from his jacket a scrunched press release from the National Trust of Jersey and said: “It’s the White House, on St Ouen’s Bay, in Jersey, Mr President. They painted a little white granite munitions store green – and they’re gonna paint it back. We’re safe”. (Cue Hans Zimmer.)
