Who is it, if not Delliger? Whos even alive to become President?

Luke, dont you know? Its Bill Ryan, the Speaker of the House.

Luke thought back to the various Representatives and Senators he saw gathering at Mount Weather earlier in the day. Ryan? How did he survive?

Trudys voice sounded unsure. They say it was dumb luck. He didnt go to Mount Weather.

Ryan, Luke thought, flabbergasted. A hawk among hawks. That could only mean one thing: they were going to war.

*

10:02 p.m., Site R - Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania

It was a nightmare from which he could not awake.

His name was David Delliger, and he was the United States Secretary of Defense. He had been appointed to this role by his longtime friend and college roommate, Thomas Hayes, the former President of the United States.

Delliger was a surprising choice for the position, by any standard. He was a professor of history at the Naval Academy, and an attorney who had spent much of his career as a third-party mediator. In the years before he took this job, he had consulted with the Carter Center, monitoring elections in new democracies, countries with long histories of despotic rule. That job was the opposite of making war.

And thats why Hayes the liberal had chosen him. Thomas Hayes was dead now, and had been for an hour. There was currently no way to tell who else was alive and who was dead in the wreckage of what had been the Mount Weather facility. The Vice President was missing and assumed dead. Fires still raged on several floors deep underground. Hundreds of people were trapped inside, including many of the members of Congress, and at least some of their family members.

Delliger stood in a concrete room, also deep underground, but more than sixty miles from the disaster. About thirty people were in that room with him. A blue curtain had been pulled across the concrete walls to mask the sheer ugliness of the room. On a small dais, two men and a woman stood. Photographers snapped pictures of them.

One of the men on the dais was short and bald. He wore a long robe. He was Clarence Warren, Chief Justice of the United States. The womans name was Karen Ryan. She wore a bright blue suit with a red rose in her lapel. She was holding a Bible open in her hands. A tall, good-looking man in a dark blue suit and tie stood with his left hand on the Bible. His right hand was raised. Until this moment, the man had for years been the Representative from North Carolina, and the Speaker of the House.

I, William Theodore Ryan, he said, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.

And will to the best of my ability, Judge Warren prompted.

And will to the best of my ability, Ryan said.