THE HILLTOP MANOR RESORT HAD BEEN A PART OF THE WEST Virginia landscape for nearly a century. Located on fifteen hundred acres atop a mountain that afforded unparalleled views of the Catoctin River Valley, the Hilltop boasted two world-class golf courses, miles of riding and hiking trails, its own bowling alley and concert venues, and even skeet and trapshooting ranges. Having recently hired an executive chef who had her own Food Channel television show, it was even more famous now than ever before. Wedding parties commonly spent $400 per head for receptions, and guests were lucky to get away for less than $500 per night to stay.

As House Speaker Penn Glendale sped past the massive white marble structure in the company of his security team, the center of a three-vehicle motorcade, he remembered the weeks he had spent here as a child with his parents as they escaped from New York City to enjoy the quiet, fresh air. He had no idea then—as few had any idea now—what secrets were protected inside the sprawling complex. Colloquially known as the Annex, top secret, sensitive compartmented information (SCI) documents referred to the resort as the United States Government Relocation Facility, its construction necessitated by a reporter’s decision in 1994 to reveal the location of the previous GRF that had been built in the 1950s about a hundred miles south of here. That one decision by a journalist, with the support of his newspaper, to release the information to the world threatened the continuity of the U.S. government for nearly twelve years as a new location was found and construction completed.

Strapped in the seat next to him in the back of the Suburban, Arlen Strasky, Speaker Glendale’s chief of staff, pleaded with his wife on his cell phone. “Greta, my God, why aren’t you on the road yet? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to leave now. I’m sorry, I know I’m being cryptic, and I don’t mean to scare you. I mean to impress upon you the importance of getting on the road. What? No, toward West Virginia. I can’t answer that question, honey. Soon, I hope. The destination doesn’t matter. Just get on the road . . . Hello?” Strasky brought the phone away from his face and looked at the screen, then shot a glance to his boss. “I’ve got no signal.”

“It’s part of the plan,” Penn explained. “A lot of traffic is going to be filing in here over the next few hours. That’ll attract people’s attention, and we don’t need loose lips sinking our ship.” No matter how many times he re-read the laminated red card that he’d been carrying in his wallet for the past eighteen years, he couldn’t drive it all into his memory. The government relocation protocol was a complex one.

“When do we let the world know what we’re about to do?” Strasky asked.