Angela Fortnight stepped from the well of the House up onto the stage. “I imagine the president is going to be distracted with military matters for the immediate future.”

“Take a seat, Leader Fortnight,” Penn said. To Pete: “Then get me a link to the Pentagon. Get me to someone who can tell me real-time what’s going on.”

“Sir, I understand your frustration, but everybody seems to be in transition. As soon as we can establish contact with anyone in the NCA, we will patch you through immediately.”

Angela asked, “Did Israel get any missiles in the air?”

“If they didn’t, we did it for them,” Penn said. “But we don’t know, do we? We don’t know a goddamn thing! Peter!”

“You really think we would launch the retaliatory strike?”

“I think we’d have to. Don’t you?”

“All those poor people,” said House Majority Leader Randy Banks, of Nebraska.

“This is utter madness,” Penn said.

Angela said, “President Blanton has no choice but to back up the Israelis.”

“We’ve got the Russians to worry about, too.” This from Mike Watters, of New Jersey’s Twelfth District. “They’ve made it pretty clear that they would not tolerate a U.S. launch on Iran.”

Penn lowered himself into his chair and shook his head. “Maybe not,” he said. But he knew it was inevitable. “President Botkin is a smart man. He’ll see the situation for what it is. He’ll see that Iran provoked this. He’ll see that our side had no choice.”

“Bullshit,” Banks said. “He’ll see that we had every choice. He’ll see that we were backing a first strike against Iran. He’ll see that we’re the provocateurs.”

“Let’s dial it back some,” Angela said.

“Why?” Banks shouted. “Why dial anything back when people are dying by the millions?”

Penn slammed his desk with the palm of his hand. “Stop! We are not doing this. We are not going to tear each other apart when we don’t know anything at all about—”

A bell rang from somewhere—the kind of constant ring that reminded Penn of class changes back when he was in school.

The voice of God announced, “National Command Authority has just confirmed that ballistic missiles have been launched from Russian assets off both the East and West Coasts of the United States. If they are not intercepted, impacts on U.S. targets will commence in eleven to thirteen minutes.”

“Jesus God,” Penn said. The rest of the chamber had fallen silent.

“Effective immediately, the Annex is on lockdown. Those members who are not yet resident shall be excluded. May God bless the United States of America.”

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER TEN