The admiral paused, and the two other men looked expectant for a moment, waiting for the military man to go on, but he didn’t. Jim Hacker lost his patience first, “So? That doesn’t quite explain why you are coming to us now, Admiral.”

The admiral shook his head. When he reflected on it, he was about to admit to being part of an international conspiracy that ended with the firing of billions of dollars worth of military hardware into space. He smiled. Well, here goes nothing.

“You see, Mr. President, Jim, we had actually come up with a plan that did not necessitate involving you at all. We had devised a way of, well, using the resources at our disposal to attack the satellites without going through your office.” He found he was no longer having trouble looking at them as he spoke, a weight starting to lift from his shoulders as he said, “But that plan was not a good one. For one it did not include a method for destroying all the satellites, only three of them. We have a different plan now. Part of which is even now starting to unfold.”

They looked at him, concern spreading across their faces even as a peace spread across his. He had not liked lying to his commander in chief. Now, at least, he could say that the lying was over.

The beeping of the admiral’s phone caught them all by surprise, as did the fact that he didn’t ignore it but calmly picked it up and glanced at it.

The chief of staff looked awry at the admiral, “Admiral, what could possibly be important enough that you would …” but he was interrupted by his own phone. He paused. There was a very short list of reasons that both of their phones would go off at the same time, and as he went to look at his own phone’s screen there was a knock on the door, which then opened just a crack. The president’s personal secretary poked in her head, “Mr. President, gentlemen, I am very sorry to disturb you but your presence is requested in the SitRoom, sir, as is the admiral’s.”

The chief of staff looked up from the similar message on his phone and looked at the president, then they both looked at the admiral, who was sitting serenely on the couch waiting for them.

“Mr. President, you are about to be told that there has been an incident in Pakistan. When you hear about it you are going to be stunned, and with good reason. It is, by many measures, one of the worst things any president can imagine happening on his watch. But we are here to tell you that it is not as it seems, and that we have a very specific response that we need to make to the events about to unfold across the world.