“Jimmy, I’ll give it to you as concisely as possible,” Al continued. “You remember what a jackass the president made of himself last night?” Wong nodded. “Well, after the cabinet meeting I went looking for Vince to find out exactly what happened with the president. I found Vince in his office. It turns out that he was so steamed about it, he followed the president into the Oval Office and slugged him.”

James Wong was aghast. “What? The chief of staff struck the president of the United States?”

“Well,” Al answered carefully, “he didn’t slug him exactly. He slapped him with his open hand across the face.”

James Wong was now wide awake. His mind was racing. “Then what happened?”

“The president fired Vince. Vince claims that Ted Rust is a drunk. Actually, I know now that it was Vince who was the one making Rust look good all along.”

“Is the firing going to stick?” James asked.

“Looks like it to me,” Al replied. “Rust holds the trump card. Drunk or not, I don’t think he will countenance any frontal attacks on his personal image of grandeur. Anyway, I’m reasonably sure that Vince would never come back—even if the president asked him to.”

James spoke quickly, “Al, Vince D’Agostino is only the newly designated presidential chief of staff. What is all this coup d’état nonsense?”“It’s not nonsense, Jimmy,” Al replied. “We both watched Ted Rust in action last night. He is a cowardly drunk. I’d be willing to bet you that his wife has seized on this incident as a way to get power away from her oaf of a husband.”

He paused and then spoke very deliberately. “As sure as you and I are sitting here, Valery Rust has been working all night to fill the void in the executive staff. You can count on it. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she’s presenting Ted Rust with her choice for chief of staff along with his coffee and doughnuts this very morning.”

James Wong whistled. “Oh, man,” he said, “we don’t need that.”

“You know it,” said the secretary. “The next step would be to land her choice for vice president. If she succeeds, my friend, our constitutional system will be left in tatters. And, that really would be a de facto coup d’état.”

“So, what do we do?”

“We do nothing if my suspicion is ill-founded,” Al replied. “But,” he paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately, “if it is true, we must take very careful steps to deny them the use of the military power of the United States. I don’t have a plan yet, but whatever we decide to do later, for now this discussion must be treated with absolute secrecy between us.”

“You have my word, Al.”