With the cooperation of the Cuomos we were able to move him and his family out of the country and get them settled in Canada. He’s already been awarded a full scholarship to McGill. Without that, I never would have mentioned his name in this book or given him the credit he has earned.

There was no way of knowing exactly what was going on inside the Wrightman administration. Stuff, that was for sure. And turmoil and confusion. A lot of oy vey iz mir and agita. The administration had made a massive effort to beat the story by posting all kinds of denials, claims, and comments. They rolled out the head of NSA, two cabinet secretaries, the pilots and passengers, but it was one of those stories that just stuck. Vice President Hunter, describing himself as angrier than a dog setting on an army ant mound, told the official media that he personally guaranteed “we will get to the bottom of this story, no matter who is responsible, and that person or those people will pay for it. There is nothing more important to this administration than the safety of the American people, and we will continue to do whatever is necessary to protect them.”

Yeah, right, I thought. Just more lies. I was reminded of what Daily Bugle reporter Frank Weimann had once written about Donald Trump: “He lied so easily and so often that we were no more surprised about another lie than we were when the sun disappeared in the evening.” For a brief period at the beginning of his administration, Wrightman seemed to make an effort to tell the truth, but apparently that had proved too difficult. He figured out pretty quickly that a significant number of Americans would happily accept lies that squared with their closely held beliefs. So that’s why I was surprised … no, surprised isn’t even close; I was stunned, completely shocked a week later when Mighty Chair’s trumpets blared and Cher alerted me that an important story was breaking. I was sitting in my new office at the CBC, Horton cups at a solid seven and climbing, when the story broke.

I flipped on the monitor and began reading:

(AP) At a hastily convened press conference in the White House, Vice President Arthur T. Hunter announced his investigation into the cyber-hijacking of North American Airlines Flight 342 had led directly to President Ian Wrightman. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that he had been involved in a conspiracy to terrorize the American public into submission, President Ian Wrightman had offered his resignation to House Majority Leader Alan Susskind, which was immediately accepted. At 5:34 PM (EST) Vice President Hunter was sworn into office as the 48^th President of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The disgraced president and former first lady, Charisma Wrightman, their three children, and two grandchildren had been escorted by the military to their hilltop cabin, where they will remain under guard for their own safety.