General Keasling and Dominick Boucher, head of the CIA, waited for him at the podium that had been erected at the center of the quad. Construction vehicles were hard at work in the background, a strategic view to let the people know that recovery was already under way. The two men were his closest advisors on the subject of war. He nodded to them as he passed and ascended the podium steps.

The seated press suddenly stood, no longer able to control their brewing barrage of questions. A sea of voices flooded over him. He raised his hands for quiet, ignoring the individual voices.

When the press realized he wouldn’t be answering any questions yet, they quieted down and let him speak. He delivered his speech, offering contrived words and phony facial expressions. He asked for patience while they hunted down the identities of those responsible for the attack. He promised swift and just action. And he pleaded for calm and logic, reporting anything strange to the authorities instead of taking action into their own hands.

Much of this was the truth, but just as much was misdirection. Duncan knew the best deceptions were ninety-nine percent truth, so as he crafted his story, he worked in the truth about the number of dead, the monetary costs to rebuild, and the timing of events. But he added a layer of deceit when he placed blame on the Arab world. He mentioned Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen by name. He dropped the names of known terrorist organizations and played the Osama bin Laden card. At the same time, he couldn’t blame any one of them specifically and no one was taking credit.

What made the deception worse was that his words fueled tensions around the world. Hate crimes against Arab-Americans would increase. Violence in the Middle East and Israel would continue. And actual terrorists, bolstered by the belief that some of their own had wounded the heart of the American military, would find their ranks replenished.

As Duncan took a breath, a daring reporter used the momentary silence to shout a question. “Senator Marrs has laid the blame for the deaths of several thousand United States citizens on your shoulders. How do you—”

Duncan’s frustration got the better of him. “Senator Marrs is a self-serving vulture,” he said, then immediately regretted it. His own anger was eating him up. He had no desire to be here. To be lying to these people. He needed to take action, not manage his reelection PR. Screw the upcoming election, he needed to get things done.

But his hands were tied. He knew that. Every action the president made during a crisis was scrutinized. Too much time fulfilling the duties of Deep Blue would garner unwanted attention for the team for whom secrecy was tantamount. When the Chess Team, when the world, needed Deep Blue the most, his duty as the president always got in the way.