The Threat

And in fact there was an elevator. Gunning said that both the mil aides and the uniformed detail were allowed to use it, but that at the moment the cables were being checked. So he followed the colonel down a steep, dimly lit, musty, poured-concrete stairwell whose white paint didn’t look as if it had been touched up since the Cuban missile crisis.

At its bottom Gunning tapped a code into a keypad. From the way Dan’s ears popped as they went through one heavy steel door, then another, he figured the space was under positive pressure. Like the new destroyers, which maintained a higher air pressure inside the skin of the ship to exclude gas or biological agents. He signed a shelter log, then followed the colonel into a brightly lit air-conditioned warren. He hadn’t realized how big it was, or how many people worked down here.

Gunning started with the comm spaces, introducing him to the duty dudes and the shelter maintenance guys. They didn’t wear uniforms, but they were military. Air Force, most of them. The displays showed they had connectivity with the agencies that mattered. Gunning said that if an aide was with POTUS when a short-fuze alert came down, or if there was any armed intrusion, it would be Dan’s responsibility to get him down here into shelter.

“Uh, what degree of hardening have we got? What kind of hit could we take?”

“Pretty much anything conventional, but a nuclear attack — well, you don’t want to stick around for that. If we get enough warning, we’ll bring in Marine One and airlift out of D.C. Go out to Mount Weather, out near Berryville. Or if you’re at Camp David, you’ll go to Site R, if you’re not already in the air.”

Gunning went on outlining the warning and evacuation procedures while showing him a stark little bunkroom the military aides used. They stuck their heads into the Emergency Boardroom. It was larger than the one in the Sit Room complex, but with an even more ominous feel. The ceilings were higher, the walls white instead of dark paneling.

The rooms were actually bigger than West Wing standard. But he still felt oppressed, as if he weren’t just underground, but slowly being crushed. This whole side of the White House was military, hidden beneath the tourist-friendly infrastructure like some huge, deeply buried foundation. It felt secretive, menacing, like … the Bat Cave. The Skull Cave. The Death Star.

“We’ll come back later,” Gunning told him. “Ready for lunch?”

Climbing the stairs felt like ascending from the depths.

* * *

They picked up Jazak back at the aides’ office — upstairs in the East Wing, at the end of the hall on the Treasury side — for a quick sandwich. Then Jazak and Gunning showed him the secret underground tunnel that went under the Treasury to emerge at a screened exit on the far side. Then they all went back down to the PEOC, to the classified-materials vault.

Dan recognized the alarm wiring and two-man entry procedures. The placarding inside, when the door at last swung open, was DoD standard for nuclear controlled material. Yeah, the codes and permissions to release hell on earth, that’d be worth locking up. But everything looked dated, faded, like things you’d find at a not-too-trendy antique store. The light fixtures and the exposed conduit wiring were 1960s. A torn poster headed REMEMBER — CONELRAD IS THE KEY looked even older. One wall was lined with binders and references. A table with its veneer separating at the corners stood in the middle of the vault.

Gunning flicked an overhead on, did something to the lock, then tugged on the door as Jazak flicked open folding chairs like switchblades and set them around the table. The door sealed with a reluctant thunk. The air instantly became stuffy, fusty, like a wet basement. Dan couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a fan.

Gunning said that since Dan already worked here, he could skip the basic orientation. But he’d still have to train on the comm side and database management. He’d need an IT security briefing. He’d have to touch base with “Carpet,” the White House Transportation Agency, out at the Anacostia Annex, since a lot of the presidential comms were managed from there. And he’d meet the other players the mil aides did business with: the social secretary, the first lady’s people, chief of protocol, press secretary, and so on.

“All right,” the colonel said, “let’s get to the meat. How up to speed are you on nuclear release procedures?”

“I’ve served on nuclear-capable ships,” Dan told him. “So I’m familiar with the authentication system. Past that, just what everybody knows. You carry the football. The go codes.”