Chapter 35
8:53 p.m.
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center - Bluemont, Virginia
An earnest young man poked his head into the room.
“Mr. President? We are going live in seven minutes. We’d like to have you on the set two minutes early.”
Thomas Hayes sat in a leather barbershop chair in what amounted to his dressing room. The room was shaped like an oval. The walls were bare, except for the mirror in front of him and a long dressing table. In the mirror, he could see his Chief of Staff, David Halstram, trying to relax on the couch.
David seemed to have two speeds—Go, and Go Faster. He couldn’t relax in the calmest of circumstances. Today had been anything but calm. He was fidgeting a lot. One of his shoes was tapping out a machine g*n rhythm on the cement floor.
The President held
