Chapter 1

Washington, DC – January 2061

On Tuesday, January 18, James Whitford Maguire raised his right hand, placed his left on the family bible and took the oath of office. “I, James Whitford Maguire, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Behind him, about 300 feet above and behind him, a laser pulse rifle began to whine as it began a charge cycle. It only took a half-second to reach full charge, and the rifle coughed very quietly a heartbeat later. The invisible laser pulse entered the back of the skull of the newly sworn President, exited through the front of his face and was dissipated by the plastisteel shield that was designed to protect him from any frontal assault.

That the shot had come from the Capitol dome behind Maguire was ... It was impossible. The Secret Service had secured that area and stationed a sniper in that dome. Unfortunately, the Secret Service sniper was the person who fired the shot that took the life of James Maguire.

The nationwide comm broadcast was carried by 30 different channels, and scores more around the world. That coverage showed Maguire’s brain splattered on the hardened plastisteel that guarded against a shooter from the front. It was a fairly neat and tidy scene as murder scenes go. The Chief Justice was not covered with gore, as would have been the course if there had been a traditional high powered cartridge. Robertson Maguire, the life partner of the now dead President, watched in horror as his mate simply slumped forward against the podium and then to the floor. The first gay President of the U.S. now held the record for the shortest time in office: 7.5 seconds.

The crowd was confused, to say the least. The Secret Service personnel, of course, were too late in reacting. There was no provision for protecting the President from the Secret Service. The networks quickly shifted to shots that did not include the plastisteel barrier splattered with the blood and brain matter of the dead man.

Naturally, there was panic and pandemonium on the podium, and throughout the audience. Newly sworn in Vice-President William Howard Taft Ellis was thrown to the ground by Secret Service agents and then dragged off-stage. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dorothy Huston of California, was next in line for the Presidency. She was unceremoniously dragged off the podium in another direction.

There was a doctor nearby, but he didn’t have anything to do. Maguire’s head was not a functioning human organ any more; there was a one inch hole through the skull back to front. One of the Secret Service agents had covered the upper body of the fallen President with his jacket. Robertson Maguire had fallen to his knees and was just a crying lump at the feet of the body of the man he had loved.

In the cupola of the Capitol dome the laser recharged itself. A second later it fired again. David Thomas Farouk’s head now had a neat hole in it, from under his jaw through the top of his skull, just before the barrage of Federal Agents broke into the dome area, in a self-administered death shot. A later search of his pockets turned up a hand written note that was a strange mockery of and tribute to John Wilkes Booth’s famous statement: “Sic Semper Faggots.”

VP Ellis was backstage with the Chief Justice and a squad of SS Agents. Surrounding them was a contingent of Marines. No one questioned how they got there so fast. The group huddled around a comm camera from ZBS. “All right,” said Ellis. “Let’s do this.”

For the second time in ten minutes the Chief Justice recited the oath and a man repeated it after him. “I, William Howard Taft Ellis, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”

With one pull of a trigger, U.S. policy on a host of issues changed direction by 180 degrees. In an effort to ‘balance the ticket, ‘ Maguire had selected his harshest critic for his Vice President. Maguire was an openly gay man; Ellis spouted the old, discredited idea that gay marriage threatened heterosexual marriage. Maguire was an internationalist; Ellis wanted to close the borders, to keep out the Kafiri terrorists, the Latin American and Asian immigrants, and the nearly open door to European citizens. ‘America for Americans’ was his cry.

Ellis moved off to a private office. Only General Howard ‘BlackJack’ Patton, a distant relative of the WWII General, followed him to the room.

Ellis said, “Get the word out that the assassin was named Farouk. Don’t mention the note.” Patton nodded affirmatively. No one had told either man about either fact. The two men locked eyes briefly, then Patton left, and Ellis moved on to rally the country, swearing that the U.S. would find out what had happened on the steps of the Capitol.

All U.S. military forces around the world were ordered to DefCon 3, ‘just in case.’ Allied nations went to a heightened state of alertness, and of course, this prompted Russia and China to do likewise.

In New York, the markets cratered violently and then the exchanges suspended trading for the day. The European markets were closed, of course, but in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney, prices tumbled. Investors didn’t really care, much. Investors were people who wanted to own companies. But the markets were not governed in any real sense by the investors. The stock and commodity markets, and the derivatives that were their spinoffs were run on a minute to minute, day to day basis by speculators, including the floor traders, multinational banks and institutions. The banks and institutions were, these days, the biggest speculators of all.

The death of the new President happened at 12:01.55 p.m. Eastern Time. The U.S. market had been under pressure all day, after all: ‘An Openly Gay President?’ was the headline in the Wall Street Journal on the eve of the November elections. At 11:55 a.m. on Tuesday, January 18, however – five minutes BEFORE the shot that killed the President – both American Bank and Bank of the U.S. began selling every- and any-thing, and buying gold and oil. Spot gold – the openly traded, unlimited commodity (as differentiated from gold futures, which had exchange mandated limits on price changes) – went from $2000 an ounce to $3000 in a matter of moments. The stock market was down 1500 on the Dow before anybody could exhale, and fell far beyond the ‘automatic’ circuit breakers. Oil hit $500 per barrel, under the unrelenting buying of the two banks. And all before the assassination.

The computers of the two banks were locked in – there was almost smoke coming off their transistors.

Then the announcement of the assassination came over the tape and the markets shut down. The U.S. exchanges were closed within seconds. It was 12:02.15 p.m. Eastern Time. Three trillion dollars had changed hands – or been destroyed by the market plunge – in just over 6 minutes. More trillions had changed hands in the gold and oil markets. The two banks – and selected executives in the banks – were now much, much richer.