Chapter 7

At 3:00 in the afternoon on Thursday, January 22, 1998, occurred the last Cabinet meeting of the Ruskin administration. The primary purpose of the meeting was to outline what the President was going to say in his State of the Union message, which would be delivered in six hours.

The recent resignation of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs and the sudden death of the Secretary of Energy three weeks previously had made Kathleen Lehrer the junior Cabinet member, which meant that she would not attend the State of the Union in person. This was a security measure just in case something devastating should occur that would eliminate the entire line of succession to the Presidency ahead of her, who would all attend the speech in person. Whenever a large public ceremony was held, such as the State of the Union, one member, usually the Secretary of one of the junior departments in the Cabinet, was absent, just in case. This precaution saved Kathleen Lehrer's life, and enabled the United States to respond to the greatest crisis that it would ever face.

As unlikely as such an event was of occurring, contingency plans existed so that the United States government would be able to continue functioning. That night, those contingency plans would be needed.

The President announced to his Cabinet that negotiations with Russia to drastically reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons in the world were going very well, and that an agreement was hoped for by the end of the year. He said that it was possible, within a few years, assuming that the other nuclear powers could be included in an agreement, that the total number of nuclear warheads throughout the world could be less than a thousand.

The President then told his Cabinet about reports that he had been receiving over the previous two days that had him worried. "Today," he said, "we received a message from the Kremlin that they have been receiving reports from the Mideast that the new Iranian regime was planning something big. They said that they do not know what it is, but the impression that they have is that whatever it is, it is big, and it will happen soon. They said that after months of relative inactivity, Iranian agents have been very busy in the past week. And it's not just in one country; it's throughout the entire Mideast and in Europe as well."

"The frightening thing is," continued the President, "is that this information has been confirmed by the C.I.A., the Israelis, and the French. Unfortunately, no one seems to know exactly what they are up to, but whatever it is, it is big, and it is going to happen soon. Our allies have said they will try to stay on top of whatever it is and keep us informed. We have assured them that we would do the same and keep them informed of anything we find out as well."