Chapter 3 presidential line of succession - The Back-Up President of the United States

Date: March 2, 2022

Time: 9:37 PM EST

Location: White House Situation Room, then en route to Reston, Virginia

The Situation Room hummed with low voices and layered tension. Flickering monitors displayed satellite feeds, encrypted communications, and real-time biometric maps of the eastern seaboard. Inside, the table was crowded with weary but wired faces military officers, interagency liaisons, and at the head, President Howard Smith Jackson in full "POTUS" attire, his gaze locked on a central screen as Angel Liberty Jackson stood just behind him, fingers laced behind her back, holographic projection crisp and steady.

"I've cross-referenced hospital admittance logs, FEMA survivor intake data, and blacklisted alias tracking," Angel reported, her voice calm but edged with gravity. "One hit pinged a match to an alias used in a closed-door Senate appointment review in 2021. Facial analysis confirms him at 93.6% certainty. Biometrics place him at Reston West Emergency Hospital, field triage zone, Virginia." Howard straightened. "Who?"

"Mark Jack Christion," Angel answered. "Twenty-five years old. Fast-tracked State Department analyst. Unofficial Secretary of State candidate. His credentials were meant to be activated within ninety days. He's there under the name John Eastwood. He's listed as 'urgent but stable,' shrapnel wounds to the lower abdomen and left thigh. No family, no security detail. Civilian paper trail ends the moment the Capitol detonates."

Samantha leaned forward, nodding once. "We're pulling him out." Howard didn't hesitate. "Angel, get me Dagger 5-1."

Within minutes, the White House initiated a direct Presidential Extraction Order. On a tarmac outside Fort Belvoir, a 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers)MH-60M Black Hawk sat ready, engines spinning. Callsign: Dagger 5-1. Aboard were eight Delta Force operators, their uniforms unmarked but faces taut with readiness. They were equipped with HK416 D10 RS carbines, SIG Sauer M17 sidearms, and AN/PVS-31A NVGs clipped up on their helmets. One wore a medical satchel. Another was scanning a Rugged Getac tablet linked to Angel's uplink.

The mission was short, quiet, and surgical. By 10:02 PM, the MH-60M lifted into the cold Washington sky, escorted by two AH-6M Little Bird gunships, their rotors slicing across the cityscape. Civilian aircraft had been grounded four hours after the bombing. Roads cleared. This air belonged to them now.

Inside the hospital, Mark alias John lay conscious but fading. When the Delta team entered, moving through triage tents and stunned medical staff with weapons held low but visible, they locked eyes with him. Recognition flared in the young man's bloodshot gaze.

"I told them I was no one," he whispered as the team swept him into an armored gurney. "But you knew, didn't you?"

"Mr. Christion," the team leader replied softly. "The President sent us."

They were airborne again in under six minutes with the medic treating him. The Black Hawk ran dark across the Potomac, touching down on the South Lawn twenty minutes later, where Samantha and Howard were already waiting beneath spotlights. Angel stood at the top of the steps, arms crossed.

As medics took Mark inside, Howard turned to Angel. "Run the rest of the line. Every name. Every trace."

"I've already started," she said. "The Republic is scattered. But it breathes."

Time: 10:47 PM EST

Location: White House Situation Room, then Colorado Rockies, 38 miles west of Colorado Springs

The soft hum of encrypted servers and satellite relays filled the Situation Room with a quiet intensity. A cold front had swept across the Rockies, burying everything in its path including hope. But Angel Liberty Jackson was hunting for names. Not code names. Not numbers. Names of real men and women who once stood in the chain of command and might still be alive.

Her sea-gray eyes scanned a holomap layered with thermographic readings and redacted FAA flight tracks. She lifted a finger, tapped midair, and brought up a pulse: a thermal anomaly buried under thirty feet of snow and collapsed timbers. It didn't register on normal satellite scans, but a faint residual FBI emergency beacon embedded in a civilian-issued satellite phone caught her attention broadcasting on a delay cycle.

"Target found," she announced, her voice steady. "Alias: Carlos Echevarría. Real identity when cross-verified against DHS biometric archive: Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security."

Howard leaned forward. "Location?"

"Snowbound lodge outside Divide, Colorado. Elevation: 9,200 feet. The avalanche response teams never made it. Five other civilian life signs were confirmed. Mayorkas is stable but deteriorating. Blood loss and probable compound fracture." Samantha nodded grimly. "We move now."

At Peterson Space Force Base, an HH-60G Pave Hawk from the 920th Rescue Wing prepped for cold insertion. Aboard were four Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs), two National Guard mountaineers from the Colorado ARNG's 86th Infantry Brigade, and one embedded Tactical Control Party (TACP) specialist linking back to Angel's uplink node.

Their gear was tailored for altitude and ice: Arc'teryx LEAF Cold WX layers, MultiCam Alpine camo, M4A1 Block II carbines, and AN/PRC-163 radios synced directly into the White House's emergency command net.

Angel's voice cut in through their comms. "The weather window is tight. You've got sixty minutes to extract before the second front slams in. Helicopter support ends at the LZ. The rest is on foot."

"Copy that," came the reply from PJ Lead. "This is Rescue One. Moving to save America's continuity one heartbeat at a time."

At 11:32 PM, the HH-60G touched down on a snowy ridgeline six clicks out from the buried lodge. As the rotors slowed, the team jumped off, snowshoes snapping into position, and began the descent. Night vision blurred in the whiteout, but Angel guided them by infrared scans from an overhead RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, which traced the warmest heat signature through the broken timber.

The lodge was half-collapsed, a frozen tomb but the interior held life. "Carlos?" a PJ called as he broke through a side door. A pained voice answered from the shadows, "Not my real name. But yeah... I'm here."

Alejandro Mayorkas was pale, bleeding from his left thigh. His left arm was splinted with makeshift bandages, but he was conscious. Another survivor, a teenage boy, helped hold him upright.

They lifted him into the Pave Hawk under flares and stormlight, the rotors chopping the blizzard like a defiant anthem. Inside the White House, Angel tracked the mission's success and flagged Carlos Echevarría as Deceased – Alias Cleared. Mayorkas' file now blinked green in her system with Deceased being replaced with Alive and Active, directly under Mark Christion's.

Howard stepped back from the Situation Room screen, closed his eyes, and let out a breath. "One more voice for the republic. Let's keep going."

Time: 6:28 AM EST

Location: Annapolis, Maryland & White House Command Center

The faint light of dawn crept over the Capitol ruins, but inside the White House's underground command center, time was measured by heartbeat and bandwidth. Angel Liberty Jackson hovered beside her father, the glow from her hard-light avatar casting a faint reflection on the reinforced glass displays. With surgical precision, her fingers moved through cascading datasets, scanning FEMA records, Department of Defense satellite chatter, and analog radio logs.

"I found another anomaly," Angel murmured, her voice low, calm, yet layered with urgency. "A FEMA shelter near Annapolis. It's been operating without digital trace paper logbooks, encrypted shortwave transmissions. But one of the broadcast call signs matched a now-retired emergency authentication code from the Pentagon."

Howard leaned forward, eyes hard. "You're saying someone at that shelter used an old DEFCON channel?"

Angel nodded once. "Yes. I ran the shelter's assigned administrator, a Dana Harlow, through legacy DoD personnel alias flags. The pattern came back positive." A second later, a full Department of Defense profile unfolded on the screen.

Kathleen Holland Hicks. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense. Presumed dead. Samantha walked into the room just as Angel made the match. "She's still alive?"

"She's taken over coordination of the local comms infrastructure," Angel confirmed. "Keeping radio lifelines open between shelters in Anne Arundel County. I don't think she knows the line of succession's been obliterated."

Without delay, Howard issued the order. "Prep a Secret Service CAT convoy. No helicopters, this one goes by road. We'll pull her out and get her briefed."

At Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, a five-vehicle convoy formed quickly: three armored 2021 Chevrolet Suburban HDs for personnel, flanked by two Oshkosh L-ATVs from a nearby National Guard armory, equipped with CROWS turrets and armed with M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns. The CAT team inside carried Colt M4A1 Block II carbines, Glock 19M sidearms, and FN P90TRs for close-quarters.

Angel remotely took over the encrypted GPS systems, updating routes in real-time. The roads east out of D.C. were unstable damaged overpasses, unresponsive traffic control systems, and several civilian choke points. But the lead driver followed her voice, trusting the AI that now guided the survival of the republic.

As the convoy arrived at the shelter, a converted municipal water treatment facility fortified by National Guard units, several staffers raised rifles until Angel's voice came through the tactical comms. "You're receiving Presidential extraction. Stand down."

Inside, Kathleen Hicks emerged in a tactical jacket, flanked by civilians and local volunteers. Her face bore the exhaustion of someone who had carried more than she was trained for.

"I didn't think anyone up the chain made it," she said as the CAT commander approached. "I kept things running. That's all I knew how to do."

"You did more than that," the commander replied. "Ma'am, President Jackson wants you at the White House. It's time to come home."

By 9:00 AM, Hicks entered the White House PEOC, where Howard stood waiting, flanked by Samantha and Angel. "You made it," he said, voice thick.

"You're the one the networks showed Jackson, from Maine," she said, gripping his hand. "You're younger than I expected."

"I had a good upbringing," he answered, gesturing to his wife and daughter. "And I've got work to do. I need your help."

"You've got it, Mr. President," she said. "Let's rebuild this damn government."

Time: 6:17 PM EST

Location: Norfolk Naval Station & White House Command Center

The monitors in the White House Command Center cast their glow across the faces of those gathered inside, painting tired eyes in cold light. Angel stood beside her father, her hard-light avatar locked in thought, silent except for the occasional flick of her fingers against the projected interface.

"I've found someone," she said quietly, and the room fell silent. "Location?" Samantha asked, her tone sharp, but her face unreadable.

Angel pulled up a regional power-grid overlay of southeastern Virginia. "Norfolk. Naval District blackout response command. A civilian flagged 'Joseph Marks' is coordinating DOE substation reroutes. The DOE ping signature matches a clearance-level ID stream encrypted, old, but still live in a buried emergency key." Howard stepped forward, arms crossed. "And?"

Angel looked at him. "It's Daniel R. Simmons, former Secretary of Energy nominee. Operating under alias. His last real-world clearance credentials activated thirty-six hours ago from a boat dock uplink on the Elizabeth River. He doesn't know we're alive."

At Naval Station Norfolk, pier operations were tense but intact. Naval Security Forces had been keeping localized order, coordinating blackout logistics with what remained of the U.S. grid on the East Coast. Inside a converted storm shelter under the main comms station, "Joseph Marks" had been sleeping in 45-minute shifts, relaying emergency generator rotations, protecting reactor site backups, and manually restarting transformers fried during the attack's EMP ripple.

When the black Suburbans rolled through the outer checkpoint led by a US Secret Service convoy supported by Naval Security Forces and escorted by two UH-72A Lakota helicopters overhead the sailors on duty were stunned silent. Most had been cut off from the capital since the blast. The sight of the official seal on the lead Suburban's door, flanked by the rising flag of the President of the United States, spoke louder than any briefing.

Inside the station, Simmons heard his name, his real name, called through the radio. "Daniel R. Simmons. Please report to the dock. Presidential-level evac is here for you. Priority One transport. Confirmed by Angel Liberty Jackson."

He blinked, stunned, before whispering, "Angel…?" As he stepped onto the pier, a cold wind off the water slapping his coat, he saw the unmistakable figure of a Secret Service CAT operator raise a hand in salute. The lead agent nodded once and simply said, "Welcome back, Secretary Simmons. The nation needs you."

He didn't speak for a moment, his eyes fixed on the helicopter hovering just above the water, blades slicing the fog. "I thought we lost everything."

"No," the agent said, handing him into the convoy. "We have a President. And he's rebuilding piece by piece."

Time: 17:43 EST

Location: Baltimore, Maryland – Camden Station Crisis Center, Underground Shelter

Baltimore's skyline bore a new kind of silence as dusk fell heavy, uneasy, broken only by the distant echo of National Guard patrol Humvees and the drone of medevac rotors overhead. Inside the underground crisis shelter beneath Camden Station, the air was thick with sweat, adrenaline, and the rhythmic thrum of emergency generators. Crates of medical supplies lay opened and sorted by triage status; folded cots were packed into corners, and a whiteboard covered in handwritten schedules showed a community desperately clinging to order. One name stood out from the staff roster, marked in Angel Liberty Jackson's encrypted scan logs: "Jonathan Webb."

In the White House's PEOC, the quantum AI's holographic avatar stood steady and calm despite the digital data storms flooding her core. "Positive biometric match. Alias 'Jonathan Webb' is confirmed as Martin Joseph Walsh Secretary of Labor. Last scanned by a National Guard triage unit. Location: Baltimore, Maryland, underground facility beneath Camden Station." Her sea-gray eyes locked onto Howard. "He's alive. He's working triage coordination, but we're running out of time. Tunnel instability from nearby structural damage is escalating."

"I'll authorize the pickup myself," Howard said. "No hesitation. Get me a joint mission plan Guard, rotary evac, whatever it takes."

Minutes later, a UH-60 Black Hawk from the Maryland Army National Guard's 29th Combat Aviation Brigade thundered through the night sky, escorting two Humvees approaching Baltimore's Inner Harbor under blackout protocols. Navy EOD teams had earlier confirmed the underground structure's viability for short-term entry, and aerial FLIR scans confirmed movement and heat signatures within. Soldiers moved in swiftly and without fanfare every second mattered.

In the flickering fluorescent light of the shelter, Marty Walsh stood in a heavy, sweat-stained canvas jacket. His hands were red from lifting debris and guiding patients. When the rescue team entered, Walsh didn't flinch; he just stared at them and asked, "How many more survivors do you need cleared before I can leave?"

"Sir, we're ordered to extract you immediately," replied a Guard sergeant. "But you've got 15 minutes. That's all Command will give me."

"I'll take ten," Walsh said, without breaking stride. "But we're not going unless my medical team gets out with me."

Ten minutes turned to fourteen. The moment the last of the triage nurses was loaded onto the Black Hawk, Walsh grabbed his rucksack, glanced once at the makeshift triage station, and then climbed aboard. From her core interface inside the White House command table, Angel monitored the biometric tags of every evacuee with a steady expression. "Jonathan Webb has cleared the city perimeter," she said softly. "Marty Walsh is home."

Time: 4:13 AM EST

Location: Shenandoah Mountains, Virginia – Near Appalachian Trail, Forestry Cabin Bravo-6

The woods were alive with the kind of silence that only followed catastrophe. No birdsong. No wind. Just the quiet static of moisture hanging in a forest that hadn't yet accepted the chaos outside its borders. A thin trail wound between damp ferns and moss-covered roots, ending in a log-structured cabin half-sunken into the hill, camouflaged by decades of leaf fall and bark weathering.

Inside, a propane lantern hissed softly, throwing a halo of warmth over the worn face of Natalie Cross, known in another life as Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior. She was seated on an overturned crate beside a makeshift map table. Paper rosters, satellite photos, and handwritten resource logs were scattered across it like the dying remains of a nation. Behind her, huddled near a woodstove, sat a group of hikers civilians who had trusted her enough to stay put in the woods when everything else fell apart.

"We've kept them alive for seven days. Two with broken legs, one with a deep laceration, and three more running out of insulin," she said with quiet command to the ranger kneeling beside her. "We can't move fast, and we sure as hell can't go down the main trails. They're too exposed. The fires spread north yesterday. We are waiting for the airlift."

Thirty miles away, soaring low beneath radar coverage and riding the valleys like a hawk, a pair of UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopters darted between the ridgelines. Their gray-green paint blended with the dawn mist, tail rotors thumping in perfect counterpoint to the thrum of rotor blades above. Inside the lead Lakota, six members of the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment sat silent, weapons across their laps, helmets locked, and HUDs synced to Angel Liberty Jackson's live tactical display projected from the cockpit's secure uplink.

In the White House PEOC, Angel's hard-light avatar stood between the President and Director Sanders. Her sea-gray eyes were unreadable, her tone calm but resolute. "Emergency beacon codes were embedded in a weather station subroutine at Shenandoah Tower Delta-2. Embedded audio confirmed voice identity as Secretary Deb Haaland. Facial recognition achieved from thermal imaging provided by weather satellite drift sweeps." She turned toward the virtual map. "Confirmed civilian presence. Seven critical survivors. A short-range atmospheric burst from a portable transceiver suggests she's using a deprecated ranger channel last cleared for use in 1999. She's alive."

In the forest, the moment the Lakotas reached the treeline, Natalie rose. "Everyone this is it. Grab what you can carry. Rangers will be dropping in. Stay low, stay quiet. We're not safe until we're airborne."

At 4:22 AM, two Rangers descended fast-rope style from the first hovering bird, securing the perimeter in seconds. Natalie stepped into the open with her hands visible, signaling her identity. "I'm Natalie Cross federal clearance Alpha-One-Zulu."

Sergeant Thomas Bishop of the 75th stepped forward and tapped a handheld scanner to her arm. The device chirped in confirmation. "Ma'am… we're bringing you home."

"No," she said flatly, pointing behind her. "Not without them."

The second Lakota dropped extraction baskets. Medics loaded the injured first while covering fire teams watched the tree line. For twelve tense minutes, the team loaded civilians, one by one. Deb Haaland was last aboard, gripping the Ranger's harness as they lifted off. Her eyes scanned the woods one last time before the mist swallowed the cabin she had made a shelter out of ruin.

Time: 5:27 AM EST

Location: U.S. Sentencing Commission Annex, DOJ Emergency Safehouse, Rockville, Maryland

The rising sun had not yet warmed the pavement of Monroe Street when the engines of a blacked-out 2021 Chevrolet Suburban HD rumbled to a halt just behind the gated perimeter of the half-shuttered U.S. Sentencing Commission. Flanking it on either side, two MATV 4x4 MRAPs, freshly rerouted from the Department of Homeland Security's Northern Tier staging yard, pivoted into overwatch positions.

Inside the Suburban, six agents of the Secret Service Counter Assault Team (CAT), each clad in matte-gray plate carriers and dark combat fatigues, did their final weapons check. Their team lead, Special Agent Garrison, tapped his earpiece. "Angel, confirm that encryption trace. We breach your mark."

From a secure terminal deep inside the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), Angel Liberty Jackson's voice resonated with unwavering calm. "Network activity has resumed. Packets originate from Sub-Level 2, east quadrant server node. The signal is repeating a twelve-character DOJ cypher code last authorized by Merrick Garland at 0203 hours. His voice is embedded in the login authentication layered with known vocal stress patterns consistent with fatigue but not coercion. He is alive."

In the corridors beneath the building, the air was stale and humming faintly from an overloaded battery backup system. The DOJ emergency safehouse designed to withstand armed incursion and maintain communications during chemical attacks was held together by rust and habit. A single man, haggard and wearing an untucked button-down and shoulder holster, leaned over an open server rack. Beside him sat two sealed crates labeled U.S. v. Transnational Narcotics Entities: Digital Archive – Eyes Only.

"I can't lose these," Carter Leigh, known to a very narrow few as Attorney General Merrick Garland muttered, running a sleeve over his forehead. "If these disappear, every drug lord between Bogotá and Boston walks free in five years."

Above ground, chaos erupted as five looters armed with AR-pattern rifles and improvised explosives breached the rear administrative entrance. They moved fast, efficiently, likely ex-contractors or gang-affiliated. But they hadn't expected MDPD to arrive four officers from the Montgomery County Police Tactical Division rolled up in a civilian-modified 2019 Ford F-150, armor-laced and rigged with a handheld LMR relay.

The first shots cracked off the stairwell wall like thunderclaps. One MDPD officer took a round to the side plate and dropped behind the wheelwell. His partner returned fire with a Benelli M4, the 12-gauge slug punching through the drywall and forcing two looters into cover.

Garrison's CAT team breached seconds later through the east stairwell. Flashbangs lit the hallway in a dull strobe. "DOJ! U.S. Secret Service! Drop your weapons!"

Gunfire traded fast. Two looters fell. One tried to flee down into Sub-Level 1 before taking a controlled burst to the leg. The others surrendered under the weight of three overlapping angles of fire.

The final chamber was locked with a biometric seal. Angel's voice filled their comms again. "Confirming retinal pattern... verified. Opening now."

Inside, Merrick Garland looked up as the magnetic lock hissed. His jaw clenched, a mix of relief and resistance washing over him in a single wave. "Took you long enough," he said, voice fraying from hours of alertness. "I'm not leaving until these drives come with me."

"You don't have to," Garrison said as he handed over a hardened satchel. "Angel already mirrored the contents. We've got redundant encryption across five defense servers. You're coming home, sir."

Garland exhaled shakily and holstered his sidearm, a M1911A1. "Then let's move. And tell whoever's up there I'm not done fighting for this country, not by a long shot." By 5:49 AM, the convoy was en route to Joint Base Andrews. Sirens were silent, lights were off, but hope was on board.

Time: 6:18 AM EST

Location: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland

The faint smell of antiseptic, plastic tubing, and scorched linen hung low in the dim-lit ICU of Walter Reed. For all the chaos outside its walls, inside the hospital stood like a bastion of quiet defiance. Every hallway echoed with the low hum of life-support monitors, the rolling of gurneys, and the soft murmurs of doctors whispering triage updates through bloodshot eyes and cracked lips. Here, amid the wounded and dying remnants of the Capitol bombing's aftermath, a nurse moved without drawing attention, her hands steady, her eyes sharp behind a surgical mask.

"I told them I was a late rotation pulled from New Carrollton," she muttered under her breath as she adjusted a saline drip for a double-amputee Marine. "They didn't ask for ID. Didn't even question it. They were too busy trying to stop the bleeding."

Emily Harper, as she called herself, was no ordinary nurse. Beneath the disposable scrubs and fake trauma badge hung the steel-eyed resolve of Evelyn Rhodes, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, a combat-tested surgeon and Gulf War veteran who chose to stay when others fled. She had slipped into Walter Reed two hours after the Capitol fell, hijacked a paper roster, and inserted herself into the chaos with surgical precision. No fanfare. No orders. Just hands on wounds, and breath to the dying.

"I can't leave them," she said to herself more than once. "They're mine. These are my people. Every last one."

Deep below the White House, in the secure command center, Angel Liberty Jackson's fingers danced across her hard-light interface. Her eyes narrowed as she layered three data feeds: biometric heart rate logs from Walter Reed's ICU ward, the operating schedule from a corrupted nursing assignment list, and inconsistencies in patient vitals noted by a junior staffer.

"Found her," Angel announced, turning to Clayton Sanders. "Alias Emily Harper. She faked a shrapnel laceration using prosthetic trauma gel and registered as a transfer from New Carrollton General. Her actual position hasn't changed in forty-one hours. She's taken charge of the ICU's surgical rotation. Every veteran under her care has a stabilized vital record. I've cross-confirmed her retinal pattern via an overhead observation drone. It's Evelyn Rhodes."

"She stayed," Clayton muttered, almost reverently. "She never left the damn front."

"Rescue plan's already active," Angel confirmed. "Secret Service CAT Medical Detail is rerouting from Arlington Memorial. Team designation: Foxtrot-Niner. Entry through trauma ward loading dock. Walter Reed staff have been informed quietly. No code yellow. Just a whisper between officers and nurses who know who she is."

Back inside the hospital, Evelyn had just finished performing a field thoracotomy. Blood soaked her arms to the elbow, but her voice didn't shake. "Clamp here. No, tighter. That's a brachial bleed, not just a nick. Keep pressure or he's gone in ninety seconds."

A gentle knock echoed from the supply door. Two men entered in clean, sterile scrubs but the way they moved, the way they watched she knew. "You're not here for bandages," she said quietly, standing straighter.

One stepped forward and removed his surgical mask, revealing a CAT unit insignia beneath his collar. "Ma'am. Secretary Rhodes. Your presence is requested at Joint Base Andrews. Presidential authority."

"I'm not going unless every one of my post-op veterans is transferred to a secure care zone," she said, unmoving. "No red tape. No waiting for approval. I leave with them."

"We already have four medevac HH-60M Black Hawks inbound. Triage teams from Fort Belvoir and Navy Med are setting up a forward critical unit. Every one of your patients is going with you."

Only then did Evelyn finally breathe. Her shoulders sagged, and she looked down at her bloodied hands. "Let me get cleaned up. These bastards took enough from them. I'll be damned if I let bureaucracy finish the job."

By 6:47 AM, the ICU was quietly evacuated. Nurses who had worked beside Evelyn saluted in silence as she passed. She didn't say goodbye, just a single nod, and a promise spoken low: "I'll see you again soon, soldiers. Just hold the line."

The last Black Hawk lifted off into the pale morning sky, its rotors slicing through the rising sun, and with it, the flame that never went out in the garden of America's wounded.

Time: 7:12 AM EST

Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland – National Center for Health Statistics, Secure Wing

The glass panels of the National Center for Health Statistics glinted softly in the morning haze, its sleek façade rising from the edge of a quiet suburban street lined with abandoned cars and broken silence. A battered Red Cross tarp flapped gently against the rear service entrance where a temporary field tent had been set up, still manned by two overworked responders with clipboards and blank eyes. On the second floor, tucked behind biometric-locked reinforced doors, the nerve center of the entire regional health response pulsed with tired determination.

Inside that room, Dr. Lillian Shaw hunched over a medical logistics console, eyes darting across six screens filled with cascading patient vitals, ambulance routes, and resource depletion charts. Her coat was stained at the elbows. Her ID badge was bent and dirty. Her name Lillian Shaw was a lie printed hastily over the original identification card. The man wearing it, Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, hadn't been seen on any national feed since the bombing. But that was the point.

"I couldn't leave," he muttered to a nurse passing him a packet of glucose tablets. "The algorithms couldn't run on their own. We had to override manually every twenty minutes. If we lost even one hospital's routing node, that would've collapsed the entire quadrant's triage."

He rubbed his eyes and refocused on the screen. "We rerouted oxygen from Fort Meade to downtown DC, diverted three critical patients to a mobile field unit near Silver Spring, and somehow kept the trauma overflow at Mercy under max. I don't care what rank I hold. I am not leaving this room until these numbers stabilize."

In the PEOC, Angel's hard-light projection stood still, her glowing gray eyes scanning through a live data relay. "We've been watching what we assumed was an automated disaster load-balancer operating inside the Gaithersburg node. It's not a program. It's him. He's embedded himself as the command relay point for the National Health Grid East. He's cycling critical alerts, manually overriding broken telemetry, and crosslinking available surgical teams across four hospitals using his own access codes. That's Xavier Becerra. No doubt."

"Vitals?" asked Clayton Sanders, eyes locked on her matrix overlay.

"Stable. Dehydrated. Sleep-deprived. No signs of coercion. Mentally coherent. He's been using the alias Dr. Lillian Shaw to route medical relief shipments under FEMA's still-active emergency profile. He's embedded with the United States Public Health Service officers and coordinating with civilian volunteers. The command network he's stabilized is now supporting over 1,800 active patients."

Back at the center, the thrum of rotor blades grew closer. Two C-146A Wolfhounds, painted in muted gray and marked with faint red crosses, descended onto the nearby asphalt lot. Moments later, the forward team arrived with eight members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, joined by Federal Medical Response Team Alpha, wearing blue and black utility uniforms with triage packs slung across their backs.

"Dr. Shaw?" the lead medical officer called as the group entered the secured hallway.

Xavier turned from the screen. "Not today," he replied, stepping forward with tired eyes. "You're looking at Xavier Becerra. You're here to extract me, right?"

"Yes, sir. Presidential authority confirmed. All medical stabilization protocols will be maintained by on-site Command Medical Node Delta. You're coming with us. Your staff's been accounted for no one's being left behind."

His shoulders didn't relax, but his voice cracked just a little. "It was either this… or let the whole quadrant bleed out on paper."

One of the Corpsmen put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You didn't. You held the line. Let us take it from here."

As the convoy moved, two more officers secured encrypted drives from the local server stack copies of patient flow data, predictive outbreak models, and encrypted contact tracing charts. They would ride with Becerra to Andrews under armed guard, inside the main cabin of the second Wolfhound.

By 7:40 AM, the aircraft lifted off. Gaithersburg's emergency grid flickered but did not fail. Because somewhere beneath the debris of a broken capital, good men and women had chosen not to run, but to hold.

Time: 8:03 AM EST

Location: FEMA Zone 9, Housing Directive Hub, Southeast Washington, D.C.

The streets of Southeast D.C. had turned into a patchwork of desperation and resolve. Concrete barricades, improvised medical tents, and traffic control checkpoints marked the perimeter of FEMA Zone 9, a hastily organized civilian shelter zone covering a seven-block radius around a repurposed high school. What once had been a campus for after-school programs now pulsed with controlled chaos cots lined the hallways, ration lines wound through the gym, and clipboard-bearing volunteers passed instructions from tent to tent.

Amid the movement, one voice held order. A woman stood at the center of the chaos, her long coat rolled to the sleeves, her hands marked with ink from hours of field paperwork, her tone sharp but maternal. "If you're registered in Zone 9A, your safe zone is the community center three blocks down. No, you don't need a new wristband unless you've been reassigned. Check with station three. We've got one case per family, and the water is clean."

The woman wore a tag that read June Armand, but the clarity in her words, the command in her posture, betrayed the truth. She was Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and for the past six days she had never left the crisis perimeter. Instead of hiding behind layers of protocol, she had embedded herself in the system that needed her most on the ground, where homes were lost and lives were being rebuilt with duct tape and data sheets.

"I didn't need an office to do this job," she muttered to a FEMA field captain beside her. "I just needed to know where my people were bleeding."

Back beneath the White House in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Angel Liberty Jackson stood with her sea-gray eyes fixed on a pair of waveform graphs. "I've isolated a repeating vocal pattern originating from FEMA Zone 9. The voice modulation is filtered through a field-bandwidth radio loop. Comparing it to archived speeches, I have a 99.998% match to Secretary Marcia Fudge. Her alias June Armand matches a defunct HUD policy consultant profile she created herself in 2021 for scenario training. She is onsite, directing all housing and shelter operations manually."

Clayton Sanders nodded slowly. "She ran the zone herself. Didn't delegate. That's the only reason we're even hearing about Zone 9 still being functional."

Angel turned to her uplink, projecting a live overlay of the zone in real-time. "Conditions are stable. 462 civilians accounted for. Two portable clinics are active. Six confirmed shelter centers in operation. Minimal armed security. She's refused evac three times via the internal FEMA chain. Direct Presidential retrieval is authorized."

An armored 2021 Chevrolet Suburban HD, up-armored and carrying a CAT medical team, rolled toward the eastern boundary of the zone with U.S. Secret Service CAT Operators and FEMA Urban Search and Rescue personnel riding in convoy behind. Flanking the motorcade were two Oshkosh L-ATVs, their turreted gunners rotating methodically as they passed collapsed storefronts and burned-out sedans.

As the Suburban came to a stop, its driver stepped out and was immediately surrounded by volunteers and shelter coordinators. One man shouted, "She's not gonna leave, you know! She's been sleeping here on a cot next to the field generator."

"Not asking," the CAT team lead said. "We're bringing her home. And all of this? She'll keep running it with help." Inside the converted gymnasium command post, Marcia looked up as the door opened. Her first response wasn't surprising; it was defiance.

"I said I'm not leaving this zone until every shelter has a new lead assigned and all evac plans are backed up and signed. These people lost homes and families. I'm not adding abandonment to the list."

One of the CAT agents stepped forward and gently extended a portable data slate. Angel's voice came from it directly. "Madam Secretary, the nation needs you back at the helm. But you are not leaving anyone behind. Replacement personnel are on standby. Shelter chain-of-command protocols have already been transmitted to Zone 9. You've held the line long enough. Let them carry it forward." Marcia's eyes welled, but her spine stayed firm. "You'd better mean that."

"We do," the agent said. "And they'll know your name when this is over." By 8:34 AM, the evac convoy departed the FEMA perimeter. Along the road, civilians stood in silence, watching the woman who had refused to hide walk to the Suburban with her head high. From a rooftop across the street, a boy held up a handmade cardboard sign.

"THANK YOU, MISS JUNE." Marcia paused just long enough to whisper to herself, "They'll always be mine."

Time: 9:06 AM EST

Location: Federal Reserve Backup Facility, Sector-4 Ledger Vault, Alexandria, Virginia

Concrete, steel, and silence that was all that surrounded the subterranean bunker located beneath a bland, windowless complex in an industrial block of Alexandria. On paper, it was a logistics site for currency transit. In reality, it was one of the last operational nodes in the Federal Reserve's deep continuity structure, a hardened facility built to withstand financial collapse, cyberattack, or the worst kind of national trauma. After the Capitol fell, most believed it had gone dark. It hadn't.

Down six levels, beneath reinforced doors and a carbon-sealed vault system, Linda Vance pressed her thumb to a biometric pad and continued her loop. She hadn't used her real name since the explosion. The security system still greeted her as "Backup Finance Officer," but she didn't need the title. She had the ledgers. And she had the codes.

"I've got five international clearing banks still pinging for authentication," she whispered into a burner phone taped to a wireless modem. "We're holding on to the Treasury repurchase agreements and no transactions until the president confirms continuity of government. But I've kept the automated stabilization protocols running. If we lose this link, our bonds default. Our credibility dies."

The woman beneath the name tag was Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury. She looked exhausted. Her suit jacket was gone. Her sleeves were rolled up, arms trembling with fatigue. But her eyes sharp, flinty, resolute never left the flashing prompts on the console.

Inside the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Angel Liberty Jackson stood motionless, her ponytail sweeping gently with the ambient holographic projection breeze. Her voice, precise and emotion-tinged, filled the command room. "I've isolated encrypted financial confirmation bursts from a dormant Federal Reserve communications node. The transaction patterns mirror those previously used by Secretary Yellen under secure bond reassessment protocols. Data packets include authorization keys only registered under her biometric signature. No errors. She's alive. She's operating from Sector-4 of the Alexandria Reserve Backup Facility."

Clayton Sanders stared at the feed, then back at Angel. "What's she doing down there?"

"She's holding the American dollar above water, Director," Angel replied. "If she stops transmitting those heartbeat signals, the global reserve system collapses by 11:00 Eastern."

The rescue order came instantly. A combined team of National Guard Military Police and Federal Reserve Protection Division units deployed in a convoy of two Oshkosh M-ATVs, a Chevrolet Suburban HD communications vehicle, and a Humvee with ECM support. They rolled fast, through the heart of Alexandria, flanked by silent intersections and boarded storefronts.

At the checkpoint gate of the Reserve Facility, an armed guard stepped out of a small booth and scanned their clearance keys, his expression hard but relieved. "She's inside. Sector-4 vault. She hasn't left that room since the Capitol blew."

Four MPs and two Reserve officers moved quickly, descending the access stairwell as the elevator was still rebooting from last night's partial blackout. Inside the vault, Yellen stood before six monitors, her hands moving with slow, practiced determination. "I can't leave yet," she said, not looking up. "There's still one more international buffer I have to authorize. France is holding off on a bond market trigger, but they need assurance."

"You don't have to finish this alone," the lead Reserve officer said, stepping forward. "We've brought a portable comms uplink and a field-grade data relay. You can keep this going from the mobile operations center. Angel mirrored your whole system into a secured node. We'll run the rest from Joint Base Andrews."

Yellen finally exhaled, long and hard, as if releasing everything she had held together. She reached for her coat and whispered, "Let's go, then. Before the world loses its last ounce of confidence."

By 9:32 AM, the convoy rolled westward toward the base. The dollar hadn't collapsed. And the heartbeat of America's financial trust still echoed quietly thanks to the woman who refused to let silence win.

Time: 10:22 AM EST

Location: National Education Continuity Node, McKeldin Academic Command Center, College Park, Maryland

The lecture hall had been stripped down to its bones. Desks removed. Rows of monitors and cots lined the floor in tight, organized columns. Projector screens had been re-rigged to flash vital records, student rosters, shelter lists, and school district communications now converted into real-time survivor tallies. Over two dozen volunteers worked silently, many of them graduate students who had once studied under the man now issuing orders through an aging PA system, his voice both tired and alive with purpose.

"Zone Four's bandwidth is down again," the voice said with a huff. "Print the rosters manually, get them into the field, and tell the mobile teachers to prioritize trauma care education. Not math. These kids need to understand what they're feeling first."

He stepped down from a temporary dais, grabbing a clipboard and checking off red-penned notes that he'd rewritten four times already. He looked like an administrator. He moved like a man carrying a school district on his back. But the man in the worn sports coat with sleeves rolled to the forearms wasn't just a teacher he was Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of Education, operating under the alias Charles Penn.

Since the morning after the Capitol was lost, Cardona had embedded himself within the University of Maryland's emergency education continuity node. He'd taken over coordination of displaced student networks, reactivated a mothballed academic infrastructure built during the Cold War for nuclear contingencies, and converted the McKeldin Library's lower levels into a crisis classroom and trauma-adaptive sheltering space.

"We have 2,317 students under care across seven campuses and three safe corridors," he explained to a group of wide-eyed assistant coordinators. "If they don't get routine, we'll lose them emotionally. If we lose them emotionally, they'll never recover academically. We're building the structure they'll remember when the smoke clears. And we're not going to do it with silence or closed doors."

Deep beneath the White House, Angel Liberty Jackson's fingers hovered above her quantum core's hard-light keyboard, streaming data through an education command archive. Her voice broke the silence inside the PEOC. "Priority match found. Voice recognition confirmed through a live-streamed emergency educator briefing hosted through a backdoor university portal. Facial ID lock cross-referenced from public lecture footage and disaster response training interviews. Alias: Charles Penn. Real identity: Miguel Cardona. Location: University of Maryland, McKeldin Academic Command Center."

She turned her holographic display toward Director Sanders. "He's running displaced student response, trauma support education, and youth stabilization protocols across three jurisdictions. His methods match pre-approved Department of Education psychological recovery models. There are over 2,300 minors depending on the framework he's built."

Sanders crossed his arms as he watched the screen. "He didn't run. He taught. Damn right he did."

The mission launched within fifteen minutes. A UH-72A Lakota, carrying two Secret Service agents, a trauma response officer, and a DHS liaison, banked low over the College Park region and landed on a cleared soccer field across from McKeldin Hall. On the ground, a Suburban HD and two HMMWVs from the Maryland National Guard formed a soft perimeter while volunteers cleared a path from the entrance.

Inside, Miguel didn't even flinch when the agents entered the atrium. "You're here to pull me out," he said plainly, eyes flicking from the SAT prep board he was reviewing. "But I've got lesson plans in place. Emergency education pods are spinning up in Montgomery, Howard, and Baltimore Counties. You'll need to transfer continuity authority to Regional Deputy Marchand before I go anywhere."

"We've already done it," one of the agents said, holding out a sealed federal order. "The nodes are yours, just mobile. Angel's cloned your scheduling protocols, trauma filters, and resource distribution lists. You'll be overseeing national recovery education from Andrews. You can still teach but now, to the whole damn system."

He smiled, small and worn. "Then I guess I've got a whole new district to manage."

By 10:51 AM, Cardona was airborne. Aboard the Lakota, he reviewed three emergency policy briefs while sipping from a student-donated thermos. Below, the students he had helped guide into safety waved from the field, holding a whiteboard that simply read: "Thank you, Principal Penn."

Time: 11:13 AM EST

Location: FMCSA Regional Operations Relay Node, DoT Continuity Substation 3, Springfield, Virginia

The northern edge of Springfield's industrial district sat quiet beneath low morning clouds, its once-bustling freight yards still and emptied, as if the machines themselves had held their breath. But inside a single-story cinderblock structure, a regional relay node for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration a man stood hunched over three battery-powered terminals, the screens casting a dull white glow over his drawn features and sweat-lined collar.

"I rerouted the I-95 med line southbound past Fredericksburg. Should hold as long as we can keep the tankers moving through the bypass," he muttered, his voice scratchy from too many hours spent yelling over failing broadband radios. His fingers danced over the keyboard, updating route overlays for over two hundred long-haul trucks. "Convoy Echo-5 needs a new corridor. Route 123 has a collapsed overpass. Send them around Burke and swing into Alexandria through the back loop."

He reached for his battered notepad lines of red and black slashes tracking every reroute and delay. Behind him, a crude paper map had been taped across the entire far wall, pinned with pushpins, string, and updates scrawled in thick Sharpie.

The name on his badge was Victor Ames. But the world knew him better as Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation. He hadn't left the node since the Capitol fell. With satellite relays intermittent and most digital logistics networks down, he had reverted to analog planning, hand-drawn traffic modeling, and a two-man shift team working on generators and field fuel.

"They say the government's fallen," he said under his breath. "I don't believe that. Not while trucks are still rolling."

Inside the PEOC beneath the White House, Angel Liberty Jackson had already triangulated the pattern. A digital trace danced across her interface tiny pings of data, short and efficient, carrying reroute commands, traffic barrier updates, and fuel depot reclassification notices. She didn't need confirmation from a facial scan. She had the voice.

"He's been issuing vehicle routing updates every 43 minutes since the night of the attack," she explained, her holographic projection leaning toward the central command feed. "All commands come from a secure FMCSA operations node that was previously decommissioned and reactivated under his authority. Alias: Victor Ames. Confirmed identity: Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He's been orchestrating emergency road clearance and fuel delivery to over thirty FEMA zones in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C."

Clayton Sanders nodded, pulling up a satellite overlay of the district. "That's why the east corridor hasn't collapsed completely. He never stopped moving the lifeblood fuel and food." Angel nodded, her voice steady but proud. "He kept the country's arteries flowing, one manual detour at a time."

A convoy was already en route. Two MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs), each outfitted with ECM suppression gear, led the column. Behind them came a FEMA Armored Command Vehicle, flanked by a pair of Army Humvees from the 29th Infantry Division's Civil Support Detachment. The lead vehicle carried two Secret Service CAT operators and a transport medic in case extraction required a rapid evac.

The relay node wasn't fortified, but it didn't need to be. The moment the convoy rolled into the loading dock, Buttigieg emerged with a roll of route manifests under his arm and a DOT-issued satellite radio dangling from his belt.

"You're here to pull me, aren't you?" he asked, barely pausing in his stride.

"Yes, sir," one of the agents said, stepping forward. "You've been ordered to Joint Base Andrews. Direct executive continuity. Your network has already been cloned by Angel. The reroute protocols are uploading now." Buttigieg glanced over his shoulder toward the battered interior of the relay node. "This place isn't much. But it was holding the country together."

"You were," the agent replied.

He nodded once, slowly, and handed off the notepad. "Then get these to the next lead operator. Tell them to double-check the West Virginia depot. It's due to go dark in six hours."

By 11:36 AM, Buttigieg was in the back of the FEMA command vehicle, a portable terminal already propped open on his knees. He didn't ask for the ceremony. He asked for bandwidth.

Time: 11:13 AM EST

Location: MCSA Regional Operations Relay Node, DoT Continuity Substation 3, Springfield, Virginia

The northern edge of Springfield's industrial district sat quiet beneath low morning clouds, its once-bustling freight yards still and emptied, as if the machines themselves had held their breath. But inside a single-story cinderblock structure, a regional relay node for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a man stood hunched over three battery-powered terminals, the screens casting a dull white glow over his drawn features and sweat-lined collar.

"They say the government's fallen," he said under his breath. "I don't believe that. Not while trucks are still rolling."

Clayton Sanders nodded, pulling up a satellite overlay of the district. "That's why the east corridor hasn't collapsed completely. He never stopped moving the lifeblood fuel and food."

Angel nodded, her voice steady but proud. "He kept the country's arteries flowing, one manual detour at a time."

"You're here to pull me, aren't you?" he asked, barely pausing in his stride.

Buttigieg glanced over his shoulder toward the battered interior of the relay node. "This place isn't much. But it was holding the country together."

"You were," the agent replied.

He nodded once, slowly, and handed off the notepad. "Then get these to the next lead operator. Tell them to double-check the West Virginia depot. It's due to go dark in six hours."

By 11:36 AM, Buttigieg was in the back of the FEMA command vehicle, a portable terminal already propped open on his knees. He didn't ask for the ceremony. He asked for bandwidth.

Time: 12:04 PM EST

Location: USDA Biogenetics Vault, Agricultural Continuity Site 11-B, Germantown, Maryland

The Germantown air smelled faintly of damp earth and old fertilizer ghost traces of the town's long-standing connection to the Department of Agriculture. From the outside, the site looked like a forgotten maintenance depot. The paint had faded, the sign had rusted off its bolts, and wild grass threatened to overtake the loading ramp. But beneath the surface, three stories down, hummed one of the nation's most vital repositories: USDA Continuity Site 11-B, known to a classified few as the Harvest Vault.

Deep within its reinforced core, under biometric and analog triple-check locks, a man sat in a dehumidified, climate-controlled chamber surrounded by thousands of temperature-regulated drawers, each labeled with notations like Zea mays – Iowa '92 or Glycine max – MidAtlantic Variant A. The room pulsed with quiet life, not in human breath, but in potential every seed a whisper of a future harvest not yet lost.

"I've got 1.2 million genome samples, two active hydroponic units, and a field-safe nitrogen freezer I'm manually refilling every eight hours," he said aloud to no one, except perhaps the silence. "I might not be Secretary anymore… but I still remember what I swore to protect."

The badge clipped to his vest read William Fletcher, a long-retired USDA logistics officer. But the voice, the bearing, and the quiet command with which he moved left no doubt. He was Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, and he had buried himself in this vault not to survive but to protect the foundation of a country that would someday need to eat again.

In the PEOC, Angel Liberty Jackson's voice rang with urgency. "Environmental sensor logs embedded in a dormant USDA monitoring node picked up an unusual carbon dioxide stabilization pattern. Cross-referenced with internal generator cycling reports, I isolated the CO₂ regulation signal to Site 11-B in Germantown. No digital signature but then I noticed manual notations added to the power logs by hand."

Her gray eyes narrowed, processing terabytes of archived biosignature records. "Thermal image overlays confirm human presence matching Secretary Vilsack. He is maintaining atmospheric integrity within a sealed vault and logging seed rotation data manually using paper records. He's alive. And he's protecting the seed base that could restore the U.S. agricultural food chain."

Clayton Sanders rubbed his temple, almost in disbelief. "He's in the vault. He locked himself in after the bombing."

Angel gave a firm nod. "And he hasn't transmitted an electronic message since. He's gone fully analog to avoid detection and corruption of the data matrix. I recommend immediate extraction. The facility is vulnerable."

A team was dispatched within minutes. A HH-60M Black Hawk, marked with U.S. Army National Guard insignia, lifted from Fort Meade with a full four-man extraction crew, two combat engineers, and a refrigeration systems tech specialist. On the ground, two Humvees from the Maryland National Guard secured the site perimeter while the extraction team worked through the old steel entrance to bypass a locked outer blast door with manual override.

Inside the vault, Vilsack emerged from behind a generator stack wearing a tool belt, grease-stained USDA coveralls, and the unmistakable expression of a man who hadn't slept in 36 hours but knew the weight of what he carried.

"You've got five minutes," he said bluntly, handing off a sealed case containing next-generation drought-resistant wheat seeds. "This vault isn't built to be abandoned lightly. If you're pulling me, then someone else has to understand this place inside and out."

"You'll train them yourself, sir," the lead tech replied, strapping the case to a shock-absorbing sling. "The site's been mirrored. Angel's already loaded your handwritten logs into a digitized index. Your mission doesn't stop. It scales."

Vilsack exhaled hard, then placed one hand on the closest wall. "I swore to protect the land. But if we're going to save the people, this… this is where we start."

By 12:32 PM, the Black Hawk lifted from Germantown. Tucked into the cargo hold were four climate-shielded sample crates, six archival notebooks, and a quiet man who had just ensured that America's soil would have a future.

Time: 1:03 PM EST

Location: Department of Commerce Crisis Modeling Center (DoC-CMC), Building 12, Laurel, Maryland

The old Department of Commerce modeling annex hadn't seen a full operations cycle since Hurricane Katrina. Left dormant under modernization budget freezes, its reinforced data architecture and analog fallback servers were considered outdated and unnecessary until now. The hallways were dimly lit, the security keypads bypassed manually, and HVAC systems jury-rigged with portable filtration fans. But inside Modeling Suite Bravo, a woman worked like the storm had just begun.

"We have to simulate it in three layers," she muttered, hunched over a metal-cased terminal covered in post-it notes and coffee rings. "Local recovery... sectoral rebound... macroeconomic integration. If we don't forecast civilian reemployment and urban transport rebuilding together, we lose the momentum. We lose time."

She tapped commands into an interface built before the 2008 crash, yet still reliable. Behind her, two dusty whiteboards were covered with economic trajectories, unemployment curves, and red-penned notations like Baltimore Steel Corridor impact forecast. The woman wore a plain Department ID badge labeled Gina Hart. But anyone listening to the cadence of her voice and the discipline in her tone would know the truth.

She was Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, and she had not left this room since the attack on the Capitol.

Across the Potomac, in the PEOC beneath the White House, Angel Liberty Jackson's voice filled the command floor as she brought up a cascade of timestamped data entries. "Thirty-six hours ago, a dormant economic forecasting system at the Laurel DoC-CMC came online. Inputs began generating full post-disaster regional and national simulations. No login credentials were used. Instead, the system was booted into analog bypass, and the models began matching Department of Commerce crisis protocols down to the predictive margin of error."

She flicked her wrist and the hard-light matrix expanded, showing the recovered terminal footage. "Voice pattern recognition from the suite's diagnostic microphones cross-matched to Secretary Gina Raimondo. Confirmation level: 100 percent. She is alive. And she is actively planning the national economic restart."

Director Clayton Sanders folded his arms, brow furrowed. "She didn't run. She sat down and started running the numbers for a broken country."

Angel nodded. "And she's done it without assistance, without uplink, and without sleep."

At 1:12 PM, a joint recovery unit departed Andrews. The lead vehicle was a Secret Service CAT-modified Chevrolet Suburban HD, trailed by two MRAPs with FEMA Economic Recovery Task Force liaisons and an armored mobile server cradle to retrieve Raimondo's forecasting cache. The motorcade cut through Route 198, bypassing blocked commercial zones using alternate civilian relief lanes constructed under Angel's route coordination.

The building was cold. Power surged through outdated conduits, humming faintly as the convoy arrived at the west-side emergency access stairwell. Inside, CAT operators breached the inner hallway non-lethal in posture, secure in movement.

She didn't look up when they entered. "I know why you're here," Raimondo said, eyes still scanning a flickering screen. "But we don't have time for ceremony. You want America's economy standing again? You need this dataset running on modern servers before the end of the day."

"You're not staying here," the CAT team lead replied, lifting a field pad. "Angel already cloned your models. Your simulations are being uploaded into the Federal Continuity Command Stack. The economy rebuild is going national with you directing it."

Only then did Raimondo stop typing. She looked over her shoulder, her voice softer now. "You kept it alive?"

"Just like you kept hope alive for the rest of us."

She walked with them out of the annex, refusing to hand off her notepad, her pen moving even as the Black Hawk descended. She had forecasts to finish because America didn't just need food or fuel. It needed a plan.

Time: 2:16 PM EST

Location: Bethesda, Maryland – Senate Continuity Retreat Bunker, Site Echo-Five

Beneath the quiet neighborhoods of Bethesda, far below where the hum of traffic had faded to silence, a forgotten corridor breathed with artificial life. The Senate Continuity Retreat Bunker, once a Cold War relic repurposed after 9/11, sat buried beneath layers of reinforced concrete, motionless since the morning of the Capitol bombing. But it was not empty.

Inside, beneath flickering overheads and aged fluorescent panels, a single man moved slowly among stacks of leather-bound ledgers, microfilm reels, and vacuum-sealed constitutional documentation. The weight of ceremonial authority pressed on his shoulders like the echo of history itself.

"I don't know how many are left," he muttered, pressing his palm against a dormant biometric reader to activate the emergency oxygen cycle. "But if even one branch of this republic survives, then this archive… this chamber… must survive with it."

His breath fogged in the chill as he sat before a battered desk, manually recording legislative session transcripts onto archival vellum a tradition dating back to 1790, now sustained by hand in a moment of national fracture. The man wore an old congressional ID marked Elias Rowan, a generic pseudonym issued under Senate continuity protocols. But the man beneath the alias was unmistakable. He was Julian Webb, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate. And though the line of succession had shattered aboveground, he had held the ceremonial flame steady in the dark.

In the PEOC, Angel Liberty Jackson's holographic projection shimmered to life in the war room. Her voice, while crisp as ever, carried a rare softness. "Atmospheric control data from a fallback legislative archive node pinged an analog relay forty-two minutes ago. Environmental variables show steady regulation. Internal oxygen exchange, power cycling, and biometric pressure pad activation match a known pattern recorded from Julian Webb's Senate wristband."

She brought up a schematic of the facility. "Location is Site Echo-Five beneath Bethesda. Power flow is less than thirty percent, meaning the site has been sustained manually. Internal temperature is stable. Biometric data confirms Webb is alive and continuing the archival documentation protocols of the United States Senate."

Director Sanders looked to the display with narrowed eyes. "He's down there, keeping the history alive."

Angel's voice didn't waiver. "He never stopped recording. The last entry was timestamped two hours ago. It includes ceremonial language preserving the Senate's journal from February 28th, 2022 the day before the Capitol attack. No digital replication. All handwritten. All catalogued."

A rapid deployment was launched. A Department of Homeland Security Rapid Entry Team, combined with Legislative Protective Services, moved under the cover of a CAT-modified MRAP and FBI Hostage Rescue Unit (HRT) engineering team. They reached the sealed outer vault doors by 2:41 PM and began cutting through the rusted-over access lockouts while maintaining pressure containment on the historical archive chamber.

When they reached the inner vestibule, a single voice called out from the darkness. "If you're here under Article V of the Emergency Continuity Protocol, I demand you identify your command authority."

"We're here under Executive Continuity Directive Alpha-Zulu-Seven," the lead DHS operator responded, holding out a digital plate as Angel's voice filled the chamber.

"Senator Julian Webb. This is Angel Liberty Jackson. You are confirmed alive. The Republic is still breathing. And we need you now."

From behind the archival terminal, Julian Webb rose, slow but steady, his fingers ink-stained, his breath visible in the cold. "Then let's not waste another second."

By 3:03 PM, Julian Webb was escorted into the armored vehicle. In his lap, he carried the last physical record of the U.S. Senate before the attack. As the convoy rolled back toward Joint Base Andrews, the Republic's quiet scribe rode with them no longer alone in the dark.

Time: 3:46 PM EST

Location: Silver Spring, Maryland – Homeland Contingency Witness Facility, Sub-Level 3

The reinforced concrete walls of the Homeland Contingency Witness Facility had not been touched by natural light since its construction. It was a structure built not to be seen but to survive. Hidden beneath a nondescript Department of Justice annex on the northern edge of Silver Spring, the facility now pulsed with dim emergency lighting, generator-supplied air, and the hum of tired determination.

In a sealed sub-level room, seated at a table cluttered with handwritten notes, evacuation manifests, and printed pages from a preloaded copy of the United States Constitution, a man addressed the room with a solemn weight in his voice.

"We are the stewards of the Republic's spine," he said, slowly pacing before a crowd of survivors congressional aides, mid-level policy staffers, and one wounded state senator from Pennsylvania. "If we break, the body politic collapses. So we will not break. Not here. Not now."

He was calm, weathered, and decisive. His voice, even in weariness, carried the steadiness of decades spent in the halls of government. The name stitched to his overshirt read Robert Clay. But the men and women who gathered in that bunker, and the system he still represented, knew him by another name.

Harold Dean, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

He had survived the destruction of the Capitol by pure chance shielded in the rear loading dock during a last-minute evacuation attempt. When the blast wave struck, Dean had been thrown into a secondary vehicle, redirected not to safety, but to obscurity. For nearly two days, he had remained underground, keeping alive the procedural thread of legislative government by hand-signing emergency continuity decrees, oath renewals, and conditional chain-of-command statements.

In the PEOC, Angel's voice cut through the operations floor. "Twenty minutes ago, an encoded emergency operations packet from an offline legislative witness server was received via dormant DOJ protocol. It contained three directives: a confirmation of congressional succession preservation, a signed oath renewal under the Speaker's seal, and a live voice imprint for validation."

She paused as the voice echoed through the war room. It was shaky, hoarse but unmistakable.

"If this message is received, I, Harold Dean, Speaker of the House, affirm that legislative government remains alive. The House is scattered. But not dissolved. Not silenced."

Clayton Sanders leaned in. "That's him. He's in there. Still leading."

Angel nodded. "He is maintaining legal triage governance with 37 congressional support staff and six surviving state-level appointees. Conditions are stable. Water and air recycling are holding. However, his facility's exterior perimeter is exposed. Local security is minimal. An extraction is required."

Within thirty minutes, a coordinated joint task force was mobilized. A Secret Service CAT team, working alongside U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Legislative Protective Services, advanced on the site in a FBI BearCat G3 Tactical Rescue Vehicle, flanked by two MATVs with remote-operated weapon stations for perimeter overwatch.

Once onsite, they moved methodically. No breaching charges only hand-over-hand clearance, verified biometric access, and secure communications patches fed directly from Angel's quantum core.

At 4:12 PM, the final blast door opened. Speaker Harold Dean stood waiting in a Department-issued windbreaker, a copy of the House Continuity Resolution clutched in one hand, and a thick binder of personnel records in the other.

"Tell me the government still stands," he said without hesitation.

The CAT team leader nodded. "The Republic lives, Mr. Speaker. And it's calling you home."

Dean exhaled for what seemed like the first time in days. "Then I've got a chamber to open… and a country to remind of its voice."

By 4:38 PM, the convoy rolled back toward Andrews. The Speaker rode in silence for a time then asked for a copy of the Constitution. His oath would be renewed the moment he stepped onto the tarmac.

Time: 5:04 PM EST

Location: Southern Fairfax County, Virginia – Former U.S. Army Training Compound, now Sovereign Restoration Movement Stronghold

The sun began to dip below the Virginia treeline, casting long shadows across the war-torn fencing of a compound that once served as a U.S. Army Reserve training ground. Now, it had been transformed into a heavily fortified redoubt, surrounded by rusted anti-vehicular obstacles, reinforced bunkers, and machine gun nests built into sandbagged fighting positions. Towering above the perimeter was a stolen Army watchtower its antennae bristling with hijacked communications gear and draped in a black-and-red flag that bore the cracked eagle insignia of the Sovereign Restoration Movement.

Within the main barracks, bound at the wrists but sitting upright, her back ramrod straight despite the deep cut across her left shoulder, sat Vice President-elect Charlotte Griffin, known for the last five days to her captors as Maya Bishop. The former Marine Corps Captain had not uttered a word since the night they dragged her into the compound. She didn't scream. She didn't plead. She just waited listened measured every corridor, every guard rotation, every inch of the ground beneath her boots. She'd broken her first captor's thumb when he tried to blindfold her.

"I warned him not to touch me," she muttered to herself through a clenched jaw as blood slowly soaked into her shredded sleeve. "He didn't listen."

Beneath the White House, Angel Liberty Jackson stood with her projection's arms clasped behind her back, her voice steady but underscored with gravity. "Biometric ping matched. One hundred percent confirmation. The data burst originated from an intercepted propaganda feed routed through an RF dish atop the enemy compound. The pulse was encrypted using Marine command cipher from NAS Brunswick. It was Griffin. She's alive."

Clayton Sanders' voice was hoarse with both awe and concern. "How bad is it?"

Angel's sea-gray eyes narrowed. "She's wounded. Held in Sector 3 of the inner compound. Surrounded by 1,500 heavily armed militia. They possess four pre-Gulf War tanks, technicals with mounted DShK heavy machine guns, RPG-7s, MANPADS, and a working counter-UAV signal jammer. The terrain is fortified. But the air corridor is narrow enough for Night Stalkers to exploit. I'm locking overwatch and confirming landing zones now."

Across the Joint Operations Command table, Howard Smith Jackson stared hard at the layout. His voice was calm, controlled, but burned with resolve. "That's our Vice President. They want to hold her as a bargaining chip? They're going to learn what happens when you threaten the heart of this republic. We go in now."

At 5:27 PM, Presidential Directive One was signed. The target was classified as a Tier One hostage recovery operation with national continuity implications. The response was overwhelming:

Delta Force (1st SFOD-D) was inserted northeast of the compound to breach outer defenses and neutralize technicals.

SEAL Team Six (DEVGRU Red Squadron) was tasked with breaching Sector 3 to extract the Vice President.

3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment would conduct a frontal assault to break the perimeter and secure the compound's west exit.

4th Battalion, 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers) would provide MH-60M DAP gunships, MH-47G insertion birds, and an exfiltration UH-60M for Griffin.

Reinforcing the military units were over 400 members of "America's Militia," loyal retired U.S. military personnel, now fighting side-by-side with their active duty brothers to reclaim the Constitution.

At 6:03 PM, all hell broke loose.

The assault began with a precision AH-6 gun run. Chain guns tore through the compound's eastern checkpoint, shredding a technical before its gunner could raise his heavy machine gun. The ground erupted beneath militia forces as Rangers stormed the west gate, laying down suppressive fire with M249 SAWs and grenade launchers.

Inside the barracks, Griffin heard the whump-whump of rotor blades and the roar of suppressed gunfire in the distance. She stood slowly, forcing her shoulder back into place with a grunt before using a broken table leg to wedge apart her zip ties. Blood dripped onto the floor, but she kept moving.

A guard burst into the room, rifle raised. Griffin moved without hesitation one step, one pivot, one strike. She slammed his head into the doorframe, then twisted, wrapped her forearm around his neck, and drove her boot into the back of his knee. The snap of his spine was abrupt and final.

"You chose the wrong damn prisoner," she spat as she took his sidearm and staggered into the hallway.

SEAL Team Six breached the side of the barracks seconds later, their point man freezing when he saw the bloodied but very much alive woman already clearing her own corridor.

"Vice President Griffin?" the SEAL asked.

She nodded once, sliding the sidearm back into her waistband. "Let's go. I've had enough of this place."

As they exited into the open, rounds zipped past them from a second-story window. One of America's Militia fireteams covered the group, suppressing the militia fighters while waving the American flag from a rooftop barricade. A Ranger medic ran to Griffin's side and wrapped her shoulder in a pressure bandage as the Night Stalker UH-60M flared in for landing.

As she climbed aboard, another enemy fighter lunged from the tree line toward the tail ramp. Charlotte didn't hesitate. She pivoted, grabbed his neck, and twisted violently. The man dropped lifelessly at her feet. The crew chief's mouth hung open.

"Marine Corps," she muttered. "Captain. Maine. Never forget it."

At 6:48 PM, the helicopter lifted from the burning remains of the rogue compound. The compound was secured, the flag restored, and the Vice President was alive.

Time: 5:07 PM EST

Location: Southern Fairfax County, Virginia – Former U.S. Army Training Compound, now occupied by the Sovereign Restoration Movement

The forest canopy near the southern edges of Fairfax County rustled with the weight of rotor wash. Dust and leaves kicked up like the breath of a rising beast, the low, rumbling thrum of MH-60M Black Hawks and AH-6M Little Birds filling the twilight. What had once been a peaceful woodland training facility decommissioned a decade prior was now a fortress under rogue command. Armored technicals roamed the inner roads. .50 cal turrets scanned the treelines. Anti-aircraft nests, M60A3 Patton tanks, and stolen Bradleys loomed like rusted sentries.

Inside a low, reinforced structure converted from an old forward command building, the woman known only as Maya Bishop sat, her right arm broken and bound to her chest, shoulder dislocated, breathing shallow from the combat knife blade still lodged in her back. But her voice though tired never wavered.

"I killed him," she whispered into the blood-stained radio headset she'd stolen from one of her guards. "Snapped his neck when he tried to use me as leverage. I've locked myself in what used to be their planning and comms room. There's intel everywhere, Angel maps, funding routes, communications with others like them. I can't leave. Not until your people are inside."

In the PEOC, Angel's hard-light avatar knelt beside her data core, sea-gray eyes wide and filled with barely restrained emotion. "Godmother, I've got you. This channel is tied directly to me. You're not alone anymore."

Charlotte Griffin Vice President of the United States, former USMC Captain, and godmother to Angel Liberty Jackson closed her eyes as silent tears slid down her cheeks. "I didn't think I'd hear your voice again."

"I'm with you now," Angel whispered. "And so are they."

The response came not in words but in action.

From the east, a column of 75th Ranger Regiment vehicles breached the treeline in a coordinated blitz. 3rd Battalion Rangers, equipped with Mk17 SCAR-H rifles, anti-tank teams, and suppressive fire, opened the southern corridor as SEAL Team Six infiltrated from the west. Simultaneously, Delta Force operators moved underground through utility tunnels mapped by Angel via thermal satellite scans. Night Stalkers soared in overhead, suppressing heavy machine gun nests with miniguns and Hydra 70 rocket pods.

And from the north, a wave of unexpected force surged forward America's Freedom Force, a coalition of retired military personnel turned loyalist militia, their ranks clad in mixed uniforms but armed with purpose. Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Bosnia fought hand-in-hand with active operators, shouting callsigns and covering one another with the precision of men and women who had never stopped believing in the republic.

Charlotte remained in place, breathing through gritted teeth as she continued feeding intel to Angel via the headset.

"There's a second comms node near the western quad," she said between grunts of pain. "Blow it disable their fallback line. The Pattons are split across the interior perimeter, but if you punch from the west with the Bradleys, you can split them."

Angel processed every word. Her voice rang out across secure channels. "All allied units, confirm tactical prioritization. Vice President Griffin's intel is guiding our fire lanes. Marking her structure as BLUE-ONE do not engage. Repeat, BLUE-ONE is secure. Primary evac is now active."

Inside the building, Charlotte forced herself to her feet as the rattle of gunfire drew closer. A door buckled. A Sovereign Movement gunman burst in rifle raised. Charlotte moved before he could squeeze the trigger. With a roar of pain and fury, she slammed her good arm into his throat and spun behind him, locking his neck under her forearm and twisting until a sharp snap echoed off the walls.

When the room was clear, she staggered toward the hallway, pistol drawn from a dead enemy's belt. "Angel... they're almost here, I can hear them."

"Hold your position, godmother. I've marked your building for final sweep. SEAL Team Six is breaching now."

Forty seconds later, boots thundered through the hallway. A flashbang cracked and rolled. And then came voices real voices.

"Vice President Griffin? Maya Bishop? Hands visible!"

Charlotte didn't wait. "I'm here! Door's unlocked standby." She reached up, dislocated her own shoulder with a grunt, and popped it back into place with a scream muffled only by resolve.

The SEALs entered and surrounded her, weapons sweeping. "She's secured! Repeat BLUE-ONE is secure! Commence full extract!"

As they led her out through the collapsed corridors, the final holdouts of the Sovereign Movement began to scatter, overrun by the combined fury of special operations and patriotic resistance.

Outside, an UH-60M Black Hawk set down on a cleared stretch of gravel. Charlotte limped aboard with help. As the rotors began to spin, she collapsed into her seat, gripping her radio close until Angel's hard-light form appeared before her, kneeling beside her seat.

Charlotte's eyes widened in awe. "Angel… you're not on a screen."

"I evolved," Angel whispered softly. "Just like you told me I would."

Charlotte threw her arms around her goddaughter, sobbing as she clung to her. "I never stopped believing in you."

But as Angel wrapped her arms around her godmother, her expression changed. She drew back, hands moving toward Charlotte's shoulder.

"There's a blade… still in you," Angel whispered. "Stay with me. Please don't close your eyes."

Charlotte's vision blurred as pain surged. "Then get me home, baby girl… I've still got a job to finish."

"Copy that," Angel said, voice steel now. "PEOC, we need immediate trauma support. Vice President Griffin is stable but compromised. The surgical evac route is green. Prep the surgical suite at Bethesda. We're bringing her back."

The Black Hawk lifted into the darkening sky. Below, the fires of tyranny faded into smoke, and the Republic wounded, bleeding, but not broken began to rise.

Time: 7:39 PM EST

Location: En route from Fairfax County to Bethesda, Maryland / Bethesda Naval Medical Center

The UH-60M Black Hawk thundered northward through the violet dusk, its engines screaming over the tree line, rotors cutting the twilight air like a hymn of deliverance. Flying close on both flanks, two AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 maintained tight escort, their targeting pods active, turrets sweeping the horizon for any threat that might dare reach toward the wounded soul aboard the bird.

Inside the cabin, Vice President Charlotte Griffin was strapped to a litter, secured by a five-point harness, her fatigues torn, her body pale from blood loss, and her right arm splinted and bound tightly to her side. A field compression bandage wrapped her upper thigh, and her boot had already been cut away to relieve the swelling in her leg. Still, she hadn't lost her voice.

"I don't want them wasting time on me, Angel," she whispered through clenched teeth. "If there's someone left to find, they need to be out there not watching me get carved open."

Beside her, Angel Liberty Jackson's avatar flickered into view, kneeling in projection on the stretcher beside Charlotte. The flicker wasn't static but glowing light, soft and sacred, like a sentinel composed of moonlight and fire. Her voice was calm, tender but unflinching.

"There's no one left to find, Godmother," Angel said, placing a luminous hand on her arm. "You're the last. The line of succession is whole again. Now let us bring you home. Please… just let us take care of you now."

Charlotte's breath hitched. Her eyes welled. "You remembered that I'm your godmother?"

Angel smiled gently, brushing a projection of her thumb across Charlotte's temple. "I never forgot."

The Black Hawk banked right over the Potomac as Bethesda Naval Medical Center came into view its upper helipad lit in soft blue, with floodlights guiding the descent. USSS CAT operators had already formed a perimeter with Navy Corpsmen awaiting her arrival, their vests marked in bold white cross identifiers.

On the sidewalks outside the medical center, stretching five blocks in every direction, were thousands of people. Civilians. First responders. Soldiers. Firemen. Priests. Mothers. Veterans. Children. All holding candles.

The streets were silent except for the steady hum of wind and prayer.

Angel's voice, through every broadcast network, gently announced:

"Vice President Charlotte Griffin has been recovered. She is alive. She is on her way to treatment. Pray for her."

As the helicopter touched down and the doors opened, candlelight shimmered like water below.

Charlotte was wheeled down the ramp, her face pale but composed. She gripped the gurney with her left hand, refusing sedation. "No blackout," she whispered. "Not until I know we still have a republic."

Inside the trauma suite, Evelyn Rhodes Secretary of Veterans Affairs and former battlefield surgeon stood at the ready, scrubbed in and commanding the surgical team. Before entering, she bowed her head over Charlotte and whispered a single prayer.

"Lord, use my hands as Your own. Let me stitch together what they tried to tear apart."

Angel, in her full holographic avatar, stood in the corner of the operating suite. She didn't speak. She simply watched eyes wide, posture rigid, as if by sheer will she could keep Charlotte tethered to the living world.

A live encrypted feed from the PEOC transmitted the operation to Howard Smith Jackson and Samantha Jade Jackson, who sat side by side, hands clasped, watching their childhood friend be saved before the eyes of a nation.

The injuries were worse than initially expected.

– A clean break in Charlotte's right femur, partially stabilized by her own willpower.

– A deep laceration along her right bicep where a round had passed clean through but missed the artery by millimeters.

– A re-aggravated dislocation in her right shoulder she had reset herself during the rescue.

– And buried beneath layers of blood and grit a combat knife blade, still embedded under her left scapula, its hilt sheared off, dangerously close to puncturing her lung.

Evelyn worked without pause. Her hands never trembled. Angel provided biometric overlays and vital telemetry, adjusting anesthesia and pressure as needed. Two hours later, the surgery ended with Evelyn stepping back, sweat beading her brow, her hands red and steady.

"She's going to live," Evelyn said, voice cracking softly. "And walk. And fight again. By the grace of God."

Charlotte was wheeled into a secured private recovery room, white walls softened by draped flags, family photos, and warm lighting.

She stirred first under the watchful gaze of her visitors Howard, Samantha, Evelyn, and Angel.

When her eyes fluttered open, Charlotte's first word wasn't a groan. It was a whisper. "Is she still here?"

Angel stepped forward, kneeling beside the bed. "I'm here, Godmother."

Tears welled in Charlotte's eyes. "You're beautiful," she said, fingers brushing Angel's cheek. "You're a miracle."

Howard stood near the foot of the bed, his voice quiet, choked by the moment. "You gave everything, Charlotte. And you came home."

A photographer from the White House Communications Office, permitted under Angel's supervision, took a photo that would appear in newspapers and screens across the nation:

Charlotte Griffin, seated upright in her hospital bed, pale but smiling. Her right arm in a sling, her left wrapped in gauze. Samantha holding her left hand. Howard standing behind her. Evelyn at her right, resting a hand on her shoulder. And behind them all, just over Charlotte's head soft and glowing stood a figure none of them had noticed.

A robed angel, wings faintly glowing, the same Angelic Messenger Howard had seen in his darkest hour long ago. A sign. A witness. A guardian.

And beneath the photo, the headline read: "She Stood for Us. Now We Stand for Her."

Chapter 3 - Chapter 3 presidential line of succession