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agencies who happen to be on duty, and FEMA employees—will have been evacuated to ensure continuity of operations.”
    â€œSo how the hell are we going to run the government tomorrow morning?” the President asked as Lambert checked his wallet for his Federal Employee Emergency Identification Card. He found it just behind his racquetball club card. All it had was his name, picture, blood type, and the message, “ THE PERSON DESCRIBED ON THIS CARD HAS ESSENTIAL EMERGENCY DUTIES WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. REQUEST FULL ASSISTANCE AND UNRESTRICTED MOVEMENT BE AFFORDED THE PERSON TO WHOM THIS CARD IS ISSUED.” Lambert turned the card over. Printed in large block letters was “JEEP-1.”
    â€œWell, sir,” Thomas said, “in a couple of hours the Joint Air Transportation Service will start evacuating Category A Relocation Teams—skeleton staffs consisting of several dozen people from each department and key agency split into three teams, each going to a different location. By the end of the day, they’ll have moved Category B Teams—people from the National Science Foundation, the FDIC, people like that. All Category C agency personnel, and all government personnel who aren’t part of the relocation teams, should be getting ‘Advanced Alert’ phone calls from their superiors telling them to pack up and stand by. They in turn pass the alert to the next tier down on their organizational chart, and it goes on and on.”
    â€œWhere is everybody going?” President Livingston asked as Lambert saw the lights of the White House, its lawns brightly lit by floodlights, so stark in contrast to the other buildings mostly dark on this Sunday night.
    â€œWell, the airborne evacuees,” General Thomas said, “will just orbit. We’ll send one E-4B with a presidential successor down to the Southern Hemisphere out over the mid-Atlantic, but the rest will remain over the continental United States. Everybody else goes to emergency relocation sites within the ‘Federal Arc’—within three hundred miles of D.C.—or to alternate command posts. You go to ‘Kneecap,’ the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, and the civilian government goes to Mount Weather or to the Alternate National Military Command Center at Raven Rock Mountain. And, I might add, there are several thousand state, county, and city blast-and fallout-resistant emergency operating centers that were constructed to ensure continued local government. They’re receiving the warning and should also be staffing up. I’m sorry, sir,” Thomas said, “but I’ve got a call coming in from the Pacific Command. I’d better see what this is.”
    â€œOkay, General Thomas. See you at Andrews. Greg, are you still there?”
    â€œYes, sir,” Lambert said as they pulled up to the White House gate.
    â€œOkay. I’m going to take Barrow’s and Gerhardt’s calls. You get me Secretary Moore at State. I’m switching to this portable thing they’re handing me and heading down to the South Lawn. I’ll just be a second—you stay on the line with Moore.”
    Instead of calling Jane on her car phone, as he had hoped to do, Lambert dialed the number of the White House switchboard. “This is Greg Lambert. Get me the Secretary of State.”
    â€œOne moment, sir,” the operator said calmly, recognizing his voice and not wasting time with the new voice ID system that he knew the old ladies at the switchboard hated. Lambert’s car pulled to a stop in the drive just by the South Lawn. Through the bushes he could see security personnel fanning out from the building.
    â€œGreg?” the voice of Secretary Moore came from the speaker-phone, the sound of a racing engine in the background.
    â€œBill, just a minute, the President wants to talk to you.”
    â€œHelluva deal, hey, Greg?” the Secretary asked, but before