Above Top Secret

[Odinson]

Top Secret - SCI

THE WHITE HOUSE
The Oval Office
January 3, 2008
5:15 PM EST

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President Benjamin Sinclair was sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. He was ready to end the day. Just two days ago he had announced he wasn't going to run for another term as President and the entire country was wondering who would win the Democratic and Republican nominations for the presidency. Since Sinclair wouldn't be in the race, either side had a fair chance of winning now. Sinclair didn't mind, in fact he felt relieved. He only ran for office because he wanted to stop a radical from being elected to office. He felt he had more than fulfilled his duty to the country at this point, and now he just needed to finish out his term and hopefully get five or six more pieces of meaningful legislation through congress. Soon, hopefully, he would have time to read an entire book in one weekend, or eat a lobster roll without the Surgeon General telling him that he shouldn't have so much butter in his diet. Those thoughts were swimming through the President's mind as he sat back in his leather chair and decided to call it a day. He stood up and started walking to the door that led to the West Colonnade, but then there was a knock on one of the doors to the Oval Office.

The President's Chief of Staff, Harvey Baker, slipped in. "Sir, there's a last-minute meeting, it just came up."

"Cancel it," Sinclair said, his hand on the doorknob.

"Mister President, they're telling me that it's urgent.. it can't wait," Baker said. It wasn't often that he told Sinclair no without trying to convince him first.

"What is it about?"

"...I was told that I don't have the clearance."

Sinclair raised his eyebrows in interest. Harvey Baker had Yankee White clearance, meaning that he was cleared for sensitive Top Secret information that the President regularly received. It was very common for Baker to know about extremely sensitive events before Sinclair even knew about them.

Sinclair let go of the doorknob, "Alright, send them in."

"They're not outside, Mister President, they insisted that the meeting take place in the Situation Room. It's Admiral Irving, Director Marsh from CIA, and another admiral that I couldn't recognize."

Sinclair inhaled sharply and then exhaled. "Thanks Harvey, tell Senator Snowe that I have one more meeting and then I'll come over to the Residence."

"Yes sir, thank you, Mister President," Baker said.

Sinclair went back to the Resolute Desk and picked up a small pad of paper. He suspected that if his Chief of Staff couldn't know what the meeting was about, let alone go inside, then he would probably have to take his own notes. The tall, slender, white-haired leader grabbed his black cane and started the journey from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. He was quietly followed by his Secret Service detail.

"Beacon is on the move to Cement Mixer," one of the agents quietly said. The President's EWO (Emergency War Officer) who carried the Strategic Football, followed distantly behind the Secret Service agents.

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Sinclair walked past the security measures as two Marines snapped to attention outside of the Situation Room and opened the door for the President. The other three people in the room stood up and looked at their commander-in-chief.

"Thank you, please sit," Sinclair said. He haphazardly dropped his notepad at the head of the table and took his seat there. The other three individuals sat down.

"I was told that this couldn't wait," Sinclair said. He looked around the room and saw Lucy Marsh, the CIA Director, Admiral Noah Irving, the Chief of Naval Operations, and then saw the third person, who was a two-star admiral.

"Admiral," Sinclair continued, "I'm sorry, I recognize you, but I've forgotten your name," the President said - he was obviously tired from a long day of work.

"That's alright, Mister President. I do my best to be forgetful, it's best in my line of work. My name is Rear Admiral Brent Goodman, I'm the Commander of The Office of Naval Intelligence," Goodman said. He was an older man (not as old as Sinclair) with grey hair and the puffy cheeks and big nose of an old Irishman.

"Well, how can I help the three of you? My chief of staff didn't seem thrilled that you couldn't tell him what this meeting was about," Sinclair said, and then took out an ink pen from his breast pocket.

"Mister President," said Director Marsh, "the information we are about to discuss is TS/SCI. The four of us are the only ones in the White House that are cleared for this information... so please, don't write down any notes, sir."

Sinclair put away his ink pen and surrendered the notepad by sliding it across the mahogany table to Director Marsh.

"Sir," Director Marsh said, "I am advising that you rethink the United States's stance on Antarctica."

"Antarctica?" Sinclair asked. He hadn't thought about the continent in over a week.

"Yes sir, Antarctica. It will take some thought on how we approach it, but my advice is that we find a way to justify making a claim to part of the continent. It doesn't really matter where, we just need a foothold... and we need to do it soon."

"Sir," said Admiral Irving, "the Navy can put 2200 Marines in Antarctica in two weeks, maybe less if we cut some corners, but WARCOM can put SEALs on the continent in 96 hours."

"Woah, let's slow down. What exactly are we talking about? Marines and SEALs in Antarctica? Who are they going to shoot, the penguins? What is this about?"

"Mister President," said Admiral Goodman, "there are multiple ways that this problem can be approached," he said, diplomatically. He wasn't in favor of sending in a regiment of Marines and causing an international incident.

"Admiral, what is this meeting, what the hell are we talking about?" Sinclair asked. He was starting to get concerned. Since he had become Vice President, and more especially now that he was President, he noticed that high-ranking officials would start jumping ahead in discussions like this when they were nervous about the topic at hand.

"Sir," Admiral Goodman said calmly, "have you ever heard of Operation HIGHJUMP?"

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Thirty Minutes Later​

The room was silent as the President sat at the head of the table with the lower half of his face resting in his hand. Sinclair looked visibly disturbed. He understood the situation, and the history of it, very well now. He had flown aircraft on suicide missions, he had killed men with his bare hands, and he had been struck by lightning twice - the information that had just been revealed to him would certainly be added to the list of things that kept him up at night. The true unbelievable horror of it was so stunning that he wondered if this was some type of elaborate prank, but he had to remind himself that he was sitting in the Situation Room of the White House. While he was not initially sure how he could take this information to his grave, he was now certain that putting what he now knew into words would get him branded as a lunatic at best, and at worst it would shake the very foundations of faith and human history.

"Why wasn't I ever told about this?"

"Sir, you're the first president since Eisenhower to be briefed on any of this," said Admiral Goodman.

"Do the Swedes know? I mean surely if they did they would help us, or they would want our help with... the problem," Sinclair exclaimed.

"No sir, and we have to keep it that way for obvious reasons... As of this morning only fourteen people knew parts of this information, you are now the fifteenth - and you are now the fourth living person to have the entire story, in full. The other three are in this room with you right now," Goodman said.

"Of course," Sinclair said, and then nodded. He started to daydream about some of the details of what had just been explained to him, and then snapped himself out of it.

The President stood up, as did the other three people in the room. "I'm going to call a NSC meeting tomorrow, I want the three of you to be there. We're going to adjust America's foreign policy on Antarctica."​