Freak Accident

This a work of fiction.   Names, characters, places and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.   Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.


FORWARD

America has achieved overwhelming military and economic superiority over most nations on the planet.  As a result American media usually calls the president the most powerful man in the world.   A candidate’s merits as a statesman, innovative thinker and dynamic inspirational leader might persuade a majority of voters to vote for him or her.   Or, the president might gain the high office in a number of unlikely ways; a vice president replaces an incapacitated, dead or impeached president; a manipulated election; vast expenditures to propagandize voters, or exaggerated hubris because of name recognition of an ancestor’s success, even if that ancestor was his own father. 

A president might have a lot of personal quirks, but he can accomplish a lot.   He can also be a hopeless screw up frequently bailed out of his mistakes by men and women of lesser status, but blessed with a high level of intelligence and good common sense.  

A president can usually get what he wants unless his request is something outlandish like raising taxes or asking a debtor nation to pay up.  

Thus, when President Baxter Barfington met in Washington with an Arabian Prime Minister, Prince Ibrahim bin Ali Al-Qusaibi; Eugany Agamov, President of Russia; Hardee Bairbottom, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Li Li Hung, Chairman of the Chinese Republic and insisted they accompany him on Air force One to an international peace meeting in New Zealand, although not one of them wanted this honor, they each accepted.

Presidential chief of staff, Bubba Connolly, approved the staff that accompanied Barfington’s official party, including the last minute addition of Aphrodite Sexauer, a young translator who replaced the nun that usually traveled overseas with President Barfington.   Bubba did not have time for a look at Aphrodite’s FBI file until Air Force One reached Antarctica, and when he did, his blood pressure rose, his face flushed, and when his secretary yelled, “Air Force One is down.   President Barfington, his guests, and that new translator are safe in Presidential Escape Capsule Number One,” Bubba wished he’d followed his father’s advice and bred cattle for a living.

The following is an account of what could, might, or possibly would occur if Air Force One had a Freak Accident at the coldest place on earth.

Chapter 1 

 “I’m sick and tired of all this boring shit.   I want a cigarette,” Li Li Hung, Chairman of the Republic of China, whispered to his translator.

His translator whispered to the Russian translator sitting next to him, “Chairman Li Li Hung wants to smoke.”  The Russian translator passed Li Li’s comment along to along to Russian President, Eugany Agamov.   He was also tired of listening to an incredibly mind-numbing speech.   He glanced at Li Li with an upturned lip indicating a cigarette would also be a happy event in his life.  

Prince Ibrahim bin Ali Al-Qusaibi, Arabia’s second most powerful Arab, bored numb by a pro forma speech of absolutely no substance, listened while President Barfington struggled to finish his remarks.   Prince’s Ibrahim’s long face sagged, his eyes closed, and he sighed aloud when he thought of the hour after hour of mind-numbing tedium he would have to survive during the next few days.   A remarkable erotic French mistress waited for him in Paris, but his father, patriarch and absolute ruler over two dozen sons and their offspring had ordered him to go to Washington.   His father told Prince Ibrahim to stay attentive, friendly, and above all, sign nothing.”  Prince Ibrahim always followed his father’s instructions because siblings, who dearly wanted to see him flop at diplomacy, were always waiting in the wings.  

Prince Ibrahim bin Ali Al-Qusaibi’s current unhappiness began when President Barfington insisted that his four guests join him and fly aboard Air force One to New Zealand for an important international economic conference.   Prince Ibrahim owned his own luxuriously outfitted jet with a private bedroom where he could dictate to his secretary, and enjoy other desirable talents the young woman possessed.   Now his jet and his secretary would fly to New Zealand without him.   Another problem bothered Ibrahim.   A Presidential aide told him no alcoholic beverages would be served on President Barfington’s jet.   He slipped a note pad from one of his pockets, and wrote: Get a bottle of Cognac I can take on board.   He handed the note to his secretary, who wore over a million dollars of jewelry under her burnoose, gifts from Prince Ibrahim for her enthusiastic efforts to take care of his needs in the private bedroom aboard his jet.   She glanced at his note and acknowledged it with a nod of her veiled head.  

Hardee Bairbottom, Prime Minister of Great Britain, pretended not to see Prince Ibrahim’s note, but since he sat alongside of him, Hardee read it anyway.   He remembered the American President’s religious fervor, which won him his office by a single electoral vote, and scratched out his own short note, Pack Scotch, which he handed to a young male aide sitting alongside him.   Hardee received a wide grin of acknowledgement.

First Lady Lana Barfington watched her husband’s audience show signs of restlessness.   Senior members of Congress, his Presidential staff and special foreign guests squirmed on hard folding chairs waiting for the boring ordeal to end.   Lana Barfington listened to her husband struggle to read a triple spaced, short sentenced speech.   She wondered why his speechwriters and his vice president wrote such unimaginative garbage.   Lana had declined to accompany Baxter and his four world-leader guests on their flight to New Zealand.   She’d told her husband, “It is more important that I find out what kind of trouble our Twin Two is in this time.”

“I will be alone with all of those important people.   I need your support,” Baxter had whined.

“You want me in that seven-forty-seven so you can have some kind of bragging rights over your brothers,” Lana knew her man’s desires.

“No, no.   I need your support,” he persisted.

“Our twins need me more than you need me on that jet or in New Zealand.”  Lana did not know if her daughters were only drinking alcohol.   It would be a public relations nightmare and a political disaster for her husband if one of them got pregnant.   During a speech to a woman’s group a few weeks before Election Day, Lana declared that she and President Barfington sided with Christian pro-life voters, although she secretly wished that damned no-win issue would go away.   Her speech made every six o’clock newscast’s first five minutes, and some pollsters said it turned Baxter Barfington’s campaign from a loss to the one electoral vote win.  

Lana warned her daughters before she sent them off to the university that severe punishment would follow if they lost their virginity before they got married or while their father was president.   She had given her twins a warning, but she also knew that Mama did not have much punishment available to hold over the heads of two popular, active, coeds with teen-age hormones running wild through their bodies.   Lana listened to her husband drone on, spacing his words out like: spacing — his — words — out — in a whining monotone with only a thin nasal Texas accent to diminish his monotonous delivery. 

Baxter had developed his speaking habits during those heady days leading to his nomination, and then during a long tortuous campaign when he would say a few lines and stop for applause.   His semantic adviser told him that wearing spectacles was a negative and instructed his speechwriters to type Barfington’s speeches in eighteen point fonts, which allowed him five or six words per line.   Baxter had to focus so hard on not losing his place that delivery and emphasis never occurred to him.   After his election, his ability to anesthetize an audience concerned his political advisors who did their best to schedule his public appearances in front of only his most avid political supporters guaranteed to cheer and applaud even as they died a slow tortuous death trying to make sense of his words.

Prime Minister Hardee Bairbottom of Great Britain admired the President’s predecessor, a man whose simple request for a glass of water sent servants, friends and family, or even strangers scurrying to find the clearest, purest, mountain spring drinking water in America.   When that president said “Good Morning,” his words, inflections and intonation brought with it visions of a glorious spring morning with a delicious scent of blooming flowers, or if something went wrong, an ominous foretelling of a serious storm.   Boring?  Never.   However, Hardee had suffered through smart and dumb elected officials throughout his political career.   He knew that Barfington’s speech, carefully crafted by several clever wordsmiths, contained sound bites that media types would look for.   Those rare sentences hidden among so many pretentious absurdities, when pointed out to media, would be heard and read by everyone in the world who owned a radio, a television set or who could read.  

Li Li Hung wore a headset listening to an American translator whose disgustingly terrible Chinese pronunciation of Barfington’s words annoyed him more than the president’s actual voice.   He had sat through an unpalatable lunch, listened to after lunch speeches and now he had to sit through this pro forma media event.   He wanted to smoke a cigarette and follow it with his afternoon nap.   He had celebrated his seventy-second birthday a month earlier, and long, tedious, boring meetings at his advanced age were exhausting.   The long flight to New Zealand would be one more strain to endure.   He fidgeted and wanted to tear off his headset, but discipline and reason stopped him.   Instead, he sat stoically waiting for the unimpassioned President to conclude.

Power Gridley Magnificerson, Vice President of the United States, sat in the back-row.   Power, aware that he was only a heartbeat away from making the speech he helped craft, felt his own heart start to pound at about triple speed.   He signaled to an aide stationed nearby to watch him for prearranged signals.   Reacting to Vice President Magnificerson’s signal, the aide hurried to Power with a blank slip of paper.   Vice President Magnificerson left his seat.   His aid held his arm and led Power into a nearby room guarded by Secret Service Agents.

“Call my doctor.   My heart’s going crazy,” Power said.

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