The call to Speaker Connolly's office was a spark thrown into a barrel of gunpowder. His office confirmed the hearing could be moved up, their tone a mixture of surprise and smug satisfaction. To them, the President's haste looked like desperation, a foolish rush into a well-laid ambush. The swamp was confident. The lobbyists had assured them of the outcome.
The next morning, the atmosphere in the Oval Office was thick with the tension of a pre-battle briefing. Garrett Thorne stood stiffly in his suit, a leather-bound folder in his hand, his face pale. He looked less like a cabinet secretary and more like a man being asked to walk a tightrope over a canyon.
"Sir, their talking points have been all over the morning shows," Thorne said, his voice strained. "They'll paint this as a tax on the sick and the elderly. They'll have a dozen industry-funded economists ready to testify about catastrophic price hikes. I'm being sent into a buzzsaw."
The President was unperturbed. He sat behind the Resolute Desk, a bastion of calm in the storm of his own making. He slid a thin, sealed manila envelope across the polished wood.
"You will answer their questions honestly, Garrett," he said. "You will stick to the national security framework we discussed. You are not to open this envelope until you receive the word from Miles. Not a second before. Is that understood?"
Thorne took the envelope. It was light, holding only a single sheet of paper. He nodded, his expression a mixture of fear and reluctant obedience. "Yes, Mr. President."
An hour later, Thorne sat alone at the witness table in a cavernous hearing room on Capitol Hill. The chamber was packed. Cameras flashed, reporters scribbled in notepads, and a row of congressmen on the elevated dais looked down on him like judges at an inquisition. In the front row of the audience sat Arthur Kenwood, the PhRMA chief, flanked by a team of aides. He wasn't a mere spectator; he was a director, occasionally leaning over to whisper in the ear of a friendly congressman's chief of staff. He gave Thorne a slow, confident smile that promised a swift political execution.
The hearing began, and it was as brutal as Thorne had feared. The committee chairman, a staunch Connolly ally, opened the attack.
"Mr. Secretary, is it not true that this punitive one-hundred-percent tariff will directly raise the cost of life-saving antibiotics for every single American?"
"Mr. Chairman," Thorne began, "the President believes that ensuring a secure domestic supply of these medicines is a matter of…"
"A simple yes or no, Mr. Secretary," the Chairman interrupted. "Will prices go up for your constituents?"
In the Oval Office, the protagonist watched the live feed on a large monitor, his face impassive. Miles paced behind him, wringing his hands.
For the next hour, they hammered him. One representative after another, from both parties, took their turn. Their questions were sharp, well-rehearsed, and all fed from the same trough of industry talking points. They spoke of the free market, of international cooperation, of the crushing burden on working families. Thorne parried as best he could, growing visibly worn down by the relentless, coordinated assault. He was isolated, defending a policy he himself had argued against just a day before.
The Chairman moved in for the final blow. "Mr. Secretary, let's be frank. This seems to be a radical policy based on a fringe theory. Can you name for this committee one single, credible, non-governmental expert who believes that this tariff, a policy that will disrupt global trade and punish American consumers, is a necessary action?"
Thorne was trapped. He had no such expert to name. He looked down at his notes, faltering.
In the Oval Office, the protagonist picked up the phone on his desk. "Miles. Tell him. Now."
Miles spoke a single word into his own phone.
In the hearing room, Thorne's discreet earpiece buzzed. He listened, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly. The weariness on his face vanished, replaced by a sudden, steely resolve. He straightened his tie. He looked directly at the Chairman, and for the first time that day, he smiled.
"Mr. Chairman, you asked for a credible, non-governmental expert," Thorne said, his voice resonating with a new, powerful confidence. He reached down and calmly picked up the sealed envelope the President had given him. He opened it and unfolded the single sheet of paper inside.
"I'm not sure if you're familiar with the German firm Munich Re," he continued, the room falling silent at the non-sequitur. "They are the world's largest reinsurance company. Their entire business model is based on one thing: accurately predicting the risk of future catastrophes. They are, arguably, the most credible experts on the planet when it comes to global risk."
He held up the paper. "This is a copy of a confidential internal risk analysis their epidemiological division prepared for their board of directors last week. In it, they project a seventy-percent probability of a novel airborne virus pandemic emerging within the next thirty-six months."
A wave of murmurs swept through the room.
Thorne's voice cut through the noise, sharp and clear. "The report goes on to model a global economic impact exceeding ten trillion dollars. And it identifies the single greatest supply chain vulnerability that would exacerbate the crisis and inhibit recovery." He paused, letting his eyes sweep across the faces of the stunned committee members before landing on Arthur Kenwood in the front row.
"That vulnerability," he concluded, his voice like a hammer blow, "is the near-total dependency of Western nations on pharmaceutical precursors from Southeast Asia."
A bomb had gone off. The room was utterly silent. This wasn't a White House theory. It was secret, proprietary data from the heart of the global financial system. Data the White House should not have. The congressmen stared, speechless. The reporters' fingers flew across their keyboards.
The live feed zoomed in on Arthur Kenwood. His smug, confident mask had shattered. In its place was a look of cold, stark fury mixed with something else: confusion. He had been blindsided by an impossible move, a flank attack from a direction he didn't know existed.
He pulled out his phone, his thumb moving furiously across the screen. The game had changed. The President had just revealed he possessed a weapon nobody knew he had.