11th September
President Redman, Charlotte, Angela, Robin, Paul and Elliot sat in the president’s private cinema. An aide was loading a reel of sixteen millimetre cine film onto a projector.
‘I’ve never seen this film before,’ said the president. ‘I was told about its existence when I came into office. We don’t use the Doomsday Bunker, so I thought I would never need to see it.’
The lights dimmed, and a picture appeared on the screen in front of them. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sat looking at them across a desk.
‘If you are viewing this film,’ President Eisenhower began, ‘then you have a situation involving the Doomsday Bunker.
‘We decided after the war that there should be a protected control room beneath the White House from which the president and a small number of his staff could command American forces and weaponry in the event of a devastating nuclear attack. The bunker is a quarter of a mile underground and is impregnable to any attempt to enter it or destroy it – even with nuclear weapons.
‘We realised when it was being built, however, that its very impregnability was, in itself, a security risk. Suppose, somehow, a group gained access to the bunker who were hostile to the United States. They would be able to control weapons systems, at least for a period, and no one could stop them.
‘We therefore decided to include a top secret weakness in the defences of the bunker so that the president would at least have a fighting chance to counter such a nightmare scenario. This film explains that weakness.’
The image on the screen showed the West Wing refectory. The camera moved towards the storeroom at the rear of the kitchen area.
‘I knew the entrance to the bunker was via a concealed lift in that room,’ said President Redman. ‘There’s a seven digit code that needs to be entered on a pad behind that panel.’ The president pointed to a section of the wall onto which the camera was focussing as Eisenhower’s narrative explained how to open the panel and enter the code.
‘This method of entering the bunker will, of course, be of no use if the bunker has been occupied by enemies,’ Eisenhower continued. ‘However, this is where the emergency process begins.’ The camera moved to show two ovens in the kitchen area. ‘Use of the lift shorts the power supply to two of these ovens, so this warning can be quickly checked.’
‘No blueberry muffins,’ said Paul.
‘Maria may be down in the bunker with them,’ said Elliot.
The film then cut to a front view of the statue of Abraham Lincoln within the Lincoln Memorial.
‘The deliberate weakness in the security of the bunker,’ Eisenhower continued, ‘lies in a tunnel that runs the twelve hundred metres from the Lincoln Memorial to the bunker.’
The picture then showed five men climbing onto Lincoln’s statue. One stopped at his head, one stopped at each hand and one stopped at each foot.
Eisenhower continued his explanation as the men in the film illustrated his words. ‘You must simultaneously rotate, clockwise, his feet, his thumbs and his nose.’
The huge statue began to rotate until it had moved through 180 degrees. In the back of the statue was an opening. The camera moved forwards through the opening and into a lit passage. The picture then cut to a doorway.
‘Twelve hundred metres down this passage lies this secret entrance to the bunker. Pulling the lever next to the door will cause the door to immediately spring open, and that should give some element of surprise to the forces reclaiming the bunker.’
The opening of that entrance was shown in the film. The camera then entered the bunker, and the narrative described its layout.
Eisenhower then reappeared, sitting behind his desk. ‘Good luck,’ he said as the film ended.
As the lights went up, the president’s phone indicated a message. ‘Shit!’ he said, reading the text. ‘They’ve sunk the Resolution!’