It Could Happen Here

Eric King the CEO of International Surveillance, Security and Construction, ISSAC, received a call from Wilbur Barron, the president of the United States, requesting that he attend a meeting at the National Golf Club. Barron was vague but hinted that he needed King’s business expertise in planning an election year strategy. King wasn’t surprised by the call. The president always sought advice from friends outside of his staff. Barron didn’t mention it openly, but those who worked for him knew he had a basic distrust of people who were attached to the system and worked for government paychecks. He wanted input from people whose wealth freed them from having to worry about their next government stipend and leaned on his rich friends for all sorts of tasks and advice. He vested some with cabinet level decision making powers without ever having to run them before congress for confirmation. Cabinet members and the presidential staff knew the president’s friends could overturn their decisions with a phone call and of all the members of the president’s kitchen cabinet, King was the most heavily relied on. He undertook jobs for Barron that were unadvertised, sometimes shady, and he was secretive enough never to let the press know what he was doing.