The six golf carts formed a line on the asphalt path next to the elevated tee on the eighth hole at the Trump International Golf Course, West Palm Beach, Florida and slowly proceeded forward. President Donald Trump had just teed off and was in the first cart. It was a muggy, cloudy day, but the President wanted to play golf. In the fifth cart towards the rear a short, squat man, a navy Commander wearing civilian clothes, hatless, in a dark blue suit with a light blue tie and wing tip brown shoes sat in silence. He is holding a black briefcase about three feet long, two feet wide and three inches thick. This is the President’s Emergency Satchel. It holds the equipment that controls the use of the United States’ atomic weapons.
Donald Trump has been under a siege of pressure from all sides. The midterm elections were approaching. If he lost, he was facing investigation after investigation including that dangerous Epstein matter which Todd Blanche had been able to control. This was going to be an open, angry clash with Congress. The War that he started with Iran and which he thought could be resolved in a matter of days had been going on for about a half year. His own MAGA people were upset with it. His aides in the Whitehouse held prayer meetings, hoping for a victory. It was more than a hint. In the depths of the Whitehouse there was a growing fear and a desperate need for a victory. Any victory.
The Ayatollahs were pretty sharp boys. They told President Trump’s son in law that they would not come to the negotiating table unless the blockade of their ports was permanently lifted and the frozen funds which were being held as part of sanctions were immediately restored. That didn’t sound like a victory. The Straits of Hormuz were just about closed. Gas was over $4.50 a gallon and diesel over $6.50. Grocery prices were getting higher and higher. The tariffs were backfiring. The Federal Reserve, which Mr. Trump thought he now controlled, defiantly raised interest rates. That ingrate! The unappreciative Republican political hacks who shook Trump’s hand in their earlier campaign photos now no longer wanted to pose with him. These same MAGA folk had used their government posts to line their pockets with insider government information, often coming from the Whitehouse. Now they were fighting for their political lives because of Trump’s unsuccessful war in Iran. Donald Trump was livid. How dare they?
The President had teed off on the eighth hole. The drive rose high and veered to the right. It rolled through the secondary cut of grass, landing against the root of a large tree. No one saw the tip of a white golf shoe kick the ball out onto the fairway. It was over two hundred and thirty yards to the green. The air was heavy. The four iron only went about one eighty-five yards. The next shot? Don’t ask. The ball went off the toe of the pitching wedge. High to the right and buried into the downhill side of the sand trap. Another kick from the shoe on the right foot and the ball was in the center of the trap. The trap was four feet deep. The sand wedge had to meet the ball with an open face. Remember all those lessons. “Take at least three practice swings.” “Don’t stop at the ball.” “Hit down under it solidly.” “Follow through.” The ball flew. It arched ten feet into the air, bounced once and rolled into the trap on the other side of the kidney shaped green.
Trump was livid. Who do those Iranian bastards think they are dealing with? Nobody suspected it, but that’s how World War Three started. It was time! Donald Trump knew it in his bones.
The short man in the dark blue suit with the brown wingtip shoes was clutching the black briefcase when the word came up the line of golf carts that the President wanted the “black box man.” “Front and center, immediately.”
“Who do those stupid bastards think I am? To trifle with me, the world’s most powerful man?” The briefcase was open. “I’ll flatten Teheran. They’ll pay the price for insulting me.” Inside a hidden pocket in his golf pants was “the biscuit”, a simple looking plastic card that had the President’s personal identification code required to verify an order to fire nuclear weapons. In it went. The President selected the code for the naval attack which authorized and instructed the military to launch and atomic missile against Teheran, from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The F35-C carrier-based fighter jets were already on standby and equipped with atomic tipped missiles. The admiral gave the launch order. The young pilot, influenced by a high level of testosterone, followed his orders to the letter. He pressed the “arm” and then the “launch” button without the slightest thought of the consequences of his action. His bat shaped aircraft automatically executed a sharp turn away from the direction of the launch. The missile skirted the ground at about fifty feet and rose only at the outskirts of Teheran. The mullah was on the loudspeaker on the minaret of the mosque announcing a call to prayer when the missile struck. Ten times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The blast was terrifying.
We’re going to leave you at this point, to fill in the blanks for yourself. The Ayatollahs claimed that they would be martyrs and reside in paradise. The Russians were not amused. Their embassy incinerated. Putin decided that they were compelled to respond in kind. That’s how it started. No one on television, none of the podcasters, and no “influencers” had considered it.
Artificial Intelligence wasn’t the greatest danger after all. It was “The Donald.”
What a terrible dream – a nightmare!