Six weeks later, not having discussed the matter since that meeting, the JCS members were painfully birthing Obama’s coup on short notice.

Admiral Richardson laid out the logic. “If we’re worried we’ve been duped into becoming revolutionaries, rather than the garden variety traitors we could settle for being, let’s first decide: do we wish to change the way the United States is governed, or just which asshole runs it into the ground?” Only minutes into the discussion, all seven participants were too far from shore to consider paddling back.

“Nobody is advocating running the country into the ground, John,” General Neller spat back at the admiral. “I just don’t know that a moderate GOP leadership is going to bring on Armageddon.”

Milley jumped in to back Neller. “And I guess I’ll say it out loud: I need to be convinced that taking out just one president is not exactly what we should be doing.”

“Pence is not moderate,” Goldfein said. “He’s gung-ho for Trump’s holy war, and he’s backed this Muslim ban like he’s trying to recruit for ISIL.”

“Ryan’s even worse. I’ve seen his dossier. Putin will own him like a pet dog,” Lengyel said.

Chairman Dunford decided to reset the discussion. “There’s not a way for generals to bloodlessly ratchet the Order of Succession. We can either suspend the Constitution and do something radical, or we can keep the Constitution intact by merely violating our oaths to it… and taking out a president or two.”

“We might be able to scare Pence or Ryan into line,” Milley implored his peers. “I don’t want to choose the next president.”

Selva scowled at Milley. “Which Republican in the Order of Succession do you think will turn the country around? Seriously, how much blood are you even calling for, until we get to the one who would make a decent national leader, given the needle they’ll have to thread?”

“There’s no way we can rely on anyone in that fucking cabinet,” Richardson locked and loaded his tongue. “I’d sooner swear allegiance to Al Qaeda than answer to that Gong Show.”

“I hope nobody is thinking about Mattis,” Milley said, looking around the room, especially at Chairman Dunford.

Dunford let the room sit in silence, all eyes on him. In January, Mattis and Kelly had both told Dunford they would have his back once the Senate confirmed them, but it had become obvious they were throwing Dunford under the motorcade to keep themselves in Trump’s favor. “Mattis and Kelly may be up to something,” Dunford told the room. “But they’ve frozen me out. They put me through their own version of feeling me out for treason, but I got the sense it was on behalf of Trump, not against him. I think they’re both beyond reach.”

“Jesus, what are they up to?” Goldfein said.

Richardson shook his head. “We have all done highly questionable things at the behest of presidents; I’m having trouble imagining what they’re planning that is so sideways they can’t let us in on it.”

“It can’t matter what uniform they’ve worn, or for how long,” Dunford said. “Anyone aligned with Trump must be considered hostile.”

“Who does that leave us with in Succession?” Milley asked.

“Nobody,” said Richardson.

“Congress and the VP have not yet decided to take action,” Goldfein said. “Far from it. That is our greatest indicator, and our greatest argument, that they are not fit to decide who leads next.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we have already waited past any reasonable ‘last minute’,” Lengyel said. “If the Constitutional process works, it would have worked by now. Besides, if it bumps to Pence or Ryan, the country just goes down the shitter over a longer period.”

“That might be critical time, though,” Milley argued. “Years in which things could change without having to suspend the Constitution.”

“Those will be critical years, all right,” Chairman Dunford rejoined. “Years in which our enemies can build their capacities. Years in which the planet heats up. Years in which the economy decays, at best.”

Lengyel leaned forward, almost out of his chair, seeking intimacy. “I’ve never said this in my fucking life, but I am ready for a change.”

“It has to be a civilian,” Vice Chair Selva said.

Several of the four-stars agreed vocally.

“But not a politician,” Goldfein said.

“How can we install someone who has never stood for election?” asked Selva.

“Jesus, Paul, we’re suspending the Constitution,” said Richardson. “Why would we then take special care that whoever we install has already had his damn spine removed by special interests and the media’s election charade?”

“It’s true. We’re doing this on principle,” Dunford said. “There’s no need to compromise the integrity of our mission just to appear like we respect the democratic process that brought this batch of weasels to power. We need someone who is not tainted by that process. That is the bone we throw to the anxious public.”

“It would be nice if our guy’s dossier doesn’t need a lot of redacting,” Richardson said. “Everybody on the Hill is soft targets; somebody’s got something on pretty much everybody. We need someone with no entangled interests and no blackmail leverage or fodder for invalidation.”

“I’ll give you that,” Selva conceded. “Messy dossiers are the last thing we need.”

“There’s only one answer, and we all came here already knowing it,” Goldfein said before looking around the table to be sure he was right.

“Nobody hates him,” Neller said.

“Who else can we say that about?” Richardson said.

Selva’s eyebrows advanced on his hairline. “Install a never-elected former four-star — one of our own? The optics alone, for chrissakes.”

Dunford was sympathetic to Selva. “I know how it looks, but we both know he is the most likely to return us to civil order quickly. Not to mention, who the hell else can we even approach with a conspiracy like this?”

“Approach?” Neller interrupted. “You want to loop him in on this up front?”

“I don’t love the optics of the seven of us holding our dicks in the Oval Office while we invite people to audition for our junta one by one,” Richardson interjected.

“You’re both missing my point — we can draft him,” Neller said. “That way he’s not part of it, but he also can’t say no.”

“We’re going to force somebody to become a dictator?” Dunford asked, mildly entertained that the question was not rhetorical.

Lengyel pointed out, “He can say yes, arrest us, and then turn the country back over to Trump.”

“He won’t say no,” Goldfein said, ignoring Lengyel’s imaginative scenario. “He’s sitting at home waiting for this call.”

“You know that he is?” Dunford asked.

“We all know he is,” Richardson said. “He’s also the only one that can actually pull this off. Nobody else has a clue right now. That much is clear.”

“Least of all the bunch of us,” Dunford said. “Our best hope is to pick someone who can find a way out. Somebody who owes nobody a goddamn thing.”

The vice chairman was not yet convinced. “Am I the only one bothered that we may be selecting our next Commander in Chief on the basis of who our brass asses trust, or that he just happens to have at one point sat in that chair?” Selva gestured toward Chairman Dunford’s spot.

Goldfein tried selling Selva on the optics: “One key objective of this operation has to be an immediate and overwhelming sense of relief for the public. We all know that’s our metric. If they breathe a sigh of relief, we just might get away with this. So who do the American people want to see on TV that first night?”

The four-stars had never been so hesitant or restless together. Around this very table, the group had developed strategic advice that affected geopolitics. They had monitored covert operations in real time, yet never had they squirmed so visibly over such an obvious call.

“I came into this room willing to entertain another nomination,” Dunford said. “Maybe some of you favor Bernie Sanders? Maybe we think a little more outside the box. Beyonce would be a popular choice. Edward Snowden is an independent thinker—how about him?”

Dunford’s peers took another several seconds to become okay with having taken mere minutes to decide who would next lead what used to be called the free world. When he saw in their faces that they were ready, he called for a vote. “All in favor of installing Colin Powell as Acting President of the United States of America…”

All six responded in the affirmative. “Aye,” Dunford added his own.

“If we don’t pull this off, the backlash won’t be just on us,” Selva warned his peers. “The whole country will pay. They’ll impose martial law.”

“A thousand-year reich and all that good stuff, sure,” Admiral Richardson said, a bead of sweat reconnoitering his temple. “But I’m more worried Bannon and Miller will get to skin us alive on national television while Trump live tweets the whole affair.”