The Final Day

CHAPTER TEN

“John, wake up. Wake up! We’re under attack!”

It was the dream, the jumble of dreams that always ended with him bolt upright in bed, sweat soaked, shivering. Out on the desert, the Bradley up ahead burning, racing forward to find the medics already pulling out the charred bodies, two of them still alive, faces burned black, red mouths open, screaming, and he stood helpless, could do nothing other than stare in shock… Doc Kellor pulling back a blanket revealing Ben, the father of his grandson, features contorted in the agony of death… then Jennifer…

“John, wake up!”

He was sitting up, shaking, the room freezing cold, Makala’s arms around him, kissing him awake. He opened his eyes. This time, there was no soothing, kissing his forehead, wiping the sweat from his face, whispering it was okay; it was just “the dream” again.

“You’ve got to wake up now. Reverend Black’s on the phone. We’re being attacked!”

He nodded, standing up, bare feet hitting the freezing-cold floor, shocking him, Makala helping him to put on a heavy bathrobe, steadying him as consciousness returned.

“Who’s calling?”

“Reverend Black. John, there are helicopters circling.” She started to lead him to the sunroom where the phone was.

“Who? Where?”

She picked up the receiver of the phone, an old-fashioned black rotary unit, and handed it to him.

“Matherson here.”

“John, it’s Black. I’m at the campus office. We’ve got three Apaches overhead. Can’t you hear them?”

That finally startled him awake, and he realized the room was reverberating with a low, steady rumble. He walked to the sunroom window, which was half-covered with frost, looked out, and caught the glint of flashing rotors sweeping by overhead.

“Any shooting?”

“Not yet.”

John continued to look out the window. The choppers were staying high, circling out along the crest line of Lookout Mountain. He watched them for a moment, catching glimpses. “Any come in low over the campus?”

“Not yet.” He could hear the nervousness in Black’s voice.

“Get on the phone to downtown Black Mountain, Asheville, any connections we have. Tell them not to shoot unless fired upon first and report anything they’re seeing. I’ll be right up.”

He hung up. Makala was already scrambling to fetch clothing and boots, helping John to get dressed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Not sure, but if it’s a surprise attack with intent to kill, they’d already be hitting us.”

Pulling on his boots, he heard a vehicle outside, and opening the door, he saw that it was Maury in his jeep. John ran out to him, looking up, the distinct thump of a helicopter rising in pitch as the chopper raced by overhead, still keeping altitude.

“What the hell is going on?” Maury shouted as John climbed in, brushing snow off the passenger seat before sitting down.

“They’re military, desert camo pattern. They must be with General Scales. Get me to the office.”

Maury spun the jeep around through the deep snow and set off downhill to Montreat Road, the vehicle skidding as he hit the base of the road and went sideways onto the main street through the village without slowing. Maury edged off the road to get around a tree that had fallen in the last storm and had yet to be cleared and then turned to race up to Gaither Hall. As they skidded to a stop, John looked up again and saw that there were several Black Hawks as well, slowly circling at more than a thousand feet above the narrow valley.

Black was at the office door, motioning for John to come in. Out on the snow-covered front lawn, a dozen or more students were looking up, all of them with weapons. One of them was Grace.

“Do not point your weapons at them! Everyone get the hell inside!” John shouted.

“Someone on the ham radio, asking for you.”

John went to the radio, the tinny-sounding speaker crackling.

“Matherson, this is Bob Scales; please respond.”

John picked up the old-fashioned handheld mike and clicked it several times before replying.

“Matherson here. Bob, are you overhead?”

A momentary pause.

“Affirmative, John. Assumed you were in that jeep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nice vehicle. I’d like to see it up close.”

John hesitated for a moment. “You’re welcome to land, but flag off those Apaches and send them home.”

“Can’t do it, John. Please listen carefully. I’m asking for your immediate surrender.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“John, I’ve got assets over you that can take down your campus and all those kids in five minutes. We’re already landing in Asheville. You might have disabled the Asheville airport, but I have two C-130s touching down on the interstate next to it. I’ve also got a support column on the ground coming up from Greenville, and they have some Bradleys. It’s your call. I’ll give you five minutes to think it over.”

John put the mike down and looked at Reverend Black and Maury.

They were silent, staring at him.

The phone began to ring. Black picked it up, listened for a moment, simply said, “We already know,” and looked at John, still holding the receiver.

“That was Dunn in downtown Asheville. He said several Black Hawks have touched down near the county office complex. They’ll be in his office in another few minutes.”

“Any fighting?”

Black relayed the question, sighed, and looked back to John. “One of the security team there is shot, bad. Fired on them as they landed.”

John looked back out the window, helicopters still circling, and in spite of his orders, students were coming out of buildings, some already in winter camo, weapons up.

“John, what are you going to do?” Black whispered, still holding the phone.

He looked at his troops, his kids. Against the Posse, even against Fredericks, it was one thing, and those two fights had cost dearly. This time?

It would be a bloodbath, and for what?

“We don’t stand a chance against them.” John sighed. “I know Bob Scales. This is the A team, not those pathetic ANR kids they threw at us last spring.”

“John, I need your answer now.” It was Bob again on the radio. “I just got a report a couple of your people and mine were shot in Asheville. Stop it before it turns into a full-scale fight.”

He wanted to shout back that it was Bob who was starting it with this surprise assault coming in at dawn.

“John, they’ve got us,” Maury said softly, and John finally nodded.

“Reverend. Tell Dunn to stand down, disarm, and surrender. Get on the phone to all locations, tell them not to fire, to stand down, and await word from me later. Repeat, do not resist. You got it.”

Reverend Black sighed. “John, you’re making the right move.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied bitterly. “Maury, get outside, tell those darn kids to get back inside. Find Kevin Malady, tell him everyone is to return to their rooms, stack weapons, and show no resistance. Got that?”

Maury could only nod and went back out the door as John picked up the mike and clicked it.

“Okay, Bob. We surrender on your word that my people are to be treated with respect, no reprisals or arrests. It’s got to be the code we once lived by, sir.”

“Agreed.”

“Wait fifteen minutes so I make sure the word is out. There’s a baseball field above the campus; you can set down there.”

“Fifteen minutes, then. Bring your jeep up to meet me, John. Make sure your people do not fire. If they do, you know what I have to do in reply.”

“Understood.”

He could hear Bob click off.

I should have expected this, he thought bitterly. But then again, what could I do differently? After two and a half years of successfully managing the defense of his community, to be caught like this was galling.

Frustrated, he threw the mike down and walked outside.

The rotor of the Black Hawk came to a stop, John at last able to lower his hands from his face as the swirling snow settled down. Three Black Hawks had landed, troops piling out of the first two, weapons raised, forming a defensive perimeter, while overhead the three Apaches continued to circle. Their nose guns were turned away, outward, and not in toward the campus—a smart gesture on Bob’s part—but their presence was menacing nevertheless, the sounds, the sights, and smells taking John back to the desert of Iraq so long ago.

John stood by the jeep, Maury at his side. The world felt cold, empty. Could he trust Bob? Or was this all a ruse? He’d grown used to winning, to always somehow pulling the chestnuts out of the fire. And now after two and a half years, the game was up. Whatever it was that Bluemont wanted, they now had it. How brilliantly it was done, to send in a man John once served under, had trusted, respected, and considered to be his friend.

It was all up to Bluemont now. He had defied them because of Fredericks, the type of man who across his years of military service he had learned to hold in contempt. The quintessential bureaucrat, the type where in the face of all logical argument, at times with the lives of men in the balance, would smile that disdainful smile, implying that an Ivy League degree in public administration trumped reality in the field.

Was that what Bob was serving? If so, regardless of the promises made minutes ago, John could see what would follow. Local community control was finished, the high talk back in the spring of a reaffirmation of the Constitution, of their expanding out across the Carolinas, bringing at least some semblance of a technological infrastructure back online to themselves and their neighbors… gone.

There would be no fight now. Perhaps the first gesture to smooth things over would be a bribe of reassurance, some truckloads of MREs brought up from the coast, perhaps even already packed along with the column invading up from Greenville, South Carolina. Then? A new administrator? Another Fredericks? And with him new rulings? The logic that a local militia was no longer needed for self-defense now that the regulars were here, but the young men and women of his community would be needed elsewhere and an order given?

He could see it all so clearly, even as he felt a surge of emotion as the side door of the third Black Hawk slid open and Bob Scales alighted, behind him a detail of eight well-armed men, some in desert camo, others in winter uniforms, who joined the defensive perimeter.

John did not make the gesture of going forward to meet Bob, waiting as he struggled alone through the knee-deep snow, moving slowly.

Bob stopped half a dozen feet away from John and gazed into his eyes, saying nothing.

“Sir, if you are expecting me to salute this time, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

A flicker of a smile creased his old friend’s features. “At least present your sword as a token of surrender, and I’ll return it graciously,” Bob replied.

John kept his features fixed. Memories flooded in of his year with Bob at the War College, participating in the traditional staff rides to Gettysburg, the hours spent together analyzing the battle while walking the fields with the rising young officers who were their students and getting a lesson not only about the battle itself but also the traditions of the military in which they served. That they would fight ferociously for the cause they believed was right and to which they had sworn their sacred honor, but could as well show compassion and share the last drop of a canteen with a foe who had tried to kill them but minutes before.

“Okay, forget the sword. But can we at least get out of the cold?” Bob suggested.

“Can I request that you call off those Apaches overhead? They’re making my people extremely nervous. Last time we had Apaches here, they shot up our chapel and hospital and killed dozens.”

Bob nodded. “You can assure me that where they set down no action will be taken?”

“If they land back at the airport where we met, there is no one there, close enough to cover you if needed, far enough away to ease things here a bit.”

“Your word of honor on that, John?”

“Yes”—he hesitated for a few seconds—“on my word of honor… sir.”

“By the way, I already have a team there,” Bob announced.

“Why there?”

“Seemed like a good staging area, and besides, they’re looking for a lost Black Hawk. Figured it might be stashed in one of the hangars. All right, I’ll order them back to that airport.”

Bob turned and shouted an order. One of the troopers deployed on the security perimeter around the choppers nodded and went to the pilot’s window of the Black Hawk Bob had come in on. Seconds later, the three Apaches turned sharply to the southeast and began to climb out of the valley.

“Satisfied?” Bob asked.

“It helps.”

“Now can we get in out of the cold?”

John nodded and pointed to the jeep. Bob climbed into the passenger seat. The trooper who had passed his order to the pilot shouted a protest and started to come forward, weapon not pointed toward them directly but raised to the ready.

“It’s all right, Captain!” Bob shouted. “Wait here.”

“But, sir!”

“I’m with friends. Order the men to keep perimeter and wait. I’ll be back in one hour.”

The captain nodded reluctantly, saluted, and turned away.

“He gets a little too nervous about me at times,” Bob said.

“I hope he doesn’t get nervous while we’re gone. Not a threat, sir, but there are well over a hundred heavily armed people down there.” He nodded back toward the campus.

“I trust you. Just make sure they stay away from where the choppers are waiting.”

John did not reply.

“You do know that if I am not back in an hour, things can quickly grow ugly.”

“Are you doubting my word”—he paused—“General?”

Bob looked back at John, who was climbing into the narrow backseat, smiling but glance firm. “I trust you. We both have to trust each other now.”

Again John did not reply. “Take us to Gaither, Maury,” John said to Maury, who switched the jeep’s engine on and put it in gear.

“Your name Maury?” Bob asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Nice jeep. Original?”

“1942 Wills.”

During the short drive back to Gaither, Bob chatted with Maury about the jeep, its history, and how he always preferred them to Humvees.

As they passed the library on one side and the girls’ dorm on the other side of the road, John could see anxious faces peering out of windows, nearly all still in winter camo, weapons slung on their shoulders. Malady stood in the doorway of the dorm, ready to go. John told Maury to stop.

“Kevin, keep everyone inside, weapons grounded. And for heaven’s sake, no one is to go near where the choppers landed. You got that? Once you feel things are secure with our people, report to me down in Gaither.”

“Yes, sir.” Kevin made the gesture of saluting even as John told Maury to head on to Gaither Hall.

They turned into the rear parking lot of Gaither, slid to a stop, and dismounted. Bob offered his hand to Maury, who reluctantly took it, and thanked him for the ride and brief history lesson about jeeps.

John climbed out of the back of the jeep and led the way inside. The corridor was packed with anxious students and staff, all of them suited up, all of them armed.

John stopped, looking over his shoulder at Bob, who came in behind him, pulling back the hood of his parka. The old general did not hesitate or show fear. He actually smiled, coming up to John’s side.

It was a tense moment.

John took a step forward and held up his hand in a calming gesture. “This is General Scales. He is an old friend from long before the Day. General, these are some of my troops.”

Bob actually stiffened and offered a salute, which some then returned, though many continued to just stand in silence, their hostile gazes obvious.

“Colonel Matherson, my compliments, you have a good-looking command here.”

Good-looking? John tried to not show any reaction. In an earlier age, a world long ago, those standing in the hallway would have been described as a ragtag-looking bunch at best, winter camo made out of bedsheets, most of the young men unshaven, all of them thin, wiry after two and a half years of privation and two deadly campaigns behind them. A few had offered salutes in return, but the rest were wary, eyes cold and obviously expecting that before the day was out it would turn into a fight to the death… and though scared were ready to face it.

“All of you,” John said in a calm voice. “We are in stand-down. I want you to keep your weapons slung and follow proper procedure to ensure chambers are empty. We don’t need an accident. Remember what I told you about how things went out of control at Lexington Green. We don’t want that here because one hothead takes matters into their own hands. Do we understand each other?”

“Sir, are we surrendering without a fight?” one of them cried.

“We are not at war here. The general is here to talk things over.”

“With Apaches as an opening move?” another student shouted angrily.

“All of you listen to me. This is not Fredericks. I know this man. He could have come in here with gunships tearing us apart before we even knew what was hitting us. He’s here to talk. So I want all of you to relax, get back to whatever your assigned duties are, ground your weapons, and for now leave them in Fellowship Hall if you are going outside. No one is to go near the ball field. The troops up there have firm orders to protect those helicopters, and that means shoot first and ask questions later. Your venturing up there could be seen as a hostile approach, and then… Lexington Green again. You all got that?”

There were nods, a few soft “Yes, sir” replies, all of them saluting John while avoiding eye contact with Bob, an obvious gesture to indicate who was still in charge as far as they were concerned, and the group started to disperse.

John opened the door to what had been the president’s office, motioned for Bob to step in, and then closed the door behind him.

“You handled that well, John, thank you.”

“What else was I to do? Order them to shoot you and then storm the field and get slaughtered?”

Bob looked around the room, offering a smile as he took his parka off. “Lord, I do recall this room. Remember I visited this campus years ago.” He paused for a moment. “Mary was buried out of this chapel. Our friend Dan Hunt was president. I sat in here with him after the service for Mary. I remember he was in tears for you that day.”

John offered a chair at the long meeting table and turned away for a moment so emotions wouldn’t show as Bob conjured up the memory of that day. It was Bob who had recommended John for the job at this college, having served with Dan Hunt, the two of them classmates from West Point.

“I don’t see him here,” Bob said softly.

“He didn’t make it—died during the starving time after everything went to hell.”

He looked back at Bob, who was gazing at Dan’s favorite painting, George Washington kneeling in the snow in prayer at Valley Forge.

“The list goes on and on,” Bob said softly, “all those who didn’t make it.”

“I wondered about you across these years, sir,” John replied, “but now you are here.”

“You take inspiration from that painting?” Bob asked. “Is that why you kept it?”

John studied it for a moment. “Only recently started to use this office, just for state council meetings. I felt it was kind of a shrine to a good leader. But yeah, on a day like this, it’s worth studying.”

Bob did not respond to John’s obvious touch of cynicism. “How Washington kept his strength through that winter at Valley Forge is beyond me at times. If he had lost his way, the American Revolution would have truly been lost.”

“That’s worth thinking about now.”

Bob turned his gaze from the painting to John, and there seemed to be a flash of warning. “Let’s get to business, John,” he announced, and he sat down at the far end of the table.

“Formal surrender, is that it, sir? It’s Appomattox, you’re Grant, and I’m Lee?”

“I prefer not to think of it that way. Call it rejoining the Union we both swore an oath to.”

“You mean Bluemont?”

Bob hesitated. “You seem damn hostile to them.”

“I have every reason to be hostile. This community lost over a hundred dead to that tin-pot dictator they sent down here back in the spring. Before we leave, I want you to take a look at our chapel; we’re still repairing it. Those troops out in the hallway, they have every reason to mistrust. They all buried friends, several of them spouses, by the time it was done. How else should we react?”

“Were they students of yours, John?”

“You mean now, or before the Day?”

“You know what I mean.”

John smiled sadly. “Yes. That girl who spoke up asking if we were surrendering.”

“You mean the one who would not salute me but definitely saluted you?”

“That one, yes. She was a Bible studies major. Loved history, good kid from a good family that came up here every month to visit, and all of them would sit in on one of my evening classes. Her family lived in Florida.”

With the mention of Florida, he saw the sudden look in Bob’s eyes.

“Sorry I mentioned that place, sir.”

Bob sighed. “Like I said, I know my Linda is gone. I just pray it was peaceful.”

“Same for that girl. She got married in our chapel across the hall a year ago. Had a baby three months ago. No husband now—he was killed in the attack where Fredericks was holed up at the end.”

“I understand the tough edge to her now,” Bob replied.

“We all have tough edges now, sir. No father for her baby, nightmares as to what happened to the rest of her family. This school is all she knows now.” He hesitated. “She feels she has nothing to lose if she dies fighting to defend it.”

“There is no need anymore to fight, John.”

“Really, sir?” He could not control the sarcasm in his voice, but Bob did not react.

“Damn, I’m cold and thirsty.”

“It’s a dry campus, Bob. At least we try to keep it that way.”

“Coffee, then?” Bob asked hopefully.

“None of that either. All those K-Cups of coffee belong to my friend Forrest—you remember him, the sergeant who left an arm in Afghanistan—but I can roust up some herbal tea.”

“Please, if you don’t mind.”

John nodded, left the office, and leaned over the dutch door that led down to the old business office, which had been converted into the formal administrative office of the town. He shouted down the stairs, Reverend Black opening the door down below, and John passed along the request.

He returned to the president’s office, where Bob had returned to staring at the painting of George Washington.

“Do you think he really prayed like that in the snow of that winter?” Bob asked.

“He was a man of faith, and if ever this country needed faith, it was that winter. So yes, I believe it is real.”

“So do I,” Bob said softly.

The two were silent for a moment, both gazing at the painting.

The historian in John knew that the weather during that first winter at Valley Forge was nowhere near as severe as the one at Morristown, New Jersey, a couple of years later when the army was encamped at Jockey Hollow. Several units—unpaid, unshod, desperate, and hungry—had finally mutinied. Washington had taken the hard choice of executing several of the ringleaders and in a tense standoff was ready to order troops still loyal to the cause to fire, if need be, on the regiments in mutiny. The revolution had indeed hung by the slenderest of threads on that desperate day. Only Washington’s strength of character and leadership had prevented a complete breakdown of the army and the collapse of his years of effort with all disintegrating into chaos and most likely dictatorship or capitulation.

There was a tap on the door, his friend Reverend Black bringing in two steaming mugs of herbal tea. John thanked him, and there was a moment of hesitation.

John made the formal introductions, Bob coming to his feet to shake Black’s hand.

“Everything all right? Everyone standing down?” John asked.

“It’s not good over Asheville. Half a dozen dead and wounded. I spoke on the phone with some officer who said he had just placed our person Dunn there under arrest.”

John looked over at Bob.

“I’ll straighten that out once I’m done here, John.”

“So, are we all under arrest?” John asked coldly.

“I didn’t want any bloodshed,” Bob replied. “I promise to straighten it out.”

“Tell that to the families of the dead,” Black snapped back.

Bob nodded, keeping his composure. “If you’re still on the phone with them, tell the officer there—it’s most likely Major Minecci—that I am safe and secure here, will be up there in two hours, and expect a full report. If fired on, he is not to return fire unless the situation is life threatening. Can you help me with that, Reverend?”

Black looked over at John, who gave a nod of reassurance, and he left.

“You could have given us warning,” John said. “It would have prevented what happened in Asheville.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The way I read things when we last met, I knew I could trust you. But my people who mingled with yours while we were talking? It wasn’t good. Reports back were that your people would fight if we just tried to walk in.”

“Can you blame them after what the last attempt to bring us into the fold of Bluemont turned into?”

“I balanced all and finally felt this was the right approach. It’s tragic that anyone had to die. God knows after what happened in Roanoke, Richmond, and Lynchburg, I know the cost. The only way I felt could work was to show overwhelming force in the first move and count on you being moral and sane in response. It could have been far worse, and you know it.”

“So my next question, Bob. Why this?”

“I already told you that before. I’ve been tasked with establishing a reunified state east of the Appalachians from central Virginia down to the old border of Florida.”

“Why not Florida as well while you’re at it?” Again, he could see the flash of pain in Bob’s eyes at the mere mention of that place.

“We’ve written off Florida. I remember some years ago—I think I read it in American Heritage or some magazine like that—until DDT and air-conditioning came along, except for the coastal regions, the state was relatively empty. Well, it most certainly turned into that after the Day with tens of millions living there, a high percentage of them elderly and dependent on that air-conditioning, modern sanitation, a reliable supply of medications, modern hospitals, a freezer full of steaks, cold margaritas out on the screened-in lanai every evening, and of course mosquito control. Word is the few left down there again face malaria, cholera, Nile Valley, you name it.”

He paused, obviously not appreciating having to dwell on what for him was personal history as well. “Remember, Central Command for our operations in the Middle East was based in the Tampa, Saint Pete area. Within two months, they collapsed, the survivors, the lucky survivors, evacuated by our navy. From Miami to Jacksonville—on the other coast Fort Myers to Pensacola—disintegrated into a sinkhole of anarchy, looting, murder, and then disease and starvation. There are some pockets of survivors along the coast, living again by what they can harvest from the sea as long as pirates don’t get them first. The navy tried to control the waters around there for a while and clean out the pirates but finally gave up. Florida, like I said, is a write-off.”

It was obvious to John that he wanted to leave that subject behind.

“Florida’s gone, but you were ordered to take this place, is that it?”

“I’d prefer not to use the term take, John. Call it unite, reunite. Bring you back in under a central federated government.”

“But after Fredericks, suppose we don’t want to join?”

“John, you have no choice. To be blunt, it is unite or die.”

John chuckled at that and shook his head. “I seem to remember that was on our flags during the revolution against an overbearing authority four thousand miles away.”

“You’re taking it the wrong way, my friend.”

“Bob, who actually are you serving? I mean, really serving? Bluemont, or the oath you swore to the Constitution?”

Bob fell silent, and there was a look of anger in his eyes.

“My trust for Bluemont? It’s about as far as I can spit into a hurricane,” John interjected.

“My God, John. So you are going to take that decision upon yourself. You don’t trust them, so go to hell and leave us alone, and that’s it?”

John offered no reply.

“I have my orders. I hope you can trust me to see them through and avoid a senseless conflict that you know you cannot win.”

He wanted to retort with a conjuring of memories about military ethics classes, the tragic, horrific example of the German army in the 1930s, when the oath of allegiance was one day switched from defending the state to accepting without hesitation all orders from the führer.

“So what are your orders regarding here, what we have come to call the State of Carolina?”

“A bit aggrandizing, that name, isn’t it? State of Carolina. Last time I checked a map, your state here controls what, five thousand square miles? What about Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh? For that matter, there is a garrison in Greenville-Spartanburg put there by Bluemont, and they have a corridor of control all the way down to Charleston.”

“It’s a start,” John offered, “and if left alone will continue to expand in an orderly way. Groups like the Posse either move out or, if need be, we take them out. We were doing okay with local folks reaching out to the next community and inviting them to join in. Unite or die? Maybe it is unite and live.”

“John, there are a hundred enclaves like yours that are making ‘a start,’ as you put it, from here clear up to Maine. But then what? We devolve into a hundred feudal-like states that eventually balkanize the way Europe did after Rome collapsed? You and your friends have done a masterful job of restoring order, civilization, and—from what I could observe—even bringing some technology back online. But reunite everything? Do you have any idea what some other so-called states have devolved into? You most likely know about Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, even D.C.”

“I’ve heard some stories.”

“You haven’t seen it; I have. D.C. is of course gone, a write-off, same as Florida. There are some whack jobs running what they call a kingdom not a hundred and fifty miles from here that are told to worship their leader as the son of God, and if you don’t go along, you are crucified.”

“So why not go after them first?” John offered.

“Weak argument, John. Bait-and-switch logic. It is precisely places like here, where things are being restored, that old values still hold, that we need in our fold before I can take out places like that.”

“So we are back in the fold, is that it?”

Bob nodded, finally sipping his tea and grimacing slightly. “Damn, this is awful stuff, John.”

“Sorry, but that is what we live on.”

“Don’t take it as a bribe, but once we get this settled, I’ve got a convoy coming in with two hundred thousand MREs. Remember each of them has a packet of coffee. Do you still smoke?”

John shook his head.

“Why, I remember you as being really addicted.”

“I promised Jennifer before she died.”

Bob lowered his head. “Sorry.” John could tell the emotions were genuine. “We can talk later about all that we lost.”

“And your specific orders.”

Bob looked back up at him and sighed, obviously not happy about what he had to say next. “I’m ordered to place you under arrest and transport you in an expedient manner to Bluemont to stand trial for murder, the execution of prisoners, and treason.”

“Oh, really?” John said, and he could not help but offer a sarcastic grin. “Can I have time to say good-bye to my wife?”

“Wife?”

“Guess you wouldn’t have known, or would you? I assume Fredericks, before we killed him, was sending up reports.”

“Actually, I didn’t know. Who is she?”

John offered a brief explanation to his old and perhaps now former friend as to how he and Makala had met on the Day and all that had transpired afterward.

“I had hoped to see my child born,” John concluded, “but guess you need to haul me out of here ASAP.”

Bob shook his head. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Bob, you have orders to follow.”

Bob’s gaze turned icy cold. “Don’t push it, John. I’m putting my neck out as is. The original orders were to take this place by force.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Again, don’t push it. Just that I knew there was a better way. And part of that better way is to leave you in peace.”

“So I can be a puppet figurehead?”

“Damn, you are hostile,” Bob replied.

“I have every reason to be hostile,” John snapped back. “We were doing just fine until two hours ago.”

“There is a far bigger world out there than this ‘State of Carolina,’ as you call it.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t. Not really.”

“Enlighten me, then, sir.”

Bob began to stand up. “I understand your feelings, but if this is how it’s going to be, let’s just cut the crap. I’m not going to put you under arrest and transport you to Bluemont. Nor anyone else here.” He paused. “I just implore you to keep things stable with no resistance. You do that for me, and I can skirt around that other order for a while.”

“Aren’t you breaking orders?”

“Come on, you know there is always leeway for a commander in the field if he knows how to play it.”

“And something called the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. Does Bluemont even have the right to accuse me of treason, prosecute me for a capital crime? And the Sixth Amendment is about being tried in my state or district where the alleged crime took place by a jury of my peers. Something about our revolution and protest against those being arrested without warning and transported away. It was so important an issue back then that we wrote it into the Constitution. I could cite a few other points from that document as well.”

“Damn it, of course you know I am aware of that.”

“And Bluemont isn’t? I find that troubling, Bob.”

“Again, don’t press me, John.”

“I’m not pressing you, sir. Perhaps it is you who are pressing yourself.”

“Damn it, listen to me! Just listen for a minute.”

John nodded and sat back, breaking eye contact and deliberately focusing his gaze on the portrait of Washington at Valley Forge.

“Asheville and Greenville-Spartanburg are to become the staging area to bring Atlanta back under control.”

“My God, sir. Who is your head of intelligence? Atlanta is a hellhole. You’ll be facing tens of thousands down there, the survivors of a dog-eat-dog existence the last two years. I know. The southern extent of what you dismissively call the State of Carolina is not a hundred miles away from there, and we still on occasion have refugees staggering in from there. Word is that Fort Benning collapsed within weeks after the Day. After that, posse-like groups moved in and looted out weapons from there. Your force might be facing some nasty ground-to-air stuff. Bob, taking back Atlanta…” He sighed. “It will make Sherman’s job look easy in comparison.”

“I already know that. Look, John, we’ve got to get our act together east of the Mississippi, and Atlanta is part of that job. This world is still tottering on the edge of a full-scale nuclear exchange. We are all playing a game of brinkmanship now that we have been pushed off the table as the one remaining superpower we thought we were back in the ’90s. It’s as bad as—if not worse than—when you were a young lieutenant back in Germany watching the Fulda Gap against the Soviets. There’s good intelligence the Chinese have moved surface-to-surface nukes onto our mainland, aimed at here. That is a seven- to ten-minute launch-to-strike time at most.”

“And our boomers out in the Pacific?”

“I can’t discuss that with you.”

“Have we abandoned even that?” John snapped.

“Our only hope of survival is to present a unified nation and do it damn quick. Atlanta is but one part of that equation. To the rest of the world, we look like we’re in tatters. That whole damn experiment with the Army of National Recovery made us look even more the fools. Bluemont has decided to go to whatever extreme necessary to get the job done and finish it before spring.”

Bob fell silent, John returning his gaze to his old friend. He could sense the strain he was under. Something within him felt it was time to finally ask yet again.

“You sent Quentin to try to reach out to me first, and you did so behind Bluemont’s back, didn’t you?”

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”

“I talked with him about it. Originally, he was to be airlifted down to you as an envoy. I was thinking of dropping him off inside your territory, do it covertly.”

“But then?”

“He deserted and did it on his own.”

“What?”

“You heard me correctly, and that stays here. Okay?”

John nodded.

“Why desert?”

“He picked up on some rumors. Told me the night before he lit out that he could no longer abide by those orders, and the following morning he was gone, along with three others in a Humvee.”

“What rumors?”

Bob hesitated for a moment and then relented, speaking softly.

“You asked me about this at the airport the other day and I didn’t feel comfortable telling you then, but now? I think it is time you realized what I am trying to contain, what all of us are facing. There’s some talk. Can’t say how, where, or from whom. Just talk that if need be, Bluemont will trigger an EMP.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” John cried. “Against who?”

“Southern United States.” Bob shook his head and then stood up. “You repeat that to anyone and I’ll have you gagged and hauled out of here today, whether it turns into a fight or not. I’ve said too much already.” There was a sharp edge of warning—or was it panic in his voice for having said more than he should have?

“You say a word anywhere, and by God, I will ship you to Bluemont, let this place rebel, and then you know the results. Do you read me, Colonel Matherson?”

During his entire career under this general, John could only recall several real dressing-downs, though he had witnessed it delivered to many another. Bottom line, it was why some stayed majors and colonels and only a select few had generals’ stars pinned to their uniforms. There at times had to be this ruthless edge no matter whom it was being delivered against.

“John, I’m trying to beat the clock. I have orders to neutralize Atlanta and bring it back into the fold within the month. It’s to demonstrate to China and the rest of the world that we are firmly in control of our territory east of the Mississippi. I need Asheville along with Greenville-Spartanburg as secured staging areas for the push south. I need that now.”

“Whoever gave you that order is insane. Atlanta is now the lower circle of hell, Bob. You could sink an entire army corps into that place and it will be another Fallujah.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Bob replied wearily. “Asheville is part of a far bigger game. And if it doesn’t work, Bluemont is willing to do whatever they deem necessary to get their point across to everyone here. It’s seen as a message as well to China that we will use any means possible to pacify remaining resistance within our territory and in turn a clear warning as well to not press us any further.”

Whether what he said was planned and intentional or not, he must have inwardly realized he had spilled a highly classified secret.

“All right, sir, it stays in this room. You have my oath on that. But please go on.”

Bob sat down and looked at the half-empty mug of herbal tea. “You sure you got nothing else here?” he finally asked, motioning to his empty cup.

John nodded, stood up, and without another word went out into the hallway. Several of his students were still hanging about, and he asked them to fetch Kevin Malady. His campus commander of their battalion was before him less than a minute later. John whispered a request, and Kevin grinned and ran off.

It was, of course, a dry campus, but even under the strictest of rules at any such place, there were always some ready to bend those rules, and one had to be foolish not to recognize that fact. Kevin was back in less than five minutes, handing over a small hiking backpack. John took it back into the office, closed the door, and produced a quart bottle of moonshine, half-full, and just handed it to Bob, who took a long swig and passed it to John, who took a drink as well before putting the lid back on and passing it back.

“One of the traditional products of these mountains,” John said, coughing a bit since it certainly was strong stuff and burned on the way down.

Bob took another long sip and nodded his thanks. “Good stuff,” he gasped, and he motioned to push the jar back.

“Keep it.”

“Thanks, I will. Not Dalwhinnie fifteen-year-old scotch, but one lives with what they can these days.” He took another sip and sighed. “All right, John, do I have your sworn oath that what I have said will stay in this room? Not even to your wife, who I hope to soon meet?”

John finally nodded.

“Just rumor, mind you. Some chatter my own people picked up off encrypted sat comms. Speculation that to bring down Atlanta and any other pockets of resistance in the South, an EMP will be burst above the Gulf of Mexico coast to knock off-line any technology they’ve managed to bring back up over the last two years, and then we move in the following day. Line-of-sight effect, as you know. It would include here.”

“In the name of God, why?” As John asked, he thought of just how delicate the infrastructure his community had managed to bring back online over the last year and a half was. Even a low-yield burst would destroy everything they had managed to re-create.

“Knocks whatever is left down and takes them off balance. You aren’t the only one who is getting the genie back out of the bottle when it comes to electricity, getting some cars and trucks running again.” Bob now fixed him with a sharp gaze. “Or the Black Hawk here and there that has gone missing and could raise hell with our side.”

“Isn’t this a sledgehammer to blot out a fly? What threat do we present?”

“It would be a message to the rest of the world as well even if Bluemont says someone else did it—that we are ready to do it to the entire rest of the world and will not hesitate to do so. We’ve been pushed back as far as we will accept and no further. It is a game far beyond you and me, but it will bring down everything you and your friends have created here.”

John felt sick inside just thinking of how each small step back from the darkness had so lifted the morale of all. To suddenly have that go entirely down again would be a final deathblow. If it was delivered, whoever was left afterward might as well crawl into their graves and pull the sod over themselves and die.

He could not reply and just sat there in silence. If at this moment Bob had produced a cigarette, he would have taken it, his pledge to Jennifer gone, for indeed there would be nothing left, no hope left, no dream of rebuilding if this was indeed the level that Bluemont was willing to go to.

“It is why I had to bring you in now, John,” Bob said softly, taking another sip from the mason jar. “I’m trying to forestall it, to make a stab at Atlanta first and hope for the best. If that fails, at least I can argue that this region is back in the fold, and if an EMP is detonated to do it farther out to sea or at lower altitude so you are not impacted.”

“Bob, just sit back for another year or two, let those barbarians left in Atlanta literally eat each other, then you might be able to move in. But try it now? EMP first or not, you damn well had better have a lot more troops than General Sherman did; otherwise, it will be a bloody disaster.”

Bob nodded sadly and then made a show of looking at his old-style wristwatch. “It’s been nearly an hour. I don’t want my young officer up there to get anxious and come looking for me. It might trigger something.”

“The mood my people are in, if he comes down here like gangbusters, yes, it will go bad.”

“Then I’d better get back.” Bob stood up, John rising as well.

“What next?” John asked.

“I’m setting up forward headquarters in Asheville. Can you assure me there won’t be a fight?”

“Asheville? Not sure. Chances are there won’t be resistance; the fight was already punched out of that town long ago. I think, though, your safer bet would be to laager in at the airport, far enough out of town so you don’t have to deal with some nutjob sniper, but close enough that everyone will know you’re there. If that convoy that’s coming up from Greenville, South Carolina, gets through the Green River Gorge safely, the airport would be a good place to rendezvous.”

“I’ll need the airfield there,” Bob replied, “so your suggestion is a good one. We have a couple of C-130s with us in Roanoke that have already touched down on the interstate, but getting the runway at Asheville back up would be preferred. And the navy can fly some things in as well once we get that runway your people chewed up repaired.”

Bob looked down at the mason jar. John gestured for him to take it, and Bob slipped it into the pocket of his parka. “This is the way it is, John. You stay on, function as before, and if you follow my rules, I’ll report to Bluemont the situation is under control here and you are under house arrest for now—or better yet, we can’t find you—and that this area has achieved level-one stability. You’ve got to stay low. For heaven’s sake, don’t screw it up by letting Bluemont catch wind that you are out and about. If you do that, I want you to continue to function as before but behind the scenes, and for God’s sake, don’t go broadcasting that around, so stay off the radios.”

“And in return?”

“I report this area is secure.”

“And the EMP?”

“Let me cross that bridge a month from now. Maybe I can talk them down from it. You’re right; I know as well as you that trying to take Atlanta now would turn into another Fallujah or even a Stalingrad. I need your help with this. Can I count on you?”

John finally nodded in reply, for after all, there was no other alternative short of seeing another war fought by his community.

“You got a landline down to the airport?” Bob asked.

“We have a line to Hendersonville.”

“Is the wire near the airport?”

“It runs along the interstate.”

“Get one of your people down there today, have them point it out, and I’ll have my people link it in. I want that done by tonight. That will then be how we stay in touch.”

John nodded. “EMP. If those bastards are going to do it, what do you do?”

“Don’t ask me that yet,” Bob said wearily.

“Will you give me warning?”

Bob stared at him and finally nodded. “If you see me pulling out of here with everything we can haul, pulling back to Roanoke to be out of line of sight, you’ll know it’s coming. That’s the best I can do for you.”

“And you would let them do that?”

Bob looked back at the painting of General Washington kneeling in the snow of Valley Forge. “Ask me again in a month.”

“All right, then,” he said, finally adding, “sir.”

“Thank you, John. I’m sorry it had to be this way. Please keep your people reined in; let’s make this as easy as possible. From here, I’ll go straight to Asheville to make sure things are settled down there. Once that phone line is in, I’ll be in daily touch.”

Zipping up his parka, Bob opened the door, John following him out. Bob paused, looked through the open door into the adjoining chapel, and stepped in. Students up on a high scaffolding, working to repair the damaged ceiling, were hammering away, disturbing the silence. Bob stopped at the back of the chapel, taking it in, John coming to his side.

“I remember this place well, from when Mary was laid to rest.”

“It’s the heart of this campus,” John said. “Lot of days, even before the Day, this is where I’d come to pray by myself, to sort things out. A lot of hearts and memories are tied to this place.”

Bob nodded and then simply knelt down, lowered his head, whispered a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and stood back up.

“Pray for me, John.”

And at that moment, John again fully trusted his old commander. Coming to attention, John saluted him, Bob returning the salute and then embracing him. The chapel was now entirely silent; the students who had been working had stopped and were watching them. Though not planned at all, John knew that word of the prayer, salute, and embrace would spread from one end of the campus to the other within minutes, and for the moment, it had defused the potential of a deadly confrontation.

He walked his friend to the outside door where Maury was patiently waiting. Bob offered him a friendly smile, jokingly asking if he could drive the jeep on the way back, and his two friends drove off, Bob at the wheel, tires spinning in the snow.

As he drove off, John made a mental note to immediately call Ernie and tell him to check the camouflage for the antenna array on the roof of his house. No sense in Bob getting wind that they were already working on their own to try to listen in to Bluemont. And with what Bob had just told him, now there was true urgency to that task.

John returned to the chapel alone, sat in the rear pew, lowered his head, and, like Washington at Valley Forge, began to pray while outside snow again began to fall.