by Anna Dove
“You have any weapons?”
The man held up his two hands, empty.
Logan adroitly climbed down from his perch, and dropped to the ground, landing solidly on his feet. He walked up to Jack.
“Well, sir, you’ve stumbled into a community. I’m a sentry. I’ll have to take you back to our community now, and they’ll want to question you.”
“Sure, sure. More than happy. I don’t suppose you all have a bite to eat? And water? It’s been longer than I thought since I ate last, and a man burns helluva lots energy when he walks.”
Logan nodded, but still held his gun. “Now you walk in front of me, and I’ll tell you where to go.” He stepped behind the man, his eyes alert on Jack’s movements as they both began forwards. He stayed a decent four feet behind Jack, still not quite trusting the man. Seems relatively harmless, he thought, but best to be safe in every circumstance.
He watched as Jack’s feet trailed along the earth.
“Are you tired?” Asked Logan, wondering why the man walked like that.
“No,” said the other. “But I’ve had a terrible few weeks. I’m lucky to be alive. Lucky to be here.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I was in the city when it happened,” said the man. “Nightmare—planes falling from the sky, people bleeding out in the car crashes. Horrible stuff. People losing their minds. I was drunk, luckily, or I would have been more scared. It was worse than anything I’ve seen and I’ve seen a lot.”
He trudged on a few steps and then continued.
“The food on grocery store shelves was gone in one day. One day! That’s all we had. I moved into the woods--had to detox from alcohol.”
Logan felt a pang of pity.
“Well, I did eventually,” said the man, and fell quiet. He stepped on painstakingly. “Not as easy to move along as it once was though. Feel sometimes like I’m a whole new man but a whole new man who’s been hit by a freight train.”
They soon came to the glen that led to the farmhouse. Jack stopped as he saw the tall structure, taking it all in. Logan watched him as the man scanned the house, the barn and the garden.
“Well, will you look at that—” Jack began, and then broke off his sentence.
“Come on, let’s get some food,” said Logan, and the two moved forward.
As they entered, the people began to notice, and stopped their work or play to watch as Jack and Logan neared.
“No one worry,” called Logan, loud enough for all to hear. “Can we find some food for this man?”
Logan took Jack inside to where Judith was chopping romaine in the kitchen. A few others joined; the leaders of the community seated themselves nearby, bringing Jack a chunk of venison, a boiled onion, a boiled egg, a sweet potato and a mug of water. Jack ate and drank fiercely. He had eaten berries that morning but had not found any game that day. The taste of fresh vegetables was sensational; it had been weeks since he had eaten anything but fruit and meat. He felt his strength returning and his body absorbing much-needed nutrients.
“Thank you,” he said when he had finished, wiping his mouth. He then proceeded to tell the small company where he had come from and what his name was.
“You said Washington?” A female voice sounded from behind him, and he turned to see two young women standing with fishing equipment in their hands. One was tall and blonde; the other average height and with darker hair and grey blue eyes.
+
Haley listened as Jack told them about his journey through Maryland. Elizabeth sat on her right, and Carlos on the other side of Jack. The sun had set and they were gathered around the fire that they had built outside under the dark canopy of the sky. During the afternoon, the community leadership had questioned Jack, ensuring that he was a safe addition to the community, and now, having been accepted into the group and assigned the task of hunting with Logan tomorrow, Jack felt much more relaxed. He was grateful for these people, grateful for his life, grateful for the breath in his lungs and the stars that were appearing in the sky above.
Haley watched his face as he spoke—his roving brown eyes, furrowed brow. She felt as if she had seen him before. Perhaps—Washington being Washington, of course, the smallest of all small worlds—perhaps she had, at some happy hour or event.
“What did you do in Washington?” she asked, as his recounting seemed to have come to an end.
“Where did I work?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh. Wait—what do you mean?”
“Veteran, stipend life. Plus a few generous friends.”
“Oh.” She felt as if she had to say something else, as his response hung in the air. “Well I had just thought perhaps I had seen you before.”
“Doubt it. Didn’t go out much. But perhaps in passing. They say that our brains remember every moment of our lives, for better or for worse, but that our consciousness just can’t access it all the time.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Would be a pity if it were true--I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime. Served in the Marines for a while. Met every president who served in the last two decades. Knew many people in DOD too. Terrible people, some of them. To be perfectly honest, all of this attack--I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised…” his voice faded.
“Surprised if what?” asked Haley quietly.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t trust them.” His gaze fixed on the popping logs.
A brief silence fell on the group, and the crickets croaked, the spring peepers trilled, and the fire hissed and snapped softly.
“Jack, I want to share something with you—and Carlos, with you as well,” said Haley abruptly. “Elizabeth and I have information that we haven’t told anyone yet, but that I think you both may be able to help us with as we decide what to do.”
Elizabeth looked up from the fire.
“Haley, are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
At their feet, a knot in a burning log popped, sending sparks into the air. Haley watched as the sparks flew upwards and hung for a beautiful moment as if suspended, and then faded slowly into the dark as they cooled.
“The night before the attack, Elizabeth and I were at the Eisenhower building at a gala, honoring the Council of Economic Advisors, of which Carlos was a member. The President and First Lady were there, as well as a number of other high level officials from many departments,” she began, her hands clasped in front of her. “Elizabeth accidentally entered a side office during the reception after the awards. She heard someone coming and hid behind the curtains, and Reed, the chief of staff, entered, talking on the phone to someone. He said that ‘everything would go as planned’ and he mentioned Chimaugua Bunker. After he left, Elizabeth and I went home, and then we told Senator McCraiben, who I worked for, and James Landon, because they were the only people we knew we could trust. Landon is the Under Secretary of the Navy and he confirmed that this was not a drill. We all decided to wait and see what would happen—we really had no other choice. During the attack, we all were separated, because we were expecting a nuclear bomb in New York or LA, not an EMP. Carlos and Elizabeth happened to be together at that moment, and they fled back to our apartment, where I met them, and then we all started northwards. But see, the point is,” she continued earnestly, “The point is, we all believe that this was not a foreign attack. We believe that the Chief of Staff, along with others, government officials and military officials, were behind this—that it was an act of domestic terrorism. Now, it could have been anyone on the phone with him. Any high level official could have been in cohorts—”
“Stop,” interrupted Jack excitedly. “I already knew. I know it was domestic.”
The others fell silent, and their gazes rested on his face, in sudden apprehension.
“No, no—I am not responsible...” Jack said. “I was paid to oversee the construction of a massive nuclear warhead on Baker Island in the Pacific. The only one of its kind. They t
old me it was for an EMP test above the Pacific, just like Operation Fishbowl in the 1960’s, which I had the schematic for—a whole separate story, how I got that. The Chief of Staff, Snyder Reed, the same one, came by a few times, which I thought was strange but I didn’t question it. He would always ask so many questions. When will this be done. What is the range of the blackout, etc..I was discharged after a few months, and they sent me back home, but then one of Reed’s employees, and an old friend of mine, continued to pay me. Fifteen thousand dollars every month. Now I realize it was blackmail—they wanted me to be drunk, be silent, be incapacitated, they were feeding my addictions to incapacitate me. But, when the attack happened I knew immediately. It all made sense.”
The fire crackled, and a chill in the air caused goosebumps to rise on the back of Haley’s neck. It felt as if someone was standing behind her, watching her—she looked into the fire. The sounds of spring peepers and rustling leaves faded as her senses turned inwards, processing the information she had just heard. She remembered that morning in the Senator’s office before the attack, as they discovered the fifteen thousand dollar payments to The Bluechrest Foundation.
“They really must want you dead right now,” said Carlos quietly after a full minute had passed.
“Yes, I suppose so,” responded Jack slowly, his voice a little strained.
“Does that not worry you?”
“Somewhat—but probably not as much as it should,” said Jack. “I’ve served tours abroad and had bullets whizzing past me at such a rate that I doubted I would live to the next second. Not that I cared. But I did. So now, I’m comfortable and out of the way. I have no idea what will happen in the next months. If I go back to Washington I won’t be as safe.”
“How do you know about nuclear stuff?”
“Got my degrees in it after enlisting. And my first few years I was stationed at a silo, before I was deployed to Iran. So I learned a bit there. That was before everyone and their mother got pulled to go to Iran. But I learned about EMP’s from a woman named Katrin Von Gorben.” He stopped, and dug his toe into the dirt in front of him.
“Who was that?” asked Elizabeth.
“A woman I used to know.”
A few seconds of silence.
“Have you ever heard of Operation Fishbowl?” said Jack.
“No,” said Haley.
“Testing--nuclear testing--in the 1960s, above the Pacific. Von Gorben’s grandparents had been killed by Russians in the Second World War. They were elderly and defenseless. Her parents bitterly hated Russians and in the 1960s her father worked with Americans to develop the plans for Operation Fishbowl. He had been a brilliant physicist at Humboldt in Berlin, a true Einstein. During the Cold War he worked with us, during Operation Fishbowl (and mind you, this operation they tested atmospheric reaction to nuclear explosion and learned what an EMP would be) and afterwards. But, the KGB found out, and Professor Von Gorben went missing in September of 1983. His daughter was seventeen.”
“How awful.”
“Very much so. He never reappeared, and there were no doubts as to his fate. Katrin Von Gorben was just exactly like her father. She knew nuclear science like the back of her hand. When her father disappeared, she and her mother fled to Paris. They lived there, just the two of them, for twenty years. Then her mother died of natural causes. Katrin continued on in Paris, under another identity. She knew too much about too much. She had helped her father develop some of the operations, learning as a teenager the details of many clandestine operations. We Marines were sent to extradite her years ago, as one of my first missions, because we discovered that her whereabouts had been discovered by the FSB and that they were intent on capturing her.”
“And she told you about these operations?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack continued. “Every one of them. Every last one of them. I was young and strong--twenty six--I thought I was invincible. I thought it would put me at an advantage to have classified knowledge. I know names, I know places, I know what has been tested and what hasn’t, what works and what doesn’t.”
“Why did she tell you?” Elizabeth asked.
Jack tilted his head to the side, as if pondering a heavy thought, mulling it in his mind. For a few seconds, he said nothing at all.
“Love does terrible things to people—and she fell in love with me,” he said at last, a little slowly. A hint of color came to his cheeks and his brow furrowed pensively. “She was nineteen years my senior, but she loved me. Mind sharp as a diamond, a very small woman, quick in her movements, expressions, flaming temper…” His words trailed off. “Yes--you see. And she told me everything,” he continued sharply. “So that’s what being in love does to you, blinds your good judgment and wrecks your future. Yes, she told me everything. And the worst part of it is, I can’t forget. You know, I’ve pushed from my mind many, many, many experiences,” he said, emphasizing with each repetition, “but I can’t forget her, I can’t forget a single word she ever said. They’re burned on my brain like I’d been branded.”
Haley frowned.
“So that’s why they wanted you to oversee the construction.”
“Yes. I’m an asset. I knew the logistics. But see now, they have no use for me, and so I’m definitely a danger to them.”
“Yes, I see.”
A pause.
“Where is she now?” asked Carlos.
“Von Gorben? Dead.”
“No,” breathed Haley.
“Saw the obit in the newspaper.”
“When?”
“2021. December. Long time ago”
“No...I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She’s nothing to me now. It was foolish in the first place.”
The fire had burned down a little, and the coals burned hot under the charred logs.
“Wait a minute,” said Carlos slowly. He looked at Elizabeth and leaned forward intently. “Elizabeth—what time did you overhear that conversation with Reed?”
Elizabeth frowned, her mind still focused on Jack’s story.
“I don’t know—I suppose it was around 10pm that night.”
“No, I need you to think,” urged Carlos, and his tone grew very serious. He clasped his hands in front of him, and his face had sobered deeply. “I need you to think now.”
“Why—I’m not entirely sure—Carlos, what’s the matter?”
“Was it after we ate?”
“Yes.”
“About thirty minutes after everyone finished and began to mingle?”
“Yes…I think so.”
“Oh...my god,” said Carlos. He froze, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth’s face, and then opened his mouth and shut it again, and Haley could see even in the low firelight that he had turned very pale.
“What is it? You’re scaring me,” said Elizabeth.
“I know who he was talking to. Who Reed was talking to—because I was in her bedroom when she took the call, and she stepped into her bathroom but I heard her—she said that she was worried about tomorrow, and then said that she trusted him, and said that she would see him tomorrow—I can’t remember what else…” He stopped talking, as the words caught in his throat.
“Carlos, who? Who is she?”
Carlos buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath. He waited a full sixty seconds before speaking.
“She was... having an affair with me...Adela…” he uttered the last name in a tone Haley had never before heard, one filled with a strange mix of reverence, shock and horror.
“Adela?” cried Haley.
“Yes—” said Carlos dully, after a long pause. “The First Lady.”
19. August
“I am not concerned that you have fallen -- I am concerned that you arise.”
― Abraham Lincoln
If we were to read about the attack in a history book, it would be labeled the greatest devastation that the United States of America had ever suffered. All wars in which the U.S. had participated, from the American Revolution to Afghanista
n, paled in terms of death toll. The historians would pause for a moment as they penned down how two hundred and three million people had died in the four months after April 23, 2033, how the vibrant cities had turned into temporary cesspools of crime and decay, how the suburbs starved and invaded each other’s homes or fled to wilderness in an attempt to survive, how farmlands in the east had been ransacked by their neighbors, how the Appalachians had experienced a barrage of people fleeing to their woods and lakes, how the farms on the Midwestern plains could not process their foods for distribution, how the southwestern coast had caught fire in July and descended into a picture of hell itself, how the northwestern coast had choked in the smoke and fumes wafting from below.
Public and private transportation, which had transitioned since the turn of the century from gas dependent to electricity dependent, was useless. Trains sat empty on the lots like sleeping iron monsters, rusting on their tracks. Electric cars, as we know, wrecked in the street or stopped dead in the highways or refused to start, and gas powered cars only drove as far as their existing tank of fuel allowed.
Production and distribution of food and supplies immediately stopped, due to the surge of violence. Factories shut down, as most of them relied on electricity to power the processing machines. Businesses closed their doors, both from fearing violence and from the realization that their banking, their operations, their processes, were carried out online.
Hospitals found themselves in the dark, and could not treat many of their patients. After a few days, as the death toll rose, they sent patients home regardless of the medical situation and locked their doors, fearing assault as people would want the drugs stored inside, and anticipating that the number of sick and injured would soon skyrocket.
Law enforcement at the state and local level at first attempted to operate normally, but as the violence increased, and the prisons and jails (locked electrically) were emptied, they found that their presence was useless. They returned to their own families to focus on their own survival.
