by Ralph Gibbs
“Our family has been in law enforcement for generations,” her father shouted while pacing and using his fingers to count off points. “My great-great-grandfather was a cop. His brothers were cops. Their sons were cops. My grandfather and father were cops. Since the force started accepting women, even mothers and daughters have been cops.”
“Calm down Arnold,” Dinah said, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “It’s the beginning of her senior year. Most girls her age don’t know what they want to do. She might change her mind.”
“Calm down?” he said heatedly. “I can’t calm down.” Despite the assertion, Arnold composed himself. Her mother always had a soothing effect on him. “The Justice family has given dozens of lives in the cause of law and order. We have an obligation.”
Danica felt it was more of a curse.
“Honey, what is it you want to do?” her mother asked.
“I want to apply to N.C. State,” she said.
“Why there?” her father asked gruffly.
“They have a great aeronautical engineering program,” Danica said. She saw that her father was about to object, so she hurried on. “I can get my degree, join the Air Force, and become a pilot. From there, I want to try out for NASA. If not NASA, there are several commercial space programs I could join. By the time I get my degree and spend a couple of years in the Air Force, there will be all sorts of opportunities for me to get into space.”
“An astronaut!” her father said, sounding bewildered. “Are you serious? An astronaut? No, fucking way. No member of this family is going to be a damn astronaut. I won’t pay for it.” Standing over her and looking at her, he crossed his arms as if that revelation would be the end of her rebellion. Danica had other ideas.
“Fine,” Danica said forcefully, standing up to face her father eye-to-eye. There was nothing timid in her voice now. It surprised her father into silence. “You don’t have to pay for it. I’m already accepted, and they offered me nearly a full ride. I can work to pay off the rest. Maybe as a pole dancer. I’ll let a bunch of sweaty, old fat men stuff dollar bills into my panties.”
“What?” Arnold said, with a mixture of outrage and bewilderment in his voice. He ignored the pole dancer remark, knowing she’d never go through with that threat. She was too shy about her body. “When did this happen? How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Being an astronaut or a pole dancer,” she countered. He just stared at her in silence. She lowered her voice. “Since I was fifteen.”
“Two years,” Arnold said heartbroken. He sat heavily on the couch. “You’ve been thinking about this for two years, and you’re just now coming to me.”
“All right, I think we all need to take a deep breath,” her mom said. “Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and do your homework? We’ll let this sink in, and tomorrow night we’ll discuss it again.” Arnold looked like he wanted to argue but nodded his head in acquiescence.
Danica entered her room and flopped down on her bed. She didn’t know if she wanted to scream in frustration or cry in heartache. There was another secret she wanted to tell them, but tonight was not the time. One colossal secret every decade was probably a good rule of thumb. She wasn’t sure her father, as both a Republican and a heavy Conservative, could handle it.
As Danica lay in bed reading, her mother knocked on the door and came in carrying a tray.
“Really, mom?” Danica said. “Milk and cookies? What am I, ten?”
“I don’t care how old you are; you never outgrow milk and cookies,” Dinah said as she put the tray down on the nightstand and sat next to Danica on the bed “Don’t be mad at your dad.”
“I’m not,” she said surprised to find she wasn’t. As much as she didn’t want to, she could understand her father’s shock and frustration. While she was wiggling around inside her mother waiting to be born, her father was hard at work making plans for her future in law enforcement. For the family, it didn’t matter if she was a state trooper, city cop, marshal, federal agent or local sheriff as long as she carried a badge and enforced the law.
“Remember when you were nine, and you wanted to dress up–”
“The infamous Pink Power Ranger incident,” Danica said.
Her mother laughed. The first eight years of Danica’s life her father dressed her as a miniature North Carolina State Trooper for Halloween, complete with an authentic trooper tie clip and a replica toy gun. Her first and only rebellion came at nine. That was the year she decided she wanted to be the Pink Power Ranger. Her father was not happy and not just him. Her choice wasn’t popular with any of the Justice clan. To understand how well the idea went over, a person need only consult the family photo album. There were dozens of pictures of her as a trooper over the years, but one photograph as the Pink Power Ranger, and only because her mother insisted.
“Even though he hated the idea, you still dressed up as your favorite character,” her mother said, smiling.
“Because you made him.”
“No one makes your father do anything he doesn’t want to,” her mother said with just a hint of reproach in her voice.
After the Power Ranger incident, to make her father happy, Danica dressed as a trooper until she stopped Trick or Treating. That was the year her father bought Danica her first real pistol and taught her how to use it. She considered herself a fair shot, enough for self-defense, but she could be better if she practiced. He also drilled her in police code. Throughout school, it was reading, writing, arithmetic, and police code. By the end of her sophomore year, she knew 187 was a homicide, 207 Alpha was an attempted kidnapping, and 311 was indecent exposure. Law enforcement was more than just in her blood; it was the soul of her family. But if need be, she would visit an exorcist.
“There’s something I never told you,” her mother said. “Remember how a few days after Halloween, your father’s brother came over and gave you a plastic pumpkin full of candy? He was sporting a black eye.”
“He said he got it in a scuffle with a perp,” Danica said. “I remember, but I don’t see—”
“Your father was over at Randy’s house the day after Halloween, and Randy was making fun of you for dressing up as a Power Ranger. Your dad hauled off and knocked the shit out of him. He then reminded his brother that Power Rangers stood for law and order and were just as much a member of law enforcement as any state trooper.”
Now it was Danica’s turn to laugh. “Really? How come you never told me? You could have saved me a lot of emotional scarring.”
“And ruin your father’s mystique? No way kiddo. Besides, I knew there would come a day when that story would come in handy. I have a few others saved up, but those will have to wait for more dire emergencies.”
“Thanks Mom. I needed that.”
Dinah kissed Danica on the forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you at breakfast. We’ll get together after dinner and discuss this . . . idea you have.”
Danica sat up quickly on the side of the bed. “It’s more than an idea, Mom. Have you wanted something so bad, you could taste it?”
“Your dad,” her mother said without hesitation.
“I’m serious mom, and yuck.”
“I’m serious too. Frankly, I envy you. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was your age. I grew up in a different generation. We didn’t have the same choices as you do now. Women weren’t as active in the workforce. That’s not to say there weren’t women making names for themselves, but with my grades, I was going to be limited to fetching coffee for my boss, taking dictation and blowing him under his desk.”
“Jesus Mom,” Danica said, shocked. Her mother never talked to her like this before. She leaned in closer to her mother. “Have you been drinking?”
“Maybe a little. But that’s not the wine talking.”
“You became a nurse,” Danica said, not believing her.
“That’s because I met your dad.”
“I’m not following.”
“He made me want to be a be
tter woman,” her mother said.
Danica tried not to laugh. “Did you just quote As Good as It Gets?” Her mother just shrugged and smiled.
“The moment I met your dad, I knew he was the man I was going to marry.”
“Didn’t you tell me he pulled you over for speeding?” Danica asked, having heard some of the story, but these were details her mother never told her before.
Her mother smiled at the memory. “He did. It was the first speeding ticket I ever got. I felt like crying because I knew my dad would be livid. But your father seemed to be the sort of man that would have been put off by a girl crying over a simple speeding ticket.” Her mom became wistful. “God, he was sexy in that uniform. If he’d asked, I would have crawled in the back seat with him right then.”
“Oh, my God, mom! TMI, TMI,” Danica said, looking disgusted. At the same time, it was nice to know her mother had a wild side.
“He asked me out for coffee after the court appearance,” her mother said. “I said yes of course, even though he just cost me eighty-seven dollars. Your father wanted to know everything about me. My interests, my favorite color, my favorite food, who I was going to vote for, and why. Then he asked me what I was going to study in college as if going to college was a foregone conclusion. I was too embarrassed to tell him I wasn’t going, so I lied. Said I was going to CPCC because I couldn’t afford a four-year degree.” Dinah huffed up and deepened her voice to sound like her husband. ‘Nothing wrong with CPCC,’ he said. ‘An education is an education.’ When he asked me what I was interested in, I just spurted out nursing.” Dinah laughed. “Hell, I didn’t even know if CPCC had a nursing program. Lucky for me, they did.”
“So, you never wanted to be a nurse?” Danica asked, surprised.
“That’s just it; I think I always wanted to be a nurse,” her mother said, sounding thoughtful. “I just didn’t believe I was good enough. But the way he looked at me made me want to be good enough. So, at that moment, there was nothing more I wanted than to be a nurse.” She paused. “Well, maybe him in bed.”
“Okay, new house rule. No more drinking and girl talk unless you bring the bottle because if this is our new dynamic, I’m going to need alcohol.” Her mother smiled and stood up.
“So, was there a point to this . . . talk?” Danica asked.
“There was when I started,” her mother said, opening the door to leave. “Oh, I guess the point is, no matter what, do what you want. Your father will come around. He loves you too much not to.”
CHAPTER 6
President Nathanial Allen Dixon ran his hand over the standard military issue gray metal desk with a look of disgust. He missed the beautiful lacquer finish of the Roosevelt Desk, his prized historical possession. One of the first things he would do when he was finally let out of quarantine, and things settled down would be to send a detail to Washington to retrieve that desk. President Dixon huffed at himself in disdain. The world was in the early stage of unraveling, and all he could think about was a stupid desk.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Center for Disease Control had unofficially confirmed that the world was at the onset of a deadly pandemic. As such, secret protocols established during the elder Bush Administration required him to board Air Force One for the Cheyenne Mountain Nuclear Complex located near Colorado Springs. His political enemies would paint the move as an act of cowardice and use it against him in the next election, if there was another election. For him, though, it went beyond protocols; it was a practical matter. If the pandemic was as deadly as the CDC feared, he owed it to the American people to provide a functioning government regardless of the political and personal cost. His wife said as much. He should have evacuated sooner, but both his chief of staff and science advisor had assured him it was nothing more than an outbreak of chickenpox, and the CDC, who still studied the situation, were unwilling to commit either way. The CDC did, however, recommend grounding all aircraft.
“You can’t ground commercial aircraft,” Bob Reynolds, his Chief of Staff had said. “You’ll send the economy into a tailspin. You’ll be lucky to get a job at a fast-food joint after that.” When the president wavered, Bob said the one thing guaranteed to stay his hand. “You’ll go down in history as one of the worst presidents in the United States.”
Because of his hesitation, this Athenian Plague, as the CDC was now calling it, had gained a strong foothold. Now he sat in one of NORAD’s isolation rooms arrayed like sealed jail cells just inside the entrance to The Mountain, waiting to see if, like his wife and daughter, he was infected too. His only comfort was knowing that his wife and daughter were together. He would have joined them, but his wife Abby would have none of it.
“You will not, Nathan,” Abby said, his daughter Alexis standing beside her in tears.
“Daddy,” his daughter said, holding a hand to the thick plexiglass. His heart broke at the sound of her voice and tears unashamedly streamed down his cheeks as he tried to touch her hand with his own.
“I can’t do this without you,” he said, looking into his wife’s eyes.
Abby stiffened. “You can, and you will,” she said, raising her voice just enough to give it authority. “I did not suffer all those damn political parties, all those stupid fundraisers, and all those snobby, puffy-ass dipshits so you could be a one-term president.”
He smiled at that and nearly laughed. The insincerity of politicians always angered his wife, even more so when she realized she was one of them. To Abby, what was worse was never knowing if people were doing a favor out of friendship or because they were trying to gain influence. It frustrated her even more knowing they were thinking the same thing of her.
Gaining political office was like winning a lottery. As soon as the announcement was made, the winner suddenly discovered family and friends they never knew existed. In Washington, the adage was true: no one did anything in that city without an ulterior motive. Still, she bore it all and only complained in private. More than a few plates, glasses or pots were thrown across the room in frustration, but only once was he the cause of that frustration, and that was early in their marriage.
“Besides, we’re both strong,” his wife continued. We may . . .” She hesitated and looked at their daughter. He nodded his understanding.
“It’s my fault,” he whispered. “I should’ve never let you go to that amusement park.”
When the European version of the CDC privately sent their notice, his science advisors dismissed the warning as hogwash. There was nothing to indicate the outbreak was anything other than what it seemed: chickenpox. The trip had been planned months earlier. However, because of the warning and news accounts of what was happening in Europe, he needed to stay behind and monitor the situation. He would have canceled the trip altogether but doing so would have seemed like giving credence to the anonymous sources leaking to the press that this was not chickenpox but something deadlier. The conspiracy theorists were already having a field day. Little did they know this time they were right. If you cry conspiracy about everything, eventually you’ll be right about something. Thank God, they weren’t right about aliens. His only consolation was that he had sent his science advisor on the trip with his wife and daughter and he too was showing symptoms. Thankfully, he was sick in some other secure location. If fate was kind, it was somewhere less comfortable.
“You did what needed doing,” she said. “It’s what I’ve always loved about you.” Leaning forward, he put his forehead and right hand against the plexiglass. Abby followed suit. “How are you feeling?”
He shrugged. “There is a tickle at the back of my throat,” he said.
“Liar,” she said with a wisp of a smile. “You haven’t been sick a day in your life.”
“That’s not true,” he said with mock indignation.
“When was the last time you were sick?” He couldn’t answer, so he stood there in silence. An hour later, he let them rest. Since that day, they became progressively worse. The doctors monitoring them estimated the next tw
enty-four hours were critical.
He looked around his isolation cell. The deep underground hardened nuclear facility where he now resided once served as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, but in 2006 NORAD moved to nearby Peterson Air Force Base. The public believed The Mountain, as it was mostly called these days, was shut down. Instead, the facility had been secretly converted into a national emergency command center complete with a replica Oval Office. Not that he could operate out of it, yet. While his rank allowed him certain privileges, such as ordering the army to retrieve his desk, it did not allow him to break established protocols.
The men and women of The Mountain went through too much to allow procedures to be broken. Since the conversion, those stationed under The Mountain prepared for every eventuality. At the slightest hint of an outbreak, the two hundred men and women staffing the facility locked the place down and donned decontamination suits. Until the nature of the outbreak was determined, they ate, drank, and slept in their white plastic suits. It was taxing both emotionally and physically, but to work in the facility, each person had already proved capable of suffering through the rigors as their final exam required a month-long stint in the suit.
Once everyone was suited up, the entire facility was flooded with toxic gas designed to kill any viruses it came in contact with. As an added precaution, each person scrubbed the facility with a secondary decontamination agent. The facility was as clean as modern technology could make it.
The rigid protocols proved effective, as only three of the ten people on leave when the contagion was first identified in the United States developed the virus. Those infected were kept in the isolation wards to either live or die. It was an arduous process. Therefore, the surviving men and women at the facility were not about to let their sacrifices be for nothing, even if that person was the president of the United States. There would always be another president.
