by Noah Mann
“What’s the reason, captain?” I asked.
Borenstein looked to me, his smile still there, but a touch of darkness finding its way into the expression now. A shadow. One cast by memory. By reality.
“There were two of these, you know,” he said. “Two Air Force Ones. Not anymore. There’s just this one because one day, six months after everything started to fall apart, one of those fine people back there got a signal out to people on the ground and when that plane landed it was hit.”
“Hit,” Schiavo repeated.
“Attacked,” Borenstein clarified. “No one knows if it was that Foreign Legion nut, or if it was the first stirrings of the Unified Government. It didn’t matter much, because the end result was that the president died, along with a lot of good people.”
He was referencing Borgier, the nom de guerre of American Gray Jensen. His fight, an opportunistic power grab which might have included actually releasing the blight, had been superseded by the inception of the Unified Government. One of them, if Borenstein was to be believed, had killed the president after being tipped to his arrival on Air Force One.
There was one problem with that, though.
“You said a signal,” I reminded him. “By radio?”
Borenstein nodded, knowing where I was going with my questioning.
“All this happened maybe an hour after the Red Signal was shut off,” he said. “By our people.”
The pieces of what he was suggesting came together now.
“It was an inside job,” Genesee said. “Someone who knew the airwaves would be clear tips the reporter, and the reporter gets word out where they’re heading.”
“The protocol after the chaos of the blight was not to release any destination until the aircraft was off the ground,” Borenstein said. “That’s the reason you’re in the dark.”
Schiavo studied the captain for a moment, her posture relaxing, the determination which had prompted her to push for some answer now quelled by a simple realization.
“You don’t protect the president,” she said. “You protect this plane.”
“It’s one of the last symbols that project some continuity of government,” Borenstein said. ‘That’s important, now more than ever.”
“Why?” Martin asked.
“Any other time before the blight, what happened would have been called an assassination,” Borenstein said. “But the attack on Air Force One was the beginning of a coup. One that’s been going on to this very day.”
Borenstein stood again and looked to each of us.
“So you’ll know where we’re going when we get there,” he said. “I hope that’s enough for you.”
The Army captain smiled and left us, heading forward to rejoin his troops and MacDowell.
“Angela,” I said.
She looked to me.
“When we were in Skagway, and you talked to Washington, who did you actually talk to?”
Two years it had been since the event about which I was questioning her. Still, she summoned an answer from memory.
“Not the president,” she answered me.
“That would have been well after this attack Borenstein talked about,” Martin pointed out.
Schiavo thought for a moment, then took the spot Borenstein had vacated, half leaning against the conference table.
“We’re being told the president was killed, and we’re being taken to see the new president,” Schiavo said.
“Or whoever’s in that position right now,” Carter suggested.
The private had sat in silence, listening, which, to his credit, was a skill too few possessed. Particularly those in his age group. Somewhere, though, in something he’d heard, a point worth interjecting had come to him.
“If there really is some endless coup happening, who’s to say what the office even means anymore,” Carter said.
“That’s a bold statement,” Martin told the private.
Carter accepted the challenge, but didn’t back down from the possibility he’d shared.
“You can’t kill the presidency,” he explained. “You have to take the man out. Or the woman.”
“Borenstein didn’t say anything about who the president is, or how long he’s been in office,” Genesee said, bolstering Carter’s suggestion.
“The office is reduced to a series of placeholders,” Schiavo said, thinking for a moment before shaking her head. “We’re not there yet. We don’t know anything about the person in the office at this moment.”
“What would it even mean?” I asked. “To us? To the country?”
“We’re not there, Fletch,” Schiavo reiterated. “Okay? Let’s wait and see what this is all about.”
I could do that. I could wait. We all could. But it was a sobering possibility to contemplate that the actual leader of our country might be less crucial than maintaining a warm body in the office. In a way, Borenstein’s mission, protecting the image that was Air Force One, hinted that such a thought might not be too far off the mark. If it was at all.
Schiavo sat again, saying nothing. But I could sense it from her—she was entertaining the same thoughts that I was. Playing the same scenario out in her head. Gaming the possibilities. I tried not to get into her head, but failed. She had to be wondering, I knew, now more than ever, why the president, whoever that was, had summoned her. Who was she to him? To the office he inhabited? That she couldn’t fathom any logical answer troubled her. This I could see and sense as she stared at the seatback before her and held her husband’s hand. Whatever truth awaited her would be known soon enough.
But every truth, we’d all learned, was often not an end, but a beginning of some new endeavor. Some new journey.
Some new unknown.
Seventeen
“There’s a good chance you’ll have a bit of a hot trip to meet the president,” Captain Borenstein said.
He’d come back again from forward. In a time past, Secret Service agents would have inhabited that space as they served as the defenders aboard Air Force One. Now it was Wallace Borenstein and a handful of troops cobbled together from units which had survived the blight, as well as the chaos and conflict that followed.
“Wait,” Schiavo said. “We’re going to take fire on landing? This is a big target, captain.”
Borenstein nodded and leaned on the seatback just ahead of Schiavo.
“It is, but we’re not setting down anywhere near the man. You’ll push from where we land on other transport. That’s where things may get hairy.”
“We?” Martin asked, noting the language of separation the officer had used. “You’re not coming with us?”
Borenstein shook his head.
“My job isn’t to protect you,” he reminded us, referencing what he’d shared about securing the symbol of power we were passengers on.
“How hairy?” I asked.
Borenstein looked to my AR, resting on the seat next to me.
“Hairy enough that I hope you’re good with that.”
The Army captain turned and left us. I looked to Schiavo, and to Martin, his back straight against the seat as he attempted some position to minimize his discomfort.
“Sorry about this, Fletch,” she said. “I know you were supposed to be all done with this sort of thing.”
“What am I going to do?” I asked. “Leave you out there?”
“It didn’t have to be you,” she said.
“Yes, it did,” Martin said, and we both looked to him.
I smiled at the man, and he smiled at me. He knew me, and he understood the situation that had existed back in Bandon after the eruption, even if he hadn’t been there to experience it first-hand. There would be a million things to do, and little time to accomplish what was necessary to protect the town from the effects of Mt. Hood’s violent awakening. Others could do those things. But I was suited for the task that had fallen to me, and to Genesee. It was a moment of necessity. Each would have to do not just their part, but the part which they could uniquely hand
le.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It did.”
* * *
I was not seated where I could directly look out a window to see where we were descending to land, and no one who was in the know had shared that particular bit of information. By the flight time and imagined speed of the aircraft, and the certainty that we were traveling east, I was fairly certain we’d crossed the Mississippi River, putting us into the eastern portion of the country. In the country behind us to the west, ash would be building, and spreading, a slow-motion rain of black creeping eastward across the land.
The main gear screeched upon touchdown, wheels spinning fast on concrete as the nose of the big aircraft settled toward the runway, nose wheel letting out a fast scream as it, too, grabbed pavement. We slowed and taxied, turning left toward a grouping of hangars.
“Wright-Patterson,” Genesee said, noting our gazes converging on him. “I flew out of here on my way to Hawaii.”
“We’re in Ohio,” I said.
Schiavo nodded, and gestured out the window.
“And we’re not alone,” she said.
I looked and saw a pair of Blackhawk helicopters, their rotors turning, a single crewman standing outside each near open side doors, miniguns mounted just forward of them.
“They look like they’ve seen some action,” Carter commented.
He was more than right. Both birds bore the marks of battle damage. Hasty patches on their fuselage. A spider web crack one window where an incoming round had been deflected. Holes in inconsequential areas which hadn’t been repaired yet.
Schiavo stared out the window at the pair of aircraft for a moment as Air Force One’s taxi roll slowed, then she stood just before the plane came to a gentle stop and looked to us.
“We’d better gear up,” she said.
No sooner had she spoken the directive than Borenstein and his men moved quickly past us, MacDowell right behind, the bureaucrat stopping where we were hurriedly getting back into our filthy tactical vests and taking our weapons in hand.
“Captain Borenstein told you we might come under fire?”
“He did,” Schiavo told MacDowell.
“One time a few weeks ago one of the helicopters had to set down after taking fire,” MacDowell said. “The crew had to demo the bird and fight their way into the city.”
The bureaucrat’s skills at reassurance left much to be desired, if he’d had any at all to begin with.
“We’re ready,” Schiavo assured him.
“I hope so,” MacDowell said. “Since I’ll be riding with you.”
* * *
We left the big 747 and boarded the second Blackhawk, slipping into headsets as the rotors spun up. Just across the apron, Borenstein had his men back aboard Air Force One, the aircraft already moving fast along the taxiway. When it reached the end of the runway it wasted no time, the pilot executing a sharp, quick turn to line it up, the throttles firewalled as we held position. With a roar that penetrated our headsets, the president’s plane, minus the president, leapt into the sky and climbed toward the thin clouds high above.
“Stay sharp,” our pilot said over the intercom. “We’re on the move.”
The lead Blackhawk began to roll forward as its turbines throttled up. Our bird followed, maintaining a fifty-yard separation. In thirty seconds both helicopters were in the air, noses pitched down as they gained speed. I sat at the rear of the cabin, facing forward, Martin to my right and Schiavo next to him. Genesee and Carter faced us, MacDowell between them, and visible just beyond were the left and right door gunners, each situated a few feet aft of the pilot and co-pilot. Each had both hands on the miniguns mounted at their stations.
Miniguns...
I recalled with perfect clarity what those weapons could do. A flying gunship not unlike what we were riding in had attacked my Montana refuge, nearly killing Neil and me. Were it not for an incredible shot fired by Grace, the chopper, which had been fielded by Borgier’s rogue legionnaire force, would have annihilated the both of us, just as it had the buildings on my property.
“You think we’ll be lucky and slip through?” Genesee asked over the intercom.
Before any of us could reply, the left door gunner looked back and provided the answer none of us wanted to hear.
“Half the time one of the birds gets hit,” he said.
Genesee twisted in his seat and looked to the helmeted soldier.
“The other half, both birds get hit,” the door gunner added, then returned to scanning the earth below.
Genesee faced rearward again, looking to me. After a few seconds he brought his M4 up and readied it, keeping the muzzle directed downward as we flew low over fields that once helped feed the nation, and the world. They were brown and grey now, with a likelihood that, if winds from the west behaved as they should, a coating of black ash would settle upon them.
“Right turn,” the pilot said, as if issuing a warning.
We were belted in, but instinctively I grabbed the canvas seat’s crossbar beneath my knees, just in time to steady myself as the Blackhawk banked severely right, taking our course from generally northeast to due east.
“Interstate below,” Schiavo said, scanning the terrain through the door’s window on her side.
“I Seventy,” Genesee said. “Heads straight to Columbus.”
Columbus, Ohio. Was that our destination? Or someplace before or after the state’s capital city? We would know soon enough, I thought.
“They see us.”
The report over the intercom was delivered calmly by the left gunner. Glancing his way I saw two things—a thin trail of smoke tracing an arc into the sky to the north, glowing red spot at its top, and his gloved hands swivel the minigun toward a point on the earth where the obvious projectile had originated.
“Flares,” MacDowell said. “That’s one of their observation posts signaling that we’re inbound to the city.”
It had to be Columbus. That was solidifying in my thoughts now, just as the left gunner opened up, the minigun screaming, a lance of fiery lead pouring down into a collection of farm houses and outbuildings just off the interstate. The structures disappeared for a moment in a cloud of smoke and dust, but as we passed the position the carnage became fully visible, structures shattered and afire. The gunner checked his fire after a few bursts, the damage done, and complete.
But we were no longer some covert mission to deliver Schiavo to the president. We were two big black warbirds screaming low over dead earth toward the city.
Eighteen
There was no warning in advance of what happened next. As the land below shifted from desolate farms to densifying neighborhoods, with the tall buildings of Columbus growing larger out the windows, the Blackhawk carrying us dove and turned hard left all at once, the awful sound of rounds striking metal audible above the roaring turbines.
“Fire right!”
The right door gunner called out the threat, a fusillade of fire erupting from the built-up area just to the south. He began firing, the minigun whining like a maniacal buzzsaw, spitting fire and 7.62 millimeter projectiles toward those trying to kill us.
“Have your weapons ready if we have to set down.”
The directive came from one of the two pilots, though it was impossible to know which as the world outside the Blackhawk’s windows erupted in streams of tracer fire and smoke trails. What unnerved me most, though, was the coolness with which one of the two men in the cockpit had passed along the warning, and the very fact that he’d thought it necessary.
BAM!
The Blackhawk shook as the right door gunner’s weapon slammed upward, some sort of round from below striking the multi-barreled muzzle that was exposed outside the aircraft. The impact tossed him backward, but he recovered quickly, checking his minigun and shaking his head.
“Right side is down!” he reported.
The Blackhawk leveled off, skimming low over houses and trees, still more fire tracing across the sky toward us. Just ahead, throu
gh the port where the out of commission minigun hung useless now, I saw the lead Blackhawk execute a tight turn, swinging completely to our right and disappearing behind.
“They’re drawing fire,” Schiavo said, taking note of the same maneuver I’d seen.
That was exactly what was happening. The other bird, which had been leading the way, was now circling behind us, its gunners laying indiscriminate fire upon the buildings below. The majority of fire shifted from our Blackhawk to it as our pilot increased his evasive maneuvers, the helicopter banking sharply left, and then right, as we continued forward through a series of tight ‘S’ turns. It was during one of these that Schiavo called out to me over the intercom.
“Fletch.”
I looked past Martin and saw her motioning out the right-side window, to a spot on the earth below where a house had been caved in and burned, the charred tail of a wrecked helicopter lying next to the rubbled crash site. As we swung back to the left, blocking our view of the site, I looked to Schiavo and found that she was laying an unsettled stare upon me. She didn’t say anything, which, to me, was an indication that I should not either, since any exchange was certain to be heard over the intercom. She did, however, glance to MacDowell after her gaze left me. That was a signal, too, but of what, and about what, I didn’t know.
Not yet.
“What is it?” MacDowell asked, noticing the attention now being focused on him.
“This route is more than hot,” Schiavo said, her words both truthful and misdirection away from whatever was truly on her mind.
“It’ll cool down in a minute,” MacDowell assured her. “Their numbers thin out here.”
Schiavo nodded, accepting the man’s word. But it was also a gesture of realization, I thought, as if, with that promise just given, some confirmation had come for a suspicion she held. I wanted to press her on what was working on her, or troubling her outright, but I knew she preferred silence on the matter for now.
“Martin, how are you holding up?” Genesee asked.
Martin gave the doctor sitting across from him a thumbs up.
“How about you, private?” Schiavo asked.
