DISASTER EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION
“FEMA was part of the initial Danvers plan,” Tom Deighton explained to me as we walked around the organized chaos of a parking lot in downtown Nashville. “Our management actually consulted with Richard Danvers directly, and I am proud to say that the FEMA Region IV Disaster Emergency Communications Division was one of the very first units on the ground.”
“Here?”
Deighton nodded. “Right here, in this parking lot,” he said.
Tom Deighton was the Region IV Regional Emergency Communications Coordinator at FEMA. He had held the demanding job for almost nine years. When the Danvers Defense Line was drawn up, FEMA representatives played a hand in the process, and the team from Region IV was relocated to Nashville before the first trenches were dug.
“Traditionally Region IV served the south eastern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee,” Deighton explained. He was a big man, broad across the shoulders, and carried weight in his gut that might have been muscle when he was younger. He had a rounded face and was just a few grey wisps of hair away from being bald. “Naturally, our knowledge of the areas affected by the zombie infection made us one of the lead groups as the outbreak began to spread.”
“What exactly was your role?” I asked.
The parking lot was filled with military vehicles and a collection of other trucks from different agencies. Although the defensive line had now been relocated well south, Nashville was still being used as the command center for the military, and the civilian organizations that had been drawn under the armed forces umbrella.
“We were very careful at the outset not to overplay our hand,” Deighton confessed. “We had been made well aware of the hierarchy, and we established ourselves as a valuable asset to SAFCUR and his support staff.”
“So this could never be called a FEMA operation?”
“Oh, hell no!” Deighton suddenly became animated. “For God’s sake, don’t write that in your article. FEMA was one of several support agencies to the military – that’s all.”
In previous years, and during previous natural disasters, FEMA’s reputation had taken a battering through some damning media coverage. The organization was still licking its wounds after the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina – and that had been around a decade ago.
“Fair enough,” I said. “I understand.” To placate him I even flipped open my notebook and made a note of the fact. He still wasn’t satisfied. He looked over my shoulder and read what I had written. “Underline ‘support only’,” he said.
I did. “Happy?”
Deighton nodded, and then visibly relaxed. He struck me as being a tense man – someone who walked a permanent tightrope of frayed nerves. Maybe it was the stress of the job.
I looked around the parking lot. We were in the shade of the AT & T building, a multi-story office building in downtown Nashville. I had heard locals affectionately refer to the building as ‘The Batman Building’ and I could see the clear resemblance of its skyline to the cowl worn by the fictional crime fighter. The complex had been commandeered by the military for its headquarters.
There were three white FEMA trucks parked nearby. I started walking towards one of the vehicles and Deighton shuffled behind me trying to catch up. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing. The truck looked like a long armored car. It was all square box-like shapes and there were communication dishes and antenna, like bristles, sprouting from the top of the vehicle. There were doors built into the sides of the truck body with steps down to the ground. The doors were closed.
“That’s one of our three MERS vehicles here in Nashville,” Deighton explained. “Mobile Emergency Response Support. They have been the key to our division’s involvement in the outbreak.”
I walked round the truck slowly. “What does it do?”
“It’s a communications center,” Tom Deighton gave me the simple answer. He was sweating. Even in the shade the day was warm and sunny. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and blinked at me myopically for a moment. “When the zombie infection began to spread, our key function was to provide an early center for communications,” Deighton went on. “There was so much panicked traffic – we had everything from cell phone calls to ham radio operators. We were able to help compile the incoming communications and present it to SAFCUR and his staff. Some of the information was intelligence-based,” Deighton lowered his voice like we were in the pages of a pulp fiction spy thriller. “People holed up in their basements reporting the spread of the infection. Others were panicked. They were trapped and surrounded. They were calling for rescue. We took everything that came in, and gave the military the opportunity to monitor the infection’s spread from real-life reports, as well as orchestrate their responses for those civilians who were desperate to be rescued.”
I arranged my features into a look that would convey I was impressed. “Didn’t the military have their own system?” I asked.
“Sure,” Deighton said, “but you can never have too much information. SAFCUR and his key personnel regarded the data and temporary communications infrastructure we provided as being essential to their eventual success.”
“And you’re still here on site?”
“Our role hasn’t diminished,” Deighton looked almost offended. “In fact it’s about to be dramatically increased.”
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Really? Surely most of the communication from the infected zone went quiet months ago. There’s practically no one alive in Florida to speak to – is there?”
Deighton’s smile was grim. Not a smile at all, really.
“Sure,” he nodded his head. “Incoming civilian communication dried up after the first few weeks. Since then the contacts have mainly been from survivalist types on their ham radios. They’re hunkered down and refuse to come out. They simply won’t leave.”
“So…?”
“So we’re preparing to move into the dead zones,” Deighton went back to his espionage voice. “It’s been over a year since the outbreak, and several months since the success of ‘Operation Conquest’. Now the Army is saying that ‘Operation Compress’ has reached the stage where the Florida border is considered stable. FEMA will be one of the lead units moving into the dead zone to begin the clean up. And it’s happening soon.” This last little gem of information was delivered along with a suitably breathless gasp.
“Really?”
I find that the easiest way to make some people talk. As a journalist, you try all kinds of things to get people to loosen up. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Simply questioning the person’s last comment was a standard kind of technique that encouraged the subject to expand – because when they expanded on their statement, they invariably gave you more detail, and that made for a more comprehensive story.
“Really?” I said again.
Deighton nodded his head. “The entire FEMA organization is moving its Federal Headquarters to Nashville,” he said. “It won’t just be our few MERS trucks from the Disaster Emergency Communications Division… it will be the whole show. And we’ll be on the ground for as long as it takes to get America dusted off and back on her feet again.”
I smiled. I felt like Deighton was waiting for some kind of congratulatory slap on the back. I grinned at him instead. “Well, that’s good news,” I said without conviction. “I’m sure everyone across the rest of the country will be relieved to know the clean up operation is going to be left in FEMA’s capable hands.”
We shook hands. Deighton frowned at me like he wasn’t sure if my words were a sincere compliment or dripping with sarcasm.
I left the man wondering…
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VIRGINIA:
55th FIGHTER SQUADRON
The 55th didn’t belong here.
The squadron of F-16 Fighting Falcons had called Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina home until the zombie apocalypse had forced the sleek jets north du
ring the first desperate days of the outbreak. Now the ‘Fighting Fifty-Fifth’ ran its operations out of Langley… and would probably continue to do so, even though Shaw AFB had now become part of the re-claimed dead zone – that grey area between the original defensive line and the current post-apocalyptic perimeter built around much of Florida.
I stood irritably in the shade and checked my watch. It was getting late. I took another long look into the afternoon sky and saw a dark spec, high amongst the clouds. As I watched the shape descended and quickly took on the detail of four F-16’s, roaring overhead before coming in to land.
I paced across the concrete with frustration, as the roar of the approaching fighters became an assault on my ears.
The F-16s rolled to a gradual halt beyond the shelter building where I stood. Ground crew rushed forward to the sleek warplanes, and crew chiefs propped ladders next to each fighter’s bubble canopy. One of the pilots climbed down, tugging at the straps of the full-faced helmet as he came directly towards me.
I nudged one of the nearby ground crew. “That’s Captain Harper, right?”
The man squinted, staring from the shade, out into the bright glare of midday sunlight where the F-16 seemed to crouch like a bird of prey on the verge of flight.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Call sign ‘Moses’.”
I stood and waited. The pilot came closer, bulky with flight suit. The helmet came away at last, revealing a tress of red hair that cascaded down to the woman’s shoulders. She pulled it back into a neat bun, and then smiled slightly. She tucked her flight helmet under one arm and held out her hand.
“Are you John Culver?”
I nodded. “Are you Captain Tony Harper, call sign ‘Moses’?” I knew my tone sounded incredulous, because I was. I was expecting a man – not this rather attractive young woman with piercing green eyes that glinted with mischief.
“That’s Toni, with an ‘i’ she said. Her head came to the level of my shoulder.
“And your call sign is ‘Moses’?”
Toni Harper nodded. “I’m a natural redhead,” she said.
I nodded. “I noticed.”
She smiled wryly. “Well the guys took their understanding of that fact to a lower logical level… and I got Moses as a call sign. Something about a ‘burning bush…’ she arched an eyebrow playfully.
I got it.
Captain Harper led me deeper into the building and then up a set of stairs to a room overlooking the wide expanse of the base. The walls were carpeted for soundproofing, and the afternoon sun was just beginning to angle in through the tinted windows.
She fetched a can of soda from a refrigerator and unzipped the front of her flight suit. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt.
“Want a drink?”
“No, thanks.” I said.
Toni Harper dropped into a comfortable chair. She popped the soda and sipped. “Sorry for keeping you waiting. What would you like to know?”
I dropped into a seat beside her. I was still coming to terms with the fact that this experienced fighter pilot was a woman. Of course, I had known there were women pilots in our Air Force, but I hadn’t expected to meet one who had been assigned combat duty during the zombie apocalypse.
Harper stared at me speculatively, and then narrowed her eyes as though she could read my mind. “Get over it,” she said flatly. “I’m a woman. I drive fighter planes.”
I nodded, somehow feeling guilty, or sexist, or narrow minded.
… or maybe all three.
“Your squadron was one of the first units activated for a particular role very shortly after the outbreak of the infection,” I said. “Did the relocation from Shaw to Langley cause disruptions during those early missions?”
Captain Harper took another sip of her soda, and glanced, distracted, out through the big windows as another F-16 suddenly clawed its way into the air ahead of a blooming heat haze and a mighty roar that seemed to shake the sky. When the fighter was out of sight, she turned her attention back to me.
“We’re a combat ready unit,” Captain Harper explained. “We’re trained to deal with disruption, and even dislocation. We were in the air and on the job an hour after the mission tasking came through.”
I reached into my bag for my notebook. “And the mission itself – the 55th were essentially flying combat patrols over the Danvers Defense Line, even before the barrier was completed. Is that right?”
Toni Harper nodded. She set the soda down on a side table.
“We started patrolling the skies above the defensive line just as the first heavy engineering equipment began tearing up the earth,” she explained. “We were tasked with F-15’s from the 336th to run the line from the east coast across to Memphis. For simplicity, we flew along the 36th parallel north on an east to west route, and then back again.”
I nodded. I knew the 336th fighter squadron was based out of Seymour Johnson AFB, near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Unlike the jets of Toni Harper’s squadron, the Eagle squadron’s home base was behind the Danvers Defense Line.
“What exactly was the mission,” I asked. “As I understood it, you were basically enforcing a no-fly zone. Is that correct?”
Harper shook her head. “No. It’s not correct.” She smiled thinly and then scraped her fingers through her hair. “We were tasked with the responsibility of stopping all commercial aircraft and helicopters from flying into the quarantined area,” she said. “And for the terms of our mission, that area was basically anywhere below the 36th parallel from the east coast across to the Mississippi River.”
I nodded, because I understood what she was saying. But I didn’t understand why.
“Why?”
Harper’s smile became strained. “When the apocalypse first broke out in Florida, everyone who had a light commercial plane, or could charter a helicopter flew as far the hell north as they could,” she said and there was a hint of aggravation in her tone, like maybe I was wasting her time. “But the government didn’t want opportunists swooping into Florida and preying on those left behind. We didn’t want the skies being criss-crossed with gung-ho air jockeys trying to make a fortune by renting out their planes and helicopters like mercenaries. It was too dangerous.”
“In terms of air safety?”
She nodded. “And in relation to the spread of the infection,” she added. “Those first few weeks were chaotic. There were so many rumors and so few hard facts, no one was even sure about the delay between when a victim was bitten, and when the virus re-animated the corpse.”
I was puzzled. “But surely any means of escape from the infection…”
Captain Harper shook her head and her hair swished across her shoulders like the flick of a jungle cat’s tail just before it attacks. “No,” she said adamantly. “The pilots of those helicopters and light aircraft were a risk to themselves, and to everyone they flew – and a risk to the massive military contingency that was trying to establish a defensive perimeter. We needed the skies clear, and that’s what the 55th fighter squadron was tasked to do. And we did it.”
“At the cost of civilian lives?” I questioned pointedly.
Harper arched her eyebrow and her gaze became black. She stood up and bunched her fists, her posture defiant and bristling. She glared at me like she was trying to locate my jugular vein. “Listen,” she thrust a finger at my face. “The Air Force had plans to rescue as many refugees as we could, flying them out of designated evacuation locations in transports. But we couldn’t. In the end, the plague spread too quickly, and the danger became too great. Washington tore up the planned operation. But if we had been ordered in, we would have gladly gone.”
Captain Harper turned on her heel and stalked across to the window. She stared silently out across the air base, and I could see the tension in her shoulders as she fought to compose herself.
“I didn’t mean to imply…”
“Forget it,” she turned her head and snapped with frost on her lips. “Just finish asking your questions. I have
more important places to be and more important things to do.”
I shrugged. “How did you go about intercepting the helicopters and light planes? Were there a lot of them?”
“AWACs,” Toni Harper said crisply. “It’s an airborne early warning and control system. We had AWAC aircraft high above us. They would pinpoint the threats and we would be tasked with investigating.”
“Were there a lot of incidents?”
“Yes,” Captain Harper said. The woman certainly knew how to hold a grudge. Her tone remained curt, almost seething. “In the first few weeks we were flying non-stop patrols and being tasked to targets almost constantly. Once the light plane pilots and helicopter jockeys understood we were serious, the number of attempted incursions declined dramatically.”
I took a deep breath. “There was one reported incident…” I started to say. “A media report that a Bell JetRanger helicopter was shot down by an Air Force fighter over Tennessee for violating the no-fly zone. Did you hear anything about that?”
Harper shook her head. “It was a lie,” she said with finality. “That helicopter crashed. It wasn’t shot down.”
I raised a questioning eyebrow. “How can you be sure of that?” I asked.
“Because I was on patrol the day that incident happened,” she said in a flat monotone. “I know the pilot who was involved, and I’m telling you it was a crash. The Air Force has the footage, filmed from the nose of the F-16 that was flying on a course to intercept. There’s no scandal – just confirmation of exactly the dangerous practices we were trying to prevent occurring.”
I let the matter go. Toni Harper might have been a lady, but I sensed that to pursue the shooting down of the helicopter would be like prodding a snake with a stick. I tried to smooth the waters.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” I made a placating gesture with my open hands. “I guess I was just surprised that you could be so callous about civilians being left stranded in the middle of the apocalypse, and that you could actually advocate leaving them there… in the hope that a military evacuation might have been orchestrated instead.” I shook my head.
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