One Man's Island

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  “But wouldn’t they not work now after all this time?”

  “Some maybe, but they have everything pretty automated now, took the human out of the loop several years ago. There used to be a time when each missile silo in the US was manned by Air Force officers called ‘Missileers’ and they once did a test to see how many officers given the order would actually launch their missiles. The report’s findings were classified, but shortly after the test they pulled all of the Missileers out of the loop and automated things. You can guess what the findings were.”

  “But don’t other countries have them too? Like Russia?”

  “So did Pakistan, Great Britain, France and China too. Israel denies they have them, but it is an even-money bet that they do.”

  “So, if that’s the case…” she stopped.

  “Someone could destroy a whole city or small country,” he finished for her.

  “And you’re sure this is The Football?”

  “No, I’m not sure. It could be the secret Presidential recipe for cupcakes, or notes for his last speech to the Rotary Club in Akron, Ohio, for all I know.”

  She giggled a little and turned serious again. “And if it is The Football, what are you going to do with it?”

  “That I don’t know. Get me the toolbox and I’ll see if I can get it open.”

  Robyn went towards one of the cupboards under the sink, coming back with a medium sized Snap-On red toolbox and putting it down on the floor next to him. He leaned down and opened it, retrieving a small hacksaw. He went to cut the hasp, and then stopped. What if it was booby-trapped? It could have some James Bond type secret device to explode in your face if you didn’t have the correct secret decoder ring or some shit like that.

  “Robyn, do me a favor. Go outside for a minute while I do this, okay?”

  “Why?” she asked. “I want to see what’s in it.”

  “Because it might be booby-trapped is why. If it goes boom, I want you far away from it if it does.”

  “Dad!” she moaned.

  “I mean it! Get out and stay well clear until I call you.”

  “Okaaaayyy,” she said, heading out the door.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “No, what?”

  “You’re forgetting your American Express Card, never leave home without it!”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, picking up her carbine. She stopped at the door and looked at him. “Dad, please be careful and don’t blow yourself up.”

  “I won’t. Now get out of here!” He waited until she left and went back to the case. He looked at the latch carefully, and didn’t see anything outwardly different from the average clasp lock. He took the hacksaw and slowly sawed at the lock. Within a minute he was all the way through and the latch popped open. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and slowly opened the case, peering inside. It couldn’t have been that easy, could it? What he found was a large, plain black, government contract Skillcraft ring binder with several pages and a laptop computer, similar to his, made by IBM. In a small pocket was a red card laminated in plastic with one word on it printed in block letters: DESPERADO. He set that aside, and opened the laptop, noticing it had a built-in satellite communication antenna. Other than that, it was no different than the one he had. He tried to boot it up, but apparently the battery was dead. He looked back into the case, and found a normal power cord, only this one had an adapter to fit any electrical outlet on the planet. He found the normal American one, and plugged it into a wall socket next to him. Immediately he saw a little icon pop up, telling him it was plugged in and charging. He remembered Robyn and went to get her. He looked out the door and saw her standing by the end of the truck stop building about fifty yards away. She was crouched over, eyes closed and her fingers in her ears dramatically. He laughed and called her. She looked up in relief and came running.

  When they went back into the camper and were both seated again, Robyn asked, “So, is it The Football?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m just powering up this tablet to see what’s on it.”

  She switched sides so she was sitting next to Tim, where she wouldn’t miss a thing. Tim took the now empty case and placed it on the floor to give them more room on the table. They watched the screen run through a self-diagnostics test that read ‘SYNCRONIZING WITH SATTELITE’. After a few seconds it changed to ‘SATELLITE SYNCRONIZATION SUCCESSFUL’, then an image of the Seal of the President of the United States appeared, and under it was a query that read ‘PLEASE AUTHENTICATE’ with a flashing cursor.

  “Well, what now?” Robyn asked.

  “I guess I’ll authenticate,” Tim said. He picked up the red card and looked at it again, then typed ‘DESPERADO’ and waited. The icon disappeared, and in about thirty seconds, the screen turned green and a new phrase popped up: ‘NATIONAL COMMAND AUTHORITY AUTHENTICATED’

  “Who’s National Command Authority?”

  “That’s the President.”

  “So it thinks you’re the President?” she asked, wide eyed.

  “Apparently so.”

  The computer went through and started listing Air Force bases that had missile silos, then ships and submarines.

  Tim’s heart was beating so hard he thought that it might beat right out of his chest. After each Air Force Base, a prompt appeared that read, ‘COMMUNICATIONS ENABLED’.

  Alongside each ship name, after a few moments, a prompt appeared that read ‘UNABLE TO CONTACT ASSUME LOST’ and at each submarine ‘ELF MESSAGE SENT AWAITING REPLY’.

  “Holy dogshit!” Tim said.

  “What’s ‘elf’?”

  “It stands for Extra Low Frequency. It’s a radio band that is so low that it can actually contact submarines underwater.”

  “That’s cool!”

  “Yeah, it is, but it’s so low that it takes a long time for the message to print out in the sub. Most of the time it’s just a short message, like ‘get to the surface or periscope depth, we have a longer message for you’ and then the sub goes up, raises another antenna and gets the whole message on another frequency,” Tim said, remembering most of it from what he’d read in Tom Clancy novels.

  “So there may be submarines still out there?”

  “I seriously doubt that. It seems like all the ships are out of the picture too, at least those that had nukes on them. By the names, they were mostly aircraft carriers and a handful of cruisers,” he said, running his finger down the screen.

  He moved the cursor over Offutt Air Force Base and clicked on it. A small window appeared and listed missiles by silo number. Next to each, a prompt was asking, TARGET? YIELD? LAUNCH CODE? with a little box next to each to type the response.

  A cold sweat broke out over Tim’s brow and he started to shake. He shut down the laptop and quickly put everything back into the leather case. He’d already looked through the binder and it had all the codes listed. The most amazing thing was everything still worked, and he now held the key.

  It frightened him to the core. He took the case, placed it in the compartment under his bed, and went back out to the front of the camper where he sat down with a plop on the easy chair. “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie!”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking about what to do with it now that I’ve got it.”

  “If it’s that dangerous, why don’t you just throw it away?”

  “No, I can’t do that,” he said after a minute.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Something in the back of my mind is telling me to hold on to it, safeguard it,” he sighed.

  “It scares me,” Robyn said.

  “It scares me too, baby, but I’ve got to safeguard it,” he said, still unsure of why he needed to keep it, when every fiber in his body was screaming at him to build a big fire and toss the whole lot into it.

  Maybe he wanted that power?

  No, no way did he want that power. He could do what his brother had sai
d so long ago right now— change the world. Make the world a safer place by getting rid of it, destroying it. But then who knew what another person out there in Russia, or Pakistan, or China would do if they found the codes for their bombs? The thought was mindboggling. In the end, he decided to sit on it. Maybe somewhere down the line he’d know what to do with it, but right now he was clueless. He lit another stale cigarette and stared at the dead TV.

  “Dad, are we still going to stay here for the day? I’ve got this dough to bake.”

  “Yeah, we’ll stay here for another night. You go and bake the bread, and I’ll scrounge around for some more diesel fuel and anything else we might need.” He stood and picked up his carbine.

  “You be careful and bring back lots of goodies,” Robyn said, now smiling, The Football forgotten for the moment.

  Tim went out and explored, looking back at the wrecked fuselage from time to time, thinking if they’d just kept driving last night and not stopped there, they’d have never seen it. And he wouldn’t be in this position now, either. Then he thought of the whole randomness of what had happened. Him finding Paul by chance, him finding Robyn on a spur of the moment decision to take a side road that really, in retrospect, he had no business going down at all. Everything was by chance, yet it seemed like it was planned. That couldn’t be true, though. There was no greater being pulling the strings like a marionette. And his brother’s words kept on coming back to him: One man can make a difference.

  The only thing he knew for certain was that he had to protect Robyn and find them a place where they could be safe. All else was secondary. But now he had this little glitch. It would be so easy to dig a hole and bury the goddamn thing. But again, that little voice in the back of his mind was telling him to hold on to it, that he was going to need it one day.

  “And just what the fuck do I need several thousand thermonuclear weapons for?” he asked aloud to no one as he walked into the front door of the truck stop. Being off the beaten path had ensured it was left undisturbed by other survivors, so he had the pick of everything. He walked in and looked around, and saw that most of the potato chips and things like that had been devoured by mice and rats a long time ago. There were, however, plenty of canned goods, sodas and beer. He got a shopping cart and loaded it up with everything he saw, and had to make several trips back and forth to the camper, with his take. Robyn helped each time he came back, storing everything, and after the fourth trip he joked about breaking the springs on the camper with so much weight. He then thought about the truck, and about doing some preventative maintenance. He went back into the garage area of the truck stop and found the correct oil filter, filter wrench and oil, and changed the engine oil, discarding the used oil in a bin at the back of the building. He checked all the radiator hoses and fan belts, and everything looked alright so he shut the hood and washed his hands in the galley sink. Robyn had just taken the loaves of freshly baked bread out of the oven and the aroma filled the camper, making his stomach growl.

  “So what’s for dinner?” he asked.

  “I was thinking fried rabbit.”

  “Sound good to me. I’m just going to go out and scare up some more fuel and propane, I shouldn’t be too long.”

  She looked at the wall clock. “It’s three now. Be back at five, okay?”

  “Yes, Mom!”

  “Oh! Get out of here!” she said, snapping him with a hand towel.

  He unhitching the truck from the camper and drove all around the lot, stopping at several trucks and siphoning out the fuel. When he had the truck’s tank full, and also all of the jerry cans, he drove over to the front of the building where there was a metal cage filled with thirty pound propane bottles. He popped the padlock easily with the bolt cutters, filling up the rest of the bed of the M880 with them. That finally done, he looked at his watch, and saw it was just about five.

  “Better get home for supper or Mom will be pissed!” he said aloud, hopping back into the truck and driving around the rear of the building where they had parked. He figured he would re-hitch everything tomorrow morning before they left, and pulled up next to the camper. When he walked in, Robyn had everything set up, and was putting the rabbit on the table. She had it in a big bowl lined with paper towels to soak up the excess grease she fried it in, and it smelled wonderful.

  “Now you wash up mister, you stink!”

  If the men in his battalion could see him now, obeying the orders of a fourteen year old girl like a good little boy, they’d have never have let him live it down. Some Sergeant Major he was. He washed up in the sink, getting most of the grease out from under his fingernails, and dried his hands with a few paper towels. He went over to the dinette and sat down, savoring the aroma.

  They really did have it pretty good.

  “Dig in!” Robyn said, and he took a few pieces of rabbit and a liberal helping of instant mashed potatoes and canned corn. They ate in silence, and when they were done she brought him a beer.

  “What, you’re not going to ask for one yourself?”

  “Can I have one?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you ask me if I was going to ask for a beer if you were going to say no anyway?”

  “Dinner just wouldn’t be complete without you asking,” he said with a grin.

  “One of these days, Sar’ Major!”

  “You’ll what, darling?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, just one of these days!” “Tell you what, Pumpkin. Remember when I said I’d swear you in as a soldier when you fit into those uniforms?”

  “Yeah!” she said, brightening.

  “Well, when I do that, you can have a beer. But not before.”

  “Deal?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  “Deal,” he said, shaking it.

  She went and grabbed a pair of ACU pants and top, along with a patrol cap and disappeared into the bathroom. Several minutes went by, and Tim sipped on his beer and had an after dinner cigarette. When she came out, he laughed so hard beer came out of his nose. Robyn put her hands on her hips and frowned.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked. The hat fell over her eyes and over her ears, the top was still about two sizes too big for her, and the cuffs hung down a few inches past her hands, with the bottom coming all the way down to her knees. The trousers were baggy, and were about four inches too long in the leg, bunching up comically around her feet. The image was precious and he couldn’t stop giggling.

  “I think you’ve still got a while, honey.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said, going back into the bathroom. She came out dressed in shorts and a tank top, holding the ACU uniform in her hands.

  “There, that’s much better!”

  She went and stowed the uniform in her bunk.

  “Don’t rush it too much, Robyn. We all grow up too fast as it is.”

  “I know, I just really want to be older is all.”

  “I can tell you this from experience, don’t rush it. Look at me. Some mornings I wake up, and in my mind I’m still that eighteen year old private, but when I look into the mirror, I freak out and wonder who the fuck that old guy is staring back at me!”

  “But—”

  “But nothing.” he said, cutting her off. “Look, when we met, you were still a little girl. What’s happened to the world has made you grow up a lot faster than would be normal. You’re doing things now that only people much older would do as it is. Be a kid for a while yet. Have fun, laugh. Because at some point it won’t be fun anymore and you’ll be faced with decisions, hard decisions that you won’t really want to make.”

  “That’s what I have you for,” she said, smiling.

  “Come here and sit down,” he said, pointing at the couch. When she was seated Tim said, “You’re not going to like what I’ve got to say next.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad.”

  “No, really. I’ve got to say it and you’ve got to listen and let it sink in.”

 
“Okay,” she said, fidgeting in the seat.

  “There’s going to come a point in your life when I’m not going to be around to make those decisions.”

  “I don’t want to think about that, Dad.”

  “You’re going to have to at some point, Robyn. You can’t go through life with blinders on. I’m pushing fifty years old. You’re still only fourteen. I’m not going to be around forever, and that’s just a fact of life.”

  She started to tear up.

  “Hey, listen. I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere just yet. But I want you to be aware that things won’t always be so rosy, and it’ll be up to you to make the decisions.”

  “But you can’t!” she wailed, full blown sobs coming on strong now.

  “Look, I’m your dad now, right?”

  She nodded and sniffled.

  “And what do dads and moms do? They prepare their kids to go out and face the world. That’s what I’m doing for you. Every day is a life lesson I really hope you take to heart.”

  She got up and came over to him, sitting down on his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. She buried her face into his neck, and cried and cried. He held her tightly, running his fingers through her hair and let her cry it out, hoping his words sank in.

  “But you’ll still protect me, right?” she said into his neck.

  “Yes, baby, I will do everything in my power to protect you. And during that time, I’ll teach you to protect yourself too.”

  “And I’ll be a soldier, like you?”

  “Yes, you’ll be a soldier then, just like me,” he said, patting her back. “Okay, now hop off, I can’t feel my feet!”

  She got up and looked at him through teary eyes. “I don’t like to think about it. But I guess I have too, eh?”

  “Yeah, not everything in life is pretty or nice. We’ve got to face the bad stuff too. We hope it never happens, but we’ve got to be ready for it if it does happen.”

  “Like you said before about soldiers training for war, but hoping they never have to go?”

  “Exactly,” he nodded.

  “Did you ever have to make really hard decisions?”