“I don’t know,” Rory replied. He’s about six hundred yards away at the low end of the pasture, and he’s moving fast.”
“Don’t hit the heifer, but peel off a shot behind her. At least they’ll know someone’s shooting at them.” Dad didn’t think that there was much chance of Rory hitting anything at that distance. Even in controlled conditions and without a crosswind, a bullet would drop over two and a half inches over six hundred yards, and the ground was the most likely target. Rory took aim and fired just as the man with the knife came within the last ten yards of the now-frightened Jersey cow and lunged.
The bullet tore through Fabio’s neck, sending fragments of tissue and blood in a pink spray over his companions. The impact threw his body face forward in midlunge and he hit the hard ground with a thud, slicing his cheek on a frozen cow pie before the report of the gun was heard. While the boys ran at full tilt back to the house, Frankie and Arthur stood agape and watched as Fabio’s lifeblood leaked onto the frozen ground, not only from the neck wound, but from the knife that had pierced his torso. It was still in his hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” Frankie said, his voice shaking. They ran.
CHAPTER 82
W
ord traveled fast. Instantaneously, in fact. America had reached the stage where the government received the news in the same time as everyone else, and Bill Staffman and Andrew Fox kept an impressive assortment of news
sources running 24-7 in the White House press room. It was their job, to monitor the wall of information and advise the president on breaking news. The crisis in New York had dominated the world for days, and sparse images of the burning city were interspersed with stories and interviews of evacuees.
When the story of a New Yorker being killed over a milk cow by a local upstate boy became known, the collective anger was at an all-time high. It pitted city against country, and country was outnumbered. The metropolitan point of view was that it was just a cow, and nobody, especially a New Yorker, should die over a cow. The rural view was basic, and expected; they had the right to protect their own, and these interlopers from the city had no right to be there in the first place. The reality of the situation was this: The boy didn’t intend to kill, just to frighten. His father instructed him to frighten, not kill. The perception of that reality could never be reconciled between urban and rural, but with a little tweaking, they could all blame it on the president. It was the American way.
Bill Staffman was the first to brief Max on the situation. He had been there from the start of the campaign, dealing with the press on a daily basis while Max made himself unavailable. It was a war of words, and Bill had become a master of taking away and giving back, supplying sound bites on political issues that were so short that Max’s every word was used on a 24-7 basis in continuous loop. While the other candidates’ words were filtered, sliced, and spun to create a product that appealed to their viewers, the world heard the essence of Max’s message.
“Mr. President, we have a problem.”
“Good!”
“Why do you say that?”
“I needed something to get my mind off the other problems,” Max
quipped. They both laughed heartily. “If you came in and told me we had a big problem, then I’d have to start worrying.” They laughed again, and it was therapeutic. The tension around the White House had steadily increased to near panic level, and a little dark levity at the right time worked wonders to improve morale.
When Staffman had fully briefed the president, Max insisted upon a full report of how the media was spinning the incident for their respective audiences. “How is Glenda spinning it?”
“That’s the strangest of all, sir. She’s calling it a lack of leadership.
Apparently, this disaster has become your fault.”
“Listen. I’ve got to get out there. I can’t fix this unless I can be
seen doing something about it.”
“Planning on giving the Secret Service a few conniption fits?” “Yep. Send Armstrong up here.”
Sixty seconds later, Armstrong appeared. “I’m thinking of taking
a little road trip,” Max began. Armstrong groaned. “With all of the
respect in every molecule in my brain, Mr. President . . .” When his chief Secret Service agent used formality, it was his way of getting Max’s attention. “Go on, say what you have to say, and then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Max responded, anticipating that he was
about to hear every reason why it was a bad idea.
“We just recovered the vice president, and now you want to go on
some damn fool . . .” Armstrong sensed his words were bordering on
insubordination, and toned it down in midsentence. “Mr. President,
the American people need to see you leading from here, and not
placing yourself in harm’s way.”
“. . . but I was going to go in disguise . . .”
“Well sir, that’s all well and good. Then you can give up the idea
of traveling in disguise for the rest of your term in office, and I can
go back to protecting you in the conventional way. Everyone, and I
mean the press, your enemies, and eight-year-old kids on the street
will be trying to catch you at that game.” Armstrong was right, and
Max knew it.
“OK, I’ll take that advice. But how do you suggest I get my
message to the people?”
Staffman took the opportunity to speak first. “That’s what I came
up here to brief you about, Mr. President. We have pieced together
some footage of you and Rachel, some stuff that we had left over
from your inaugural, and with a voice-over and some tweaking, you
can deliver a message of hope without going anywhere. We rigged
some drones with holographic projectors. I know that you have used
this cutting-edge technology to your advantage before. We can send
them anywhere we want, spreading the message. We can take that
same image and message and broadcast it around the world through
every media outlet that will run it, and Max, they will run it.”
u
CHAPTER 83
T
he drone appeared on the horizon. Its compact engine provided the only mechanical sound that many of the inhabitants of the tent city had heard in days. They emerged en masse from tents and walked toward the hovering drone. When
they came within listening distance, the hologram of Max and Rachel appeared on the ground in front of them. He had used a similar device on the night before the general election, but the image was indoors, under controlled lighting conditions, where the viewer was unable to discern whether the image standing on a stage was real. This attempt was outdoors, and although the day was slipping into the gray of evening, the image projected from the drone had a translucent effect.
“You create your own reality. I want you to create a winning reality.”
Max sat on the hood of his Corvette. By word of mouth and the sound of his engine, the crowd assembled on the large expanse of field surrounding his chosen location. Rachel was at his side, dressed in her flight suit and jacket. He took the extremely dangerous course of dealing with Americans in a crisis situation without anyone to protect him from the wrath of people who had, most likely, voted him into office. If he failed at his message, the end result might lead to panic and the end of hope right then, right there. If they didn’t listen now, in their time of need, they were doomed to life as a nation of complainers. He needed for them to dig deep into their heritage as Americans and triumph over adversity.
“Crowd up close, so you can hear me,” he announced in his loudest voice. He wore a winter jacket with no adornment other than the presidential seal in gold. They only saw the man with the most recognizable face in the world, sitting on a convertible Corvette in the middle of the winter, weari
ng a jacket and freezing his ass off, just like the rest of them. He was only there in their minds, but he had brought the world before “The Inaugural Event” back to their consciousness, and the image was comforting.
“I can tell you without any doubt in my mind, that you will survive this. This is not the end of the world, or the end of the world of your children or of your grandchildren. We will survive, and survive well.” The crowd cheered. They were in desperate need of hope. Despite the efforts of volunteers to find relatives, family, to take in these people, the residents of the tent city had nothing and nobody for the time being, and they were acutely aware of it.
“I’m waiting here with you for the help you need. Whatever you are going through, we are going to make the bad parts temporary.” They cheered again, and for the moment, he was their only hope. They were cold, uncomfortable, and hungry. It was clear that they did not want to be there. They would be his toughest audience, because in life, New Yorkers take pride in being the toughest audience of badasses that a person can confront.
“You are all you’ve got. You can’t expect me to wipe your ass for you. The government cannot and should not provide for your every need,” Max began.
“Here it comes,” shouted a middle-aged man. “Now he will be telling us to be patient.”
“I want you to be patient,” Max responded. At the same time, I want you to appreciate that we are doing the best with a bad situation. You will not starve to death, and we are going to feed you better from now on. We have found several chefs from the City to help us with that, and we will be bringing good food to you in a New York minute.”
“We are a free people, free to succeed or fail, and we will not fail.” “Quitting is not an option. Failure is not an option. The only acceptable choice is to survive, and to persevere until you are back home, in your own bed, and not in fear.”
“In a few minutes, there will be helicopters that will land in that clearing right over there, and we will try to take care of your needs. Who’s hungry?” The crowd cheered.
Max continued, “I’ve got government cheese . . .” The crowd moaned loudly in unison. “I know, I tried some of that a few days ago. How can you eat that stuff?” Max smiled, and a cheer rose. They stamped their feet, and the relief was palpable.
“OK, OK, I get the message. How about if I told you that we’re flying in a team of New York’s best pastrami sandwich chefs, and we’re making pastrami sandwiches for everyone!”
Pandemonium ensued, and for the next twenty minutes Max sat with Rachel in his arms from hundreds of miles away, confident that he had done the unthinkable. They could see the crowd’s reaction from monitors placed out of the camera field. She smiled. His core purpose in being there, his image at least, was to keep them alive. Now, he had hit upon the keys, just one of them, to keep them happy. All he had to do was deliver.
Out of the crowd, entertainers trickled in, making their way to the front by elbow and nudge, until they were able to attain enough free space to do their thing. Most likely, they were displaced from Greenwich Village, unable to make a living in a dead city without power, without cars, and absent the people who populated it. They provided a small distraction while Max waited for the government helicopters to arrive.
“Tell me what you need, and let’s see if we can deliver!” Max hollered in his loudest voice. To come in with amplified sound in their situation would make him look like he was depriving them of the comforts they craved, and it would defeat the purpose of his visit. “I’m cold!” The crowd murmured in agreement.
“We’re gonna fix that,” Max replied. Do you want to know how?” “Yes!” They all wanted to know how the president of the United States was going to swoop in and make them comfortable again. No president had ever done that before. Max was ready.
“A long time ago,” he began, buying time, but the message needed to be told. “A guy who lived on Long Island made a machine that gave us free energy. He was from Croatia, so he wasn’t born here, and he had a hard time. A lot like some of you.” The crowd became silent, and as the sun descended over the hills in the distance, making purple and orange highlights on the clouds, he began a story that captured their imagination. For the moment, he was the only entertainment in their lives, and they clung to every word.
“His name was Nikola Tesla. He was what most people would call a genius, but he was just like you and me. He followed his dreams.”
“You know all of that talk about an energy crisis and how we are going to run out of power? That’s bullshit.” The crowd moved closer. This was what they needed to hear, straight talk in tough times, and delivered like a New Yorker.
“All along, since Tesla created this generator, we have been able to produce free energy.” Max paused, to allow his audience to absorb the meaning of his words. “What I’m telling you, is every month that you paid your utility bill, to keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer, to cook your food and keep all of your gadgets running . . . it all can be supplied for free.”
Max didn’t wait for the helicopters to come. As long as he had their attention, he intended to use the opportunity to get his message to everyone who would listen. “We are all the victims of the Carrington Effect.” He didn’t pause. Delay would have left room for questions. “There are people who want you to die. They don’t believe that you can survive. I believe you can. Prove me right!”
They didn’t want to die, and despite their feelings of doom over the previous two weeks, they were there, not to die, but to survive. The people who chose to stay behind in the dead city had chosen to cling to the past and wither away until they were gone, or they refused to believe that the city would no longer sustain them. That group was the most dangerous; the scavengers and the gangs. If the spreading bubonic plague didn’t finish them off, they would soon be killing each other for control of dwindling resources.
“The Carrington Effect is something they probably never taught you about in school,” he continued. “There is a type of energy that can shut down all of our things we take for granted. It can come from the sun, but this time, it came from some bombs that did the same damage. This time, they went after you.” He paused this time, hoping that his message would get through before the helos popped over the horizon.
“I need to tell you. There are people who want us to fail, who think we don’t amount to a pile of garbage. These are not foreign enemies. They are Americans.” Their heads were turned in the direction of his holographic image. That’s a good sign. Max counted on his words being distributed in sound bites by the end of the day. His words needed to be heard by the nation, or he was wasting his time. While the message was being broadcast from drones, it was also being sent in a broadcast to every media outlet in the world.
The sound of large helicopters grew closer, and the effect of their appearance on the horizon was reassuring but terrifying. Six large Bell Boeing V-22 Ospreys, each capable of carrying cargo of twenty thousand pounds, rose above the distant hills like enormous black dragonflies. Their huge tilt-rotors tore through the air with their gigantic propellers until they approached the designated landing area. The crowd watched in fascination as the airplane transformed into a cargo helicopter by tilting into rotors and landing gingerly in a slow vertical descent. By the time the blades had stopped spinning, National Guard troops had already begun the process of off-loading their precious cargo.
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CHAPTER 84
L
incoln spoke slowly, in deliberate, measured tones. His voice was higher in tone than Max expected, but his words riveted Max to his message. “Politics is petty, partisan, and impotent,” declared Lincoln. He appeared in the Oval Office at the behest of
Max, who was desperately seeking a path to resolving the challenge that threatened the nation. If he couldn’t win this battle, Americans would suffer, and his presidency would dissolve like dry sand in his hands. He was amazed at the book’s ability to focus on his most perplexing thoughts and provide guidance by
the best of his predecessors, but that was the enlightenment that made the presidency a repository of wisdom.
“You have a keen sense of the obvious, and you are destined for greatness, provided you live to steer your dreams and goals past these petty roadblocks,” continued Lincoln. “I was challenged in my time, and you are challenged in yours. Do not become so caught up in yourself that you disregard the responsibility to which you have been entrusted by the will of the people.” He had transformed from the image that had been inscribed in the national memory. The stovepipe hat was gone, along with his trademark beard. Sitting before Max was a contemporary Abraham Lincoln, dressed in a sport shirt and jeans, with athletic shoes matching the gray of his shirt. Abe was comfortable in his clothes, and he appreciated the change. Contrary to the popular image of Lincoln, the man appeared casual.
“You know, Mr. Masterson, that there are no coincidences. You were meant to be president, as was I. That is the reason why a man with no pedigree can attain the highest office in the land. It’s what sets us apart from the dictators and murderers who attain power by zealotry and blood. You will transcend the challenges that confront you, and you will do it in your own way. It is the order of life.”
“It appears that in your time, I can no longer assume that a man will be president after you are gone, but a woman may be seated in your stead. Come to think of it, a woman might be better suited to the office. Women seem to be immune to the vagaries that befall the men in politics.”
He blushed.
“You’re blushing, Abe. I didn’t think that politicians retained that quality once they attained public office,” Max commented in a low voice.
Lincoln laughed heartily. “You think I was a politician? I’m no more a politician than you are. I endured many defeats, and you endured none, but we ended up in the same place. Does that not tell you something?”
No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) Page 25
