The Final Day

by William R. Forstchen

  She began to rattle off names, and John sagged with a sudden weariness. One was the girl he had seen running with her lover in the snow just days ago, another Jim Southerland, a beloved art teacher who had decided to live on campus and wasn’t even part of the militia but apparently had turned out with the others.

  “Let the last bastard go,” John said, shaking his head. “These people were well trained. I don’t want anyone else hurt in this affair. You got that, Grace?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But as she turned, John saw the exchange of glances with Kevin. They were out for vengeance and knew as well that as long as one of the hit squad was still alive, their beloved leader and his wife were not safe—at least for the moment.

  Grace closed the door, and John picked the phone back up. “Bob, you still there?”

  “John, I’ve ordered a chopper to start running up. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “General, you come up on a chopper, and I promise you, my people will shoot it down. They’re in a killing mood. Five of my students and friends died rescuing my wife and me.”

  The enormity of their sacrifice hit him. It was amazing it was not five, even ten times that number given whom they went against.

  “I got at least another dozen wounded. You fly up here, and you and your crew will be added to the list. Now, if you want to bomb the place, just go ahead, but this entire campus will be evacuated before you get here.”

  “John, please listen to me. I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Are you hearing me?”

  “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “Whoever it was, it was not me or anyone in my command.”

  John sat down. Bob’s words were what he wanted to believe.

  “Can we do this, John?”

  “What, damn it?”

  “I’ll come up alone, in a Humvee with just a driver—at dawn, so there is no confusion in the dark. Your people can stop and search me at the security gate you have out on the interstate.”

  “Until you prove yourself different, Bob, it’s on your head. Okay, come on up.

  “Stop at the security gate, but if my people see one additional vehicle or hear anything overhead, all bets are off.”

  “All right. I’ll be at the gate come dawn.”

  “And what’s to prevent you from having a few F-18s up at thirty thousand feet?”

  “I have no reply other than my word.” He paused. “And memory of your Jennifer to guide me now.”

  With that, John looked down at flame-scorched Rabs, whom he had placed on the desk.

  “Dawn, then.”

  * * *

  General Bob Scales stood with arms extended straight out as two of the security guards at the Exit 59 barrier roughly patted him down and then none too gently pushed him forward.

  Contrary to Kevin’s, Reverend Black’s, and his own wife’s appeal, he had decided to meet Bob at the gate. If anything was to go down, he’d rather it be here than down on the campus. He had forsaken Maury’s far too easily identifiable jeep and instead had Black drive him to the meeting in his old Volvo. Lee had shown up and insisted he go along as well. Kevin had already gone ahead with several carloads of the militia and a pickup truck with a “package” in the back for Bob.

  The guards pointed to where John waited, standing under the roof of a makeshift shelter that had been erected to protect the interstate security team. Bob approached slowly, keeping his hands out and clearly visible.

  There were no salutes, no friendly exchanges other than a warning from Kevin that if he made the wrong move, it would be the last gesture he would ever make.

  “How is Makala?” Bob finally asked. “Are she and your baby okay?”

  “They’re fine,” was all John could say, and then he looked past Bob to Kevin. “Go ahead and show him what we brought along.”

  Kevin put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and guided him to the back of the pickup truck and pulled off the tarp covering the rear of the vehicle. Bob stared for a moment and then looked back to John.

  “Upon all that I hold sacred, John, I swear to you they are not mine. I’ve never seen them before.”

  “We stripped them of their gear,” Kevin said coldly. “High-quality stuff, regular army. The one Colonel Matherson shot in the face was roasted to a crisp when his house burned. His grave is the rubble that’s still smoldering. We’re still hunting the last one, but he won’t last long; he’s trailing blood. You want them back, sir?”

  Bob looked over sharply at Kevin and shook his head. “Bury the bastards wherever you want. They’re not mine, and that’s final.”

  “Kevin, take them to where we dumped the bodies of the dead Posse. That’s all they deserve.”

  As he spoke, he watched Bob closely. Both he and Bob had been taught a code of honor when it came to their own dead. Not even a body was ever to be left behind, no matter what the cost of retrieving it.

  Bob did not flinch or show the slightest emotion at John’s cold words of scorn.

  “John, if there is nothing else, do I have your permission to leave?”

  John could only nod.

  Bob turned and started to walk back to his Humvee.

  “General Scales?”

  Bob turned and looked back.

  “If not you, then who?”

  Bob stopped and then slowly walked up to John, stopping almost within touching distance. Kevin was on one side of him, Lee on the other, and both were tense, ready to spring.

  “Look me in the eyes, John.”

  John did as requested.

  “Upon the memory of Jennifer’s grave and wherever my Linda now rests, I swear to you I did not do this.”

  “Then who?”

  “I gave you a warning. There are more than a few who want you dead, John Matherson. I hate to think it is who I now suspect, but maybe it is.”

  John took that in but did not reply.

  “And if so, and if they tried for you in your home, they know more about you than even I do. It means you have someone in your community who has given information out.” He paused as if suddenly realizing something. “And it means they know that you and I have talked.”

  He stood silent as if evaluating that thought.

  “God be with you, John,” Bob whispered, “and maybe I should ask that He be with me as well in the days ahead.”

  John did not reply as Bob turned again and walked back to his Humvee, which backed up, turned, and then sped off.

  “I don’t believe him,” Lee finally said, and Kevin nodded.

  John kept his thoughts to himself and then finally looked at Kevin. “Dump their bodies like I said,” John finally said. “And, Kevin, keep a twenty-four-hour watch on Makala, and I am not to know where she is.”

  “Already taken care of, sir.”

  “Lee, mind if I bunk with you?”

  His friend smiled and nodded.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Ernie, I need something, and I need it now,” John announced while still standing out in the snow in Ernie’s driveway.

  For once, Ernie was out the door to greet him and actually grabbed John by the hand. “You okay? We heard about what happened last night. Makala, is she okay?”

  “Yes, just fine. We’re fine.”

  “Those sons of bitches.”

  Lee had thrown a fit when, at midday, John had roused from his exhausted sleep and announced he was going to visit Ernie.

  That had triggered an explosion of anxiety, with Kevin appearing with a pickup truck–load of their troops, fully armed, several of them wearing the captured gear taken from the dead raiders.

  The last attacker had been found dead, shortly after dawn, having apparently bled out from his wounds, and after being stripped, he had been dumped with the others.

  At least for the moment, it meant to John that he was safe and would not let what happened stop him from his routine, and that included using Maury’s jeep when it was snowing, so he ordered Kevin and the others to relax a
nd get some sleep. An order reluctantly obeyed.

  “Mind if we come in?” John asked, nodding over to Maury, who was standing beside his jeep and throwing blankets over the seats to keep the snow that was falling from covering them.

  “Why don’t you have a top for that damn thing?” Ernie asked, shouting to Maury.

  “Couldn’t find one that was authentic to the period.”

  “Oh, great, historical accuracy before comfort.”

  Maury did not reply. John knew it was painful enough for his friend to redo the paint job back early in the spring to cover over the white star on the front hood and paint the rest in a speckled camouflage pattern, which of course Maury had to match up with the Normandy 1944 look, so it was less easy to spot them from the air.

  Maury just glared at Ernie and did not reply.

  “All right, you two, come on inside.” He motioned to the door into the garage. Slamming it behind the two, Ernie turned, arms folded defensively.

  “Are you going to shut me down?” he asked sharply.

  “Hell no.”

  “Well, I heard you are taking orders from our new potentate down at the Asheville airport and assumed you were sent here to pull the plug after he failed at his attempt at killing you.”

  “Damn it, Ernie, did anyone ever discuss diplomatic conversation skills with you?”

  “Nope. And if anyone ever does, I’ll tell them to go to hell.”

  John couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, okay. Everyone knows. I surrendered without a fight. You got an alternative short of a bloodbath for our side? As to damn near getting killed, just leave that be for now.”

  “How many troops does he have with him?”

  “He’s got at least half a dozen Black Hawks, maybe as many Apaches, a couple of C-130s, and from what our lookouts in Hendersonville told us, at least half a dozen Bradleys and a dozen truckloads of supplies and additional troops up from Greenville. And you suggest we fight that?”

  “Go up into the hills and wait him out. He’d be facing half a thousand or more very pissed-off, well-armed folks.”

  “Ernie, you have been a burr under my hide from day one, but this tops it. I’m supposed to go back to those kids at the college and tell them to suit up and head out into the woods in this weather?” He snapped out the last words and pointed back outside where a lightly falling snow was being whipped along by twenty-mile-per-hour winds. “Half of them would freeze to death within a couple of days out there with no fires to keep warm. Light a fire, you got an Apache with infrared seeking on top of you.”

  “He’s right, Ernie.”

  The two turned to see Linda slowly coming down the basement stairs. “So stop needling him. You know as well as I do there was no chance to fight back, so let it be.”

  “I was just suggesting an alternative, Linda.”

  “Fine. You suit up, take a rifle, go sit out on the ridge for a few hours, and then come back and tell us if we should fight or not.”

  “I’m seventy-five; those kids trained to fight are in their twenties.”

  She ignored him and walked up to John and Maury, holding out two mugs of coffee.

  “We don’t have much of that stuff left,” Ernie muttered.

  “They need it more than we do warm inside here,” she snapped and then turned her attention to John. “Really, are you and Makala all right?”

  “Just fine, Linda. It was bad, though, for those at the college. Five dead, a dozen wounded, and I doubt if a couple of those will make it.”

  He tried to say those words without becoming emotional again. They had died saving his family and him. All of this was becoming too much to bear. He knew if he broke in front of Linda, she would go all to pieces as well. He shook it off and just offered a weary smile of resignation.

  “My only other question, John: Do they know about our operation here?”

  John shook his head. “So far, I don’t think so; that’s why I called and said to double-check the camouflage on your satellite dishes.”

  “You can’t see them from the road or from up above. I had the kids make some netting out of bedsheets to blend in with the snow. I think we’re safe.”

  “Good. That’s the way I want to keep it.”

  He could see that Ernie was still glowering and felt it necessary to smooth the waters. “Ernie, I’ll admit now, it was a smart move to shift your operation down here. The last thing I want is another war. You saw what a couple of Apaches under Fredericks did to us in the spring. Their only tactical mistake was basing out of the mall. If they had been based at the airport with proper security, Fredericks would have won. We don’t have Stinger ground-to-air missiles, and any Hollywood hokum about taking one of those birds out with an old-fashioned RPG is absurd. General Scales held the trump card, made sure we saw it in his opening move and won.”

  “He played it well,” Maury interjected. “There was nothing we could do in response, at least for now.”

  “But—” Ernie started, and Linda cut him off.

  “But what? A hundred, two hundred kids dead?”

  “They’re not kids, Linda.”

  “We’ve got grandchildren that will be in the militia units in another year, Ernie. To me, they’re kids.”

  John caught her eye and nodded.

  Strange, when his second lieutenant’s bars were pinned on him, he was twenty-one and felt he was indeed a man. His father had been flying combat missions at twenty-three, his grandfather at twenty-one. Of course he felt like a man then. But now, when there was an entire generational difference between him and those who were actually the ones who would carry the fight, it was all so different.

  He recalled the old photo books of soldiers from World War II. The haunting image of a shell-shocked Marine covered in filth and blood, staring at the cameraman with vacant eyes. One had to look deep into that photograph to conjure out the realization that the frightfully aged Marine most likely was, in fact, not more than eighteen or nineteen years old.

  Those whom he called kids, when looking up at the Apaches circling over the campus, were again ready to fight, but in their eyes they had as well that same haunting gaze. They were veterans of two major battles, and they knew the price and the loss even when they won. They were ready to fight even though with the pragmatic realism that only a veteran could gain, they knew without doubt the fight would most likely be futile.

  Memory of his walk up to the campus of several weeks back came to him, the young amorous couple playing in the park. That should be their world, holding with it some hope of a future, not another fight to the death. And now one of them was indeed dead. The thought of that stabbed deep, but he had to push it aside for now.

  Damn all that created this world for them, he thought bitterly as he nodded, still looking at Linda.

  “You’re right, Linda; they’re still kids, or at least should be kids. I’m not going to spend their lives in some final gesture of defiance.”

  And even as he spoke, the nightmare of what Bob said might happen—that Bluemont might unleash another EMP—hung over him. After what had happened just hours ago, he was no longer sure of Bob, though as emotions settled, he did want to believe him. Perhaps now the answer to it all was to find out, on their own, what the truth really was regarding Bluemont—and what was happening in this house might be the key.

  He suddenly realized that he had been standing in quiet contemplation for several minutes while Ernie and Linda had launched into what he realized was something of a standard method of communication between the two. Ironic as he focused attention back on them. They obviously loved each other dearly, and yet they sure had a strange way of expressing it.

  “All right, you two, let’s chill it.” It was Maury who finally interrupted the argument.

  The two looked at him, and Linda smiled. “Thank you, Maury. Point taken. At least by me.”

  Ernie said nothing and finally turned back to John. “Let’s answer the first question, then. If you are not shutting us down, why
are you here?”

  “I just want an update and to pass along a few suggestions. I want your team to lie low, but keep the kids working here on task 24-7.”

  “So you are not this General Scales’s lackey?” Ernie quipped.

  “You know, Ernie, someday when all of this is over, you and I are going to have a real serious discussion.”

  “Just remember, Matherson, I saved your life. Fredericks was ready to shoot you in the back.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Ernie smiled. “Well, some are whispering I just simply saved you from the dilemma of what to do with that son of a bitch by just shooting him and getting it over with. Either way, I did you a favor.”

  John finally relented and nodded.

  “This basement is freezing,” Linda announced. “Let’s go up to the Skunk Works.”

  “The what?” John asked.

  “That’s what we’re calling it now. The kids like the name, especially after I told them about a little side contract work we once did at the real Skunk Works Lockheed had.”

  John smiled at that. Lockheed had been a prime contractor for highly specialized spy planes back during the Cold War, their secret R&D lab dubbed the “Skunk Works.” It fit for what they were doing now.

  Linda led the way up to the main floor of their home, again cheerily warm thanks to the fireplace and the wood-fueled kitchen stove. She led them up to the second floor, moving a bit slowly, bracing her knee as she climbed the stairs, muttering that she wished she’d had the replacement knee surgery done before everything had hit the fan.

  As they reached the top of the stairs, John looked up and grinned at the hand-drawn sign hanging in front of them: “Linda and Ernie’s Skunk Works.” Whoever had drawn it was indeed creative. Linda and Ernie caricatured as cartoon skunks, arguing with each other, with an array of $#*#%& erupting from the skunk image of Ernie’s mouth, even as they were holding hands.

  The entire room was now cluttered with electronic equipment, most of it retro from the ’80s and ’90s but some of it looking fairly recent. The work crew had grown from the five he had seen last time to nine, hunched over screens, empty plates and cups strewn on the tables and floor. That alone made John wonder how many precious rations Linda had been lavishing on them. The mere sight of a half-eaten sandwich, packed with what look liked hamburger meat, by Samantha’s work area triggered hunger in John. A half-eaten sandwich remaining unconsumed was something he had not seen in a very long time in this starving world.