“Oh my god, I’m so sorry about that, Mister President,” he said hoarsely.
Williams chuckled. “It’s all right son,” he replied. “Take your time and get settled.”
“Thank you, sir,” David gushed, and then took a deep breath, poring through some pages before finally clearing his throat. “Okay, during our push west, we had roughly a thousand troops that were tasked solely with structure clearing. Most of the time they were used when the main force came across a breach.” His voice became calmer, more businesslike as he fell into the zone of reporting information. “If the building could be patched up securely, they did that, but more often than not they had to clear it. As you can imagine, this is a slow, tedious task. Right now in the safe zone, we have teams of scouts souring the area, keeping watch for breaches so these teams can move in. I think we can all agree that the last thing we need are runners showing up in the safe zone.”
There was a chorus of emphatic noises in the affirmative.
“David, do you have a timeline on how long it’s going to take to completely clear these things out?” Williams asked.
The communications expert shook his head. “That’s impossible to say at this point, sir,” he replied honestly.
“Please son, humor me,” the President said gently. “Give me your best guess. I promise I won’t hold you to it.”
David chewed his lip. “Okay, um…” he said, tilting his head back and forth. “For the immediate downtown area, say one mile out from the Coast Guard base, we’re looking at a few weeks. From north to south, barrier lines stretching completely across the occupied area? Months.”
“Months?!” Williams exclaimed. “How is that possible? We just marched through over a million of those things in the span of a week. Now you’re telling me it’s going to be months before we get the structures cleared out?”
David winced, but nodded. “In order to do it safely, yes sir.”
“Would you care to go into a little more detail there?” the President asked. “Because I’m still not fully understanding why it could take that long.”
“Gladly, sir,” the communications expert replied, forcing his voice to stay steady. “In talking with Captain Kersey, Miss Hill, and John, we determined that the safest way to clear a structure was to have triple redundancy.”
“Triple redundancy?” Williams asked dryly.
“That’s correct, sir,” David replied quickly. “Let me give you an example. On a standard two-story family home, we would have a clear team of six. These six, in teams of two, would move in and sweep the house of hostiles. For safety reasons, just outside of the exits would be another team of six, covering every way that a runner could escape. Out at the street would be another team in a vehicle, ready to strike. Now this team would have the ability to cover more than one house at a time, since their main job would be to alert everyone else in the unlikely event of a runner, but they would still need to be there.”
“That seems like a bit of overkill, don’t you think?” Williams asked, skepticism evident in his tone.
Kersey leaned forward in his seat, lacing his fingers together in front of him. “Mister President, Captain Kersey here,” he cut in. “If anything, we aren’t being cautious enough. Runners are an extremely dangerous problem, and if some of them got loose within the safe zone, it could be catastrophic. I understand fully that it’s time consuming and uses a lot of manpower, but to be frank, we’ve spilled an enormous amount of blood just to get to this point. It would be a shame to have all that go to waste because we didn’t go the extra mile with safety.”
There was a moment of silence before Williams replied, “I understand that point of view. It’s easy for me to question the validity of these safety procedures when I’m locked up safely in a vault,” he admitted. “You do what you feel you need to do to execute the mission successfully and safely.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kersey replied, and leaned back in his seat.
“If someone on your tea wouldn’t mind,” Williams continued, “please provide us with daily updates on the progress.”
The Captain nodded, picking up his bottle of water and unscrewing the cap. “Absolutely sir,” he said, “we will keep you in the loop.”
“Moving on,” the President said, “I just thought of a question on this topic that brings up another more pressing question. What is our current force size? I was just wondering if we could allocate more troops to the structure clearings and it dawned on me that I have no idea what our force strength is.”
There was a long pause, and Kersey raised an eyebrow. “David, I hate to do this to you,” he said with a chuckle, “but you probably have the most up to date information.”
David nodded, flipping through his binder to several pages with handwritten figures on it. “Okay, I need to preface this before I start diving into the numbers,” he began, running his finger across the page. “My small team of four and I have been trying to process this data in real time along a thousand other variables that…” He paused, chewing his lip. “I’m sorry, but this is going to come off as callous, but I honestly don’t mean it as such.”
“It’s okay,” Stephens said. “You just lay out the facts. Nobody is going to hold it against you.”
David nodded and took a deep breath. “The other variables were things like troop movements, and reacting to real time threats, so they were more important than compiling the deaths,” he said, wrinkling his nose at his choice of words. “Please understand that every death hurts, and every time I had to take a report, I felt it, but there simply wasn’t time to mourn. We had to keep moving forward.”
“Son, I’ve been in battle, as have several other people on this call,” Adams assured him. “We understand that mentality completely. We’ve been there.”
David’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Thank you, General,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Okay, on to the numbers. When this operation started, we had approximately a hundred and sixty-five thousand troops, and another twenty-five to thirty thousand on the ships. To make life easy, let’s call it one-ninety. Now, communication has been spotty with some teams, and there has been a lot of chaos in some of these battles, especially when runners break free. But as of right now, our best guess as far as casualties go, is somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent.”
There was a long pause, the horror palpable on both sides of the call.
“Son, I don’t mean to discount your numbers,” Williams said slowly, “but are you a hundred percent sure on that?”
David licked his lips. “I’ll admit Mister President, there is a fair amount of assumptions and guesswork in these numbers,” he replied. “But I erred on the side of caution when compiling these. Confirmed dead was easy enough to add, but there were a lot of teams that simply lost contact. On rare occasions it was equipment malfunctions, but most of the time it was because whoever had the radio in the group fell in battle. In these cases, I implemented a twenty-five percent rule.”
“Would you care to expand on that?” Williams asked.
David nodded. “Certainly, sir,” he replied politely. “If there were, let’s say, eight people in a squad, and they fell off of the radar, I used the twenty-five percent rule and assumed that two of the were KIA. We heard more than enough stories over the previous week of positions that were completely overrun, only for survivors to find a place to lay low, or they made it to another squad. Sadly though, based on the number of runner reports we’ve processed, my twenty-five percent rule may be wildly optimistic.”
Stephens scribbled away at a piece of scrap paper and then raised his hand. “So, using some rough calculations,” he spoke up, “our best case scenario is that we have a hundred and fifty to a hundred and sixty thousand troops here. Now keep in mind, this doesn’t include those involved with the caravan project, or the ones that are still stationed overseas. But this is what we have to work with in the safe zone.”
“That’s going to be a lot of mouths to feed long term,”
Adams piped up, “not to mention getting them sheltered. There’s only so many nights they can spend outside.”
“And that doesn’t even include the civilians,” John added.
“Do we have an accurate number on them, yet?” Williams asked.
“My team was compiling those numbers before the meeting,” Whitney replied. “If we can break for just a moment, I can confer with them and get you that answer.”
There was a shuffling of papers, and the President said, “Okay, let’s reconvene in ten.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Corporal Bretz, are you still in the room?” Williams asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the conference room table. There was a shuffle through the speaker in the center.
“Yes Mister President, I’m here,” Bretz replied, sounding confused.
Williams inclined his head to his companion to his right. “General Adams here just informed me that you were the leader of that truck caravan group that tried to block off the northern interstate when this whole thing kicked off,” he said.
“Yes sir, that’s correct,” the Corporal replied.
“Well son, I got one question for you,” Williams declared. “How in the hell do you walk around with balls that big?”
Laughter erupted in the room and over the speaker, and then Bretz finally said, “Well sir, when you’ve had them as long as I have, you just kind of get used to them.”
“You did a hell of a job out there,” the President said. “Not a lot of people would have volunteered for a job like that.”
“Quite frankly sir, it needed doing,” Bretz replied, “and my team and I gave it our best shot.”
Williams nodded, lacing his fingers on the table. “When you talk to your team,” he said, “will you please give them my personal thanks? Their actions saved a lot of lives and made it a lot easier for our troops to march west.”
“I’ll do that, sir,” the Corporal replied.
Whitney entered the room, arms full of clipboards and random stacks of papers. “Sorry about the delay, everyone,” she said as she took her seat, frantically organizing all of her sheets. “I just wanted to make sure I had the right numbers.”
“No problem Miss Hill,” Williams said, motioning to her. “Please, proceed when you’re ready.”
She plucked the right paper out of her pile, and then pulled a USB drive out of her pocket, heading for the television against the wall and plugging it into the back. She picked up her remote and pulled up an image.
The screen came to life, showing a satellite view of the downtown Seattle area that stretched out in a fifty-mile radius. There were a hundred or so red dots on it, with a high concentration around the edges.
“The dots on this image represent roughly where we have located survivors,” Whitney explained. “A fair number of them are individuals who managed to barricade themselves inside their homes or businesses, and had enough resources to ride this thing out. Some are small clusters of people who did the same. In a few cases, like the dots in the park area to the west of town, we have located small communities of people who have been roughing it in the wild for the last month.”
Adams leaned forward as he studied the screen. “And we’ve brought these people in already?”
“Only the ones we’ve come across while pushing west,” Whitney replied, shaking her head. “Some of our helicopter pilots have spotted the wilderness communities, and have delivered messages that we’ll be getting to them soon.”
Williams nodded, raising a hand. “Do we have an estimate on how many civilians?” he asked.
“Like everything else these days, it’s just an educated guess,” she replied, “but we’re looking at the five to seven thousand range.”
The room fell silent at the words.
Kersey cleared his throat on the other end. “Five to seven thousand survivors, in a town of four million,” he said slowly. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Miss Hill,” Stephens asked, “is it possible there are other civilians we haven’t located yet?”
Whitney nodded, turning towards the speaker. “Yes,” she said, “but none of us on my team feels like it’s going to bump the numbers up all that much.”
“Has any effort been made to locate survivors in smaller communities?” Adams asked, brow furrowing. “Fewer people could mean a better chance at survival.”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “It is on our list sir,” she confirmed, “and I have one person on my team whose sole mission is to scope out these locations and figure out a game plan to reach them. However, we have a lot more pressing issues to deal with before bringing more people into the fold. The two most important being housing and supplies.”
“Out of those two, the housing aspect is going to be the easiest,” John piped up, tapping on a notepad in front of him. “We have located every downtown hotel and condo building, and have made that our top priority to clear out first. The weather is already cooling, and it’s not going to be too much longer before sleeping outside isn’t an option.”
Williams nodded, cocking his head. “Do we have a timeline on getting enough beds for everyone?”
“Short term, we should have enough beds on a rotating basis within a week,” John replied. “That’s going with a twelve hours on, twelve hours off shift schedule. Although, that’s not going to be the best conditions.”
The President's brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“The water in these buildings may or may not work,” John explained, “and if it does, they certainly don’t have hot water. We don’t have staff or a way to keep these rooms clean. And to veer into a gruesome yet necessary problem, a lot of people died in these rooms… and I don’t mean they passed in their sleep.” He shook his head. “Until we get in there and see what we’re dealing with, I won’t have an accurate timeline on getting things up to snuff.”
Williams sighed. “Are there any other options?” he asked, spreading his arms. “Moving some troops out to the suburbs where we’ve cleared it out?”
“The troops on the front lines at the barricades are already taking care of that for themselves,” John replied with a nod. “They have enough houses to pick from that I don’t think it’ll be an issue for them. It’s not viable to have the interior troops that are working out from the Coast Guard base to commute to the suburbs for rest. Because fuel, like everything else, is going to be a major issue in procuring.”
Williams drummed his fingers on the conference table. “Guess this is as good a time as any to start discussing our supply situation,” he prompted.
“Pardon me, Mister President,” David said earnestly from the other end of the phone, “but I do have a bit to add to the sleeping arrangements before we move on.”
Williams motioned to the speaker and then shook his head when he remembered the young man couldn’t see him. “By all means, David,” he said.
“When the invasion first began, we put together scavenging teams that specifically targeted stores that had food as well as ammunition,” the communications expert began. “Most of the time, the ammunition was in sporting goods stores. Just about every single one of these places is going to have a robust camping section, especially in this area of the country. While it’s not going to be enough to give everyone winterized protection, we should be able to cobble together several thousand tents and sleeping bags.”
John nodded thoughtfully. “David, if you can send me over an inventory list and where it’s at, I’ll start coordinating with the transport teams to get them where they need to go,” he suggested.
“You’ll have it as soon as we’re done here,” David replied.
John scribbled on his notepad. “Thank you.”
“So let’s talk supplies,” Williams said, clasping his hands together. “I know there is a lot to get to, so let’s focus on the basics first, then we can move on from there. Off the top of my head, the three most important are food, water, and warmth. Who wants to start us out?
”
“I will, sir,” Stephens said through the speaker. “Our MRE situation is pretty dire. Even going to two meals a day, we will deplete our stock within the week. Once those are gone, then they’re gone for good, because we don’t have the production capacity to make more.”
Williams pursed his lips. “What about local sources of food?” he asked.
“I do have some reports from my scavenging teams on the grocery stories, just need to…” David trailed off, and there was the shuffling of papers through the phone. “Found it. Okay, so my teams were more concerned with ammo than food, but they have inventoried a dozen grocery stores, so this will give us a rough idea of what we can expect. The fresh product is all but gone, especially since the power went out. The potatoes should be fine, but that’s going to be about it as far as the fresh food goes.”
“And how is the non-fresh situation looking?” Stephens asked.
“Canned goods like beans and soups will be fine,” David replied. “As will dried pasta and ramen.”
“Living off ramen,” Kersey cut in, “it’s like college all over again.”
There was some light chuckling on the other end, and even the President joined in, rubbing his forehead.
“Or adult life, if you’re like me,” David quipped. “But I digress. Luckily we’re in a heavily populated area, so most of these stores are going to be well stocked. On top of that, virtually every house, apartment, and restaurant is going to have a stockpile of goods that we can procure.”
Williams took a deep breath. “David, give me your best guess,” he said. “Just on canned and dried goods, how long can we sustain nearly two hundred thousand people?”
There was a long pause, and then David cleared his throat. “Based on the numbers I’m seeing and doing a whole lot of guesswork when it comes to what we’re going to find in restaurants and homes…” More shuffling papers. “If we go with a strict rationing, I’m taking fifteen hundred calories a day diets, we might be able to stretch it six months.”
Dead America The Northwest Invasion | Book 12 | Dead America: Seattle [Part 10] Page 4