Final Dawn: Book 12: Where Could He Be?

by Darrell Maloney

  Why did they get a place in the bunker while regular Joes and Jills didn’t?

  But no one asked the hard questions General Mannix would have a difficult time answering.

  They let the general off the hook.

  As Nathan continued to look around, he saw many things on the faces of his neighbors and friends.

  Some faces reflected shame, for not realizing that General Mannix and his group were merely insuring the survival of the United States.

  Others reflected sadness when realizing they wouldn’t be able to evict the bunker’s occupants and perhaps take their places.

  Others reflected defeat in knowing at the end of the day the bunker’s occupants would be back in the bunker, warm and cozy and eating a hot meal.

  Probably served by waiters in stiffly starched white uniforms.

  The one emotion he didn’t see was anger.

  The rage that was on everyone’s face just an hour before had faded away to nothingness. It was just gone.

  Oh, Nathan was still angry. His anger was fierce enough for all the others.

  But in addition to being an anarchist Nathan Stowe was a realist.

  He knew if he spoke up the crowd would likely shout him down, for their allegiance seemed to have turned in favor of General Mannix.

  He also knew if he spoke up he’d be marked as a troublemaker.

  He might even be placed in handcuffs. Arrested like the colonels, and tossed into the back of one of the waiting police cars.

  At the very least he’d be stared at by hundreds of people. His face would be remembered.

  And when the chaos started he’d be one of the prime suspects.

  He wisely remained silent.

  Anarchists are by their very nature troublemakers. They advocate for the overthrow of governments. For the collapse of financial markets. For riots in their streets.

  At the same time, however, they cry foul whenever the laws they so despise fail to protect them. They’re not unlike the guy who says he hates cops and then calls them when he needs their help.

  Nathan was an anarchist who used the system to his advantage.

  He couldn’t care less whether the United States survived. He was a survivalist and a prepper who’d get by whether the land beneath his feet was part of the United States or a vast no-man’s land.

  The term “man without a country” didn’t bother him in the least.

  Nathan Stowe was a man with a lot of pent-up rage.

  He also had a lot of secrets.

  And a lot of evil plans.

  -31-

  The crowd slowly started to dissipate. The show was over. They realized they had no place in the bunker after all. Instead, they were left to scratch out a living in the frozen world, just as they’d had to do during the previous freeze.

  And they weren’t getting any food gathered by standing there.

  At the same time, the long line of bunker residents did an about-face and started filing back into the warmth of the bunker.

  General Mannix stayed behind to talk to Captain Edwards.

  “Captain, you strike me as a little young to be running the Security Forces operation on a base as big as this one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did that come to be, exactly?”

  “I was an airman, fresh out of basic training, with one stripe on my sleeve I was very proud of.

  “Then Saris 7 struck the earth and everything went to hell. They field promoted me to Airman First Class, then to Senior Airman, then finally to Staff Sergeant.

  “By that time we were four years into the freeze, and depression was at an all-time low.

  “People all around us were giving up and committing suicide. Not the enlisted men. But the officers.

  “We were running out of leaders.

  “The Security Forces Commander, Colonel Bud Nelson, gave me a battlefield promotion to Captain. I told him, “Sir, we’re not at war.”

  “He said he didn’t care. That we were in an undeclared war with Mother Nature and the heavens.”

  “Where is Colonel Nelson now, son?”

  “He’s dead, sir.

  “The entire time we worked together he kept telling me not to give up. To hold my head high. He said we’d all get past this. That the world would be great again.

  “The morning after Cupid 23 hit the earth and the skies turned dark again I found him at his desk.

  “He wrote me a note. He apologized to me for not being able to follow his own advice. He said after losing his entire family to Saris 7 he no longer had the strength or resolve to go through another freeze.

  “He said he missed his family and wanted to be with them.

  “He wished me luck and reminded me I was now the ranking officer in the Security Forces Group.

  “He told me to take good care of his troops.”

  It was a sad story, and it would have been easy for Mannix to feel bad for the young captain and to give him a break.

  But the United States Air Force has a saying: Suck it up, buttercup. There’s plenty of time for crying later.

  It meant, in effect, the mission had to be accomplished, no matter how hard.

  “I want you to do several things for me, Captain Edwards.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to notify every bird colonel left on the base I want them to get together and determine which one of them is the ranking officer.

  “Tell them those two idiots over there in your patrol cars have been relieved of duty. What are their names again?”

  “Wilcox and Medley, sir.”

  “Tell them Wilcox and Medley will be court-martialed for treason. Tell them whoever among them is the ranking officer is the new base commander.

  “Whoever that is, I want you to personally escort him to see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I also want you to get the Staff Judge Advocate and bring him to see me.”

  “That would be Captain Perry, sir.”

  “Not a colonel?”

  “No, sir. Everyone above him has died or left during the thaw.”

  “Very well. Bring Captain Perry to see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who is the base civil engineer?”

  “Captain Benedict, sir.”

  “Bring Captain Benedict to see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take Wilcox and Medley to the brig. Send a runner to the Area Defense Counsel and tell them they’ll need defense attorneys. Tell them to act quickly. We’re under martial law and I will not allow anyone to drag their feet on this. I’m looking for a tribunal within sixty days.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I noticed, Captain Edwards, that you didn’t write anything down. Are you sure you can remember all your instructions?”

  “Yes sir. Absolutely.”

  “Very well. We have radios inside the bunker and can monitor all traffic through our base station. How good is your math?”

  “My math, sir?”

  “Yes, son. Your math.”

  “Good, sir. I mean… I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “The magic number for your first visit is twenty-nine. Commit that number to your memory. And that number is top-secret. It’s not to be written down or shared with anyone. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. But I still don’t understand.”

  “Once I’m back in the bunker I’m blind. We have no security cameras on the outside. I don’t want to open the door for you to find out it’s someone pretending to be you with a gun in his hand.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “When you come to see me the first time, call in on channel five and ask for me.

  “If I recognize your voice I will give you a number. You respond with another number that, combined with my own, adds up to the magic number of twenty-nine. That way I’ll know it’s you. And I’ll let you in. And before you leave I’ll give you a new magic number. Got it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Fif
teen.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Atta boy. You got it. Get moving.”

  -32-

  In the United States Air Force every squadron and group commander is on call twenty four hours a day.

  That’s not necessarily because they like being on call. Being on call is a pain in their butts, and they can count on being called at the worst possible times.

  At their children’s weddings, for example, or their dance recitals or graduation ceremonies.

  When mowing their lawns, covered in sweat and in no mood to deal with people.

  When making love to their spouses.

  Or when finally settling into bed after a very long and very hard day.

  In the old days, before cell phones, commanders had to call the base command post every time they planned to leave their house for an hour or more.

  And they had to provide the command post with a phone number where they could be reached.

  Or, if their destination had no telephone, they had to provide the destination so someone could come looking for them if they were needed.

  Sometimes they were hunted down when camping or having a picnic with their families at local parks.

  When beepers came into being, it made the process a little easier. Commanders no longer had to provide a phone number when they were away from home or the office.

  When the command post needed a commander they tried his office phone first. Then his home phone. If they were unable to reach him at either number, they called his beeper.

  It was then incumbent on the commander to find a phone and to call the command post as soon as possible.

  The standard was ten minutes or less.

  Cell phones were the best thing since sliced bread, as far as recall procedures were concerned. Commanders could be recalled quickly and easily.

  Beepers were tossed into the garbage and flipped off to boot.

  Saris 7 changed everything. The phone companies went out of business. Cell towers went down. Cell phones were worthless.

  Bases which had them issued handheld radios to each commander, along with battery chargers.

  Off and on during Saris 7’s freeze the base power plant provided electricity.

  But the plant ran on diesel fuel. And diesel fuel was sometimes hard to get.

  The base owned a diesel tanker, which it dispatched each week to a refinery in Corpus Christi on a resupply run.

  But the roads were treacherous and were sometimes impassable.

  Resupply was never guaranteed, and the base sometimes ran out of diesel. Then out of power.

  So that the commanders could be recalled in case of emergency, even with a spotty electrical system, they were each provided a five thousand watt generator.

  The nice thing about the generator was that it powered the lights and refrigerator, and even the central heating unit in the commander’s home when the base power plant was down.

  The bad thing was it also provided a means of charging his radio’s battery.

  When the command post called in at three in the morning to report one of the commander’s troops had just ended up in jail or committed suicide, there was no ignoring the call. The commander didn’t have the option of rolling over and going back to sleep, then claiming later his battery was dead.

  It was ridiculously easy, therefore, for Captain Edwards to rally all the base’s colonels for an emergency meeting.

  He didn’t have to go to each colonel’s residence, hoping they were home, and having to explain the situation two dozen times.

  He also didn’t have to deal with any of the colonels’ wives, who could be royal pains.

  All he had to do was to go by the base command post, which happened to be down the hall from his own office.

  He walked in to find a bored dispatcher sitting behind a lonely desk, trying his best to stay awake.

  “Hello, sir. Any change at the bunker? Did those guys ever come out?”

  It was just a tad ironic that the command post, responsible for all the base operations, seemed to be the last to know what had happened at the bunker site.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Do me a favor, would you? Recall all the unit commanders and their deputies for a mandatory base-wide meeting in the wing conference room.

  “Make it for eighteen hundred hours.”

  The dispatcher let out a low whistle.

  “Are you sure, sir? That’s the dinner hour. They’ll be complaining to high heaven that you dragged them out of their houses just as they were sitting down to eat.”

  “I don’t care. Tell them the meeting is a direct order from the Air Force Chief of Staff.”

  “Really? Can I ask what it’s about?”

  “Only if you promise not to blab to any of the commanders.”

  “You know me, sir. My lips are sealed.”

  “Wilcox and Medley have been arrested. We need to find their replacements.”

  The dispatcher was stunned. He’d always liked Colonel Medley. Everybody did. He was a nice guy and a great doctor.

  He didn’t much like Colonel Wilcox, who could be a bully and a brute.

  But that was okay. Nobody else liked Wilcox either.

  “Okay, sir. I’ll get right on it.”

  -33-

  The process for determining the new base commander and his deputy was an easy one.

  Every one of the bird colonels in the room already knew the dates of rank for the other colonels.

  In military hierarchy, officers of similar grades determine who outranks who by the date they pinned on their insignia.

  A colonel who pinned on his eagles on August 1st, 2005 would outrank another colonel who first wore his on October 1st, 2005.

  Both would outrank a colonel awarded his eagles in 2006, and he’d outrank someone promoted to colonel in 2007…

  Also in the military, and especially in the officer corps, men of similar rank know darned well when their counterparts were awarded their present rank.

  Rank is a very important thing for all officers, for with rank comes prestige and a higher place in the hierarchy of base leadership.

  It also allows certain officers to behave badly; to be less than civil to other officers of equal rank.

  For example, a captain who knows he outranks another captain has the freedom to belittle and harangue the junior officer at will. The junior captain doing the same thing to a senior captain could technically be charged with an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

  Every colonel, when gathered in the Wing Conference Room and told the purpose of the meeting, turned instantly and locked eyes on “Old Leatherbutt.”

  “Old Leatherbutt” wasn’t the man’s real name, of course.

  It was Leatherwood. Leonard Leatherwood.

  It was said the old saying, “He’s been around since Christ was a corporal” was originally referring to Old Leatherbutt.

  It was also said he got his nickname because he seldom left his desk. He’d spent so many hours sitting in his executive chair his buttocks had turned to leather.

  Colonel Leatherwood just completed his thirtieth year in the Air Force and was scheduled to retire when Saris 7 impacted with the earth ten years before.

  With nothing better to do he postponed his retirement indefinitely.

  Now he’d served for over forty years and was sixty eight years old.

  Technically no Air Force officer can serve past the age of fifty-five without a waiver from the Pentagon.

  But in the post-apocalyptic times everyone lived in, that rule was like many others and was no longer enforced.

  The key thing about Colonel Leatherwood… the thing which mattered much more than the texture of the skin in his nether-regions or the number of years he’d served was his date of rank.

  He’d been a bird colonel for twenty one years, far surpassing everyone else in the room.

  Given a choice, Leatherwood would have passed.

  He wished he could say, “No thanks
. I’m a Supply Officer. I don’t know anything about running an Air Force Base. Let somebody else do it.”

  Traditionally, base commanders in the Air Force are rated officers. Pilots. Men who still go up in an aircraft occasionally and take the stick so they can retain their flying status.

  Non-pilots are seldom given the reins.

  But the regulations were quite specific.

  In case of a severe emergency, where a base commander cannot be directed by order of the Major Command or the Numbered Air Force the senior officer on the base shall assume command.

  Old Leatherbutt swallowed hard and said, “Okay. I guess I’m it.”

  He was somewhat less than enthusiastic.

  As the new base commander, he was authorized by regulation to name his own deputy.

  He looked at the man sitting beside him, a lieutenant colonel named Dave Smith.

  Dave was at his side when Saris 7 hit the earth and he withdrew his retirement papers.

  Dave was a good man, a tireless worker and a great offset to Leatherwood. Everyone else in the room knew going in that Dave Smith would do far more work than Leatherwood.

  But they also knew he wouldn’t mind.

  Dave took a deep breath and said, “I guess it doesn’t really matter whether we want it or not. Looks like we got it. Might as well do it as best we can.”

  Traditionally there’s a lot of animosity among a gaggle of colonels. A lot of politicking and back-stabbing as well.

  But Leatherwood, despite his flaws, and Smith, because he was a fine man, were universally liked.

  The handshakes and congratulations were genuine as one by one, the colonels went to both men to pay their respects.

  The relief most of them felt because they didn’t get tagged for either job was genuine as well.

  Being a base commander for a base as big as Joint Base Lackland was no easy job at any time.

  Doing so under another worldwide freeze would be a thankless and taxing job.

  “Old Leatherbutt” might have to get out of his office chair and do some work occasionally.

  After the room cleared out Captain Edwards stayed behind to give Leatherwood and Smith more bad news.

  “The chief of staff, General Mannix, wanted me to bring you to him immediately.”