by Bobby Akart
“Ironically, we were just discussing that very subject,” replied Freeman. He looked over at his other guest. “May I speak freely with Hank and Erin?”
Marino held up his index finger, indicating Freeman should wait just a moment. He turned to Hank. “If I’m not mistaken, Lindsey was married to Sonny’s brother, am I right?”
“Yes, divorced,” replied Hank before continuing. “And, let me add, not on good terms. I hope this doesn’t offend either of you, but Lindsey and I are not on the best of terms either. To be honest, she bullied me into including Jimmy on her faux-deputy detail at the bridge checkpoints. That’s how he got hurt.”
Marino looked at Freeman and nodded.
Freeman explained, “There’s a lot of concern within the Keys that Lindsey is mismanaging this crisis. For one, the concept of transparency has become totally lost on her. She’s excluded people who would ordinarily be a voice of reason. She’s surrounded herself totally with loyalists who wouldn’t dare disagree with her.”
Erin thought to herself, Sounds familiar.
Marino interjected, “Our regular council meetings have been cancelled until further notice. I still have a few little birdies running around the admin building in Key West who get messages to me by various methods. It appears the mayor pro tem and the sheriff are in. I and the other two commissioners are on the outs.”
Hank asked, “What do you mean by that? The decision-making process?”
“Yes, among other things. Here’s an example. Supposedly, according to a couple of friendly maintenance personnel, Lindsey has ordered a cleanup of Key West. Now, I can’t argue with that. We’re doing the same in the Upper Keys. However, she’s going one step further. She’s starting by moving vehicles into newly created impound lots, and she’s ordered the maintenance department to drain their gasoline. After that, she’s gonna send maintenance personnel to every house with a parked car to drain their tanks as well.”
“People will pitch a fit,” said Hank.
“They’re going to be accompanied by SWAT,” added Marino. “She means business.”
Freeman sat up in his chair and leaned forward to the edge. “Here’s the thing, Hank. Our hospital will possibly be the beneficiary of these actions. I assume so, anyway. We need gasoline to run our generators. Without a refill, we’ll run out in a couple of weeks. Without a bridge to the mainland, we don’t have a way to call Tallahassee for help.
“That said, I’ve got a real problem with her stealing gasoline from people. I know. I know. Harsh words, but it’s how I feel.”
“As do I and many others like me,” said Marino.
Hank thought a moment. These two influential people in the Upper Keys could be an asset. But he needed help in laying the groundwork to execute Erin’s plan.
“Bud, where does the county attorney stand in all of this?” he asked.
“True blue friend of the mayor. Hell, he drafted the executive order declaring her to be Queen of the Keys.”
Hank grimaced.
Freeman was curious. “Why do you ask?”
“I need someone who knows the county’s charter documents together with any recent amendments. I need to see what our options might be in dealing with our not-so-friendly mayor.”
“Well, that’s an easy one, Hank. Do you remember Cheryl Morton? Her family was one of the original conchs who developed Vaca Key.”
“Yes, of course,” responded Hank. “She was the county attorney for years. Lives on Morton Street, her family’s namesake.”
Marino perked up. “Drop in on her. I’ll arrange to have my set of all the county’s governing documents, including current versions of Lindsey’s recent EOs, sent to her home. I see where you’re headed with this, and let me say, unofficially, you know, between us, I’m on board.”
“Count me in, too,” said Freeman.
The group chatted for a moment, and Hank glanced over at the clock on Freeman’s desk. It was approaching noon, and he wanted to be in Jimmy’s room when the doctor came. Besides, he got more than he’d hoped for in the chance meeting with Freeman and Marino.
He escorted Erin out of the hospital administration suite of offices and into the stairwell. Once the door was closed, she grasped him by the arm and spontaneously kissed him.
“Hank, you’re a natural. You’re keen. Intuitive. A great listener and very analytical.”
He didn’t hear a word she said. All he could think about was her kiss.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, November 11
U. S. Army War College
Carlisle Barracks
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
The federal government was never known for doing anything efficiently or speedily. However, when President Carter Helton became singularly focused on reestablishing the seat of government in a location above ground, the logistics arms of government moved with lightning-fast speed.
Within a week of making the move to the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town of twenty thousand people located two hours west of Philadelphia, all three branches of government had found new homes.
Ultimately, President Helton’s plan was to formally relocate the nation’s capital to Philadelphia, where it had been temporarily seated from 1790 to 1800 while Washington, DC, was being built.
Philadelphia was one of eight forgotten capitals of the United States. In 1774, the Continental Congress met inside Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. Just two years later, it reconvened in Independence Hall, where it adopted the Declaration of Independence. Thereafter, as the Revolutionary War raged on and various skirmishes with the British continued, other locations had been adopted on a temporary basis to protect the fledgling government.
Locations included Baltimore near the end of 1776 when the British were closing in on Philadelphia. In 1777, the enemy was once again closing in on Philadelphia, forcing the city to be evacuated. If for only a day, the nation’s government operated out of the Lancaster County courthouse in the heart of Amish country.
As the conflict with Great Britain stretched into the end of the century, York, Pennsylvania, Annapolis, Maryland, New York City, and two New Jersey locations, Trenton and Princeton, all claimed the moniker America’s capital.
The president, a native Pennsylvanian, relished the opportunity to bring the nation’s capital back to Philadelphia. After the crisis passed, he expected there to be calls for a return to Washington. He’d already heard whispers and murmurs within the confines of Mount Weather that DC should be restored and rebuilt. He had other plans.
Because the District of Columbia had been ground zero for a nuclear detonation, he intended to have his Environmental Protection Agency administrator declare it to be too dangerous for full-time residents or office workers. He hoped to rally support for making the former capital a war memorial.
These were just a few of the many ways President Helton hoped to remake America in his vision. He dreamed of leaving multiple lasting legacies so his presidency would be remembered for centuries. One legacy he didn’t want associated with his presidency was a perception of weakness because the likes of Texas and the Florida Keys had the audacity to turn their backs on their fellow Americans.
Legacies aside, the president was also presiding over the largest loss of life in the history of mankind. No war. No pandemic. No natural disaster had ever caused this many deaths so quickly.
As the scientists explained it, the onset of nuclear winter was akin to the eruption of one of the world’s supervolcanoes. The out-of-control fires polluted the atmosphere in a way carbon emissions from vehicles never could. Just like the models depicting an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, nuclear winter resulted in an unparalleled environmental catastrophe.
That morning, the president had been informed of a new threat as he tried to look forward to spring and a new growing season. The scientists had referred to this threat as zombie fires. Due to the rapidly cooling temperatures, snow had already begun to blanket the upper la
titudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The wildfires generated by the nuclear attacks had not been extinguished. Beneath the layer of fresh snow, the fires continued to smolder underground, chewing through carbon-rich peat.
The president was advised that in the spring, as the Earth thawed from the throes of what portended to be a brutal winter, these fires would reanimate. Geologists and scientists at the United States Geological Survey used available satellite data and reporting on the ground to develop an algorithm that could detect where the fires were still smoldering under the snow falling atop the ground. A heat map was generated, indicating thirty-eight percent of the land mass surrounding the current blazes would reignite, and there was nothing man could do to stop it.
The president had intended that morning’s briefing to be a strategic planning session. He wanted to establish some form of timeline for the recovery. To the best of his ability, he wanted to disseminate to the media and the American people what to expect as they moved forward. By the time the scientists were finished, he’d wanted to bolt out of the room and find a stiff drink, regardless of the early hour.
The briefing was coming to a close when the FEMA director announced their findings on the death toll estimates. It had been twenty-five days since the Iranians had fired the first nuclear missile at Israel. Their actions had triggered the nuclear war that went on for days, culminating with the attacks on the United States on day seven.
By that time, the climatic effect of nuclear winter had already reached America’s shores. The detonations on the East and West Coast only accelerated the disaster. However, it was the EMP effect of the nuclear detonations coupled with the subsequent overload of the nation’s Eastern and Western Interconnection, the power grid, that exacerbated the catastrophe.
The onset of nuclear winter was a long-term problem that was expected to last a decade. Its impact on sources of water was unseen, but profound. Lakes, rivers, and underground aquifers, fed by rain and melting snow, were the source of the country’s water supply. The fallout from the nuclear detonations and the soot generated by the wildfires polluted these natural resources.
With the loss of electricity across most of the country, the nation’s critical infrastructure could no longer function. Without power, water treatment plants that employed mechanical processes to filter and purify water so it was safe for human consumption couldn’t operate. For existing stored water in large, enclosed reservoirs, the distribution system of pipes and pumps was unable to deliver the clean water to end-users’ taps. Neither wastewater nor stormwater could be collected or treated, as sewer systems required electricity to operate.
The human body could only survive three days without water before it began to dehydrate. At first, the effects of dehydration were evident by common symptoms like headache, dizziness, change in urination, and dry mouth. However, after those three days, the complications of untreated dehydration became more profound, and the onset of the problems came rapidly. The body’s vital organs simply shut down. Seizures and involuntary muscle contractions overcame the person. As the kidneys shut down, other organs like the heart were profoundly affected as low blood volume caused a rapid drop in blood pressure and oxygen. As the dehydration victim went into hypovolemic shock, death came quickly, and it was brutal.
All around the nation, people suffering from dehydration began to search for anything to rehydrate their bodies. They turned to the natural sources of water that formed the basis for the nation’s water supply. However, these lakes, streams, and rivers were polluted by the fallout from nuclear winter. They were beset with dysentery that only hastened the dehydration process.
By day twenty-five, there wasn’t a grocery store or a food-storage warehouse in America that hadn’t been looted or emptied. Desperate people trying to feed themselves or their loved ones stormed facilities, even those protected by armed guards, in an effort to grab a case of green beans or a container of baby formula.
Neighbor approached neighbor in search of help. If a family had a little extra and they gave it to their neighbor, they’d find themselves answering the door again the next day as the neighbor returned for more. If a family refused the neighbor’s pleas, the day after that, he might arrive at the door with a gun. A new father whose wife and newborn child were at home dying of starvation was willing to do anything to help them, including killing his best friend he’d once grilled and shared beers with.
During that morning briefing, the president was given a reality check. He’d been a politician for most of his adult life, insulated from the realities of daily life. His memory of living under the roof of a coal miner who literally dug under the ground to put food on his family’s table had waned long ago. He’d lost touch with how quickly the thin veneer of civilization could collapse as people tried to survive. As the FEMA director droned on, portraying a nation that was collapsing all around them, he began to wonder if anyone would be alive to save when it was over.
Chapter Sixteen
Monday, November 11
Driftwood Key
Jimmy walked gingerly up the sidewalk toward the front porch of the main house with the assistance of his father, who helped carry his weight. He’d been suffering cramps in his legs as a result of his dehydration and his herculean effort to tread water as he battled for survival. The doctors assured him his legs would return to normal functionality.
To assist in his recovery, he had been given several tubes of Hydralyte electrolyte tablets. The effervescent tablets were to be mixed with water and consumed by Jimmy throughout the next several days. They’d even provided him two cases of Essentia purified electrolyte water to ensure he was drinking something that hadn’t been contaminated by the fallout.
His limping gait meant nothing to Peter, who was fully recovered except for his strained vocal cords. He came bounding down the steps of the front porch and raced toward Jimmy to give his friend a hug. The two young men became emotional as they whispered to one another about their ordeal. Not because they sought privacy, it was all they could muster.
Lacey, who followed close behind Peter, couldn’t help herself. “I say we put it to a vote. Raise your hand if you think this mute button on Peter and Jimmy should be a permanent thing?” She quickly raised her hand. To her surprise, Phoebe raised hers as well.
Jimmy mouthed the words, “Mom? Really?”
She simply smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Children should be seen and not heard, even the ones who’ve grown up.”
The two gave one another a hug and pressed each other’s foreheads together for a brief moment. Without a doubt, the Free family, who’d always been close, now had an inseparable bond that could never be broken.
Sonny gave way to allow Peter to take over the job of helping Jimmy inside. Hank and Erin followed behind with the duffel bag and the supplies provided for Jimmy’s recovery. Lacey was the first to comment on the surgical masks they were wearing.
“Are you guys contagious with something or what?”
Her father responded, “Let’s get inside, and I’ll explain what I learned.”
Everyone made their way into the foyer until Hank led them into the bar, which had become the family’s unofficial living room. The dining area had remained off-limits until Phoebe’s return. It was always considered part of her domain within the main house.
After everyone got settled and Jimmy was provided a squeeze bottle bearing the Driftwood Key Inn logo full of electrolyte-infused water, Hank explained what the doctors had told him.
“You know, before all of this happened, I’d watch the news, and the weather guy would go on and on about the air quality index. My eyes would gloss over, and I’d wait to see the forecast. I learned a lot about AQI, the acronym used by the doctor to refer to air quality index. They take into account a lot of things like the ozone levels and particle pollution. She told me the pollution levels from soot particulates is off the charts. And what’s scary is you can’t really see it. I mean, sure, we all see the hazy skies. However, if
you just consider the air in your immediate vicinity, it seems normal. It’s not.
“There are all kinds of chemicals that are part of the soot and smoke that we’re ingesting. Carcinogens and benzopyrene, the types of substances found in cigarette smoke, can enter our systems through breathing it or by ingesting it through our skin and eyes.
“Let’s put it this way, she told me that it doesn’t matter how much food and water we have stored; if we don’t prevent this crap from entering our lungs and blood system, we’ll begin to suffer from respiratory failure, heart issues, and, like smokers, cancer.”
Peter rolled his eyes and said in a loud whisper, “Happy, happy. Joy, joy. I’ve been breathing in smoke since DC got nuked.”
“Okay, the masks are a good start,” added Lacey. “I guess we can make it a point to cover up when outside. Hats. Long sleeves and pants.”
“That’s not a problem with how cold it is,” said Tucker, who was used to chilly weather hitting the San Francisco Bay Area.
“What else can we do?” asked Lacey.
“Clean,” replied Hank. “It was stupid of me to suggest we could smoke cigars and crack the windows last night. We need to vacuum and wipe down everything. Also, we need to find a way to limit the amount of outside air that comes into the house.”
“We could come and go through the mudroom,” suggested Phoebe. “I’ll keep the door to the kitchen closed, and we could spray our clothing off with Lysol.”
“I doubt we have enough Lysol to last years, but it’s a start,” interjected Hank. “Let’s all think on it, and we’ll come up with a solution. For starters, let’s all plan on kicking off our shoes and remove any outerwear to be left in the mudroom. Sonny and I’ll create some peg hooks or cubicles to store our outdoor clothing.”
Sonny nodded, his weary face reflecting his exhaustion from worry and lack of sleep.