“Did you know that there was another riot yesterday?” John asked, and Barbra nodded.
“Yes, we got some of the injured in the clinic.”
“Do you know what it was about?”
“No, I never did find out,” she said.
“It was over toilet paper. Fucking toilet paper!” he almost screamed. “I used to read about the long lines for bread, tiny allotments of fatty meat, and toilet paper, of all things, in the old Soviet Union. People were starving, but the fat cats in the Kremlin were eating caviar off gold plated dishes,” John said, taking another drink. He was feeling quite good. The liquid had lubricated his tongue, and what he really felt was starting to come out.
“Those Russians were spending billions on nuclear weapons, while the citizens were starving. It’s no different than here and now, only on a much smaller scale,” she said sadly. “The president doesn’t give two licks about us. Maybe he didn’t come right out and say it, but his actions speak volumes. He only cares about his power, not us in the slightest. Now you tell me some other guy has those codes, and has launched a nuclear bomb somewhere. Maybe killed hundreds or thousands of people, and you think he’s a good guy?”
“I’m not sure of his intentions when he launched the missile, but from all that I gathered, it was a last resort kind of thing. He didn’t, and still has yet to lay claim to ruling anyone. You said it yourself a few moments ago, actions speak louder than words. This sergeant major out west has shown me he just wants to be left alone, him and his other settlement in Hawaii. He does have the power on, he is feeding his people, and they’re all working together. Nuclear weapons or not, he seems to have his shit together, unlike the former Secretary of Urban Renewal,” John said, pouring himself yet another drink.
“A last resort? John, have are you listening to yourself? Maybe he might think that a last resort is to launch another missile here on Washington because of that wingnut over on Pennsylvania Avenue. We could all be killed, damn it!”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?”
With a fearful expression, she reached out and took hold of his hand. “John, we’ve got to get out of here. We have to leave right now!”
“We can’t.”
“Why can’t we?” she gasped. “We can pack up a few things right now, and be far away by morning!”
“He’s ordered all the guards at the checkpoints around the city to not let anyone leave, ‘for our own safety’ he says,” John told her, downing his drink in one gulp, ice long gone.
The color drained from Barbra’s face. “Oh my God. You mean to tell me we’re all prisoners now?”
“That’s about the long and short of it.” He topped off their drinks and sat in silence, letting the alcohol flow through his blood.
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure exactly, babe. I do know I just can’t leave all these people to suffer and die. They’ve all been through the same nightmare as us, and we deserve better.”
“We can’t stay here. We’re completely out of antibiotics. We have been for a while. What can you do?”
John swatted a mosquito that had landed on his neck, and thought for the first time about Yellow Fever, something he’d never dreamed of in a major city in the States before, and he shuddered. “I know we can’t stay here, but I just can’t let everyone here suffer much longer. We need someone who is a leader. Someone who will get everyone together again, not just scrounging around for scraps. I warned the sergeant major because I think he’s the one that I think can pull us all together again.”
“How in the world can one man, a man that’s thousands of miles away in Arizona, help us now? Especially since they’ve gone out there to arrest or possibly kill him to get what they want?”
“That I couldn’t tell you, but I’m going to help him anyway I can.”
“What about us?” she asked.
“When I’ve done all that I can, you and I will get out of here. Go to Florida like you suggested a few months ago.”
“You’ve already said they’ve blocked all the exits. How are we going to do that now?”
“Leave that to me. We can’t leave now, but it’s a big city, and there’s bound to be holes somewhere. They haven’t erected a Berlin Wall,” he said.
“Yet,” Barbra remarked flatly, arms now crossed over her chest.
“Not yet, no. I need to find a hole. There are not enough people to watch every egress route. In the meantime, I’m going to do everything I can to help this guy out west.”
“How will you do that?”
“By doing exactly what I have been doing, babe, giving him as much intelligence as I can get to him. Which, to be honest, isn’t a whole hell of a lot.”
Barbra took another sip of her drink, took the bottle, and poured herself another shot, eschewing the Coke altogether.
“This sergeant major has the right idea, I think. From everything I’ve gathered he’s rebuilding their society using the Constitution as a guide. That in itself is a good indication of his intentions. If we could just start a dialogue with him, pick his brain for more ideas, we’ll all be better off. The one thing I can do— and I should have done it a long time ago—is give the sergeant major the radio frequency that the major is using, so he can listen in to what they’re talking about.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, how is it that the radios are still working when all the other electric stuff isn’t? None of the medical equipment we need works, and we could really use some of that stuff.”
“Whatever killed everyone a few years ago came with what I think was an EMP.”
“Electromagnetic Pulse, I remember, you told me about it before. It fried all the circuit boards and stuff. That doesn’t explain the radios.”
“All of the older stuff that doesn’t have micro circuitry wasn’t affected. Like my vacuum tube Ham radio upstairs. It’s what the sergeant major is using. Those and all the military electronics, like the satellite radios and things like that were all hardened and shielded to protect against EMP. The major would have the same sort of radios also. I’ll just radio him with the frequencies and he’ll be able to listen in. Eavesdrop, so to speak.”
“Everything you’ve been doing is so damn dangerous! What happens to us if you get caught?”
“It can’t be helped.” John took her hand across the table. “Let me asked you a question; why did you become a nurse?”
“That’s easy, I wanted to help people and ease the suffering.”
“Exactly,” John said, his eyes drawn to a moth that had found the flame in the lantern and was fluttering around the yellowed globe, casting wild shadows around the dimly lit kitchen. “I’m only a second-generation American. My grandfather is Dutch. He was in Holland during the Second World War and at the young age of sixteen, was in the Dutch Underground, fighting the Germans. He told me the stories when I was a child, how he and his friends would run messages to radio operators from the various resistance groups and help the allies. He had to escape after his parents were arrested and executed by the Nazis. He fled to England, then after the war immigrated to the US. He never let me forget how important freedom was, and how special our country was. When I graduated high school and went on to college, I decided right then and there I’d do all I could for my country. I failed the enlistment physical for the Army,” he chuckled, “I got flat feet. Then I saw an advertisement for the Central Intelligence Agency. I thought of how brave my grandfather was, even as a kid, and I made up my mind to get a job with the CIA.”
“So you became a spy,” Barbra stated, her eyes twinkling playfully in the lantern light.
“Not quite. They didn’t make me into some James Bond, but I did have a degree in European relations, so they put me to work as an analyst, which suited me. I never, ever forgot my grandfather’s words about how important our way of life was, and promised myself I’d do anything I could, no matter how insignificant it might seem, to protect it.”
“And?” sh
e prodded.
“And now I am a spy. This is not the shining light on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of anymore. If I can do anything at all to get some of that light back, I’ll do it to. The United States might have died six years ago with everyone else, and it may never come back, but if this one sergeant major can bring back something similar, I’ll do anything in my power to help that along. I have to.”
“You’re right. America died, and it certainly isn’t here,” Barbra agreed. She too was lightheaded and, added to her sheer exhaustion from working fourteen hour days in the clinic, was getting drunk herself.
“It’s more than a town, or a city, or even borders on a map. It’s an idea, one that I won’t let die. I hope you understand.”
“So you’re willing to throw everything we have together away for an idea?”
“It’s not just an idea anymore. It’s an ideal. We have to strive for it, because if we don’t, we’ll be reduced to nothing more than slaves, and that, babe, is something worth fighting for. Yes, if it comes down to it, we die for it. I can’t let what is left of humanity slip into another Dark Ages.”
“And once you can’t do any more, if it gets too dangerous?” she asked, gripping his hand tightly.
“Then I promise you we’ll leave. I’ll find a way out. First I’d need to finish here.”
“We’ll go away? Someplace far, far away from here?”
“Yes, I promise. Soon,” he reassured her. “I’ll start to gather what we need tomorrow, but I’ve got to keep up appearances. And heading into the Pentagon every day I can find out more.”
“Just be careful,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I lost one whole family six years ago, and I’m not willing to lose you too. I couldn’t…” she put her face in her hands and began sobbing.
John’s heart sank. He stood on unsteady legs, circled the table, and pulled her into his arms.
“I won’t do anything stupid, I promise, and if it gets too dangerous, we’ll get out of here and go anywhere you want to go.”
She sniffled a few times and he pulled her face to him and looked down to her.
“I need to ask you to do something for me. For us I mean.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I know you’re short on medical supplies, but if we need to bug out, we need some stuff for us also. Can you get some things?”
“Like what?”
Anything you can think of. Not a lot, just stuff that we might need, things that we can take in a few backpacks. We’ll be travelling light if we do leave,” he told her.
“If? We are going to leave. I couldn’t stand another winter in this godforsaken place!”
“Okay, okay. When we leave,” he corrected himself.
“I’ll try. We’re so low on everything.”
“Just try, babe. We only need enough to tide us over until we get far enough south we can forage for ourselves. Mostly every place within a hundred miles or so has been stripped bare, so we’ll need some things until we get to where they haven’t looted yet.”
“When do you think we’ll be going?”
“I don’t know, maybe in a couple of weeks. Things are going to come to a head soon out west, and after that, I don’t know what’s going to happen. We got to be able to leave quickly if things go sour.”
He kissed the top of her head, and looked down at the lantern. The moth that had been flitting around the flame had been joined by another, and now they were sharing a kind of macabre dance, their shadows eerily large on the ceiling and walls.
Barbra slipped from John’s embrace sat back down at the table, and with a slightly shaking hand, picked up her tumbler and took another sip. John returned to his own seat and poured himself another straight double shot of the whiskey.
“Might as well have another drink,” he said, smiling at her. She returned his smile weakly, and held out her glass for a refill.
“I haven’t been this drunk since my first year in nursing school,” she giggled.
“You sheem to be holding your liquor quite well,” John slurred. “After tonight, I need to get drunk!”
“Do you have to go to the clinic in the morning?” he asked.
“No, the doctor gave me the day off. He wanted me to rest.”
“You have been working a lot, I was getting worried.” John sipped on his drink, the bottle of Coke completely forgotten.
“Sixteen straight days, I’m exhausted,” she said. “John, do you think you can do any good?”
“I’m going to try.”
“Ever since we first met, I could tell you were a man of principle.”
“Like the old song says, ‘you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything’. I’ve got to take a stand now.”
“And you’ve drawn me into your web of cloak and dagger, Mr. Bond!” she said, holding up her glass in a toast. “To spies like us!”
He raised his own glass. “Spies like us!”
“I know it wasn’t a martini, shaken, not stirred, but would you like to take me to bed, Mr. Bond?” Barbra asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Yesh, I would, Moneypenny!” John said in a really horrible Sean Connery imitation.
She cracked up laughing. “Bond never bedded Moneypenny!”
“I just rewrote the screenplay, my dear,” John replied. He took Barbra by the hand, leaving the two moths to their nocturnal waltz.
Chapter 17: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
Tim sat with his back against a tree inside a copse of trees on a hill overlooking Interstate 40 a mile east of Williams. It was a hot day for northern Arizona, and Tim looked out over the area with a pair of Zeiss binoculars. He dropped them to his side, pulled out a plastic one-quart canteen and took a few swallows of water.
He had his M3 grease gun lying in his lap, an ancient AN/PRC-77 radio propped up next to him. He was dressed in full Army ACU camouflage and patrol cap, as was Jimenez, who was seated similarly, a few feet to his right.
Tim replaced the cap to his canteen, and put in on the ground next to him, looked over at Jimenez. “Did you ever see this before?”
“No, Sar’ Major, I just fixed planes.”
“I’m going to make an infantryman out of you yet. I can’t have my kid running around with a Pog,” he told the younger man, smiling. “Taco, you are about to see what one man can do with a radio. Hand me the map,” he said, holding out his hand, and Jimenez passed over a topographical map.
Tim unfolded it, and checked the grid references for his intended ‘target’ for the exercise. “Taco, way back in 1985, I was still a corporal. I got sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to take the thirteen foxtrot course, Artillery Forward Observer. It was by no means the hardest, but it wasn’t an easy course. I needed a secondary MOS for promotion to E-5,” he said. MOS meant ‘Military Occupational Specialty’, in civilian terms, his ‘job’ in the Army. “Anyway, during the course I learned firsthand the power a nineteen year-old can have with one of these,” he said, holding up the telephone-like handset to the radio.
“I’ll bet,” Jimenez said.
“Watch and learn, Taco,” Tim said, bringing the handset up to his mouth. He pressed the push-to-talk button. “Wombat One, this is Lizard Six Actual, over.”
He released the button and waited for a response. A few seconds later the radio crackled, and Robyn’s disembodied voice came back over the speaker. “Lizard Six Actual, this is Wombat One, over.”
“Wombat One, adjust fire, over.”
“Lizard Six Actual, send it, over.”
“Wombat One, grid alpha tango seven three three zero five niner eight four, two one zero zero mils, troops in the open and soft-bodied trucks, over.”
“Roger, I copy grid alpha tango seven three three zero five niner eight four, two one zero zero mils, troops in the open and soft-bodied trucks. Break, one tube, eight one mike mike, two rounds, HE, two five seconds, out.”
“I copy one tube, eight one mike mike, two rounds, HE, two five
seconds, out,” Tim repeated into the handset.
A few seconds later, Robyn’s voice came back over the radio, “Shot, over.”
A moment after that, Tim and Jimenez could hear the distant ‘crump’ of the mortar firing two thousand meters to the west, and Tim replied, “Shot, out,” over the radio handset.
Robyn again came back on the radio. “Splash, over.”
Tim replied, “Splash, out,” and brought his binoculars back up to his eyes. The two men could now hear the loud whistle of two 81mm mortar rounds shrieking overhead, then the first round impacted in the center of the highway’s median and the base of a young pine, and detonated with a loud ‘wham!’ followed by the second round five seconds later, a few meters to the left on the cracked, weed strewn asphalt, with the same results.
While the thick black smoke and dust barely settled, Tim again held the handset to his mouth. “Add five zero, left one hundred.”
“Roger, add five zero, left one hundred, shot, over,” came Robyn’s reply.
“Shot, out!” Tim said into the radio, and the whole process was repeated. This time the two rounds landed right on and near the fading double-yellow line in the center of the westbound lanes of the deteriorating interstate.
Jimenez let out a long whistle, and as the dust and smoke dissipated, looked over at Tim in awe. “Holy shit, that was intense!”
“Told you,” Tim said winking at him. He picked up the radio handset. “Wombat One, this is Lizard Six Actual. Beautiful job! Mark down your numbers and secure for a while. I’ll have another fire mission for you in a while, Lizard Six Actual, out.”
“Roger, Wombat One, out!” came Robyn’s cheery reply.
Tim turned off the radio to conserve the battery, and stood, slinging his M3 over his shoulder and hanging the binoculars around his neck. “Taco, if you think a few 81mm mortar rounds was intense, you should see a Time-On-Target mission with a few batteries of 155mm howitzers. That shit is in-fucking-tense. Just imagine two, three, maybe even four howitzer batteries, all firing from different locations, all perfectly timed, so that every goddamn single round hits the target at the exact moment.”
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