Back in Milledgeville, the sun was rising over the trees, illuminating a light-blue sky patched with clouds. Everyone awoke to the somber reality of their situation. It was a busy morning, with no time to spend for recuperating. They were preparing for a new journey, but with little hope, since nothing yet had gone as planned. Because of this, there was a fair amount skepticism about going to D.C.
Without James, there was no real reason to stay, and everyone knew it. Their rural hideaway—their self-sustaining safe house—felt no freer from thugs than the cities they had gone to such great lengths to avoid. Going to Washington wasn't going to change anything. Their actions as a whole weren't going to change anything. The only option they had left, it seemed, was to stick together and survive.
Their final morning in Milledgeville was a somber affair. Christina and Tobias were already up loading the van with the remaining fuel, food, weapons, and ammo. They hoped that they could scrounge up more supplies somewhere along the way. Additional weapons taken from the dead among Russell's militia were added to their arsenal. As they loaded the van, Terrance worried about the van’s condition. It was a relic, something for emergencies. He had already pushed it driving to Atlanta and back. To push a van as old as he was for an additional six hundred miles seemed like wishful thinking.
He alerted Christina to his concern as they put the last box of their supplies in the van. “I'm not completely sold on this whole D.C. idea yet.”
“It's been decided, Terrance. What’s the issue?”
“It's the van. Over two hundred and fifty thousand miles. Half a tank of gas. Only two five-gallon cans left of fuel. You tell me, does that sound like a recipe for success?”
“We can't be doubting ourselves right now.”
“I'm on board with the plan,” Terrance said, closing the back doors. “We just need to be prepared in case we only make it half the way.”
Christina breathed in, preparing to speak, but Terrance cut her off. “And if halfway means a place with power, that's where we'll stay. Ain't nothing in D.C. but crooked politicians, drug dealers, and criminals.”
“Hey, we have friends who live there. Have you forgotten about them?”
“You know what I mean,” Terrance said, shaking his head.
As Terrance and Christina talked near the van, Mark and Janice were busy trying to boil coffee over the fire. Richie, Tobias, and Paula crawled out of their sleeping bags looking exhausted but eager to move on.
“Good morning,” Janice said to the kids as they rubbed their eyes and began to stand on wobbly legs.
“Morning,” Richie said. Tobias and Paula looked too dazed to respond. They didn’t completely understand how or why James was killed. Their parents tried to shield them from the truth by calling it a tragic misunderstanding, but Paula knew better.
After dividing a small amount of food from their reserves stash, which included almonds, dried banana chips, and powered drink mix, they prepared for an exodus into the unknown. Terrance tried to remain optimistic for his children, telling them that everything was going to be OK.
“Just put it all out of your heads for now. We're moving to greener pastures,” he said.
Richie, Tobias, and Paula nodded. The sight of the bug-out house in ruins was just as unbelievable to them that morning as it was the night before.
As everyone got ready to leave, Mark and Janice took one last stroll around the ruins of the bug-out house.
“You don't regret leaving home, do you?” Janice asked.
“Not at all,” Mark said. “We did everything we were supposed to. Things just didn't work out. But I'm glad we're in this together, because I don't know what I'd do without you.”
Janice did her best to muster a smile, which wasn't much. “Me too.”
The group gathered by the van and took one last look at their former bug-out house. Terrance started the van. Christina insisted Mark sit in the front. She wanted to be as close to her children as possible. Janice squeezed into the back and sat at the end of the first bench seat. Richie, Tobias, and Paula sat on the second one behind her. Christina shut the door and sat next to Janice.
“Everyone good to go?” Terrance asked.
The group nodded. He put the van in Drive and drove down the hill leading away from the house, past James's grave in the front yard, and onto the dirt road that took them onto the state road out of Georgia. Their fortunes were riding on an ambiguous plan based on second-hand information. They were taking a risk, but their options were limited. They wanted answers and had nowhere else to find them.
***
Outside Atlanta, Georgia: 9:05 p.m. Sunday, October 4, 2020
Mason sat behind the wheel of the rattling Humvee squinting into the distance at the long, darkened road ahead. One of the headlights had gone out, making it harder to see. He had pushed the vehicle to its top speed of fifty-five, in a hurry to find the pieces to the elaborate puzzle he hoped to solve. If pushed any harder, the vehicle felt like it would simply explode. He was not yet out of Georgia and still had over six hundred miles to go.
Under the bulbous moon of a dry night, he navigated through the endless abandoned cars in his path. The interstate seemed to have no end, much like the torment of his physical pain. In every sense, it was a miracle that he had so far survived. Being hit by the van should have killed him. Just as the beating he had taken from the Colombians should have. He would have felt invincible had he not been in so much pain.
Mason did the math and figured that he could get to D.C. in ten to twelve hours at his current speed, if he was lucky. Such a prospect seemed hopeless. Fuel was a primary concern, but Mason was a resourceful man in addition to having a good sense of direction. He had served in the Air Force for four years, attended college, and earned a degree in computer engineering, He soon entered the private sector as an IT administrator but lost his job in a series of mass layoffs.
By 2015, Mason was notified of a job opportunity in the NSA after months of unsuccessfully searching for work. After taking the position and passing the subsequent security requirements, Mason soon found himself working again on behalf of the government.
This time, however, he couldn't believe the things they were doing, and the extent of NSA monitoring at home and abroad. But he kept his mouth shut about his role in the government's massive and unprecedented spy program, one that harvested the personal information of 300 million American citizens.
He had seen what happened to whistleblowers in the past. They were ostracized, expelled, charged with espionage, and forced to flee the country for their own safety. They lost their jobs, their retirement pensions, and had their security clearances revoked. Sometimes it was better just to do the job and remain quiet. What the American public didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
The official reasoning behind the NSA's wide-ranging surveillance was based on the need to protect Americans, but it made little sense to Mason that the net had to be cast so wide. There was no longer any differentiation between those who posed a threat and those who didn't. Everyone had a file. Actors, reporters, governors, congressman, Supreme Court justices, generals, gardeners, teachers, cab drivers, homemakers, writers, doctors, self-employed handymen, children, retirees—it made no difference; the NSA was watching them all. It wasn't long before the national surveillance program, known as OPTICS, extended beyond the U.S. to monitor the activities of foreign nationals, leaders, and governments.
With this extension, clues to the EMP attacks were inadvertently gathered and stored. When shown some of the encrypted messages, Mason couldn't believe that such an elaborate scheme was being seriously considered. But the information only went so far before being stifled. The NSA had been infiltrated at the highest levels, and it wasn't long before other data analysts starting disappearing.
One evening, Greg, a friend and coworker of Mason's, set up an urgent meeting at an old coffee shop. When they met, Greg was paranoid and shifty. He explained his findings and said that all confidential data relating
to the EMP strikes had been destroyed, and anyone possessing knowledge of the upcoming attacks had been dealt with accordingly.
“This goes beyond the President,” Greg said as sweat poured from his round melon-shaped head. “We're talking New World Order shit. Under their plan, America doesn't even exist anymore. Certainly not the way we think of it today.”
Greg left in a hurry, but not before leaving behind something for Mason under a napkin. It was the USB drive, full of every bit of information that would prove the mass conspiracy now evident before him. Mason would most likely have ignored Greg's pleas for him to go into hiding had he not came home to find his apartment ransacked and his girlfriend, Rebecca, lying strangled to death on the floor. It could have been considered nothing more than a tragic home invasion, but Mason knew better. They must have gotten to Greg, and now they were after him. It was that simple.
Many memories had come back to Mason since the van accident. He had hidden the USB at a farm on Oak Street, twenty miles outside Atlanta, south of Athens. He was close, he could feel it. He wasn't sure why he hid the USB drive in the pumpkin in the first place. He also couldn't remember how he had ended up in Georgia; after all, he lived in Woodbridge, Virginia. Perhaps he had been running as far from Virginia as possible.
On the porch of an abandoned farmhouse on Oak Street, he miraculously found the pumpkin still there. It had rotted and collapsed slightly, but the contents still remained inside, right where they were supposed to be. With the Humvee still running loudly—and its one headlight illuminating the front porch—Mason looked around frantically for signs of anyone else.
He knew that the agency had not given up their search. They would find out about the hospital, the Colombians, and the stolen Humvee. It wasn't long before they would deploy a cavalry of helicopters and drones to find him. It wouldn't be that hard, all they had to do was look for a lone Humvee driving down I-85 toward North Carolina. Mason didn't waste a second. He ran to his waiting vehicle and drove down the dirt road in a fury, more determined than ever.
Washington D.C.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, 11:00 p.m. Sunday, October 4, 2020
The Oval Office was in a frenzy unlike anything seen in Clancy Redgrave’s second term as President of the United States. After winning the reelection, he considered his administration ready for anything. The writings on the wall, however, seemed to have escaped his foreign and domestic agenda. Redgrave, a moderate Democrat and former governor of New York, had run on a non-specific platform of peace and prosperity. He promised to continue his policies to end ongoing military conflicts and reverse the country’s declining economy. Neither had happened in his first term.
Now he was faced with a national crisis of unprecedented levels. His staff advisors were proposing restraint. His national security team and military advisors stressed swift action. Somewhere in all the chaos, the CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security had presented him with bombshell information linking the attacks to a newly formed axis, which included Egypt, Libya, and Iran.
The President was due to address the nation the next morning after receiving his briefing, and there was much speculation about what he was going to say. The press demanded answers. Washington D.C. did, in fact, still have its power grid intact as well as mobility and communications. It was one of the few major areas of the country that had not been hit with an EMP. As the President struggled to maintain order in the Oval Office amid twenty or so advisors shouting over each other, his wife, Margaret, the First Lady, sat on the couch clutching a Presidential pillow in her arms.
They knew of the breakdown of several major cities, and the desperate attempts of governors to maintain law and order. The country was crumbling around them, and there seemed little they could do to contain it. Each day, the reports got worse. States descended into chaos, mismanagement of resources reigned in all areas. There was looting, mass rioting, death, and destruction. The military had been spread thin. FEMA had been overwhelmed. Law enforcement was understaffed with reports of officers leaving their jobs to be with their families. President Redgrave wondered how things had gotten so bad so fast. Whatever the intent of the attacks, America had been effectively brought to its knees.
An urgent meeting was called in the Situation Room to assess the measures to be taken against the countries said to be responsible for the attack. The Oval Office emptied as fast as it had filled up earlier as the President rushed off for another briefing, leaving his wife to cope on her own. They hadn’t slept in days. Things were so bad that even the President and First Lady hadn’t heard from their own out-of-state relatives since the EMP strikes occurred.
The room was full of top-ranking officials from every department. Several aides stood cramped around those seated at the table. The screens on the wall projected images of affected areas across the nation. Black indicated a presumed “blackout” status, while areas in green were those that still had their power grids intact. The entire country was nearly consumed by black, all but some mid-west states such as Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Kansas, and Nebraska. The pattern was baffling. No one, no matter their expertise, knew why certain areas were attacked and others were not.
The President stood at the head of the table, flanked by advisors, waving a thick report the size of a novel. He immediately called on the director of the NSA, Scott Jenkins, to elaborate.
“If I’m reading this correctly, you mean to tell me that the NSA collected correspondence between these three Middle Eastern countries that proves they conspired to launch EMP attacks against our country?” The President looked tired and disheveled. His hair had grayed during his presidency and had now lost its color completely. He looked frailer than ever, not over 120 pounds. If it wasn’t for the presidential jacket he wore, no one would think that the skinny, unshaven man before them with glasses resting on the tip of his nose was the President.
“That’s what we’ve determined, Mr. President,” Jenkins replied as murmurs of outrage filled the room.
President Redgrave looked to his CIA and Homeland Security directors in desperation. “And your reports confirm the same?”
Bill Simmons, the pudgy CIA director and lifelong bureaucrat, fumbled to straighten his glasses and address the President. “Uh, yes, Sir. I mean, we don’t have access to the same level of information afforded to the NSA, but I can say that these claims of Middle Eastern involvement fall completely in line with their repeated threats against the U.S. as well as their promise to extend the reach of their totalitarian regimes across the region.”
The President slammed his fists onto the table, startling everyone in the room. “I have to address the country in a matter of hours! I need us all to be on the same page here. One day, I’m hearing that the Iranians did it. The next it’s China. Before that, it was the Russians. Hell, just the other week, you reported to me that Cuba may have been behind it. Fucking Cuba! We need evidence. Hard, substantial evidence that we can present to the United Nations in order to reach a peaceful resolution to this matter. We need to restore order to this country and rebuild our electronic infrastructure.”
Jenkins cleared his throat and removed his glasses. “Mr. President, may I suggest that such passive actions could prove detrimental in the long run.”
“Detrimental?” President Redgrave asked, leaning forward. He moved away from the table and pointed to the map of the United States projected behind him. “The latest reports of casualties in the blackout states since the EMP strikes run in the hundreds of thousands. How much more detrimental can we get than that?”
Jenkins seemed unnerved despite the President’s shouting at him. “I’m simply saying, Sir, that the role of the NSA is to collect cyber intelligence. Our information, without a shadow of a doubt, implicates the countries of Egypt, Iran, and Libya in attacks on our country. We know of their exact launch sites throughout the Middle East. They bypassed our radars from technology made possible by misguided treaties proposed by the previous administration.”
“And you’re sure a
bout this?” The President asked.
“Yes,” Jenkins answered.
The President looked at the two generals sitting at the table and then at his CIA director. “And you’re in agreement with this?”
Breathing heavily under his girth, Simmons replied as the generals nodded. “We’ve received similar intelligence; however, I must admit that I never personally cared for the amount of nondisclosure the NSA has with their intelligence. It’s as if we’re just supposed to take their word about things.”
“We’re all on the same team here, right?” Jenkins asked, cutting in.
“Yes, I certainly hope so,” Simmons replied.
“Well, then let’s quit playing games with the lives of the American people and do something about this egregious attack on this country. Mr. President, the decision is all yours.”
The President took a step back and ran his hands through his white hair. The tension in the room had reached an exhausting fever pitch of confusion and grandstanding. After taking a deep breath, President Redgrave continued. “All right, gentlemen, that will be all for now. I have to comb through this report line by line before I come to a decision. I have to know exactly what to say in my address.”
He stopped and looked around the room at all the eyes fixed upon him. Going to war was against everything he had ever believed throughout his entire political career. There had to be a peaceful solution to the attacks. The United Nations could advise them. They could put sanctions on the newly formed axis and limit their sphere of influence, or at least that was his thinking.
The President then took another look at the casualty counter on the screen behind him. Ten thousand more had just been reported dead in riots. The FEMA camps had also reached maximum capacity, and all attempts to control the situation and contain the citizens in stadiums or makeshift refugee camps had turned disastrous.
He called for quiet and spoke with a clarity not seen in years by any of his advisors. “If talks fail, prepare for immediate military response against these aggressor nations. We may just have to send them further into the Stone Age. They won’t even know what hit them.” With that, he stormed out of the room, leaving his countless advisors stunned.
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