by Bobby Akart
That left the task of dealing with the alleged insurrectionists to a criminal investigations special agent who’d been dispatched from Camp Blanding, a military reservation and training base for the Florida Army National Guard located southwest of Jacksonville.
Lieutenant Virgil Robinson was not a full-time member of the Guard. He was also a correctional officer at the nearby state prison located in Starke. A CO for nearly twenty years, he had an unparalleled bullshit meter. Prisoners in maximum security were able to spend their days finely honing their con-man craft. They were able to sense weakness in their captors and fellow inmates. They learned what emotional tools worked and which ones didn’t in a particular situation. They also became adept at lying.
His experience made him an ideal interrogator, and that was exactly what the military police needed with their first two prisoners, Peter and Jimmy.
The guys were taken inside the bowels of the Homestead-Miami Speedway to a Miami-Dade Police department substation, where drunks were held in the event they acted out during a race event. Each was held in a separate cell, awaiting interrogation. They remained in their clothes but were given an MRE ration and a bottle of water. For several hours, they sat alone without any contact with each other. Nor did they encounter any other prisoners.
This unnerved Peter, who became concerned that the military would take out their anger towards Mayor Free and those in concert with her on him and Jimmy. He paced the floor of his cell, constantly looking through the bars toward the long hallway that led to the substation’s offices. He held his breath, focusing his senses to eavesdrop on any conversations that were being held.
The loud clank of the steel locking mechanism shattered the silence as a uniformed guardsman ambled down the hallway past Peter’s cell. The smug man didn’t even glance in Peter’s direction as he made his way to the end of the twelve cells to retrieve Jimmy first. Peter stood at the cell bars and waited for Jimmy to pass him by. The two men stared at one another, and as soon as the guard’s attention was away from Peter, he raised his right index finger to his lips. Jimmy provided his longtime friend an imperceptible nod, indicating he was still on board with the plan.
Hours passed, during which time Peter nervously paced the floor of his six-by-ten-foot cell, which consisted of a concrete slab and a stainless-steel toilet-sink combo. The miniscule amount of ambient light that emanated from the single window providing a glimpse to the outside was insufficient for him to make out his surroundings.
He continued to pace the floor. Every third or fourth trip around the sixty-square-foot space, he stopped at the cell door and listened. It had to be approaching midnight when he finally sat down and tried to make sense of it all.
Where was Jimmy? Why would his questioning take so long if he had nothing to say? Or did they break him? It would mean nothing as far as Peter’s level of complicity was concerned, but it might make it impossible to gain Jimmy’s release. Peter knew enough about martial law to realize the government had the power to lock people up indefinitely, virtually without cause. “Rights,” they’d say. “You ain’t got no stinkin’ rights.”
Suddenly, the same clanging sound he’d heard when the guard arrived earlier brought him back into the present. He scampered back to the cell door and tried to press the side of his face between the bars to get a look at Jimmy.
Another guard had returned without him. Peter didn’t wait to begin peppering the man with questions.
“Where’s the other guy?” he asked as he tried to maintain the façade that the two of them didn’t know each other that well. “Did you let him go? Can I leave now?” His tone of voice reflected his genuine concern. Prisoners feared the unknown and had difficulty coping with uncertainty. Peter was about to learn how a skilled investigator like Lieutenant Robinson used that to his advantage.
“Turn around and stick your arms through this slot,” said the guard, who slapped the flat opening in the cell door with the palm of his hand.
Peter complied without comment, and seconds later he was handcuffed again, but this time with the traditional nickel-finish, chain-link style. His anxiety levels shot up as he was led down the hallway into the outer offices of the police substation. There was more activity than earlier when he had been brought in. A map of Homestead, which included the roads leading onto the Keys, was hung on one wall. A whiteboard containing the names and titles of Monroe County’s highest-ranking government officials filled another wall.
“This way,” said a heavyset man who suddenly emerged from an office next to the whiteboard. He never made contact with Peter, instead addressing the guard who escorted him until this point.
Peter was led into a room with a single folding table and two uncomfortable side chairs. He doubted, under ordinary circumstances, that the Miami-Dade police would have a reason to interrogate prisoners. This appeared to have been thrown together for his benefit.
“Take a seat, sir. I’m Lieutenant Virgil Robinson with the Army National Guard’s Military Police. I’d like to come to an agreement with you on something from the beginning. Would that be okay?”
“Yes, sir,” said Peter. Humble and polite.
“If you’ll be honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. Fair enough?”
“Yes, it is,” Peter replied, using a different response so as not to appear disrespectful or robotic. He was tapping on what he’d learned in press briefings during his career as a reporter in Washington. Seasoned journalists, liked police investigators, could see through someone being disingenuous.
Robinson nodded and put on his reading glasses, which he’d retrieved from the shirt pocket of his fatigues. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Straight up. You need to know what I can and cannot do.”
Peter sat up in his chair and nodded. He listened intently as the man laid out the harsh realities of the president’s declaration of martial law. Peter absorbed every word before coming to a harsh conclusion. He and Jimmy were screwed.
“Sir, you asked for honesty, so here it is. I’m from Washington. My name, as I told the guards, is Peter Albright. I’m a reporter for the Washington Times, and I’ve almost died four times trying to get home to my family. It’s as simple as that.”
Robinson thumbed through papers attached to a file folder with black binder clips. He scowled as he slowly appeared to read every word twice and backwards. Peter nervously sat there, forcing himself not to get chatty.
“What’s your connection to the other man? Jimmy, right?”
Peter was at a crossroads. He had to decide whether Jimmy had held up during the interrogation. His friend had never experienced the kind of pressure that a military investigator was capable of bringing upon him. It would’ve been easy for Jimmy to slip up and make a mistake during the hours of questioning he must’ve endured.
Yet where was he? If he held his tongue, wouldn’t he have been returned to his cell? Maybe he’d told the truth, and they’d determined he was a minor player in this whole scheme and let him go? Or maybe he didn’t break and they’d secured him elsewhere to trick Peter.
He inwardly chastised himself for not thinking about this scenario before he was brought in to be interrogated. He’d paused for too long, and Robinson noticed his delay.
“Young man, this is not a difficult question.”
Peter feigned a cough as if he was clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t slept in a few days, and I almost died earlier today. My head’s not a hundred percent clear.” But, then, you probably banked on that, didn’t you?
“Do you know this Jimmy person or not?” asked the lieutenant.
Peter stifled a smile. He’d never mentioned Jimmy’s last name. He held firm.
“I was running across the bridge like a dozen others. I’d hurt myself, and Jimmy stopped to help me. When the bridge blew up, he fell over the edge but held on to some rebar. Because he helped me, I helped him.”
Robinson continued to pause between each exchange of questions and answers. He tapped the back of th
e file folder. “When you were running toward the bridge, what did he say to you?”
Peter furrowed his brow. His interrogator was searching. “About what?”
“Anything. Did he tell you to hurry because the bridge was about to blow up, for example?”
“Um, no. Not that I can recall. It was pretty chaotic with all the people rushing toward Key Largo.”
“What about after you helped him?”
“No, not really. He thanked me, and we just kinda lay on the road, catching our breath. It wasn’t easy.”
“You knew he worked for the Monroe County Sheriff’s department, right?”
“No. Well, I mean, not until I saw his shirt. It wasn’t long after I pulled him up that people were running toward us with the National Guardsmen.”
“Hmmm,” muttered Robinson.
He abruptly stood from his chair and walked out of the room. Peter never saw him again.
Chapter Ten
Wednesday, November 6
Monroe County Administration Offices
Key West
Mayor Lindsey Free snuck out of the rear entrance of the Monroe County Administration offices without saying a word to her staff. She didn’t want them to see the harried look on her face. Lindsey, who’d quit smoking years ago, found that the apocalypse was as good an excuse as any to light up again.
She took a long drag on the Marlboro Menthol cigarette, allowing the cool sensation to block the otherwise harsh irritation she felt in her throat when she smoked regular cigarettes. She walked briskly through the parking lot reserved for county vehicles until she emerged under the tree canopy behind the Bad Boy Burritos location on Catherine Street. The restaurant was closed, and the revelers who usually filled every street of the downtown area at that time of night were no longer in town.
Lindsey had effectively orchestrated the eviction of all nonresidents as well as quite a few vagrants from the Keys. She knew she faced difficult challenges ahead to protect, feed and care for her permanent residents. Days prior, after a heated screaming match between Lindsey and the president’s chief of staff, she’d made up her mind to ready the Keys for the possibility of a federal government takeover.
Her decision to remove people from the Keys was a humane one in her mind. She had no intention of feeding them, as her constituents had to come first. By moving them out quickly, she gave them a better opportunity to get to their homes before society collapsed further.
Instituting a blockade of the two bridges leading onto the Keys was a difficult one but necessary. It made no sense to reduce the island chain’s population to legal residents, only to leave the bridges open for them to return at some point.
To be sure, as many members of her staff had pointed out, the destruction of the bridges was a drastic measure, and it would be costly to rebuild. Privately, the county attorney told her it was likely criminal. To give her cover, he drafted an executive order that mirrored the one issued by the president. It also added language that allowed her to close off the county to outsiders because they might be a public health risk.
The reasoning was a stretch, but it was the only way she could protect the lawful residents of the Keys. As it turned out, Monroe County deputies patrolling the northernmost part of the county on the mainland had observed the National Guard coming across Alligator Alley. When the convoy headed toward Homestead, she ordered the bridges destroyed. It was a challenge to find sufficient TNT to bring the two structures down. Drafting volunteers to strategically place the explosives on the bridge supports required promises of expensive homes to live in and food rations on par with her executive team. The latter was a promise she’d most likely break.
Food in the Keys was a real issue. Many residents had rushed out and emptied the shelves at the first hint of a nationwide shortage. Restaurant owners had emptied their storerooms and hid food in their homes to prevent it from being stolen.
During those early days as the onset of nuclear winter took its toll, Lindsey had been constantly calculating and analyzing how she could take care of the most people with the limited resources the county had. She quickly determined there would have to be some kind of shared sacrifice in order for everyone to have a chance to survive.
After the bridges were destroyed, her goal was to turn her attention to creating food banks up and down the Keys, using county rations together with food from businessowners who had hoarded it for themselves. Both the president’s declaration of martial law and her own executive orders gave her administration carte blanche to confiscate everything.
Food. Beverages. Medical supplies. Vehicles. Boats. The work product of any business. Land. You name it. If it was an asset, it could become the property of Monroe County.
She and the sheriff agreed to take the next day to regroup before formulating a framework for identifying items to confiscate and to be warehoused for subsequent distribution. It had been a long twenty-four-hour workday, and she was ready to go home.
In fact, she was on her way out the door when a courier delivered a letter ostensibly from the President of the United States. She had no idea how it had managed to make its way through her checkpoints or onto the Keys following the destruction of the bridges. Nonetheless, it had reached her hands, so she felt compelled to read it.
On the one hand, she thought it was humorous. She really couldn’t understand why her tiny county was of such great concern to a president who should really have his hands full dealing with the big picture. For some reason, the president had taken her stubborn and obstinate position regarding the roadblocks personally. The animosity between the two only became worse when she destroyed sections of a federal highway.
The words scribbled on the handwritten note could’ve been a forgery, but the more she thought about them, the more she believed the letter to be genuine. It simply read—This isn’t over, followed by the letters POTUS.
Chapter Eleven
Wednesday, November 6
Gulf of Mexico
Near Dauphin Island, Alabama
After everyone enjoyed a meal of smoked fish, canned sardines and crackers, the women found a comfortable spot in the crew’s quarters to sleep. Lacey told Andino she was most comfortable navigating during the daylight although their visibility would be greatly reduced due to the ever-present sooty atmosphere.
Andino gave Tucker a crash course in boating mixed with a number of fishing stories from the present and the past. Despite their weariness, the two were alert and attentive to the perils of traveling in the dark waters off the coast. Once they entered Alabama and cleared Dauphin Island, Andino included Tucker in assessing whether they should set their course directly across the open waters of the Gulf or continue to navigate using the shoreline as their guide.
“Under these circumstances, the main benefit of following the coastline is we can summon help if the engines fail or something else happens,” began Andino. “The downside is that, believe it or not, we add a couple of hundred miles to the trip. That’s a lot of fuel consumed that I believe you and your mom will need to get to Marathon, where your grandfather’s place is.”
“Can we make it to the Keys if we hug the coast?”
Andino furrowed his brow. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Can we refuel or top off the tanks in Tarpon Springs?”
The experienced sailor ran his fingers through his hair. He knew everyone in the tiny fishing town, and they were all good people. But things had changed since the nuclear war came to America. He was sure Bay St. Louis had been full of nice people, too. That was no longer the case.
“You can’t count on that,” he replied after some sober thinking.
“The worst case is we get stuck out in the open, obviously,” said Tucker as he processed the options in his mind. “But if we did, all of us would be together to help get through it.”
“True,” Andino added. Then he unselfishly added, “It’s riskier, and we’re putting a lot of trust in this vessel, but it will shave a da
y off the trip and give you a better chance of making it all the way.”
It would have been safer for Andino and his family to follow the coastline. There was sufficient fuel to make it to Tarpon Springs even with the increased time and longer route. He was appreciative of the risks Lacey and Tucker had taken to get them to this point. It was the least he could do to return the favor in his own way.
Tucker turned toward the bow and slapped the teak trim that wrapped its way around the boat’s console. He adopted a cartoon pirate’s voice and pointed ahead. “Chart our course, Captain. Across the Gulf we shall sail!”
Andino laughed and then gently pulled Tucker’s arm toward the right. “This way, actually. Maybe we should talk about the use of the compass and nautical charts now.”
Chapter Twelve
Wednesday, November 6
National Guard Encampment
Homestead-Miami Speedway
Homestead, Florida
Peter woke up with a start as a door slammed in the outer offices of the police substation. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep, as exhaustion had swept over him when he laid his head down on top of the table. He could hear muffled voices outside the door, and he stood to look through the small eight-inch-by-eight-inch window. Before he could make out who was speaking, the rattle of keys grabbed his attention, and he shot backwards into his chair. He took a deep breath and awaited his fate.
A guard walked in and threw a clipboard on the table in front of Peter. He tossed a pencil on top of it and then slowly moved around the table until he was standing behind Peter.
“Stand up and hold still,” he ordered.