The Final Day Read online

“John, we’d be a lot more secure if we moved this entire operation over to my place,” Ernie replied.

  “Why so?”

  “Simple. It is out of the way of prying eyes. Easier to maintain security. Plus, my diagnostic tools are there. I can run things 24-7 at my place. Come on; it’s the logical choice.”

  John hesitated as he thought it over and then just simply nodded. “Your place then, Ernie. I’m not going to mention this to our council. We keep it under wraps for a while. The kids stay at your place.”

  He hesitated and then smiled.

  “You house them and you feed them as well; that will justify their being pulled off of regular work details.”

  To his surprise Ernie did not object to that additional requirement.

  “You two got that?”

  There were eager nods.

  He sighed, wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck, put on his old forage cap that looked like a relic from the Civil War, stood up, and started for the door.

  Once he was outside, the cold was a bracing shock, the snow coming down hard so that he pulled his hat brim low to protect his eyes. He shuffled down the path out to the middle of the road, trying to let all the concerns of his life slip away at least for a few minutes. The weather was triggering so many memories. As he walked against the renewed snowfall, he found himself recalling a time when, as a boy, a storm like this would send him out hiking up to the South Mountain Reservation a few miles away from where he lived to find a favorite secluded spot in a pine grove. Knowing the reservation patrol officers were nowhere about on such a day, he’d build a fire and enjoy the snowfall, youthful imagination taking hold, that he was a sentry for General Washington, posted along that low ridgeline to keep an eye on the British over in Manhattan.

  But now? He simply longed to be back at his home for the rest of the day, sitting by the woodstove with Makala—unfortunately without any scotch to sip or cigarette to enjoy, but at least there was her company awaiting.

  He glanced over at the park along Flat Creek as he stepped out onto Montreat Road and chuckled softly. He couldn’t see the amorous young couple, but there was a plume of wood smoke swirling up from within a grove of trees and he smiled with the assumption that the two were nestled in there, enjoying the storm and solitude while being together.

  He shuffled on in silence, turning up the steep hill to his house above the old tennis courts, glad to see smoke rising from the chimney. Stamping the snow off his boots, he stepped inside and was surprised to see Maury Hurt in the sunroom, Makala by his side.

  “John, where in the hell have you been?” Maury asked excitedly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Bob Scales,” Maury announced with a grin. “We just got a message. He wants to meet.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John slowly read the message again, out loud, looking around at the nearly dozen men and women crammed into what had once been the office of the president of the college.

  I lament the sad news of the loss of our beloved J. I recall a day in May, when I last talked to her, the same date in May that holds different connotations now. My friend, please return so that we can meet and discuss so many things of importance to both of us.

  He put the transcript down and looked around the room.

  “And that is it?” Reverend Black asked. “Just that?”

  “I think it is fake,” Ernie stated, arms folded across his chest.

  “I don’t,” John replied.

  “Why?” Ernie’s query was picked up by several others in the overcrowded room.

  “J is obviously my Jennifer. The day in May—he knew that was Jennifer’s birthday. We were on the phone talking when the EMP hit, thus his reference to ‘connotations’ that others held regarding that day of days. It is something only Bob and I knew, a code to tell me it was really him.”

  “But tapped out in Morse code, for heaven’s sake, with a preface to first switch to a different frequency to receive the message, that in Morse code as well?” Billy Tyndall snapped. “It’s like some bad movie. Apparently, it had been going out for several days, until one of our ham listeners even realized it wasn’t just interference and remembered enough to start copying it down. Why not voice? What is this, 1941 or something? How many people even know Morse code today?”

  “Maybe that’s the point,” Maury said in response. “Who knows how many people saw the dropped message before it got into Bob’s hands?”

  “If this Bob is even alive, is he someone we can trust?” Forrest growled.

  John sighed and looked at the old Underwood typewriter resting on his desk, absently tapping the F key to see if his tinkering with it had solved the problem. The damned thing still continued to jam.

  “Let’s add in this latest news from the BBC,” John now added. “All correspondents within the territory of the United States to be deported because of an alleged breach of national security. BBC? England, perhaps our only ally left in this crazy world? Something is up; we all know that. But what?”

  “And you think your friend, if still alive, holds the answer?”

  “Anyone have a better suggestion?” John asked. “If so, put it out there.”

  He looked around the room. Most just sat with heads lowered; Maury was shaking his head.

  “I’ve got to take the chance and meet him.”

  “Back up there? How?” Maury snapped. “Gillespie thinks he can replace the coolant line, which was damaged as well, in a week or so, but the turbine blade is proving to be a real problem. But then what? Fly in, after being shot at last time, and expect the red carpet treatment? John, you and the rest of this council can order me to go, and I’ll tell you to kiss off for your own good.”

  Maury looked over at Forrest for support.

  “I only go into a hot LZ once, John, no repeat trips. I’m with Maury on this.”

  “And the fuel,” Danny McMullen added. “We burned through a lot of Jet A just going up there and back. I thought the intent was we keep that fuel in reserve in case we ever needed the Black Hawk for defense here. Even if they are ready to kiss our butts when landing, will they refuel us? John, they’ll seize that chopper as stolen government property, and if we’re ever let go, it will be one hell of a long walk back home.”

  John looked over at Makala, who insisted upon attending this meeting, and saw her nod of approval. The room fell silent again, the only sound that of hammering and sawing from the adjoining chapel, where half a dozen students were at work, still laboring to restore it to what it had once been before being partially destroyed during the fighting back in the spring.

  John took it all in and realized if he put it to a vote, no one would support his going. This was one of those times he wished he had not relinquished the power he once held as virtual dictator of this community during the first year after the attack. He returned his gaze to Makala, who sat in stoic silence, but her glance in reply said everything. Like most women in their final months of pregnancy, she held the trump card with her husband if he in any way cared for his wife.

  “All right,” he finally said with a sigh. “Alternatives?”

  “This guy, if he is real, is trying to reach out to you,” Reverend Black said, forcing a smile to try to ease the moment. “If real, he tried to reach out to you with that tragic messenger. Now this cryptic reply in Morse code.

  “Those two methods”—Black paused for a moment—“tell me that there is some important reason behind this entire affair, and he wants to keep his cards close, perhaps even from those around him. Acknowledge receipt of the message, counter with some alternative.”

  “If it is so all damn important, tell him to come here,” Forrest snapped.

  “Why not?” Black intervened. “Forrest is onto something. Tell him to come here.”

  The answer was so simple and obvious. As he contemplated it, John found himself wondering why he had not thought of that first. Perhaps a touch of the old hierarchy of command still held sway within him. When
a general summoned a colonel to a meeting, it was “Yes, sir, where and what time do we meet, sir?” and that was it.

  John smiled and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go for that. How and where?”

  “Asheville?” Frank Nelson, now the mayor of that town, suggested.

  John shook his head. “Too public. A helicopter coming in there just might spook folks who survived the fighting back in the spring to take a potshot at it.”

  “The Asheville airport, then,” Frank pressed.

  “We disabled the runway,” Black interjected, “and it means an overflight of all our territory around here. Chance for a good recon if he is not on the up-and-up.”

  “9A9,” Danny said quietly.

  “What?” John replied, not sure what he meant.

  “Old FAA designations for airports. All airports in public use were given a three-letter code. CLT for Charlotte, AVL for Asheville. Shiflet is an old grass strip airport in Marion, which is our territory. You come in over the mountains to the north, and there it is. No overflight of our territory.”

  “Then why not Morganton?” Maury asked.

  “Our disabled chopper is there,” Danny replied. “Even though it’s in a hangar, if he or the people with him poke around and see that and then they try to take it back, it would become a confrontation. Even if they don’t try to take it back, they’ll know our bird is down. Also, if they are planning some sort of nasty surprise, bringing in a lot of troops aboard an old C-130, we’re not offering them a big paved strip. Stripped down, they can land at Shiflet. But take off with all that snow on the ground?” He chuckled. “They can land, but then try to take off? If we see a C-130 coming in that can carry up to a hundred troops, we just bogey off and leave them stuck in the snow.

  “Shiflet would be ideal, John. Couple of dozen hangars, most of them ramshackle affairs like out of the 1930s. We put some heavily armed people in there as backup if they try to pull any stunts with a couple of choppers—hell, we might even pick up an extra bird or two if they try any crap. Plus, 9A9, you transmit that on Morse code, some geek listening in might not even recognize it and figure it is code for something else. I say 9A9 Shiflet.”

  John looked around the room and finally saw nods of agreement. “All right, then. Send out a response on the new frequency they shifted to. Ernie, can you and Danny figure it out? Something like 9A9, a date, and then Zulu time and see what the response is.”

  “And if they reply no deal, we go to meet them?”

  “Politely tell them to go to hell,” Makala replied sharply.

  * * *

  On the walk back from the meeting, John held Makala tightly by his side to ensure she did not slip and fall.

  “You aren’t trusting this, are you?” he asked.

  She laughed softly. “I never understood just how much a pregnancy can mess up one’s thinking. I want my husband by my side when the baby comes. I want him by my side as our baby goes through all those moments that then follow—the first smile, the first belly laugh, the first crawl, the first step, then the little hellion running amok around the house, and then one day—”

  She paused and began to choke up. “Damn it, I was never this way before, John. Yeah, someday, if this world ever turns sane again, that we watch our child graduate from college, your college, and still are together when they one day come through the doorway carrying their child, our child, the same way you look at Elizabeth and her toddler. I want that, and anything that might snatch it away fills me with dread.”

  She struggled to hold back her tears. “You heard Elizabeth after the father of her child was killed,” Makala continued, and now the tears were flowing, “bringing a child into the world with the baby’s father dead, the way she would cry herself to sleep at night. The times she would look at her boy and we could sense she could see the boy’s father being there, but he was not and never will be. Don’t get me wrong; her husband, Seth, is an incredible, decent young man, the spitting image of his father, Lee. The fear she carries now is that something will happen to Seth the same as it did to Ben. I carry that same fear. At least the idea of this mythical friend of yours coming here alleviates some concern, but even then, what if it’s a trap? Let’s just say that rather than your friend coming in to meet you, it’s half a dozen of those attack helicopters—or, for that matter, some plane loitering at thirty thousand feet, and they pinpoint your being at this remote airport and drop one of those fuel-air bombs I hear people talking about or even one of those neutron bombs as payback for what you did to Fredericks.”

  “If they really wanted me dead, they would have taken this place off the map months ago. That’s why I have to believe that Bob Scales is real, most likely in command of the forces up in Roanoke, and is trying to reach out to me, perhaps to prevent further bloodshed.”

  “It still makes me anxious.”

  He did not reply that it filled him with the same concerns and fears. If there was no reason for anxiety, if Scales was indeed alive, the overture to meet would have been overt, out in the open. Not like this.

  Whatever the reason, he did know one thing for certain: He had to find out the truth and find out now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Black Hawk, which had crested over Linville Gorge just a few minutes earlier, came sweeping in low over frozen Lake James, crossed over the railroad bridge that spanned the Catawba River where it emptied into the lake, and came sweeping down the length of the snow-covered runway at well over a hundred miles an hour.

  John shaded his eyes against the glare of the early morning sun, watching as it raced in, scanning it carefully with a pair of field glasses, feeling a touch of nostalgic pride at the sight of the chopper painted in faded desert camo, taking him back to the desert of Iraq so long ago when, filled with awe, he watched scores of them sweeping out ahead of his armored battalion.

  He spared a quick glance to Forrest, who was watching intently, silently, wondering what this torn-up veteran of Afghanistan was feeling at the sight and sound of a machine that meant that friends were overhead, ready to protect, ready to attack anything in their way.

  The chopper thundered past, the Doppler roar dropping in pitch as it passed, and then it pitched up in a steep turning climb.

  The pilot was hotdogging a bit, but then again, if he was coming into a potentially hostile site, it was standard to do at least one high-speed pass and if they drew any fire to get the hell out fast.

  He had more than fifty with him, concealed in several hangars and scattered in the wood line across the runway. If this was a setup for a trap, it was about to turn into one hell of a fight. Danny, who stood beside him, clutched a flare gun firmly in his gloved hand, ready to fire off the signal if anything looked even remotely hostile.

  The day was cold, crystal clear, perfect for keeping a sharp watch aloft. Several of his people, concealed under white blankets, were doing just that, sweeping the sky overhead for any telltale glint or whisper of a contrail indicating that someone was hovering up at twenty thousand feet, just waiting to unleash a Hellfire or gravity-dropped munitions.

  The chopper, leveling off from its high-speed pass, circled around, the sound shifting as the pilot throttled back, pitching the nose up slightly to bleed off speed as he started to make a landing approach.

  “So far, so good,” John whispered as if to himself.

  He looked around at his friends Danny, Maury, Forrest, and Lee, who stood to either side, all watching intently and waiting for the slightest suspicious act.

  A hell of a world we have become, John thought. There was a time when we never would have doubted the sight of a helicopter with that star on its side. But now?

  The chopper continued to settle, kicking up a near whiteout of swirling snow, the pilot edging it toward where John had ordered that Forrest’s 4×6 should be parked as an indicator of their presence.

  “If this goes bad,” Forrest complained, “you own me a new vehicle and the gas that took it here.”

  John said nothing, t
he chopper all but invisible as snow swirled about, a glimpse of it then touching down, turbine engines throttling back, and as the snow began to settle, he saw the side door swing open.

  Even from this distance, he could see that it was indeed him. It was Bob.

  John stepped out of the concealment of the hangar, ignoring the protests of his friends, Lee cursing and then stepping out behind him and protectively moving in by his side. The rotors continued to wind down, and he started to lift a hand to cover his face from the stinging blast but thought better; he wanted Bob to see that it was indeed him and not some sort of setup.

  Bob leaped down from the doorway, nearly fell, and came up slowly, and John could see that his friend had indeed aged, remembering long ago how in so many training exercises, inspection tours, and their brief hours of combat together in Iraq, Bob would always be the first one out with a leaping bound and confident stride, radiating self-assurance and leadership. The snow from the three storms that had rolled in within as many weeks was nearly two feet deep at the level, even down in the piedmont region of Marion. The chopper’s rotors had blown most of the ground cover back as Bob moved slowly toward him. Perhaps, John realized, it was to make sure he did not slip and fall, and it be misinterpreted by his crew and what John could now see was a security team inside the chopper, that he had been shot.

  Bob pulled back the hood of his parka, John doing the same, and with this mutual gesture, the two old friends could now see each other’s grinning features. Bob had indeed aged, his thick short-cut thatch of gray having gone completely white, features ruddy, heavy bushy brows squinting nearly shut from the morning glare and blowing snow.

  They stopped half a dozen feet apart, and old instincts kicked in, John coming to attention and raising his right hand in a near-reverent salute.

  “General, sir.”

  Bob, coming to attention as well, silently returned the salute, the two gazing at each other, and then Bob made the final steps forward and threw his arms around John.

  “My God, John! It really is you! Thank God you made it after all.”