William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

“My tangents always turn out to be right. Well, nearly always.” Larkin reached over and picked up the brochure, held it up as he added, “This is one time I really hope I’m wrong, but I’m not sure we can afford to take that chance.”

Jill was still looking at her mother. Susan said, “I started out telling your father it was far-fetched, just like Trevor did. I even said it sounded paranoid.”

“She did,” Larkin said. “Took great pleasure in it, too.”

“But I don’t know,” Susan went on. “After what happened in Florida… that terrible attack and the people responsible for it promising there would be more… I just wasn’t sure what to think anymore. I started listening more carefully to the news, and there are just a lot of things going on in the world that could cause a real catastrophe. I mean, there are at least two countries with nuclear bombs that would like to see the United States blown off the face of the earth. Then when you think about the terrorists who might be able to get their hands on a nuclear device, or some biological weapon…”

Trevor said, “They make movies about that stuff. In real life, the government always finds a way to stop such things from happening.”

“Yeah, the same government that runs the IRS and the VA,” Larkin said, “and all the other alphabet soup agencies that can’t quite seem to do their jobs. If you want to put all your faith in the government, Trev, you go right ahead. I’ve dealt with them too much to do that.”

“Dad’s kind of got a point,” Jill said. “The FDA and the other agencies we have to deal with have put some good safeguards in place, but they’ve also weighed the whole process down with so many needless, contradictory regulations that sometimes I think it makes the public less safe in the long run by wearing out the people who have to cope with the bureaucracy.”

“See?” Larkin said. “I raised a smart girl.”

“You say that because she’s agreeing with you,” Trevor said.

“What more proof do I need?”

Trevor sat back in his chair and raised both hands as he said, “Look, objectively, intellectually, I have to agree with you that the world is a dangerous place. Anybody would have to have their head completely buried in the sand not to realize that.”

“Or stuck up somewhere else. I believe the technical term is Rectal Cranial Inversion.”

“But casting your lot with these… survivalists… I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either. I mean, they’re kind of extremists, aren’t they?”

“Some people might say that. Some people might wish they’d been a little more extreme themselves, if things really go as bad as they could.”

“I guess I can understand stockpiling some food and water—”

“Won’t do you much good in the case of a nuclear explosion or a virus that’s going to wipe out ninety percent of humanity.”

“Maybe not, but what if none of those things happen? Then you’re stuck with some really expensive real estate that’s under the ground.”

Jill said, “Look, we can go around and around in circles like this all evening and not get anywhere. Maybe what we should do is make an appointment to go out there and look at the place.”

Trevor gave her a surprised look. “Really?”

“It can’t hurt anything, and if my folks feel this strongly about it, maybe it’s not a bad idea.”

He shrugged and said, “Well, sure, if that’s what you want. Maybe this weekend?”

Jill nodded. “I’ll call and see if I can set it up.”

“You want us to come with you?” Larkin asked.

“No. We can make up our own minds, Dad. But we’ll take everything you’ve said about it into consideration.”

Susan said, “That’s about all we can ask.”

Trevor said, “Have you actually signed up yet, Patrick?”

“Not yet,” Larkin said. “We wanted to talk to you two first.”

“Because we wouldn’t want to live in a world without you and our grandchildren,” Susan added.

“Well,” Trevor said as he lifted his wineglass, “I’ll drink to that.”

They were on their way out to the Hercules Project that Saturday afternoon, listening to NPR—Jill often got annoyed with the station, but Trevor liked it—when a news bulletin came on. Jill was driving—they were in her crossover—so she thumbed the button on the steering wheel to increase the volume.

“—reports that the North Korean missile destroyed an American fishing vessel in the Bering Sea. The North Korean government issued a statement a short time after the incident declaring that the firing of the missile was only a test, not an aggressive action, but it stopped short of apologizing for the loss of life and the destruction of the vessel. Nor did the statement actually say that the American vessel was struck by accident.

“With tensions already in a heightened state, the Pentagon immediately placed the American fleet in the Pacific on high alert. The President, in a statement from the White House, said that it would be a mistake to jump to any conclusions and that a full investigation of the incident will be carried out. In the meantime, he assured the North Koreans that the United States will not overreact to this incident.”

“Overreact?” Jill said incredulously. “They blow one of our boats out of the water, kill who knows how many Americans, and the President practically falls all over himself telling them not to worry about it, it’s all good, we won’t do anything about it!”

“He didn’t actually say that,” Trevor pointed out.

“He might as well have.”

“You’re starting to sound like your father. The President said we were going to investigate the incident fully.”

“And when we find out that they did it on purpose—which it sure sounds like they did—how are we going to react? Are we going to go in and blow up a few things, too?” Jill snorted. It wasn’t very ladylike, but there was no other way to express her contempt. “You know good and well that’s not going to happen. If anything, the guy in the White House will apologize to the North Koreans because our boat got in the way of their missile!” She took a deep breath. “And here’s what really worries me… If that missile reached the Aleutian Islands, it wouldn’t take much more for it to make it to Alaska. That’s the United States, Trev. You want that dictator lobbing nuclear warheads at the United States?”

“Nobody said anything about nuclear warheads. I’ll bet the missile was unarmed, if it was just a test like the North Koreans say. Just the impact was probably enough to sink the ship.”

“You think they’d have a missile that they couldn’t put a warhead on if they wanted to?”

“I don’t know. I’m no expert on nuclear armaments.”

Neither was Jill, but even so, the latest incident was enough to make her glad they were taking this little excursion today. If nothing too terrible ever happened, at least it was a pleasant drive in the country.

If worse came to worst, though, it might wind up saving their lives…

The tour of the Hercules Project went a little better than Jill anticipated. She didn’t mind Trevor asking hard questions of Graham Moultrie. The man had to expect those and be able to provide honest, complete answers if he was going to ask people to invest that much money. She had been concerned that Trevor might be a little obnoxious about it, though. Sometimes he could come across as condescending and arrogant. In point of fact, he often was the smartest guy in the room, and he’d been known to act like it.

As it turned out, however, Trevor was on his best behavior. That might have had something to do with Deb Moultrie going along with them on the tour. The redhead was distracting, to say the least. Trevor was able to focus on what Moultrie was saying, but he couldn’t work up the energy to be annoying. That was Jill’s theory, anyway.