G Hopf - The Long Road

“How’s that?” Cruz said, sitting back down and looking interested. He hadn’t heard about Colonel Barone in a while.

“It appears his ARG attacked many of the Villistas’ positions throughout the county. While this set them back, the cartel is a threat we will eventually have to deal with.”

“Well, bravo, Colonel. As far as he goes, though, we can’t deal with him right now. We have bigger fish to fry. Fortunately for us, most of our armed forces have stuck with us.”

“Agreed, sir, we need to allocate our resources to getting our infrastructure back up.”

Raising his hand, Dylan asked, “Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but can we go back to the map?”

“Sure, what’s on your mind?” Cruz asked.

“Sir, I agree, we need to ‘allocate,’ in the word the general used, to areas where we have to get our infrastructure back up, but I don’t think we should be announcing any type of abandonment of the East, at least formally. We should put a happy face on everything and do what we can when we can back there. While I agree the East has troubles, it still has many things we can use. I suggest we don’t signal our hand to the world that we’re giving up.”

Dylan’s statement was heartfelt and prudent, and all in the room were quiet. Cruz sat and looked at his adviser. He rocked back in his chair a few times before directly answering him. “You know, Dylan, you’re right. We can’t go on record as having ‘abandoned’ the East. What we should do is inform those governors in the border states that they need to be prepared for many refugees from the other states and that we’ll support them in those efforts. If we make a formal announcement, it will cause more problems for those states than they can handle. We will go back and start rebuilding later, but for now let’s just focus on Portland and build out from there.”

Baxter nodded his approval of Cruz’s comments.

“Now let’s cover a time line for Portland,” Cruz said, looking at Baxter.

The general opened another binder, but just before he could begin talking about the contents, a knock on the door disturbed them.

The door opened, and a young officer stepped in and walked to Baxter. He bent over and whispered into his ear. The look on Baxter’s face told everyone that the news was shocking.

“Thank you,” Baxter told the officer. The man briskly left the room.

As soon as the door closed, Cruz asked, “So, General, what’s the scoop?”

“Good news, sir. The special ops team we sent out to find President Conner has come back. They just cleared the main gates and will be in a debriefing room soon.”

“Well, anything?” Cruz asked, excited.

“Sir, I suggest we end this meeting and go meet them now,” Baxter said, closing his binder.

“What else do you know, General?” Cruz asked, feeling that Baxter was holding something back.

“Sir, it would be better if we discussed this in a more private setting.”

“Private? You and everyone else here are my most trusted advisers, we don’t need privacy. What else do you know?” Cruz exclaimed.

“The team found President Conner…”

“Really? That’s good news,” Cruz said, jumping out of his chair and making his way toward the door.

“Mr. Vice President. Mr. Vice President, please stop!” Baxter said loudly.

“I have to go see him. How is he?”

“Sir, you didn’t let me finish,” Baxter said in a pleading tone.

A cold chill came over Cruz as he stopped and turned to face Baxter and said, “Go ahead.”

“Sir, they found a body.”

San Diego, California

“That was one of the best lunches I’ve ever had. How do you prepare beef Stroganoff in these conditions?” Sebastian asked after wiping his face and mouth with a paper towel.

“Freeze-dried,” Annaliese said, picking up the tray from his bed.

“Freeze-dried?”

“Yes, now if you’re up to it, my father wants to talk with you.”

“Uh, sure,”

“Good, I’ll be right back,” Annaliese said as she walked out of the room with the tray.

She left the door open, giving Sebastian the ability to hear murmurs down the hall. He couldn’t quite make out what the people were saying, but it didn’t make much difference as within moments of her departure a man stepped into the room. He was tall, white-haired, clean-shaven, handsome. If Sebastian was to guess, he’d say he was in his midsixties. The man walked to the chair that sat next to the window. He grabbed it and positioned it closer to the side of the bed. Sebastian just stared nervously at him. After the man sat down, he smoothed out his trousers and crossed his legs. Placing his hands on his knee, he cleared his throat and looked at Sebastian.

“Hello, sir,” Sebastian greeted the man.

“Hello, Corporal Van Zandt,” the man said.

“I want to thank you for rescuing me from the chopper and taking—”

“No need to thank us, it’s what we do,” the man interrupted.

“Okay,” Sebastian said and then shut up. He didn’t know what to say. The man made him feel apprehensive.

“Corporal, we have some questions for you, so I’ll just begin. We have had someone out near the crash site since the helicopter went down, but no rescue team has come for you, why?”

“Uh, well; that’s a tricky one,” Sebastian said, sitting up farther.

“Go ahead.”

Sebastian paused for a moment. His instinct was to be open and honest, but doing so could jeopardize his recovery. Sebastian’s recent experiences with “being honest” had put him where he was now. He looked at the man sitting next to him. He was dressed in jeans and a buttoned-up collared shirt. His clothes were clean, but his jeans showed the stains of work. Sebastian studied his hands and saw that they too showed the marks of labor. His knuckles looked rough, and some fresh scratches were visible. At one time this man had worked behind a desk, but now he used his hands. Sebastian didn’t quite know which direction to go in, but his instincts won over and he opened up. “I don’t think you’ll see a rescue team. They probably just assume that if the bird went down we were all killed. I mean, who the hell survives a chopper crash?”

“Well, you did, God willing. Unfortunately, your comrades all perished,” the man said, confirming the outcome of everyone else on the chopper.

“You see, the unit I was with is not your run-of-the-mill group of Marines.” Sebastian paused; he didn’t know how to put it.

“Go ahead, Corporal, I’m all ears.”

“The unit I was with mutinied and took control of the ship I was on. I was being dropped off because I didn’t agree with what they were doing. They don’t plan on helping anyone here. They were just dropping people like me off and picking up others who wish to join them. I couldn’t in good conscience follow along.” Sebastian quickly spat the words out.

“Interesting. Well, I am impressed to hear that you’re a principled man. We might be able to use someone like you here, and with your skills you might be useful.”

“Excuse me, but after I’m healed up I need to go find my brother and his family.”

“Where is your brother?”

“Not far from where we crashed, maybe five miles. He lives near the Carmel Valley area.”

“Well, Corporal—”

“Please call me Sebastian. I’m no longer a Marine. I was discharged, so to speak, yesterday,” Sebastian interrupted.

“Well, Sebastian. You broke your leg badly. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” the man said, pointing at his leg.

“Who are you?”

“Sorry, very rude of me. I’m Bishop Sorenson,” the man said, reaching out a hand to Sebastian.

Taking his hand and shaking it firmly, Sebastian asked, “Bishop of what?”