William Forstchen - The Final Day

Maury just glared at Ernie and did not reply.

“All right, you two, come on inside.” He motioned to the door into the garage. Slamming it behind the two, Ernie turned, arms folded defensively.

“Are you going to shut me down?” he asked sharply.

“Hell no.”

“Well, I heard you are taking orders from our new potentate down at the Asheville airport and assumed you were sent here to pull the plug after he failed at his attempt at killing you.”

“Damn it, Ernie, did anyone ever discuss diplomatic conversation skills with you?”

“Nope. And if anyone ever does, I’ll tell them to go to hell.”

John couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, okay. Everyone knows. I surrendered without a fight. You got an alternative short of a bloodbath for our side? As to damn near getting killed, just leave that be for now.”

“How many troops does he have with him?”

“He’s got at least half a dozen Black Hawks, maybe as many Apaches, a couple of C-130s, and from what our lookouts in Hendersonville told us, at least half a dozen Bradleys and a dozen truckloads of supplies and additional troops up from Greenville. And you suggest we fight that?”

“Go up into the hills and wait him out. He’d be facing half a thousand or more very pissed-off, well-armed folks.”

“Ernie, you have been a burr under my hide from day one, but this tops it. I’m supposed to go back to those kids at the college and tell them to suit up and head out into the woods in this weather?” He snapped out the last words and pointed back outside where a lightly falling snow was being whipped along by twenty-mile-per-hour winds. “Half of them would freeze to death within a couple of days out there with no fires to keep warm. Light a fire, you got an Apache with infrared seeking on top of you.”

“He’s right, Ernie.”

The two turned to see Linda slowly coming down the basement stairs. “So stop needling him. You know as well as I do there was no chance to fight back, so let it be.”

“I was just suggesting an alternative, Linda.”

“Fine. You suit up, take a rifle, go sit out on the ridge for a few hours, and then come back and tell us if we should fight or not.”

“I’m seventy-five; those kids trained to fight are in their twenties.”

She ignored him and walked up to John and Maury, holding out two mugs of coffee.

“We don’t have much of that stuff left,” Ernie muttered.

“They need it more than we do warm inside here,” she snapped and then turned her attention to John. “Really, are you and Makala all right?”

“Just fine, Linda. It was bad, though, for those at the college. Five dead, a dozen wounded, and I doubt if a couple of those will make it.”

He tried to say those words without becoming emotional again. They had died saving his family and him. All of this was becoming too much to bear. He knew if he broke in front of Linda, she would go all to pieces as well. He shook it off and just offered a weary smile of resignation.

“My only other question, John: Do they know about our operation here?”

John shook his head. “So far, I don’t think so; that’s why I called and said to double-check the camouflage on your satellite dishes.”

“You can’t see them from the road or from up above. I had the kids make some netting out of bedsheets to blend in with the snow. I think we’re safe.”

“Good. That’s the way I want to keep it.”

He could see that Ernie was still glowering and felt it necessary to smooth the waters. “Ernie, I’ll admit now, it was a smart move to shift your operation down here. The last thing I want is another war. You saw what a couple of Apaches under Fredericks did to us in the spring. Their only tactical mistake was basing out of the mall. If they had been based at the airport with proper security, Fredericks would have won. We don’t have Stinger ground-to-air missiles, and any Hollywood hokum about taking one of those birds out with an old-fashioned RPG is absurd. General Scales held the trump card, made sure we saw it in his opening move and won.”

“He played it well,” Maury interjected. “There was nothing we could do in response, at least for now.”

“But—” Ernie started, and Linda cut him off.

“But what? A hundred, two hundred kids dead?”

“They’re not kids, Linda.”

“We’ve got grandchildren that will be in the militia units in another year, Ernie. To me, they’re kids.”

John caught her eye and nodded.

Strange, when his second lieutenant’s bars were pinned on him, he was twenty-one and felt he was indeed a man. His father had been flying combat missions at twenty-three, his grandfather at twenty-one. Of course he felt like a man then. But now, when there was an entire generational difference between him and those who were actually the ones who would carry the fight, it was all so different.

He recalled the old photo books of soldiers from World War II. The haunting image of a shell-shocked Marine covered in filth and blood, staring at the cameraman with vacant eyes. One had to look deep into that photograph to conjure out the realization that the frightfully aged Marine most likely was, in fact, not more than eighteen or nineteen years old.

Those whom he called kids, when looking up at the Apaches circling over the campus, were again ready to fight, but in their eyes they had as well that same haunting gaze. They were veterans of two major battles, and they knew the price and the loss even when they won. They were ready to fight even though with the pragmatic realism that only a veteran could gain, they knew without doubt the fight would most likely be futile.

Memory of his walk up to the campus of several weeks back came to him, the young amorous couple playing in the park. That should be their world, holding with it some hope of a future, not another fight to the death. And now one of them was indeed dead. The thought of that stabbed deep, but he had to push it aside for now.

Damn all that created this world for them, he thought bitterly as he nodded, still looking at Linda.

“You’re right, Linda; they’re still kids, or at least should be kids. I’m not going to spend their lives in some final gesture of defiance.”

And even as he spoke, the nightmare of what Bob said might happen—that Bluemont might unleash another EMP—hung over him. After what had happened just hours ago, he was no longer sure of Bob, though as emotions settled, he did want to believe him. Perhaps now the answer to it all was to find out, on their own, what the truth really was regarding Bluemont—and what was happening in this house might be the key.

He suddenly realized that he had been standing in quiet contemplation for several minutes while Ernie and Linda had launched into what he realized was something of a standard method of communication between the two. Ironic as he focused attention back on them. They obviously loved each other dearly, and yet they sure had a strange way of expressing it.

“All right, you two, let’s chill it.” It was Maury who finally interrupted the argument.

The two looked at him, and Linda smiled. “Thank you, Maury. Point taken. At least by me.”

Ernie said nothing and finally turned back to John. “Let’s answer the first question, then. If you are not shutting us down, why are you here?”

“I just want an update and to pass along a few suggestions. I want your team to lie low, but keep the kids working here on task 24-7.”

“So you are not this General Scales’s lackey?” Ernie quipped.

“You know, Ernie, someday when all of this is over, you and I are going to have a real serious discussion.”

“Just remember, Matherson, I saved your life. Fredericks was ready to shoot you in the back.”