William Forstchen - The Final Day

He didn’t feel free or that he was actually under close arrest. After landing at the Asheville airport, Bob had disappeared into the cavernous hangar that had once housed National Guard aircraft at the north end of the airport while John was led to what had been the headquarters for a couple of private aviation firms. Bunks had been set up in the foyer and corridors to house troops, some of them fast asleep. Those relaxing off duty and still awake gazed at him with curiosity but said nothing as a sergeant major led John to what had been a private office, desk pushed to one side, a standard collapsible bunk with sleeping bag set up in its place. The sergeant told him to wait for a moment and returned with a sleeping bag and an MRE-supplied cup of instant coffee, which John took a sip of and set down; it was laced with whiskey, and for the time being, he definitely wanted to keep his head clear.

“Anything you need, sir, I’m bunked next door; just come and get me.”

“Mind if I wander about a bit, Sergeant…” His voice trailed off, the middle-aged man’s name tag concealed under his parka.

“It’s Sergeant Major Charles Bentley, sir. Just call me Charles or Sarge. Okay?”

“Fine, Sergeant. About wandering around?”

“Sorry, sir, but you are under arrest until I hear differently. I’m responsible for your well-being. Play along and we keep it as it is now. You try to walk off, sir, and sorry to say it, I will have to put you under restraint. Those are the general’s orders.”

“I won’t be a cause for concern, Sergeant,” John said as he turned to look out through the half-open venetian blinds. A couple of dozen private planes were still out there—Bonanzas, Mooneys, the usual Cherokee 140s and 180s, Cessna 172s that must have belonged to the flight school, and even some high-end turbo props and a couple of corporate jets. All of them abandoned. Long ago, he had sent a crew down here to drain off their avgas and Jet A, but even before his people had arrived, looters had already been at the planes, taking all the gas and most likely just for the hell of it smashing them up. The planes, once worth millions, had all been pushed to one side to make room for the eight Black Hawks, six Apaches, and a C-130, and as he watched, a second C-130 was taxiing in from landing.

“Is that everything you have, Sergeant?” John asked.

“You know I can’t answer that, sir.”

“John is okay with me.”

“Sir, orders from the general are to consider you as a colonel reactivated to service. So it remains sir or Colonel .”

“All right, Sergeant. Mind if I ask a few questions?”

“Those I can answer, fine by me, sir.”

“Been with General Scales long?”

“I’m his top enlisted aide. After Major Quentin left, I’ve been his sole adjutant.”

“Can you tell me anything about Major Quentin?”

The sergeant politely shook his head in reply.

“He left us with a hell of a mystery, Sergeant. This talk about an EMP. You know anything about that?”

“Sir, you know as well as I do what I can and cannot answer.”

John smiled, pulled out one of the chairs stacked up in the corner of the room, and sat down, taking off his parka, stretching his legs out to relax, and making a show of just sipping the whiskey-laced coffee but not gulping it down. “Sergeant, how about sitting down for a few minutes? I’d appreciate the company.”

“Sir, you are bunked in the same room as the general. When he comes back, perhaps it would be better to direct your questions at him.”

The man was good. Firm without being disrespectful, and he would stick to his orders—perhaps one of them to get John a bit tipsy and pump him, or even to see if he could be made tipsy.

With that thought, John made a show of going over to the window, cracking it open, and pouring out the laced coffee. He looked back at the sergeant, who actually grinned a bit.

“Waste of a good drink, sir.”

“I prefer to keep my head on straight. Here and then wherever it is you are eventually taking me.”

“If there’s nothing else, sir, I’ll be next door down.” The sergeant turned to leave.

“Charlie?”

The sergeant looked back.

“At least tell me about yourself. Were you in the Pentagon on the day the shit hit the fan?”

“No, sir. I was actually part of the ceremonial team at Fort Meade for duty at Arlington. Final assignment before mustering out after twenty-five years.”

The sergeant’s trim but muscular build, ramrod-straight posture, and demeanor was a giveaway to John. The ceremonial guard was one of the most exacting assignments in the military. It was not just the very public task of standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but also for all military funerals and beyond that any ceremonial event requiring military presence in D.C. itself. Behind the scenes, it was also a highly efficient combat force, one of the top ready reaction forces inside the beltway.

“How did you meet General Scales?”

“He and some others from the Pentagon came in the evening of the first day.” He seemed reticent to continue.

“And then?”

“Well, the general and I sort of fell in together, and he asked me to stick with him.”

“Mind if you tell me more about what happened in D.C. that first day, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. There was a lot of confusion. The whole city was down, communications down. By the middle of the first night, the city was burning.” Again there was a drawn-out silence; he was obviously reluctant to say more.

“Nothing classified—just curious,” John prompted him.

“After a couple of days, it was obvious to some we were doing nothing effective where we were. Some said we should try to link up with Andrews Air Force Base, but that was on the other side of the city, and we hadn’t seen any air traffic, at least not going out from there.”

That struck John as curious. “Did you see air traffic?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. A number of choppers, looked like special-ops-type equipment, most likely proofed against EMPs. They were moving about.”

“So something was at least flying?”

“Yes, sir. But nothing toward us. All our comm gear was down, and we were obviously written off.”

“What were these choppers doing? Where were they going?”

“Don’t know, sir,” he replied a bit too hastily.

John knew the sergeant would not speculate anything with him and dropped that line of questioning. “So you then went to Andrews?”

“No, sir. A group did set out that way.” The sergeant smiled. “A lot of those wandering in from the Pentagon were men like General Scales. Well, I should say around the same rank. There was a lot of arguing back and forth, which I stayed clear of.”

“Smart move, Sergeant. If two generals got into a row, I always made myself scarce.”

“The general said we should strike out for Fort Belvoir and link up with whatever was there. Most of us went along with him.”

“Most?”

“Well, sir, it did get a bit ugly. Not often you see a two star telling a couple of three stars to go to hell. The general, he had a hell of a lot more ground experience, not a paper pusher—we could see that and went with him.”

“Good analysis and smart move.”

“I understand you served under him, sir?”

At last, a question back, and John openly went over the times they served together, even how when he had decided to retire because of Mary’s cancer, it was Bob who had helped him find a position at Montreat College, which was Mary’s hometown.

The sergeant took it in, most likely not much that was new there if his job was to pump John as a “good cop” interrogator.