William Johnstone - Phoenix Rising

“I hope you are right, Father. Believe me; I have never envied the Life more strongly than I do now. How I wish I could live here like everyone else in total ignorance to the world outside.”

“Have you been to war, Jacob?” Solomon asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you killed?”

“Father, that’s not a fair question. Wars are fought as a matter of executive decisions. The men who fight them, men such as I, have absolutely no input into the decisions.”

“Have you killed?” Solomon asked again.

Jake was quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “I have killed. It was not something I wanted to do, but it was something I had to do.”

Solomon got up and walked over to a long table that sat under the window and stared outside, as if trying to come to terms with the fact that his son had killed. Jake looked at the table and remembered how, as a child, when it would rain outside, his mother would sometimes drape a quilt over the table and make a tent. That way Jake could camp in the rain without ever getting wet.

“You say that you are afraid the country will collapse,” Solomon said. “What does that mean?”

“I think it will mean no law and order. It will also mean runaway inflation and if that happens, money will become worthless. We may see wide-spread electrical outages, fuel and food shortages,” Jake said. “If all that comes to pass, there will be riots in the streets.”

“Will you survive?” Solomon asked his son.

“I—yes, I think I will.”

“You only think you will?”

“I will survive,” Jake said. “I am worried about you.”

“Worry not about me,” Solomon said. “All the troubles of the English will not trouble us. For many generations we have lived our lives and the English have lived theirs.”

“Father, I fear that things may be different now. This new president . . .”

“Is not of our concern,” Solomon repeated.

“Hide your food, Father,” Jake said.

“Hide the food? Why do you say such a thing?”

“If, as I fear, there is a total breakdown of civilization, the English know that Amish keep a lot of food stored. They may come try to take it.”

“I will not turn away a starving man,” Solomon said.

“They will be more than starving. They will be desperate, and they could bring much harm to you and to the others. Please, Father, heed my warning. Hide your food and tell your neighbors that they must do so as well. For if you don’t, I fear what may happen to you.”

“I will heed your advice,” Solomon said.

“Thank you.”

“Will you stay with us now?” Jake’s mother asked.

“No, Mother, I wish I could,” Jake said. “But I cannot.”

There was no real reason why he couldn’t stay, but it wasn’t entirely a lie either, because he did wish that he could. But he had Karin back in Lancaster, and he did not want to leave her alone. Also he felt a very strong and totally unexpected attraction for the Life that he had abandoned so long ago. It was an attraction that he could not succumb to. He needed to get away now, while his resolve was still strong.

Jake stood then, and walked over to retrieve his hat from a hat rack that was on the wall just inside the front door. The hat rack was a thirty-inch-long, highly polished piece of walnut. Carved into the hat rack were the words:

Die Lantz-Familie

Jake ran his hand over the smooth wood.

“It was a Christmas present you made for me,” Jake’s mother said.

“Yes, when I was twelve years old.”

“If go you must, do it now,” Solomon said.

Jake’s mother embraced him again, and he could feel her tears on his cheek. Martha embraced him as well.

Jake waited until he was back on Old Philadelphia Pike before he dialed Karin’s cell phone.

“How did it go?” Karin asked.

“All things considered, it went well,” Jake said. “They accepted me without shunning.”

“I’m glad.”

“Do you need me to pick up something to eat?”

“No, I walked across the street to a place that serves Amish food. Or so the sign says.”

Jake chuckled. “That’s for the tourists,” he said. “It’s pretty close, but it isn’t real.”

“Real or not, it was very good,” Karin said. “How much longer before you get here?”

“Fifteen minutes, more or less.”

“Are you still wearing your plain clothes?” Karin’s voice took on a deep seductive tone.

“Of course. What else would I be wearing?”

“You’ll need to get out of them.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll help,” she said.

CHAPTER FIVE

Fort Rucker—Thursday, March 15

General Clifton von Cairns swiveled around in his chair and looked through the windows of his office out onto the parade ground. He was the commanding general of an Army base whose sole reason for existence was to train aviators and aircraft maintenance personnel—but, by order of the Department of the Army, all training had been suspended until further notice. In the meantime he had over twenty thousand soldiers wandering around on the base with no specific jobs.

Worse, he had aviators who weren’t able to fly, not even to maintain their minimums. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair for a moment; then he reached for the telephone, and dialed the direct line to the deputy chief of staff, U.S. Army, G1, at the Pentagon.

“This is General von Cairns. I would like to speak to General Roxbury,” he said when the phone was answered.

“Yes, General, what can I do for you?” General Roxbury said when he came on the line.

“Tell me, Bill, just when in the hell do you think we will be able to resume training?” von Cairns asked.

“We’ve been through all that, Clifton. Training will be resumed as soon as we can get reorganized. We have brought three hundred thousand troops back from overseas, the largest part of that number being Army personnel. That has put quite a strain on our military infrastructure as I’m sure you can understand. And right now, our first priority is reorganization.”

“Alright, I can see that, but why restrict our flying time? As you know, I am not only CG of Fort Rucker and the Army Aviation School; I am also chief of the Army Aviation Branch. These flight-time restrictions are Army-wide, and they are having a serious impact in allowing our aviators to maintain their minimums. And that, Bill, could have dire, and I mean dire, consequences.”

“I wish I could help you with that, Clifton, I really do. But that is out of my hands. The restriction of flight time isn’t just for the Army. It is for all branches of the service, and it comes direct from the secretary of defense.”

“Yes, someone who has never served one day in the military, who has never held a private-sector job, and who has never been in charge of anything larger than an office staff. Can’t you talk to him, Bill? Can the chief of staff talk to him? Hell, how about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs? He’s an Air Force man, a pilot; he ought to understand better than anyone what this is doing to training, to operational readiness, to say nothing of morale.”

“Believe me, he does understand. And he has talked with the secretary of defense as well as the president. But the flight limitations remain in effect.”

General von Cairns was quiet for a long moment.

“You still there, Clifton?”

“Yeah,” von Cairns said. “I’m here.”

“Look, I know what you are going through,” General Roxbury said. “And I’m doing—we are doing—all we can to get this situation resolved as quickly as we can. All I can say now is for you to just hang loose and keep your personnel ready to resume training at a moment’s notice. This can’t last forever.”