Stephie considered the many alternative replies, some of which screamed out to her. “Have you ever heard of the Battle of Atlanta, Mother? Or the Savannah River?” But in the end, she said only, “I guess you’re right.”
John Burns crossed the street from behind Rachel Roberts wiping his face and then his hands with a small towel and tucking his helmet under his arm. When he stepped up to their side — standing in the no-man’s-land in between — Rachel’s face assumed its vivacious public front. She grinned broadly at the tall, clean-shaven and tanned boy.
“Mrs. Roberts?” John said, extending his hand. “John Burns.”
“Oh, yes!” she replied. “Of course!” As they shook hands, Stephie scrutinized her mother. She acted as if she knew about John. But Stephie had never once mentioned John to her. “I hope you’re taking good care of my daughter.”
John’s gaze shot to Stephie, who bristled and replied to her mother’s remark. “I can take care of myself.”
A tense standoff ensued. During the quiet, the sound of fighting seemed noticeably louder. All eyes, however, turned to the sound of a convoy of trucks arriving from the north. Stephie said, “Looks like our ride’s come back early.”
“Change of plans,” John said, turning to their squad. “Gather your gear!” he barked.
“What about this roadblock?” Stephie objected.
“Whoever’s gonna man it can finish it up,” John replied, replacing his helmet on his head.
“What’s the hurry?” Stephie asked.
John shrugged. “The Chinese are coming,” he guessed.
“Then by all means,” Rachel commented, “get going. Stephie, collect your things.”
Stephie donned her camo blouse, buttoned it up, and then zipped closed the camouflaged body armor. Over that she draped her webbing from which hung magazines, hand grenades, and first aid kit. Her mother tried to help by adjusting the lie of the shoulder straps, which were already in the right place. Stephie broke free by stooping to snatch her assault rifle from the knee-high sandbag wall against which it leaned.
When Stephie turned, her mother looked pale. Men climbed aboard the old diesel trucks as Rachel Roberts checked out Stephie’s fighting load. The mother eyed in alarm the daughter’s familiarity with the weapon, which Stephie checked to ensure was safed. Despite the scrutiny, Stephie’s mother missed entirely the twin chevrons — the corporal’s insignia — that adorned Stephie’s collar.
“Mount up!” Stephie ordered the three milling soldiers of her fire team.
Rachel Roberts jumped slightly at the loud command.
“You’d better get going, Mom,” Stephie said.
Her mother’s lower lip quivered, and she threw her arms around Stephie. All of Stephie’s irritation melted as she hugged her mother for perhaps the last time.
President Baker wore a hard hat as he stood on the deck of the enormous arsenal ship. Somewhere up above it was nighttime. But down in the dry dock, stadium lights lit the expansive flat deck of the vessel in artificial day. With no satellite overflights to fear, thousands upon thousands of men and women worked under the open night sky along the ship’s four-football-field length. Sparks flew from dozens of welding torches working at open, armored hatches that would, in a few months, house long-range missiles currently undergoing final tests in New Mexico. All of it — the two massive ships with their complex systems and brand-new missiles — would take to sea in record time: just two and one-half years after being given the “Go.”
At least, Baker prayed that they would.
The admiral in charge of the yard escorted Bill below decks. The president’s entourage of aides and communications technicians followed, all surrounded by watchful Secret Service agents. They descended several flights down a metal ladder and emerged onto a service catwalk. The noise and sights were stunning. Tens of thousands of men welded, drilled, riveted, and wired in a beehive of hectic activity. Arrayed eighty across and hundreds deep were flat-sided metal boxes: launch tubes for the arsenal ship’s arsenal. Beneath them men tested robotic conveyers. They moved independently of each other in fits and starts along the ceiling. Their curved fittings would grasp missiles then raise them into upright positions for automatic reloading into the launch boxes once every six minutes.
Bill shook hands with passing workers, who paused only briefly before hurrying off on their appointed task. “We’re of course running round-the-clock shifts!” the civilian contractor shouted over the commotion. “The reactor core should be loaded next month, and we’ll start generating at higher and higher power levels, with propulsion last!”
“Are we ahead of schedule?” Bill asked.
The civilian shrugged. “We can’t possibly know, sir, until we test and debug her systems! We’ve made a lot of progress since your visit last month, but this is a half-million-ton ship with eight thousand missile launchers! The systems are massively complex and totally innovative! We have over five million automated subsystems, all networked together! All the hardware and software will be in place by January, but whether it works together…?” he ended, shrugging.
Bill stopped on the catwalk and turned to the contractor and the fidgeting admiral. “What he’s trying to say, sir…!” said commander of the shipyard, playing diplomat.
But Bill held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Everything,” he yelled to the contractor, “everything depends on this ship and its sister ship across the harbor! They will be launched in January, go into all-out combat on their shakedown cruise, and run the Chinese fleet out of the western Atlantic!”
The admiral looked back and forth between Baker and the contractor. Finally, the civilian nodded. “All right, Mr. President! All right!”
The White House military aide tapped Baker’s shoulder and leaned close to Bill’s ear. “We’ve got the final results of the withdrawal from the Savannah River, sir.” Bill immediately terminated his tour. They led him to a quiet conference room. Wires dangled from bare walls where high-definition screens would hang. Cables awaited installation of computer workstations. Fast-food trash and cigarette butts lay crumped in the corner. Bill and the military aide — a navy lieutenant commander — sat on metal chairs at a table made from two saw-horses and a piece of plywood. Large, crumpled electrical diagrams lay atop the table. Coffee mugs and scraps of metal plate kept them from curling. The naval officer read the report from the screen on his palmtop.
“ ‘The 40th Infantry Division, which was dug in around Clark’s Hill Lake along the Georgia-South Carolina border, has been rendered combat ineffective due to near eighty-eight percent losses in the week of fighting at the Savannah River. In their last battle, they were hit by seven Chinese armored and mechanized infantry divisions.’ ”
There was a long silence before Bill asked, “How about the rest of the line?”
The commander was struggling with his report. “Uhm, the 37th Infantry Division, sir, which is also Army National Guard, disengaged cleanly along its center and left. But the better part of a brigade was fixed by heavy contact on the right — on the flank where the 40th was overrun — and was enveloped. They’re at — uh, with replacements — they’re back up to eighty percent. All but their two, right-most battalions, which couldn’t disengage, passed the Santee and Saluda River line at Columbia, South Carolina.”