“Okay,” I replied, “but what about the second missile?”
“Like I said, this is where it gets a little dicey,” he replied. “Turn the nav radar off.”
I found the switch and flipped it to OFF.
He dove the plane toward the ground and leveled out with less than a hundred feet between the plane and the ground. He began swinging the plane around trees trying to lose the missile. It wasn’t working. The missile was closing in fast.
“Come on, dammit, where are you when I need you?” he shouted.
I looked over at him, wondering what he was looking for.
“There,” he said as he swung the plane to the right. Ahead was a line of high voltage transmission towers. The wires had all been knocked down by the meteorites, but the towers were still standing. He glanced out his rear window again.
“Yes,” he said as he banked the plane hard to the left. He flew just above the ground swinging the plane around the power transmission tower. The missile’s radar locked on to the steel frame of the tower instead of the jet, exploding as it hit dead center on the tower.
The pilot gently started climbing back up to cruising altitude.
“Okay,” I said, “just where in the hell did you learn to fly like that?”
He smiled. “John picks his people carefully,” he said, “I flew A10 Worthogs in the military. We were trained to take out tanks and SAM launchers. Most of the time you didn’t get to fire your missiles at the launchers until you dodged one of theirs first.”
The spinning in my head finally reached my stomach. “I gotta go,” I said.
I climbed out of the copilot’s seat and ran for the lavatory. I opened the door and threw up into the toilet. As I knelt there heaving my guts out, Tia came up behind me.
“Move,” she said. I held on as best I could and moved out of her way.
She puked as well. We sat there taking turns heaving into the toilet. I looked over at Ed, John and Major Samuels. They seemed fine. Finally Tia and I stopped and wiped our faces.
“So,” she said quietly, “when we get to go somewhere for a first date, no rollercoasters.”
“Deal,” I replied.
John motioned me over. “Do you think the President wanted to shoot us down?”
“It’s General Strom,” I replied. “The DIA has a lot of assets including its own weapons. My understanding is that the DIA budget is substantially larger than the CIA’s. Or at least it was.”
“Would the General act without the consent of the President?”
“Look,” I said, “they’re two peas in a pod; they work together like a right and left hand. I told you these were horrible people. This is what they do.”
“This isn’t the end of it, is it?” John asked.
“Unfortunately, no, it isn’t,” I replied.
John’s face looked troubled as he turned and looked out the window.
CHAPTER 27
As soon as we landed in Denver Tia stopped in the communications room to see what was up.
“Guys,” she called out, “you need to see this.”
We gathered around the robot’s head and looked at the computer screen. The robot in Tibet was reporting radio transmissions in the Extreme Low Frequency range.
“Content of the radio transmissions?” I asked.
Immediately a long series of numbers appeared, all the same length, in a block pattern.
“Can you interpret this?” I asked.
No guardian appeared on the screen. The message is heavily encrypted and appears to be intended for numerous underwater craft.
Major Samuels looked at the numbers and the length of the message. “Oh no,” he said, “it was bad enough he tried to kill us on the way back here, now he wants all of us dead.”
“Who’s ‘he’?” Tia asked.
“The President,” Major Samuels replied. “Since the missile attack on us didn’t succeed he is ordering the nuclear submarine fleet to complete the job.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“He’s right,” Ed said. “I’ve seen messages to the submarine fleet before when I was a Navy SEAL, and the only reason for a message this long is multiple nuclear missile targets. My guess is that every place that John has a group of people building a new city has just become the target for a nuclear missile strike.”
“How do we stop it?” John asked.
“You can’t,” Ed replied. “It’s a one-way order system. The president commands and the submarine captains pick the time and place for the strike, usually right away.”
“Can we talk to the submarine captains?” John asked.
“No,” Ed said. “It’s all encrypted communications with code word verifiers.”
“Is there a frequency that the submarines monitor?” John asked.
“Yes,” Ed said after a short pause, “there is.”
Ed wrote the frequency down on a sticky note and handed it to John. Tia looked at the note.
“I know where there is an antenna that will broadcast on that frequency,” she said. “It’ll take me a few minutes to get a patch and relay set up, but I think we can do it.”
“Hurry, Tia,” John said, “we may not have more than a few minutes before it’s too late. Ed, how will we know if the submarines received our message?”
“You don’t,” Ed replied, “you do it the same way the Navy does; you repeat the message over and over.”
“Okay,” John said, “Tia, get me that antenna and I’ll record the message.”
John disappeared into his office as Tia went to work on getting access to the ELF antenna.
A few minutes later John returned with a digital recording.
“Play this,” John said, “and pray it works.”
Tia completed the patch to the ELF antenna and started the recording. We listened as John’s voice went out over the air waves.
“My name is John. I am the head of the Survivalist Network. We have helped save the lives of almost seven million people across America from the meteor storm. We are actively building a New America. I believe that you, as submarine captains, have received orders to fire your nuclear missiles at locations inside of America. I am asking you, as Americans, not to follow those orders. I am asking you, as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, to not destroy what is left of your country. I have spoken with your President. He is committed to becoming the new ruler of the world through the use of his authority as Commander in Chief and the immense destructive power you hold in your hands. He wants you to murder millions of people so he can rule the world.
“I have spent my life trying to save people, to help them become the best they can be, and to teach them to live in peace with one another. Each and every person is valuable to me, and my hope is that you may share some of that value with me. I am not asking you to follow me, or to recognize me as a leader of people. I am asking you to wait and see what we, as common people can accomplish. You have the power to destroy any or all of us at your discretion. You will have that power today and tomorrow, and every day after that. Give us the opportunity to prove ourselves to you. Let us demonstrate our commitment to building a peaceful civilization for the benefit of all of mankind. Give us the chance to rebuild a better America, a country you will once again be proud to protect and consider your home. Our fate is in your hands. Thank you for listening.”
“So what do we do now?” Tia asked. “Try to get back into the cave in the mountains before everything gets incinerated?”
“There comes a point in time when you must stand your ground,” John said, “where you have to put your faith in the goodness of most people. The cave is there for anyone who wants to go there. I will make my stand here, and now. If this world has actually degenerated to the point where those who have served our country faithfully, and for decades, are now willing to murder their own people by the millions to satisfy a psychopath, then I no longer have any desire to go on. My path will end here, in the midst of the people I have lived my life to serve.”