Vice-Admiral Reed butted in. “Mister President, what have your advisors’ made of the data we sent over to the White House?”
“Damnit, we’ve not had time — half my staff didn’t turn in today.”
“That’s odd?”
“I expect they wanted to start the holiday weekend early,” he said with a shrug.
“That does not sound like White House personnel. They would have fought so hard to get a position on the staff. I don’t think they would jeopardize that by playing hooky,” the vice-admiral said. His companions nodded their agreement, suddenly the vice-admiral’s face dropped. “You don’t think it’s the—”
The President waved away the notion, and cleared his throat again. “No, no, Washington is safe, all the hospitals are on red alert, and we have the police doing ‘unofficial’ random stop-checks. No, we’re clean. My guess is they’re fleeing north, or aboard to get away from this thing. Goddamn cowards…” He paced around his desk deep in thought, and then seemed to remember that they were there on his video-link screen, “Where was I…?”
“Are you feeling alright, Mister President, are you getting enough sleep?” the vice-admiral asked.
“Who has time to sleep?” He threw his arms up in the air. “Not me, that’s for sure. I wanted to ask my physician for something to help, but he hasn’t attended today.”
“Doctor Crawford’s not shown up? That’s not like him. Have you tried to contact him?”
“He’s not answering,” he said dismissively. “Can we get back to the matter in hand?”
Quinn Martell is still in DC, shall we send him over?” said the vice-admiral.
“The surgeon general’s in DC? Why?” He acted jumpy, and then his mind seemed to wander off.
“Shall I send him over, Mister President? Protocol states that a physician should be at your side at all times?”
“That’s right, I’d forgotten, what with all the pressure on me.” His voice trailed off, then. “Right, where were we?”
“Shall I send for him, Mister President?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Do that, fine. Now, we must get back to the situation in Florida. Has anyone heard from General Malloy? Has anyone made contact yet?”
“We’ve sent another team down there, Mister President,” Vice-Admiral Reed said. “To set up mobile command, further north this time.” An interactive map filled each man’s monitor. “Miami and the surrounding areas are lost…” He let the fact sink in, before continuing. “We’re going to pull right back and set up the command center near Lake Okeechobee.”
Once again, there was a murmur from the assembled men regarding the chaotic mess in Florida. Each man knew the enormity of the situation, but Vice-Admiral Reed was the first to admit the crisis was out of control. He laid it on the line, and told them how bad things were.
“When was somebody going to tell me this?” the President asked with menace in his voice as he paced the Oval Office disappearing and reappearing on the screen while he wandered.
Vice-Admiral Reed used his cell to call Quinn Martell. He gave him instructions to hightail it over to the White House as soon as possible. He filled him in on the latest information, and reminded him that it would be within his power and in fact, his duty, to section President Parker if necessary. He quoted the relevant amendments and paragraph numbers that gave him the authority to do so, which would then give leadership to the more even-keeled Speaker of the House.
“OK,” said President Parker. “You’re trying to tell me that the might of the US army, navy and air-force can’t handle the situation and we are retreating like cowards?” He clearly did not approve.
“A tactical maneuver, Mister President, it would be prudent to use our troops on the ground more efficiently. From what I can understand — and I’m only getting fragments at the moment — but it appears that a band of vigilantes are blowing things up to distract—”
“Blowing things up?” the President said aghast. “Like what?”
“So far, erm, a house, some boats, a trailer park—”
“And we can’t catch them?” He threw his arms in the air again in disgust.
“Our guys on the ground have to investigate, sift through the evidence, look for clues, it’s all too time consuming, sir. We’re running around south Florida like headless chickens. Meanwhile we need to strengthen our road blocks, and have more troops guarding the perimeter, we’re spread too thinly.”
“While I agree that makes sense, we still need to find the terrorists, and this latest development has all the hallmarks of guerrilla attacks, wasting our time chasing after ghosts,” he paused for the longest moment. “OK, here’s the deal. We’ll pull back the troops to a safe distance, double up the perimeter, double up the patrols, and send in more airplanes and drones to track those traitors. We’ll use the precision of our superior technology to catch these bastards.” He smiled for the first time in ages and finally felt like he was back in control. “Then we’ll send in an elite forces squad with the sole aim of eliminating Doctor Garcia and her accomplice.”
CHAPTER 31
12:00 MIDDAY
Captain Phillips of the aircraft carrier USS Thomas Jefferson decided to see the calamity with his own eyes. He skippered the navy launch rescue boat, on the search for the missing craft from the previous evening, along with crewmembers Gomez and Lieutenant Harvey. They wore the heavy orange hazmat suits for their protection.
Captain Phillips, a rugged war-horse stood at the helm and directed the craft into the entrance of the Intracoastal Waterway river following the route that his launch crew had taken the night before, chasing the renegades.
“You sure this is right, crewman?” the captain’s voice sounded metallic through his mouthpiece.
“Aye-aye, Captain. We were tracing them, they went up this inlet to the inter-coastal highway and then we lost contact.”
“What time was this?”
“2200 hours, captain. Then we lost them,”
The captain snorted his derision. “Gone AWOL, more like. You wait until we catch up with those no good bums.” He looked left and right as the naval craft chugged into the wide mouth of the river. He turned the craft and kept up his vigil, as did his two companions.
After a moment, Gomez pointed and shouted frantically. “Captain, look!” He pointed at the smoldering remains of the naval launch.
“Damn those no-good lazy bastards! I’ll have them court marshaled for destroying navy property.”
“I don’t think they went AWOL, Captain.”
“Why not?” he asked nastily.
“Because, that looks like one of them over there.” He pointed at a body floating between two moored speedboats. The captain maneuvered the craft near to the corpse. Gomez leaned out of the craft, which was extremely difficult as his hazmat suit restricted his movements. He grabbed the body under the shoulders, to get the best purchase, put his foot on the edge of the craft preparing to take the weight, then heaved.
The upper torso of the sailor shot out of the river covering them all in water, then straight up over the top of Gomez’s head where he let go of it in surprise, it sailed over them all and splashed back into the river.
“What in God’s name are you doing, crewman?” the captain asked.
“Didn’t you see it, Captain? It’s only his head and shoulders.” Gomez looked nauseous and went to retrieve the body. He splashed the water towards the boat to bring the corpse closer. The body turned in the water and bobbed towards the boat.
Even the battle-hardened captain recoiled at the sight of the head, which various marine life had nibbled, leaving two black cavernous holes, where the eyes should have been. “Get it in the craft, we’ll identify him and see that he gets a proper burial.” He looked heavenward and said a few words of prayer silently to himself.