Luke stumbled, and fell to the dirt. Sophie helped him to stand. “Come on, you’re doing fine, it’s only a little further. The boat-house should be near,” she smiled brightly at him, trying to cheer him. Being back to nature filled her with bliss. The Everglades always did. She loved the wide-open spaces, the sheer hugeness of the water made her feel peaceful. She liked to get to the Everglades whenever she had the time. She would travel on one of the ubiquitous airboats to penetrate deep into the sub-tropical swamp. She found it cleansing to be back to nature, away from the hot, sweaty city of Miami and its hoards of people all crammed in together.
She hoped that Luke would feel the same, although she doubted it, he seemed to be a city boy through and through. She tripped on a log, and pointed out the hazard to Luke. She found herself daydreaming about the two of them returning together to the Everglades when this epidemic was over and taking an airboat out, even maybe go camping. “I can hear water and if my navigation is correct we should see the boathouse and the Everglades.”
“Everglades,” he groaned. “Home of the alligator.”
“They stay in the water, away from humans, usually.”
“Usually?” he said with a sarcastic edge to his voice.
“Did you know that the Everglade also has crocodiles?” she asked pushing branches of cypress tree from her face.
“No I didn’t.”
“And bears, and panthers.”
“Just my luck.”
“Don’t be such a girl,” she teased. “They’ll be more frightened of you, than you are of them.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he mumbled to himself. “As long as we don’t come across any snakes, I’ll be—”
“Oh.”
“Oh, what do you mean, ‘oh’?”
“Erm, nothing. Look, we’re here,” she pointed to the enormity of the Everglades, all two million acres of it, but in the darkness it was too difficult to judge the scale of its vastness.
They entered the boathouse and Sophie shone the flashlight around the interior. “I suggest I take another look at your leg, it is going to need to rest.”
23:32 PM
“Well, Gentlemen,” Colonel ‘Homer’ Simpson said wearily, and locked eyes with each and every person around the mahogany conference table in the pentagon war room. “I think it’s time; on the strength of what we have learned from General Malloy.”
The chiefs of staff muttered in disbelief then fell silent. Colonel Simpson let the implication sink in for the longest moment, still unable to believe what he proposed himself. “What with the unimaginable sinking of the USS Thomas Jefferson and the influx of illegal’s willing to risk their lives, I think it’s our only course of action. What say you?”
“Dear God,” said the Brigadier-General from the air force, “it’s inconceivable.”
“It’s out of our hands. We have to act and swiftly.”
“I can’t believe we’re considering the ridiculous proposition from that wet behind the ears Harvard boy.”
“I heard that,” cut in President Parker and his face filled their monitors. His face was startling, having taken on an orange hue.
Colonel Simpson leaned over to the Brigadier General, and whispered behind his hand. “Is he wearing make-up?”
The other man nodded, and shrugged in confusion.
President Hamilton appeared distracted, then remembered the men watching him on the monitor and turned his attention to them. “I’m glad that you have come around to my way of thinking, I’ve been listening to you debating all night, tip-toeing around the issue, but you know I’m right.”
“It’s monstrous,” fumed the Brigadier-General. “I won’t be associated with such a vile scheme. You must all be out of your minds.”
“Fine,” said Hamilton Parker. “You’re dismissed.”
“But— but…” stammered the Brigadier-General in protest.
“I said you’re free to go,” said the President. The brigadier general’s face colored red and with as much dignity as he could muster, he gathered his belongings and marched from the war room followed by his group of advisors. “Now, I take it that there are no other dissenters?” the President waited for a moment. “Good then we will initiate plan Z.”
“Plan Z?” repeated Colonel Simpson.
“That’s what I’ve named it. This plan of action needed a grandiose name. We’re facing the Doomsday Infection; plan Z has a sort of Doomsday feel. After all we will go down in history as the guys with the balls to take the decision—”
“We?” queried the colonel.
“Me then,” the President said, he turned to Vice-Admiral Reed, and Quinn Martell sat together on a couch, under gunpoint of armed guards. He smiled winningly at them. He turned to gaze from the Oval Office window; the majesty of the Washington skyline always amazed him and he knew that he was doing the right thing. “I’m the XO and ultimately responsible for making this game-changing decision, but I’d prefer your blessing, and that it’d go down on record as being a joint decision.” He waited for the hubbub to end, giving them time to digest the enormity of their strategy. “Plan Z is going to happen,” he told them. “With or without your approval. I thought, that, years from now, you could be there, on record, as part of the team that changed the face of this country,” he threw his hands in the air. “Your call.”
There was more frantic chattering and gesturing amongst the various factions. The Colonel tapped the mahogany tabletop to get their attention. “I think it only right that we should vote upon it, after all, as the President said the time for procrastination is over, we need to act promptly. Gentlemen,” he paused given the gravity of the situation. “Let’s take our place in history. On the proposal of the President’s Plan Z, what say you?” He nodded to the man to his left.
“Aye.” The man said resigned to the fact.
“Admiral?” he asked next.
The admiral thought some more, then gave in, “Aye.”
“General Air Force Chief of Staff?” he asked giving everyone his or her proper title as the conversation would go on the permanent record.
He paused, and pondered the notion milking the moment and making sure that it would be duly noted in the future that he had given the proposition his utmost attention, then said, “Aye.”
On the video-link monitors, the President’s smile grew and grew as each person concurred.
“Let’s initiate Plan Z, and we’ll go to Defcon One.”
CHAPTER 45
23:33 PM
The sweltering, balmy Florida night sapped the strength of the military troops stumbling along the canal bank. “This was the last known position, General,” said Major Harris.
General Malloy asked, “How many men were there?”
“Two. National guardsmen on a routine patrol.”
“How long have they been missing?”
“They were due to report in over two hours ago. It might be nothing. They may have deserted.”
The General rubbed his hand over his chin. He needed a shave. He had not slept since… he could not remember, but it had to be at least two days. “I won’t have that sort of talk. Even if they were in the National Guard. We need to find them. They might be in trouble.”
They traipsed under a bridge, “What’s that?” asked the general pointing up ahead.
The major squinted in the gloom. “It looks like a dead horse.”
They slowed and approached the horse and barge cautiously. The men spread out; two climbed onboard the barge.