Again, Bob did not directly reply. “Full-scale war with China now?” he finally said. “Then who gets to grab what’s left of the radioactive pie? Mongolia?”
John actually chuckled and shook his head.
“Some years back, I was over there for a conference,” Bob continued. “Great people, beautiful country. Remember camping with the head of their military up in a northern province for a weekend of fishing.” He smiled wistfully and took another sip of coffee. “Anyhow, we were finally talking shop. That guy said they assumed someday it was all going to hit the fan. Russia against us, China against Russia, or just the whole world goes crazy. He then said, and I swear the guy was serious, that when the dust settled and radioactivity cooled off, they would mount up and ride again. Maybe that’s who wins if this unravels any further. John, we are balanced on a razor’s edge. A couple of third-rate powers triggered all of this; I swear that pudgy nutcase in North Korea did it just to see if they could do it. Iran joins in on the plot for whatever it was they used to believe about their hidden imam returning. We allowed them to get their nukes and missiles to hand off to terrorists like ISIS. Damn all who allowed that to happen. Any idiot could see eventually they’d go for us.
“Anyhow,” he said, sighing wearily and staring into his coffee cup, “I saw the report that where the well is that their imam was supposed to come out of is now a crater a thousand feet deep. Same is true for the cities controlled by the terrorists and all of North Korea. Some vengeance.
“That’s all moot now as far as you and I are concerned. It happened, and we lost. The job now is to pick up the pieces of what is left and try to reassemble some sort of united front. A United States out of what is left and project outwardly that, though our backs are to the wall, we’re standing again as a united country. If not, we completely cease to exist.”
There was a long moment of silence, the two friends sipping their scotch-laced coffee, a cold breeze sweeping into the open hangar so that they zipped their parkas back up, while outside the helicopter turbines continued to turn over with a low steady hum.
John wished he had not accepted the scotch. Never have a drink, even with a once trusted friend, until whatever issue was between them was settled.
“You’re here to either pull me in or take us out, is that it, Bob?”
His friend looked over at him and slowly nodded.
“What exactly is your job now?”
“Military governor of this entire region. Everything east of the Appalachians from Charlottesville down to the wreckage of what was once Florida. Navy is working the coast; I’m to deal with everything inland.”
“I assume you know what happened between us and that idiot Fredericks that was sent down here back in the spring.”
“Yeah. Don’t look at me, John; I had nothing to do with that screwup and the idiotic idea of the Army of National Recovery. Those of us left from the regular military were appalled with that idea. You can’t pull a bunch of kids out of surviving communities where they are needed most right now, throw a weapon in their hands, given them twelve weeks of basic, and send them into hellholes like Chicago, Pittsburgh, or what had once been D.C. or New York City. It was the same kind of stupid thinking about how to fight Vietnam, and remember, I’m old enough to have been in on the tail end of that one. Draftees who barely knew how to wipe their own butts out in the jungle without getting jungle rot or snake bit didn’t stand a chance. Same with the ANR. After that battalion got taken prisoner in Chicago and every last one tortured to death by the gangs running that place, the whole concept was quietly dropped.
“That’s why what is left of our regular military was pulled back from the face-off with the Chinese and Mexico out west and redeployed here. We got to get things back into a single, unified whole—at least east of the Mississippi. That’s my job now.”
“Did you send a courier to me by the name of Quentin Reynolds?” John asked.
“He was a good man.” Bob sighed. “Said he grew up in the area, knew his way around. After we took Roanoke, I wanted to get word to you outside regular channels.” He paused, obviously carefully choosing his words. “Let’s just say that Major Quentin took it upon himself to try to reach you with that and some other things.”
“What other things, sir?” John asked.
“Let’s stick to Quentin for now. He left with several others in a Humvee. Did he get through?”
“He’s dead, Bob. Don’t know about those who came with him. Some of my people found him along Interstate 26, on foot, badly beaten. It is still no-man’s-land up in parts of these mountains, and he met the wrong folks. Only thing one of my men got out of him before he died was that you sent him and wanted to talk.”
Bob sighed and then stared straight at him. “Obviously, he had some contact to you; otherwise, you wouldn’t have tried to reach me. What exactly did he say?”
The way Bob spoke the last few words, John could sense his friend was tense. “I never spoke to him directly, sir. He reached an outlying community run by my friend Forrest, the one-armed Afghan vet. They fetched me back to meet him, but Quentin died before I could talk to him.”
Again silence from Bob.
“Why him?” John asked. “A trek from Roanoke to here by land, that is damn near suicide, especially at this time of year. Why not just send a message in the clear? You got the air assets.”
John nodded out to the Black Hawk that, in a profligate display, was still burning precious Jet A fuel.
“I couldn’t, John.”
“Why?”
Bob stood up, downing the last of his coffee and setting the cup on a cluttered workbench next to the dust-covered Aeronca Champ.
“Because I have orders to kill you. Kill you and either rein this so-called State of Carolina into line or wipe it out.”
Bob turned his back on John as he spoke, and John wondered if his old friend and mentor did so because he could not look him in the eye as he spoke.
“John, I would like you to come back to Roanoke with me to talk this thing out further. I promise you no harm will come to you or your community while you are away. I’m asking you to trust me on this.”
“Is that an order, sir, or a request from a friend?”
“I’d prefer the latter.” He paused for a moment. “John, I’m doing this as a dark op. No one further up the line knows I’m here talking to you privately. I’m doing this as a favor to a trusted friend. Please come back with me for your own good and that of your community.”
“And if I say no?”
Bob sighed and turned back to face John.
John shifted his focus to the pilots in the chopper. One appeared to be talking, attention focused toward Bob. Had there been some sort of signal? Was something being called in if he refused Bob’s “request”?
“John, I hate to say it, but I think you can assume I can bring hell down on this place in less than five minutes. I assume that the men who were with you when I landed are some of your closest friends and advisors.”
“They are.”
“If this goes bad, they will be caught up in it as well.”
“I know that.”
“Therefore?”
John looked into his eyes and could still see his old friend, a commander he respected and would have given his life to protect. Was he really capable of doing this?
“Why, Bob?”
“Orders.”
That left him stunned, and he lowered his head. “I recall an ethics class you personally taught at the War College,” John said softly, voice tinged with sadness. “A code that stated that an officer must refuse an immoral order, even if it meant his career or even his life. Bob, I know you too well to accept that you are—and God forgive me for saying it—only following orders.”
Bob bristled at the reply and did not speak.