“Somebody important is making a break for it,” the driver said, his words smooth and melodic. “Some group of influential people.” Somehow the way he spoke the words, he spit out the syllables so that the “flu” sound made the word sound like a virus. “People on that plane are partially responsible for all of this,” he said, indicating the darkness all around them. “And now, they are getting out of Dodge. Does that seem right to you?”
The airplane was released from the tow and started forward down the runway, picking up speed as it lumbered, until it evened off in a smooth flow of motion, and the front wheels left the ground as the pilot pointed the nose of the craft skyward.
“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Clive” the passenger answered, “but I suppose that the powers that be will always cover themselves. That seems to be the way it goes. It’s always the regular people that suffer at times like this.”
“Well,” the driver said, “not always.” He then reached up on the dashboard and flipped another switch that instigated a deep and roaring whush, heard instantly, coming from the back of the RV. The whush turned into an unearthly electric hum and grew until the vehicle itself vibrated and shook as if it were in an earthquake.
The plane left the ground and banked hard to the right, turning out over the Chesapeake Bay until its lights, the only lights in the sky save those from the heavens, began to rise into the night’s deep black. Just as the RV seemed like it might vibrate itself into pieces, the driver flipped up a switch cover and punched a red button. At that moment, the heavily electric hum turned into a sound not unlike a large wave hitting a beach, and there was the feeling of a flash as the lights on the base blinked out.
And as they did, so did the lights on the aircraft.
Moments later, there was a fireball over the horizon. The night sky briefly lit up like a strange reverse snowglobe, or a sunrise, or a rainbow, bursting brightly in a flash of light that rose up against the dark as the plane plummeted into the bay. The brief burst of light in the sky quickly disappeared as the plane’s cabin broke apart and the pieces and jet fuel and the cargo and the people slowly sunk under the murky depths of the water.
“Insufficient shielding.” Clive Darling pronounced with certainty. His drawl was even heavier now. “We warned them about it for years, but they didn’t want to listen. They just wanted to play politics, thought somehow they could reason with an EMP.” Clive reached down and turned the lights back on inside the cabin of the RV, and reached into his shirt pocket and took out a small note pad. He opened the pad and quickly made a few marks in it while the passenger beside him sat and looked out over the nighttime sky.
“What can you do, you know? You can’t reason with a man who has his reasons…”
In the distance, the fires around Washington, D.C. burned out of control as the driver of the RV flipped a few rocker switches on the dash, then started up the vehicle in earnest. The sound of John Denver’s voice once again came over the speakers, singing a song about how sunshine on a man’s shoulders can make him happy, how sunshine looks lovely on the water… The passenger looked out over the scene before him and thought that those words were true.
Clive Darling thought so, too. He softly began humming those words to himself as they pulled away into the enveloping night.
KNOT THREE - EXODUS
CHAPTER 18
At the bottom of the hill they turned west for a moment and then followed along the banks of a stream until they found a fallen tree that formed a natural bridge—large and solid enough to carry their weight as they traversed the stream’s width. With Peter in the lead, they hiked through the Forest Preserve, heading generally in a southwesterly direction, making their way by the angle of the sun in the fall sky. The walking was rough because the snow was high, but they settled into a rhythm that kept them pushing forward with firm conviction.
They did their best to stay cloaked under a cover of trees because they had no way of knowing whether they might be spotted by the swarm of drones that had, just hours before, swept in and laid waste to the town behind them. They were survivors and, from the stain left on the earth back in their village, it was clear to them that whoever had ordered the drone strike did not intend for there to beany survivors. Although manageable, the cold was persistent with its stinging rebuke, and it forced them to keep moving to stay warm.
They walked, occupying themselves with thoughts of how their lives had come to this, and what might lie before them. Everything was going to change now. These three were free human beings, perhaps for the first time in their lives, but that very thought carried a terror all its own. History is replete with examples of brave men and women who found peace in the depths of a prison. Names like John Bunyan, Mandela, Ghandi, Bobby Sands, or Vaclav Havel come to mind. However, the Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt only to turn to newer and more willful forms of enslavement. Often, once the bonds of the physical have been lifted, the spirit and the mind still remain in chains.
Unfettered now by entangling alliances, oaths, and contracts signed by strangers on their behalf before they were even born, the three traveled onward, not knowing yet how they would respond to trials they’d meet along their way. Emerson wrote that when you travel, your giant travels with you. Now Peter, Lang, and Natasha quietly pondered whether they were prepared, whether they would survive, whether they could shoulder the giants of their past while trudging through the snow toward…
What?
There was no answer to that question. At least for now.
Peter’s plan had been roughly sketched long ago through talks with Lev Volkhov, the wise old leader who’d foreseen the trouble they now faced. Generally, they intended to head toward Amish country in Pennsylvania. The reasons for this were not entirely clear to the younger Lang and Natasha, but those reasons were actually quite simple in their conceptualization. Volkhov believed that, were a systemic collapse or disaster to come, refugees from Warwick would fare better in Amish country than anywhere else. It was that simple.
The Warwickians’ small town and provincial ways, as well as their ignorance of the means and patterns of modern life among the “English” (which is the term used by the Amish for all outsiders—since we are speaking of them) would be a two-edged sword in this journey. First, simple ways and an unorthodox manner would make Peter, Lang, and Natasha more vulnerable to the conditions in the wider American landscape. Second, they would explain away any idiosyncrasies of behavior once the refugees could become enmeshed among another group that had been born and raised in an insular society. Both considerations argued for their plan. No matter which way the sword cut, it suggested they should go to Amish country, because if they could get to the Amish they would have a better chance to survive. Or at least that was the hope. Peter considered these things as he looked up and along the ridgeline in the distance and braced his chin against the cold of the coming climb.
Had the three travelers been born In Los Angeles or Des Moines, or almost anywhere else in America other than their insulated Russian hamlet, they might have wondered about the logic of the plan. Why go to the Amish during a time of war? Aren’t they pacifists? Won’t they be the first to meet their end? This seems like a reasonable objection. However, there is a supposition behind that thought that had to be addressed. History tells a story of the pacifist Amish that contradicts the implications of the argument. The bare essential of that history is that, pacifist or not, the Amish—as a people group with a government, laws, and practices—have been around for more than five hundred years. Most of those years have been lived out in the most violent places and times in the history of civilization. Napoleon and his armies had come and gone, as had the Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, and most of the British Empire, but the Amish still abide. Whether one attributed this fact to the protections offered by their religious faith, or the fact that, as a community, they took care of their own, or to a latent human conscience that respected their passivity and way of life, the fact remains that they were survivors. Their pacifism and faith protected them like the Alps protected Swiss neutrality. Being a student of history Volkhov understood this