State of Carolina
He had written it out half a dozen times. If Bob was not alive, he had not given away any crucial details. He had also implied that his community now possessed air-defense capability if the message should fall into hostile hands. For that matter, he was not even sure now if Bob was indeed still a comrade on the same side or if that the tragic events of the last few years now placed them potentially on opposing sides. He had made no mention of Quentin’s ramblings about an EMP, whatever that might now mean. The proof of who he was Bob would know. One photo was from a visit Bob and his wife had made to Black Mountain, a poignant trip after he passed the word that Mary was in her final weeks. It was a photograph of all of them together, Mary, still clinging to life and smiling for the photo, six-year-old Jennifer and ten-year-old Elizabeth to either side of her, John and Bob standing behind them, trying to smile as well. The second was a photo of just the two of them in the field during Desert Storm, leaning against a Humvee, begrimed, grinning, for the cease-fire—at least for the next few years—had just been announced, their brief taste of America’s first open war in the Middle East at an end.
Thinking about it now caused a rush of memories. Were they still friends, or were they now enemies? Bob had been his mentor, taking a liking to John, who, fresh out of ROTC, had been assigned to Bob’s staff. As Bob went from colonel to general, John had followed the more intellectual route of a military career, going on to graduate work in military history, their paths crossing again at Carlisle, where John had the pleasure of teaching for a year after Desert Storm.
If enemies, it made him think of the life of Robert E. Lee, who was somewhat of a namesake for his friend. Lee had served as superintendent at West Point in the early 1850s. Ten years later, more than one of his young cadets from West Point faced him across the other side in the fields of Antietam and Gettysburg, the burning woods of the Wilderness, and the nightmare slaughter in front of Cold Harbor. After such blood-drenched fights, Lee would read in captured newspapers accounts of yet another of those young cadets’ deaths and knew deep within that the cause he fought for with such tenacity had resulted in those deaths.
Is Bob my enemy or my friend? John now wondered. If my enemy, would he kill me, or at least try to warn me at first, and was that the reason Quentin had been sent? Or, for that matter, is this all some sort of cruel existentialist joke?
A vibration running through the chopper snapped him out of his musing.
“What was that?”
He could see a look of concern now in Forrest’s eyes and those of Malady as well.
“Might be one of the turbines is starting to break up,” Forrest said calmly.
“I think I dozed off. Where are we?”
“We passed Statesville on our left about five minutes ago,” Forrest said. “My God, it’s all gone, John. Burned out, looted, looks like a wasteland. Those rumors that the Posse and other gangs like it just tore it apart are true. Sick bastards.”
Another vibration, this one more pronounced.
“We’re shutting one engine down!” Danny shouted, looking back at John.
“We gonna crash?” Lee asked.
“It can fly on one,” Forrest replied. “Not fast, but at least keep us going.”
John wondered if Maury even knew the proper procedure for shutdown while in flight or whether this was a learn-on-the-job situation. For that matter, how would the helicopter’s flight characteristics change, and could Maury handle it?
Seconds later, he began to find out when it felt like, the chopper falling out beneath them and Maury then pitching the nose forward. At least he had a thousand feet of altitude to figure it out, but at their speed, that meant a matter of seconds. He could hear the difference in engine and rotor pitch and then the additional strain on the one remaining engine as Maury pushed it to the max, finally leveling out just a few hundred feet above Interstate 40.
Going against safety procedures, John unclipped from his harness and crawled forward. He didn’t say a word to Maury, who was completely focused on keeping them aloft, Danny talking to him on the intercom, offering either some advice or just encouragement.
John could see the airspeed indicator. They were down to seventy—he was not sure if it was miles per hour or knots.
“I think I smell something burning!” Forrest shouted, and John picked up the scent as well. What the hell was it?
“That’s Hickory up ahead!” Danny shouted. “Still Indian country in places. We’re trying for the Morganton airport, which is ten miles farther on.”
“If it holds together,” Forrest replied.
“The airport in Morganton is ours. Can we make it?”
“My thoughts!” Danny shouted. “Hangar’s still intact. Old Bob Gillespie still lives there, used to work on choppers.”
Passing the outskirts of Hickory, flying low, they passed within easy landing distance of that far larger airport, but it was still an area not really secured. And as if in answer, there was a sharp rattling beneath them.
“Some bastard down there just hit us!” Forrest announced. “Thank God this isn’t a Huey with no armor; I might have caught one in the ass!”
John crawled back to his seat and strapped back in, Danny shouting they were just minutes out if things held together.
Crossing over narrow Lake Rhodhiss, John could clearly see the Morganton airport straight ahead—one long runway up on a slight bluff. Maury aimed straight for the middle of it, approaching the runway at a right angle, not bothering to swing out the few extra miles for a standard runway approach.
He began to ease off the throttle, pulling in the collective, the nose flaring up, view forward changing to nothing but sky for John.
He looked over at Lee, trying to offer a reassuring smile. His old friend and neighbor, a man with six generations of family history in their valley, a man he would want more than anyone else by his side in a fight, was definitely having a hard time with his first flight. In spite of the cold, sweat was beading down his face and his eyes were closed, his lips moving in silent prayer.
“Almost there!” John shouted, putting a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. Lee simply nodded and then leaned forward to retch again.
“Brace yourselves!” Danny shouted.