“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.
“I sense this order is one that you yourself have inner questions about, sir.”
“What the hell do you think?” Bob replied sharply. “An order to either arrest or kill a man I saw as a son, his children substitutes for grandchildren I would never have? Just what the hell do you think?”
“You know I won’t go with you.”
“I kind of assumed that.”
“So I guess this is at an end,” John said, coming to his feet. “It’s your call, Bob, and I’m leaving it to you. You asked me what Quentin had said. And as I just told you, by the time I reached his side, he was dead. But he did spill something beyond the fact that you were alive.” John paused. “At least what he rambled about to my friend Forrest and the nurse trying to save him. Like I said, the poor man was damn near dead when he was found and out of his head.”
“And he said what?”
“Something about another EMP.”
Bob stiffened and broke eye contact.
“Bob?”
“John, I’ll ask you one more time. Come back with me to Roanoke. We can talk further then. Bluemont wants you dead. If I’ve got you stashed away in a safe place, believe me, it’s for your own good.”
“Sir, I’m not going back with you, and if all was reversed, you’d say the same.”
“Yeah, I assumed it would be thus.”
“So, what’s next?” John asked. “You’re free to go. I won’t stop you, and you knew that before you even stepped foot off that chopper. You get your people back in, lift off, I tell my people to scatter, and in five minutes, you and I are personally at war. Is that it?”
Bob did not reply.
“Kind of like what we read happened at West Point a long time ago, when the superintendent was ordered to hold on charges of treason any cadet or faculty that would not renew the oath of allegiance to the Union. Instead, he told the secretary of war to go to hell and let his old friends and students—now enemies preparing to serve the Confederacy—leave without a fight. Is that it?”
Bob nodded. “I’ve served my country over forty-five years. If not for this current mess, I was about to retire out, settle down with Linda; she was already picking out a place down on Marco Island, and you know how it is. Old soldier writes a book or two, kills the boredom by fishing, and quietly grumbles how the country continues to go to hell but there is nothing he can do about it. And now, instead, I’m here, freezing my ass off.”
“Then why did you really come, Bob? Really? Your comment a few minutes back tells me that if I don’t go, you are most likely expected to lift off, and five minutes later, this place is toast. Is that what Bluemont expects?”
Bob did not reply.
“So why not do it?”
“In reply, John, I assume there are at least a few heavy weapons stashed in this hangar and you got extra personnel in a hangar next door to this one. You could hold me hostage and back out. Chances are if I’m taken prisoner, in spite of my orders to hit you even if I am being held, my people would hold back on a strike, allowing you to escape.”
John sighed, shook his head, and gestured for the general to sit back down by his side. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you, and unless this damn war has twisted you inside out, I know you won’t order a strike on me, at least not like this.”
“Oh, damn all this shit to hell,” Bob whispered, and with a weary groan, he returned to sit at John’s side. “It’s cold out here, so damn cold.”
“Yeah, I know.” John emptied the last of the thermos, most into Bob’s cup, the last few drops into his.
“What did they used to call it? A Mexican standoff or something like that, though I guess that became politically incorrect to say years ago.”
“Something like that. ‘Mutually assured destruction’ kind of fits better at the moment. Both of us die or both of us walk away.”
“Stupid, all of it.”
“You need not tell me, sir. So who ordered me dead?”
“Bluemont.”
“Again Bluemont. Can you give me a straight answer?”