John felt sick inside just thinking of how each small step back from the darkness had so lifted the morale of all. To suddenly have that go entirely down again would be a final deathblow. If it was delivered, whoever was left afterward might as well crawl into their graves and pull the sod over themselves and die.
He could not reply and just sat there in silence. If at this moment Bob had produced a cigarette, he would have taken it, his pledge to Jennifer gone, for indeed there would be nothing left, no hope left, no dream of rebuilding if this was indeed the level that Bluemont was willing to go to.
“It is why I had to bring you in now, John,” Bob said softly, taking another sip from the mason jar. “I’m trying to forestall it, to make a stab at Atlanta first and hope for the best. If that fails, at least I can argue that this region is back in the fold, and if an EMP is detonated to do it farther out to sea or at lower altitude so you are not impacted.”
“Bob, just sit back for another year or two, let those barbarians left in Atlanta literally eat each other, then you might be able to move in. But try it now? EMP first or not, you damn well had better have a lot more troops than General Sherman did; otherwise, it will be a bloody disaster.”
Bob nodded sadly and then made a show of looking at his old-style wristwatch. “It’s been nearly an hour. I don’t want my young officer up there to get anxious and come looking for me. It might trigger something.”
“The mood my people are in, if he comes down here like gangbusters, yes, it will go bad.”
“Then I’d better get back.” Bob stood up, John rising as well.
“What next?” John asked.
“I’m setting up forward headquarters in Asheville. Can you assure me there won’t be a fight?”
“Asheville? Not sure. Chances are there won’t be resistance; the fight was already punched out of that town long ago. I think, though, your safer bet would be to laager in at the airport, far enough out of town so you don’t have to deal with some nutjob sniper, but close enough that everyone will know you’re there. If that convoy that’s coming up from Greenville, South Carolina, gets through the Green River Gorge safely, the airport would be a good place to rendezvous.”
“I’ll need the airfield there,” Bob replied, “so your suggestion is a good one. We have a couple of C-130s with us in Roanoke that have already touched down on the interstate, but getting the runway at Asheville back up would be preferred. And the navy can fly some things in as well once we get that runway your people chewed up repaired.”
Bob looked down at the mason jar. John gestured for him to take it, and Bob slipped it into the pocket of his parka. “This is the way it is, John. You stay on, function as before, and if you follow my rules, I’ll report to Bluemont the situation is under control here and you are under house arrest for now—or better yet, we can’t find you—and that this area has achieved level-one stability. You’ve got to stay low. For heaven’s sake, don’t screw it up by letting Bluemont catch wind that you are out and about. If you do that, I want you to continue to function as before but behind the scenes, and for God’s sake, don’t go broadcasting that around, so stay off the radios.”
“And in return?”
“I report this area is secure.”
“And the EMP?”
“Let me cross that bridge a month from now. Maybe I can talk them down from it. You’re right; I know as well as you that trying to take Atlanta now would turn into another Fallujah or even a Stalingrad. I need your help with this. Can I count on you?”
John finally nodded in reply, for after all, there was no other alternative short of seeing another war fought by his community.
“You got a landline down to the airport?” Bob asked.
“We have a line to Hendersonville.”
“Is the wire near the airport?”
“It runs along the interstate.”
“Get one of your people down there today, have them point it out, and I’ll have my people link it in. I want that done by tonight. That will then be how we stay in touch.”
John nodded. “EMP. If those bastards are going to do it, what do you do?”
“Don’t ask me that yet,” Bob said wearily.
“Will you give me warning?”
Bob stared at him and finally nodded. “If you see me pulling out of here with everything we can haul, pulling back to Roanoke to be out of line of sight, you’ll know it’s coming. That’s the best I can do for you.”
“And you would let them do that?”
Bob looked back at the painting of General Washington kneeling in the snow of Valley Forge. “Ask me again in a month.”
“All right, then,” he said, finally adding, “sir.”
“Thank you, John. I’m sorry it had to be this way. Please keep your people reined in; let’s make this as easy as possible. From here, I’ll go straight to Asheville to make sure things are settled down there. Once that phone line is in, I’ll be in daily touch.”
Zipping up his parka, Bob opened the door, John following him out. Bob paused, looked through the open door into the adjoining chapel, and stepped in. Students up on a high scaffolding, working to repair the damaged ceiling, were hammering away, disturbing the silence. Bob stopped at the back of the chapel, taking it in, John coming to his side.
“I remember this place well, from when Mary was laid to rest.”
“It’s the heart of this campus,” John said. “Lot of days, even before the Day, this is where I’d come to pray by myself, to sort things out. A lot of hearts and memories are tied to this place.”
Bob nodded and then simply knelt down, lowered his head, whispered a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and stood back up.
“Pray for me, John.”
And at that moment, John again fully trusted his old commander. Coming to attention, John saluted him, Bob returning the salute and then embracing him. The chapel was now entirely silent; the students who had been working had stopped and were watching them. Though not planned at all, John knew that word of the prayer, salute, and embrace would spread from one end of the campus to the other within minutes, and for the moment, it had defused the potential of a deadly confrontation.
He walked his friend to the outside door where Maury was patiently waiting. Bob offered him a friendly smile, jokingly asking if he could drive the jeep on the way back, and his two friends drove off, Bob at the wheel, tires spinning in the snow.
As he drove off, John made a mental note to immediately call Ernie and tell him to check the camouflage for the antenna array on the roof of his house. No sense in Bob getting wind that they were already working on their own to try to listen in to Bluemont. And with what Bob had just told him, now there was true urgency to that task.
John returned to the chapel alone, sat in the rear pew, lowered his head, and, like Washington at Valley Forge, began to pray while outside snow again began to fall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Makala was fast asleep out on the sunporch while John dozed in his office, unable to sleep the night after the conversation with Bob and all that had transpired in the previous twenty-four hours, when the phone on his desk rang, startling him awake.
He picked it up before it rang a second time.
“Sir, are you safe?”
It was Kevin Malady.
“Sure, why?”