“Therefore?” John asked.
“We have to hold to our oaths to protect the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic,” Bob replied, strength returning to his voice. “Yes, I took over what they called Eastern Command. I actually believed restoring order using our traditional military had to be done, but the ones I was first fighting against were barbarians like that Posse you wiped out. But then you were in front of me, John. That is when the inner questions started for me. I was ordered to bring you in. I tried to reason back that you had been provoked into that fight with Fredericks because you had no alternative but to fight.
“It didn’t fly. I thought I could work my way around it, get you to cooperate peacefully, which you did order, and then they tried to kill you anyhow. That assassination attempt was of course to kill you and your family as vengeance for your defiance, but it was a message to me as well that I was being watched and to toe the line. And thus the questions began to hit at last on my part in all of this.” He looked over at John. “Forgive me for not protecting you better.”
“Nothing to forgive now, sir,” John replied, but in his heart he knew if Makala had been killed that would have taken him beyond any forgiveness.
“When they ordered me to pull back to Roanoke, I knew I had to act, but how? Then your friend Linda handed me the deepest paradox of all. Did at least some of them know what was about to happen before the Day, protected themselves and their own, and left the rest of our country wide open for what then followed? That finally tipped it. That is why I had to come here and settle for myself what had to be done.” He forced a weary smile. “What I have to do now.”
Bob turned away from John and lowered his head. John knew what he was doing; he had seen it just days before in the chapel at Montreat. He remained thus for several minutes.
John heard him whisper, “Thy will be done.” Bob made the sign of the cross and then leaned back in his chair and looked over at John.
“Get that administrator or whatever he is back in here,” Bob said, and his voice was firm.
John opened the door, pointed at Pelligrino, and nodded to the guards, who shoved the trembling man back into the room.
“Again, I must protest this kind of treatment,” Pelligrino started, but an icy glance from Bob silenced him.
Bob pointed to the control booth in the far corner of the room. “Do you know how to operate the equipment in there?” Bob asked.
Pelligrino shook his head.
“Find someone who can do so now.”
Pelligrino hesitated.
“Now!”
“Phyllis is our communications person,” Pelligrino blurted out.
“Get her in here,” Bob snapped.
John opened the door, pointed at Phyllis, and beckoned for her to enter, which she did reluctantly.
“First of all, get me on the phone with Bluemont again, and put it on speaker. I want you and Colonel Matherson to hear it.”
Pelligrino did as ordered, pulling over the red phone on the desk Bob was sitting at and pushing a single button that lit up on the face of the phone. Bob picked up the receiver.
“Who is this?” a woman’s voice answered on the other side.
Bob looked over his shoulder at Pelligrino. “I said I want this on speaker.”
Pelligrino looked to Phyllis, who switched on a speaker mounted above the desk.
“This is General Robert Scales here.”
There was a pause.
“We demand that you put Mr. Pelligrino on the phone now,” the woman replied.
“It’s the other way around,” Bob replied. “Whoever calls themselves president where you are, you put that person on the phone.”
“Just who do you think you are?” came the sharp reply. “General, you have been stripped of rank effective immediately. You are to turn yourself over to Mr. Pelligrino and the head of security where you are. Any who continue to obey your orders will face the severest consequences. You will be escorted to a secured area where you wait until our forces arrive.”
Bob actually smiled at that. “Go to hell.”
“What?” Her voice was almost a shriek, and as it rose in volume, John found himself looking at the loudspeaker with surprise. He recognized who she was.
“Madam. You are to recall your forces now. Immediately.”
“Mr. Scales, it’s the other way around.”
“I hold the trump card; you do not.”
“You’re an egotistical fool. You have fewer than eighty with you. We realize that now. You’ve undoubtedly learned by now there are additional security forces within the site. Whatever chance you had is finished. If you surrender yourself, I promise leniency for all those deluded into following you, and that is our only offer.”
Bob cupped his hand over the receiver and looked at John and the two guards.
“Tell her to kiss our asses,” one of the troopers replied. “Every man and woman under your command is with you, sir.”
Bob nodded his thanks and then looked at Phyllis. “I want you to turn those cameras on and set up an uplink.”
“To what?” she asked nervously.
“BBC, for starters. China, the whole damn world.”
“I will not.”
“I can have one of my tech people in here in less than five minutes and do your job for you,” Bob replied coolly.
She did not move.
“Get someone. Sergeant McCloskey can handle it,” Bob snapped to the two guards in the room, and one set off at a run, but the other guard came up close to John.
“McCloskey’s dead,” the guard whispered to John.
He could see Bob hesitating, such a rare sight, but all of it had become all so overwhelming. Every second that passed raised the chance that a counterstrike could hit them, and as if in answer, he could hear what sounded like gunfire from outside the command bunker. Chances were they were about to be overrun.
What had to be done, he knew Bob most likely was contemplating, but the moment dragged out, gunfire growing louder, and for John, it came down to Lee, Grace, Jennifer, all those who died. All those who would continue to die.
“Sir,” John snapped, and he extended his hand out, indicating he wanted the phone.
Bob looked at him in surprise but then handed the phone up.
“This is John Matherson. You might not know who I am, but I know who you are.”
There was a pause from the other end. “The terrorist from Carolina?” It was more a question than a reply.
“A citizen from Carolina who knows that you plan to take down the entire southeast region of the United States with another EMP burst within the next few days.”
“What difference does it make that I’m talking to you instead of a general now formally stripped of command?” she snapped.
“I’ll tell you the difference, ma’am.”
There was no reply, but over the loudspeaker, John could hear whispering from those who were most likely in the same room with the woman on the phone.
“I want all of you to listen closely. General Scales might not be comfortable with ordering this, but I no longer have a problem after everything you bastards have done to us, to our country.”