The Final Day (After, #3)(114)

Bob closed his eyes. “‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion … If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning … If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth…’”

He looked over at John. “The 137th Psalm,” he whispered. “I dwell on it often when I think of all that has happened.”

“And you are saying we cannot let our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth or our right hand forget its strength.”

Bob made no gesture of reply.

“Enemies, foreign and domestic—it all turns on that, sir. Not just what they did but what they are about to do to hold on to their power. To protect the Constitution, it is therefore right for you to act.”

His gaze was no longer fixed on John, as if he was staring off to some distant place

“And to not forget the Jerusalem that they allowed to be destroyed,” John interjected, “Whether they thought it would be—forgive me for even saying it—just a strike on Washington and New York that would reset the political paradigm and power structure or some suspected it would be a full-scale EMP strike, it happened. Now they’re ready to do it themselves against the southern United States. Why?”

“A message to the Chinese, for one,” Bob said softly. “If we’re now willing to do such against our own territory still in rebellion against them as they see it, the message would be clear. They’re so desperate that they will order the same against everyone else in this world if they think they’re about to go under. Second, it was to knock out people like you who were beginning to rise back up and put things together and who at some point would look at Bluemont and start asking questions.”

“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.”