The Final Day (After, #3)(45)
He paused. “Things like insulin, John. What would you have done?”
That barb, if it was intended as such, stung deeply, and he did not reply.
“Their first troops even wore UN-blue helmets. Three-quarters of the population out there already dead? People forget LA was built on what was near desert. Without the Colorado River being pumped in from hundreds of miles away, along with a dozen other reservoirs off-line, people were killing each other for a lousy bottle of water after just three to four days. Someone hands your kids water and a meal—”
“So they are there to stay, is that it?”
“Unless we want to go to nuclear war, yes.”
“These reports that we are abandoning the line along the Continental Divide, military assets pulled back to east of the Mississippi?”
“It’s being defined as neutral air space to defuse any chance of a confrontation. That and Mexico, with backing from half a dozen Central American countries pressing up over the Rio Grande. What do we do?”
“It was once our country, Bob.”
“Argue that with Mexico, who now claims we ripped them off in a long-ago and forgotten war.”
“And they ripped it off from those who were there before them.”
“History, John. It has always been thus. Take the veneer of civilization off, a major power receives a visceral blow and totters. Nature abhors a vacuum. Amazing—the years of political correctness pumped out in our colleges became an education of national guilt. Some out there along the West Coast actually say we deserved what we got for our past sins and welcomed a chance to try out socialism. Just feed us, and we’ll get along with whoever is in charge.”
“Anyone fighting back?”
“Yeah, Texas, of course. Voice of America isn’t reporting it, but some group in Texas declares they’re the new government, cite what they claim was the original treaty of annexation from the 1840s, and they are justified in withdrawing from the Union. They got representatives with them from half a dozen other states saying the same. It is ripe for a blowup. Logical, therefore, that our regular military pull out completely to avoid the prospect of this going really bad and what is left of our country getting sucked into the conflict.”
“Meaning nuke?”
“The Chinese are just as afraid of that as we are. They know if we popped three or four EMPs over their mainland, they would be in the same boat we are. But if we do that, they blanket what’s left of our country with ground bursts. We do the same back. Who wins other than death?”
“Thus we concede west of the Mississippi, and Bluemont focuses on bringing everything east back under their control. Are those the orders you’re following, sir?”
Again, Bob did not directly reply. “Full-scale war with China now?” he finally said. “Then who gets to grab what’s left of the radioactive pie? Mongolia?”
John actually chuckled and shook his head.
“Some years back, I was over there for a conference,” Bob continued. “Great people, beautiful country. Remember camping with the head of their military up in a northern province for a weekend of fishing.” He smiled wistfully and took another sip of coffee. “Anyhow, we were finally talking shop. That guy said they assumed someday it was all going to hit the fan. Russia against us, China against Russia, or just the whole world goes crazy. He then said, and I swear the guy was serious, that when the dust settled and radioactivity cooled off, they would mount up and ride again. Maybe that’s who wins if this unravels any further. John, we are balanced on a razor’s edge. A couple of third-rate powers triggered all of this; I swear that pudgy nutcase in North Korea did it just to see if they could do it. Iran joins in on the plot for whatever it was they used to believe about their hidden imam returning. We allowed them to get their nukes and missiles to hand off to terrorists like ISIS. Damn all who allowed that to happen. Any idiot could see eventually they’d go for us.
“Anyhow,” he said, sighing wearily and staring into his coffee cup, “I saw the report that where the well is that their imam was supposed to come out of is now a crater a thousand feet deep. Same is true for the cities controlled by the terrorists and all of North Korea. Some vengeance.
“That’s all moot now as far as you and I are concerned. It happened, and we lost. The job now is to pick up the pieces of what is left and try to reassemble some sort of united front. A United States out of what is left and project outwardly that, though our backs are to the wall, we’re standing again as a united country. If not, we completely cease to exist.”
There was a long moment of silence, the two friends sipping their scotch-laced coffee, a cold breeze sweeping into the open hangar so that they zipped their parkas back up, while outside the helicopter turbines continued to turn over with a low steady hum.
John wished he had not accepted the scotch. Never have a drink, even with a once trusted friend, until whatever issue was between them was settled.
“You’re here to either pull me in or take us out, is that it, Bob?”
His friend looked over at him and slowly nodded.
“What exactly is your job now?”
“Military governor of this entire region. Everything east of the Appalachians from Charlottesville down to the wreckage of what was once Florida. Navy is working the coast; I’m to deal with everything inland.”