The Final Day (After, #3)(70)

“Yes, just fine. We’re fine.”

“Those sons of bitches.”

Lee had thrown a fit when, at midday, John had roused from his exhausted sleep and announced he was going to visit Ernie.

That had triggered an explosion of anxiety, with Kevin appearing with a pickup truck–load of their troops, fully armed, several of them wearing the captured gear taken from the dead raiders.

The last attacker had been found dead, shortly after dawn, having apparently bled out from his wounds, and after being stripped, he had been dumped with the others.

At least for the moment, it meant to John that he was safe and would not let what happened stop him from his routine, and that included using Maury’s jeep when it was snowing, so he ordered Kevin and the others to relax and get some sleep. An order reluctantly obeyed.

“Mind if we come in?” John asked, nodding over to Maury, who was standing beside his jeep and throwing blankets over the seats to keep the snow that was falling from covering them.

“Why don’t you have a top for that damn thing?” Ernie asked, shouting to Maury.

“Couldn’t find one that was authentic to the period.”

“Oh, great, historical accuracy before comfort.”

Maury did not reply. John knew it was painful enough for his friend to redo the paint job back early in the spring to cover over the white star on the front hood and paint the rest in a speckled camouflage pattern, which of course Maury had to match up with the Normandy 1944 look, so it was less easy to spot them from the air.

Maury just glared at Ernie and did not reply.

“All right, you two, come on inside.” He motioned to the door into the garage. Slamming it behind the two, Ernie turned, arms folded defensively.

“Are you going to shut me down?” he asked sharply.

“Hell no.”

“Well, I heard you are taking orders from our new potentate down at the Asheville airport and assumed you were sent here to pull the plug after he failed at his attempt at killing you.”

“Damn it, Ernie, did anyone ever discuss diplomatic conversation skills with you?”

“Nope. And if anyone ever does, I’ll tell them to go to hell.”

John couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, okay. Everyone knows. I surrendered without a fight. You got an alternative short of a bloodbath for our side? As to damn near getting killed, just leave that be for now.”

“How many troops does he have with him?”

“He’s got at least half a dozen Black Hawks, maybe as many Apaches, a couple of C-130s, and from what our lookouts in Hendersonville told us, at least half a dozen Bradleys and a dozen truckloads of supplies and additional troops up from Greenville. And you suggest we fight that?”

“Go up into the hills and wait him out. He’d be facing half a thousand or more very pissed-off, well-armed folks.”

“Ernie, you have been a burr under my hide from day one, but this tops it. I’m supposed to go back to those kids at the college and tell them to suit up and head out into the woods in this weather?” He snapped out the last words and pointed back outside where a lightly falling snow was being whipped along by twenty-mile-per-hour winds. “Half of them would freeze to death within a couple of days out there with no fires to keep warm. Light a fire, you got an Apache with infrared seeking on top of you.”

“He’s right, Ernie.”

The two turned to see Linda slowly coming down the basement stairs. “So stop needling him. You know as well as I do there was no chance to fight back, so let it be.”

“I was just suggesting an alternative, Linda.”

“Fine. You suit up, take a rifle, go sit out on the ridge for a few hours, and then come back and tell us if we should fight or not.”

“I’m seventy-five; those kids trained to fight are in their twenties.”

She ignored him and walked up to John and Maury, holding out two mugs of coffee.

“We don’t have much of that stuff left,” Ernie muttered.

“They need it more than we do warm inside here,” she snapped and then turned her attention to John. “Really, are you and Makala all right?”

“Just fine, Linda. It was bad, though, for those at the college. Five dead, a dozen wounded, and I doubt if a couple of those will make it.”

He tried to say those words without becoming emotional again. They had died saving his family and him. All of this was becoming too much to bear. He knew if he broke in front of Linda, she would go all to pieces as well. He shook it off and just offered a weary smile of resignation.

“My only other question, John: Do they know about our operation here?”

John shook his head. “So far, I don’t think so; that’s why I called and said to double-check the camouflage on your satellite dishes.”

“You can’t see them from the road or from up above. I had the kids make some netting out of bedsheets to blend in with the snow. I think we’re safe.”

“Good. That’s the way I want to keep it.”

He could see that Ernie was still glowering and felt it necessary to smooth the waters. “Ernie, I’ll admit now, it was a smart move to shift your operation down here. The last thing I want is another war. You saw what a couple of Apaches under Fredericks did to us in the spring. Their only tactical mistake was basing out of the mall. If they had been based at the airport with proper security, Fredericks would have won. We don’t have Stinger ground-to-air missiles, and any Hollywood hokum about taking one of those birds out with an old-fashioned RPG is absurd. General Scales held the trump card, made sure we saw it in his opening move and won.”