Monster Nation(60)

Vikram stood before the desk, looking anxious but smiling. Always smiling. Clark had not heard his friend come in, did not know how long he had been standing there. Vikram was a veteran, though. He would understand the intensely personal malaise one fell into following a bad action.

Clark stared at the bracelet on his friend's wrist. The current calamity had driven Vikram closer to his deity. 'You've never doubted the existence of God for a moment, have you?' he asked, the words swimming out of him as if he were at the bottom of a cold, dark lake.

Vikram straightened up to a considerable height'he'd already been at attention but he found some more backbone somewhere. 'The teachings of my faith require me to never have dealings with one who has no faith in some manner of god,' Vikram said in a proper, clipped tone. 'This could prove difficult in our line of work. What should I do if my commanding officer was an atheist? I have asked myself this question many times. In the end I have chosen to follow a strict policy where it comes to religion. Don't ask, don't tell.'

Clark grinned and it felt very, very good. He didn't examine why he wanted to laugh so much, he just gladly accepted it. He'd been doing this for decades and he knew when you were down in that hole and a rope appeared, you grabbed it. 'I'm way outside of my jurisdiction, here. This has become a joint duty assignment. Because of my special position as a, a policy expert,' he couldn't bring himself to use the Civilian's term: wonk, 'I've been prevailing on your good counsel despite the fact that you outrank me. If you want to jump ship now you'd be well within your rights.'

'Not until the hurly-burly's done, my friend,' Vikram said. 'Let me rephrase: not until it is done, sir.' And that was that. 'I have a situation report all in preparedness, should you care to hear it.'

Clark did not care to hear it. He had feasted on enough bad news to choke him. No, he thought, not now. 'Alright,' he said. 'No time like the present.' Sometimes you had to keep going in life no matter how awful you felt. Sometimes sheer obstinacy was the only thing for it.

'Colorado is under martial law. The cadets of the Air Force Academy were armed and mobilized until they were relieved. Reinforcements of regular Army troops, namely the 82nd Airborne and the 10th Mountain Division, are doing what they can to secure the state. This amounts in the most to blocking all the highways leading out. The interior of the state, by all accounts, is without governance.'

Clark had pretty much seen that for himself. He nodded.

'Nevada and Utah have both declared state-wide disasters but the relevant authorities remain in control. I spoke with a very nice radio operator in Salt Lake City and he told me that large parts of the city are quarantined but they believe they can hold the infected back from the central region. California is gone.'

Clark opened a box of pens he had found in one of his desk drawers. He had been arranging them in a pen holder while he listened. He stopped and set down the pen holder carefully on the edge of the desk blotter. 'What does that mean?Los Angeles or San Francisco?'

'I mean that the entire state has stopped communicating with the outside world.' Vikram didn't shift on his feet, didn't so much as blink. 'It was a gradual process, of course, and did not happen all and at once. Until this morning there still were units of the Marine Corps in Sacramento who I could speak with, though they were very busy. The last I heard was that they were expecting reinforcements from the sea'a carrier group, called in to help maintain order. Then silence only.'

Insanity. Bringing in sailors to do the job of soldiers. The Navy trained excellent warriors but it gave them little experience in dealing with threats while onshore. The desperation in the plan was obvious. Clark wondered if he could have come up with anything else.

'The infection has spread as far east as Ohio. We expect to hear about Pennsylvania in a few hours'there have been isolated reports of infection in New York City, whole neighborhoods under quarantine. The overseas picture is murky at best but we know that both Mexico and Canada have mobilized troops and that they are asking for help we cannot currently provide.'

Clark nodded. He picked up the pens again and started sorting them by color. 'Bad, bad, bad, worse. So. We need to find out what to do next. Are you in contact with the Governor right now?' He dropped the pens in their cup one after the other. 'Normally I would take this time to liaise with the Adjutant General of Colorado but he, I happen to know, is dead.'

'The Governor is not available, I'm afraid. His current whereabouts are unknown.'