Pedestals of Ash (15 page)

The momentum was building to help the people of Alpha. At least it was until Terri spoke up. “Well count me in
,
too. I’m bored around here
,
and besides, that was the last place anyone saw my husband. I imagine he’ll come back through there on the way home.”

Nick and Pete both blurted out, “
Whooooah
there,” at the same time. The two men looked at each other, and Nick went first, “Terri, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go.”

Pete quick
ly nodded his head in agreement.
“He’s right Terri. Besides, if something were to happen to you, I don’t want to be the one explaining to Bishop why we let his pre
gnant wife charge off into a
battle.”

Terri
waved them both off, replying
in her best southern belle tone. “Now
,
it’s mighty sweet of you two strong, brav
e men to be all chivalrous
and think of my protection. But you fine gentlemen are forgetting one very important fact. Even if Bishop were here, do you think he could stop me if I wanted to go?”

Pete and Nick didn’t like it one bit, but there was little they could do. The two ranch hands hurried out, rushing back to the ranch to inform their boss of the situation. Pete left Terri in charge of the bar and h
eaded off to spread the word while Nick left in search of
his son.

The President of the United States paced back and forth with a steady cadence. While his body moved in a relatively stra
ight line, his bobbing head betrayed an
indecisive
ness regarding
which direction to focus
first
. To his right was a large LED display, not dissimilar from the thousands installed in
high-end
media rooms
around the country – only this screen wasn’t featuring
movies or sporting events. Today, the light emitting diodes were tasked with
indicating the latest tactical information graphically across a
map o
f
the United States.

The other contender for
the
p
resident’s concentration was the commanding
conference table
stationed dead center of the room
. Unlik
e its high tech competition, its imposing
granite surface
was littered with stacks of old-
fashion
ed
paper reports
and documents
.
Loosely sorted into some unfamiliar
order, the
coal
black lettering overlaying
stark white paper was
an extreme contrast to the
brightly colored
hue
s
of the wall display.

At the moment, the
C
ommander
in
C
hief really didn’t want to look at either,
but couldn’t help but try to attend to
both. He was losing control
,
and that
fact
weighed heavily o
n a man whose resume included be
ing
the single,
most powerful individual
on the planet. Men who achieve
such
lofty positions don’t like the fall
– having no understanding as to the cause often accelerates the descent.

There were two
uniformed
men in the room with the chief executive. Both had been present during
the
emergency escape from a White House that was being overrun with thousands of angry citizens.
Like the chief executive, t
he
man seated at the table was
no stranger to
extraordinary
authority
and responsibility
.
General Wilson had been the C
hairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for almost two years. He now found himself as not only the
highest-ranking
military office
r in the land, but also as the p
resident’s closest advisor. Many of the executive branch’s cabinet had been killed that fa
teful day. Many more were classified
as “whereabouts unknown.” T
he few who had managed to flee
Washington were no longer trusted by their boss. Fueled by a string of bad decisions resulting in horrendous consequences, paranoia ran deep in the troubled administration.

The third man in the room stood quietly by the door. Agent Powell took his duties as head of the Secret Service’s protection detail seriously and seemed
always to be at the p
resident’s side
. While Genera
l Wilson waited on the leader of the free world
to digest the latest b
ad news, he secretly wondered if
the stoic bodyguard ever slept.

A
continuing decline in the
number of
te
rr
itories that would execute the p
resident’s
orders
was t
he root cause of his
pacing
. Some military units simply didn’t respond anymore. Others replied with terse messages ranging from repeating bogus requests for clarification to outright insubordination. The communications infrastructure of the United States was in complete turmoil. Citizens normally received their news via television, radio or the printed word. All of these media required electrical power to both
send and receive. E
lectricity
had become a luxury that currently only 5% of the population enjoyed
.

While operating at a fraction of pre-collapse levels, t
he milit
ary fared better than the private sector.
Wherever they were available, h
igh-tech satellite
systems, originally appropriated for the foreign war on terrorism,
were
distributed
to field commands
. Some d
omestic bases and forts used civilian communication networks and w
ere just as susceptible to the failure of those structures as were town
councils and other local authorities. The cold war era Emergency Broadcasting System was a shell of its former self
,
a direct result of
budget cuts
enacted
as
the threat of nuclear war faded
from the government’s priorities. Regulated to weather alerts
,
most EBS locations had suffered a decline in maintenance and upkeep. Within a few days
of being activated
, the vast majority of
EBS
transmitters
failed
.
Even those stations that were broadcasting didn’t have many listeners.
About 99% of the nation’s radio receivers required
either
batteries or electricity to run, and
both were in short supply.

Despite a seemingly hopeless situation, there was a plan
,
and the p
resident believed it to be a good one. Operation Heartl
and could be summed up as a strategy
to take control of the nation’s heartland,
focus
ing
all available resources to jump-start
society there
,
and use the Miss
issippi River Delta as a spring
board to recover the rest of the nation. The area 150 miles on each side of the Mississippi River had all
of the key ingredients:
nuclear
plants
to generate power, the river for
a transportation artery
,
and
the nation’s
breadbas
ket
to feed the people
.

While the plan appeared to be the best course of ac
tion, the p
resident hesitated
to implement the
actions necessary for its execution.
Some critical regions of the heartland had been on their own
for months since everything had gone
to hell. Other areas had been under control of the military for some period, but those units were disintegrating for various reasons. There was also the issue of pulling troops from areas that were barely hanging on as it was. Initially, the military had occupied the 40 largest American cities and declared martial law. Now, almost 30% of those commands either refused to follow orders or didn’t respond at all.

Whe
n the p
resident
ordered the
P
entagon to find out what was happening to the military, the resulting report appeared incomplete and confused. Many national guardsmen were said to be going AWOL du
e to the desperate situation of
their families. Other sources indicated the moral
e
of regular troops was so low that it was a credit to the officers that more units hadn’t ceased to function. It was a single paragraph buried deep inside of the report that was the most troubling. Rumors had been circulating of another authority taking control of some units. One source had described the coexisting command structure as “an alternative government.” This supposed government even had a name –
“The Independents.”

Power, especially in time of crisis, wasn’t something men lik
e the p
resident shared. His every instinct was to take control and move the country forward. To his way of thinking, he needed every pair of boots marching in step toward the same goal. He expected his leadership to go unchallenged and his authority to be supreme. There was no way the nation would recover without a strong,
purpose-minded
hand at the helm
,
and the American people had elected him to be that hand. No other confirmation was necessary.

POTUS cleared his throat and began. “General, I’m not satisfied with t
his report. You have to admit it
isn’t up to your people’s normal standards. I realize I pressured you, but the information it contains is sketchy at best.”

General Wilson rubbed his chin, using the delay to carefully choose his words. “Mr. President, the reso
urces available to me are severe
ly limited. My orders were clear and precise – don’t include rumor, innuendo or anything else that can’t be backed up with facts. As I told you before
,
sir, I believe there is another group or organization that is filling the vacuum of control this situation has fostered. I believe that
organization is growing daily.
I just can’t prove it at this time.”

The p
resident nodded his head in acceptance of the general’s words. He paused for a moment and then changed the subject. “General, can you show me the progress of Operation Heartland?”

“Yes, s
ir. Coming up on the display now.”

The large map changed to show an enlarged view of the Mississippi River delta with Chicago bordering on the north and New Orleans on the south. An area approximately 150 miles on each side of the river was depicted with dashed red lines. Certain key assets, such as nuclear power reactors
,
were circled in white. Two of these milestones were blinking white and blue
,
indicating that the military or other government agency had taken control as planned.

The map also showed several dark blue arrows at various locations. All of these indicators were pointing inward toward the great river. These were military ground units on their way toward objectives inside of the heartland. At the lower section of the map, along interstate I-20, one blue arrow was appro
aching the outlined border for Operation H
eartland. The arrow was labeled 1
st
Cav
DIV and seemed to be resting on the Texas border with Louisiana.

The president nodded his approval. “General, I feel like we are finally taking a step forward here. Our next step is to use the military’s
Psych
Ops capabilities to communicate with the people. Are the leaflets being printed?”

General Wilson replied that indeed, millions of leaflets were being printed and would be dropped from aircraft over the major population centers in the heartland. He was right in the middle of
explaining the process to the p
resident when a polite knock sounded on the door.

The executive
secretary entered the room and announced, “Sir, it’s time to board Air Force One for the flight to Fort Bliss.”