The underground cavern, if it could be called that, was illuminated nearly as bright as day and seemed to stretch off into infinity. The road, which had broadened out into four lanes as it went through the curve, emptied into a vast, open underground chamber, the road just continuing straight on until it was actually lost to view. There was a turnoff to the right, an illuminated sign overhead announcing all entering had to first report for decontamination and security clearance. Bob ignored it and up at the front with his troopers just pressed straight on, Bentley dragging Pelligrino along.

The ceiling overhead arced more than thirty feet high. The spread of the cavern from his left to right was at least several hundred yards or more.

The broad street was actually lined with barracks. World War II–era wooden barracks, row after row, each two stories high, and strangely, even topped with shingled roofs, interspersed with curved aluminum Quonset huts. At regular intervals, natural stone pillars rose from the floor to the ceiling to support the vast mountain overhead so that the interior almost looked like some strange, surreal, military cathedral.

All stood in amazement—except for Bob, who looked around, hands on his hips.

"Like I told you, John," he said softly, "I was here once, more than twenty-five years ago as part of a drill. This was designed in the 1950s to be the fallback position for the Pentagon in the event of nuclear war.

"The barracks you see laid out down this road—it's actually called Main Street—were left over from World War II. After the place was hollowed out, it was felt that the cheapest and easiest thing to do was just build these; we still had hundreds of them as surplus, prefabricated and sitting in a warehouse a couple of hours away. No weather here, no termites, they'll stand a hundred years or more.

"Off to the right, there used to be a motor pool, even used to have a couple of old Sherman tanks down here, rigged up as earthmovers if we had to dig our way out if a nuke hit close by. There even used to be old-style electric golf carts for driving around inside. I think that was Ike's idea."

A hundred yards or more down Main Street, a small crowd had gathered.

"How many are here now?" Bob asked, looking back at Pelligrino.

"Who?"

"Civilians, damn it."

Again a hesitation. "About fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand. Some leave at times, and others are brought in." A brief pause, and with Bentley glaring at him, he finally added, "Sir."

The man's features had gone to nearly purple, his knees were shaking, and with a moan, he slowly sank to the ground. The medic ran up to him, knelt down, felt for his pulse, and then looked up at the general.

"Might be his heart, sir."

"Given what I think is here," Bob said softly, "I have to ask: What heart?" He then announced, "Shoulder all weapons. These are civilians here. Unless he dies on us, drag him along."

He gazed down coldly at Pelligrino. "Which way to the command center?" he snapped, and the ailing man pointed straight down Main Street.

He set off with a purposeful stride, right up the middle of the main street, troopers—with weapons shouldered as ordered—flanking to either side. John trailed along behind him; his friends Reverend Black, Maury, Forrest, Kevin, and Grace, who had disobeyed John's orders to stay behind and had caught up with the group and was still obviously in shock over Lee's death, followed behind Bob.

They passed several of the wooden barracks, relics of what seemed another age. The paint was peeling from the wooden sides, but other than that, they seemed well tended. There were even nameplates tacked to doors.

John slowed as he passed a Quonset hut on his left. There was a single name tag tacked to the door. He recognized the name. The same as on the personal e-mails that Linda had snatched out of the ether and which had finally led them to this place. Surely it couldn't be?

As he stared at the nameplate, similar to the types of nameplates set in front of an officer's home on a military base, the door cracked open, an anxious young face looking out, a girl in her early teens at most, still gangly like a young colt.

He smiled at her, and a flicker of a smile creased her slender face as she nervously brushed back an errant wisp of reddish hair. John stopped, his friends staying with him.

"Are you here to arrest us or something?" she asked.

He shook his head and gestured toward the front porch as if requesting permission to approach. She hesitated, nodded, and opened the door wider.

He caught a glimpse of inside the barrack. Though the exterior was of World War II vintage, the interior looked something like a typical living room—a sofa, several chairs, and what appeared to be the back of an old-style television from thirty or more years ago.

"Don't worry, young lady. There was a misunderstanding, but it's been settled. You're perfectly safe."

He spared a quick glance back down Main Street. Bob had gone far ahead of him, surrounded by the troopers who had entered with him. John looked over his shoulder. His friends, however, had lingered behind, waiting for him out on the street.

Grace was still with him, and it was she who broke the tension.

"Hi. My name is Grace," she announced in a warm, friendly voice, and she simply stepped past John, advanced up a step onto the porch, and extended her hand.

The nervous smile on the young girl's face within the hut broadened slightly. She opened the door wider and took a step out, reached forward, and politely shook Grace's hand.

"You sure everything is okay?" the girl asked. "We heard gunshots."

"We?" John asked.

"I live here with my mother and two kid brothers. The emergency siren went off. Our teacher told us to go to the shelter, but I ran home to get Buster before going to the shelter area, because sometimes we're in there for a day or two and I can't sleep without Buster, and then I heard shooting."

"Who is Buster?" John asked.

She hesitated, a bit embarrassed.

"It's okay," Grace said softly.

The girl reached behind her and then produced a stuffed bear, obviously well worn from constant loving attention, and her features turning red with embarrassment.

The gesture, the sight of her holding the stuffed bear, struck John like an electric shock, and he lowered his voice. "It's okay, young lady. My daughter had a friend like him named Rabs." He could barely get the words out.

Among his friends, there was no one who did not know about Rabs, his daughter's beloved stuffed companion who sat on the windowsill in the sunroom and watched over her grave, and which John had gone back into his burning home to retrieve, more cherished to him than any other memory of the past.

Maury came up to John's side.

"You're about the same age as my son, who is eleven," he said. "He won't admit it, but he has a friend like yours—a panda named Pandi—that sits on his nightstand. It's okay, young lady."

"I'm twelve. My name is Laura."

"We're pleased to meet you, Laura," John interjected. "Don't be anxious; everything is okay now. Just a misunderstanding, and no one was hurt. We're just visiting here."

"That's good," Laura replied, still obviously a bit rattled. "When I heard the shooting and I wasn't in the shelter area, I went to the far corner of the room and curled up behind the sofa with Buster as we were drilled to do and waited for the all clear. But I haven't heard the all clear."

"I think it might be broken," Grace replied. "They should have sounded it by now."

"Should I go to the shelter?" she asked.

"If you would feel more comfortable," Grace said smoothly. "If you want, I'll walk you there."

"Okay."

Grace took another step up, reached out, and put a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder and then looked down at Buster. "I have a bear almost just like him," she said warmly, and there was genuine emotion in her voice. "Mine is named Winnie. How did Buster get his name?"

Laura instantly began to choke up, tears coming to her eyes. "They kept telling me that they would go back and get our dog, Buster, and bring him here, but they never did."

She started to cry, and Grace gently embraced her.

"Come on, let me help you to where the shelter is, but you'll have to show me the way."

She nodded, sniffing back tears, clutching tight to Buster.

John struggled with his own emotions. The frightened girl was the same age as his Jennifer. At least the same age as Jennifer was when she was still alive … and dying.

Something she said forced the question he had to ask, sensing that if there were going to be straight answers, it would be here and now from this girl.

"How did you get here, Laura? You haven't always lived here."

"Some men came to our school and called out my name and those of a few other kids. And now I'm here."

John knelt down in front of her, looking up at Grace, shaking his head slightly for her to wait. Grace picked up on the signal, stopping in place, a protective arm around Laura, holding her tightly to reassure her.

"Can I see Buster?" John asked. Laura reluctantly held him out, and John took him.

It was nearly impossible to keep his own emotions in check. The scent of the stuffed bear, the worn fabric, a bent ear that had obviously been stitched back into place. For a moment, in his heart, Buster was Rabs.

He kissed Buster and handed him back to Laura with a whispered, "Thank you."

She snatched him back, but her eyes were on John. "Are you okay, mister?" she asked.

John could only nod.

"He misses his daughter," Maury said, voice thick with emotion as well.

"Where is she?"

"She's back home in North Carolina," Maury quickly interjected, sparing John from giving a more honest answer.

John took a deep breath and forced a smile. "So you were in school, some men came in, called out your name, and you left with them. Is that it?"

Laura nodded.

"Where did you go to school, Laura?" Maury asked.

"Sidwell Friends in Washington."

"And why did the men take you out of class?"

"It was all kind of scary. We all knew the men. They work for the Secret Service."

"Secret Service?" John asked, startled but trying to not let it show.

"Yes, sir. They're always there because the president's kids go there too. The men are very nice to us, though it's a bit scary at times since we all know they have guns on them. One of them would always sit in the back of the classroom where the president's kids were in class. Out on the playground, they'd even bat some balls for us, so we all knew them."

"So the Secret Service men took you out of your classes?"

"Did anyone else go with you?" Maury interjected.

"Yes, sir. About twenty or so. They said we were going on a special trip." She clutched Buster a bit tighter. "They let me bring my backpack, and I had Buster in there, so he came with me."

"And then what happened, Laura?"

"We went out to the ball field behind the school, and there were two helicopters there, and they had me get on board."

"Just you?"

"Oh, no, sir. About twenty kids or so."

"The president's kids as well?"

"No, sir. We thought it strange, but they were left behind."

"And then?"

"We flew here. It was a fun ride. The Secret Service men told us to buckle in tight, that it was going to be like a roller-coaster ride, and it sure was. My friend Becky threw up all over the place." She smiled at the memory.

"Where did you go on this ride?"

"Here. We landed outside, and they had us run in here. It was a bit scary; there were some men with guns outside. They had us get into the backs of a couple of trucks and brought us down inside here."

"Laura, when did you take this helicopter ride, and how long have you been here?"

She looked around, suddenly a bit nervous. "We were told we're not supposed to talk about it, sir."

"Laura." It was Grace now, bending over to face the girl at eye level. "It's okay, sweetie. You can share it with us. Mr. Matherson trusts you, and I do too."

Laura was silent for a moment, and tears began to well up. "It was a scary day. We were taken to what they call the shelter here. All day long, more kids were coming in, parents, some old people. I had to put on a large name tag that hung from my neck with my parents' names on it.

"Finally, I saw my mom with my two little brothers. She had one suitcase for all of us"—she paused, welling up—"but Buster, our dog, wasn't with her. She was crying and told me that Daddy was safe but in another place. Then they told us they had to shut off all the electricity for a day, except for emergency lights, and we all slept in the shelter area."

"What day was this?" John asked, and now his voice was insistent, growing impatient.

She just stared at him.

"Laura, sweetheart. What day did this happen?" Grace asked softly.

"The day the war started," she whispered.

"When on that day?" John pressed, trying not to sound insistent and frighten the girl. "What time of day did the helicopters take you away from your school?"

Again silence.

"When?" This time, he nearly shouted the question so that she blanched and began to cry again. Grace shot a look of admonishment at him, and she moved between the girl and John.

John felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back, and it was Forrest, who shook his head and pulled him back.

"I'm sorry, Laura," John said softly, standing up and backing away.

"We're all sorry if we scared you, Laura," Grace pressed. "It is just we want to learn the truth, and we trust you to tell us that. Okay?"

"It was in the morning," she whispered. "I don't know. Classes started at 8:15. About an hour later, we heard the helicopters landing outside, and some of us were told to leave with the Secret Service men."

"My God," Maury whispered. "Before ten in the morning?"

John could only nod as he struggled to absorb all that what she said implied.

"What about the other children in the school who didn't go with you?" Grace asked.

"I don't know. We were told they were safe, but we never saw any of them again." There was a pause. "You're from the outside?" she asked plaintively. "My best friend, Halle, didn't go with us. Are they safe? I wanted to send an e-mail to my friends that didn't go, but I was told only official things can go out on e-mail, but someday soon I can see them again."

With that, John turned away, unable to hide his pain, his rage. It was not the girl's fault. The kid was terrified by this encounter. It was not her fault, but as he looked back at her, he could see his Jennifer standing there.

Forrest, with a firm hand on John's shoulder, led him back out into the middle of the street that went the entire length of the deep underground cavern.

"Do you know what this means?" John snarled. "Do you know what this means?"

Forrest, features emotionless, could only nod.

"They knew. At least some of the damn bastards knew. They got theirs out at ten in the morning of that day and hid them here before the shit hit the fan. They knew!"

He shouted out the last words. Several of Bob's troopers who had lingered behind to secure the entryway tunnel were standing close by, and he could see in their eyes, their features, that the truth was dawning on them as well. One of them was crying, cursing foully about his own wife and newborn son, an unrelenting stream of obscenities, a comrade holding him tightly, telling him to let it go.

John was feeling the same rage.

On the Day, it had been like any other day but for one great difference: it was Jennifer's twelfth birthday. After teaching his early afternoon class on such a beautiful warm spring day with half of his students dreamily looking out the window, he had gone down to the village and at a favorite store purchased twelve Beanie Babies for his daughter and raced home to be there before she arrived. Jen, dear now-gone Jen, his first wife's mother and such a beloved grandmother to Jennifer, had arrived as well to greet their birthday girl.

The rest of that final afternoon of peace had unfolded without incident. Jennifer and a friend had gone up into the neighbor's orchard to play with the family's two golden retrievers while he grilled up some burgers and hot dogs for dinner. Then Bob Scales, the same Bob Scales who just an hour ago had led the assault on this facility, had called from the Pentagon to wish Jennifer a happy birthday.

They had then chatted. There was no warning, no Bob sending some sort of coded message that the shit was about to hit the fan and to get ready. Just a friendly chat until suddenly it was obvious even Bob was being caught off guard. Some shouts of panic in the background from Bob's end, his suddenly saying, "Something's up. Got a problem here. I gotta…" and then the line went dead.

The war, the Day, had begun for John and the rest of the nation as all power just went off, the sound of traffic on the interstate drifting into silence, a few minutes later a puff of smoke rising from a distant ridgetop, to be learned later it was a commercial jet that had gone in, killing all aboard, one of a couple of thousand jets going down across America.

All of it coming to a stop … at just after four in the afternoon … hours after young Laura said that she had been evacuated to safety.

And yet now, at this moment, after two and a half years of struggling to survive, to reluctantly rising to being essentially an emergency dictator of his town, of having to personally execute a thieving drug addict only days after it started, to carrying his dying father-in-law out of a dying nursing home where the dead were literally decaying on the beds where they had been left to die because no one could help them … to all the starving, the death, the fending off lone marauders that devolved into wandering gangs of hundreds who would actually kill someone so they could feast upon them … and then to hold his twelve-year-old daughter as she died for want of a single vial of insulin, while down here, a select few were hidden away before it had even started and had lived comfortably since?

"Laura!"

He turned to look up Main Street. A woman who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, well dressed in a clean white blouse and jeans, figure healthy and definitely not starving, was running toward them.

"Mommy!"

Laura broke free from Grace's protective embrace, leaped down the steps of the Quonset porch, and ran toward the woman, who slowed, grabbed the frightened girl by the shoulders, and pushed Laura protectively behind her. She looked toward Grace, who had been following behind Laura.

"Back off and leave my child alone," the woman snapped, and then she half-turned to look at Laura. "Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

Laura was sobbing too hard to answer.

The woman turned back to face Grace.

"She's all right. No, we didn't harm her, ma'am."

"Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Grace Freeman."

"Listen, damn you, you keep your hands off my child. You're armed; you are dangerous. You stop where you are and get the hell out of here now!"

Grace looked over at John, obviously confused. John stepped toward the woman. "Miss Freeman is with me," he announced. "She is no threat to your child."

She glared at John with an icy, dismissive gaze. "And who the hell are you?"

Her sanctimonious, superior tone was to John like sandpaper grating on an open wound, reminiscent of so many like her going back to childhood, the rich kids who lived up in Short Hills, the wealthy community that adjoined where he lived for several years in a working-class neighborhood. Their parents were the power brokers of firms in New York while his father was putting his ass on the line in the skies over Vietnam. The wives and daughters of haughty generals, unlike men like Bob Scales who truly came from the salt of the earth himself. To college professors one had to bow to in order to have any hope of getting a passing grade with their all-so-superior attitude, cramming their political views down his throat. She was of that ilk, and that attitude would not have survived a week if she had been trapped in the world up on the surface.

He took a deep breath and tried to control his own rage. "I am Colonel John Matherson, State of Carolina, and this young lady is a lieutenant under my command and will be treated with respect."

"I don't give a damn where you're from. I'm ordering you to clear out now and stay away from my children, or you will face charges, Mr. Mather."

"That is Colonel John Matherson," Forrest retorted.

"Do you even know who I am?" she shouted.

John tried to extend his hands in a calming gesture, but she overreacted, as if he were drawing a weapon.

"Security! I need security here now!" she screamed.

John looked past her. Wherever Bob had gone with most of his command, he was long lost to view. A crowd was beginning to mill about out along Main Street. All of them looked to be civilians. Well-clothed, well-fed civilians, from mothers holding infants to several elderly, one of them in a motorized wheelchair.

Some were looking their way, and as if this woman was indeed some sort of leader, they started to head in their direction to witness the confrontation.

John looked back at the nameplate on the barrack's door.

"Your husband is…"

"Yes!" There was a definite superior gaze as if with that question being asked she could now play her trump card and he would wilt away. "He was a senator and is now acting secretary of state."

"At Bluemont?" He said the two words slowly.

"Yes, you idiot, at Bluemont."

"If I were him and married to you," Forrest growled sotto voce, "I'd stay there."

"How dare you!" she cried.

"I dare because I have a right to dare," Forrest replied.

"And you were evacuated here hours before our country was taken down by an EMP?" John snapped, voice filled with bitterness.

"I don't have to answer that question," she replied, but there was a slight loss of confidence in her voice. She turned away from John, looking back over her shoulder. "Someone get security here now and throw these bastards out!"

"We killed most of them," Forrest replied. "If you'd care to, go up outside, take a look at their bodies. And then take a look at the entire damn world out there while you were hidden away down here."

He was about to say more, but John could see that Laura was behind her mother, terrified, clutching Buster and sobbing uncontrollably.

It took all he could do next to try to control his voice. "Ma'am, I suggest that someone take your daughter to what she said is a shelter area, but you stay here. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you."

"I want security now!" she screamed. "They're assaulting me!"

The crowd was drawing closer. John looked past her. They numbered in the hundreds while Bob had brought less than a hundred with him when they stormed this place. More than a quarter were dead, wounded, or still deployed outside in a defensive perimeter protecting their precious airlift assets or dealing with the prisoners and wounded. He realized he should have stayed with Bob, who had forged ahead to find the communications center. All who was with him at this moment were the three guards that had been detailed to hold the entry to the tunnel and those left of what could be called his command—Grace, Reverend Black, who was gazing about, obviously in shock, Kevin Malady, Maury, and Forrest.

He could sense it was unraveling.

He glared at the woman, who was obviously trying to provoke a reaction.

"Ma'am, this can go one of two ways," John announced, struggling to control his voice, his emotions still overwhelmed by all that he had learned in the last few minutes. "We're going to back up to the tunnel entrance. I ask you to tell those folks behind you to get back in the other direction and we wait to let this sort out. We don't want this to go out of control, so please help me."

"Get your filthy asses out of here now!" she screamed. "Security, they're trying to assault me!"

John saw several men pushing their way through the crowd, M4s up and aimed toward him, the crowd parting to let them pass but following in their wake, some shouting obscenities and threats.

"My people, get back!" John shouted even as he unslung the M4 over his shoulder.

"He's going to shoot me!" the woman screamed. Her scream was picked up by the approaching crowd, most of them scattering or dropping to the hard tarmac floor of Main Street.

It was happening too fast for him now to hope to control. He began to draw back. Forrest was already crouching low, weapon aimed. Grace was out front, crouched low and moving forward, and John could see that she was trying to snatch Laura and knock her down while the girl's mother remained upright, screaming.

A shot rang out, another, and then another.

Grace tumbled over onto her side, blood spraying out. Forrest, weapon leveled, opened up, aimed shot after aimed shot, dropping those who were firing on them. The crowd behind the action started screaming and running in panic. John stopped his retreat, crouching low, crawling the dozen feet to Grace, and flinging himself over her to protect her with Kevin at his side. Maury had his weapon leveled, shooting as well, while the three troopers who had been guarding the tunnel entry came running forward, weapons at the shoulder, one of them firing several times at a man in civilian clothing who had a short-barrel automatic, catching Maury in the leg.

A well-aimed shot from Forrest dropped that man as well as he tried to dodge behind a barrack.

The firing from down Main Street stopped; John, still prone over Grace, looked up. The street, so crowded but a minute earlier, was empty, the smell of cordite heavy in the air, wisps of smoke being sucked up by a noisy ventilation fan set in the ceiling over the street.

The three troopers pressed forward past where John was, and throughout it all, amazingly, the woman who had provoked it had remained standing, most likely so startled by the frightful onset of violence she had not yet even grasped how to react. Grace was lying prone over Laura, who was gasping for air and trying to crawl out from under her protection. Horrified, John saw that Laura was bleeding, blood leaking out of a wound in her back.

John drew back from his covering of Grace with his body. Her eyes were glazing, going out of focus. She had been hit in the head.

"Laura okay?" she whispered.

Crying, he could only nod. It would be like her to sacrifice all for a child she barely knew.

"She's okay, sweetie," John lied.

"Good. Tell my daddy…"

And then she was still.

It was near to painless and all so quick, unlike so many deaths he had witnessed, so many he had held while they were dying. All he could do was gather her into his arms and cry while Forrest knelt by his side, weapon protectively raised, and screamed for a medic. Kevin Malady went forward with the three troopers, reaching the security troops they had just engaged, all of them apparently down. One of them started to rise up, swinging his weapon around and cursing with rage, and Kevin put three more rounds into him.

Only now did the woman who had triggered all of this realize that her daughter was hit as well.

The medic came running up, still crouched low, knelt down by Grace's side, put a finger to her carotid artery, snapped on a flashlight, and shined it into her eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir, she's gone." Without delaying even a second, the medic crawled over to Laura, felt the wound on her back, gently ran a hand underneath her, drawing it back to reveal she had an exit wound in her upper chest, and then frantically went to work. Even as she did so, she looked over at Maury.

"Where you hit?"

"Leg."

"Where? Upper?"

"No, calf; might have broken my leg, though."

She glanced at him as if evaluating his injury. "You'll have to wait!" she cried and then focused her attention back on Laura.

Laura's mother now started to react, sobbing, squatting down by her daughter, screaming, "All of you murdered her!"

John, still in shock, was still holding Grace, brushing her long, dark hair back from her battered face.

"Sir! Sir!"

He looked up. It was the medic.

"You got to get control of this. Start by getting this damn woman out of here."

The young medic's orders snapped him back. John forced himself to focus, to let go of the moment, try to think a minute, five minutes ahead as he was once trained to do, no matter how horrific the situation.

He looked forward. Kevin and the three troopers had pushed forward by fifty yards, Kevin shouting with his booming voice for everyone to stay calm, keep back, to get inside shelter and no one would be hurt. But then he looked back anxiously toward Grace, obviously wanting to go to her side.

One of the troopers was checking the four dead, kicking their weapons aside, picking up the light automatic carried by the one in civilian garb who had been killed and slinging that weapon over his shoulder.

Laura's mother, hysterical, was trying to push the medic aside, but Forrest was already reacting, roughly grabbing her by the shoulder and shoving her back, half dragging her away.

John stood up, went to Forrest's side, and pulled the woman to her feet. She was continuing to scream, an almost sure provocation for more chaos to ensue. He held on to her, pushing her toward her barrack house. The last thing needed now was for her to run off screaming that those with him had been responsible for the shooting of her child and not the other way around.

"You were the one that triggered her getting shot!" John shouted. "Now let my medic try to save her!"

Laura had left the Quonset hut door open, and John shoved the woman up the steps and inside. What he saw startled him. The quarters were spartan and yet comfortable—a bit of a strange mix of retro furniture that was obviously from the '60s and looked like it had come off the set of The Brady Bunch, complete with the ubiquitous olive-green color so favored back then. A twenty-five-inch console television, once considered an indicator of the height of affluence, was in the room along with the usual recliner lounge chair, mixed in with standard government-issue gray desks, straight-back chairs, and a bookshelf that was half-empty.

The woman was beginning to sob. John looked at her without pity and glanced at Forrest.

"If she starts getting loud or tries to leave, you have my permission to punch her out," John snapped.

She looked at him with open hatred but then fell silent.

M4 at the ready, John opened the door into the rear of the Quonset hut. There was a small kitchenette to his right, a sink, a two-burner range and fridge, and an unopened pack of MREs on the counter. To his left, a door half-open. Looking in, he saw there were twin bunk beds against one wall and a single standard military-issue bed against the other wall. A few toys were on the floor, a wooden-track train set, several dolls, and a model of a spaceship, obviously the children's room.

Next to the kitchenette, there was a small but nevertheless complete bathroom with a shower, wash sink, and toilet. Curious, he turned on the hot water for the sink, and after about a minute of running cold, warm, hot water finally poured out, and the toilet most definitely flushed; there was even a roll of toilet paper beside it.

All of this filled him with a mix of rage but then strangely nostalgia as well for such simple comforts of a lost age that a few had managed to preserve down here.

He now noticed for the first time that it was all climate controlled. There was no heat running. It was cool, perhaps in the midsixties, but not uncomfortable. The entire cavern was at the same temperature and humidity as well from what must be a vast climate control system and sanitation support for the entire cavern. The energy demands must be prodigious, at least by the standards of the world after the Day.

At the far end of the room, there was one more door. There was perhaps a one-in-a-thousand risk, but still, after all the tragedy of the last few hours, he was not sure what to expect, so he flipped off the safety on his weapon, leveled it, and then popped the door open.

It was the master bedroom. She was indeed high-ranking. It was no two cots pushed together; there was actually a queen-size bed that took up more than half the floor space of the room but nevertheless looked damned comfortable when compared to the freezing cold nights with Makala when they would revert to zipping two heavy down sleeping bags together in order to be close and then snuggle together on their double bed. Jen's room did have a king-size bed, but that had been her room and, in his heart, taboo to ever move into even though she had been dead for close to half a year. All of that gone in the fire just a week ago.

He glanced around the room. It was typical military construction from the '40s and '50s—particle walls, flimsy doors of half-inch plywood, standard government-issue fixtures, from toilet to light sockets … and all of it looked at that moment to be luxury all but undreamed of.

There was a flash memory from Orwell's 1984 when the author had written that in a world of desperate scarcity, possession of a kilo of coffee or a few grams of real chocolate could define the ruling elite from the rest of the world and be worth fighting for and many willing to die for in order to possess.

A few pictures were pinned to the wall, apparently taken out of wallets. The woman out in the living room, perhaps five or six years back in a maternity ward bed, proudly holding newborn twins with a six-or seven-year-old girl horning in at the edge of the photograph at least appearing to look happy. From what had just transpired, he wondered if she truly had been happy at that moment.

There was a photo, framed, over what he could only assume was her husband's small dresser. He recognized the face.

So this is our acting secretary of state, standing next to the person who was once the president of the United States and died on the Day when Air Force One, insufficiently hardened, had gone down.

He read the autograph from the president written across the bottom, a person who, if he had met him while in the military, he would have been forced to salute but nevertheless held in contempt, an autograph expressing friendship to the couple, naming both of them, and the memory struck with such force as he read the names of whom the president was addressing the autograph to that he actually spoke out loud.

"So you are the idiot who was using the unsecured e-mail not to your wife but to a girlfriend that finally brought us here?"

He did not know whether to laugh or scream in rage as he tore the framed photograph off the wall, turned, and headed back to the living room.

Forrest was sitting by her side, but his attitude had shifted as she at least appeared to have calmed down.

"Done prowling around my home?" she asked, looking up at him coldly, cheeks streaked from spoiled makeup.

"Is your name Alicia?" John snapped.

"No, Janice."

He could not help but smile, an almost cruel smile after all the tragedy she had created. "You want to know how we found out about this place?"

She looked up at him and tried not to show a reaction. "Go on, enlighten me."

"Your idiot husband was sending out a few e-mails to this place that we did not even have to crack. It was a correspondence with some woman named Alicia."

He hesitated. Was this even too cruel for him? "He certainly had a thing for her and was looking forward to—how shall I say it?—a romantic interlude with her next time he was here."

Her eyes widened with shock and then growing rage. "You're a damn liar!" she shrieked. "He said he gave her up a year ago!"

"That's how we tracked this place down, your husband sending unsecured sexting to Alicia who apparently he stashed here as well," John replied sharply. "Sure, he protected his family"—a pause—"and his mistress as well."

She glared up at him, struggling for control. "Matherson, you are cruel beyond any words to describe."

"Madam, it was men like your husband who turned this world into a place of such cruelty," John said coldly.

She lowered her head but then looked up at a trooper standing in the doorway.

"Ma'am, your daughter is going to make it. The medic stabilized her; some folks are helping us to take her to the hospital."

She nodded, tears continuing to well. "Thank you," she whispered.

John looked out the front window. Someone, a civilian, was bringing up a stretcher. Another was holding up an IV bag while the young medic was hunched over Laura, still working on her, but the girl was obviously conscious.

But next to her, Grace lay as she fell, Reverend Black and Kevin kneeling by her side and crying.

"Get a blanket, something over Grace," John whispered. "When we leave here, she goes back with us."

"Understood, sir." A pause. "I'm sorry; she seemed like a good kid. I saw it happen. She was trying to knock the little girl down to protect her when she got hit. She gave her life trying to save someone else."

"That was Grace," John whispered.

"I'll see she's taken care of, sir."

John could only nod.

The woman looked at John. "Who was she?"

He stared straight at her. "In a way, you could say she was a daughter as well."

The woman lowered her head. "I want to go with my girl. Let me leave."

"In a few minutes. She's in the best of hands until then. The way you behave, your being around her might upset things again, maybe trigger another incident."

The woman was obviously in shock, and she just seemed to sag, the fight out of her.

"Your husband is the acting secretary of state," he asked.

She nodded.

"And he is at Bluemont?"

Again a nod.

"How did all of you get here and when?" John pressed.

She looked over at him.

"Answer my questions and in five minutes I'll see someone gets you safely to your daughter. Again, how did you get here, and when?"

"I was flown in along with my twin boys."

"When?" John tried to keep the tension out of his voice.

"On the Day."

"When?"

She seemed to recoil backward, and he realized it was again becoming difficult to contain his anger.

"When?"

"The morning of the Day," she whispered.

"The morning of?" He paused for a moment. "It was before five in the afternoon in North Carolina when we were hit and everything went down. And you are telling me you were flown in here that morning?"

She could only nod.

"How can that be? Part of me just doesn't want to get it, to believe it. Are you telling me that some in Washington knew we were going to get hit and got their families out?"

There was a long, drawn-out silence.

"You see your daughter after you answer me."

"All right. Yes. Some knew. I don't know all the details; even my husband wouldn't tell me. He just would say there are some questions never to ask, and you are now asking one." She looked back over at John. "I want to see those e-mails you claim he was sending to that Alicia bitch."

"General Scales has them."

"Of course he'd get her out too, the bastard. I knew about it even then." She sighed and looked at John out of the corners of her eyes. "I need a cigarette."

"Don't look at me; I quit."

She motioned to a side table. He started to indicate she could go herself, thought better of it, and without taking his eyes off her reached over, opened the side table, and sure enough, there was a pack of cigarettes—British imports—and a lighter. He tossed them over to her, and with hands shaking, she lit one up, and he looked at it hungrily.

"You want one?" she asked.

After two years and a half years, he finally broke, nodded, took one out of the pack, and, whispering an apology to Jennifer, he lit it, taking it in deep, the nicotine hitting hard so he felt a bit light-headed for a moment. He felt deeply ashamed about breaking his vow to Jennifer and hoped she would understand at this moment.

"I don't know who, whether it was NSA, CIA, or some other agency, picked up the warning we were going to be hit later in the day. Only a few knew. Apparently not even the president, who was flying back to Washington when it hit."

"Who are these few?" John asked, head swimming from the nicotine and all that he was now learning.

"I don't know for sure." She hesitated, leaning forward to look out the door where her daughter was being loaded onto a stretcher, the child whimpering.

"You can go with her as soon as we're done talking," John said, and she looked back at him. "Who are these few that you said knew?"

"I'm not sure. You can guess, can't you? Not the ones in power up front. Just those behind them that few ever really see. Not many I recognized, but my husband was one of them." She paused and took another deep drag on her cigarette. "He got drunk one night and said that the country was going to hell anyhow. Some whispered that a reset button was needed to put them in control. Some operatives got a warning that North Korea and Iran were about to hit us by handing nukes and launch systems to terrorists who actually did the attack. They thought it would be a standard nuclear bomb strike, most likely against Washington and New York."

She took another drag. "So to play it safe, they set up some sort of practice drill. You know, he said like it was a war game or something. Practice evacuating certain key personnel, leaders to Bluemont, while families and a select few higher-ups were sent up here and stashed away.

"Then, as you all say, the shit hit the fan for real. Not a mushroom cloud over Washington but far worse, he said. The kids and I were already here. Others were brought in secretly in the weeks afterward. We were told to wait."

She sighed after taking another long drag on her cigarette. "Wait. I've been in this shit hole for two and a half years, and now you tell me my husband's slut mistress was here all along as well?

"That's all I know about what everyone calls the Day."

"Why aren't you in Bluemont?" John asked.

"My husband said the place was too small to take care of us all. Also, after it was all over, with representatives from other countries going there, even that damn pesky BBC could be there at times. If families were seen by them…" She paused again and looked at him coldly, and he realized that regardless of the enormity of what she was revealing, it was the news about the mistress that was driving her to now talk.

"Family and other people of special interest," she continued, "if we were there, outsiders might start asking why. Those in Bluemont, which is half the distance from Washington as this place, could claim a lot of excuses for getting to that place, even that they were part of a training exercise. But nearly two thousand of us? Some of them with very deep pockets who in reality controlled most of the political machines, at least before everything went down?"

"Two thousand?" John asked in surprise.

"Yeah, something like that." She took another drag on her cigarette, which burned clear down to the filter. She didn't bother with the ashtray, just let it fall to the shag-carpeted floor and ground it out. She got out another cigarette and lit it, continuing to smoke.

"More would come in after everything hit. Those with the real deep pockets—you know what I mean—people who shoveled out the cash before the war to buy what they wanted in Washington and could pay even more to survive here in safety. The ones that came afterward said it was beyond hell up above."

She stopped looking at him, head lowered as if waiting for an angry response or even a physical blow.

"It is indeed hell," was all he could say, and she took another drag on the cigarette. "So all of you have been here for over two years?"

"Yeah. Hell of an existence, isn't it?" She looked around at the sparsely furnished Quonset hut. "Water rationed to one shower per person every third day, one load of laundry a week in a communal laundry area. A communal laundry area with everyone else. Can you believe that?" She actually had rage in her voice over that indignity. "Meals are usually MREs, some of them twenty years old. Television is a library of old videotapes. I've watched every episode of Three's Company and Sesame Street maybe twenty times each until I'm ready to scream. The cigarettes he brings to me he gets through some trade deals—bet he gives most of them though to that bitch of his."

John looked around at her quarters, her slightly frayed but clean clothes, the electric lights outside illuminating Main Street, the subdued rumble of the ventilators lining the street that kept the temperature in the midsixties year round.

"Yeah, one hell of an existence," John whispered.

She could not even catch his bitter irony, she was so consumed with her own self-pity and rage at this moment.

"You ever go outside?"

"During the day, no. They say we can't be seen by anyone that might be watching. On special occasions, they'll let the kids out at night to run around and play for an hour or two."

"And your husband coming here?"

"Him? Every week, they bring a big helicopter in from Bluemont for what they call 'family visit weekend.' He gets to come once every six weeks for what he claims is one night, but I have the answer now." She glared at him, features bitter. "He got that bimbo who was his administrative assistant out as well, stashed her in the highly secured area at the far end of this damn cave, and spends the other night with her."

Her early attempt at sounding upper class, arrogant, and used to power had all but disintegrated. Her tone was now that of a bitter shrew.

"I can't wait to see him again," she announced coldly as she simply let her cigarette fall to the carpet, watched as it burned a hole into the worn green shag, finally crushed it out with the heel of her shoe, and lit yet another one.

"I'll loan you my gun when you see him again if you want," John said softly, and she looked at him, and he could see a dark glimmer in her eyes.

"Who else is here?"

"I don't know. Those in charge keep us kind of separated. My neighbor Gal, her husband was a senator as well; Pamela across the street, her husband was with the CIA. There's a section in the back, some nice modern trailers back there, that's cordoned off separately. Some say that's where the bigwigs, the elite, are stashed. You can smell their cooking at time, real food, not the shit they give to us."

"I would think acting secretary of state would be a high rank."

She sniffed derisively.

"Yeah, right. He's a puppet. I mean the real high rankers."

"The president's family, maybe?"

"You mean that fool in office when it hit? They never got them out—at least that's what my husband said. But the acting president now, yeah, that family is back there somewhere."

John looked down at his cigarette, which had burned out. He let it fall to the carpet.

She looked over at him, and he could see tears. "Maybe it was as I heard someone whisper, it was to reset things, others like my husband would take over, figuring just D.C. would be hit. I don't know. I asked my husband more than once what happened and why. He gets drunk a lot now, and all he says is that it's 'better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' He says that a lot."

He looked at her, no longer with contempt but almost a sense of pity. He looked back out the window. The stretcher with her daughter was up, being moved, medic still by the girl's side, a civilian walking along the other side of the stretcher holding the plasma bag high. Maury was sitting across the street while a trooper was cutting his pant leg back and wrapping a bandage around the wound. Maury was crying, but not for himself; he was looking down at Grace, whom someone had thankfully covered with a poncho.

"They're moving your daughter. Go with her," John whispered.

She stood up without comment and started for the door, paused, and looked back. "You want any more cigarettes, go ahead and take them. That bastard of a husband brings me a new carton every time he comes here."

"I hope your daughter is okay," John said in reply, but her back was already turned to him, and she disappeared from view, suddenly shouting melodramatically that she needed to be by her baby.

John could see that Forrest was leaning against the wall, just outside the open door. Their eyes met, and Forrest, scarred and wounded veteran of Afghanistan, came into the room and sat down by John's side.

"I heard most of it," Forrest said softly.

John could not reply.

"Scales sent a runner back; he wants you with him."

"In a minute."

Forrest reached over to the carton of cigarettes. There were still several packs inside. He opened one, lit it with his battered 101st Airborne Zippo, and looked over at John, offering him a puff, which John gladly took.


Having been escorted through the vast cavern labyrinth by the runner sent back by General Scales, John passed row after row of old-style barracks and Quonset huts. Most of them were empty, windows dust covered with no sign of habitation.

There was a grim triage logic to it. Designed back in the 1950s to house twenty-five thousand for how long? A month, six months, maybe a year? Two thousand could stay down here for years, a decade if need be. Also, moving twenty-five thousand in? Surely it would have drawn notice. Bob had been in the Pentagon on that day of days and was clueless as to what was going on at the moment everything hit. The number who were in the know and slipped away earlier that day or even before that? A hundred or two at most? Their families added in?

It was the sick mathematics of living versus dying. Who is the inner elite who cared no more for their duty and moral responsibility and thought only of themselves? Triage at its most sickeningly self-centered. It was time to confront it.

As they hiked to wherever Bob had gone, John could see scores of civilians lingering, watching. Some were even tanned. My God, did they even have tanning beds down here to get a dose of vitamin D and look good in the process?

He looked at his friends Forrest, Reverend Black, and Kevin, so clearly showing the ravages of two and a half years of survival, and he knew how he must look to them. Kevin was struggling to keep it together, an affirmation of what John suspected: that he and Grace had become close. Reverend Black was whispering to him, a supportive arm around his shoulders. He was barely keeping to his task, and John was tempted to relieve him and send him back to Grace's body and see that it was tended to with loving respect, but at this moment, he needed him far more than sentiment could allow.

After nearly a half mile of walking, John could see, of all things, a Cyclone fence that went from floor to ceiling, warning signs to either side of the entryway that they were about to enter a secured area. That almost made him laugh if it hadn't been so ironic. The gate was wide open, two of Bob's troopers posted to either side. A dead body covered with a poncho lay to one side, a massive pool of congealing blood having leaked out from underneath the poncho. He paused and made eye contact with the troopers.

"One of theirs," a trooper announced, her voice clipped, grim. A field bandage was wrapped around her upper left arm.

"You all right?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir. But that son of a bitch isn't." She nodded to the body. "He nearly shot the general."

There was a gaze of intense hatred in her eyes, and it was obvious she had killed him and now showed no remorse. How could he blame her? How could he blame any of them? After all they had been through, after all they thought they had been fighting for, and now to see this?

"The general is in that bunker complex over there, sir," she announced, nodding back beyond the fence, wincing as she did so from the wound to her arm.

He looked over at the other guard, a sergeant. "Can't we get her over to a hospital?" John asked.

The sergeant nodded back down the street that John had just traversed.

"Sir, we've got less than fifty in here," the sergeant whispered. "No telling how many we've yet to secure who will fight back once they get organized for a rush on us. The general said everyone who can hold a gun stays on station until we get things straightened out."

The sergeant turned his attention away from John, shouldered his weapon, and aimed past him. "You there! Halt and keep back, or I will shoot!" the sergeant snapped.

John looked over his shoulder. A group of milling civilians was getting closer and at the sergeant's command sullenly started to draw back.

"If they were all armed, we'd be in the shit," the sergeant said softly. "Word is that there are some additional personnel in a highly secured area." He paused. "You know anything about that, sir?"

"I do," was all that John felt comfortable with saying. "Just be ready; there could be some well-trained personnel in there." He looked just beyond the gate; there was a Humvee parked inside. "See if you can get that thing to start. If not, drop it into neutral and roll it to block this gate. Stay behind it as cover just in case."

He looked over at Forrest, who was nodding in agreement. "Mind staying here?" John asked him. "Kevin, Reverend Black, maybe you two as well?"

"Okay." Forrest smiled. "Sir."

The two guards were obviously grateful for the reinforcements, and leaving them behind, John started for the bunker complex. As he approached, he eyed the building. Unlike the living quarters, it was made of poured concrete. A lone guard from Scales's unit guarded the door, offering a salute as John approached and opening the door for him.

As he went through the door, it felt as if his ears were about to pop. The room was overpressured, the air pressure higher within to keep any ambient dust or anything else, such as chemical or biological agents, from filtering in. He could see wire meshing in the heavy glass of the door. It wasn't armor against bullets; it was faraday caging of the entire building, proofing it against an EMP. Of course it was known about back in the 1960s, and he could recall some of the secured briefing rooms down in the basement of the Pentagon having the same kind of protections.

Once through the double doors, it truly was a Dr. Strangelove world. A vast projection screen filled the opposite wall. It was dark, but he could easily imagine a global map display, arrows crisscrossing back and forth showing the trajectory of incoming missiles. Several dozen desks were arrayed in three tiers facing the darkened screen.

They were standard military issue of a generation or more ago. Most had old standard rotary phones on them as well, a few early model desktop computers, all of it having the feel of a time capsule. There were glassed-in rooms in a semicircle set around the main room, half a dozen feet higher than the main floor. John could see one was lit up with fluorescent lights; Bob Scales and half a dozen of his troops were in that room. As he approached, Bob looked down and waved for John to come up.

There was an unpleasant scent in the air, and as he drew closer, there was yet another body, not covered, shot in the head. He had seen so many dead like this one, but in this surreal room, the corpse seemed so out of place. John hesitated for a moment, looking down at it and then up at the lone guard stationed at the door telling John that the general was waiting for him, and he went into the room.

Far-more-up-to-date computers and communication gear lined two walls of the room, some of it lit up. The far wall was covered by a dark blue curtain, in front of it a desk, flanking the desk to either side American flags. Parked at an angle were a couple of television cameras that looked to be twenty or more years old, and glassed in to one side a small control booth, apparently to operate the cameras and sound equipment.

Besides Bob and his security detail, there were several civilians in the room as well. One of them Pelligrino, ashen faced but still alive. Standing nervously behind him were two men and a lone woman.

"John, are you all right?" Bob asked.

"Sir?"

"There's blood all over your jacket."

John looked down and for the first time realized that he was indeed caked in blood. "It was Grace. The girl with my unit," John said softly.

"She going to make it?" Bob asked.

John could only shake his head.

Bob looked back at Pelligrino. "Another death I am holding you responsible for."

It looked like Pelligrino was beyond rattled and just sat in dejected, terrified silence, eyes darting back and forth like those of a hunted rabbit.

"What's going on here, sir?" John asked.

"Get these four things out of this room and have them wait in the hall," Bob snapped, and the guards with him shoved the civilians out without any display of civility, leaving Bob and John alone.

Bob leaned back in the old chair, put his feet up on the table, and sighed. "You want the 'sit-rep'?" Bob asked, motioning for John to pull up a chair.

John sighed and nodded, fishing into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes he had taken and pulling one out.

"I thought you quit," Bob said, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

John did not reply as he tossed the pack on the table. Bob reached over, pulled out one as well, and motioned for the lighter.

"Didn't know you smoked."

"I didn't other than the occasional cigar."

The two sat in silence for a moment, Bob coughing as he exhaled but then nodding. "I can see how you can get hooked on these damn things.

"We're in the shitter," Bob finally said. "For that matter, the whole damn world is in the shitter."

John knew that he was serving as a sounding board and the best thing to do now was to just listen.

"I came in here with eighty people. We've taken about twenty casualties." He paused, looking at John. "I'm sorry about Grace and Lee."

John could not bring himself to reply.

"All I could worm out of that administrator Pelligrino is that we are in a world of hurt. There are a couple of hundred civilians at the back end of this facility in a highly secured area who are family members of high-value types. 'Movers behind the movers,' they call them. Anyhow, the security we faced at first, standard garrison types, you could see that. But there are some definite A-team types holed up in that highly secured area, and if they try to retake us, it could go badly. I was on the phone to someone up there. She wouldn't identify herself, but I told her she keeps her people in place and there's no threat. But if they move, all bets are off, and this place turns into a free-fire zone."

"Do they know how many we really have with us?" John asked.

"I don't know. If they have access to outside cameras, they could see how many came in with us and do the math. For now, I think I've got them convinced I've got a full battalion in reserve coming in and if they start a fight, we can hold until that battalion arrives and all hell will come down on them. They're not pushing, at least for the moment, and if they don't, we don't shove."

John nodded.

"They'll buy it for a while," he finally said while Bob took another drag and coughed again but did not toss the cigarette down.

"What else?" John asked, for obviously there was more.

"I had that piece of crap Pelligrino out there get on the phone with Bluemont."

That momentarily caught John by surprise, but then again, the moment they started to hit this place the alert would have gone to Bluemont, which by land was less than sixty miles away and by helicopter a quick twenty-minute flight.

"And?"

"I'm ordered to surrender my entire command. They're sending up a battalion by land even as we speak."

"Air?"

"Assume so."

"Our choppers?"

"I've already ordered them to clear out. They get caught on the ground, we truly are screwed. They're pulling back to where we landed earlier today. We can stay in touch with the comm team I left up on Little Round Top. That way no transmissions can be locked in on. Our choppers lifted off a few minutes ago. Security teams at the gate are pulling in and securing that huge steel door. Wounded are inside the gate and being tended to."

John nodded, crushed out his cigarette, and lit another. Bob, coughing, just let his drop and did not bother to try another just yet.

"We caught them by surprise," John replied. "If they hit back, we'll be ready and can hold this place against a damn armored brigade. Are there any back doors?"

"I've got some of my people talking to the prisoners we took. Hate to say so, but I told my people to be persuasive if need be."

"What doesn't happen in front of CNN never happened," John said softly. It was a bit of advice John remembered being spread among the troops just before going into Iraq. Of course there were rules of engagement with his army. But there was also the fundamental fact that war ultimately was and is the application of brutality, and if it saved the lives of men under one's command, all bets were off, at least if CNN wasn't there.

Bob did not reply.

"So what next, sir?" John asked.

Bob pulled another cigarette out of the pack lying on the table and lit it. His feet still up on the table, he exhaled the first puff and watched in silence as the smoke swirled up. "John, at a moment like this, it might seem strange, but I'm going philosophical on you. In fact, you were one of the few I ever served with I could go philosophical with."

John said nothing, but it was indeed an ultimate compliment.

"Do you remember our oath when we were sworn into the service?"

"Yes, sir."

Bob continued to stare at the coils of smoke. "'I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,' there's a bit more, and then it ends with 'I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.'"

John remained silent.

"I have just been ordered by the person claiming to be the president of the United States, headquartered in Bluemont, to surrender my command and all those serving with me." He took another drag on his cigarette, gaze unfocused. "You ever take an order from someone you thought was a total ass and the order was dead wrong?"

"Yes, sir."

"I hope not me."

John chuckled softly. "Of course not."

"For enlisted personnel, their oath includes that they are only required to obey orders that are lawful and are held morally and even legally accountable if the order is immoral or violates the military code of justice and/or the Constitution. That became important post-Vietnam, after the Mỹ Lai Massacre.

"That is not specified in the oath for an officer, but it is clearly implied because we have an option enlisted personnel do not have; we can resign our commissions in protest and are expected to do so." Another puff on the cigarette followed by a moment of silent thought.

"Are you going to resign?" John finally asked.

Bob looked over at him. "Your thoughts, John?"

"Is it about here?" John asked. "The fact that someone—in fact, quite a few—knew on the morning of the Day that we were going to get hit, took care of their own, and said the hell with the rest of us?"

"In part."

Bob was silent for a moment. He took another drag on his cigarette and sighed.

"So damn much is clear now. We knew a practice drill was going on the day we got hit and most of the personnel that took over after that day by chance had been in Bluemont. At least I and others believed it was by chance. Hell, drills like that are being pulled all the time. We just came to assume that a few more that took over made it to Bluemont in the weeks afterward."

He stood and looked out the window of the room to the open floor of what had been built in the 1950s to serve as the War Room to keep on fighting from if Washington was destroyed. "This was built to fight a nuclear war from. Once ICBMs with flight times of but minutes came online in the late 1950s and warning time went from hours down to just a few minutes, those of us working in the Pentagon knew we'd all be gone in those first few minutes and this place was all but forgotten. A relic of a different type of war from a different time. And now to find it was activated and running with families stashed here?"

He looked back at John, tears in his eyes. "Six hours' warning and I could have gotten Linda out of Florida. All of us could have done something. For that matter, we could have scrambled everything we had and perhaps even targeted the container ships in the Gulf of Mexico and off the California coast before they hit us. It's all too much to absorb, John."

"I spoke to a woman who said her husband claimed that a select few knew something was coming but assumed it would be just a nuclear strike on D.C., and I would guess maybe New York." John wearily shook his head. "Just D.C. and New York," John whispered again. "Just ten to fifteen million dead. My God, what kind of mentality thinks such a loss would be a small number and that would reset the political paradigm in their favor."

"There's intelligence chatter all the time." Bob sighed. "If one believes all of it, every day you go crazy. You know that. Maybe they thought that it was just a mid-level alert. I guess we'll never know for sure. Bastards who would sit back for that think of themselves first. I doubt if we'll ever get the truth from them."

"By the way," John said, breaking the tension of the moment with a sad smile, "it was her husband sending those love notes, not to his wife but to his mistress stashed away in the highly secured other end of this facility, that gave us the clue about Site R. I told her you have the letters. She is so pissed off I'm certain she'll sing like a canary for us if we need more info later."

"Typical," Bob said softly, wearily shaking his head. "So typical of so many moral scum we all had to salute at one time or another."

"But to the core question, sir?" John asked. "Is it about what they did to us all or what they are going to do to us next?"

"Go on."

"I see one side of the dilemma that you are dwelling on being what happened. But, sir, the more pressing issue is what they're going to do next and how you will reply."

"Keep talking." Now Bob lit his third cigarette.

"All of this started to unravel when you received orders—when was it, not much more than a day ago?—to pull your entire command back to Roanoke. It meant that Bluemont was preparing to pop an EMP to destabilize Atlanta, take out communities like mine that are resisting them, and I guess send a message to China as well not to push beyond the Mississippi. It comes down to the fact that they are willing to hold and execute power whatever the cost. I just heard someone quote Milton: 'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' They scrambled to protect themselves when all hell cut loose and then seized the reins of power afterward. Whether that was their plot beforehand or not we most likely will never know. But since the Day? What they've done, what they are planning to do next? That, sir, is the issue of the moment to focus upon."

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."

"Just who do you think you are?" came the sharp reply. "General, you have been stripped of rank effective immediately. You are to turn yourself over to Mr. Pelligrino and the head of security where you are. Any who continue to obey your orders will face the severest consequences. You will be escorted to a secured area where you wait until our forces arrive."

Bob actually smiled at that. "Go to hell."

"What?" Her voice was almost a shriek, and as it rose in volume, John found himself looking at the loudspeaker with surprise. He recognized who she was.

"Madam. You are to recall your forces now. Immediately."

"Mr. Scales, it's the other way around."

"I hold the trump card; you do not."

"You're an egotistical fool. You have fewer than eighty with you. We realize that now. You've undoubtedly learned by now there are additional security forces within the site. Whatever chance you had is finished. If you surrender yourself, I promise leniency for all those deluded into following you, and that is our only offer."

Bob cupped his hand over the receiver and looked at John and the two guards.

"Tell her to kiss our asses," one of the troopers replied. "Every man and woman under your command is with you, sir."

Bob nodded his thanks and then looked at Phyllis. "I want you to turn those cameras on and set up an uplink."

"To what?" she asked nervously.

"BBC, for starters. China, the whole damn world."

"I will not."

"I can have one of my tech people in here in less than five minutes and do your job for you," Bob replied coolly.

She did not move.

"Get someone. Sergeant McCloskey can handle it," Bob snapped to the two guards in the room, and one set off at a run, but the other guard came up close to John.

"McCloskey's dead," the guard whispered to John.

He could see Bob hesitating, such a rare sight, but all of it had become all so overwhelming. Every second that passed raised the chance that a counterstrike could hit them, and as if in answer, he could hear what sounded like gunfire from outside the command bunker. Chances were they were about to be overrun.

What had to be done, he knew Bob most likely was contemplating, but the moment dragged out, gunfire growing louder, and for John, it came down to Lee, Grace, Jennifer, all those who died. All those who would continue to die.

"Sir," John snapped, and he extended his hand out, indicating he wanted the phone.

Bob looked at him in surprise but then handed the phone up.

"This is John Matherson. You might not know who I am, but I know who you are."

There was a pause from the other end. "The terrorist from Carolina?" It was more a question than a reply.

"A citizen from Carolina who knows that you plan to take down the entire southeast region of the United States with another EMP burst within the next few days."

"What difference does it make that I'm talking to you instead of a general now formally stripped of command?" she snapped.

"I'll tell you the difference, ma'am."

There was no reply, but over the loudspeaker, John could hear whispering from those who were most likely in the same room with the woman on the phone.

"I want all of you to listen closely. General Scales might not be comfortable with ordering this, but I no longer have a problem after everything you bastards have done to us, to our country."

"How dare you!"

"I dare because I can destroy this place in a matter of minutes."

Another pause, whispered voices, and finally a reply, as if she were trying to laugh his words off as an idle threat. "It was built to withstand a direct hit on the surface from a nuclear weapon. Unless you have one with you, John Matherson, your words are just that—words."

"But we are inside. This place has a central ventilation system. I have enough of my people here that we will blow that, for starters. There is fuel storage, gasoline and diesel; we will dump it and light it off. The barracks are made of wood; after sixty-plus years down here, they'll burn like torches. Your food supply is centrally stored; we already know where that is. A hundred gallons of gasoline tossed in there and lit and the life of luxury in here turns into the way people like my family have been living for over two years while your families are fat, warm, well-fed, and safe.

"Your water cisterns. I'll blow them, and while everything burns at this level, we'll flood out any lower levels beneath this one as well. We will blow this place, and in one hour, every single person in here will be standing out in the freezing cold. And let me guess—do you have grandchildren in here?"

"How dare you threaten them, you son of a bitch!" she shrieked.

"So you do have them here. So let's make this clear. I bet there are a couple of dozen in that room with you, and all of you have families here. And by the way, if your so-called secretary of state is there, tell him his wife knows about Alicia and is waiting to discuss his mistress. I offered to loan her my gun, and I think she's eager to use it."

He could hear loud cursing and then the voice of someone being muffled.

"Don't you dare try to play a blame game with me. We are not terrorists who will kill children. But you most certainly are a terrorist. My daughter died because of people like you. So the choice is yours: call your attack dogs off both inside here and any coming from the outside, and we continue to talk. Otherwise, I'm handing the phone back to General Scales, we start smashing this damn hiding hole, and you figure out what to do with everyone in here when they're standing outside tonight in two feet of snow and another storm is rolling in.

"I am a man of faith, and I swear to you before God I will not harm a single innocent person in this place. But I also swear to you that unless you back off now, every person in this place will be living like the rest of America in another hour. At least I'll give your people time to get into warm clothes if they have any and one pouch of an MRE each, but that is it. And that is a damn sight more than you and yours ever gave to the rest of this country two and a half years ago. I've said my piece. It is now you who have one minute to decide."

John tossed the phone down on the desk and looked over at Pelligrino. "Get on there and tell her I'm not bluffing!" John shouted.

Bob sat in perfect silence, looking up at John in surprise.

John drew out his Glock and pointed it at Pelligrino. "Tell her I'm not bluffing!" John shouted.

"John?" It was Bob speaking, but John did not look at him.

"Tell her."

Hands shaking, Pelligrino needed both to pick the phone up. "He has a gun to my head. He's just crazy enough to do it."

"One minute for the shooting in here to stop and for you to halt whoever is preparing to hit us, or this place starts coming down!" John shouted.

"He means it!" Pelligrino cried.

A pause, more arguing from the other end, and someone sobbing their kids were in the middle of it and to back down.

"Thirty seconds!" John shouted.

"All right! All right!" she cried.

It sounded like she was muffling the mouthpiece of the phone, but all could hear her shouting to get on a comm link to the security team in Sector Alpha and order them to cease fire and withdraw.

"Tell her she just bought herself a few more minutes," John said, looking at Pelligrino, who nodded and gasped out the message.

John stepped to the door into the room, telling the one remaining member of their team standing watch to go out to the gate and report back whether all was secure.

The distant sound of gunfire finally ceased. Two minutes turned to three and then four.

The guard, breathless, ran back into the cavernous main hall and then up to the communications center. "Whoever they are, they've apparently pulled back, sir."

John nodded and lowered his weapon away from Pelligrino, and the man visibly shuddered and sighed with relief.

"How bad was it?" Bob asked.

"Two of our people at the gate are down. I think one is dead."

John wanted to ask if his own friends were safe but knew he could not do so now.

Bob nodded and took the phone from Pelligrino. "Every death now is on your head," he said. "I'll call you back in five minutes. But if any moves are made, if anyone tries to approach from outside, what Matherson said will come to pass."

He hung up without waiting for her reply and looked back at Phyllis, who, though obviously frightened, was displaying more nerve than Pelligrino.

"You and I need to talk, and I promise you, either way you answer, no harm will come to you. You have my word of honor on that."

She nodded but did not reply.

Bob spared a sharp glance toward Pelligrino and motioned to the door, and the breathless trooper hustled him out of the room, closing the door.

"Sit down, Phyllis." Bob offered her a chair.

She did as requested, and Bob motioned toward the pack of cigarettes. She shook her head, but he drew one out for himself, as did John.

"Phyllis, how long have you been here?"

"Since the morning of the day the war started."

"Why you? Are you a family member of someone in Bluemont?"

"No, sir."

"Then why?"

"I'd rather not say."

That could mean a lot, but John sensed what it might be and did not press the question.

"And you being in here in this room when I came in?" Bob continued.

"I was assigned to work communications here. I used to be a producer and sometimes anchored for a television station in D.C."

For John, that seemed to fall a bit into place. She was tall, highly attractive, the type that would be pushed in front of a camera to interview some government official. It was easy enough to see that had developed out and why she was alive here rather than long ago dead back in Washington.

"I think you know that outside of here, Bluemont, and I can only assume now a few other places, our country has gone to hell."

She just nodded, head lowered.

"It could have been you out there, Phyllis."

"My parents, a sister"—she paused—"a guy who was once my boyfriend."

"Phyllis, do you know that Bluemont is preparing to launch an EMP strike against our own country?"

She hesitated. "There have been rumors," she whispered.

"And your thoughts on that?"

She did not reply.

John could see what Bob was trying to do and gently moved in on the conversation. "Phyllis, there are hundreds of communities like mine that just barely managed to survive. Barely. We're starting to crawl out of the dust, basic things, get at least a trickle of electricity up and running. From that, the chemistry lab in the college where I teach is again making anesthesia and antibiotics, things we once took for granted. Phyllis, have you ever witnessed an amputation with the victim wide awake, no pain pills afterward, no way to stop infection once it set in?"

She stared at him wide-eyed and then lowered her gaze and shook her head.

"How about watching a diabetic child die because her frantic parent could not find a single vial of insulin?"

Another shake of her head, but her glance turned back up to him.

"Yes, that was me. My daughter was twelve, and I held her as she died. Even with just a few extra hours' warning, so much could have been different. Phyllis, those of us left are trying to crawl out of the hellhole of what happened, and those people in Bluemont are about to hit us, to push us back down into that hole. Bluemont is going to smash all that within the next two to three days because it doesn't fit what they see as their plan.

"Look at me, please," John said, and she raised her head.

"How old was your sister?"

"Fourteen."

"My daughter was twelve when she died for want of a vial of insulin."

He held the eye contact, and this time she did not break away.

"What do you want me to do?" she finally whispered.


John stood just behind Phyllis, who was at the control board. It was lit up. She had indicated to him and Bob that the uplink was hot and also being fed to Bluemont as well.

If she was bluffing, she was being damned good at it, and he could only hope for the best and that she had made a moral choice—or, as Bob had interjected, a penance—and it was time for her to set her own moral choices straight.

Bob was sitting behind the desk at the far end of the room.

Phyllis looked over at John. "He's on," she announced, and she turned her attention back to the display board.

John wasn't quite sure what to do other than just hold his hand up and wave.

Bob nodded and looked at the camera, and John could see the image on a small screen in the control room. Certainly not the professional quality the world had once grown all so used to, but it would have to do.

There was no makeup, no smile, just a firm determined look.

"My name is Robert Scales. Until an hour ago, I was a serving major general in the United States Army and in command of all army operations in what was defined as the Eastern Mid-Atlantic Command Zone.

"My task, as assigned to me by an entity located in Bluemont, Virginia, claiming that it was the reconstituted government of the United States of America, was, and I quote from the orders I was operating under, 'to return to federal control all territory from Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia, to the north, the Appalachian Mountains to the west, and the border with Florida to the south.'

"Until two days ago, I diligently followed those orders, believing that the entity located in Bluemont that claimed it was the government of the United States was a legitimate government. I no longer believe so, and that is why I am making this broadcast now.

"Several days ago, I was made aware of two actions by those who claim to be the government—one a crime of unsurpassed magnitude on what so many of us now call 'the Day,' the other a crime of nearly equal magnitude that same government was planning to commit within the next forty-eight hours.

"I shall review those crimes shortly. But before doing so, I am making the following statement and then demand. An hour ago, I wrote out my letter of resignation as a serving officer in the United States Army so that it can never be stated that one following a tradition going back to General Washington and those who served with him rebelled against his government. I therefore resigned and now have the freedom to act as a private citizen. Bear that in mind as I now make this demand. I demand that the criminal entity that claims to be the federal government based in Bluemont resign from office. That applies to the so-called president and every other official there.

"All of you who resign will stand trial by a duly created civilian court, for your crimes are of such magnitude you must face juries of your peers. Do not resign and you shall be construed as in rebellion against those who defend the Constitution of the United States and dealt with accordingly."

He paused and looked over at John for a few seconds, who had been carefully watching Phyllis's actions. Nothing seemed amiss. She had claimed to be linking the signal not just to Bluemont but also to several frequencies commonly monitored by ham operators, the frequency of America's Voice of Victory, as it was now called, and, even more important, the BBC. Her hands were shaking, and he looked over at her.

She was in tears but then whispered. "I'm with you on this now."

John gave a reassuring look back to Bob.

"I shall now review in detail my charges against those in Bluemont, an explanation of where I am now, and all that this place called Site R, from where I am broadcasting, symbolizes."

He spoke for nearly a half hour, amazing John with his ability to have thus organized his thoughts, laying it all out clearly with no teleprompter, relying on nothing more than a few sheets of paper with notes scribbled on them with a Sharpie.

John continued to watch Phyllis's actions. She stuck to her post, not making any attempts to shut things down. Bob had run down the list of events going all the way back to the Day and how it was now clearly evident that a very select few in the government, and beyond them political leaders and high-level economic leaders not directly in government, had word of the impending attack; conspired to conceal it while ensuring the safety of themselves, their families, friends, and allies; and ensured as well their seizing dictatorial power afterward. This cabal, as he called it, had ceded more than half of what had been America to other nations in order to ensure their continued hold on power and finally had plotted an EMP strike as a means of suppressing those attempting to rebuild and as a dangerous political ploy against the rest of the world.

"Why did they sink to this lowest of moral crimes?" Bob finally asked. "I don't know for certain. The warning about the threat of an EMP attack has been out there for years, decades, and yet no one acted on it. Was it ignorance or was it simple dumb disbelief? Perhaps for many, yes. But I recall all too well an interview with someone who was fully aware of the threat long before it hit. When he was asked why there was no action to prepare, his reply was, 'Don't we, the ordinary citizens of our country who are aware of the threat, realize the elites will take care of their own no matter what happens?'

"This day I have found that those who claim to be our government based in Bluemont did take care of their own while the rest of us faced the Day without warning, and hundreds of millions died. Every one of their deaths rests on those who knew and said nothing while looking out for themselves.

"I must add that I believe that some, for perverted reasons, saw this as a means of seizing power, no matter what the ebb and flow of politics, fearing perhaps they would soon be voted out of office. And the sickest crime of all is that—to paraphrase Milton, who in Paradise Lost once wrote of Satan—they felt it was better to reign in the hell they created than to serve in heaven. To a world, to Americans who lost so much but still survive, to personal friends, I must ask you: Should such as they be allowed to continue on in power? I point no finger at one political view or another; our petty arguments of left or right, liberal or conservative, seem so inane now in contrast to what we endured together. Regardless of what we once felt on such things, I believe we are united with these revelations that we must stand together to ensure that government of, by, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.

"In conclusion," Bob finally said, "I can only speak now as a private citizen, having resigned my commission in order to be free of what any might construe as a military coup. All men and women in uniform must now make a choice. If you are an officer, remember your oath is to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is your choice to decide if those in Bluemont are enemies of our Constitution and then act accordingly.

"I am asking that any force commanders in possession of nuclear weapons go to a full lockdown and vow that under no circumstance whatsoever will they deploy or launch such a weapon, except in response to nuclear weapons launched by another country against what is left of the United States, until a properly constituted government formed within the original guidelines of our Constitution has been re-created. Only after that takes place with a duly elected and morally guided government in place will those in direct charge of such weapons unlock them, strictly to ensure the defense of our country against outside threats.

"I am asking that those military forces directly attached to Bluemont, either defensively or currently moving toward offensive action to retake Site R, go to a full stand-down. I no longer have such power to order you to do so, but your unit commanders can.

"I am asking that any civilian-based military units within a hundred-mile radius of Bluemont move upon it now. I pray that there shall be no violence offered from our regular armed forces, who will instead join you in occupying Bluemont and placing under arrest any who are still there.

"Where I am located now, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is the underground shelter I spoke to you about earlier. Having resigned my commission, I have no power to act here, but I am requesting of the officer who is taking over in my place to ensure that the civilians who have lived here safely for two and a half years shall be protected. Our own Constitution makes clear that no family member can be punished for the crimes of a parent or spouse. However, if those in Bluemont do resist or attempt to seize this place by force, all civilians within Site R will be ordered to evacuate and find whatever shelter and sustenance they can in the outside world all the rest of us have resided in for the last two years. If that is indeed the tragic result, I ask that you show them more compassion than their leaders have shown to us.

"So what is next?" Bob asked, and he looked at the camera for a moment as if almost expecting to hear tens of millions of replies.

"I leave that to you, my fellow citizens. Our once proud cities and our once beautiful capital have been reduced to ruin and ashes. I see the land around Bluemont to somehow be accursed. I will therefore close with a suggestion. I ask that thirty days hence, five representatives from each of the surviving states come to meet here at this place. I ask that you good citizens decide how they shall be selected, as it was once done when the founders met to frame our Constitution. I ask that we reaffirm that Constitution and create a reunited Union of States.

"Why here?" He paused for a moment. "Within sight of this place I am now broadcasting from, our nation, once divided, fought the bitterest battle of a bitter war. And yet, fifty years later and again seventy-five years later, former enemies met as friends, standing on opposite sides of a stone wall on a place called Cemetery Ridge and shook hands in friendship. But a few hundred yards from that wall, President Lincoln stood before the newly made graves of those who gave the last full measure of devotion and proclaimed that 'this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.'"

There was another long pause.

"In your hands, my fellow citizens, and not mine, now rests the fate of this nation. I ask that Almighty God grants us his peace and guidance in the days to come."

He sat back in his chair, eyes still on the camera.

Phyllis waited for some sort of signal, but he gave none, and finally John whispered.

"That's it."

She reached across the board and threw a number of switches off and then looked over at John and began to cry. "I'm sorry I was ever here," she whispered.

"Consider what you just did as atonement," John replied. He stepped out from the narrow confines of the control booth and walked up to where Bob remained motionless.

"I guess all we can do now is wait and see what happens." Bob sighed.

"'We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth,'" he said as if to himself.