April (78 page)

The event marked the end of uncontrolled outdoor farming in Europe. By the next year, every acre which sold to commercial markets, would be indoors in totally artificial environments. Soil would be created artificially, where hydroponics could not serve, as it was cheaper than decontaminating natural soils. Natural land would be planted in cotton, flax, hemp and other inedible plants, whose products didn't take up appreciable radiation. Or land was converted to other uses.

A few products such as sugar and pressed oils, could be made safe after processing. The only outdoor food crops sold would be village markets, exempt from European Union standards and hobby gardeners. The streets would be jammed then, by angry pensioners and the poor, who could not afford the sudden jump in food prices. Right now, the Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians quickly blamed North American stubbornness and joined France in pushing motions to recognize Home.

Others would follow soon. Nations to the North and East would receive their gift on the wind in a few more days. Nations like Pakistan and India would have to accept the contamination as unavoidable for all but the richest and live with the long term public health disaster. What was strange was the nation of Toga. A tiny and insular island nation in the Pacific, was the second to recognize Home the next morning. No one realized yet how Mitsubishi was working behind the scene to bring that about, or why. Jon thanked them and promised mutual trade and recognition, when they were able. He didn't tell them how long it might take to organize.

* * *

The President considered all the reports before him. The language was all couched in percentages, projections and subjective words, instead of hard numbers to hide reality. By generalizing, it succeeded in covering the full extent of the horror which those who suffered the full effects of the Home bombardment had felt. Every effort was made to avoid showing him images of the destruction, since he was unpredictable when angered.

President Hadley was very comfortable in his safe office. He kept it cool enough to wear his suit jacket, as he thought it important for his subordinates not to slip into an informal atmosphere around him. The air was carefully filtered of all radioactive traces drifting in from the western states and to be concerned every farmer and factory worker was not similarly protected, was not something which would have occurred to him.

The walls around him were well insulated and covered in such a way he was never reminded he was in a series of manmade caverns and not a normal office building. The hall ways were extra wide and bright, to not create a bunker-like atmosphere.

It was like most things in his life. It was simply taken care of so smoothly he dismissed it as unimportant. He had just enjoyed a pleasant luncheon with the Head of the Army. He had suffered no personal discomfort from Home's bombardment, so it was easy to dismiss its seriousness. The ground forces were very proud to report no significant damage or loss of equipment and were in fine shape to protect the Continent from invasion or internal disorder.

It would have never entered his mind the pristine condition of the army and its ground forces was not due to their being managed better than the Air Force and Space Forces or Navy, but because Home saw no advantage in their destruction.

He was about to receive an upsetting communication about the European Union voting to recognize Home, but it never happened. There was a thrumming rhythm which was felt as much as heard, shaking the floor under his feet.

One of the Navy men, a Lieutenant with a beret and the piped blouse of his special security detachment, came in the door pressing the flat of his hand over his earphone and shouting something in the boom mic hanging in front of his mouth. Brockman, it said in low contrast letters above his buttoned pocket. He shouted over the noise they had to evacuate and physically hauled the wide eyed Hadley to his feet. The President's mouth was hanging open in shock, at having someone manhandle him.

"Cheryl!" he called out to his secretary looking back at the open doorway panicky. "What's going on?" he kept looking back, expecting to see her appear.

"They're all gone if they have any sense. Everyone in the complex is being evacuated," the sailor told him.

He was half marched, half carried, to the doorway  across the room, which accessed an escape tunnel. There was a vehicle through there, that looked like a golf cart poised on a set of rails. It was very reliable because it required no power. The car was simply a gravity sled, made to run down inclined rails to a waiting exit.

"What's going on? What's making that noise?" he demanded loudly of the sailor.

"I don't know what it is, but it's the same weapon they've used on us elsewhere. There's no defense but to get away."

"We can't just leave all my papers and things out and walk away. I have an appointment with the Secretary of Defense in minutes," he insisted, trying to get back up from the seat.

"My orders are to get you away safe if we are attacked. Now shut up and let me do my job," he told him, shoving him back in the seat and snapped the man's belt across him.

There was a rumbling crash behind them and a line of pock marks walked across the wall toward them about waist high. The creation of each hole a sharp crack like a gun and each one spewing a spray of rock chips and leaving a small crater behind in the shattered tan granite. The Lieutenant threw himself down, pulling Hadley down by the neck below the advancing line, just in time to avoid their being cut in two. He ended up laying beside the car, his hand still on the back of the Presidents neck. He had folded him over so hard he had jammed his nose into his knee and given him a bloody nose.

Hadley was screaming protests and the sailor ignored them and ignored the stings on his back he could feel from stone chips. There was a deep shuddering moan from the rock, as it shifted, with the weight of a mountain suddenly undercut. He ran around and jumped in the car, releasing the brake without bothering to belt up himself. It immediately surged forward down the slope.

Behind them there was a tremendous thump, that made their ears pop as the office space collapsed and a blast of air and choking gritty dust surged past them, down the tunnel. At the bottom of the run a pin on the tracks automatically engaged their brakes and they came to a stop with a squeal of pads grabbing the tracks.

There was a fair sized room with lights still working and through the thick rock dust could be seen a large off road truck, sitting high on massive tires, with a huge sealed cab. It ran on fuel cells and was camouflaged and had arms and emergency equipment stocked in it. Lt. Brockman walked around and unclipped the belt. "Get in the truck Sir. It's time to get you out of here."

"Lieutenant, I spoke to you when we got in this sled and said I needed certain things. You have ignored me and forced me to flee this far. I refuse to go further until I know if the Secretary of Defense is safe and recover some of my papers to take along. I am your Commander in Chief, you'd better remember."

"You Old Fool," the young man yelled at him. "If I'd let you stay in that room we'd both be dead. It's collapsed, nobody can get back in there and if the Secretary was anywhere in the same level he's dead, squashed like a damn bug, if his men didn't get him out like I did you. Now move it into the truck, or I'll carry you!" he ordered, hauling the man to his feet by his shirt front. He marched him around the truck and pushed him in the passenger door.

He got half way back around to the driver's door and Hadley had gotten back out of the passenger door and was headed back to the sled tunnel, staggering bloody faced and totally irrational. He got maybe half way back when Brockman tackled him like the ex-football player he was. This time taking no chances, he pulled a plastic tie out of his back pocket, cuffing the Presidents hands behind him. When he shoved him in the truck this time he didn't put him in the seat, he just jammed him through the space between the seats face down in the rear. Hadley was screaming abuse, claiming he would have him shot and demanding release. The key was already in the truck waiting for him and when he turned it the dash lit up showing a full, charge and full fuel tanks. There was a plywood wall in front of him, with a big PUSH spray painted on it.

When he rolled the truck forward against it the wall resisted a moment, until he gave it sufficient throttle and then neatly fell away from them, crushing some bushes which stuck out from under its edges when it went down. There was a sudden glare of sunlight and as he drove forwards the wheels thump - thumped off the edge of the flattened wall onto dirt.

He flipped the toggles up on the radio in the dash and said, "Rabbit, Rabbit, taking package to the Bird."

There was no reply as there should have been, from Bird. They rolled across a few meters of weeds and he turned right on a two rut dirt track, which followed a small stream around the base of the hill. The sun was bright and sky cloudless, with nothing to show anything was wrong in the world. The computer in the dash acquired enough GPS signals for the map to come up.

Then on the hill side above them, he heard a sharper form of the noise they'd heard inside the hill and looked up, as a line of flying limbs and shattered tree trunks walked across the hill side, the invisible force mowing most of the big trees down like an immense weed whacker. There was a small meadow around the curve, where a ducted fan lifter was kept under high grade camouflage. When he came around the curve it was burning brightly, the top of the fuselage in the bright glare of burning metal and the big round fan pods sticking out of the inferno unhurt. It was more of a magnesium fire than fuel, but there was smoke from the composites in the airframe.

Two men with hand extinguishers had already lost the battle with the flames and were foolish to still be so close. He didn't want to be near when the fuel bladders in its belly burst and didn't even slow down, racing past the scene following the stream. The radio said, "Rabbit this is Guardian coming up the river. Do you need assistance to reach the Bird?"

 "Negative Guardian, Bird is destroyed. I am initiating plan three. Turn around and when I catch up transfer a man to me and escort me." As he came around another bend, an identical truck was backing off the track, into a small clearing to turn around. It stopped, the passenger door opening and another young man in naval attire sprinted up and jumped in. Brockman pulled away immediately, the other truck following. When he saw Hadley covered in rock dust and cuffed and bloody, in the back, his eyes got big and he asked.

"Is he hurt?"

In answer Hadley let out with a horrid stream of cursing invective.

"Nah, he should be fine except for a bloody nose. He refused to come and tried to turn back into collapsed sections twice. You can cut him loose if you want and clean him up. Just watch out. The way he's been acting, he might try to jump out of the moving truck to go back."

The new fellow, who was another Lieutenant, hesitated. It was obvious he was not thrilled at being responsible for unfastening him. Meanwhile Hadley hearing the conversation was demanding, "Get me up," insistently. He finally did uncuff him and struggled to get the man buckled in securely. He couldn't belt up himself and reach what he needed to clean Hadley up and inspect him.

There was a turn off ahead, which was almost invisible. It was another unmarked two rut track like the one they followed along the stream, but unused for the most part, except an occasional pass through to make sure it was not too eroded or blocked with downed trees to use. They even had a hefty chain saw in the back if they needed it. They kept it neither well trimmed, nor used it too much, to keep it undiscovered by outside eyes. He had driven it twice, both to familiarize himself and do the occasional inspection since getting this posting, but had never expected to actually use it, since it was way down the contingency list.

Well the whole mountain complex being systematically pulverized, qualified as sufficient emergency. They turned up the track and started climbing, motors whining louder to haul the heavy truck up the grade, following a cleft which cut between the hills. Soon they were among dense growths of hardwood trees, that still carried fall colors. He was very glad they were not using this rough route in the middle of winter. There would be a team posted at the other end, to continue the extraction, without calling ahead. He didn't know the team personally, as they rotated from outside rather than travel in and out over their perimeter.

"Give me your pistol Lieutenant," Hadley insisted again to the new man, who had cut him loose. He was opening a first aid kit and digging out some wet wipes to clean the President's face.

"Begging your pardon Sir, that's not what we are instructed to do. We'll protect you. I understand feeling more secure with a weapon in your hand. But I'm sure we're much better qualified to use them than you. Lt. Brockman here was National Combat Pistol Champion, three years in a row. It's one of the reasons he's on your close detail."

"I don't care what he was. He's a traitor now and I'll have him shot for disobeying my orders. I'm Commander in Chief and I told him to stop. He struck me and bound me against my wishes. If you don't hand me your pistol or shoot him yourself, you'll be shot with him, when we reach someone who will listen to lawful orders."

"Mr. President. I'm sorry, these are not lawful orders. We're specifically charged with removing you to safety, even if we have to lay hands on your person to move you. Lt. Brockman saved your life. Even if you ask for charges to be pressed against us, we are exempted from such charges when we are following our procedures. Respectfully Sir, you need to get a handle on yourself. I can understand why you'd be pretty freaked out right now, but we have far bigger troubles than Lt. Brockman, or a bloody nose."

He got no reply, so he thought perhaps he got through to the man. Privately he thought to himself - What a piece of work. Does he expect me to ask him to stop the truck so I can shoot him? Or does he want his driver shot at the wheel, so we can all careen down one of these ravines and crash? The President's thinking ability and grasp of reality did not impress him very much. His crisis management style had some serious gaps.