Glimmer of Hope (Land of Tomorrow Book 1) (19 page)

“Actually,” said Brazen, “that’s the job I want.”

Everyone across the table looked like they had been hit by a shovel. “You can’t be serious!” said the mayor.

“It makes sense if you think about it from a practical standpoint,” said Brazen. “Get past the fact that you don’t like me for a minute and ask yourself who could better keep the city safe. My people are disciplined and will maintain the peace. That will allow you to move those troops and police elsewhere, perhaps to the south to deal with the Tennessee boys.”

“But,” here Reggie looked confused, “may I ask why? Why would you want this job?”

For the first time Brazen felt uncomfortable, “Because…” here he struggled for words to explain lost and confused feelings. “There’s another way. You think because I’m in a gang I love blood and drugs and violence. That’s not the case. I hate those things. I’m also a realist and understand that the JP could crash and burn at any time. In short, you need my help and I’m willing to give it.”

“But what about Colonel Rollins?” asked Williams.

Brazen smiled, “I can probably use a good second. He could work for Colonel Brazen Walker.”

Williams started to exclaim, but Reggie put his hand on his arm and spoke to Lancourt. “What do you think of this?”

Lancourt seemed to think for a moment before answering, “I think God chooses tools to do His will that man has cast aside. When I look at Timothy, I think of Jeremiah 29:11, ‘For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’ Timothy is being called to something greater than himself I believe, and this might just be it.”

“Excuse me, for just a minute,” said the mayor, “but we can’t all seriously be considering this. It’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” said Reggie. “But it does solve a lot of our problems, and we don’t necessarily have the luxury of choosing our allies right now. One question though, Mister Walker, can we trust you to execute your duties in a professional and selfless manner and to be loyal to the JP?”

“You can trust me to be loyal to the people here and to deal with you honestly and straightforwardly,” answered Brazen. “As far as selfless, there’s nothing really that this gets me that I couldn’t already take by force if I wanted, except legitimacy. Legitimacy has eluded me for a very long time.”

Reggie thought for a moment and then looked at the others. Both Mitchell and Williams looked like they wanted to discuss this with Reggie in private, obviously to express their further misgivings. “Well, Mister Walker, you have given us a lot to think about. We will present this at the next council meeting and…”

“No,” said Brazen.

“Excuse me?” asked Reggie.

“You will not bring this up at the council meeting. This is a onetime offer. You agree to my proposal now or you reject it now, there is no in between. I won’t be debated over and vilified. It is ‘yes’, now or it is ‘no’, forever.”

“I don’t like ultimatums” said Reggie.

“So that’s a ‘no’?” asked Brazen with a lifted eyebrow.

Reggie stared intently at him without speaking for several long moments.

Brazen broke the silence. “You don’t need the council’s approval for this, you all have the power right here. You can do up the paperwork or whatever later, but I want a gentleman’s agreement, right here, right now. I shouldn’t have to warn you gentlemen that you do not want to go back on a gentleman’s agreement with me.”

“Let’s go,” said Williams. Mitchell got up to follow but Reggie didn’t move, he just sat there staring at Brazen fixedly.

“Mister Walker,” said Reggie, “I’ve spent most of my life trying to do right by those around me. I haven’t always succeeded, but I’ve tried. Now I’m in a position where if I make a mistake, lots of people suffer, maybe even die. I take that responsibility very seriously. Would you? Could you? I don’t question your abilities, I question your motives. I want to trust you, hell, we need to end this fighting and trust you, but…” here Reggie waved his hand as if he couldn’t find the words.

Brazen decided on the spot that he liked the man and should be honest. “Sir, I’ve done some bad things in my life, things I’m not proud of. I’ve tried to get past them and do right. That’s what this is about for me and I also know I can fix the problems I see around here. I’m not sure anyone else really can. That’s not arrogance, its truth. You need me and part of me needs to help. I also want to regain something I lost long ago…my self respect.”

Williams saw how this was going and he laid his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “Reggie, you can’t. Not against my will, I’m the County Executive, this is my business.”

“You’re right,” answered Reggie. “But what is your answer to the problem? We talked about it coming over here. We’re in a pickle. I admit it’s a gamble, but we’re getting to a place in the game where we have to gamble. I think Mister Walker might be a better than even bet.”

Williams stared at the back of Reggie’s head for a moment before saying quietly, “Go ahead then, do what you want, but it’s on your head if things go wrong.” He then turned and walked out the door with the mayor following along behind him.

“Isn’t it always,” said Reggie quietly to himself.

Brazen stared at the departing men and then at Reggie, “So do we have an agreement?”

Reggie nodded for a moment and then said, “Yes, we have an agreement, but with one condition, this is only for one year. At the end of the year, you can stay if we like or you step down peacefully. I want your
gentleman’s
agreement on that.”

Brazen was amused and excited in spite of himself. “You have it.”

Reggie continued on. “We’ll have lots of details to work out, but in principle we’re in agreement. Give us three days to figure out how to announce this and in the meantime no more fights with the police or the army.”

“Understood,” said Brazen, who reached across the table to shake Reggie’s hand.

Reggie stared at the hand for a moment before sighing and accepting the firm grasp. He noticed for the first time that Brazen was still a young man.

He almost looks like a kid when he smiles
, thought Reggie.
Could all the things I've heard about this man be true? Does any of it really matter at this point?

Brazen reached down under the table and brought back up a bottle and two glasses. After he straightened he saw the man with the rifle pointed at him with his finger white on the trigger. Brazen briefly thought how ironic it would be for him to be shot and killed here now.

He placed the square clear bottle on the table. “This is Woodford’s Reserve, the best Kentucky Bourbon in the world and very hard to find, I might add. I would be honored if you would drink a glass with me.”

Reggie felt touched in spite of himself, nodding at the bottle and Brazen poured him a small glass in response.

Brazen lifted his drink looking at the amber liquid. “Here’s to Kentucky.”

Reggie lifted his glass in return. “Here’s to the JP.” He took a sip of the bourbon and felt the smooth, slightly smoky, flavor slide down his throat and into his stomach, warming his entire body.

He smiled at both Brazen and Lancourt. “Gentlemen, please don’t make me regret this.”

Chapter 8 – Shut Down

Nathan and Harold quickly made their way through the winding corridors of the interior of the enormous Kentucky Dam complex. John Downing, the TVA Director, had sent an urgent message saying they needed to come see him immediately. When Nathan tried to put him off, John became nearly frantic and screamed at him that there was nothing more important than what he had to show him. Nathan grabbed Harold and a couple of horses and headed north from the center of the park.

Although John Downing was originally in charge of the entire park as the TVA Director, he had wisely abandoned those duties to focus on what he saw as his most important duty…keeping the dam functioning. This was even more crucial considering that the dam director had disappeared after N-Day, and no one had heard from him since. Nathan knew John did not have the technical expertise, but despite this, was doing a good job.

The Land Between the Lakes Park was a thin strip of land between Kentucky and Barkley Lakes and traveling the distance from the center to the north end took all morning, even on horses. John was not a man to get excited easily, but Nathan wasn’t willing to consume precious gasoline on an unstated problem. They slowly, but steadily, made their way north along The Trace which was the main road running north and south through the park.

"This is bad timing," said Harold. "We have several things on our plate right now that need to be dealt with and oh, by the way, Anderson says we need to get ready for a full scale invasion. John better not be wasting our time."

Nathan had thought the same thing, "I don't think he would do that, he sounded pretty frantic which is rare for him."

"How bad could it be?" asked Harold. "The water flows and electricity comes out the other end. He's probably freaked out over one of those giant catfish getting caught in a turbine or something. We need to get the regiment ready, not this."

Nathan didn't disagree. An attack could come any day now and the regiment wasn't ready. But they were getting there, be it ever so slowly.

The LBL regiment was organized into three companies. Captain Jason Green of Fort Campbell commanded the southern region with the primary responsibility of preparing strong defensive works to the south as quickly as possible, and to defend that border. Captain Jim Meeks commanded the northern region which included the dam and Camp Beaver refugee camp. He also had the task of managing the convicts who worked the iron mine, although many of these quickly saw the light and volunteered to join the regiment.

Sergeant Major Luke Carter had indeed been commissioned as a Captain and placed in charge of the central region with the additional task of training new troops and controlling the small refugee camp to their east. Johnny Robels from Fort Campbell was placed in charge of all headquarters functions in addition to his role as quartermaster for the regiment. Although they needed more troops, more supplies, and more time, Nathan felt they were beginning to get out of dangerous territory.

Harold meanwhile stayed busy improving the quality of life for everyone. LBL was mostly an unpopulated park before N-Day, but now it was the home of nearly one thousand troops and their families. Living quarters needed to be found. Harold decided to build housing areas around old camp grounds because those areas already possessed good roads, electrical hookups, and a clean water supply. Sewage was a problem, but they were working on that. Harold begged, borrowed, and commandeered all the mobile homes, campers, trailers, and houseboats that he could to provide lodging. Although these met the immediate need, it would not be enough come winter, so Harold put everyone he could scrape together building large communal wood cabins that would each probably house eight to ten families. Privacy would be lacking, but they would be warm in the winter. He also directed the other companies to build barracks for their soldiers.

Nathan and Harold continued to talk about all these issues while traveling and were still doing so as they entered the dam facility. Their conversation began to trail off as they noticed the hectic and worried expressions of the dam workers hurrying from one area to another. Up ahead they saw Jim Meeks waiting for them.

Jim walked up and shook hands with each. “I would have called you, but John said he already had. Nearly beside himself.”

“What’s this all about, Jim?” asked Harold.

“Well, I should probably let John give you the details since I don’t completely understand it all myself,” answered Jim, “but it sounds bad. I think we’re going to have to shut down the dam. That’s assuming it doesn’t just blow up before then.”

“What?” asked Nathan. “We can’t shut down the dam!”

"That's what I told them," said Jim, "but they seem serious about it. Worse yet, they seem scared."

Harold grunted, "We better go find John."

They quickly walked down into the bowels of the dam. After a few minutes Nathan came around a corner and spotted John looking at a set of computer screens with several technicians gathered around him. He turned and saw Nathan and the relief in his face was evident.

“Thank God! What took you so long? Never mind.” John was speaking so fast Nathan had to concentrate to understand him. “We’ve been monitoring the dam’s general internal temperature for several months due to a slight elevation indicating a major electrical problem somewhere.”

“Slight elevation?” asked Harold.

“Yes,” said John exasperated. “About half a degree a week for the past few months. We knew it was something we needed to track down, but we had time.”

“Why is the temperature important?” asked Nathan.

John took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself before continuing on. “An overall temperature rise indicates electrical resistance somewhere. Resistance is not a bad thing if we want resistance in the circuit, but when it’s not part of a planned circuit it could lead to a short or a meltdown. A non-localized heat rise throughout the facility indicates we have a major problem that we need to deal with, but again we thought we had time.”

“What has changed?” asked Nathan.

“Well, I told you the rise was a half a degree a week. Starting yesterday morning, it began rising a full degree an hour. Since we noticed the change, it’s risen nearly forty degrees.”

“Doesn’t seem that hot in here,” said Harold.

“That’s because we’ve got the air conditioning going full blast, but that is only a band-aid to a gushing wound. Also, the AC is putting even more pressure on the overall electrical systems. This is a short term fix. The core temperature in there is now about 178 degrees, nearly one hundred above where we want it to be. Once it gets around 200, things start melting and shorting out. If that happens, we can’t replace what is destroyed, we just don’t have the expertise or the equipment anymore.”

“How much time do we have?” asked Nathan.

“At 200 degrees things start going really bad, but I’d like to shut it down before it gets to 190,” said John.

“So that gives us…what…twelve hours?” asked Jim.

John shook his head. “Not necessarily. The heat could build upon itself and the rate go up to two degrees an hour or four or twenty. We need to shut it down now.”

“What is causing this?” asked Harold.

“We don’t know!” screamed John in clear frustration. “It could be coming from anywhere. We’ve been overloading the dam for months and not conducting regular maintenance because we don’t have the people or the parts. The only way to find the problem is to shut everything down and do checks section by section and circuit by circuit to find the problem.”

“How long will that take?” asked Nathan.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” said John taking a few ragged breathes. “There’s miles of wires and circuits and systems in here. We can start with likely areas, but we’ve already checked most of those. We’re going to have to systematically go from one end of the grid to the other. It could take weeks.”

They were all silent as the enormity of what they were talking about began to sink in. The JP had enjoyed at least semi-regular power since N-Day. It had made them different and given them comfort. It had kept everyone calm and civilization in place.

At least this didn’t happen in the winter
, thought Nathan,
the worst of the cold is past
. He mentally visualized the second and third order effects of turning off the power. It was evident it had to be done, as they couldn’t risk losing electricity forever.

“We’re going to need at least a few hours notice to shut this down," he finally said. "Doing it all of the sudden will cause a panic. I need time to tell President Philips and General Anderson, maybe they can get a special radio broadcast out before we do this.”

“That might make things worse here,” said John. “When people hear that broadcast, they are going to all rush to do everything they can electrical at the same time. Fifty thousand loads of laundry going at once, kitchen appliances at full blast, charging countless electrical devices and batteries. It would probably overload the system right there.”

“Why not coordinate the radio broadcast and the shut down?” asked Jim. “We could have a set time, say…” here Jim looked at his watch. “It’s 12:36 now. Why not say the broadcast goes on at 3:00 and we shut down at 3:01. Shouldn’t need much time to send a set statement. We can start putting out the word now in a radio message that there will be a special broadcast at 3:00.”

Nathan nodded. It was a good plan. If he was going to give President Philips such bad news, he wanted to be able to give him a good practical plan to go along with it. His mind started going through the conversation he would have with Philips when he noticed Harold’s stricken look. “What is it?” he asked Harold.

Harold pulled Nathan out of earshot from the others and whispered in his ear, “Remember the conversation you said you had with General Anderson and Reggie Philips several weeks ago about Sampson?”

“Oh crap,” said Nathan, comprehending.

“Sampson wants the dam, and he’s looking for a pretext to take it,” said Harold. “He’s paid in return for electricity for a whole year, and we suddenly cut him off? Things could go very bad, very fast.”

“I’ll talk to Anderson,” said Nathan. “Meanwhile put all the units on alert, but don’t tell them why yet.”

Harold nodded and headed off with Jim. Nathan meanwhile moved into an office where he called General Anderson first and told him the situation. Anderson decided he would call Sampson personally and try to explain the situation and even offer to give the compensation back. It would be a good test of Sampson’s intentions. If he refused to accept the payment’s return, he was likely looking to take control of the dam, and as a result all of the JP. Anderson also told Nathan to go ahead and call President Philips and tell Philips that Anderson approved of Nathan’s plan.

Nathan had expected a lot of questions and some ranting, but Anderson was cool and supportive.
Perhaps he is okay after all
, he thought.

Nathan next called Reggie Philips and told him what was going on. It took Reggie a little longer for everything to sink in, but when it did, he agreed to Nathan’s plan. He ended the call and just sat enjoying a few moments of quiet peace in the empty office.

Things are going to get very tricky very fast
, he thought,
especially if Sampson moves. We should put out more patrols to see what he is doing.

It was when he remembered that one of his sons was already out there, and possibly in the path of whatever menace Sampson intended.

*******

“Good afternoon, this is Tim Reynolds’ WKPO Voice of the Jackson Purchase with a special broadcast.” Tim’s voice had its usual cheerful quality, but something sounded slightly off as if he were nervous or rushed.

“I will be reading a prepared statement from President Reginald Philips. Any and all questions regarding this statement should be directed to your local government officials.”

“’Dear friends. I regret to inform you that due to the need for long overdue maintenance of the turbines, generators, and electrical systems of the Kentucky Dam, we must institute a JP-wide electrical outage effective immediately. Although it is impossible to know how long the outage will be in effect, it is not expected to go beyond several weeks and could be as short as a few days. I have it on good authority that failure to institute the outage now, and conduct the maintenance, could endanger our ability to generate electricity.’

“’Now, friends, I know this is disheartening, but I ask everyone to remain calm. We have been blessed with a number of things that others around us do not have. Electricity is the most tangible, but it is not the most important. Our spirit of unity is what sets us apart. Remember that we are still together and still a community and still friends, neighbors, and family even without electricity, and we will get through this.'

"'After all, it wasn’t too long ago that our forefathers lived their entire lives without electricity. We can do this. I urge everyone to stay calm, work through issues and problems together as a community, and remember who you are. Even without electricity, we’re different than those poor souls around us. We are the envy of everyone else. We are the JP. Stay strong and stay true to each other. God bless us all.’”

Tim stopped reading and looked at the clock on the wall. He had a few moments left. “This is Tim Reynolds signing off, and until you hear from me again, stay strong, friends.”