The Last President (33 page)

Deanna said, “Well, somewhere back in one of those AP History classes you made me take, I remember the instructor said something about how riots often start on or around holidays. Next big one is Memorial Day—”

“Too soon, and back before, anyway, it was basically the start of barbecue and white shoes, they didn't—hunh. And the next big holiday would be the Fourth of July. Matter of fact, it's the 250th Fourth of July. Should have been one of the biggest of them all, ever, eh?”

“Wasn't it just another day to eat yourself sick and watch fireworks, back before, for most people anyway? Isn't that what it's going to be this year, except with less food and even less fireworks?” she asked.

“What if the Commandant decided to put the Fourth of July on the Discouraged Activities list? Threatened to punish people for celebrating it? Maybe even sent cops to break up a celebration?”

She started to grin. “He'd have to be crazy or stupid.”

He was grinning back. “Well, we already know he's crazy. Maybe we can give him some help with the stupid. And here's another thought; we have a blackout day coming up in three days, and that means lots of people on the street with nothing to do. Suppose we help them find something.”

ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ARMY OF THE WABASH ENCAMPMENT AT WEA CREEK. ABOUT 12 PM EASTERN TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.

Jenny Whilmire Grayson and Chris Manckiewicz had just finished walking through the Order of Battle, identifying the most in-over-their-heads temporary officers, the best and worst performing units, where each unit was right now, and a bit about what each unit had endured recently.
They're all nodding and I like the way they take notes and ask questions,
Jenny thought.
Sure, it's only been “my army” for a couple of days, but I want to hand it to people with some idea about how to care for it.

Chris was explaining that the Fourth Washington Volunteers had been surprised on their flank by the pipe-and-fuse muskets. “In that first volley they lost half of one company, all from Pullman, Washington, people who knew each other well. They're all putting off grief but there's a world of pain there, and you'll want to keep an eye on it. Now, turning to the artillery, you have three batteries that didn't even—”

An unmistakable chuffing raced up into a drumbeat, then rose to a rumble outside: a very large engine starting up slowly. They all stared at each other for a moment, then rushed out of the big tent en masse.

The NeoGoliath was already rolling along Indiana 25, gathering speed into the wind, Chris, Jenny, and the officers crowded together, gaping, its spoked, iron-tired landing wheels on their double-bowed axles lifted from the roadway. The tail wheel came up, and the NeoGoliath was airborne and on her way. NSP-12 turned south at once, as if afraid or ashamed to let the officers look more closely, and began a steady climb into the sky.

“Well,” Chris said, “there goes your ride, Jenny. I was planning to stick around with the Army of the Wabash, but it would have been nice of them to offer me a choice. I wonder—”

“Let me think, Chris. I don't see—”

Patel approached her, saluted, looked embarrassed because he wasn't sure he was supposed to do that in front of officers, and handed her a folded sheet of paper.

She opened it and read:

My dearest daughter,

The Earl of Broad River has told me of the situation in Athens, and it is grave indeed. The leadership of the National Church, both within itself and as the Christian body that must guide our nation through Tribulation, is in the gravest peril, and it was urgent for me to go there and use the talents with which the Lord has blessed me to ensure that the outcome strengthens the hand of our Lord and King.

How I wish that I could count on your support at this dark and terrible time, or that I could say in my heart that after all, you had only just lost a husband in a terrible murder, and therefore must be excused. But I am afraid that I cannot afford, in so dire a situation, to be less than honest with myself, with you, or with the Christ whom I hope we both serve: you have shown far too little willingness to submit, far too much drive toward your own goals.

You have in fact said that you do not even believe we are in Tribulation, despite all the obvious signs, and you have not only expressed ideas and goals contrary to church teachings but you appear to be willing to endorse those who would re-secularize our government, just as if the terrible lessons of the last year had never been learned.

So with so much teetering on the brink in Athens, to be blunt, Jenny, though you are my daughter and I love you, God's Own Nation cannot afford to have you anywhere near its capital until proper authority is re-established.

In Christ,

Daddy

She turned to face Chris and the officers, and with her voice even and level, priding herself on never falling into sarcasm, she read the whole letter aloud, and when she finished, she said, “Now, are you all a part of whatever my father was talking about, or if you are not, can you tell me what the fuck it is?”

Colonel Irwin, the seniormost officer with them, said, “Well, ma'am, we're mostly here because we're
not
a part of it. At least that's what I think, anyone else?”

All the other heads were nodding.

“Well, that's the start of an answer. Part of what?” Jenny said.

“I guess it started back early in the Ohio Valley campaign, ma'am. Your dad, he, uh, well, he thought he was being excluded from a lot of decisions. Like he wanted to spare a lot of lives and get preachers in here to convert the Daybreakers, he thought you could kind of pray them out of it or heal them like they were possessed or something, and he wanted the Board to order General Grayson to try to do that, he thought that . . . well, he thought the massacres were un-Christian. And he wanted the Board to remove General Grayson as the NCCC, he was arguing all the time that they had the power to do that if they wanted, and a lot of different things. But he was the leader of the Church side of the Board, and General Grayson was more the leader of the Army side, and not only was there already kind of a balance, but nobody really wanted to stick their neck out and make big decisions with the main guy on each side so far away, especially not with it being a war and all. So . . . this is kind of embarrassing . . . well, to put it delicately—”

“Please
don't
put it delicately,” Jenny said. “I have feelings about this because we are talking about both my father and my husband, but I really need to know what's going on.”

Irwin's lips pressed together, and he said, “Two days ago when we received word that your husband had passed on, and the army was surrounded, some of the Church people made a really big move; they tried to vote about half the military officers off the Board and replace them with ministers, they were going to declare their independence as a Christian nation, declare peace with the Lost Quarter tribes, and call the Army home.

“Well, that didn't set well with the Army, and it turned out there were a lot of people that didn't want the nation to be any more Christian than it was, so there were protests and demonstrations outside the government buildings in Athens, people demanding to stay in the US and backing the Army against the Church, and the Army was called in from Fort Benning to break them up and most of us here were among the group that refused the order, said it was against our oaths. And it was starting to look like a real revolution against the National Church, in Athens, a lot of officers muttering they didn't like Graham Weisbrod or liberals or the Provis much, but now that General McIntyre is President up there, they'd a lot rather be dealing with a gay three-star three thousand miles away, than with a bunch of ignorant-ass crazy preachers right on top of them, if you'll pardon my putting it that way.”

“I've been having similar thoughts,” Jenny said, smiling a little.

“So things were hanging in the balance, with the old Board and the Church holding most of the government buildings in Athens, and the crowds outside chanting for ‘Restore the Constitution!', and churchers and rebels fighting each other everywhere. Most of us in the Army were figuring the rebels would win and invite us to restore order, sometime in the next few days, and we needed to stay out of it, because that's what we've been trained to do, stay out of civilian politics.

“Well, but here you were surrounded and without officers, so let's just say many of us were worried about you. Then that Bret Duquesne, you know, he's nothing like his dad who was the biggest independent on the Board, well, Duquesne offered to fly twenty officers up here, and naturally the ones that were in favor of reunification and winning the war with the tribals were the ones who volunteered. And I am seeing now that we have possibly all been had, ma'am, because we all thought he'd be taking you back there, because our side could sure use someone to rally around—actually both sides could—and now Duquesne has maneuvered things so we're up here, you're up here, and the Reverend Whilmire is down there.”

Jenny nodded. “Pure Daddy. Political from the ground up but he always thinks he's doing it for God. Well, the Army is almost ready to move, and we have the assignments worked out, so is this the place where we all shake hands and you go to your different commands?”

“Yeah. I just wish we had a way to get you to Athens; it won't do us much good to pull the Army back together, relieve Pale Bluff, and then all be called home after the Board sends a note of apology to Lord Robert for annoying him.”

Chris spoke up. “Isn't the radio rig still up? Let me talk to the RRC and see if something can happen.”

ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PALE BLUFF. ABOUT 3:30 PM CENTRAL TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.

Carol May tapped her finger on the map at St. Francisville. “Everywhere else with a decent place to land is at least seven miles further walk to Pale Bluff. And if they land at one of the not-so-good places it will take them a lot longer to get onto shore and set up. So we're looking at sending a few men on mules over there to wreck St. Francisville, but it's two days to get there and then the question would be, what could they do to make it really useless to the Daybreakers? Anything ten guys could pile up on the ramps, ten thousand guys could take off the ramps pretty fast. And just burning the old buildings wouldn't accomplish much. Lord Robert might like to sleep under a roof, but he won't let it slow him down if he can't. And most of his force will be camping out anyway.”

“You couldn't mine anything, or booby trap it?”

“Not so it would mean anything. We might set up a few black-powder bombs or some tripwire deadfalls, but at best you might kill or injure a couple dozen tribals, and we figure we'll be facing tens of thousands of them. And the only one that would really count is Lord Robert, and we will not get a shot at him, I think. It's just . . . we know where they'll be coming ashore and we could probably get a few troops there first, but we can't think of anything useful for the troops to do once they get there.”

Bambi said, “What about trees along the bank upstream? Cut them down so they fall in the river, create snags?”

“Maybe, but—”

A chime from the other room announced a radio message coming in. Carol May put on her headphones, charged the capacitor, set the spark, and keyed QRZ, “who is calling?” She listened a moment and said, “Bambi, my one-time pad is in the drawer at your right. Key 310, please.”

Bambi handed her the sheet printed with triple rows divided into neat boxes; the middle row was typed in with random numbers, the top row blank for recording the incoming message, the lower row for the decrypt. Carol May set the sheet in front of her, put a fresh pencil beside it, and keyed QRV—go ahead.

“Apparently whatever it is, it's a big deal, because Pueblo is calling way off their regular schedule, and they—” She picked up the pencil and took down a string of letters and numbers. When the page was about half full, she set down her pencil, keyed an acknowledgment, and shut down the transmitter. “Hunh. And they repeated the clear-code for
DECIPHER IMMEDIATELY
at the end of the message. Like anyone would get an emergency message and not decipher it ASAP. Whatever it is they really want us to know right away.”

After the first sentence, Carol May said, “All right, you finish the decryption. I'm going to make you a bag of sandwiches and a big thermos of coffee.”

“Am I going somewhere?”

“Ninety-nine percent chance, I'd say, if when you decrypt the rest of it, it's like that first sentence. I'll get your food packed. Good thing you got as much sleep as you did.”

Carol May had the sandwiches and thermos ready to go in a sturdy cardboard box when Bambi emerged from the radio room. “You were right. Thanks so much, and I hope you packed enough for two.”

“Of course. I've already put up my TAXI YES flag, so—there we are.”

A pedicab was pulling up at the front of the house. “Just a sec while I grab my flight bag and gear,” Bambi said. By the time that Claudia, the pedicabbie, was knocking on the door, Bambi had returned to the front room, bag slung over her shoulder, in her fur-lined moccasins, jacket, scarf, and goggled helmet. Claudia gaped for a moment, and Carol May couldn't resist teasing, “Have you never seen a pilot before, or never carried a duchess?”

Sheepishly, Claudia said, “Actually, I've been looking for that pattern to knit a scarf for my husband.”

Bambi grinned. “Get me to the airfield in less than ten minutes, and since I have a spare scarf in the plane, you can have this one to copy. Just remember I'll want it back; a tough thug of an FBI agent named Terry Bolton made it for me as a wedding present.”

“With my life,” Claudia said. “And I'll see if we can make the airfield in five.”

At the airfield, the Stearman was ready—local ground crew were efficient—so Bambi just tossed her things into the forward cockpit, switched scarves with her spare, tossed the other to Claudia, and hugged the cabbie. “What's the fee?”

“Carol May keeps me on retainer, and the loan of your scarf is the best tip I'm getting all year. Thanks, your, uh, Duchessness? That can't be right.”

“Don't get too good at titles. Doesn't look good on an American. Thanks, Claudia, see you soon I hope.”

She felt like she really shouldn't take the time, but she trotted over to the black and yellow checkerboard-patterned Gooney Express. Quattro was in the rear. He had already removed the passenger door and bolted the S-shaped, hand-fed bomb rack to the underside. Now he was reinstalling the black-powder Gatling as a door gun.

When he saw Bambi, he dropped the tools and jumped down to hug her. “Where to, Duchess Babe?”

“There's a revolution forming in Athens and we might be able to replace the goofy religious nuts with an only slightly crazy right-winger, which is Jenny Whilmire Grayson, so I'm going to pick her up from the Army of the Wabash and plunk her down in Athens.”

“Charming company.”

“She's not so bad, really, and we understand each other. We both were brainy hot chick trophy daughters for power-mad fathers.”

“So you're in the same support group?”

“Yeah, and we both know the secret handshake. No shit, she'd piss you off and she'd drive Heather or James bugfuck crazy, but I can relate to her. I'm sure that's a character flaw of some kind.”

“Well, better you than me. And while you're gone I'll have the Gooney to play with. By the time Lord Robert gets here, we'll be set up to surprise the shit out of him.”

“Eahh. That's another piece of bad news. Estimated time of arrival is
way
sooner, according to Heather's emergency message. Carol May can fill you in on that. But if I were you I'd never leave the Gooney unflyable overnight.”

“Then I won't. I'm just a flyguy with some charisma. You're the one that knows how to do all this danger and fighting stuff. Think I should sleep out here?”

“Well, you might need to take off in a hurry any time, but you should be okay for a day or two. Maybe after tonight. Carol May's place isn't that far away, and mostly I'm just paranoid these days, and I worry about you. Also there might be some delay about me getting back here; I'll be picking up some high-priority secure communications at Athens and delivering them to General Phat at Paducah, and I kind of think he'll have more work for a pilot and plane, and then there's a blackout on the tenth—the moon gun went off this morning—so I might be grounded someplace for a while.”

“Bambi, hon, being apart sucks, and I want you back as soon as you can be, but I'll be fine. I'm going to be inside a wall, and guarded by armed troops, and my plane will be safe on the ground when the EMP hits. You're flying over hundreds of miles of tribal territory in something that isn't much more than a powered kite, and you know how when there's a big military operation, like the one you're visiting in Paducah, they always want you to fly right till the second before blackout starts.”

“Well, I'll tell them no if they ask.”

“You better. You've already had one force-down in tribal country, and whatever it was for you, it was the scariest week of my life till we got you back. So
you
are not going to worry about
me
.” He held her a long time, and hugged extra hard. “Be back soon, Bambi, okay? I like the world better when you're close.”

4 HOURS LATER. RICHMOND, KENTUCKY. ABOUT 8:30 PM EASTERN TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.

Conversation was impossible between the open cockpits. Bambi and Jenny could communicate in very occasional shouts over the roar of the engine, but that was all. So Bambi's view of Richmond at sunset—a little town with lights coming on, the guard changing on the city walls, and people trudging home from work—was all her own. They had built a new landing strip within the walls, and she flew low to take a look at it. They were just hoisting the white-circle-on-blue that meant “We have clean fuel,” and the long pennon that meant “Welcome, you were not expected.” Bambi waggled her wings to indicate she'd understood, then came around and brought the Stearman in for a smooth landing, or as smooth as you could do on partially deflated greased-linen tires. She taxied over to the reception area and killed the engine.

As they climbed out, Jenny said, “Whenever you and Quattro get a chance you should take a look at that NeoGoliath's landing gear. Chris was all impressed that they used a double-spring axle like on an old-time covered wagon, with iron-rimmed wheels.”

“Yeah, interesting. I wonder what that lands like—”

A light cough nearby made them turn to see an older man in a somewhat lumpy, probably handmade blue uniform, sort of an inexpert copy of a police patrolman's uniform, with the Cross and Eagle insignia on both shoulders. On his chest, he wore a metal disk with the words “Airfield Master—On Duty” stenciled in black paint. “Uh, I'm supposed to ask you to identify yourselves and what you're doing here.”

“Of course. Bambi Castro Larsen. Pilot, RRC courier service.”

“Jenny Whilmire Grayson, urgent government business, en route to Athens.”

“Uh. Well, that is, uh. I have orders to detain you. I mean you, Ms. Grayson. I have no orders about you, Ms. Larsen.”

“I would like to see that order,” Bambi said, and held out her hand.

“Um, I don't think—”

“Would you like me to demand it as an RRC courier who has an absolute right anywhere in the United States to protect my passengers from harassment? Or as a senior RRC agent who could call in troops to occupy this airfield if I don't like the answer? Or as the Duchess of California, so that this can be an international incident? Because I'll be happy to play it any of those ways. Or all of them.”

The man looked terrified, which was exactly what Bambi had intended, and handed over a transcribed radiogram. Without asking, Bambi also reached out and took the lantern from the man's hand, holding it up to read. “‘All stations, Jenny Whilmire Grayson is to be detained but not harmed, for reasons necessary to the government.' And then it adds ‘This order has been authorized by Reverend Donald Whilmire, National Constitutional Continuity Board Chairman and Acting NCCC.' This doesn't give an appropriate and specific description of the reasons, it doesn't specify anything that you would need for an arrest warrant, and it's signed by an authority that isn't recognized in the rest of the United States.”

“They say I have to hold her.”

“They can say you have to shoot down the moon, depose God, or kill all the firstborn males in Kentucky, and you're still the one who has to decide whether to try to comply or not.”

“I'm a Federal official—”

“What were you back before?”

“Ain't got nothing to—”

“Because, buddy, I was a Federal agent and we learned about warrants, since screwing one up, or using an invalid one, could cost us a job or the Attorney General a conviction. And this is not a valid warrant. Now, you can point that gun at us and see if you can make us take orders that you have no power to give, on behalf of people who also had no power to give them, or you can shut up and do your job as Airfield Master, which I would bet you're a lot better at than you are at playing cop.” She had been walking closer to him as she spoke, holding the lantern up so it shone in his eyes. “Now are you going to be a real Airfield Master or a fake cop?”

As she asked that question, she reached forward and lifted the man's pistol from its holster, gently, not grabbing, and held it out in her open hand, so it pointed at neither of them, but he could reach for it easily. “You need this for routine protection on your job, I know. Do I have your word you aren't going to go any further with this arrest nonsense, you're not going to radio anywhere for orders or instructions, and you'll get us a maintenance and fuel wagon out here? If you'll give me your word about that, then I'll fix things up tonight, we'll sleep by the plane, and we'll take off at first light. And you can always say I took your gun away from you and you had no choice.”

The man had seemed to shrink the whole time Bambi had been talking to him. “I don't know what—”

“Exactly. I took your gun, I had the authority, and you didn't know what to do so you just did your job as Airfield Master. Now take the deal—and your gun back. Just say, ‘Yes, ma'am.'”

He mumbled, “Yes, ma'am,” and took the gun as if afraid it might go off, sliding it uncomfortably back into his holster, then slouched off toward the main buildings.

“Think he'll keep his word?”

“Probably, at least for a while. One of those things I've learned to have a feel for, spotting the people Daddy used to call ‘Natural omegas,' people who are just looking for someone to tell them what to do. He probably really is a good Airfield Master and he'll feel a lot more comfortable doing that than he did trying to be the KGB. So I think we're all right. And anyway, I just volunteered us into sleeping under the wing, so we're right where we need to be if trouble starts.”

“Good thing it looks like a warm night,” Jenny said.

“And thank god for Carol May's sandwiches. My plan is, sandwiches now, get the checkout and fuel done right after, sack out, then open the coffee thermos when we get up and take off just as the sun rises.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The meal was good, no repairs were needed, and after fuel, tire air, oil, and lye were all topped up, they stretched out in blankets next to each other under the wing. Bambi said, “Hope you didn't mind being a mechanic's helper before bedtime.”