They sure would.
Forever.
Jane Moore sat in her motel room in the now-deserted motel complex and wondered what her next move should be? Her Indian guide had not shown up that afternoon so she had elected to take a short nap. The nap had stretched into several hours. When she awakened, the motel was deserted.
It was… kind of eerie, she concluded.
She turned on the TV set and froze as the scenes and sounds reached her ears and eyes.
Plague.
Black Death.
And I am up here in Michigan chasing hobgoblins, she thought.
She sat down and listened to the solemn-faced commentator roll his tones off his tongue. When she had heard enough to convince her it all was true, she picked up the phone to call into Richmond.
But the phone was dead.
“Wonderful,” she muttered.
Well, she thought. I’m probably safer up here in the boondocks than I would be in the city, and I can’t get anywhere if there are roadblocks. So I guess I’m stuck.
She went into the cafe, fixed herself some dinner, and took it back to the room. She ate, watched TV for a while, then went to bed.
During the night, the fleas feasted.
“The White House is secure, sir,” Bob Mitchell informed Ben. “We flushed out two more rogue agents. Your people took them somewhere. I don’t know what they plan to do with them.”
“They’ve already done it,” Ben told him.
Mitchell decided he really didn’t want to know all the details.
He looked at Rosita. She smiled at him. Bob thought it wasn’t a very nice smile. He returned his gaze to the president. The man looked tired. Hell, no earthly reason why he shouldn’t look beat. He’d been going since about five o’clock this morning.
Ben glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. And it was snowing, the flakes big and fat and wet and sticky. He was tired—weary to the bone. The tossing and turning of the previous night was telling on him. Dawn sat beside Rosita; Ben could not remember when she had arrived. After the crush of people in and out of his office all day and part of the evening, Ben could not adjust to the relative quiet that now prevailed around him.
Mitchell excused himself from the Oval Office. Ben acknowledged that with a smile of thanks and a nod of his head.
“Are you hungry, Ben?” Dawn asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t eaten since…” He couldn’t remember. “But, no, I’m not hungry.”
“You need something,” she said, standing. “I’ll get some sandwiches sent up.”
Ben nodded absently. From all reports—and the slips of paper filled his desk to overflowing—the nation was going to hell in a bucket, the citizens working themselves into a raging panic. New reports of the plague were popping up hourly, and the cities were especially hard hit.
An aide stuck his head inside the office. “Mr. President? The people in the cities are rioting. We have many reports of looting and burning—to mention just a few of the events occurring. Many are trying to rush the troop barricades; the troops are repelling them with tear gas. But they don’t know how long they can continue doing that. And Doctor Lane says the people must be contained; not allowed to leave and wander the countryside.”
“Exactly what are you trying to say, Sam?” Ben looked at the young man.
The young man paused, gulped, took a deep breath, and plunged onward. “The Joint Chiefs say the decision to use live ammunition must come from you, sir. And Doctor Lane says if we can keep the people contained, we have a chance of at least some of the population surviving.”
“The buck stops here,” Ben muttered.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
Ben glanced at the aide, thinking: The kid’s about thirty years old—what the hell would he know about Harry?
Ben suddenly felt his age hit him. He shook the feeling off and stood up.
“Tell the troops to maintain their use of gas to contain the civilians. I’ll… have a decision by morning as to the use of deadly force.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dawn placed a tray of sandwiches on Ben’s desk. He picked one up and nibbled on it. Then began taking huge bites as his hunger surfaced. He ate three sandwiches and drank two large glasses of milk before his hunger was appeased.
Another aide entered the office and quietly placed several notes on Ben’s desk. He left without saying a word.
Ben scanned the notes. More cases of Black Death reported. The civilians had overpowered one troop perimeter and several thousand had fled the city of Wichita, moving into the countryside. The same thing had happened in Sarasota.
He leaned back in his chair, knowing in his guts the battle was lost. It had been a puny, futile gesture from the outset: not enough troops to cover all the cities.
Hell, he couldn’t blame the people. They wanted to survive.
His phone buzzed. Doctor Lane.
“Chicago’s gone berserk,” the doctor said. “Civilians overpowering the troop lines. We didn’t get five percent of the city inoculated. The inner city has gone wild with looting and burning and God only knows what else.”
“Tell your people to stay with it,” Ben ordered. “Pop anyone who has the sense to come in. We…”
“I don’t have any people left in Chicago,” the doctor said, his voice husky from strain and exhaustion and frustration. “The stations we set up have been destroyed, the medics and nurses and doctors manning them killed. Same thing is happening in a dozen other cities.”
The end, Ben thought. After all this nation has endured, that pale creature with the hooded face and the scythe is going to do us in with the help of a fucking flea.
“Have all your people withdraw from their stations,” Ben ordered. “Take all their equipment with them. Withdraw to the countryside and set up there. Have them get sidearms and automatic weapons from the military. I’ll pass that order down the line. I don’t want any heroics out of this. Protect themselves; shoot to kill. Is that understood, Harrison?”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t know if my people can or will do that.”
“They’ll do it or die. That’s how simple it is, Doctor Lane. In the end, it all comes down to survival.”
“Yes, sir,” the doctor said, bitterness evident in his voice. He hung up.
Ben got the Joint Chiefs on the line. “Order your troops away from the cities,” he told the chairman. “Have them withdraw to the nearest bases and set up security around those bases. No one enters unless they have proof of inoculation. Shoot to kill.”
“It’s come to that?”
“Yes, Admiral, it has.”
“The end?”
“We are rapidly approaching the final chapter, Admiral. Whether there will be a sequel remains to be seen.”
“I used to enjoy the hell out of your books, Mr. President. I still have all of them; reread them from time to time.”
“I wish I was still writing them, Admiral.”
“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”
“The same to you men.”
Ben broke the connection.
Sam stuck his head into the office. “Sir. We have reports of a small atomic device just detonated in Central Iowa. General Rimel is dead. He went up with the device.”
