Justin hesitated, but slowly sat and pulled the laptop closer to him. He read the report and perused the photographs for several minutes before speaking.
“Interesting, but there is a major problem right from the get-go,” he said.
“Explain,” Gil rejoined.
“The timestamp on this report is from eight this morning. It should have been shown to me immediately. If not before the funeral, definitely immediately after.”
“The information needed to be analyzed first,” President VanAllen replied.
When Justin responded, he could barely contain the anger in his tone. “By whom, sir? Who in this room can better analyze this type of report than me?”
President VanAllen scowled, and Justin could see his cheeks turning red. “You’re out of order, Captain.”
“Am I, Mister President? I respectfully disagree. I have an ample amount of military experience, more than anyone else in this room. I believe that alone makes me the most qualified. But instead of you getting this to me immediately, I spent the day overseeing funeral processions, processions that could have been handled by one of my NCOs.”
The two men were at a loss for words, so they compensated by sitting there like their hemorrhoids were on fire and glowered at the Marine. Justin was undaunted and stared back. D-Day stood, walked over to William, and whispered something in his ear. William nodded absently.
“Alright, Captain, I will concede you have ample expertise in these things, give us your input.”
Justin took a deep breath before speaking. “Before I answer your question, Mister Vice President, why don’t you tell me about this expert analysis the two of you have conducted. What information have you gleaned?”
“Our analysis is from a governmental and political perspective, Captain. You need not concern yourself with it. Your job is to assess this information from a military perspective.”
“Very well, here is my analysis. These people appear to be Chinese soldiers. Therefore, the Chinese have military personnel on American soil.”
D-Day scoffed. “How do you know they’re Chinese? Maybe they’re Russian or North Korean?”
Justin gave the man a look of utter disdain before focusing on the president. “Well then, since you have an expert on your staff, you don’t need me, Mister President.” He started to stand again, but Gil held up a hand.
“I would like to hear more about your analysis, if you don’t mind, Captain.”
Justin started to leave anyway but stopped himself. Instead, he clicked the icon on one of the two pictures Clay had sent and turned the laptop toward them.
“You can’t see faces, obviously, but zoom in and look over their weapons. There are a couple of different types, but several of them are what are known as a QBZ-03, or simply the Type 03. That was the standard issue assault rifle for the People’s Republic of China military. Russia does not use those type of rifles.”
“You’re calling these people Chinese based on their rifles?” President VanAllen asked.
“Yes, sir, no doubt,” Justin replied. “Would you like to hear the rest of my analysis?”
Gil waved a hand. “By all means, continue.”
“If we were to inspect that paddle boat, I bet it would be steam driven. I’m basing that on the amount of smoke coming out of the stacks. Now, I ask you, why is that significant?” He waited a moment for an answer. When there was none, he continued.
“This calls for a little speculation. So, follow along with me. Since they’re Chinese, I think they landed on the west coast and they sent contingents of troops east. If that is true, there are probably thousands of soldiers out there.”
“You don’t believe they came up from the Gulf?” William asked.
Justin rubbed his chin before responding. “It’s possible, but if they came from China, that means they took a long, circuitous route to get to the Gulf. It makes more sense they landed on the west coast and proceeded east.”
“Alright, continue,” William said.
“Once they reached the Mississippi River, they found a steamboat and converted it to steam.”
“Why would they do that?” Gil asked.
“To cut down on travel time and troop fatigue,” Justin answered.
“Alright, what do you think their mission is?” William asked.
“I’m being speculative, but my guess is they are setting up bases of operation. This group may set up a base on the river, or they are going to travel east. Perhaps to DC, perhaps they are coming here.”
“How do you know they didn’t fly in on planes?” Ruby asked.
Justin shrugged. “That too is possible, but that means they are able to manufacture jet fuel and maintain their aircraft. If that’s the case, we may be in trouble.”
Gil and William huddled together and whispered to each other for a minute before they faced Justin.
“Is there anything else, Captain?” William asked.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions here. You know, Zach had made several contacts with survivor groups in the south…”
He was cut off by the president.
“Alright, that will be all, Captain.”
Apparently, bringing up Zach’s name was a quick and effective means to end a conversation with the man. That was fine with him. He’d been ready to go home for hours now.
Justin stood before any further questions were asked and walked out. He kept walking and made it to the parking lot without anyone stopping him to talk and paused by his vehicle. Before getting in, he took a long look around. He realized he was worried. Were they about to be involved in hostile actions by the Chinese? He would have felt more comfortable if Zach were still around, but he wasn’t. Stark was no longer president and Zach had packed up and left. It seemed rather odd, but those two events had caused subtle changes in the Mount Weather dynamic.
Yeah, he was worried. He couldn’t simply bugout like Zach though. He understood why he did it, but Justin could not simply leave, or could he?
He squashed those thoughts and headed out. One thing he was not worried about was Fort Detrick. Stretch and Ruth did such a good job running things, he would not need
