A Time for Patriots

truck and wrapped his arms around his father as soon as he stepped out of the pickup. “Dad!” he exclaimed. “You’re here!”

Patrick hugged him tightly in return — it had been a long, long time since they had embraced like that. “I’m glad you’re okay, Brad,” he said in a low voice. He took a look at his son’s sunburned, dust-streaked face and smiled, remarking to himself how much taller and more mature he looked just since they spoke back at the base a few hours ago. “You’ve had a really big day, haven’t you, big guy? Congratulations on finding the survivor.”

“Colonel Spara is really pissed at you,” Brad said with a wide grin. “I don’t think he stopped yelling on the radio until a few minutes ago.”

“I wasn’t going to leave my son out here in the desert,” Patrick said in a whisper. “The colonel is wacky if he thought I’d just fly back to base and leave you behind.” They walked back to Bellville and Fitzgerald. The cadets had set up two dome-shaped tents. They had been eating from self-heating bags of military MREs when they arrived, but now they excitedly ran over to the newcomers. The survivor was resting on a stretcher, covered with a silver space blanket, his head and face bandaged. “Is that the survivor, Dave?” Patrick said to David Bellville with surprise after shaking hands. “The sheriff hasn’t shown up yet?”

“No, and we don’t know what the delay is,” Bellville said. “I can’t believe you landed out here, sir.”

“ I can believe it,” Fitzgerald said, striding up and pumping Patrick’s hand enthusiastically. “Damn commanders always kowtowing to the regs and ignoring the real situation on the ground. But not this guy!” He thumped Patrick on the shoulder hard enough to tilt him onto one foot. “This is Patrick freakin’ McLanahan, the guy who kicked the Russians’ butts after the American Holocaust. He wasn’t about to leave his mates behind. About time someone said to hell with the damn book and looked out for his troops.” He turned to Spivey and Markham and jabbed a thumb toward Patrick. “He’s a real war hero, you guys, and don’t you forget it.”

“Thanks, Fid,” Patrick said. “Dave, how’s the survivor?”

Bellville turned to Markham. “Ralph?”

“His name is Jeremy, sir,” Ralph said. “Same condition as previously reported. We’re letting him sleep but waking him every hour or so as a precaution because of his possible concussion. He’s alert and responsive. He hasn’t eaten but has had a little water.”

Patrick was very impressed, and now he wished he spent more time with the cadets than he normally did: this cadet was extraordinarily bright. “Thank you, Ralph,” he said. “Good report.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ralph said. “I’ll go back and watch over him.” Again, Patrick was impressed.

Bellville held up his portable FM transceiver. “Colonel wants to talk to you, sir.”

Patrick nodded, then walked away from the group before keying the mike: “McLanahan here.”

“McLanahan, I am going to kick your ass when you get back here — I don’t care if you are a retired three-star general,” Spara said angrily. “Did you deliberately shut off the repeater?”

“Something happened to it, Rob. We can discuss it when I get back.”

“You violated your flight release and landed at another airport without permission.”

“Leo and John both said they thought they heard the engine running rough. I made a precautionary landing at the first available airport. Besides, I’m allowed to land at different airports as long as I don’t alter the crew composition.”

“Not on an actual mission you can’t,” Spara shouted. “And was the engine running rough? You’re the damned mission pilot, not Leo!”

“We can discuss that face-to-face too, Rob.”

“Jesus,” Spara breathed. “You know you were on the hook for that plane and the lives of your crew the minute you touched down on Andorsen’s ranch, don’t you? Except in an emergency, if you’re off the flight release during an actual mission, you might as well have stolen the plane.”

“We were ordered by the FAA to land immediately,” Patrick said. “If I didn’t and tried to return to Battle Mountain, I would have risked being intercepted and shot down. I think I made the better decision, don’t you?”

“It won’t be up to me — it’ll be up to the regional commander, maybe the national commander or even the Air Force,” Spara said. “They’re likely to boot us all out of CAP.”

“I’m fine, the crew is fine, the ground team is fine, Jeremy the survivor is fine, and the plane is fine, thanks for asking, Rob,” Patrick deadpanned.

“Why, you son of a b—” Spara began… but then he started to chuckle. A moment later: “All right, hotshot, I’m glad you’re all fine,” he said.

“Thank you. What’s going on with the sheriff’s department?”

“No idea yet,” Spara said wearily. “They keep telling me someone’s been dispatched, but that’s all they’ll tell me.”

“I have one of Andorsen’s trucks.”

“So you stole a vehicle too? Great,” Spara said even more wearily than before. “Oh well, might as well go out with a bang. How long did it take you to drive out to the ground team?”

“About an hour.”

“It’ll be dark soon. We’ll stick with the original plan: camp out tonight and await the sheriff and ambulance or medevac helicopter.”

“What’s happened? Why is the FAA shutting down airspace?”

“It’s unbelievable, Patrick: it looks like a terrorist flew a plane filled with nuclear material into the federal building in Reno.”

“Nuclear material!”

“They’re ordering the evacuation of one hundred thousand residents of Reno,” Spara went on. “The downtown part of the city is completely empty.”

“Was it a bomb?”

“They’re starting to report now that it might have been just a large amount of low-grade medical radioactive waste,” Spara replied. “But no one is believing that yet. They’re showing video of thousands of people madly running or driving like crazy in a full-throttle panic, as far away as Las Vegas and Sacramento. Same all across the country: people are fleeing any cities that have federal office buildings.”

“My God…” Patrick thought of his family in Sacramento, friends in Las Vegas and Houston, and colleagues in Washington — and, selfishly he realized, he was thankful he and Bradley were out in the middle of nowhere in north-central Nevada.

“I expect the panic to subside quickly as long as there’s not any more attacks,” Spara said. “As soon as the airspace is reopened, I imagine CAP will be tasked with surveillance, transport, and SAR missions around Reno. But for now, you guys sit tight and wait for help. Let me know when the sheriff arrives, and try not to violate any more regulations tonight, okay, General? Battle Mountain Base, out.”

Patrick returned to the group and gave the transceiver back to Bellville. “Pretty incredible, eh?” Bellville remarked. “I filled John and Leo in. Anything more?”

“They’re saying it was a large quantity of radioactive medical waste, not a bomb,” Patrick said to the entire group, especially the cadets, “but the airspace is still closed. Folks are panicking all around the country.”

“That’s exactly what the attackers want: get the people good and scared,” Fitzgerald said acidly.

“Well, it’s working,” Bellville said. “Our plans change?”

“Not before the sheriff arrives,” Patrick said. “We have ourselves a campout until daybreak.”

Bellville nodded. “If an ambulance or medevac helicopter doesn’t arrive by then, we’ll take Jeremy to the nearest hospital in Andorsen’s truck,” he said. “We should make contact with Andorsen by then, and we’ll ask him to help us get our van so we can take the ground team back to base. You can take the 182 back to Battle Mountain as soon as the airspace is reopened.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“So you get to camp out with us tonight, Dad?” Brad asked excitedly. “It’s the first time camping out with the CAP, isn’t it?”

“First time camping out ever except for Air Force survival school and maybe once or twice in the backyard when I was a kid,” Patrick said. “I’ll just sleep in the truck.”

“Nah, Dad, you gotta sleep out under the stars with us,” Brad said happily. “You’ll love it. You can tell us war stories.”

“Okay, okay,” Patrick said. “But it better not rain on us.”