Redemption (12 page)

“Mr. Harris, I have every intention of keeping you alive.  My two associates are quite talented at long range shooting.  Should you feel the need to touch that nasty little gun of yours, you can rest assured you will lose a hand.  Are we clear?”

After a few steps, the figure speaking to him finally came into focus.  A gray-haired man in an expensive suit was standing in front of him.  He had a welcoming smile on his face, but his cold, dead eyes made Max uneasy.  “Who are you?  What’s this all about?  Where are my people?”

“So many questions, Mr. Harris!  I suppose good manners should come first.  My name is Charles, a real pleasure to meet you.  As to my purpose, that will be made clear to you when the time is right.  Your people?  Well, I am sorry to say I had to kill them.  Just don’t have the resources to entertain so many guests.  Quite pleased that I was able to kill them all by myself.  I like to exercise my abilities when I can.  At my age, it’s a skill set that easily fades if not properly used from time to time.”

Max slowly titled his head.  “Elizabeth!  If you can hear me, run!  Get out of here as fast you can!  Save yourself!”

“Mr. Harris, maybe I wasn’t clear the first time.  All of your people are dead.  You are the only person I am interested in.”

“Bullshit!  You’re lying!”

“I frown on vulgarity, sir.  Let’s keep a civil tongue.”

“Whatever you say, you old geezer.  She wasn’t in the train.  I know you’re lying.”

“How long have you been in the wheelchair?  I’m aware of your medical concerns but the wheelchair surprises me.  Are you okay?”

“Are you kidding?  You murder my people and you expect chit chat!  What is wrong with you?”

“I understand how you’d be upset, Mr. Harris.  If you could just humor me and answer the question.  I need to know if we need to make accommodations for you when we get to St. Louis.”

Max tried his best to put on a poker face. 
Did he know we were going to St. Louis or is it just a strange coincidence? 
“I can get around, don’t do me any favors.”

“Fair enough.  I am curious about something.  How on earth did you plan to get it off the train and take it out of here?  It doesn’t appear that you came prepared.  Not that it really matters, I retrieved it weeks ago.”

“What are you talking about?  Get what out of here?”

“Don’t be silly, Mr. Harris.  We both know why you came here.  What harm is it to tell me your plan now that it has obviously failed?  I clearly beat you to it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Charles walked up to Max and knelt down in front of his wheelchair.  For Max, it was degrading, like a grownup kneeling down to be eye level with a child.  He stared directly at Max for five very long and uncomfortable seconds.  “Come now, Mr. Harris.  Let’s not play this game, it’s a waste of time and insults us both.”

“I had no idea any of this was even here until we stumbled upon it.”

“You expect me to believe that?  You came all this way from Denver and just found it by accident?  Mr. Harris, I knew you were coming here to take it.  I set a trap for you and waited.”

“Listen to me, you old fart, I don’t know how many times you want me to say the same thing.  I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

Charles studied Max intently for a few more seconds and started to laugh.  “You really don’t know, do you?”

Max said nothing.

“Oh my!  I’m at a loss for words.  All these years I thought you wanted Dupree’s head because of what happened here.  Dupree really didn’t tell you, did he?”

Max glared at Charles with intense hatred.  He did not like being made a fool, especially by this geriatric psycho.  “Tell me what?”

“My good man, the end of the world started right here!”

Part 2 - 2034

The Final Days of the Chinese War

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Mr. President, sir, General Dupree’s jet has landed, would you like for the General to report directly to you or does he have time to settle in his quarters?”

“Thank you, Hal.  Please inform the General to report to me in fifteen minutes.”

President Marshall Beck sat in the command center of Beck Castle, the stronghold built by his father decades ago to survive the end of the world, which it did for the most part in 2027.  Anarchy and chaos had fractured the former United States and the deal was sealed when the Great Empire of Iran set off an electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere above the eastern coast.  From the ashes rose two opposing sides: the Pacific States of America, founded by his father, and the Unified American Empire, the result of a coup de tat orchestrated by Simon Sterling after he assassinated the last legitimate president, Malcolm Powers.  The PSA managed to defeat the UAE only to face a bigger foe, the Chinese.  The PSA had been battling the Chinese on their own soil for six long and bloody years.

“Hal, I’m finished with my coffee, I’m ready for the morning briefing.”

“Yes, sir.  General Dupree has requested to give you the briefing in person.  Is that acceptable or would you still like to hear it?”

“That’s fine, I can wait on Richard.”

“In the meantime, sir, would you like to review your speech?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Hal, I’ve memorized every word of it.  I’m good.”

“Very well, sir.”

“How are you doing on this fine morning my friend?”

“Sir, I am operating at peak capacity, performing seven hundred septillion operations per second.  I am what you would consider ‘present’ at over sixty-two thousand locations simultaneously.  I am currently piloting over three thousand craft and operating over eleven thousands robots.  My diagnostic report—”

“Okay, Hal, that sounds great.  Glad to know you’re in tip-top shape.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Please invite the vice-president to the meeting.”

“That will not be necessary, sir.  Vice President Harris is currently with General Dupree.  The general has already extended an invitation.”

“Perfect.  I can’t wait.”

***

Richard Dupree opened the door to his quarters to find the grumpy scowl of his best friend.

“Max!  How are you?”  The two men embraced.  Richard was smiling, Max was not.

“Take it easy, brother,” grunted Max.

Richard took a step back.  “Not doing so well, huh?”

“Typical day, no worse for wear.”

Max took a step inside and Richard closed the door.  “I’m changing into my fatigues and heading to meet the boss.  You coming?”

“Sure, care to give me a sneak peek on your briefing?”

“Not a chance, Mr. Vice President.”

“Fine, be that way.”

Richard laced up his boots and headed to the door.  Both men headed down the corridor and got on the elevator.  Once at the command level, they made their way down another busy corridor to the outer chamber of the command center.  Hal was kind enough to allow people to come and go throughout the stronghold based on their security clearance, however, the one door Hal would never open automatically was the one they were currently standing in front of.

While they were waiting, Max leaned over and whispered, “Come on, at least tell me if he’s going to be happy.”

“Marshall may share a few traits with his father, but he has one thing the old man never had.”

“What?”

“Brilliant as he was, Howard had the emotional maturity of a teen-aged girl.  Marshall can take bad news in stride.”

“So it is bad news, then?”

“Shut up, wait and see.”

“I outrank you, you know.  Show a little respect.”

“Okay, shut up, Mr. Vice President.”

“That’s better.”

After a couple of hisses and a warning siren, the door to the command center creaked open.  The massive doors retracted just enough to allow the two men to enter.  Once they stepped in, the doors sealed shut.

Marshall Beck had been the youngest man to hold the office of president.  Upon his father’s death, Marshall took the oath of office and declared that the Pacific States of America to be the direct descendant of the United States of America.  Based upon that proclamation, Howard Beck was the forty-seventh president and he was the forty-eighth.  Marshall was thirty-nine years old when he took office.  Six years in office had aged him at least twenty years.

Marshall extended his hand.  “Richard, good to have you home.”

“Mr. President, it’s good to be home.  Four weeks on the front lines was tough.”  Richard shook the president’s hand with his right and clasped the president’s forearm with his left.

“Hope you don’t think this is a vacation, General.  We’ve got work to do.”

“Oh, I was thinking about taking a cruise.  You know, since the last one went so well.”  Richard winked at Max.  The last time the two men were on a cruise ship together, a Chinese submarine sank it.

Marshall rolled his eyes and smirked.  “Sit down, both of you.”

The president sat in his chair while the other two men retrieved chairs from the opposite wall.  Once all three of them were in front of the spherical monitor, Marshall turned to Richard.  “What do you have for me, General?”

Richard didn’t waste time.  “Hal, load my mission briefing and skip to part two.”

“Of course, sir.”  A map of the North American continent spilled out in front of them on the holographic monitor.  The Rocky Mountains served as the border between both sides.  General Dupree had managed to bridge the gap between Washington state and Alaska, controlling the western edge of Canada.  The Canadian government had crumbled more than a decade prior so the feat was an easy one.  The PSA also controlled the entirety of the Baja peninsula solely for its strategic value in securing the Pacific Ocean, the rest of Mexico being a wasteland.

The three men studied the map while Richard spoke.  “Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President, I present to you Operation Miraflores.”  Upon Richard’s verbal cue, the map panned to the Panama Canal and zoomed in.  “As we all know, the Chinese base their entire American Theater around the Panama Canal.  With the Empire of Iran controlling the Middle East, Africa, and most of Europe, the Chinese are forced across the Pacific where they have to funnel over eighty percent of their manpower and resources through the canal.  Once they are safely in the Caribbean, they either make their way into the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi or they go around Florida and make their way up the coast.”

The president held up his hand.  “Richard, I want that canal intact.”

“As do I, Mr. President.  It’s far too important.  Even if we destroyed it, we’d still be fighting a desperate, wounded animal for eighteen months.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they nuked us all to hell on their way out the door.  If we manage to beat them, we still have Iran to contend with and we need Panama to stay like it is.”

Max punched Richard’s arm.

“What the hell?” said Richard.

“‘If we manage to beat them?’”

Richard sat back in his chair and paused in silent reflection.  He looked at both men with an intensity that made them both uncomfortable.  “That’s what I said.  Look, if the two of you want to fire me, then so be it.  Make no mistake, gentlemen; we are losing this war, badly.  Anything we send over the Rocky Mountains does not return and we can’t move our navy across Mexico to get to the Gulf.  All we have done for the past year is lick our wounds while they dig in deeper and wait for more men and resources to arrive.  If we stay the course, we will lose, that is a fact.”

The president held up his hand again.  “Fair enough, General.  Tell us your plan.”

“It’s right there on the screen, do you see it?”

Max waited for the president to speak.  When Marshall looked to Richard impatiently, Max decided to intervene.  “I see a heavily fortified canal and a blockade stretching from Columbia to Costa Rica.”

Richard smiled.  “You’re looking on the wrong side.”

The president sighed.  “Really, Richard?  The Caribbean?  That’s insane.  We’ve been over this before.  We don’t have a single boat in the water and the Chinese are dug in deep.  We know they’ll never surrender it to us, they’ll destroy the locks on the Pacific side and put the south end of the canal underwater.  It would take decades to restore it.”

“That’s just the thing, gentlemen, we’ve been looking at this whole thing the wrong way.  We don’t need boats to capture the Panama Canal.”

Marshall Beck was getting visibly upset.  “I might take you up on your offer to get fired, this better be good.”

“It is, Mr. President, but it’s not without risk.  We already know from previous failed missions that Hal’s robots and his craft emit a carrier signal while not in stealth mode.  We also know that when he’s in stealth mode, the only thing he is capable of is reconnaissance.  If he wants to engage the enemy he has to decloak.  When that happens, the Chinese are immediately aware of our presence and the mission is short lived.   The Chinese also have the airspace above the blockade monitored up to thirty thousand feet so we’re cut off from the air, at least that’s what they think.”

The president perked up.  “What are you saying?  We can beat them from the air?”

“Not quite, Mr. President.  We drop down on them from the stratosphere, over four times that height, they’ll never see us coming.”

Max was intrigued but confused.  “We can’t bomb them Richard.  We start doing that and we risk them sabotaging the canal and retreating.”

“No bombs.  Sit back and let me explain.”  The president and vice-president sat back in their chairs and relaxed.  Richard continued.  “The
PSS Howard Beck
strike group is currently on station a thousand nautical miles from the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.  From the flight deck of the
Howard Beck
, we launch seventy-five helium balloons each carrying a small cabin made from reinforced polymers rendering them undetectable by radar.  Once all the balloons are launched, the
Howard Beck
will head south to engage the blockade.  Each cabin will hold two paratroopers and a deactivated Hal robot - no power signature, no carrier frequency.  The cabins have been fitted with small propellers so they can maneuver southbound to the canal.  When they’re a hundred and twenty thousand feet above the canal, they jump.