Into the Guns (29 page)

“We are,” Eakins agreed. “But for how long?” Eakins was a fortysomething dishwater blonde. She looked like a soccer mom but had a master's in aeronautical engineering.

Sloan frowned. “I don't understand,” he said. “It's going to take years for us to rebuild, and as we do so, your companies are certain to grow and profit.”

“We want to be part of the solution,” Durst put in. “But we have some concerns.”

Here it comes,
Sloan thought to himself.
Stick to your guns.
“Okay,” Sloan said. “And what are those concerns?”

Durst was wearing a camel-colored overcoat over a suit and tie. His breath fogged the air. “There are rumors that you're going to attack the South.”

“What I'm pushing for,” Sloan replied, “is the full restoration of our sovereign territory. And that includes the states south of the so-called New Mason-Dixon Line. I hope the secessionists will change their minds and remain with the Union. I sent a letter to CEO Lemaire saying as much.”

Cobb looked Sloan in the eye. “And if he refuses?”

“Then we'll take whatever actions are necessary to unify the country.”

“And that means war,” Eakins insisted. “Don't bullshit us, Sam . . . We aren't stupid.”

Sloan struggled to contain his steadily rising anger. “So you're opposed to unification?”

“There would be a lot of casualties,” Cobb answered evasively. “Six hundred and twenty thousand men died in the first civil war.”

“I'm aware of that,” Sloan said. “So that's it? You, as the representatives of your respective industries, came to warn me about the possibility of casualties?”

“War is a complicated enterprise,” Durst said. “We need time to ramp up . . . So while unification is important—there might be unintended consequences.”

“That's right,” Eakins added. “We've read your speeches. So we're aware of your plan to repatriate the petroleum reserves down south.”

“The oil in those reserves belongs to the citizens of the United States,” Sloan reminded them. “It's my duty to take it back.”

“But that could be problematical,” Cobb warned. “You were Secretary of Energy . . . Think about what will happen to energy prices if you dump all that oil on the market. Why not wait for a while? What's the hurry?”

Sloan sighed. There it was. The
real
reason why the lobbyists were sitting in front of him. Their clients would profit from the reconstruction process. But they'd make even
more
money while energy prices were sky-high. And
that
, rather than the full restoration of the country's lawful government, was their focus. Sloan looked from face to face. “There could be a price drop,” he allowed. “But I doubt it. In fact there's so much work to do that demand could outstrip supply.”

“So you're going to push Congress to authorize a war,” Eakins said grimly.

“I'm going to push Congress to rebuild this country,” Sloan replied. “Whatever that may entail.”

The meeting came to an end shortly after that. As the lobbyists left, Sloan knew that a lot of campaign cash was walking out of the tent with them. There were other donors, however . . . And he'd find them. “How did it go?” Besom inquired as he entered the room.

“Not very well,” Sloan confessed. “They're afraid that energy prices will drop after we capture the oil reserves.”

Besom made a face. “All right, so be it. But I'm taking names . . . And when this is over, there will be a price to pay. Are you ready for the tour?”

“The tour” was another one of Besom's ideas and was set to begin the following morning, with a ground-hugging flight to Virginia. From there, Sloan was scheduled to fly north, west, and back again. The plan was to spend one night in each one of the twenty-five contiguous states that constituted the Union. Sloan was looking forward to the trip and dreading it as well.

Cars came to collect Sloan, Besom, and Jenkins the next morning. In his new role as Interim Director of the Secret Service, Jenkins had assembled a team of five ex–law officers to protect Sloan. They barely knew each other and were learning on the job, but some protection was better than none.

The cars took them to Godman Army Airfield, which was part of Fort Knox. Air Force One was waiting. Except that the postimpact version was equipped with
two
engines—and could barely accommodate Sloan's party. It could fly low, however, below the cloud cover, and land at small airports. And that would be necessary because of the consistently bad weather, and the fact that the North could no longer access the Global Positioning System.

Everything went well at first. Thanks to Besom's advance people, there were welcoming crowds waiting for Sloan at airports, attentive audiences filled the halls where he spoke, and there were offers of support at the dinners he attended.

America is rising, America will come back together, and America will be greater than it was before. Those were the messages Sloan delivered at each stop. And he believed in the first two even if the last one was unlikely to materialize during his lifetime.

City followed city in what became a blur of places, faces, and memorable moments. Those included a standing O in Pittsburgh, fireworks in Detroit, and a clear blue sky in Lincoln, Nebraska. Then the presidential party put down in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Prior to the meteor strikes, the state had been ranked with Alabama as one of the most conservative places in the country. And, according to what Besom had heard from his growing cadre of operatives, nothing had changed.

In fact, most observers agreed that the only thing that prevented Wyoming from aligning itself with the New Confederacy was the fact that all of the state's neighbors were pro-Union. If only by small majorities. And that was why Besom had wanted to skip Cheyenne.

Sloan had a different perspective however. “We can't win what we don't fight for,” he said. “And we need to show the citizens of Wyoming that we care, even if only 10 percent of the population agrees with us.”

But when Air Force One landed, it was snowing, the crowd waiting at the airport was waving Confederate flags, and there was no security other than what Sloan had with him. Jenkins and his people hurried Sloan past the hostile crowd and into the second of three black SUVs. The vehicle took him to a hotel, where about a dozen pro-Union people were waiting. Their homemade signs were
nearly invisible in the forest of professionally printed New Whig Party placards and at least a dozen Confederate flags.

Sloan knew that, like the original Whig Party back in 1830, the
new
Whig Party favored a strong Congress and a weak presidency. A political structure which, if implemented, would not only be more responsive to lobbyists—but could be used to adopt many elements of the “New Order” that controlled the South. That would require changes to the Constitution, of course . . . But what better time to push for such changes than when the country was on its knees? And people were frightened?

As the security team escorted Sloan into the hotel, he could hear the names they called him, and feel the animus that hung in the air. “Hang the bastard!” someone shouted. A cheer went up. Sloan regretted his decision to visit Cheyenne by that time, but he wasn't willing to cut and run.

The inside of the hotel felt extremely warm after the cold air outside, and Sloan got only a brief glimpse of the comfortably furnished lobby before being escorted down a hall and into a meeting room. It wasn't especially large. Besom knew better than to reserve a room that might look empty in photographs. Union loyalists were seated in the first two rows. But the rest of the room was packed with Whigs. And they were clearly hostile as Sloan took his place behind the podium.

The noise level dropped slightly as Besom gave the usual introduction, but began to increase as Sloan spoke. His eyes searched the room looking for a friendly face. “I come from a farm family,” he began, “so it's a pleasure to visit the Cowboy State.” That produced a smattering of applause but not much.

“Our country has been through some hard times,” Sloan continued, “but I . . .”

“He's an imposter!” a woman shouted. “The
real
president is dead!”

“I
am
the real president,” Sloan insisted. “But if you want someone else, then vote in the next election.”

“Bullshit,” a man said. “I want someone else
now
!”

Sloan saw the pistol come up, heard Jenkins shout “Man with a gun!” and was reaching for his own weapon when half a dozen shots were fired. The would-be assassin jerked spastically as the bullets struck him—and a blood mist drifted away from his head. His body went slack at that point and dropped out of sight. His wife screamed and threw herself on top of the corpse.

There was a roar of outrage as
more
guns were drawn, and people began to blaze away. Sloan brought the Glock up, saw a woman pointing a revolver at him, and shot her in the chest. That was when Jenkins grabbed Sloan from behind and dragged him toward an exit.

Besom was holding the door open, so that Secret Service agents could carry one of their own out of the room,
and
calmly firing a pocket pistol into the crowd. The press secretary didn't seem to care
who
he hit—so long as it was a Whig.

Thanks to Jenkins, the SUVs were waiting out back. The presidential party hurried out of the building and piled into them. It was nearly dark as the motorcade raced back to the airport. Air Force One's engines were running, and the plane was ready to go.

Sloan allowed himself to be hustled on board—but refused to take a seat as the plane started to taxi. A man was laid out on the floor just aft of the cockpit, and three people were bent over him. “Who got hit?” Sloan demanded. “How is he?”

Jenkins got up off his knees. “Agent Castel was killed, Mr. President.”

Sloan felt sick to his stomach. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It's my fault. We shouldn't have come here.”

The wheels left the ground, and Air Force One began to climb. “Idaho will be better,” Besom predicted bitterly. “It couldn't be worse.” Sloan hoped it was true.

SUPERIOR, ARIZONA

There were a lot of tearful good-byes as most of Mac's Marauders and their vehicles rolled through Superior, Arizona, on the way to Fort Knox, Kentucky. Would all of the soldiers return? It didn't seem likely . . . But Mac planned to bring as many of them home as she could. Assuming
she
survived—which was by no means certain.

About sixteen hundred miles lay between Superior and Fort Knox. Mac hoped to complete the trip in four or five days, and for good reason, since the unit would remain on half pay until it arrived. The pickup truck designated as Roller-One cleared town first, followed by Mac's Humvee. The column included fifteen vehicles. That left Evans with two Strykers, a Humvee, and an armed pickup truck. That was why the Apache had been left behind. If the base was attacked, the helicopter could make a crucial difference.

The route Mac had chosen was going to take them northwest on Highway 60 to 191 and Interstate 40. They would follow it into New Mexico but stay west of the border with Texas because that area was subject to raids.

The gray clouds were low, and the source of occasional bouts of sleet, as the mercenaries motored up through Show Low and St. Johns. As usual, the Marauders had to share the road with all manner of cars, steam-powered trucks, pedal-powered carts,
horse-drawn buggies, and, on that particular day, a motorized skateboard! Its rider was wearing a football helmet and knee pads. He waved cheerfully as he zipped past.

But many of the other vehicles had to be forced into the slow lane by Private Atkins, who was riding shotgun on Roller-One and spent most of his time shouting through a megaphone.

None of which surprised Mac. What
did
surprise her was the volume of traffic. There was more of it, as if the nation's pulse had started to quicken, and things were improving.

Could President Sloan take credit for that? Or had the postcatastrophe shock begun to wear off? Resulting in more activity? The two theories weren't mutually exclusive, however, so maybe there was some truth to both of them.

They pulled into a rest area just after noon to eat lunch. Then, upon returning to the freeway, the Marauders were forced to pass many of the same slow movers they'd overtaken earlier. The convoy was ten miles outside of Albuquerque when Sergeant Esco warned Mac about the roadblock ahead. “Two tanks are sitting in the middle of I-40 with concrete barriers behind them. It looks like some of the traffic is being allowed to enter the city, but most of it is being shunted onto a side road. Over.”

“Are there any signs of combat? Over.”

“No. Traffic is stop-and-go. But other than that, everything looks good. Over.”

“Can you tell who the tanks belong to?”

“No. But the people around them look more like cowboys than soldiers. Over.”

“Okay . . . Well done. Follow the detour and see where it goes. Over.”

“Roger that,” Esco replied. “Over.”

The UAV pilot called in fifteen minutes later to tell Mac that
the detour was going to take them around the city to a point where they could access I-25 north. It was possible to swing wide and use a secondary road to circumvent the area, but time was money . . . And the Marauders had to conserve fuel. So Mac chose to remain on 40 and deal with the roadblock.

It wasn't long before Roller-One came up on the traffic jam. It was start and stop from that point forward, a fact well-known to local entrepreneurs, who sold all manner of goods and food from brightly painted shacks that lined both sides of the highway.

Doc Hoskins was worried about food safety, and Mac was worried about security, so the Marauders weren't allowed to leave the convoy. It was a decision that was certain to generate a lot of griping—but it was for their own good.