Project Reunion (9 page)

“Let’s continue, Colonel Hoffman,” Niedermeyer invited, after a pregnant pause. “Apparently we’re not going to secure cooperation from Pennsylvania today. Either.”

“Right,” agreed Hoffman sourly. Emmett had already conveyed in his presentation that Pennsylvania could save another 750,000 New Yorkers if they were willing. But apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

Hoffman moved on from the problem of how to establish viable quarantine borders-within-borders, to the problem of how to feed the people within those new quarantine zones.

“Essentially it takes land, and people, to provide the food. Emmett calculates – and I agree with him – that we can only commit to donate about 5% excess food. Emmett’s plan puts the refugees to work, to increase agricultural capacity, given time. Instead, donating the food as charity, we can support less than a million excess people. And that’s never-ending. We can’t even feed them well enough to survive, let alone get back on their feet.

“The remaining 7 million people at risk seems small, compared to what they started with. But it’s huge compared to who’s left outside. We only have 15 million, outside Pennsylvania, New York City, and Boston-Providence.”

Niedermeyer asked, “So what population do you think we could support in there by charity?”

“Without food from the strategic reserves, possibly 900,000. Some people in there would find ways to support themselves. How many depends on whether they can establish any public order. Under the circumstances, I doubt they can.”

“Your recommendation is that we not do this,” Niedermeyer suggested.

Hoffman flipped to his final slide. “Correct, sir. I believe Major MacLaren’s plan will save as many lives from New York as it is possible to save.”

“And if we could release food from the strategic reserves?” Niedermeyer prompted.

Hoffman shrugged. “I was unable to find a way to apply it effectively. Too many people. Too sick. Too little order. Too few troops.” He opened a hand, and let it fall. “I tried.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Niedermeyer, and led a round of applause. After that, he said, “I don’t think there’s any need for a Q&A. Let’s break for dinner. Breakfast will be served back here at 8 a.m. Thank you all.”

-o-

Emmett leaned into the door jamb leading to the bedroom of our little housekeeping hotel suite. He’d stashed our bags in there, while I transferred beer into the kitchenette fridge.

“You want to get that fight out of the way now?” he offered softly.

“No need. I think I get it,” I replied. I stepped up to lean on a wall next to him, where I could reach his front shirt button to toy with. “You gave me credit as your co-author. Thank you. As your girlfriend, I didn’t belong in there.”

“Yeah. Not even socially. Dee, we’ve only been together a couple months. You’re not an Army wife. You’re here as a presenter in your own right. You’d never be here as my date.”

“Understood.” I looked up at him and smiled. “I meant it, you know. Impressed as hell with your presentation.”

“Thank you. And thank you for all you put into it.” He narrowed one eye. “I’m not sure we’re done with the fight yet, though.”

My heart sank. “Look, I’ll tell Adam no more touching in public.”

“Not that easy,” he said, shaking his head a bit. “He still cares about you. You still care about him. You broke off with him because he was going to sea. But, darlin’, Adam’s not at sea. He left the ark. Hell, he could commute back to Totoket, now.”

“I chose Emmett,” I said firmly, meeting his eyes.

“You sure about that? Why?” he demanded softly.

“Emmett, I – Gah,” I said, as someone knocked on our door. “I’ll get rid of them.”

“Not what I’m here for, darlin’,” Emmett murmured, and reached the hall door before I did. “Captain, Commander, come on in.”

Niedermeyer and Adam walked in to our housekeeping suite’s miniature living room, and froze at seeing me. “Ah, didn’t mean to intrude, if you’re busy. Emmett, Ms. Baker,” Niedermeyer said. Adam just raised an eyebrow.

“Not a problem, sir,” Emmett assured him, and waved them to the little couch. “Care for a beer? They brew some good stuff in Totoket. Only a little warm from the car.”

Once we were all settled with glasses of beer – and on a first-name basis, at John Niedermeyer’s insistence – Adam got down to business.

“Emmett, I didn’t want to bring this up during the Q&A,” Adam said. “But we had an alternate suggestion for your exits from New York.” He pulled out a convertible tablet computer, and brought up the map from Emmett’s presentation. He set it on the coffee table where we could all see.

“You point out – rightly – that the refugees are in rough shape. But these exits are at the periphery. Your most awkward logistics are creating corridors to move them out. But here at the periphery, the population is lower, maybe even sustainable. I mean, suburban lawns aren’t much smaller in Westchester than they are Fairfield County across the border. So your plan expends a lot of troops and effort just to move people out of the center, New York City proper, by land. While traveling past people who want to get out, but who are your lowest priority. Lot of conflict there.”

Adam’s finger tracked to New York harbor. “But we’ve got excellent water access straight to all five boroughs. There are islands we could secure and invest for staging areas and quarantines. Meanwhile, it looks like your land troops might be, um, not steady enough to handle civilians inside the border.”

“I’m an idiot,” Emmett replied. “I’m sorry. In the Army, we usually think of D-Day and the impossible landing problem.”

“There’s not much parallel here with D-Day,” Adam said politely. “You’re not trying to land an overwhelming force in the face of an entrenched defense. You want to extract controlled batches of civilians. There are small weapons inside the city. But not much that would trouble a ship. I spoke to the XO who inserted your SEAL team. He said they didn’t face any significant hostiles from shore.”

“I’d expect more hostiles against a sustained effort,” Niedermeyer cautioned. “One ship visiting Battery Park was a fluke. No one on shore had time to gather forces and react.”

“What kind of boats would you use?” Emmett asked.

“The ferries,” Adam supplied. “Probably with destroyers as a defensive screen. I’ve checked – the Staten Island ferries are in dock at Staten Island. The New London ferry is right here. I haven’t tracked down the others yet. We wanted to pass this by you first.”

“So, first we’d have to extract the ferries,” Emmett said, groping at the logistics. “Or rather, you’d extract the ferries. And get them operational, and fueled. You have fuel?”

“Excuse me, I assumed you were more familiar with the ferries in New York.” Adam smiled. “There are ferry terminals. So, we’d probably start by securing the Staten Island terminal. Then our engineers could check over the ferries and the fueling facilities, and get those operational. Top the fuel storage up from our reserves. Sanitary facilities. Get the place ready for traffic. Repeat as needed at other ferry terminals, or excursion boat docks. The point is, all these facilities already exist in New York. Some of them were even built to process immigrants.”

Niedermeyer interjected, “The ferry terminals have to be pacified before we send in engineers. With respect, Adam. Emmett, our engineers aren’t like the Army Corps of Engineers. They need protection.”

“Hey, I can hit the side of a barn with a rifle,” Adam quipped.

Niedermeyer patted him on the shoulder. “But you can get my boat guns to track just fine. And that’s what I need from you.”

Adam sighed. “I’d rather play with a ferry. I’ve always wanted a crack at those engines.” The thought visibly cheered him.

Emmett smiled at the by-play, but studied the map on the table, thinking. “So how many troops to secure a small island?”

“Now you’re out of our depth,” said Niedermeyer. “The Coast Guard, and maybe the merchant marine reserves – we could pitch in and operate the ferries. But securing the docks is up the Marines’ alley. Maybe they’d want help from Cullen’s troops, maybe not. The Navy would be their main support.”

“You’d still need a massive land operation,” Adam added, “for quarantine. The Hudson River is navigable up to the epidemic border. Long Island Sound is easy. We can move people around with just the ferries there. The Atlantic’s rougher. But with the hospital ship from Ark 7, we could transport people down to south Jersey, too. It’s up to you, whether to set up quarantines outside the borders. Or inside New York Harbor, before moving the refugees.”

Emmett shook his head. “Triage at the most, in the harbor. Quarantine takes too many supplies and volunteers. I don’t want them in there. Could you transport refugees up to New Hampshire and Maine? The train lines all run through Boston-Prov.”

“Probably,” said Niedermeyer. “The merchant marine reserves could.” Adam made a note of it. “So – are you interested enough for me to set up the meetings?”

“Hell, yeah!” said Emmett. “This is far better than we can do on land. Thank you!” He frowned a little in puzzlement. “Why didn’t you bring it up in Q&A?”

Niedermeyer shrugged. “Wrong invite list. The land end is crucial. Without the receivers, it wouldn’t matter if we could extract refugees for you. I’m impressed with how far you’ve come with that, so fast. Especially Cullen.”

“Especially not Tolliver,” Adam suggested wryly.

Niedermeyer tilted his head. “Might not be a bad idea, to proceed with a plan totally different from what you showed Tolliver, Emmett.”

“And you really think the naval forces would play ball?” Emmett prodded.

“I think the naval forces are dying to do something,” Niedermeyer assured him. “The Coast Guard most of all. We’d like all the borders dismantled in the Northeast, as soon as practical. We’re damned sick of enforcing them. The North Atlantic blockade has quieted down nicely. The Navy might have to leave the party if something blows up. But they haven’t seen any real action in months. Amatrudo’s Ark 7 resource ships are near mutiny, over being held in reserve so long.

“But the land’s not up to us. Hence this meeting, to see if there was anything we could contribute to help matters along. We have ships, ammo, men, fuel. Too much fuel, in fact.” He cocked an eyebrow at Adam.

“Oh, yeah,” said Adam, taking his cue. “Emmett – those fuel oil storage drums in New Haven. Any chance you have excess capacity? We’ve been, um, inflating our fuel requisitions out of Norfolk. By 15%. Because they neglected to deliver our reserves. Now we’re running out of storage.” Adam grinned.

Emmett returned the grin. “Good problem. I believe I can secure you a drum. Let me get someone intelligent to talk to you about it. I can’t even imagine how many gallons are in one of those monsters.”

“Barrels,” Adam corrected.

“Barrels,” Emmett echoed agreeably. His tone was agreeable. The way his eyes flashed at Adam was not. The pair were competitively cooperating.

“Well, we have much more to talk about, Emmett,” said Niedermeyer, rising. “But dinner is waiting down by the pool. Apologies for boring you, Dee.”

“Not at all,” I assured him. Boring, no. Discouraging, yes. I’d hoped Emmett’s plan was ready for action. Instead it seemed like he’d won some key backing. But he needed to scrap and renegotiate a big swath of the plan. Yet I got the impression that Emmett was surprised to even land backing on this trip. Every time I thought I had a handle on how large this operation was, it seemed to grow bigger.

“So, are you two...?” Niedermeyer prodded.

“Dating,” I supplied. “Just a couple months now.”

“We’ve been working together ever since I extracted her from HomeSec last February,” Emmett added. “She got together with one of my Cocos then. My best friend, Zack Harkonnen. Zack was KIA in June.”

“Yes, I remember. I’m sorry for your loss, Dee. Yours as well, Emmett.”

“Thank you, John. Any chance we’ll see General Cullen at this pool bash?” Emmett inquired.

“No, all secured from the brass tonight. Amatrudo whisked them away to someplace 5-star.”

“Well, thank God and Captain Amatrudo, then.”

Emmett showed them out the door.

Chapter 8

Interesting fact: Officers in the U.S. armed services were well paid. Majors earned around $90,000 a year base pay – nearly double the national median household income – plus combat pay, and enormous benefits that included advanced degrees, health care, and housing.

“Another woman! Eureka!” I cried, to greet the sole other woman in the motel’s pool area. Around 15 male Rescos kept her company. “Please tell me you’re with this party. Not just a random motel guest?”

She laughed, and held out a hand to shake. “Pam Niedermeyer. You must be Dee Baker. John said you must be feeling like a fish out of water. So thank you! I got a night out with my husband! That doesn’t happen often.” She pulled me into the buffet line beside her. Pam looked fit and comfortably padded, her sun-drenched freckled complexion setting into laugh lines around deep dimples. Her short chestnut-brown hair was streaked with just a little grey. She looked the perfect happy soccer mom of teen-aged kids. I guessed both Niedermeyers to be in their mid-forties.