The Last Stand (Book 3) (The Repentant Demon Trilogy) (19 page)

Jacob's wife, Anne Marie, asked if Ruthie was the one with the baby.  She had seen them taking walks and really missed having a baby around.  Offering to babysit, she said that she regretted having her tubes tied after the boys; especially now that the world population had been so diminished.

“It seemed like a good plan.  Two boys, a house, a bank account.  We had a future before us.  But God had other plans.  We really are the lucky ones.  Think about all those people in the east.  They're going to die, all of them, or wish they had.  We are enduring a few minor inconveniences.  But we have the necessities.  Let me know how I can help… with the baby, or with anything.  I am an RN, you know.  So that might come in handy.”

Mike agreed that her help might be useful.  Here they had started an Easter Sunday with terrible news about their world, then faced a home invasion, and it had all ended with new recruits on their team.  Their numbers now approached nearly two thousand.  Mike recognized the need for this diverse group to become a community.  They should be pulling together in this crisis, not fighting among themselves.  He decided to spend more time getting to know these people.  This was the group that God had brought together and saved for the purpose of making a new world.  

*   *   *

Cal worked nearly non-stop at the facility during the next few months.  He felt desperate to learn details about the terrorist's plans for their tiny nation of survivors.  Their strategies had worked well so far, and that needed to stop. 

Sometimes he wondered if he was not caught between two enemies instead of just the terrorists alone.  A massive military complex seemed to stand in the way of the future world he and the others hoped to build.  Their secrecy enraged him.  The lack of freedom of movement and the denial of his offers to engage in the decision making infuriated him even more.  Perhaps he was wrong to think he was special, but the angel Ashriel had been clear.  He and Abby were to lead a new humanity forward, becoming a new Adam and Eve.  He did not feel confident that the military knew what they were doing.  There had been too many mistakes. 

He had been warned to stop snooping into files that did not relate to his job.  In spite of the generous pay, he had never thought of himself as an employee of the government.  And he definitely did not consider himself a soldier—except for being a warrior for God.  The pay was meaningless in a world where you couldn't spend it.  The bank which held his money, the cash he and Abigail had withdrawn in Saint Louis, his paycheck which was deposited into an account weekly.  It was all for nothing.  The people who ran the banks were dead; therefore the monetary system was already gone.

Cal's purpose became clear to him.  He sensed he should gather every bit of information he could before they denied him access to the sensitive files in the system.  He began sending these files to the computer at the cabin, to Abby's laptop.  Then he created a Power Point presentation which could be played on the big screen in the McFarland's living room.  He had a plan.

A meeting had been called for that evening at the McFarlands, and Anne Marie joined with the other women to keep the kids occupied at the Callahan cabin.  They had movies and a new big screen television Cal had borrowed from the underground facility's recreation room.  No one was living there yet, but he felt the time would come soon when everyone would be together there.  He was surprised to see young Stephen in attendance with his father, Nathan.

“I'm too big for those kid movies,” he explained.  “And I want to know what's happening.  I can help.”

“I think maybe he can,” said Nathan, “He's a very smart boy.  It seems right to include him.”

Cal agreed.  The room filled with newly forming community leaders, including Jacob Talbot, who had been recruited by Mike during their fishing trips.  Several other men from among the newcomers had joined, through Mike's efforts at community organization.  Abigail and Uma were the only women present, as the others felt they needed to stay with the children.  Cal addressed the group, explaining everything he had learned about their situation.  Abigail had helped him create a power point presentation which illustrated their situation with maps and graphics so that everyone could see what Cal had envisioned in his head.

“To start with reviewing the first wave of the attacks,” he began, “we see that the nuclear power plant explosions were an important first step in a precisely planned strategy.”

He showed a map of the United States with blue dots at each location that resulted in a hit.  A concentric paler blue circle around each dot represented the areas where destruction and radioactive fallout had resulted in destruction.

Abigail clicked, and an overlay of red dots represented the military bases all over the United States.  The nuclear plants had been chosen along the coastlines and throughout the east for their proximity to military installations.  Twenty of the twenty-five targets had successfully destroyed the defense capabilities of those bases.

“The second wave was the nuclear bombs delivered by mini-submarines through our waterways.    It's the ones around New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana that were key, but notice that all of the ones hit were along major waterways that all connect to the Mississippi River,” said Cal.  “This river is over two-thousand miles long, not including the tributaries and the places where it branches off to other major rivers throughout the Mid-Atlantic states.  It was the fatal blow to a region already devastated by the chaos that resulted from the first wave attacks.”

“They used both the Cuban Delfin model mini-submarines and the North Korean Yugos to deliver suitcase nukes supplied by Russia,” he said, realizing it sounded even worse now that he had said it aloud to an entire group of people.  The enemy is much bigger than ever imagined.

“Although the explosive destruction of these devices is limited, only a one-kiloton capacity, the nuclear fallout is vast.  Five of them hit New York City, and five hit Washington D.C.  Ultimately, this was the death blow for the whole eastern half of our country.  The President, the cabinet, the Congress… all are underground, safe and making decisions—most of which I don't agree with.  But no one is listening to what I think.  And although they can live comfortably in their underground haven for up to a year or more, they can't come out.  Not now.  Eventually they will.  But they will face nothing but death and destruction all around them.  Was this the end planned for our governing bodies… either death in an underground tomb or death above ground amidst decay and destruction?  I don't think so.  And you'll see why.

“Bringing us up to the present,” he continued.  “The few remaining people from the middle western states are gradually moving farther west seeking food, basically.  They are scavenging, living off the land, and finding refuge at major military installations.  However, there are only three like ours.  None of the rest have underground facilities, much less the infrastructure that connects all the intelligence networks, and much more.  The military has control of everything—money, food, utilities, and security.

“Every system you can imagine is patched into the super-computers here in Wyoming, in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado, and at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana which has facilities and an underground system that have been kept secret for years.  Every security camera, every database imaginable, even your kids' computers are accessible to the government's eyes and ears.  They can read all of your emails, watch what you do on Facebook, and listen to your conversations through your smartphones.

“That's the reason for the enormous number of military personnel stationed here.  They aren't prepared so much to fight as to perform intelligence operations and keep the surviving population alive and in check.  I’ve checked through the backgrounds of enough of the personnel to see that none of them have had any combat training or experience.  They are all desk jockies.

“They don't anticipate any real war here, safely situated between the buffers on the north and south—Montana and Colorado, as well as the whole continuous line of bases from North Dakota all the way down to Texas on our east.  They think we're safe as can be.  And with ample supply routes through Canada.  The truckloads keep coming, even bringing entire houses on flatbeds.  We are supplied with as much of everything we need.”

“I'm getting the impression,” said Nathan, “that there's a big but coming.”

“An enormous one,” replied Cal.  “They aren't even preparing for a war at all.  We're getting all the information about what's happening to the rest of the country.  But I sense a real complacency amid all the personnel I've met, including Agent Foley.  I get the feeling we're just here to wait it out.  They are engineers, office workers, medical men, and the like.  Most of them haven't seen or held a gun since their basic training days.  They assume other bases are going to do the fighting while they preserve society.  But we are not so safe.  I think we're in for a major attack right here.

“First of all, I think the enemy is going to attack again, this time with jet fighters, maybe with nuclear warheads.  They may be planning to destroy us then wait for the radiation to fade away and take over this region as their new homeland.  Or they are going to attack us with conventional weapons to avoid contaminating our soil.  Perhaps they'll do both, but they definitely have plans for us.  We've been too carefully preserved.

“If I were a terrorist,” he said, clicking as another overlay appeared.  “I'd consider using tanks and armed personnel carriers to enter through Mexico.  Their final blow would come through the southern border's tunnels.  The ones built by drug smugglers and illegal aliens.  Depending on conditions down there, they may be able to just drive through with no resistance.  They could travel through all the dead and deserted land leading up to Los Angeles, then follow Interstate 15 and its intersections all the way through the west capturing the cities along the way toward us.

“Sure there might be losses, but that doesn't matter to them as long as they achieve their mission.  They could possibly use chemical warfare, killing the people but leaving the buildings, guns, tanks, and planes all lying there for the taking as the ground troops follow.” 

“What is the purpose of all that equipment inside the facility?” asked Nathan, “I mean the tanks, and there's even a Patriot Missile Launcher.  Why have all that stuff if there are no trained soldiers to use them?”

“I checked,” said Cal, “and there's been no maintenance on those vehicles for over twenty-five years.  They're sitting there with gas in their tanks from that long ago, still leftover from preparations from the cold war, probably.”

“That would make us their last stand,” said Mike, “just like they told us in their final message broadcast before the stations all went down.  They're not in their country anymore, they're here.  There are millions of them.  As we've been approaching zero population growth, they've been growing large families.  And the Russians are in on it.  How could there have been such a vast migration without our intelligence noticing?”

“Because they didn't do it legally,” said Cal.  “They didn't apply for visas or go through immigration procedures.  They probably went through Mexico and Cuba.”

“Where is Europe throughout all of this?” complained Mike.  “We save their asses against Hitler, and this is how they repay us?”

“Their population is over sixty percent Arab,” said Cal.  “It's not your grandfather's Europe anymore.  They probably have regrets, but it's too late now.  Just like the Christian Arabs and the peaceful, moderate ones, they're too scared to do anything.  Even if Great Britain, France, or Germany wanted to use military force, they don't want to risk the civilian population and land where they live.”

“And now Israel's gone, our one true ally in the Middle East—wiped off the face of the earth as they threatened to do for decades,” said Nathan.  “Israel retaliated with everything they had into Syria, Jordan, and Iran.  Meanwhile Russia hit our military bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt.  The destruction on both sides was pretty much mutual, devastating, and irreparable.

“The use of multiple fronts was their favorite tactic even when they were just tribes on horses in an ancient world still fighting against infidels.  Most of our fighter jets headed toward the Middle-east as soon as Israel was attacked, leaving us wide open and unprotected here.” 

“Who knows how much Mexico had to do with it,” added Mike. “Maybe they were promised a piece of the pie.  Maybe they just didn't have the strength to confront them.  All of this had to have been planned for years.”

“So what do we do about all this?” said young Stephen, like the child who declared the Emperor naked.  He said what everyone in the room was thinking.  “There must be something we can do.”