“Rail lines?” Todd said. “Where did you get that book?”
“At the library.” Casey set the book down and dropped himself heavily into a folding metal chair. “It was a zoo down there! You should have seen the people. They were grabbing all sorts of books on do-it-yourself stuff. How to make your own clothes, build your own furniture, gardening books, that sort of thing. The library is kind of messed up, but I got the book I needed. Can you believe a lady even asked me if I had a library card?”
“That’s a sign some parts of civilization are still working,” Todd said, then he scowled. “But what do you want with railway maps? Your train is wrecked!”
“Ah, but I’ve come up with something else,” he said. “In an old railyard I found two handcars. They’re rusty, but nothing a little lard and sandpaper won’t fix; and we can link them together, ride the rails, pump ourselves across country. I figure we can get a wheelbarrow to haul the smallsats down to the rail line. From there, we’ll… just head off. Simple.” He grinned with deep satisfaction.
Todd looked skeptical. “You realize there’s twenty satellites here? These things are heavy.”
“So we only take half of them. After we prove we can do it, we can come back for the rest of them. Or somebody else can.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“I know.” Casey shrugged, but he kept smiling.
They left at dusk, hauling the ten packed smallsats in wheelbarrows as well as all the bottled water and food supplies they could carry, and three metallized survival blankets to shield them from the desert heat and night cold. Even with help from some of the other JPL workers, it still took five trips to get everything to the hidden handcars.
Henrietta Soo surprised them both by insisting on coming along on the rigorous journey. “The smallsats are my babies,” she said. “How do I know I can trust you two? I have to watch them.” She stood firm.
Todd argued with her, but Casey Jones just wanted to leave. Finally, as Henrietta trudged along hauling a loaded wheelbarrow of her own and keeping pace, Todd believed her when she said she could do her share of the work. It reminded him of Iris—she insisted on pulling her own weight.
According to Casey’s railroad map, they had about a thousand miles of track to cover. He guessed they could make 10 to 15 miles per hour pumping the hand car, once they got it going. With three of them, they could take shifts and keep going maybe ten hours a day. By traveling at night, they hoped to avoid gangs like the one that had blown up Casey’s locomotive. If they started at dusk, and pumped straight through the night, they could be far from Los Angeles by dawn.
Casey linked the two handcars with a pin and slid them along the track to show how easily the old vehicles moved. “We could be there in a week,” he said.
“Is that an optimistic estimate?” Henrietta asked.
“It’s just the one I’m counting on,” Casey answered.
They loaded up the handcars, tying down the carefully wrapped smallsats and their supplies for the trip. Once everything was secure, they climbed onboard the lead car.
“This really is crazy,” Todd said again. “Dr. Soo said we’re carrying a metric ton of satellites!”
“So what?” Casey said. “Let’s shove off before somebody sees us.” He stood with his back to the wind, facing east. He gripped the metal push bar. “How are your hands?”
Todd faced him, taking the opposite end of the seesaw bar. “Don’t worry about it. How’s your back?”
“Are we going to talk or go?”
Todd grasped the bar. “On three: one… two… three!” Together, they began to push.
Up and down, slowly at first as the linked cars moved forward, picking up speed. Up… down… up… down… Finally, as they gained momentum, they could feel the movement, see the rails slide by beneath them.
“We’re heading out,” Casey shouted.
Todd said, “I’ve got this sudden urge to sing ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.’”
Simultaneously, Henrietta Soo and Casey Jones shushed him. Todd threw his back into the pumping.
The two handcars moved on into the night bearing the solar smallsats and three passengers. Todd could hear only the sound of the steel wheels humming along the track.
Chapter 63
“The NSA team is here, Mr. President,” Franklin Weathersee said, rapping on the door to the oppressive, lonely room.
Jeffrey Mayeaux grumbled to himself as he sipped then put down his drink. Let’s pass a good time! Two shots of old bourbon, neat. His wife would be sleeping by herself in a different suite down the hall, so at least Mayeaux had that much peace. Now that her social life had fallen to pieces, she had started wanting to spend time with him again, and he didn’t like the change of pace. One more mess to cope with. He’d just gotten undressed, ready for bed, when Weathersee came in to announce the meeting. What good did it do to be in charge of the goddamn country if he had to cater to everyone else’s schedules?
Weathersee’s face was outlined with deep shadows thrown from the single low-wattage bulb hanging from the ceiling. Mayeaux could see two Secret Service agents standing just outside the bedroom door.
“Thanks, Frank. I was getting sick of relaxing after a whole five minutes or so. You wouldn’t want to spoil me.”
“No I wouldn’t, sir,” Weathersee said without so much as cracking a smile.
Before communications had been disrupted with the military bases, Mayeaux would have postponed the meeting until morning. Teach them all some respect. Lordy, he hated working by the dim light almost as much as he hated getting up early in the morning. But he grabbed his bathrobe and headed for the door. If they expected him to show up in a formal suit, they had their heads up their asses.
The staff engineers had wired the elevators to work—but after what happened to that idiot Vice President in Chicago, Mayeaux never wanted to use an elevator again. He headed down the long two flights of stairs from the third-floor living quarters to the Oval Office.
Because of the enormous effort required to generate electricity with the old steam-engine equipment hauled out of the Smithsonian, there weren’t many functional lights in the White House. Over three thousand military troops were devoted to collecting wood, stoking the fires, and running the converted steam-generators around the capitol city. Generously, Mayeaux signed an executive order directing most of the electricity to go to local hospitals, but the marginal remaining supply kept the main communication lines open.
Mayeaux almost tripped on a rug in the dark. He cursed; if things got any worse, he’d have to cut a hole in the floors and install a fireman’s pole so he could whiz down to important meetings. Now wouldn’t that look presidential?
The team from the National Security Agency met him outside the Oval Office. He noticed two women in the group, but was not impressed; they both looked hardened to their duties, not the least bit attractive. The job must be getting to me, Mayeaux thought bitterly. He ushered them into the office and got right to business.
“I called you here to give me another perspective, cher. I’m not sure I can trust the bullshit my Joint Chiefs are feeding me. Don’t mince words—tell me what’s going on out there.”
The team leader, a middle-aged woman who wore no makeup at all and let her hair fall loose to her shoulders, pushed a large sheet of cardboard across his desk. She had fastened white sheets of paper to the stiff backing, drawings of the downtown Washington area. The woman pointed at the Mall extending two miles from the Washington Monument to the Capitol building.