Doug Gannett, who, as it turned out, had not been asleep, said now, “It’s true. I got the story from a hacker in Cleveland. People are killing each other right and left to find food and shelter. Plus it’s twenty degrees back there now and snowing every third day and thousands are freezing to death in the woods. But there’s nothing we can do about any of this stuff, can we? It’s not our problem. So frankly I don’t understand why you’re bringing it up right here and now, Colonel Carmichael, all this depressing stuff right after such a nice fine meal,” Doug finished, his voice turning puzzled and morose and a little truculent.
The Colonel’s lip-corners crinkled ever so minutely, the gesture that Anse knew was the outward sign of scathing disapproval verging on disgust, within. The old man had never been good at disguising the disdain and even contempt he felt for his daughter’s husband, a slovenly and shambling man who was said to be a crackerjack computer programmer, but who in no other way had demonstrated any kind of worthiness in the Colonel’s eyes. In thirteen years Doug had not figured out anything better to call his father-in-law than “Colonel Carmichael,” either.
The Colonel said, “What if they were to do the same thing to Los Angeles? Give everybody from Santa Monica east to Pasadena and from Mulholland Drive south to Palos Verdes and Long Beach a couple of days to clear out, let’s say, and then interdict all the freeways and cut the place off totally from the surrounding counties.”
There were gasps of shock. There were cries of incredulity.
“Do you have any information that this is about to take place, Dad?” Ronnie asked.
“As a matter of fact, no. Or I would have brought the whole thing up a long time ago. But there’s no reason why it can’t happen—next month, next week, tomorrow. They’ve already made a start on it, you know. I doubt that I need to remind you that Highway 101’s been shut down near Thousand Oaks for the past six months, north and south, concrete walls right across it both ways. Suppose they decided to do that everywhere else. Just consider what it would be like: a tremendous chaotic migration of refugees, everybody looking out for himself and to hell with the consequences. A million people go west to Malibu and Topanga, and a million more cross into Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks, and all the rest of them head for Orange County. Into Costa Mesa, Anse and Carole. Into Newport Beach, Rosalie, Doug. Huntington Beach. Even all the way down to La Jolla, Ronnie. What will it be like? You haven’t forgotten the Troubles, have you? This will be ten times worse.”
Anse said, “What are you trying to tell us, Dad?”
“That I see a New York-style catastrophe shaping up for Los Angeles, and I want all of you to move up here to the ranch before it happens.”
Anse had never before seen them all look so nonplussed. There were slack jaws all over the room, wide eyes, bewildered faces, astonished murmurs.
The Colonel overrode it all. His voice was as firm and strong as Anse had ever heard it.
“Listen to me. We have plenty of space here, and there are outbuildings that can easily be converted to additional residential units. We have our own well. With a little sweat we can make ourselves self-sufficient so far as food goes: we can grow any crop except the really tropical ones, and there’s no reason why all this good land has to be given over to almonds and walnuts. Also our position up here on the side of the mountain is a good strategic one, easily fortified and defended. We—”
“Hold it, Dad. Please.”
“Just a minute, Anse. I’m not done.”
“Please. Let me say something, first.” Anse didn’t wait for permission. “Are you seriously asking us to abandon our houses, our jobs, our lives—”
“What jobs? What lives?” There was a sudden whipcrack tone in the Colonel’s voice. “Since the Troubles you’ve all been improvising, every bit of the time. There isn’t one of you, is there, who’s still got the same job they had the day before the Entities came. Or goes about any other part of their daily life in remotely the same way. So it isn’t as if you’re clinging to well-loved established routines. And what about your houses? Those nice pretty suburban houses of yours, Anse, Rosalie, Paul, Helena? With the whole population of central Los Angeles flooding down your way to look for a place to sleep, and everybody angry because their neighborhood got sealed off and yours didn’t, what’s going to become of your cute little towns? No. No. What’s just ahead for us is going to be infinitely worse than anything that occurred during the Troubles. It’s going to be like a Richter Nine earthquake, I warn you. I want you here, where you’ll be safe, when that happens.”
Helena, who had been widowed at twenty-two in the fury of the Troubles, and who had not even begun in the intervening two years to come to terms with her loss, now started to sob. Rosalie and Doug were staring at each other in consternation. Their pudgy son Steve seemed stunned; he looked as though he wanted to crawl under the table. The only ones in the room who appeared completely calm were Peggy Gabrielson, who surely had known in advance that this was what the Colonel had in mind, and Ronnie, whose face was a bland, noncommittal poker-player’s mask.
Anse looked toward his wife. Panic was visible in her eyes. Leaning across to him, Carole whispered, “He’s gone completely around the bend, hasn’t he? You’ve got to do something, Anse. Get him to calm down.”
“I’m afraid he is calm,” Anse said. “That’s the problem.”
Paul Carmichael, with one comforting arm across his sister’s shoulders, said, levelheaded as always, “I don’t have any doubt, Uncle Anson, that we’ll be better off up here if the same thing takes place in Los Angeles that you say was done in New York. But just how likely a possibility is that? The Entities could shut down New York just by cutting half a dozen transportation arteries. Closing off Los Angeles would be a lot more complicated.”
The Colonel nodded. He moistened his lips thoughtfully.
“It would be, yes. But they could do it if they wanted to. I don’t know whether they do: nobody does. Let me tell you, though, one further thing that may affect your decision. Or at least I’ll partly tell you.”
That was too cryptic. There were frowns all over the room.
The Colonel said, “As I told you, I’ve been more active in the Resistance than I’ve let you know, and thus I happen to be privy to a great deal of information that circulates in Resistance circles. I don’t intend to share any classified details with you, obviously. But what I can tell you is that certain factions within the Resistance are considering making a very serious attempt at a military strike against an Entity compound right after the new year. It’s a rash and stupid and very dangerous idea and I hope to God that it never comes to pass. But if it does, it will certainly fail, and then the Entities will beyond any doubt retaliate severely, and may the Lord help us all, then. Chaos beyond belief will be the result and you, wherever you may be at the time, will wish that you had taken me up on my offer to move up here. That’s all I’m going to say. The rest is up to you.”
He looked around the room, steely-eyed, fierce, almost defiant, every inch the commanding officer.
“Well?”
The Colonel was looking straight at Anse. The oldest, the favorite. But Anse did not know what to say. Were things really going to be as apocalyptic as this? He respected the old man’s concern for them. But even now, after all that had taken place, he could not bring himself to believe that the roof was going to fall in on Los Angeles like that. And he felt a powerful inner opposition to the idea of giving up whatever was left of the life he had made for himself down there in Orange County, uprooting the whole family on the Colonel’s mere say-so and holing up like hermits on this mountainside. Settling in here with his father and his slippery rascal of a brother and all the rest of them. Fort Carmichael, they could call it.