“Yes, sir. They’re always there because the president’s kids go there too. The men are very nice to us, though it’s a bit scary at times since we all know they have guns on them. One of them would always sit in the back of the classroom where the president’s kids were in class. Out on the playground, they’d even bat some balls for us, so we all knew them.”
“So the Secret Service men took you out of your classes?”
“Did anyone else go with you?” Maury interjected.
“Yes, sir. About twenty or so. They said we were going on a special trip.” She clutched Buster a bit tighter. “They let me bring my backpack, and I had Buster in there, so he came with me.”
“And then what happened, Laura?”
“We went out to the ball field behind the school, and there were two helicopters there, and they had me get on board.”
“Just you?”
“Oh, no, sir. About twenty kids or so.”
“The president’s kids as well?”
“No, sir. We thought it strange, but they were left behind.”
“And then?”
“We flew here. It was a fun ride. The Secret Service men told us to buckle in tight, that it was going to be like a roller-coaster ride, and it sure was. My friend Becky threw up all over the place.” She smiled at the memory.
“Where did you go on this ride?”
“Here. We landed outside, and they had us run in here. It was a bit scary; there were some men with guns outside. They had us get into the backs of a couple of trucks and brought us down inside here.”
“Laura, when did you take this helicopter ride, and how long have you been here?”
She looked around, suddenly a bit nervous. “We were told we’re not supposed to talk about it, sir.”
“Laura.” It was Grace now, bending over to face the girl at eye level. “It’s okay, sweetie. You can share it with us. Mr. Matherson trusts you, and I do too.”
Laura was silent for a moment, and tears began to well up. “It was a scary day. We were taken to what they call the shelter here. All day long, more kids were coming in, parents, some old people. I had to put on a large name tag that hung from my neck with my parents’ names on it.
“Finally, I saw my mom with my two little brothers. She had one suitcase for all of us”—she paused, welling up—“but Buster, our dog, wasn’t with her. She was crying and told me that Daddy was safe but in another place. Then they told us they had to shut off all the electricity for a day, except for emergency lights, and we all slept in the shelter area.”
“What day was this?” John asked, and now his voice was insistent, growing impatient.
She just stared at him.
“Laura, sweetheart. What day did this happen?” Grace asked softly.
“The day the war started,” she whispered.
“When on that day?” John pressed, trying not to sound insistent and frighten the girl. “What time of day did the helicopters take you away from your school?”
Again silence.
“When?” This time, he nearly shouted the question so that she blanched and began to cry again. Grace shot a look of admonishment at him, and she moved between the girl and John.
John felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back, and it was Forrest, who shook his head and pulled him back.
“I’m sorry, Laura,” John said softly, standing up and backing away.
“We’re all sorry if we scared you, Laura,” Grace pressed. “It is just we want to learn the truth, and we trust you to tell us that. Okay?”
“It was in the morning,” she whispered. “I don’t know. Classes started at 8:15. About an hour later, we heard the helicopters landing outside, and some of us were told to leave with the Secret Service men.”
“My God,” Maury whispered. “Before ten in the morning?”
John could only nod as he struggled to absorb all that what she said implied.
“What about the other children in the school who didn’t go with you?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know. We were told they were safe, but we never saw any of them again.” There was a pause. “You’re from the outside?” she asked plaintively. “My best friend, Halle, didn’t go with us. Are they safe? I wanted to send an e-mail to my friends that didn’t go, but I was told only official things can go out on e-mail, but someday soon I can see them again.”
With that, John turned away, unable to hide his pain, his rage. It was not the girl’s fault. The kid was terrified by this encounter. It was not her fault, but as he looked back at her, he could see his Jennifer standing there.
Forrest, with a firm hand on John’s shoulder, led him back out into the middle of the street that went the entire length of the deep underground cavern.
“Do you know what this means?” John snarled. “Do you know what this means?”
Forrest, features emotionless, could only nod.
“They knew. At least some of the damn bastards knew. They got theirs out at ten in the morning of that day and hid them here before the shit hit the fan. They knew!”
He shouted out the last words. Several of Bob’s troopers who had lingered behind to secure the entryway tunnel were standing close by, and he could see in their eyes, their features, that the truth was dawning on them as well. One of them was crying, cursing foully about his own wife and newborn son, an unrelenting stream of obscenities, a comrade holding him tightly, telling him to let it go.
John was feeling the same rage.
On the Day, it had been like any other day but for one great difference: it was Jennifer’s twelfth birthday. After teaching his early afternoon class on such a beautiful warm spring day with half of his students dreamily looking out the window, he had gone down to the village and at a favorite store purchased twelve Beanie Babies for his daughter and raced home to be there before she arrived. Jen, dear now-gone Jen, his first wife’s mother and such a beloved grandmother to Jennifer, had arrived as well to greet their birthday girl.
The rest of that final afternoon of peace had unfolded without incident. Jennifer and a friend had gone up into the neighbor’s orchard to play with the family’s two golden retrievers while he grilled up some burgers and hot dogs for dinner. Then Bob Scales, the same Bob Scales who just an hour ago had led the assault on this facility, had called from the Pentagon to wish Jennifer a happy birthday.
They had then chatted. There was no warning, no Bob sending some sort of coded message that the shit was about to hit the fan and to get ready. Just a friendly chat until suddenly it was obvious even Bob was being caught off guard. Some shouts of panic in the background from Bob’s end, his suddenly saying, “Something’s up. Got a problem here. I gotta…” and then the line went dead.
The war, the Day, had begun for John and the rest of the nation as all power just went off, the sound of traffic on the interstate drifting into silence, a few minutes later a puff of smoke rising from a distant ridgetop, to be learned later it was a commercial jet that had gone in, killing all aboard, one of a couple of thousand jets going down across America.
All of it coming to a stop… at just after four in the afternoon… hours after young Laura said that she had been evacuated to safety.
And yet now, at this moment, after two and a half years of struggling to survive, to reluctantly rising to being essentially an emergency dictator of his town, of having to personally execute a thieving drug addict only days after it started, to carrying his dying father-in-law out of a dying nursing home where the dead were literally decaying on the beds where they had been left to die because no one could help them… to all the starving, the death, the fending off lone marauders that devolved into wandering gangs of hundreds who would actually kill someone so they could feast upon them… and then to hold his twelve-year-old daughter as she died for want of a single vial of insulin, while down here, a select few were hidden away before it had even started and had lived comfortably since?