“Tell her she just bought herself a few more minutes,” John said, looking at Pelligrino, who nodded and gasped out the message.
John stepped to the door into the room, telling the one remaining member of their team standing watch to go out to the gate and report back whether all was secure.
The distant sound of gunfire finally ceased. Two minutes turned to three and then four.
The guard, breathless, ran back into the cavernous main hall and then up to the communications center. “Whoever they are, they’ve apparently pulled back, sir.”
John nodded and lowered his weapon away from Pelligrino, and the man visibly shuddered and sighed with relief.
“How bad was it?” Bob asked.
“Two of our people at the gate are down. I think one is dead.”
John wanted to ask if his own friends were safe but knew he could not do so now.
Bob nodded and took the phone from Pelligrino. “Every death now is on your head,” he said. “I’ll call you back in five minutes. But if any moves are made, if anyone tries to approach from outside, what Matherson said will come to pass.”
He hung up without waiting for her reply and looked back at Phyllis, who, though obviously frightened, was displaying more nerve than Pelligrino.
“You and I need to talk, and I promise you, either way you answer, no harm will come to you. You have my word of honor on that.”
She nodded but did not reply.
Bob spared a sharp glance toward Pelligrino and motioned to the door, and the breathless trooper hustled him out of the room, closing the door.
“Sit down, Phyllis.” Bob offered her a chair.
She did as requested, and Bob motioned toward the pack of cigarettes. She shook her head, but he drew one out for himself, as did John.
“Phyllis, how long have you been here?”
“Since the morning of the day the war started.”
“Why you? Are you a family member of someone in Bluemont?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why?”
“I’d rather not say.”
That could mean a lot, but John sensed what it might be and did not press the question.
“And you being in here in this room when I came in?” Bob continued.
“I was assigned to work communications here. I used to be a producer and sometimes anchored for a television station in D.C.”
For John, that seemed to fall a bit into place. She was tall, highly attractive, the type that would be pushed in front of a camera to interview some government official. It was easy enough to see that had developed out and why she was alive here rather than long ago dead back in Washington.
“I think you know that outside of here, Bluemont, and I can only assume now a few other places, our country has gone to hell.”
She just nodded, head lowered.
“It could have been you out there, Phyllis.”
“My parents, a sister”—she paused—“a guy who was once my boyfriend.”
“Phyllis, do you know that Bluemont is preparing to launch an EMP strike against our own country?”
She hesitated. “There have been rumors,” she whispered.
“And your thoughts on that?”
She did not reply.
John could see what Bob was trying to do and gently moved in on the conversation. “Phyllis, there are hundreds of communities like mine that just barely managed to survive. Barely. We’re starting to crawl out of the dust, basic things, get at least a trickle of electricity up and running. From that, the chemistry lab in the college where I teach is again making anesthesia and antibiotics, things we once took for granted. Phyllis, have you ever witnessed an amputation with the victim wide awake, no pain pills afterward, no way to stop infection once it set in?”
She stared at him wide-eyed and then lowered her gaze and shook her head.
“How about watching a diabetic child die because her frantic parent could not find a single vial of insulin?”
Another shake of her head, but her glance turned back up to him.
“Yes, that was me. My daughter was twelve, and I held her as she died. Even with just a few extra hours’ warning, so much could have been different. Phyllis, those of us left are trying to crawl out of the hellhole of what happened, and those people in Bluemont are about to hit us, to push us back down into that hole. Bluemont is going to smash all that within the next two to three days because it doesn’t fit what they see as their plan.
“Look at me, please,” John said, and she raised her head.
“How old was your sister?”
“Fourteen.”
“My daughter was twelve when she died for want of a vial of insulin.”
He held the eye contact, and this time she did not break away.
“What do you want me to do?” she finally whispered.
John stood just behind Phyllis, who was at the control board. It was lit up. She had indicated to him and Bob that the uplink was hot and also being fed to Bluemont as well.
If she was bluffing, she was being damned good at it, and he could only hope for the best and that she had made a moral choice—or, as Bob had interjected, a penance—and it was time for her to set her own moral choices straight.
Bob was sitting behind the desk at the far end of the room.
Phyllis looked over at John. “He’s on,” she announced, and she turned her attention back to the display board.
John wasn’t quite sure what to do other than just hold his hand up and wave.
Bob nodded and looked at the camera, and John could see the image on a small screen in the control room. Certainly not the professional quality the world had once grown all so used to, but it would have to do.
There was no makeup, no smile, just a firm determined look.
“My name is Robert Scales. Until an hour ago, I was a serving major general in the United States Army and in command of all army operations in what was defined as the Eastern Mid-Atlantic Command Zone.
“My task, as assigned to me by an entity located in Bluemont, Virginia, claiming that it was the reconstituted government of the United States of America, was, and I quote from the orders I was operating under, ‘to return to federal control all territory from Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia, to the north, the Appalachian Mountains to the west, and the border with Florida to the south.’
“Until two days ago, I diligently followed those orders, believing that the entity located in Bluemont that claimed it was the government of the United States was a legitimate government. I no longer believe so, and that is why I am making this broadcast now.
“Several days ago, I was made aware of two actions by those who claim to be the government—one a crime of unsurpassed magnitude on what so many of us now call ‘the Day,’ the other a crime of nearly equal magnitude that same government was planning to commit within the next forty-eight hours.
“I shall review those crimes shortly. But before doing so, I am making the following statement and then demand. An hour ago, I wrote out my letter of resignation as a serving officer in the United States Army so that it can never be stated that one following a tradition going back to General Washington and those who served with him rebelled against his government. I therefore resigned and now have the freedom to act as a private citizen. Bear that in mind as I now make this demand. I demand that the criminal entity that claims to be the federal government based in Bluemont resign from office. That applies to the so-called president and every other official there.
“All of you who resign will stand trial by a duly created civilian court, for your crimes are of such magnitude you must face juries of your peers. Do not resign and you shall be construed as in rebellion against those who defend the Constitution of the United States and dealt with accordingly.”