One Second After [56]
"Sounds like that movie Independence Day," Jeremiah interjected.
"You're right, and almost as desperate."
"But news, I mean news from the outside?" John asked.
"State government's moving to Bragg. Some assets there did survive. Plus it's damn secure."
"Are we at war?"
"Nobody knows for sure with who. At least at this level. Rumors that we nuked Tehran yesterday and half a dozen cities in Iran and just blew the shit out of North Korea."
"So they did it?" Jeremiah asked.
"Like I said, rumors."
"How can we do that?" Phil asked.
"What?"
"I mean hit them when we can't get anything moving here." "It must have been an event limited to the continental United States. Our assets overseas are still intact, at least for the moment. "Oh yeah, there's a rumor the president is dead." "What?" John exclaimed.
"Someone said the White House got word about fifteen minutes before the blast. Got the president airborne on Air Force One ... and the goddamn plane wasn't hardened sufficiently, and went down."
"I can't believe they didn't harden Air Force One," Washington interjected.
"Yeah, we can't be that dumb," Charlie interjected, his voice bitter with irony.
"Here. Right now. What is going on?" John asked.
Even as he asked, it felt strange. At any other time in the nation's history, the word that the president might be dead froze the nation in place. John could still remember the day Reagan was shot, the incredible gaffe by Alexander Haig at the press conference when he said, "I'm in charge here." That mere misstatement had nearly set off panic with some about an attempted coup.
Air Force One went down? Horrible as the realization was, John felt at that moment it didn't matter to him. It was survival, survival here, at this moment, his family that counted, and he drove on, weaving around a stalled 18-wheeler, a truck that had been hauling junk food, potato chips, corn chips, and it was picked over like a carcass lying in the desert, hundreds of smashed-open cardboard shipping boxes littering the side of the road, bags of chips smashed and torn open lying along the side of the road. An old woman was carefully picking over the torn bags, emptying their meager contents into a plastic trash bag.
"They did get lucky with some vehicles in Asheville," Charlie said. "A scattering of cars parked in underground garages. Their big problem is water. At least we're gravity fed, but part of their downtown has to have the water pumped over Beaucatcher, though down by Biltmore, and on the east side of the mountain they're still getting supplied from the reservoir. They're badly screwed in that department; that's why there's so many fires."
He hesitated.
"Therefore Asheville is trying to organize an evacuation."
"To where?" Washington asked.
"Well, to Black Mountain for one. The new guy in charge, I don't even know him, he told me we're supposed to take five thousand refugees from the city. Didn't ask, no discussion. An order like he was now the dictator of the mountains.
"Almost the first words out of his mouth when I reported in to him. They want to spread their people out all over the region, as far west as Waynesville, north to Mars Hill, south to Flat Rock."
"Why?"
"Because they think we have food, that's why. The water thing is just an excuse. Hell, they're right on the French Broad River. I heard they even have a tank truck that can haul five thousand gallons at a clip. It's just an excuse. It's about the food."
"Do we have as much on hand as they do?" John replied.
Charlie shook his head, features angry.
"They got lucky with the stalled trucks on the interstates. A fair number with bulk food on board them, also the rail yard. Two trucks loaded with a hundred hogs even. They were roasting one right behind the courthouse. Dozens of railcars packed with bulk stuff as well down in the Norfolk and Southern rail yard. Got that from the assistant police chief, a good friend.
"I tried to raise with this new tin-plated idiot that the county should pool all resources and he wouldn't even talk about it,