CHAPTER FORTY SIX

“And now the other question is ‘Where are you going?’” the Crippled Man said as he and the Old Man sat in the golden dawnlight of the next morning.

They drank a brewed tea by a smoking fire.

“We are heading north.”

The Crippled Man’s face darkened.

Beyond them, warriors fed and brushed their horses, exercising the animals with short sprints or gentle walks.

“Why go there? There is nothing up that way anymore,”

The Old Man nodded. “There is someone there.”

The Crippled Man’s eyes went wide. Then he sipped his tea, blowing away the steam.

“Where?”

“Beneath the mountain at Colorado Springs. The old NORAD bunker.”

“I didn’t think they’d survived,” said the Crippled Man.

“They contacted us by radio. They said someone is trying to break into their bunker from the outside. If that happens, the complex will flood with a lethal dose of radiation. They’ll all die in there.”

“Who’s in command?”

“Natalie … I mean someone named General Watt.”

The Crippled Man thought for a moment, sipping his tea again, smacking his lips.

“I don’t remember that name. But it has been a long time.”

Small sleepy-eyed children emerged from patchwork tents and were dragged down to the stream by women.

“You won’t survive. That is, if you go north beyond a deserted place once called Raton.”

“How do you know we won’t?”

The Crippled Man refilled his tea, leaning from off his multihued carpet, holding out the kettle that hung over the fire, filling the Old Man’s cup.

“I was a Lightning driver in those days. Flew the F-35.” The Crippled Man nodded to himself. “I flew the F-35,” he whispered.

“I can’t remember what I did,” said the Old Man. “Whatever it was, it must not have been that important.”

“I can’t remember my wife’s maiden name,” said the Crippled Man. “Age is funny like that, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So how do you know … about the North?” asked the Old Man.

“Operation Running Back. I’ll explain. Sorry. I’m lost. Talking about, saying those words makes it all seem like … like it just happened. Like it was yesterday. And this is funny, but sometimes it seems like it all happened to someone else. Does that … do you ever feel that way too?”

“I do,” agreed the Old Man.

Yes.

“That’s good. It would be terrible to be the only one who ever felt like that.”

The Old Man nodded and blew on his tea.

Today will be very hot, my friend. Do you ever think that today will be your last day? Like those men on the slopes. Like all those people back during the days of the bombs. Everyone has a last day. Everyone dies.

I am only thinking this way because of what he has told me about the North. About where I must go.

Yes.

“When the bombs started going off …” began the Crippled Man. “When we lost New York, we had to keep the President airborne in … oh, I forget … wait, Air Force One. Yes.” He laughed. “That was it. Air Force One. I was based out of Dover. I flew shotgun for … Air Force One. I’d been somewhere else … in the desert before that, then I got reassigned. Moved my … yeah. That’s right. I moved my wife and kid there. Two weeks later I’m on the tarmac. Engine to max power and I’m following Air Force One for the next three days. Maybe the last three days of the United States, I kept thinking. For three straight days I flew and flew and when my plane got thirsty I was refueled by an air tanker. We couldn’t put the President down anywhere. We were trying to make it into the bunker at NORAD. D.C. had been hit, so we couldn’t get him in to the bunker there. A civilian plane got a little too close outside of Chicago and I shot him down. I didn’t think it was a terrorist, but we couldn’t be too careful. I wasn’t proud of that. So we’re vectoring in on Colorado Springs. I’ve been flying for three days straight. I remember that I got to set down twice. Once in a field. The other time on a highway. They let me get a few hours of sleep and then I was back on cap again. That night over Colorado I was falling asleep at the stick. I kept slapping myself, doing everything I could to stay awake. On top of that, Air Force One was running dark, which is a hell of thing when you’ve got to follow it real close. Hell of a time. The controller contacts me from Air Force One and tells me we’re turning for the air base at Colorado Springs. It looked like we’re heading straight in. Then she adds, I remember it clear as day, she adds, ‘Oh yeah, and for your own personal beatification, we just went nuclear on the Chinese fleet.’ We were tired. We’d been talking to each other for three days. I’d always imagined she was a redhead. Never met her. We hit the runway and I’m right on top of Air Force One. I go around while they taxi to meet the convoy that’ll take the President up to NORAD. I’m turning downwind to get back to the airport, and off to my left I see tracer rounds and gunfire zipping all across the airfield. It was an ambush. We had Chinese insurgents everywhere in those days. They knew the President hadn’t made it into D.C., so they were going for the kill shot at Colorado. So Air Force One just turns around and takes off at max power straight back down the runway.

“Now the plan is to orbit the air base until the Army can re-secure it and clean out the insurgents. Then we’ll try to go in again.”

“An hour after that, the plan to make it into the bunker and ride out the attack was scrubbed. A few minutes later and we’ve got reports of Chinese aircraft all across the Southwest. Someone shot down a transport dropping paratroopers in Texas. That’s when they came up with ‘Running Back,’ which was to get the President down to Yuma where we had air superiority and the Eighty-Second Airborne on the ground.”

You must have thought about your wife and child back in Maryland.

The Crippled Man drank some of his tea. Swallowing. Eyes distant.

“That was the plan,” continued the Crippled Man. “The plan until China responded with a full-scale nuclear strike. It’s dawn in the East, like zero five thirty and their missiles, and ours, are streaking across the upper atmosphere. We’re still trying to clear the airport; I’m even being called in to make close air support strafing runs. We’re already low on fuel and there’s a rumor our tanker got jumped and that we might not be getting refueled at all. I mean, everything’s going to hell in a handbasket, and I thought that’d already happened two weeks prior. So we hit it. We head south. I think command was thinking we’d take the President to South America. But we don’t have the fuel. Maybe we’ll get some somewhere, but who knows. Anyway, we’re out over southern Colorado entering New Mexico and, last time I counted, Colorado gets fourteen military-grade nuclear warheads in the space of thirty minutes.”

“Worse thirty minutes of my life listening to stations go offline.”

“We get a tanker rendezvous and it’s now or never for some fuel. I’m on fumes but Air Force One always drinks first. EMPs are playing hell with our commo, but the F-35 I was flying was hardened for that kind of stuff. Still, let me tell you it’s hell at Mach One with mushroom clouds everywhere, vapor trails crossing the sky, and aircraft fleeing in every possible direction.”

“Air Force One is halfway through her drink when radar control gives me a fast mover aimed straight for us. So I’m thinking at that point the Chinese have somehow managed to get one of their supersecret J-35s into our airspace and they’re shootin’ up targets of opportunity. Anyway, long story short, it wasn’t a J-35. It was a damn missile. Did I mention I’m down to just guns now? My missiles were gone back at the airfield. So they vector me in on this thing and I’m thinking I’m on a hard intercept for the latest, at the time back then, Chinese stealth fighter. Probably still is. Who’s built anything since? Anyway, I had about thirty seconds to realize it was a low-yield Chinese version of a Tomahawk and they were going for Air Force One. So I hit it with my plane. Head-on. If it woulda been armed, which they don’t do until seconds before impact, I wouldn’t be here. Instead, it cartwheeled me through the air and the plane took over and ejected me. I woke up with my legs crushed out here on the prairie. Not too far from here in fact. That was my little flying tackle for Operation Running Back. Get the President out of Dodge. I don’t suppose you even know if he ever made it? But then again, how would you?”

Pause.

The Old Man finished his tea.

“He did. He made it to Yuma that day or the next.”

The Crippled Man made a face. Then he smiled and softly chuckled to himself.

“How d’ya like that. Forty years later and I can stop kicking myself.” He looked at the Old Man. “Thanks for that.”

Don’t ask me what happened after.

Don’t ask me what time it was on my car radio clock when it stopped. When I saw the mushroom cloud rising over Yuma in my rearview mirror.

Don’t ask me about that.

“So that’s my shameless story of how I saved the President. But the nugget I’m tryin’ to give you in all of that, is this: Colorado … well, Colorado just ain’t no more. Like I said, at last count that morning, she’d had fourteen direct hits from high-yield nuclear weapons. The land up there is poisoned. I wouldn’t go there. You won’t survive even buttoned up inside your tank.”

The Old Man stood, brushing the dead grass and twigs from his pants.

“It’s death up there,” said the Crippled Man.

Silence.

“I know,” said the Old Man.

At nine o’clock the Old Man turned on the beacon.

“I have your signal. The device is now active. That’s good,” said Natalie, General Watt. “Now can you point the lens toward a significant or prominent land feature such as a large hill or mountain?”

The Old Man pointed the device at the small conical hill in the distance.

“Now, squeeze the trigger and hold it while pointing at the feature you’ve selected.”

The Old Man squeezed the trigger.

A small red light on top of the device blinked twice.

“Are you squeezing the trigger?” asked Natalie.

“Yes,” said the Old Man.

Silence.

“Are you holding the trigger down?” she asked again.

“Yes, I am holding the trigger just like you asked me to.”

Silence.

The Old Man, wearing his helmet, standing in the hatch, continued to point the device toward the hill.

“I’m afraid there’s a problem,” Natalie said over the radio. “The device does not work properly.”