Posts
53
Sunday morning,
September tenth
7:40 a.m.
Des Moines International Airport
Doug stood in the
security line, a few spare moments after leaving Julie in tears at the
curb. They’d been up nearly all
night, talking about his return home; the new life they’d soon be starting;
their baby, due in February. The
drive in to Des Moines was a family affair, with Peter driving the big crew cab
farm truck, Arie in riding shotgun (literally) and Doug and Julie in the back.
They’d head over Mount Pleasant from Des Moines after dropping him off.
Dressed in pressed
slacks, black Oxford shirt and a dark sportcoat, Doug also carried a black,
combat style backpack as his carry-on, and a small matching bag containing his
essentials. The remaining bags
he’d brought on the trip East stayed at the Farm.
Security at the
airport was far tighter than anything Doug had seen in any of his travels,
including the Federal Zone in Denver.
Black-clad helmeted men carried short, stubby guns Doug recognized as
the Heckler & Koch MP-5. He’d trained on one briefly with Kevin Martinez.
All of the men had helmet visors down, but were scanning the dozen or so
passengers in the departure area.
Screening was a
complete search of all of his bags; a strip search down to his underwear; and
an interrogation worthy of a clandestine agency that really didn’t care if you
were alive at the end of the day…while remaining in his underwear in a chilly
room.
While being
searched, Doug’s ID was logged into the Federal database and quickly compared
to his known and expected travel patterns, his biometric signature, and
three-dimensional photograph.
While in the interrogation area (he couldn’t continue to think of it as
a ‘screening’ area any longer), his voice was compared to known voice prints of
Douglas Michael Peterson, USFDA number 31668471SADREZ.
Once through the
interrogation process, Doug re-dressed and found himself in a now-windowless
terminal area. All of the large glass windows were now covered with black
plywood, and half of the lights were shut off. It was not possible to know
night from day in the terminal area.
The terminal staff
were no longer the typical tired-looking flight attendants and ticket agents,
but more black-clad security personnel; these were still wearing body armor,
but had shed the visored Kevlar helmets and machine pistols. Most of the seating had been removed
from the terminal, with the remaining seating limited to two straight rows of
chairs, facing each other. The rest of the chairs were piled up against the
shuttered coffee stand. His fellow
passengers—he assumed were all heading for Denver—universally were looking down
at the floor or pretending to be comfortable with the situation. Of the now thirty or so people, Doug
seemed to be the most at ease and relaxed. With only five minutes to boarding time, he activated his
Palm V and played chess, finishing the winning effort on the third level. The Palm was now in ‘ping mode’.
The climb-out was
extraordinarily bumpy, but the mostly empty Boeing 737 soon settled into
cruising altitude at thirty-thousand feet…according to the flight deck; the
window shades were sealed shut. As far as Doug knew, they could be flying
anywhere. Two hours would tell the
tale—the flight should only take a hour and forty-five minutes. There was no
in-flight service of any kind; indeed, there were no stewards whatsoever. Doug put his Palm away, after
briefly playing an unnecessary game of chess, and soon drifted off to sleep.
Doug was roughly
awakened as the plane entered a steep descent. He’d first thought that the aircraft was in trouble, but one
of the other passengers across the aisle told him that they were probably in a
quick descent due to severe thunderstorms in the area. The plane was also circling tightly to
the left; spiraling down to Denver International. Ten minutes or so of this,
and the plane quickly leveled and almost immediately touched down, braking hard
moments later.
“Good God,” Doug
said. “What the Hell was that?”
“What’s the
matter, buddy? Never visited Baghdad back in the day?” a thuggish-looking man
in the row behind Doug said, with a grin. “Standard procedure where you don’t
want to get shot down.”
“Why would anyone
want to shoot down an airliner?” Doug asked before he could consider his own
question.
“Why indeed,” the
man said, leaning his head back and smiling as if at an inside joke. The plane
slowed further, apparently approaching the gate. Exiting the plane, Doug could see there were no
threats of thunderstorms. Looking
to the east, the sky was a brilliant blue, cloudless, perfect.
Denver
International’s best days were clearly in the past. The passenger areas were dim at best, again with only a
fraction of the lights turned on.
Like Des Moines, all the windows to the outside had been covered, and
the black-clad ‘security’ people were evenly spaced throughout the entire
terminal. The main concourse had
been heavily modified since Doug was there last…only ten days before. Black
plywood walls had been thrown up, cattle-chute style, greatly limiting the flow
of passengers through the large, once-grand space. More armed security peered down at the chute from elevated
platforms as the arrivals made their way to the exit doors.
Instead of the
limousine or upfitted Cadillac that Doug expected for Federal arrivals, a
single bus sat at the curb, with five armed men watching the empty ramps and
the distant horizon.
“Federal Zone,
sir?” the driver asked, standing at the front of the bus.
“Yes. Regent
Plaza,” Doug said casually. The driver raised his eyebrows, just enough for
Doug to notice, and then hid his apparent surprise.
“Right away, sir,” he said to Doug, who’d been near the front of
the queue for the bus. He sat in
the row behind the driver.
Within a few
minutes, the rest of the arriving passengers had boarded, and the bus eased
away from the curb. Doug noticed
that the glass appeared distorted…just as it had on his armored company
SUV.
“Excuse me,
driver? Is this bus armored?” Doug
asked quietly.
“Yes, sir. After
last week, well, we had to take steps,” the driver replied. Doug noticed at
that moment the two Army Humvees pulling out to escort the bus.
“I’m sorry. Last
week? I’ve been, well, incommunicado.”
“Sir, I’m really
not supposed to discuss it. I’m sure you understand,” the driver replied,
looking at Doug for a moment in the rear view mirror.
“Sure. No
problem,” Doug said, leaning back in his seat. Within another mile, he could see the obvious burn marks on
an overpass and on the pavement, where vehicles had probably been
attacked. A large rental car
complex north of Pena Boulevard was a burned-out wreck. It had been intact ten days
before. Doug noticed smoke rising
from several points in the suburbs on the clear, windless day.
Arriving at the
Zone forty-five minutes later, the passengers were asked to disembark and
proceed through screening. This
too was new to Doug, and all of his bags were searched again.
No civilian-type
vehicles were present in the Zone—and anyone entering had to get to their
destinations on foot, Doug was an exception. As soon as he presented his ID and stated his destination,
he was escorted to an electric shuttle, and immediately driven to Regent Plaza,
without a word.
Security at Regent
Plaza was by comparison, normal. Doug swiped in with his Federal I.D. card, and
a voice greeted him through the automated reader on the security panel,
directing him to his ‘new office location’ on the forty-sixth floor. He rode alone in the elevator to his
new office, three floors above his former location.
He didn’t
recognize anyone on his new floor, but was escorted to his office by a very
uptight, buttoned down young man.
“Mister Peterson,
there is a morning briefing on your desktop computer, and Deputy Director
Hollander would like a word with you late this afternoon. Dena, your administrative executive,
will confirm available times with the Deputy Directors’ office.”
“Many thanks. Things have really changed around
here,” Doug said.
The young man
nodded, in a bow, and made his exit silently.
Doug’s new office
was larger, with a view to the north rather than the west. The furnishings were of a far better
quality than his former office, which weren’t anything to sneeze at. Putting
down his bags, he noticed that he had a private bath and a wet bar, fully
stocked. He settled into his
desk and logged into the network to retrieve his messages and read the current
daily brief, and catch up on the past ten days. A moment later, a soft knock on the door interrupted him.
“Mister Peterson?
I’m Dena Sampson, your administrative executive. Is there anything you need to
settle in?” Doug stood as she
entered.
“Good to meet you,
Dena. Call me Doug if you would,” he said, slipping back into the FDA persona.
“Certainly,” she
replied. Doug could tell this one was all business. “The Deputy Director would
like to meet with you at four-fifteen.”
“I see that we have
today’s briefing, but I was hoping to be able to catch up on the past ten days.
There don’t appear to be any prior editions available. Can you pull them up and
forward them to me?”
“I’m sorry, sir,
but they’ve been purged. They’re purged daily now,” she said coolly. Doug hid his surprise, going all
‘corporate’.
“OK. I’ve been in
the wilds of Iowa for the past ten days. Tell me what the Hell has been going
on here, if you would. Starting with the upgraded security protocols from here
to yon; why I can’t get a private car to pick me up at the airport; and what
happened at DIA. There’s a few
million dollars in burned buildings out there.”
“Let me get you a
cup of coffee,” Dena said, seemingly preparing herself as well, closing the
door to the office. She poured
Doug a mug, added cream and two sugars, which is how Doug built his coffee at
the FDA, but not in ‘real life.’
“You know how I
take my coffee?”
“It is part of my
responsibilities,” she replied. “Now, about the last ten days. You’ve heard about the New Republic of
course?”
“Certainly,” Doug
said, “Pesky problem.”
“It’s worse than
pesky. Undersecretary Sather was assassinated while returning from Denver
International when a car bomb went off. That might be some of the damage you
saw. Director Davis, who I don’t
believe you met—he was appointed on the day you left—was left permanently
incapacitated after an incident at a country club.”
“Incident?” Doug
asked with raised eyebrows.
“It appears that
he was attacked, with a foreign substance injected directly into his neck. He
has permanent brain damage. He will likely not survive the month.”
“What happened to
Director Simonson? He’d only been on the job since the first of July.”
“He was asked to
resign by the President. He did so immediately, and left Denver. The last I
heard he was in Austin.”
“OK, so that’s a
shake up in our department. That hardly seems…”
“There were other
incidents. Four members of the Presidents’ Cabinet have disappeared in the past
seven days. Off the map, off the grid, families and all. The Security Service
personnel guarding them disappeared as well. Significant amounts of blood were
found in three of the four residences, and matched family members and Security
personnel.”
“There has not
been a word of this…”
“Of course not. If
America knew that the New Republic was assassinating Cabinet level leaders, the
government would collapse. The President needs to keep control of the
situation.”
‘Control? Someone’s delusional,’ he thought to himself. “The briefs? Why are they purged?”
“I don’t know the
answer to that,” Dena replied.
“How much do you
know about me? Do you know that I’ve already sent in my letter of resignation?”
Doug asked.
“I had heard. I
didn’t know that was confirmed until just now,” she answered.
“My wife is
expecting. This is our first,” Doug said. “I don’t want to miss anything,
naturally, and there have been complications.”
“I
understand. When is your last
day?”
“I sent it to the
Director on September sixth, effective September thirty,” Doug replied.
“Well, I will do
my best for you while you’re here. Do you have any questions?”
“Just one. Why was
my office moved up here? And where are my things—sorry, two questions.”
“There was a minor
fire on that floor. Quite a bit of smoke damage, which is being cleaned up, but
a lot of personal items were damaged due to water. No one was hurt though. They
figured an electrical circuit to a computer was overloaded.”
“Oh. OK. Fair enough,” Doug said, immediately
suspecting more than an electrical fire. “I’ll get caught up and let you know
if I need anything.”
“I’ll set up a
late lunch for you if you like.
The daily menu should be in your inbox.”
“That’d be great,
thanks. It’s been a long time
since breakfast.”
Doug dove deeply
into the FDA correspondence right after ordering a simple lunch. The digital ‘paper trail’ was a
treasure trove of information on the events of the past week and a half. While specific tasks, especially with
regards to food distribution, were high-priority, almost universally they were
falling behind on quotas due to ‘delivery problems’ and ‘increasing issues within the
distribution infrastructure’.
He was pleased to
see that without much exception, the resistance in the West to accept RNEW
products was holding fast, but alarmed at the projection that by the end of the
calendar year, commercial food production and distribution would be a fraction
of the previous calendar years’ product. Dena brought lunch in, as he was
studying the already-understood failures that were looming in the immediate
future. The pastrami on rye sandwich sat untouched.
At least
ninety-five percent of the population depended on commercial farms—and they had
failed, despite Federal intervention in providing fuel, seeds, petrochemicals.
Nothing would stop it now. People in the United States of America were going to
starve, starting in the Northeast, then the Great Lakes cities, progressing
into the south and then moving west.
The impact of the New Republic would be felt almost immediately, as most
shipping to the Northeast had already been drastically curtailed. By the end of September, the dominoes
would begin to fall.
Depressed, he
looked next at the department organization matrix, compared to a stored version
that he had within his own desktop folder. Doug knew that nearly ninety percent
of the department heads were ‘new’ in the past year; but more alarmingly,
almost half of those had been replaced within the past week. This had to be
more than a ‘policy change’, he thought, leaning back in his chair.
Further study of
the org chart showed that eight of the ten liaisons—Doug’s level—had also been
replaced. Doug didn’t know
any of the names, either from Regent or from any prior assignments with the
FDA. None of the current occupants of the organization chart had any bios, and
he found his own had been removed. He had no idea if the people in his division
were ‘enemies’, ‘friends’ or ‘non-combatants.’
The only option
therefore, was to treat all as ‘friends’…but regard them as ‘enemies.’ He finally ate his sandwich, staring
blankly at the computer screen.
“Mister Peterson?”
Dena asked via intercom. “Deputy Director Hollander is here, sir.”
“Here?” Doug
asked, checking the time. It was just four-fifteen. “I’ll be right out.”
“Doug? Good to
meet you,” the Deputy Director said as Doug left his office. “Call me Terry.
Grab your jacket. Let’s take a walk.”
“Sure- Good to
meet you,” he said. “I’ll grab my coat.” Doug was caught completely off-guard.
Terry Hollander looked to be in his early forties, with salt-and-pepper hair
and piercing blue eyes. Doug’s immediate impression was that Hollander was too
young to be in a Deputy Director position, but these were strange days.
“Miss Sampson,
I’ll have Doug back in an hour or so,” Hollander said.
“Very well,
Director. Thank you,” Dena replied with a smile.
Within a few
minutes, they’d left Regent Plaza and were walking south toward the classically
designed Civic Center Park, making small-talk along the way. The park, once a
showpiece of green grass and ornamental plantings, was now a bitter brown, with
a handful of patches of garden space, a Federal effort to recreate a ‘Victory
Garden’ atmosphere. The gardens were filled with weeds, untended, barely
watered, and a perfect reflection of the unfolding failures.
“Thanks for
meeting, Doug. I wanted to get out of the office for this conversation,” the
Deputy Director began.
“Glad to oblige.
It’s a beautiful afternoon.”
“I’ve reviewed
your letter of resignation, and it’s accepted. Your work for the Department has
been exemplary, and it’s been noticed. Years working in the industry, solid,
with one company, and then a major change to a much smaller, much more
aggressive company. Are you planning on returning to Regent?”
“No, I don’t think
so, sir,” Doug replied. “My wife is expecting, and I’d like a change of pace to
a quieter life.”
“I understand. I’m
originally from a quiet corner of Ohio. Probably no going back now though,”
Hollander said, sitting on a bench facing the City-County building, with the
Capital building behind them. “You’ve read the projections for the coming
year?”
“Yes,” Doug
replied.
“It’s coming
apart. There isn’t any denying it, although the President is doing his best at
just that. It’s all sweetness and glory and the best days are still ahead, and
it’s all bullshit. I’m giving everyone the option to leave Federal service at
their request; I’m sure you’ve seen the extraordinary numbers of new appointees
in the past ten days?”
Doug was surprised
at the frank conversation. “Of course. I thought it might be house cleaning…new
Director and all.”
“It’s being
marketed that way, and there is no shortage of eager ladder-climbers to take
the place of those that have elected to leave the FDA, regardless of the dim
future,” Hollander said, stretching his legs out in front of him, looking as
relaxed as he could possibly be.
“Where did you
come from—prior to the FDA?” Doug asked.
“Oh, let’s not go
there. Let’s just say that I’ve been in governmental service for quite awhile,”
Hollander replied. “Doug, what’s your plan for the next year? Are you ready?”
Doug was stunned.
No one in Federal service, in Doug’s experience at least, had ever said aloud
anything except optimism and the mantra that restoration of ‘before’ was the
only possible outcome.
“I, uh, I’ve made
plans. Given what I’ve experienced already, it seemed prudent,” Doug answered.
“Good for you.
Count yourself in a very small minority.”
“Terry, given what
you know, why are you still here?” Doug asked frankly.
“Mrs. Hollander
works for the First Lady. My wife is a ladder-climber extraordinaire. Three
administrations so far, moving up the social strata on the remains of anyone
who gets in her way. So, in this particular role, in the past ten days, I’ve
taken it upon myself to undertake some damage control in the hopes that
competent people who are not complete political ass-hats make a smart choice
and get the Hell out of the way of the coming hurricane,” Terry Hollander said,
still leaning back on the bench, arms stretched out along the back, legs
crossed at the ankle. “Question remains, are you one of them?”
“Yeah, I’m one of
them.”
“Then you should
make haste, Doug. Do you have a way to get out of Denver?”
“I have some
resources,” he replied, counting on his Regent income and savings.
“Steer clear of
the big cities, be where you need to be by the end of the month. How long do
you need to wrap up your position?”
“Couple days,”
Doug replied, realizing that he’d just been given his walking papers. “Do you
have a replacement?”
“Oh yeah. Nephew of some White House staffer.
Worked for the same company you did. Leinhardt? Is that right? Karl Shearson.”
“Yeah, that’s my
old outfit. They went down for the final count I heard in July. Never heard of
this Shearson.”
“Not surprised. He
was in shipping, from what I gather from his resume.”
“He’ll then have
absolutely no idea what he’s doing,” Doug said, with a warning tone.
“Correct. Which is
why Dena Sampson will be doing most of the actual work. Her husband is on the
staff of the White House chief of counsel. She’s trapped as well.”
“What happens when
it comes apart? What happens to people like you and Dena?”
“The handful of us
that can, will get out somehow.”
“How exactly? No
gas. No cars. Picture it,” Doug said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on
his knees, looking at the dried out grass and withered trees.
“I know. Might be
afoot. Might be on a helicopter. We’ll make it or we won’t. Point is, you have
options that others do not. Exercise them while they’re still available to
you,” Hollander said with a wry smile. “Hopefully you’ll be around on the other
side of this shitpile.”
