Young Again
Copyright© 2018 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 1: Loss
Sarah awoke early with Emily gently poking her cheek.
“I’m hungry,” the three-year-old announced when Sarah opened her eyes.
“I’m hungry,” Samantha, Emily’s twin, echoed from where she had climbed up behind their sleeping babysitter.
Sarah knew the possibility of more sleep was hopeless. “Go wash your hands and faces, I need to wash mine before I can fix you breakfast.”
The twins hurried off.
As she headed from the bathroom, Sarah checked her phone for messages from Ash. There was nothing. She checked her other mail accounts, nothing from Ash but there were a lot of messages. Before she could look at them, she heard the refrigerator door slam against the counter. “Emily, Sam! What do you want for breakfast?” She hurried as the twins started arguing about what they wanted.
As Secretary of Defense Al Simpson sat at his desk waiting for President DeSantis to come on the line, he kept looking at the top-secret message that had been hand-delivered to him minutes before. It was more damming than the brief phone call from the CNO, Admiral Kyser. Larry had said that as soon as he started to read it that he would know that the President needed to be told.
“Al, you have more information on the attack?”
“Yes, it was a piece of the second Standard missile which hit the United flight. We blew the second missile up after the first intercepted the North Korean warhead. Admiral Stevens has started an investigation. It will be a few days until the Pacific Fleet has a preliminary report.”
“You need to have someone outside the Pacific Fleet in charge. I just saw the passenger list. Mark Sawyer and his entire family were onboard. We killed the owners of the largest private company in the United States. They have plenty of friends here in DC. It’s bad enough we killed our people, but the Sawyers were well known and respected. You need to make sure this investigation is thorough and no one tries to hide anything. Nothing must even appear amiss.”
“Mario, the Sawyers definitely had plenty of friends in the defense department.” Al looked at the chair where the president of Mark Sawyer Industries had sat when he met him. “I had a meeting with Don Sawyer, Mark’s son, a couple of months ago. The Army had a special project they needed done ASAP. He and a team of engineers hopped on a plane and had it planned out in a couple of days. When I thanked him for the quick response, he laughed and said it was the most fun working he had in months.” Al’s voice now took on a worried tone. “You know this is going to wreck MSI. Most of the senior management was Sawyers. Even if they had a plan for someone outside of the family to take over, the transition will affect them for years.”
“I didn’t know. I had only considered the political problems. How will this affect defense procurement?”
“I think they’re number five and over half of their work is defense-related, but it is the quality and the R&D which is important. If you wanted some work such as the Army needed, you didn’t put it out for bids. You went directly to MSI.”
“Get someone out to Hawaii to take over the investigation. Then look into the impact to DOD of MSI going under. I will have others look into the wider impact beyond defense. After the problems you reported with RUSTI last month, I think we may have some serious problems in defense procurement.”
“I will have Admiral Kyser send someone to head up the investigation. I’ll get back with you in a couple of days on the other part.” Al rose. He decided that a face-to-face meeting with the Admiral would ensure that he understood the political importance of the investigation.
It was late morning, and Sarah was tired of watching children’s videos. Ash still hadn’t answered her texts. Even on the beach, she’d have answered.
There was a loud knock at the door in the pattern that her brother liked to use. What did Jimmy want? When she checked through the peephole, she saw both him and their mother. From their worried expressions, she knew something was wrong. Her first thought was of her father, but neither of them looked like they had been crying, though they looked very upset. When she opened the door, her mother almost smothered her with a protective hug. Jimmy squeezed her shoulder as he went past to go sit with the twins. Her mother took her hand and led her to the kitchen, where she made Sarah sit at the table while she hovered over her.
“Ashley and her family were killed when their plane crashed.”
Ash is dead! Her best friend since kindergarten. They were going to start high school in a few weeks. Her mother was explaining what happened. North Korea. Missile. Destroyed. Accident. Those meant little to Sarah. Ash was dead. She sat stunned while her mother told of the hundreds of thousands dead in Seoul, Beijing, and Moscow. She realized the disaster was much, much bigger than losing her best friend. When she heard about the destruction of North Korea, she cried. Ashley’s and her family’s deaths hadn’t brought tears, but the death of an entire country had shaken her out of the shock she had been in.
Her mother and brother stayed with her. The three of them slept in the living room after putting the twins to sleep. They had watched the news with the sound down low, as they talked about what had happened.
Over breakfast the next morning, Sarah told her mother what she had remembered during the night. “Ash’s grandfather Mark is still alive. He’s at their cabin.”
“Why didn’t he go to Hawaii?” Sally saw that Ashley’s grandfather’s survival had put some life back into Sarah.
“His doctor told him he has Alzheimer’s disease. He was upset and didn’t want to ruin their vacation.”
“He must have been devastated when he heard the news.” Sally worried about her husband Jim working in San Diego. She would call in a little while to tell him she missed him.
“He wouldn’t know. There is no phone, TV, or radio at the cabin. Everyone thinks he was on the plane. Ash hadn’t known he wasn’t coming until she was at the airport.”
“He will find out when he goes to the store.”
“He doesn’t have a car up there. Ash said she would be going with her grandmother to pick him up. She wanted me to come along.”
“Does he have an ATV?”
“No, the forest around the cabin is wilderness. They have solar for electricity and propane for cooking and heating.”
“Do you know any of Abby’s family?”
“Ashley’s aunt is a lawyer in LA, but I never met her. Mom, I have to go and tell him and bring him home. He was upset with the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. This is worse. He needs to hear it from someone who cares for him and who’ll break it to him gently.”
Sally knew how determined her daughter could get. She knew that her daughter cared a lot about Ashley’s grandfather by the way she always spoke about him whenever they met. “If he doesn’t show up by next Saturday, your dad can take you up to their cabin. You know the way?”
“Of course! When haven’t I known how to find a place I’ve already been to?”
Sally nodded her head in agreement. She was intimidated by her daughter sometimes. She earned straight A’s without really working hard, but she hadn’t been willing to skip a grade. Ashley had been just as talented. Sometimes she thought the two of them were hiding something but had no idea what. She would miss Ashley, but nowhere near as much as Sarah would. Helping Ashley’s grandfather would give Sarah something to do to help her cope with the loss of her best friend. It had been the only spark she had seen which broke through the despair she had been in since she had been told of her loss.
Mark finished adding notes in all the albums by Sunday dinner. He planned to take a walk before going to bed but didn’t feel well. He took a couple of Tylenol for the achiness he was feeling so it wouldn’t keep him awake.
Monday morning, he felt a little better, but by evening, he knew he had probably caught the flu. He drank plenty of water and put a couple of bottles of Gatorade by the bed. He had had a bad case of the flu when he was twenty and had been bedridden for a couple of days. With no one there, he would need liquids within easy reach if this time proved as bad. As he drifted to sleep, he realized he was remembering things very clearly, even things he hadn’t thought about in years and in great detail. He wondered why Alzheimer’s would do that.
“Captain McRae, what is the problem you needed to speak to me about?” Admiral Larry Kyser could hear talking in the background like Sheila was on a speakerphone.
“Admiral, we have been reviewing the recordings of the anti-missiles taking out the Korean warheads. The warhead aimed at California was a MIRV. The sections separated just before the counter missile hit. One was clear of the blast zone and was not destroyed. It was irradiated, but we don’t know if that helped or hurt.”
“Nuclear warheads aren’t usually susceptible to nuclear radiation.”
“Admiral, we don’t believe it was a nuclear warhead. It appears to be too light and too small for a North Korean nuclear device. We suspect it’s biological.”
“Where did it land?” Larry was horrified that a biological weapon had been loose in the United States for almost a week.
“In the mountains. Mostly national forests in the area, but there are some small towns nearby and probably cabins.”
Admiral Kyser cut off further comment. “Captain, get a Navy doctor who knows something about biological weapons. I want the two of you up there as soon as you can. Find out if we have an outbreak.”
“Admiral, if we haven’t heard anything by now, we don’t have a critical outbreak yet. If we have military personnel running up there asking questions, we could start a panic. We don’t know what effect the radiation had. The doctor and I can go up there as a couple. I know whom to ask; he is a few years younger than I am, but it doesn’t pose the problem it once did. I would also suggest Navy SEALs to search the forest. Have them dressed as hunters, hikers, bird watchers, or whatever they feel is appropriate? I’ll have the people here try to reduce the area we’ll have to search, but we’re talking a few hundred square miles of forest. If we’re lucky, it’ll take a while to find.”
“If we’re lucky?” Larry was confused.
“Yes, if we have an outbreak, we’ll have a better idea where to look. Let’s start with this. Get some people together to look at better ideas. Make sure you have some people who know the area.”
“Sheila, those are good suggestions.” She had obviously thought about the problem before calling. “Don’t take too many chances. As you said, we don’t know if we have a problem. I’ll have people look into this. I don’t know if we have any information about North Korea working on biological agents, but when we know more, I’ll call you back.”
“Say hi to Annette.”
“I’ll hold off on telling her you said hello. What you’re doing out there is top secret. This biological threat will need its own code word. None of this is something I’ll take home from work, even if it is a simple hi.” Larry thought back to the young commander that he had when he commanded the Curtis Wilbur. He had seen Sheila’s true abilities lay elsewhere than commanding a ship and had helped her to transfer to Naval Intelligence. I picked the right person for this job.
By Wednesday, Mark couldn’t get out of bed.
By Friday noon, he had nothing in reach to drink. He tried swallowing Tylenol dry. It took a long while to get down. His throat and mouth were very dry. He didn’t think he could do it again.
Saturday morning, he lay in bed delirious and dehydrated.
Jim and Sarah talked while he drove. The drive was giving them time to catch up, but all the conversation was about Jim, Sally, or Jimmy. None was about Sarah, because it would remind Sarah that Ashley was gone. On Route 88 with one stretch of mountain road looking to Jim very much like all the others, he was relying on her for directions.
“Turn right here.” Sarah went right back to their conversation.
He turned onto a little-used dirt road.
A couple of minutes later, Sarah stopped talking. Jim could tell something was bothering her.
“Dad, I keep having dreams about Ash. They’re all different, but also the same. She’s on a small island, drinking rainwater, and eating fish that she traps. She keeps looking for a boat or plane to signal, but there’s nothing for a fire. It’s so boring that she has been practicing martial arts. Did they miss her when they searched?”
“Sarah, you miss her a lot. They did a search and found nothing from the plane. Tomorrow, we’ll get on the internet and find out more about the search. Maybe we can find something, but the Coast Guard and the military have a lot of experience with searching.”
Sarah looked at her smartphone. “No bars. I can’t start research on the search and check the search results until we are on the way home.”
“You can do that from your phone?”
“Dad, it just takes having set up apps and programs to handle the searches. We…” Sarah stopped. It was no longer we, it was only her.
“Sarah, we’ll do a search when we get back.”
They had followed dirt roads for miles with Sarah unhesitantly telling him which turn to take at each fork in the road. He would be totally dependent on her to find their way out again.
Unexpectedly, the forest started to thin ahead of them.
“It is just around the corner and up to the top. Wait until you see the view.”
As they drove up to the cabin, there was no sign of anyone in sight, but he spared little thought to that as he took in the view. You could see at least thirty miles across unending forest, which became hazy in the distance. The haze was white, so he knew it wasn’t smog. It was a place that he would have liked to take Sally and the kids. He realized that this place would have different memories for Sarah being here without Ashley. When they had started out, the chance to help Ashley’s grandfather had partially lifted the haunted look he had first seen when he had gotten home the previous evening. He and Sally had stayed up late talking about how Ashley’s death was affecting Sarah. They would need some other place just as beautiful for their vacation. This one had too many memories for her.
He looked around, and the only sign anyone might be there was a single chair on the porch, and it was covered with leaves.
“Sarah, no one is here. See the chair. The storm was two nights ago.”
“Dad, they put the chairs away when they leave. Something is wrong.” She jumped out of the car and ran towards the door.
“Where is the key kept?” Jim called after his daughter.
“They never lock it. Grandpa Mark says that if anyone ends up here, they are in need of help. He sees no reason to make them break in when they are welcome to all the help they need.” She had paused to let her father catch up, but she entered before he was to the door. “Mr. Sawyer! It’s Sarah Pierce. Do you need help?”
Mark heard her, but he was unable to speak. He swung his arm across the top of the nightstand, knocking everything onto the floor.
She heard a crash from upstairs. The house had been so quiet that Sarah could pick out the room the sound had come from. “He’s in their bedroom.”