A Time for Patriots

“McLanahan, I am going to kick your ass when you get back here — I don’t care if you are a retired three-star general,” Spara said angrily. “Did you deliberately shut off the repeater?”

“Something happened to it, Rob. We can discuss it when I get back.”

“You violated your flight release and landed at another airport without permission.”

“Leo and John both said they thought they heard the engine running rough. I made a precautionary landing at the first available airport. Besides, I’m allowed to land at different airports as long as I don’t alter the crew composition.”

“Not on an actual mission you can’t,” Spara shouted. “And was the engine running rough? You’re the damned mission pilot, not Leo!”

“We can discuss that face-to-face too, Rob.”

“Jesus,” Spara breathed. “You know you were on the hook for that plane and the lives of your crew the minute you touched down on Andorsen’s ranch, don’t you? Except in an emergency, if you’re off the flight release during an actual mission, you might as well have stolen the plane.”

“We were ordered by the FAA to land immediately,” Patrick said. “If I didn’t and tried to return to Battle Mountain, I would have risked being intercepted and shot down. I think I made the better decision, don’t you?”

“It won’t be up to me — it’ll be up to the regional commander, maybe the national commander or even the Air Force,” Spara said. “They’re likely to boot us all out of CAP.”

“I’m fine, the crew is fine, the ground team is fine, Jeremy the survivor is fine, and the plane is fine, thanks for asking, Rob,” Patrick deadpanned.

“Why, you son of a b—” Spara began… but then he started to chuckle. A moment later: “All right, hotshot, I’m glad you’re all fine,” he said.

“Thank you. What’s going on with the sheriff’s department?”

“No idea yet,” Spara said wearily. “They keep telling me someone’s been dispatched, but that’s all they’ll tell me.”

“I have one of Andorsen’s trucks.”

“So you stole a vehicle too? Great,” Spara said even more wearily than before. “Oh well, might as well go out with a bang. How long did it take you to drive out to the ground team?”

“About an hour.”

“It’ll be dark soon. We’ll stick with the original plan: camp out tonight and await the sheriff and ambulance or medevac helicopter.”

“What’s happened? Why is the FAA shutting down airspace?”

“It’s unbelievable, Patrick: it looks like a terrorist flew a plane filled with nuclear material into the federal building in Reno.”

“Nuclear material!”

“They’re ordering the evacuation of one hundred thousand residents of Reno,” Spara went on. “The downtown part of the city is completely empty.”

“Was it a bomb?”

“They’re starting to report now that it might have been just a large amount of low-grade medical radioactive waste,” Spara replied. “But no one is believing that yet. They’re showing video of thousands of people madly running or driving like crazy in a full-throttle panic, as far away as Las Vegas and Sacramento. Same all across the country: people are fleeing any cities that have federal office buildings.”

“My God…” Patrick thought of his family in Sacramento, friends in Las Vegas and Houston, and colleagues in Washington — and, selfishly he realized, he was thankful he and Bradley were out in the middle of nowhere in north-central Nevada.

“I expect the panic to subside quickly as long as there’s not any more attacks,” Spara said. “As soon as the airspace is reopened, I imagine CAP will be tasked with surveillance, transport, and SAR missions around Reno. But for now, you guys sit tight and wait for help. Let me know when the sheriff arrives, and try not to violate any more regulations tonight, okay, General? Battle Mountain Base, out.”

Patrick returned to the group and gave the transceiver back to Bellville. “Pretty incredible, eh?” Bellville remarked. “I filled John and Leo in. Anything more?”

“They’re saying it was a large quantity of radioactive medical waste, not a bomb,” Patrick said to the entire group, especially the cadets, “but the airspace is still closed. Folks are panicking all around the country.”

“That’s exactly what the attackers want: get the people good and scared,” Fitzgerald said acidly.

“Well, it’s working,” Bellville said. “Our plans change?”

“Not before the sheriff arrives,” Patrick said. “We have ourselves a campout until daybreak.”

Bellville nodded. “If an ambulance or medevac helicopter doesn’t arrive by then, we’ll take Jeremy to the nearest hospital in Andorsen’s truck,” he said. “We should make contact with Andorsen by then, and we’ll ask him to help us get our van so we can take the ground team back to base. You can take the 182 back to Battle Mountain as soon as the airspace is reopened.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“So you get to camp out with us tonight, Dad?” Brad asked excitedly. “It’s the first time camping out with the CAP, isn’t it?”