Chapter Sixteen

Heartbreak

A few minutes later, we reached the city limits of Lamar, Colorado. The amount of ash that covered everything was dumbfounding. This wasn’t ash caught in winds and rain. This was it. Ground zero. Well, ground one or two—the outer ring of ash fall.

“Oh, my God,” I said.

Reid clicked the door locks as we approached a cluster of cars on the side of the road involved in an accident. People were out of their cars and yelling. Fighting. Pushing. Crying.

Reid weaved around the stranded, bewildered people.

“It’s been over a week. Shouldn’t they have already left the area? Isn’t the Red Cross here? FEMA? National Guard? Clean up crews? Where’s the help? The news said…” My wheels were turning too fast. There was no need to finish the sentence. Well, I knew where Finn got it from. Finn was me incarnate.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re people like us, either fleeing belatedly or coming to find loved ones?”

Cars lined the shoulders and clogged traffic in both directions. Our car slowed further, nearly to a stop. I flipped through my handy atlas. We were on Route 50 and about halfway to Pueblo from Dodge City. Theoretically, we’d be in the Colorado Springs and Denver area in a few hours. So close…

Panic seeped in, and I banished it with unspoken curses. At least Will wouldn’t scold me.

“There’s got to be shelters and emergency FEMA stations. We’ll find some info,” Reid encouraged.

He squeezed my restless tapping hand. I squeezed back. I didn’t know what this was, but I would take it.

We made our way through downtown Lamar by way of side roads. Others had the same idea. The going was slow. If the response in Dodge City had been worrisome, then the sights in Lamar were disheartening. Everything was closed, windows covered with wooden planks. Nobody was cleaning off cars. Instead, all the cars idled in the street with impatient drivers and passengers eager to get out of town. Or into town—to travel west like us.

“There, see.” Reid pointed ahead. A large stone church had been transformed into an emergency hospital. Bright orange traffic barricades lined the front lawn of a towering old cathedral-style building. Medical workers, patients, family, police, and military buzzed across the grassy lawn in and out of a patchwork of open-sided tents. Humvees, ambulances, and fire trucks lined the front like a valet service.

“They must be taking the injured to mobile hospitals in towns outside the blast zone,” Reid said, echoing my unspoken thoughts.

The sight of relief of any kind fostered my dwindling hope. “I want to check here first, okay? I know it’s impossible for me to check all emergency mobile stations, or know where they all are, but I must start somewhere. I have to do something.”

“Of course. What’s your brother’s full name?”

“Brandon Monahan. Do you think they have checklists?” I leaned forward and surveyed the mobs of people for any chance of seeing Finn or my brother. Was Finn wearing the same clothes or had he changed? It’d been well over a week. He might not have had access to his luggage.

“Yeah. It’s a long shot. There’s bound to be dozens of mobile hospitals.”

“Let’s check. We can at least gather info, right?” My hand danced on the door handle.

Reid made several circles around the block before he found a suitable parking area.

If it weren’t for Will’s slow pace, I would have run to the church.

“Mom, I’m okay. I’ll walk with Reid.”

I took his hand. “I really want you with me, honey.” I wasn’t going to lose him again. As we drew closer, realization hit me. Blood, wounded, and dead awaited us here. Like other natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, the injured could dribble in days after the initial impact. “Will, listen, you may see yucky things here. Just keep your eyes open for Finn and Uncle Brandon, okay? Can you help me, honey?”

Will did a thumbs-up. “Got it.” Gross stuff usually didn’t daunt him. He and Finn loved the gore of Halloween. That was fake. This was real. However, Will had been the kid on the sofa also unaffected by the destruction of tornadoes and weather disasters. He always took things at face value.

“What do they look like?” Reid asked.

“Huh?”

“Finn and Brandon.”

I shook my head, chastising myself. God, for the briefest of moments, I’d forgotten Reid was there. I’d thought he was Harrison. I clicked through photos of Finn on my phone.

“Adorable kid. Looks like Will.”

“Yeah, more than one person has said they look like twins.”

“Got it. What about Brandon?”

“He looks like the male version of me, shorter hair. About your height and build. He always wears a ballcap.” I scratched my head. “It’s orange and blue with a ski logo.”

Reid was already scanning the crowd. “Should we locate a registration or information tent?”

Again, I chewed my lip. “Do you think they have one?”

“Probably.”

The place whirred with activity. Stretchers, nurses, doctors, National Guard soldiers, police officers…they all moved around like a well-oiled machine, maintaining a careful balance of activity and control. It’d been a week, and the ad hoc hospital appeared to run fluidly. At least it wasn’t like an ER, with blood and chaos. Everyone had a job, and they were doing it.

“Excuse me? Where is the registration tent?” I asked a nearby attendant in scrubs.

“Over there,” she said, pointing her chin toward another tent. She blew an exasperated breath as she wrapped a bandage around a young woman’s arm.

“Do all people go through that tent? The injured, I mean?”

“All people coming in are registered. Name, gender, age, discerning descriptors if needed. Even for the deceased, if we have it,” she said.

“My brother’s not dead,” Will said.

The woman stopped and passed me a painful, pitying glance.

My pulse grew fitful as we approached the registration tent. Reid took my hand and held it.

“Mom, I’m thirsty.” Will coughed for effect.

“In a few, honey.”

Luckily, I was first in line. “Name and age?” the woman asked.

“Finnegan. Finn Sinclair, age seven, with my brother, his uncle, Brandon Monahan, age thirty-five.”

The woman, obviously a volunteer in civilian attire, flipped through the pages quickly. “Not here.” Her green and white badge read ERT, Early Response Team. I wondered what organization she hailed from. I distinctly remembered an early response team some members of our church belonged to. Quite often they were the second ones in, after the immediate crew.

“You barely looked. Can you check again?”

She scrubbed a hand over her face with an exaggerated sigh. A line had formed behind us.

“Move along, lady!” a man grumbled.

“Please, check again.” My voice hinged on a precipice. I stood my ground and admonished my blood pressure to stay in check.

She pursed her lips and looked. “Not here.”

“Where are people being brought in from?” Reid asked.

“This isn’t an information booth. Move along!” The man behind us growled. Reid ignored him, but I saw his clenched fist.

The woman sighed. “West, north. Cities in the hardest hit zones.”

“Any people from the bases or Denver Airport?” Reid asked.

She scrunched her brow. “Bases? You mean the army and air near the Springs? Yeah, some, the critical ones that need transport to the hospitals in Kansas and Texas. They bring them here first. Not sure about the airport, hon.”

“Are there any other mobile hospitals like this nearby?” Reid pressed.

“Nothing else in Lamar, except for the hospital. They all come through here first now before being sent over, if necessary, so if they are in that hospital, check in is through here first. There’s one hospital station in Nebraska, a few in New Mexico. Not sure about the western slopes or in eastern Wyoming. Look, I’m tired. I’m a volunteer. The National Guard is overwhelmed…they just got here. Mostly Red Cross and local doctors here,” she said with a random gesture and another sigh, “since the first few days after the eruption. The Guard is working on recovery and transport. We’re understaffed. I’m filling in for now until more soldiers arrive.”

“We came all the way from Maine,” Will said to the woman.

She looked at him, fine wrinkles forming around puckered lips.

“Okay, sweetheart, look.” She spread a nearby map. Will leaned on it. She pointed to areas circled in different colored ink. “There’s a unit north, here. Folks in that blue ring are being sent to a mobile unit in North Platte. People in this green ring are going south to Santa Fe. The red ring is us. Mostly the lower right quadrant of Colorado. That’s all I know right now. If you have more questions, you’ll need to ask the National Guard. There’s an officer over there. He arrived this afternoon.” She pointed to the convoy of Humvees and military vehicles in the church parking lot. The rest of the military and emergency vehicles idled in a line on the street, waiting to be directed to other parking areas. She added, “They’ve also brought the deceased here to be transported elsewhere. Most are going to Texas.”

“Please look again,” I begged.

She lifted a different clipboard which had the words DOA on top and scanned that much longer list. “Physical description?”

My God. I muffled a gasp.

Reid stepped in, his palm on the small of my back. “A skinny boy, blond hair, blue eyes, seven years old. A man, our age, brown hair, orange and blue ballcap with a ski logo.”

I added, “The man, my brother, he has an air force tattoo on his upper right shoulder.”

The woman’s finger stopped toward the bottom. I craned my neck to read the upside-down writing on the dirt and water-splattered pages. Many of the dead lacked names. Scribbles of descriptions only. She paused and turned her face to mine. I noticed every wrinkle in her aged face now. She was about Patsy’s age and stature: fit, with brilliant blue eyes and thinning colored sandy hair. Her scrutiny shone with maternal sadness, her lips turned down. She then waved to a man nearby. “Phil? Can you take these folks to the—” She looked at Will. “To the youth identification area?” A middle-aged man, a medic, stepped closer.

Just then, two National Guard soldiers in full uniforms approached from the parking area. Relief filled the woman’s uncomfortable countenance.

I turned to them, numb, yet flushed with humiliation. Were they all looking at me now?

“What’s the holdup?” one asked, a young man, his face hard-edged with matching chiseled short hair. Not waiting on an answer, he turned to the woman at the table, “Ma’am, we’re here to relieve you.” He then angled toward me. “Ma’am, we need to keep this line moving.”

“Ah, okay. Rob said you’d be over,” the woman said, her voice weary.

I lifted myself from the fog. “Wait! Wait! My son. Is he on that other list?”

The Guard soldier gave the woman a commanding look. She shrugged vaguely. “We have one that meets that description. You’d need to ID him though.”

A gurgled cry escaped my lips, and my knees buckled. I grabbed the table edge to prevent myself from collapsing.

My head spun. My chest tightened.

Reid swooped in. “Her brother? The man? Brown hair, eyes, mid-thirties, my build, baseball cap, the tattoo?” Reid asked, a hand firmly on my back to steady me. “Is he on there, too?”

The woman, whose badge read Barbara, said, “I’m not sure. That’s a general description. But nobody with an air force tattoo. We have many that meet that ID. We don’t have the resources to do full body checks yet, so I don’t even know.”

The other National Guard soldier took her clipboard. He skimmed the DOA list for what seemed like way longer than a short minute.

Prickles raced through all ten fingers, up my wrists, and joined the unrest in my chest.

Barbara bent and helped lift me upright. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s not your boy.”

The Guard soldier shook his head. “No adult males with that description.”

We turned to follow Phil.

Phil, the Grim Reaper. Not that he looked like death’s escort. I clenched and unclenched my hands. A wave of dizziness hit me.

“No need. This man will relieve you, sir.” The Guard soldier pointed to his companion. Phil offered an apologetic look. Then he was gone before I could say another word.

Barbara gripped my wrist. “Aww, dear, it’s probably not your boy. You said he came with an uncle. Well, Uncle is not on either list. He should be on the survivor list if they came together.”

Unless something had happened to Brandon. Maybe no body was recovered? No. Brandon was okay. He had just called me! My brain could not tell fact from fiction as languid legs drew me away from the registration tent.

I voiced the rational to Reid as we plodded through the crowd toward the church. “Brandon called me this morning. It’s not Finn. It can’t be Finn.”

“Right. It’s not him.”

“Unless…”

Brandon was alive. But what about Finn? What about Finn!

Regardless, I shivered with each excruciatingly slow step to the identification area as we followed the soldier around tents. He led us inside the church.

Seconds felt like hours as we passed through the wooden pews. There were at least two dozen people in the large cathedral-ceilinged sanctuary. Many were praying. A priest glided among them, murmuring prayers and condolences. I willed him to not approach me however much I might have needed God right now.

A modest chapel had been transformed to a morgue and sat next to the larger sanctuary. The pews had been removed. This congregation wasn’t eager churchgoers awaiting forgiveness for their transgressions, but rather the dead, carefully bagged and lined up in rows. I fought the urge to vomit. I couldn’t take my son into a room with dead bodies.

Reid squeezed my hand harder as we stepped through a stone-carved and arched doorway. “I will look. You stay here, AJ.”

“No. I need you to watch Will.”

Reid gave me a pleading look but then took Will’s hand. “Let’s wait in the sanctuary, Will. Check out the stained glass there, the tall ceiling.”

“Those people are all dead in there?”

“Yes, they are,” I said.

“But Finn’s okay?” He coughed, deep and raspy.

Reid squeezed my hand one more time. Then he took Will to the pews in the large, vaulted sanctuary, while the soldier led me to a row of smaller corpses. Dead children.

Bile tickled my throat. Thank God I hadn’t eaten much today. Dry heaves taunted me.

It couldn’t be him. What were the odds? The first mobile unit we come upon…and my Finn? I shook my head, willing it to cling to reason and odds.

The man reviewed his clipboard page and compared it to the tags on each bag. All the bodies were larger children, except for one, which was Finn’s size. He turned to me, eyes glassy, despite his calm disposition and facial expression. “Ma’am.”

I nodded for him to unzip the bag.

Shit, I had done this before.

Harrison.

Except he had been under a sheet on a cold metal slab.

Not Finn, not Finn, not Finn…

The zipper pierced my heart. The bag crinkled in the silent, incense-infused air like nails on a chalkboard.

Don’t be Finn. Don’t be Finn. Please, don’t let it be my child.

I was praying that it was another mother’s child. I hugged my arms to my body, shivers erupting.

Don’t you do this to me again! Not again. I can’t take anymore! I yelled at God. Forget praying. I hollered at Him, as the sound of the zipper penetrated my soul. I screamed at my heavenly Father to let me get a pass here. No more death. No more!

I drew in a breath and looked.

A frail pale-skinned child lay in the bag. A bony clavicle protruded. Long eyelashes covered his eyelids, forever closed. Ear-length blond hair, streaked with dirt and ash and brushed to the side, adorned the little boy’s face. I reached for the boy but stopped myself. My hand hovered for a moment above his face. A hodgepodge of auburn freckles crossed his cheeks. He had a sharp angular face, not the smooth rounded one of Finn’s.

It was not Finn. Finn had no freckles. I couldn’t pull my stare. I looked at the cheek near the right ear. Finn had a light brown dime-sized birthmark there. This boy had none. He also had different-shaped ears.

“Sweet angel, rest now,” was all I could say, and I silently prayed for the mother he might have left behind.

I looked at the soldier. I shook my head. “No.”

When I returned, Reid’s face reflected hope. I shook my head and burst into tears. “No, not him. Not him…” I shuddered violently.

“He’s okay, Mom?”

I nodded. “It was another child,” I mumbled, nearly choking on the words.

Will hugged me. “Look, Mom. The light is shining right through the stained glass. Streaks of red and green and blue, all over the cross.”

I swiped salty tears. Jesus and other indistinguishable Biblical figures stood before us on an intricately carved altar. The beauty and glow of light pierced through their designs and splattered the altar with a rainbow of color. Incense perforated the air, performing a holy purpose, but I suspected it also served to cover any stench from the dead next door.

****

Our convoy was quiet after checking the hospital in town, too.

I pointed toward the police barricade a quarter of a mile ahead of us on Route 50 as we drove west. “Look.”

Reid turned the car into an alley.

I gripped the side handle in reflex as he whipped around the bend. “What are you doing?”

He parked, got out, and pulled his hefty pack from the trunk. “Plan B.”

Still spellbound from the church, I was utterly confused as he first withdrew army fatigues from his pack and then unlaced his boots. With no hesitation, he stripped to his undershirt and boxers in the middle of the alley. He carefully placed his knife into a pocket in his backpack.

“Reid…what is Plan B?”

“Did you actually think we were going to be able to just drive in, AJ?”

Heat flushed my cheeks. I hadn’t planned for this. I’d planned for everything but not this. “I don’t know.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to snap. But there’s no way they’ll let us just drive in if there are National Guard soldiers present.”

He had it all, and he dressed fast: combat camouflage trousers, embroidered coat, nylon belt, and a cap. He tucked his wayward hair under the cap and put his regular boots on.

“Cool! Do you have a gun?” Will interjected. He hopped out of the car and began rummaging through Reid’s backpack.

I grabbed his hand. “No, Will. Not our stuff. Boundaries, remember?”

“No, I don’t have a gun,” Reid said.

I wouldn’t bet against a pistol being in there somewhere. Philosophical and theological books, knife, United States Army fatigues, tattoos…

I was lost. “Uh, Reid, I didn’t see military at that barricade like there were at the mobile hospital. I saw only police officers. You brought that gear along this entire way?”

“Plan B,” was his response as he tied his boot laces.

“Gosh, I am a moron,” I said.

“No, you’re not. You were thinking with your heart…you had the car, provisions…and everything you needed to get to your son. Heck, you even have bikes in case,” Reid countered.

“Wait. You’re telling me you travel with your retired uniform all the time? You were in New York on business. You flew to New York before the eruption.”

“No, I didn’t travel with all of it. I did keep my jacket and ID in my parents’ old storage unit in upstate New York. Sentimental maybe,” he said wryly.

There had to be more behind his reason.

“I bought the rest of it in an army thrift shop in New York after the eruption.”

“You anticipated this?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, honestly. I suspected it may come to this.” He waved his hand cryptically. “There are also several military bases in Colorado, so I expected a decent military presence. Like I’d said, I need to get to Lily, so the idea came to me in New York.”

I sighed, exasperated. “Will this get you past police officers? I highly doubt they’ll let Will and me through. You saw the sign as we entered Lamar. Travel ban. They won’t let us pass unless we’re all military.”

“We can try, right?”

“Okay, but I really don’t think it will work.”

He was about to get in the car when I tapped him. “Your scruff?”

“Yeah. Smart.” He returned to his pack, withdrew a razor and water bottle and did the world’s fastest shave. “How’s this?”

I touched his chin. “Smooth as a baby’s butt.”

“Ewww,” said Will.

“Good.” Sweet dark eyes shared a look with me, and I withdrew my hand. Fatigue mangled my mind.

“We’re not in uniforms,” Will said. “Do they make kid-sized ones?”

“You have a special job, Will.” Reid turned to him.

Will said, “Oh?”

“I have a favor to ask, and I’m sure your mom will be okay with it.”

I lifted an eyebrow, but I followed his train of thought.

“I need you to hide in the back, and we’ll stow your bike in there somewhere…”

“Hide?”

I didn’t ask why, as the gears chinked in my brain. “Reid has a plan, honey. Can you do that for us? You can play with one of your glow sticks, and it’ll be for only a few minutes.”

“I don’t know…there’s a lot of stuff in there,” Will said, his voice hesitant.

“I have the booster seats, too, Reid. Do we need to hide them?”

“Yeah. This may be the only way.”

We removed the boosters and shuffled my gray storage totes to the back seat. By a great engineering feat, we got Will’s bike tucked in the trunk area as well. Now the totes sat in the back seat and the kid stuff—and the kid—were hidden under blankets in the back space. I was thankful for tinted windows and a large SUV.

I cracked a few glow sticks from Will’s supply and handed them to him. I was about to say “think good thoughts,” but I opted against it. Instead, I handed him his water bottle. “Don’t wiggle and be as quiet as a mouse.”

“Mice squeak.”

“Okay, be as quiet as…” I combed my mind. “A wizard under an invisibility spell?” I tried, weakly. That stuff worked better on Finn.

“Good one, Mom. I got it.” He wedged in, drew the blanket over his head, and was still. “Yuck, it smells like gasoline!”

Reid had moved the spare cans to the back seat. “Sorry, honey. You like hiding though.”

“Yeah, but not in stinky places.”

Once in the front seat, I asked, “Our bikes won’t flag us?”

“Let’s hope not.”

I double-checked our transformed back seat. “Crap. There are stickers on Finn’s window.” Finn’s mishmash of cartoon character stickers was plastered all over his window. Even Will had a few on his window. “It’s tinted, but if they look in the car…”

Reid opened all four windows. “There. The air quality is sort of okay here in town. And it makes for easier inspection.”

“It’ll have to do. And me? I’m not dressed as military.”

“You’ll be okay. You can be civilian. Got any colored tape? Red, specifically?”

“Does masking tape work?”

“Probably not. No bother.”

We joined the lengthening line of angry drivers waiting to continue on Route 50 through Lamar and westward. Each one was being turned around when they reached the barricade that was manned by two police cars. My stomach fluttered. “What is Plan B? You’re killing me here, Reid.”

“Working on it,” he said. “We’re lucky there are only police here and not the National Guard. I saw active army at the mobile hospital, too. I’m sure they will be here soon. We need to get through before they arrive.”

We drifted closer. Now we were the fifth car.

“What’s your brother’s rank?”

“Huh?”

“Rank. In the air force.”

“He’s retired.”

“AJ…,” Reid said, his voice resolute, but his patience wearing thin.

“Uh, let me think.”

“Was he an enlisted airman or an officer?”

“An officer. First Lieutenant.”

“Perfect,” Reid said, gripping the wheel tighter as we drew closer to the front of the line. “This will work in our favor,” he said to himself.

“I don’t understand.”

I peeked over my shoulder at the lump that was Will.

“No more of that. Look forward, okay? He’s all right.”

“Okay.”

“The mobile hospital gave me an idea. You’re a doctor, okay? I’m your escort.”

I nodded. A few minutes later, we reached the front of the line. Reid immediately straightened his posture and put on a serious face, keeping his hands at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions on the steering wheel while staring straight ahead, his attention fixed on the road.

A police officer with dark sleep-deprived smudges beneath his eyes raised his hand. He didn’t look at us or at my out of state license plate as he said, “You need to turn your vehicle around, sir. Go to your home. Wait for your recovery packs to be delivered. No travel beyond this point. Mandatory travel ban.”

“Corporal Reid Gregory. I’ve been ordered to escort Dr. Sinclair to Colorado Springs.” Reid flashed his ID.

The police officer squinted with suspicion and fatigue. He gave the ID a cursory glance. “You’re not in a military vehicle. Do you have written orders?”

Reid carefully clipped his ID onto his jacket pocket. “No, sir, but you can call Schriever Air Force Base and request to speak with First Lieutenant Brandon Monahan, who put in the order.”

The officer pinched the top of his nose and sighed. “One moment.” He trod over to his car and spoke with another officer in the driver seat. This man, whom I presumed to be the supervising officer, drew his scrutiny from a clipboard, stared at us a moment, and then spoke with the other officer with apparent irritation.

The tired officer marched over to us. “What is your purpose there? And your specialty, ma’am?”

“Medical assistance. I’m a pulmonologist,” I said with confidence.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Lung specialist, Officer,” I clarified.

He eyed the totes in the back seat with a few of my carefully folded blankets atop.

“You’re civilian?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

Please don’t ask which hospital, I willed him. I’d have to come up with some BS hospital out of state.

Now I understood about the literal need for red tape. A Red Cross doctor. But I lacked a uniform. Damn, of all the things to need. The boys loved tape. All kinds—masking, duct, packing tape—I drew the line with colored tape.

The officer sighed. He returned to his supervisor.

The man in the car held Reid’s stoic gaze for a long scrutinizing moment. He nodded and gave inaudible orders to the awaiting officer.

“Reid,” I whispered. “How is your ID not expired?”

“It is. Tired police officer and carefully placed finger.”

Impersonating a medical worker and an active army corporal were hefty offenses. We weren’t exactly smuggling in missiles. A child and supplies were nothing to set off alarms.

The officer spun a hand and directed two other officers to move one of the barricades aside. He returned to Reid’s window. “You’ll need to check in at the state patrol Pueblo Troop Office, where air force and United States Army regulatory units are working with the state police force. All vehicles going north toward Colorado Springs and Denver will be inspected, prepped, and monitored, including those with military personnel.”

Reid nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you meeting a convoy to escort you the rest of the way?”

“Yes. National Guard 89th Troop Command in Pueblo,” Reid said.

“The air filters, engines, brakes…everything…is affected by the ash. Civilian vehicles won’t make it much farther north than Pueblo. You’ll need a properly equipped military escort.” He tapped the hood, waved at the other officers, and let us through. “Good luck to you, ma’am,” he said to me.

“Good Plan B,” I said once we were through the barricade and on the road. “You know your stuff.”

“I have a few friends in that troop. A tired officer helped,” he added. “Not sure if it will get us as far as we like, especially once we draw closer to Colorado Springs, but it’s good enough for now. We may need to travel afoot or by bike at some point.”

“You’re telling me that you had planned to sneak in with your uniform all along?”

He shrugged. “Only if it came to it. Like I’d said, if that had been Guard there, we wouldn’t have made it through. Not putting down the police, but the military has different procedures. Tired or not.”

I could understand the need for finding family. Lily must have meant a lot to Reid. I fought the urge to check on Will or to look at the officers in the side view mirror. “Just another minute, Will. Okay there, honey?”

“Squeak!” came his muffled voice. He giggled. I snorted. Love that boy.

“Got through there by the skin of our teeth, huh?” Reid said.

“You can say that. Do you know much about disaster relief?”

“Some.”

“Now that we’re here, fill me in, Corporal Gregory,” I said as light-hearted as I could. The image of that boy’s face still played before my eyes, and if I let it get to me, I would be sick.

“Usually local and state police take care of matters. To federalize the National Guard, it requires written orders from the governors of impacted states. Those orders are sent to the DOD and then to the president. The Guard is the first to be mobilized. The president has released active army to assist as well; that’s the next step. The big guns are coming. This is all good. The military has the resources, capacity, and operational ability to take care of those areas in need. There’s usually a strict divide between civilian forces and military, but the Guard has been called, so all bets are off. As a country, we’ve never experienced a disaster of this magnitude.”

“I see. What’s the deal with Schriever Air Force Base? You think they could be there?”

“Maybe. I was thinking about it. Your brother’s retired air force, and that’s the closest base around that he may be familiar with. Bases will take on refugees if something happened.”

“Like if his plane was downed?”

“Yeah, or diverted. Or if it didn’t take off. It’s only a couple hours’ drive or quick flight from Denver. Your brother could know about that base. If he is as resourceful as you,” he said with an admiring smile.

I nodded. “He is.”

He added, “There are the other bases—Peterson has tight security though. Cheyenne is also an option. And any other mobile hospitals.”

I nodded, digesting all this knowledge. “Still many options.”

“Yeah. We’ll do our best, AJ. We need to check, cross it off, and move on to the next place. The bases have strong infrastructures, medical facilities. It’s quite possible he’s at a base. Or a hospital. Or another place secure enough to house the injured…a stadium, large churches…”

“Can Will come out now?” I asked with another look in the side view mirror.

“Yeah. Come on out, buddy,” Reid said. Will popped up from his hiding place. “We’ll stop in a few minutes to get your booster back in. Hang tight, little guy.”

“Mom, you guys lied to that police officer. Are you gonna go to jail?”

I cringed as I tried dialing Brandon again. Nothing.

“We didn’t lie. We are heading to that base,” Reid said.

“Mom’s not a doctor.”

“She’s a scientist though. Some scientists are called doctor.”

“But Mom isn’t. Dad was a doctor scientist,” Will said.

“No, you’re right. We had to stretch the truth a little,” Reid admitted.

I added, “Sometimes you need to do that. It doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s okay.”

“Are you a soldier? You protect our country from bad guys and stuff, like Uncle Brandon?” Will wiggled around, playing with his glow sticks like wands. In Will fashion, he had already moved on from the subject. Finn would have hounded me on the lying thing. Asking why, why, why. Then filing that information away for another time.

“Yes, I am, or I was,” Reid said. “I’m retired.”

“Will, sit still, honey, until we’re safe enough to get you in your seat.”

He did but smashed the glow sticks together and hummed.

I shared a look with Reid. One hurdle down. On to the next one.