Part 44 (1/2)

”It's never too late, Mike.”

I sighed and returned my gaze to the horizon.

”I'm going to stay down here for a while,” I said to her. ”Is that okay?”

”Come to bed soon.”

”I will.”

With everyone gone, I sat and stared at the glow of Was.h.i.+ngton in the distance, rolling through the images of my trip there and back in my head. To the rest of them, I'd been gone only two days, but to me, it seemed like years. An eternity had pa.s.sed in my mind, and the world had changed.

I sat quietly for an hour or so, the anger was boiling up inside me. Finally, I stood up, turning my back on Was.h.i.+ngton, and walked inside.

Days 37-41 Last Days of January.

THE WEATHER HAD turned overcast and soggy again-miserable weather for going outside, but good weather for fis.h.i.+ng.

”They must have had no choice,” said Susie, still trying to understand what had happened.

We were descending to the Shenandoah River, down the mountain and into the valley toward the west. A fine mist hung in the air.

I hope it doesn't start to rain.

Anything that got wet would stay wet for days. Fog stretched into the distance between the trees. There were only two other cabins on this whole side of the mountain, and we kept away from them on a wooded trail as we wound our way down.

”Maybe you're right,” I replied. ”Maybe this is what war looks like now. I wish I'd been better prepared.”

Modern warfare-over before the first shot was fired.

My mind couldn't help cycling back, remembering what I'd read about the cyber-threat, d.a.m.ning myself for not taking it seriously. I should have done so many things differently, protected Lauren and Luke better. It was my fault.

We reached the river and walked along it. The track was muddy, and I looked for other footprints. None looked fresh.

”You can't prepare for everything,” said Susie after some reflection. ”And maybe this is better.”

The skin on her face was waxen, paper thin and translucent even in the gray light. It was flaking off in chunks near her scalp. She caught me looking, and I quickly s.h.i.+fted my gaze.

”Hey, can we eat that?” I asked, wanting to change the topic.

Brownish, oval pods were hanging from a collection of bushes just off the trail.

”Those are pawpaws,” said Susie. ”Surprising the squirrels didn't get those.”

We walked over to the bush, and she pulled them off.

”They're spoiled, though. These fruit in the fall.” She put them in her pocket anyway.

”So what do you mean, maybe this is better?” I asked as we collected the rest of the spoiled pawpaws.

”I meant that a cyberattack is better than being incinerated by a bomb.”

I said nothing, following along behind as we made our way back to the river. I wondered how the Borodins were doing, what had happened to the captives-if they'd let them go, or if they'd starved to death.

Susie bent down and pulled on one of the fis.h.i.+ng lines we'd set in the bushes. She shook her head, and we advanced to the next one. Tall, thin birch trees rose up out of the banks of the Shenandoah. Yellow leaves carpeted the forest floor. We pa.s.sed by a small set of rapids that gurgled and bubbled. In the pool at the end of them we'd set several lines. The survival guide on my phone said such pools were a good place to fish.

”Maybe we should just surrender,” said Susie.

”To who exactly?”

”The Chinese?”

”You want to walk sixty miles to surrender?”

”There must be someone we can talk to.”

”I don't think that's a good idea.”

After the attack on our first day here, we were too afraid to go near any other cabins. Through the trees we could sometimes see people, but we would stay away, keeping our distance.

”There's always hope, Mike,” said Susie, as if she was reading my mind.

Even if we did give ourselves up, where would we go? Would a Chinese prison camp be any better? I remembered the streams of refugees I'd walked with through Was.h.i.+ngton. Where had they all been going? My mind filled with vague images of old war movies, of concentration camps in steaming forests in Vietnam. It was safer to stay where we were. We had to hide, survive, and do what we could.

”They're going to leave eventually,” she added, thinking what I was thinking. ”They have to. There's no way the UN or NATO would allow them to stay.”

We reached the collecting pool at the bottom of the rapids, and I stepped out onto a rock and reached down to pull on another line. It felt heavy, like it was stuck, and then it began pulling back.

”Hey! We got one. It feels big!”

Catfish in the Shenandoah could get up to twenty or thirty pounds.

”See?” said Susie, smiling. ”There's always hope.”

I pulled the catfish up out of the water, and it dangled helplessly in front of us, trapped by something it didn't understand. I should have been better prepared. I shouldn't have let this happen to my family. As the fish spun on the line, I glimpsed into its eyes, and then grabbed it by the tail and smashed its head against a rock.

Days 42-48 First Week of February.

THE FOREST CAME alive in the light of the full moon.

Moving slowly, silently, I crept through the trees. Tiny creatures scurried in the darkness, and an owl hooted, a haunting bark that echoed in the cool air. A carpet of stars hung above me, visible through the bare branches of the trees. The stars didn't seem distant; they felt close, as if I could climb to the top of the trees and touch them.