“Are you all right?” Foster asked her.
“Yes, yes. I just feel so bad for her.”
“We all do, and in more ways than one.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she doesn’t have the conveniences of modern medicine, and she’s having a baby in the middle of a war, literally in the middle of a war, Jude.”
“It sounds so close,” Judith said.
“I heard trucks when I was in the garage.”
Judith, who had been pacing, grabbed her chest, felt for the couch and sat down. “Let’s just hope those trucks are our men. I don’t want the enemy rolling down into the garage.”
“The garage and bunker doors are sealed. If anything, we’re trapped in here.”
“Oh, great,” she commented with sarcasm. “That makes it better.”
Foster chuckled. “Wanna go to the garage and listen?”
“To what?”
“Listen to the sounds of the battle.”
Judith shook her head. “No, that sounds….” She winced at another cry from the laboring woman. “You know, what, sounds of the battle might be better. Yes. Let’s go.”
“In other words it’s better than listening to her?”
Judith hesitated before answering. “It’s just that as a mother, it’s a pain you quickly forget but when you hear sounds like that, you remember how bad it was. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“It brings up bad memories.” Judith clarified and held out her arm. “Lead the way Foster. Shadows still all look the same to me.”
Foster took her arm. “I can’t wait to meet your daughter. You’re so funny. What is she like?”
“Linda…. Linda is sensible.”
Foster waited. Judith added nothing further. “Sensible? Just sensible?”
“Yes. She’s an accountant. She’s not a risk taker and that’s the reason I think she’ll believe I am dead.”
“If I were your kid…”
“You are,” Judith corrected. “I adopted you. It may not be legal but in my heart it is. Continue.”
Foster laughed as he led her. “Thank you.” Then he continued. “If I were out there as your kid and not in here, knowing you as I do, I would doubt highly that you had died.”
“Really? With all the destruction and death, you would believe I lived?”
“Absolutely, because you’re the strongest woman I have ever met in my life. You don’t rely on drugs or anything, just God and inner strength. To me, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that you weren’t kicking, screaming and fighting your way to stay alive.”
“Funny,” Judith said. “If I was out there and you were my kin in here, knowing you the way I do, I would say the exact same thing. Nothing would keep you down.”
“We’re a good pair.”
“No, we’re a great pair.” Judith patted his hand and continued her walk with Foster.
Judith’s one and only daughter, Linda Freeman, had a very good position. She was the Assistant Chief Financial Officer at a huge Vegas Casino put her in touch with the right people.
She had a lot of time on he hands, at least in the first week or so after the attacks. Air travel was suspended. No tourists felt like gambling and the sin city was a dead city.
She hoped it would not be so for too long. She expected things to pick up soon.
Linda was certain, felt without a shadow of a doubt, that her mother was alive somewhere in the occupied territory.
Her father, on the other, hand, she felt certain was gone.
She waited every day for the phone to ring. She also waited every day for the medical blackout to be lifted. Since the first attack there had been no word. Initially the media reported the attacks on the states and named the cities that were hit. Though her mother lived in New York, she was on the outskirts and in the area where they claimed people could have survived the attack.
The owner of the casino had received word from the head manger that Linda’s mother was in New York. He told her to have faith and offered to help in any way he could stating the standard, ‘if there’s anything I can do.’
And there was something he could do.
His brother was Senator Craig of Nevada. Surely a senator would know what was going on.
Linda called the Senator’s office every day to find out if there was any news of people coming out of New York. Was there any word of refugees making it out?
Some, she was told, but her mother wasn’t one of them
Her daily phone calls caused a friendship to form between her and the Senator’s assistant. Because of that, she learned things.
Linda knew of the ‘push’ before anyone else did. Linda knew that the ground forces were engaging the enemy even before the push.
And Linda received word before anyone else that the media blackout would be temporarily lifted at 6:00 PM Eastern Time.
One reporter was given information, created the broadcast and the clip would be edited for viewing before it was released.
Linda was given the access code to that clip and she watched it before America did.
The country was finally told that as many as 20 million Americans had lost their lives instantly in the original hits. Those hits included oxygen bombs and nuclear weapons as well as biological and chemical weapons.
