Chapter 1 Monday Morning Ila (Mom)

After pulling my sweater around my shoulders, I opened the document in my inbox: Directives concerning the eminent “winds” attack of Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. Highlighted text outlined optimal survival procedures, and a map pinpointed the previously destroyed bases and outlying areas in westerly towns.  

Some coworkers called home to talk to a loved one, perhaps for the last time. Many of the women wandered off to the restroom with tissues in hand. I needed to move, and I followed when the youngest project manager in my area, Telisha, headed toward the water cooler.

Telisha leaned against the wall and stretched her neck from one side to the other. “Wow, the last email really spelled it out. While we’re waiting to be attacked, what do they have you doing, Ila?” she asked.

Amazing, I thought, we’re about to die, and she’s still channeling gossip. No problem. I came for info, too.

“I’m watching monitors at different airports,” I answered. “I’m not sure who or what I’m looking for.” We both knew we’d been directed to report ‘anything suspicious.’ “With my military background, I guess they think I can smell an insurgent through a computer screen.”

“You can’t?” she teased.

“I’m just a forty-something civil servant these days. Same as Elias-hubby. We’re not as sharp as we used to be,” I said, winking and raising my coffee mug in a mock toast.

“I’m taking screen shots of certain weather patterns,” Telisha admitted.

I stood on my toes to stretch my calves. “Doing grunt work for a meteorologist?”

“Yep, some weather man with a PhD. from D.C. gained some attention with a hypothesis. Appears to me the upper echelon meteorologists are grasping at straws.”

“How do you know?” I asked as I refilled my mug with hot water for tea before returning to my desk.

“We’re all doing something different with new ‘experts,’ Telisha said, drawing quotes in the air with her fingers. “The general has flown experts in from universities, bases, or the Pentagon.” She pointed with her right hand toward our coworkers.  “People in cubicles 1-6 are all manning sensors tracking every kind of wave you can imagine, radio to light,.” With her left hand she pointed down the hall behind me. “And engineers in desks 9-15 down that hall say they are doing nothing but watching traffic patterns via satellites. If the generals had a real clue, we’d be more focused.”

I held my cup with both hands, grasping at its warmth to calm my nerves. “Well, they have us all watching something around Dayton from what I hear, so we’re focused alright.”

Refilling her cup, she said, “Yep, and the experts have arrived here. The Pentagon thinks we’re next. Little Dayton, Ohio with a big, major base will be next for an attack from “the winds.” How are your kids handling this?”

“Nan is too young to understand, you know,” I said.  “Elias and I discussed moving her from the preschool across the street, but since the winds destroyed the bases plus random parts of the town in previous attacks, it wasn’t a better option. Since we have the tunnels at the base, we decided Nan might be safer here.”

“Your teenagers? Where’s their school, again?”

“I’m definitely worried about Josh and Samantha at Chaminade-Julienne downtown. They have a small basement area, but it’s too small to hold the school’s population. They’re frightened. We’re all frightened. Why don’t you go back to your parents’ ranch in Texas since you don’t have a husband, a mortgage, or family holding you here?” Our team had been debriefed concerning the Texas attack, and how they fought off the insurgents unlike the other states.

“I have a sense of duty, you know,” Telisha sniffed. “You don’t have to be in the military to want to do your part and save your country, even if it is just sitting at a desk and watching radar screens.”

We both walked back down the aisle. “One pattern makes sense even to me,” I added. “The radicals have taken control of major footholds from Hawaii to Texas. There has to be a reason for moving from west to east.”

No matter how boring or annoying our assigned jobs had become, we understood our Intel might mean something to someone—someone who could stop the winds. We worked tirelessly until the attack came later that morning.

On that disastrous morning, the low hum started—the hum described by the survivors at westward bases.

“Reporting, data secured,” we called to one another with panicky voices before leaving our computers and fleeing to the tunnels.

In the aisle way, a colonel called, “Ila, follow protocol. Come to the tunnels. The teachers will bring Nanette.”

“Sir, no sir. She’s only four. She needs her mother,” I shouted, almost reaching the lobby.

Opening the door, I hoped and prayed I wouldn’t be swept away before I dashed across the parking lot to my daughter’s preschool.

At the Daycare’s door, several of the teachers almost mowed me over while scuttling from the building.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I yelled. “The wind! The children?!”

The wind started to whistle slightly. We had been told: whistling meant it grew in strength. My words were caught by the wind and blown back reminding me of my mission. I watched from behind the closed, glass-front door as one of the teachers made it to her car and pulled away. The others, who had parked farther away from the building, were literally picked up and carried into the sky. Praying, text message-style to heaven <Help>, I didn’t wait to watch whether or not they would smash into the concrete or continue to fly. With sorrow I acknowledged—there but by the grace of God go I—wherever they went. Turning, I kicked off my high-heel shoes just inside the door, and did double-time toward my daughter’s room.

The teachers who remained in the building followed protocol. The three youngest, most athletic teachers had strapped on the cloth apron-like baby carriers made for such emergencies. Each carrier held six babies in large pockets so each teacher could evacuate numerous babies while running efficiently carrying a seventh baby if necessary.

The older workers shushed the toddlers, directing them to hold onto the rope and to walk together toward the door leading into the tunnels. I helped secure the last baby into one of the large pockets in the baby carrier, and the three young teachers jogged with incredible poise ahead of us as fast as they could, but carefully, intending to protect the twenty infants. The wide-eyed, wide-mouthed infants almost all howled, and no one could comfort them. Another quick prayer—<God’s speed.>

Each of the remaining women, including me, encouraged the toddlers to walk toward the tunnel door. Even though the youngsters were accustomed to walking in such a manner, they were slow. By the time we had moved a few feet, the young teachers had trotted up the hall, through the first door, and out of sight. My building angst wanted to grab Nan alone and run, but my Marine training told me to work with my team and take everyone with me alive. Considering our collective height, we were a very short unit, but yet, we were in this together, and we needed to carry on together.

Placing Nan behind me in the second command position, I held her hand and encouraged her. “You’re the oldest. That makes you the top-ranking soldier in your line, so set a quick pace.” <Need patience.> Although I attempted to force a smile, parental anxiety twisted it back into a worried frown.

Before we walked halfway down the hall toward the first door, now swung shut, a small band of rebels opened the Daycare’s back door, a service entrance. Three of them spoke all at once in Arabic. The fourth one, the one with a British accent, shouted in English, “Bloody hell. Told you we stopped one building short, right? This looks like a lot of duff to me.”

Looking wild-eyed and wearing crazed expressions, all four of them surrounded us and pointed automatic weapons at various heights. The most distraught-looking captors lowered guns at the toddler’s heads.

 “They’ll pull at America’s heartstrings, even if they weren’t what we had in mind,” said the tallest Middle Eastern man with a heavy accent.

The pudgy mercenary moved his gun point, leveling off at my midsection. “The women would be easy to guard if we take them.”

<Mercy.>

 “When it comes to women and children, Americans are weak,” Tall-man said again. Once the gusts die down, our comrades will need to bargain. Take these.” His minions followed orders, sending one teacher ahead leading seven children with the rope and. Nan, myself, 3 other preschoolers and 3 other teachers remained as hostages.

The commander squinted at the video cameras mounted in the corners. He spoke a few sentences in Arabic and ended his directions with “Yellah, yellah.” My Arabic had become rusty, but I knew yellah meant “hurry.” With their guns pointing the way, we were all bound for the back service entrance.

<Please, no, God.> “I just saw several women blown off the ground into the sky out there,” I said to them. “You can’t take us outside. Come with us to the tunnels, and for your cooperation—”

The Arabic commander cocked his gun, said something to the Brit in Arabic, and the Brit said to me, “We parked an Army truck against the service doors. Hopefully, we’re out of the area before we’re tossed. Walk, lady. I almost lost my life at the last base due to a dawdler. If you don’t walk, I’ll shoot you here in front of the kids. I assume that one is yours,” he said pointing his gun at Nan who grasped my hand and pushed her face into my skirt.

We walked past the front door, and as I slipped my feet back into the high-heel shoes I had shed. I recalled a debriefing meeting in which I had seen pictures of the hostages from Texas. Recalling the bullet-riddled remains of the Texas captives, I hoped our negotiations wouldn’t compare to Texas’ outcome. Texans sacrificed their hostages and fought to win back their base. Surely, Ohio has learned from that experience and will counter-attack differently.

Our captors were right about one point, I thought. The children would be my weakness. To protect my child, I survived. To survive I walked, one high heel in front of the other.