The Last President Read Online Free PDF Page A

ago?”
    One of Jenny’s friends had found a bag of plastic soldiers, unspoiled by biotes, under a pile of cotton fabric in a wrecked Hobby Lobby, and knowing that now that they were uncovered they would rot within a week or so, had buried them upside down in wet sand and poured molten solder into them, creating lumpy, ungainly “solder soldiers.” They had made Grayson laugh when he’d unwrapped them.
    â€œYou’ve been shoving them around on that map all morning.”
    â€œIt’s a way to think. The guys standing at attention represent my reserves; firing from one knee, front line infantry. Bazookas stand for artillery, bayoneters for cavalry. Daybreakers are grenade throwers.”
    Now that she could read it, she saw how grim the layout on the map was. “And if it all depends on stopping eleven attacks all at once, with only one army—”
    â€œThat’s our biggest advantage, that it won’t be all at once—the only good news that Heather O’Grainne’s intel operation had for us. The tribals’re planning to hit first along the upper Ohio, where it’s a shorter distance to better looting, and then unroll the attacks down the Ohio and up the Wabash—the Wabash hordes are farthest away from their own supplies, and will have to travel a long way through country that’s already been looted and burned over, so they’ll start last.”
    â€œWhy don’t they go in random order? You’d never be able to catch them—”
    â€œIf it were me, I might. I think it’s because of their non-command non-structure; ‘go after these guys do’ is a real easy rule. And it does mean that to some extent they support each other, and maybe it’s so the first one to get past me can focus on blocking me while the others get in.
    â€œBut anyway, assuming Heather got the truth out of them, the plan is, I match their schedule, hitting them with spoiling attacks down the Ohio and up the Wabash.” His arm swept over the map in a crooked L shape. “They’ll be most vulnerable just before they’re ready to attack—greatest troop concentrations and smallest remaining supplies. If I beat them to
every
punch, it can be eleven massacres instead of eleven battles, but they only need to be lucky once, and I have to be lucky eleven times. Luckier than Braddock, at least.”
    â€œIf you need to be very, very lucky, then we’re in good shape, because you are.” Jenny rubbed her hair with a towel again, pretending to dry it while making sure she was disheveled the way he liked; the motion stretched her just enough to slightly open her bathrobe.
Jeff’s arrogance is his armor, and I can’t let there be a hole in his armor.
“This time be gentle, ’kay, baby?”
    AN HOUR LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 3:35 PM MOUNTAIN TIME. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2025.
    The Christmas tree in the corner of Heather’s living quarters hypnotized Leo; he gurgled happily whenever she put him close to it.
    I’ll need to get rid of that fire hazard before the New Year, even though Leo loves it.
    While she waited for James, she redid her master chart, the layout of file cards, slips of paper, thumbtacks, and string by which she tracked her efforts to—
    Leo had gotten a body width closer to the tree by rolling onto his back, the first time he’d ever done that, and was now grabbing for the ornaments just out of his reach. Heather propelled all six-feet-one of herself around the table to her son, who fortunately had not yet acquired or ingested anything. “So,” she said, “you’ve got a new trick, turning over. Wait till I tell MaryBeth. She’ll get such a kick out of telling me that you’re a normal kid and I worry too much.”
    â€œAh!”
    She moved him farther from the tree, and returned to her chart.
    A knock. “Heather, it’s James, they’ve apparently decided I can be