by Td Barnes
****
Department of Homeland Security Operations, Nevada National Security Center - Same time:
Unlike her brother and her parents, Samantha “Sammie” Bradley did not get her beauty sleep. In fact, she did not sleep at all. She could not accompany her parents to Tonopah because of her being an essential element of the intelligence world monitoring the situation in the Middle East.
At about the same time that her parents bedded down in Beatty the previous evening, she prepared to do the same at her small dormitory home away from home. A DHS heads up of things starting to pop in the Middle East screwed her plans for a good night's sleep, confining her, instead, to the control center to monitor the missile exchange. She received notification of the NORAD detection of the missile launch in Taiwan while monitoring the situation in the swiftly unraveling Middle East. Thus, she remained glued to the military Internet and communications net. The EMP hit caused the lights to flicker when the commercial power grid dropped, and the EMP-protected generator kicked in; however, neither she nor any of the others realized that the United States no longer needed a Department of Homeland Security until they discovered their communications network being down.
****
T plus 2 days.
The sun peeked over the mountainous horizon, its sunbeams illuminating the eastern slopes to peel away the darkness like the removal of a blanket. The rising sun casts long shadows behind the vegetation. It’s brightness blocked out the Aurora light display, making it just another ordinary hot day in the Mojave Desert. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, allowing the viciously hot rays of sunlight to shoot through the damaged ozone layer to attack the sparse succulent desert vegetation and anything living.
A wary jackrabbit hopped amid the shadows at the base of an arroyo to prevent being spotted by an soaring eagle or hawk. Occasionally a kangaroo rat or a ground squirrel darted from one clump of cactus to another. A small swirling dust devil skipped through the sparse vegetation to welcome in the day.
The sudden loud scream of an aircraft engine violated the silent tranquility of the desert when an F-16 fighter jet from Nellis Air Force Base screamed down the valley. Directly over the town, it entered a sharp climb to clear the surrounding hills. A second plane followed the ascent of the first and followed its trajectory in a high g turn to return towards Nellis outside of Las Vegas.
“Thank God we still have an Air Force,” he thought, watching the planes disappear like supersonic mirages flying a mere 2,000 feet above the heat-glimmering desert floor. The aircraft flew over a small mountain range that bounced the Doppler sound effect of the planes' engines to make them sound drastically louder. The aircraft went supersonic through Mach one, causing evanescent waves of two sonic-boom concussions to rumble across the desert floor. By the time the sound reached him, the planes were seven miles from his location.
A startled small, harmless, night-hunting banded-gecko darted from beneath a little bush when some small rocks suddenly tumbled past its hiding spot. A small tailing pile and the head frame marked the presence of an old mine portal far in the distance. A growth of creosote bushes, a strongly tar-scented evergreen of the caltrop family of the earth's oldest living organism covered much of the portal.
The desert wildlife appeared impervious to the plight of the humans sharing the Mojave Desert with them. Several large golden eagles soared through the early morning air in search of prey, their six-foot wingspan allowing them to remain motionless while their keen vision searched for mice, kangaroo rats, chipmunks, and young jackrabbits. One of the eagles suddenly spotted a mouse. The giant bird swooped down on the rodent to grasp it with a mighty talon and settle on the ground. The eagle flapped its massive wings a few times to move itself and its prey onto a large rock.
Bradley witnessed all this unfolding while taking an early morning walk to formulate in his mind what he needed to do. Originally, he had intended only to play an advisory role to pass on his knowledge while staying out of the operations loop but now found himself sliding into the command structure of the Beatty colony anyway. Too many areas existed where only he possessed the knowledge needed to ensure the survival of Stacey and his newfound friends in Beatty whose friendship now added to his responsibilities.
Thus far, matters appear to have progressed better than expected of ordinary citizens. Harry Cordosa no longer having highway patrol duties accepted at Bradley’s suggestion the position of head of security to protect the motor pool, fuel storage tanks at the various service stations, food storage center, plus the arms and supplies stored in the former Exchange Club.
George Hatfield, a 52-year old veteran with 20 years at the Nevada Test Site and 10 years with Homeland Security took charge of the first responders, which included the town nurse, Suzie Martin. Hatfield rounded up all available Geiger counters and a couple of Hazmat suits for the event they might later be needed.
Local rancher, Don Pierce, 49 years old, organized the rest of the ranchers and farmers who inventoried their livestock and equipment used for agriculture. He and the other farmers were drilling a well for water with intent to equip it for wind power. They and any available carpenters were also constructing greenhouses for growing vegetables behind the old Exchange Club.
Stacey, insisting on having a community responsibility, accepted an offer from the mayor to assist her with community organizing of the other women and children for the different jobs and volunteer positions needed to support the other activities.
Sonic booms still rattled the town from planes flying high overhead. Most contrails headed in the direction of the Naval Air Station based in Fallon, Nevada, a fallback naval facility established during WWII to launch missions against the Japanese should they strike the West Coast. The air station evolved into a versatile, comprehensive training facility known to aviators around the world the pinnacle of air warfare training and the home of the Navy’s Top Gun exercises. The volume of flights appearing in the skies over Beatty seemed to have diminished the last couple of days. An F-18 Hornet had surprised everyone yesterday when it roared down the valley along Highway 95 and passed low over the town, dipping its wings in greeting. The plane returned a few minutes later and circled over the town before disappearing in the direction of Nellis Air Force Base. The two jets, checking on the town this morning at least indicated a concern for the survivors at Beatty. The significance of the flights bore no meaning to Bradley at this point. He assumed the Air Force might be monitoring the exodus of refugees headed their way from Las Vegas.
Last evening, Mayor Robinson had assisted Bradley in setting up a command post under a tree outside the sheriff’s substation entrance to escape the lack of air conditioning inside. Without air conditioning, everyone now worked and slept outdoors to avoid the heat.
He checked in at the command post after his walk to find Robinson sitting in his chair while answering inquiries from the locals on about everything imaginable. Everyone now wanted to know the significance of the overhead flights. She thought he might know, but he shrugged his shoulders to indicate his not understanding. They did not have long to wait before the arrival of a possible explanation for the Air Force’s interest in them.
He recognized the sound first and jerked his head in the direction of three HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters entering through the pass south of town. The loud rotor sounds of the helicopters reverberated off the walls of the mountains surrounding Beatty when they entered the town and settled down on the softball diamond.
He and the rest of the town stopped any activity to watch troops dismounting from the helicopters with full combat equipment and arms. The mayor, deputy, and Bradley continued conferring while observing the arrival with curiosity, waiting until the rotors stopped and the dust settled before getting up. The three of them stepped out of the shade of the building to greet an Air Force colonel, an Army captain, and an Army sergeant when they left the helicopters. The new arrivals saw them and headed their way.
“Good morning. I am Colonel Simmons. T
his is Captain Callahan and Sergeant Major Weston. We are looking for a Colonel Bradley.”
Bradley still wore his western attire and realized the Colonel was apparently looking for someone in uniform. He wondered what the Air Force colonel thought while he acknowledged his identity. “I am Colonel Bradley. We are euphoric to see you, Colonel. I assume you are here on military business. If you will follow me, sir,” he said. He turned and headed them to a shade tree closer to the helicopters and away from listening ears.
The captain and sergeant took their leave and joined their troops. The two colonels hunkered down to talk.
“I must say that I am surprised that anyone knew where to find me,” Bradley said.
“I have no idea on that, Colonel. I am to tell you that General Hanson sends his regards, and to let you know that your bit of wizardry changed the course of the war in the Middle East. He said it delivered a ‘do not screw with us’ message to China. I would be happy to learn what this means someday. General Hanson requests that you remain on post here. Again, I would love to hear the wisdom on that also,” he said with a questioning smile.
Bradley smiled but said nothing.
“Why am I not surprised? The Nevada desert hides many of our nation’s deepest secrets. I have delivered to you a few members of the national guard of our Battle Born state of Nevada, seasoned combat troops that the Battle Born name implies. We brought you a solar-powered, radiation-harden radio that will tie you into the Intel loop. We’re also hooking you up in the military Internet where you will have access to both SPIRANT and INTELINK.”
Bradley elected to ignore for the moment the request for him to stay put. What could he possibly do elsewhere? “I am surprised that the military internet is still working. We have nothing but fried silicon electronic components here, and I imagine that is true throughout the US,” Bradley said. “We do have a few battery-operated radios that work, but they receive only static.”
The colonel stared into space for a moment before replying. “Despite our military-grade shielding, our special military channels are barely working. We have a considerable amount of silence on the circuits. We suspect our lowest bidder for EMP hardened electronic components worked out of China. That is who we suspect triggered the EMP.”
Bradley inhaled deeply before somberly stating, “I feared that being the case. Since the early 1990s, we have built all our new weapon systems with a waiver for EMP hardening essentially. We quit hardening against EMP, even after 9/11. Back to your comments from General Hanson about China, I am afraid that I am like the legendary Rip Van Winkle. While I slept, I missed out on what happened and to whom.”
The Air Force colonel noticed Bradley’s knowledge of the military having dropped the ball on EMP protection. “Sorry, Colonel. I am not thinking,” he said. "You have obviously been out of the loop on world events. The Chinese launched an SLBM from a submarine off the coast of Taiwan, and it somehow forgot the coordinates and returned to its mama. One of China’s latest and finest; a ten-cluster nuke took Beijing off the map. We suspect they hit the doomsday button on the way out.”
Bradley focused his gaze towards the horizon while his mind digested the report on China. “And the Israeli situation?” He queried, though believing that he might not want to know. It depended on the answer. He was aware that he probably influenced the Israelis in their end game and certainly hoped not their doom.
“News is scarce these days, but before the Chinese EMP took out several of our satellites, it appeared Israel did not get hardly a scratch. Syria and Lebanon both launched nukes given to them by China, but took each other out instead and dumped the rest on Iran. China also provided Iran with missiles with nuke warheads that turned and targeted their source like the missile that hit Beijing. Iran is a wasteland. Iran’s years of doing the diplomatic dance of deceit and empty bluster are over. Its oil reserves are flowing from broken pipelines and are dumping into the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is an environmental nightmare, and there is not a thing that anyone can do about it.”
While the two talked, the soldiers unloaded more boxes of supplies than one could imagine the helicopters could carry. The Army captain returned to where the two were talking. “Sir,” he said, addressing Bradley. “We brought you some MREs, Meals Ready to Eat. Where would you like them placed?”
Bradley stood up and looked around for Cardosa. He spotted him and directed the captain to him. “Cardosa is our head of security. Tell him that I said the MREs are to go into our reserve.” Bradley thanked the captain for the meals ready to eat supplies and turned his attention back to the Air Force colonel. He needed to know much more. He glanced up at the sun. “Ozone layer is shot to hell. You will notice I have everyone wearing a head cover. We are using sunscreen until we run out of it. I expect that we will see the women wearing sunbonnets again as they did in the dust bowl days,” he said.
The colonel had started to say something but decided to let it slide when Bradley interrupted him to order the MREs placed in storage. “It’s a hell of a lot worse over the Midwest. Best we can tell the device detonated in a high orbit somewhere over southwestern Oklahoma. Blew a hell of a hole in the Ozone layer there. The sun has a straight shot through the stratosphere over much of the country.”
What happened to the rest of the country since the EMP attack naturally weighed heavily on Bradley’s mind. He did not have the faintest clue of what happened to his home, his staff, and friends in Alabama. Are they surviving — is someone taking care of our horses? Did the United States still have a centralized government? Did the Defense Intelligence Agency even have a chain of command or purpose? If not, where did this place him concerning the United States Army? Did the United States still have an Army for him to be a colonel of? These questions surged to the focus of his mind. “Talk to me, Colonel,” he said. “What is the situation?”
The Air Force Colonel shook his head. “It is everything that we chose to close our minds. You obviously know that we shielded our power grid against lightning strikes, but never tested for protection against an EMP. Losing the electricity grid stopped food production here and abroad. Any long power distribution lines picked up the EMP and amplified it. The surge fried every transformer in the system. Imagine the big bang that created the universe. That is what happened with the EMP. Once it hit the power and phone lines, it traveled wherever they branched with no regard to our borders. It covered the entire continent of North America. No one can pump water without electricity, so while we speak major cities, including Las Vegas are out of water. Las Vegas has two million people now storing the water from anywhere they can find it. It is a matter of time until everything is gone. Many are also starting to run out of food. The gangs are already taking control of entire districts of the city. North Las Vegas and downtown Las Vegas are already out of control to roving gangs. It is about to get worse. I have heard of tourists jumping out of the windows of the high-rise hotels downtown along the Fremont Experience and along the Strip. They say the dead are creating a large stack of bodies where they land. Having no one to remove them, they are decaying, and the smell is unbearable.”
“Mass suicides and gang takeovers are predictable in about any large city. Our military?” Bradley asked.
“Bad. Repeating what you said, we stopped hardening our electronics a while back. The failures are very high in both our aircraft and weapons systems. Considering how the US military has added sophisticated electronics to the full range of its arsenal during the last few years, our armed forces proved to be much more vulnerable to an EMP attack than expected.”
Bradley nodded knowingly. He said, “We built our electronic technology largely around consumer-grade semiconductor devices, which are highly sensitive to any power surge. Even rudimentary vacuum tube technology stood a better chance of surviving an E-bomb attack than what we have.”
“Amen to that. Political trade agreements among nations had us buying shit to please a politician. Rarely do we see a made in the USA on anything? In an
y case, the EMP attack compromised our military's ability to organize itself. Our ground troops have perfectly functioning non-electric weapons like machine guns, but not the equipment to plan an attack or locate the enemy. This EMP attack effectively reduced our military units into a guerilla-type army. It neutralized many of our vehicles, including aircraft, causing catastrophic losses when many of our planes fell out of the sky. That also happened to thousands of civilian aircraft over the world. Our military trucks and Humvees fared fairly well, except those dependent upon GPS functions. Our armed forces electronic hardware experienced different survival stats depending on the source of the commercial-off-the-shelf components. Merely because the manufacturer met the classified MIL-STD-2169 High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse Environment requirements did not mean they survived the EMP. The ugly truth about high altitude EMP is no amount of shielding, save burial deep under hundreds of feet of rock or dirt, being adequate to protect sensitive microelectronics. So much today depends on computer control using electronics, delicate and sensitive to small levels of excess voltage. This attack proved that it is nearly impossible to make a practical sensor, communication system, or avionics control that interfaces with the outside world and yet is adequately isolated against large pulses. Regarding military personnel, we released many of our less essential personnel to return to their families.”
“Good God,” Bradley muttered. Looking into the eyes of the Air Force colonel, he said. “Releasing the military personnel to fend for themselves is worse than emptying our prisons. There is no way they can return to their homes, so in effect, we are forcing highly trained people to use their skills to survive in a dog eat dog world. Prisoners are hardened to survival and void of the scruples of a civilized environment. When it comes to survival, those with military training must lower their scruples to those of the criminals. The warlords will seek out the military for their combat skills to create private armies.”
