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by Richard Stephenson

  “You mean it was actually worse than this? Wow!” exclaimed Chairman Moody.

  “The hardest part was turning off the heavy metal music,” said Butler.

  “Thank God you managed to stop it,” said General Weygandt.

  “Didn’t think President Sterling would set foot in here with that terrible racket blaring,” said Butler.

  “Where is our new president?” asked Director Jimenez.

  General Butler pointed to the end of the hall. “He’s just down here in the library.” Two soldiers were standing at attention outside the door. General Butler paid no attention to them and opened the door. Sterling had flown in the furniture from his office at Number One Observatory Circle. General Butler had focused on cleaning up the library in preparation for the new president’s arrival.

  Simon Sterling was sitting at his desk, lost in his computer, and didn’t hear General Butler enter the room. Simon was a short man in his late sixties. He was Harvard educated and was obsessive about his grooming. He wore the most expensive suits he could afford and spent excessive amounts of money getting his hair cut weekly. He had the reputation of being a snob and always looked down on those who lacked basic fashion sense. Jackson stood in the doorway and cleared his throat, “Mr. President?”

  Sterling looked up from his computer monitor. “Ah, yes! Gentlemen, please come in! My apologies, gentlemen and lady. Miss Reid, I’m glad you could join us here in the Rockies.” The new president was known for his charming manners and extended his hand to Stacy.

  Stacy Reid stepped forward and shook hands with the man she detested, greeting him with the most genuine smile she could muster. “President Sterling, it’s been a long time.”

  “Stacy, I hope I can answer any questions you may have, as I’m sure you have many.”

  Stacy smirked. “Well, yes, I do have a few.”

  “All in good time, my dear. I’m sure you’ll be a valuable asset to our efforts,” Sterling turned to address Carl Moody. “I’m ready for your report, General. Please, everyone, have a seat.”

  Everyone in the room shuffled around to the couches to the right of President Sterling’s desk. Director Jimenez maneuvered his wheelchair around to sit at the right side of President Sterling’s chair. The crusty old spy acted like the decision was random and held no meaning, but everyone in the room understood the symbolism. Everyone looked at Chairman Moody and waited for him to speak.

  “I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is how an Iranian sub made it to our shores undetected and launched a warhead right under our noses. We’re still conducting the investigation; hopefully answers will be forthcoming. We’re under the impression that the radioactive cloud that poured out of Bunker Five was only a diversion to draw our ships out of the Atlantic so they could hit us with an EMP. However, we have a more pressing matter to deal with at the present time – primarily, what to do in the aftermath of the attack.”

  Stacy Reid wore her best poker face and silently wondered if the men in this room didn’t orchestrate the EMP. Perhaps all of this was staged for her benefit. She thought about this possibility and dismissed it; she wouldn’t be sitting in this room if they didn’t trust her. Her presence was the very definition of mutually assured destruction. She was in the company of traitors. The only person in the world who knew she was working undercover was now dead. If the men in this room answered for their crimes, she was going to join them. Proclaiming that she was working undercover for the deceased Malcolm Powers wouldn’t save her; no one would believe her attempt to save her own ass. The one and only thing Stacy Reid wanted to know was who killed the forty-sixth president of the United States. The timing of all of this was just too coincidental. Key members of the government and military plot a coup and in the most amazing stroke of luck, the president is out of the picture. Simon Sterling’s plan to topple Malcolm Powers was no longer necessary. He would be sworn in as president under the provisions of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment right here in Colorado, if they could find a Supreme Court Justice to do the honors. Stacy firmly believed that the assassination of President Powers was not carried out by The Great Empire of Iran, even though the men in this room would certainly lay the blame at their feet. She would spend every waking moment of her life uncovering the truth if she had to.

  Chairman Moody continued. “Luckily, we still have lines of communication with our commanders in the field, and we have doubled our efforts to reestablish the power grid. We have no illusions about restoring the power grid on a national scale; it will be years, if not decades, before we can focus on that. Our goal will be to restore communication and power to our military installations in the affected areas so they can restore law and order.”

  President Sterling spoke up. “And the kid gloves are coming off. Anyone violating our new laws will be considered enemy combatants and dealt with accordingly. Anyone who doesn’t fall in line will regret it.”

  Stacy remained expressionless, nodding her head in agreement. This insane tyrant is going to execute his own citizens! Stacy wondered if he would drop the title of “President’ and adopt something more appropriate, like “Emperor.” She wondered what name he would give to Howard Beck’s Rocky Mountain home. She didn’t care what he called it; she was going to call it “Eagle’s Nest” after Adolf Hitler’s mountain fortress.

  You see, Malcolm, I do know my history. She had to dismiss the thought of Malcolm before she started crying.

  Chairman Moody continued. “We are going to re-task our forces on the other side of the Rockies to begin recovery efforts in strategic locations within the EMP zones. Every generator we can get our hands on will be flown onto military bases all over the eastern United States. We should be able to occupy key cities and consolidate our forces with the week.”

  Stacy almost cringed at the word “occupy” but was able to keep it together by asking, “When will we take back Washington?”

  “Let the rat’s nest burn! I couldn’t care less about Washington,” President Sterling said with disgust.

  Everyone in the room was surprised to hear this. They all assumed Simon Sterling had plans to become the forty-seventh man to sit in the Oval Office.

  Everyone looked at each other, hoping someone would break the awkward silence. Roberto Jimenez was not intimidated, so he was the first to speak. “Mr. President, what are your plans, if I may ask?”

  “As many of you are already aware, our plans have been in motion for over a year now. The day I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my time with a presidential election was a banner day in the history of this nation. I still believe in the virtues of democracy, but our government has twisted and perverted the idea of government into a worthless institution. The people in this room, and others like us, will pick up the pieces of the broken country that Malcolm Powers left us. We will no longer be burdened by layer upon layer of meaningless committees and bickering politicians lying to get a leg up. The journey ahead will be a hard one. It will take time, but I’m confident that our nation will rise to its former glory.”

  Stacy had to fight the urge to scream at his nonsense. She looked around the room to see how everyone else was reacting, hoping to see the slightest hint of disagreement, of caution, or of fear. Everyone in the room was enamored with Simon Sterling. Even Roberto Jimenez looked upon the man with adoration. Stacy was more frightened by this fact than anything else. If Simon Sterling could persuade a man like Roberto Jimenez to join his cause, then the extent of this plot was much worse than she thought.

  General Weygandt addressed everyone in the room. “Do we know what happened at Serenity Hills?”

  Someone finally asked the question to which Stacy desperately needed an answer.

  President Sterling spoke up. “I’m still in shock over the entire thing. After all that’s happened, we have to deal with the shocking truth that our enemy would be so bold as to kill our nation’s leader. I may have disagreed with Malcolm on a great many things, but I would never do him harm. My contention wasn�
��t aimed primarily at him, but rather with the entire federal government in its current, broken state. I knew that he would never willingly step down and let bygones be bygones, but I’d planned to let him live out the rest of his days in peace and hopefully some day come to an understanding. It looks like we’ll never have that chance.”

  “Damn good thing we got out of there when we did,” growled Roberto.

  “Yes, indeed,” President Sterling nodded. “I was looking forward to hearing about how Miss Reid joined our cause.”

  Roberto didn’t give Stacy a chance to tell the story. “Malcolm called us into his office for a meeting. He was actually crying like a baby. The whole thing was pathetic. He was able to calm down long enough to tell us that he wanted to negotiate a treaty with the Empire and let them have Gibraltar. He kept blubbering about how he just wanted to give up and bring our troops home so he could rescue the poor hurricane victims. He said he saw footage from Texas and saw a dog that reminded him of his childhood pet, and he couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Stacy interjected, “I told him I was going to bring in the doctor to help calm him down, and he completely lost it. Kept saying how sorry he was that he let me down.”

  “Let you down?” asked President Sterling.

  “Florida.”

  President Sterling paused for a second before it dawned on him. “Ah! The cover story? You mean he didn’t tell you? He fed you the same lies that he fed to the country?”

  Stacy nodded her head. “Yes, Mr. President, that’s exactly right. I finally got him to stop crying and asked him if he wanted time to think about the war. I figured that in the state he was in, he wasn’t thinking straight. Then he got even angrier with me for questioning him and started talking about launching every nuke we have at the Empire and just get it over with. I tried so hard to get him to calm down. He needed to rest for a few days and let you take over. Told him we could make up any story we wanted — pneumonia or heart problems — anything to let him get his head on straight. That’s when he lost it. I was terrified that he was going to have a heart attack. It got so bad, I’ve… I’ve never seen him like that.” Stacy lowered her head and looked at Roberto to finish the story.

  “I wasn’t happy with how he was speaking to the lady, so I tried to intervene. This poor woman was in tears, and that bastard kept screaming at her like she was a child. Then he fired her right there on the spot and told her to get out of his office. Admiral Mack was speechless. All he could do was try to escort her from the room and reassure her. Then Malcolm raised the alarm and the Secret Service came storming in, whisking her away like a criminal. I was able to convince the president to allow me to take Stacy back to Langley because I was sure he was going to try to have her arrested.”

  Stacy was crying at this point, which was a good thing. If she hadn’t been sobbing with her face buried in her hands, she might have cracked a smile. Malcolm had pulled the whole thing off without a hitch. He was so convincing that it wasn’t difficult for Stacy to break down and play the part of a helpless damsel in distress. As an added bonus, the CIA Director was kind enough to offer an escort from the ranch. Once they were aboard his private jet, Stacy was able to vent all of her “frustrations” to Roberto. She told him that after she found out the truth about Florida, she had tried to resign her position as Chief of Staff but Malcolm wouldn’t let her. Stacy convinced Roberto that Malcolm had made horrible threats about ending her political career if she quit. Roberto believed every bit of her story. He was well aware of what was going on in Florida and was also aware that Stacy Reid was completely in the dark.

  Roberto reigned in a coughing fit and after sipping some water, continued. “When my private jet arrived, we left the ranch and made it to Langley. After I gathered my things, we departed for Fort Collins. Not long after we landed, the EMP struck.”

  Chairman Moody interjected, “Thank God we were already here when it happened.”

  President Sterling nodded in agreement. “Carl, do we think the same submarine that launched the EMP carried out the assassination?”

  “Mr. President, the truth of the matter is we may never know exactly what happened. Serenity Hills was destroyed while we were in complete blackout. Our investigation at President Powers’ ranch is still ongoing. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “See that you do,” sneered President Sterling, “I owe it to the American people to rain down vengeance on those responsible. Roberto, who was still at the ranch when you left?”

  “Admiral Mack and Secretary Decker.”

  “Have we been able to locate them?”

  “No, Mr. President, they are presumed dead along with the President and the First Lady.”

  Simon Sterling walked over to the window, gazing out at the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. “What troubles me now is that half of our country has no idea that President Powers is dead. They also have no idea that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment has transitioned the office of president to me. If we don’t take drastic measures to secure our borders, the Empire of Iran will push us over the Rocky Mountains and occupy half of the North American continent within the month.”

  President Sterling continued to look out the window, and the room was filled with silence. A minute passed and Chairman Moody spoke. “Mr. President, what are your orders?”

  Simon Sterling looked at his reflection in the window and straightened his tie. He fussed over his hair, making certain not a single strand was out of place. “Chairman Moody, I’ll tell you exactly what we’re going to do. We are going to withdraw all our forces from the Iranian Theater and secure our borders. Once that’s done, our troops will join the Unified National Guard and begin occupying every city, every street, every house if that’s what it takes. If anyone left in Washington wants to voice their opposition, they will not be imprisoned. No, that would be a waste of time. We will not waste a single soldier dealing with dissidents. Anyone who protests will be executed.”

  Stacy Reid knew she was listening to a madman who was going to allow the Great Empire of Iran to end the world as they knew it. She also knew without question that the men in this room killed President Malcolm Powers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Silent Warriors of The Great Empire of Iran were engaging in sabotage all over the areas blacked out by the electromagnetic pulse. The good citizens of the United States were doing a fine job of helping the Silent Warriors with the battle. Without the rule of law watching over them, rioting and looting reached an all-time high. However, the Silent Warriors had bigger plans than just cleaning out liquor stores and Best Buys.

  Under the cover of darkness, agents of the Empire unleashed the simplest and most effective means of destruction. Without the aid of emergency services or even simple lines of communication, raging infernos spread from city to city. Before The Pulse, the Silent Warriors considered arson to be a waste of time since local fire departments were able to quickly put out fires. Fires also meant arson investigations, and the risk outweighed the gains. The Pulse changed everything. Subdivisions, shopping malls, churches, schools, libraries, hospitals, and even fire stations burned to the ground. Millions of acres of forestland went up in flames. The wildfires in California that freed Richard Dupree from the Highland Valley State Prison paled in comparison. The only thing that prevented half of the United States from going up in flames was divine intervention. Several weather systems dumped torrential rains across the country and extinguished most of the flames in a couple weeks.

  The Silent Warriors then moved on to their next target — one of the most critical and unguarded elements of the infrastructure of the United States of America. The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, better known as the Interstate Highway System, consisted of 47,447 miles of roads, keeping the United States alive like the blood vessels in the human body. While President Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, he knew his home country needed a system of highways connecting every part of
the country to each other. He championed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, not for reasons of commerce or prosperity, but rather for defense. Eisenhower knew that if a war were ever fought on his home soil, moving troops and supplies over vast distances would be the key to success.

  One might have looked at the attacks as being coordinated and carefully planned, as if the Silent Warriors had held a convention at the local Holiday Inn to pass out orders. No such meeting took place. It was not necessary for them to coordinate anything. The Great Empire of Iran had trained the Silent Warriors to be the perfect saboteurs. Bringing down any structure, no matter the size, only required one thing — destroy its supporting frame. Every structure, from a house to a skyscraper to a bridge, was held together by a frame. Destroy the frame and the structure comes crashing down. What held the United States together as a country was not its economy, its government, or even the Internet. What held the United States together in one piece, what connected each state to the other, was the Interstate Highway System. The interstates funneled food, water and critical supplies to the masses. They brought fuel and building materials from one city to another and one state to another.

  Across the darkness of The Pulse Zone, the Silent Warriors destroyed bridge after bridge using explosives they’d been saving for the Day of Judgment. The most valuable targets were the bridges that spanned rivers and lakes.

  It would be some time before the American people felt the full weight of what The Silent Warriors had done because The Pulse had managed to disable every vehicle in its radius. Corporations frantically had replacement parts shipped from the unaffected west coast to repair disabled vehicles. Shipping companies diverted every spare eighteen-wheeler from to West Coast to The Pulse Zone, trying to keep their businesses from going bankrupt. Traffic and trade would soon come to a standstill.

  In less than a week, the eastern half of the United States was crippled. Everyday citizens were not immediately affected since few traveled far from their homes, and practically no one had a working vehicle anymore. The Second Great Depression was very cruel to every market touched by transportation. With gasoline hovering around fifteen dollars a gallon, it rose sharply to twice that amount when fuel tankers from the West Coast ended up stranded on the interstates with nowhere to go. A few truckers were able to exit onto other highways and back roads but were quickly hijacked by bandits looking to score a resource now worth more than its weight in gold. Gas stations soon heard of the hijackings and stranded trucks and began to raise their prices. The storeowners knew they might not be able to sell gas for a long time and wanted to make what little money they could before it was too late. They also held onto a decent amount of gas for themselves.