Earth Shine

by Jerry Ahern

  Daniel Hasher spoke, “Gentlemen, when the President briefed me on this information, I activated certain ‘technical’ assets’ of our electronic and systems surveillance; you know them as the ‘hacker squad.’ That team has been able to penetrate communications in the Extremely Low Frequency bands. As you all know, ELF or sub-radio frequencies have a variety of uses, not the least of which is to communicate with submarines and other submerged targets.”

  “Due to its electrical conductivity, seawater shields submerged targets from higher frequency radio waves, making radio communication with those submerged targets impossible. Signals in the ELF frequency range, however, can penetrate much deeper. There are two factors which limit the usefulness of ELF communications channels: the low data transmission rate of a few characters per minute and, to a lesser extent, the one-way nature due to the impracticality of installing an antenna of the required size on a submarine. The antennas need to be of exceptional size for the users to achieve successful communication. Generally, ELF signals were used to order a submarine to rise to a shallow depth where it could receive some other form of communication.”

  “In other words, effective ELF communications are extremely limited and the transmissions difficult to capture, unless you are monitoring that exact frequency at the exact time of the transmission. However, our satellites are capable of monitoring and recording all radio transmissions at whatever frequency. Review of those recordings, now that we know what we were looking for, have detected radio transmissions from a here-to-for unknown source off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula that were directed toward the KI fleet in geo-orbit above the continent of Antarctica.”

  Darkwater frowned, “How is it possible from an ELF transmission in the northern hemisphere to contact the KI fleet on the underside of the planet?”

  “The message was actually bounced using our own satellite system,” Hasher said. “It was ricocheted around the world. The messages were in the frequency range of 0 to 300 Hz; these wavelengths in air are very long, 6000 km at 50 Hz and 5000 km at 60 Hz; and, in practical situations, the electric and magnetic fields act independently of one another and are measured separately.”

  “Why are we just now finding out about this?” Darkwater said.

  Rourke spoke, “Before I came into this information, we did not know we were looking for anything. The messages were invisible because we weren’t looking for them.”

  Hasher continued, “This type of communication is not only what we use to communicate with our submersed ships, but it is the exact system that was used by the old Soviet/Russian Navy using SIASs or Submarine Integrated Antenna Systems. In any event, once I knew to look for something, we found it and the location from where the communications originated. This enabled us to confirm and validate the information the President is talking about.”

  Darkwater nodded, “And, I assume we have now identified linkage with the KI?”

  Rourke nodded, “Affirmative, we have tracked shuttle activity between the KI and the Kamchatka Peninsula. We also have been able to locate communications between a submerged vessel that left that area and appeared for a short time off our coast, then departed. The timelines indicate they probably disembarked the suicide team that took Paul Rubenstein hostage.”

  Retired Rear Admiral Hank Sanders, past Director for the Farragut Technical Analysis Center, said, “As Captain Hasher said, this is old technology we are familiar with, but we have never seen it used in this manner. But now that we are aware, we’re on top of it.”

  “So, what’s the next step, Mr. President?” Darkwater asked.

  “It is apparent there has been some sort of Russian outpost we did not know about before. It is apparent there has been contact between the KI and that outpost. It is apparent some type of alliance is being forged between that outpost and a faction of the KI that is directed at us.”

  “‘Us’ being the United States?” Darkwater asked.

  “No, Jason,” Rourke said. “‘Us’ being the human race.”

  Darkwater stood, “What now Mr. President?”

  Derek Billings spoke for the first time, “We are putting together a joint operation of both land and undersea forces. The undersea branch will be disguised as normal naval operations that just happen to be in the area. We had training exercises already scheduled and simply moved the area we’ll conduct them in. The land operation will be a penetration and insertion onto the Kamchatka Peninsula. If all of the members of the Lockout agree, we will identify, contact, and hopefully eliminate that Russian threat once and for all.”

  Rourke spoke again, “We suspect there is an element of the Russian Spetsnaz and Navy that we did not know about, possibly in a facility similar to Mid-Wake that has operated invisibly since the last defeat of the known Russian army almost 20 years ago.”

  “When do we move?” Darkwater asked. “Gentlemen, I believe it is time for us to vote and make our recommendations to the President. All in favor of initiating this plan...”

  All raised their hands. Darkwater turned to Michael Rourke, “Mr. President, do I have your permission to initiate?”

  Rourke looked at each person in turn, lowered his head, and spoke a silent prayer before speaking, “Yes, Jason. Initiate.”

  Darkwater walked to the President’s desk, picked up his phone, dialed a number, and said simply, “Initiate.” Turning back to the group, he asked, “When do we go?”

  Billings checked his watch before answering, “My team leader and his team are currently on standby awaiting our instruction. Their briefing will begin in 15 minutes.”

  Darkwater nodded, “Alright then, now where are we standing on the conspiracy?”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The Military Weather Intel Specialist from the Office of Naval Intelligence began her briefing, “Maritime influences are most pronounced with annual precipitation which can reach as high as 98 inches, while the southeast coast south of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky generally receives around 53 inches of rainfall equivalent per year. Considerable local variations exist; southern parts of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky metropolitan area can receive as much as 17 inches more than the northern part of the city. Temperatures here are very mild, with summer highs no more than 59°F and winter lows around 18°F, whilst diurnal temperature ranges are seldom more than 9˚F due to persistent fog on exposed parts of the coast. South of 57˚N, there is no permafrost due to the relatively mild winters and heavy snow cover, whilst northward discontinuous permafrost prevails. Be glad the operation is occurring now.”

  “The west coastal plain has a similar climate, though rather drier with precipitation ranging from 35 inches in the south to as little as 17 inches in the north, where winter temperatures become considerably colder at around −4 °F. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench which is 34,400 feet deep. The Kuril-Kamchatka Trench or Kuril Trench is an oceanic trench in the northwest Pacific Ocean. It lies off the southeast coast of Kamchatka and parallels the Kuril Island chain to meet the Japan Trench east of Hokkaido. It extends from a triple junction with the Ulakhan Fault and the Aleutian Trench near the Commander Islands, Russia, to the intersection with the Japan Trench.”

  “The trench formed as a result of the subduction zone that formed in the late Cretaceous, which created the Kuril Island as well as the Kamchatka volcanic arc. The Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the Okhotsk Plate along the trench, resulting in intense volcanism. Now, for your specific purposes, be advised there is a road from Bolsheretsk to Petropavlovsk and another from this road up the central valley with a bus service to Ust-Kamchatsk. The northern end of the road is of poorer quality. Apart from the two roads, transport is by small plane, helicopter, four-wheel drive truck, and army truck.”

  Pointing at a place on the graphic, “This obvious circular area in the central valley is the Klyuchevskaya Sopka, an isolated volcanic group southeast of the curve of the Kamchatka River. West of Kronotsky Point is the Kronotsky Bio
sphere Reserve with the Valley of Geysers. At the southern tip is the Southern Kamchatka Wildlife Refuge with Kurile Lake. There are several other protected areas: Palana is located in the Koryak area on the northwest coast and Opala volcano in the southern part of Kamchatka. There is considerable variation, however, between the rain-drenched and heavily glaciated east coast and the drier and more continental interior valley.”

  “In the interior valley of the Kamchatka River, represented by Klyuchi, precipitation is much lower at around 18 to 26 inches, and temperatures are significantly more continental, reaching 66 °F on a typical summer day and during extreme cold winter spells falling as low as −42 °F. Sporadic permafrost prevails over the lower part of this valley, but it becomes more widespread at higher altitudes; glaciers or continuous permafrost prevails north of 55˚N. The summer months are popular with tourists when maximum temperatures range from 59 to 68 °F, but a growing trend in winter sports keeps tourism pulsing year-round. The volcanoes and glaciers play a role in forming of Kamchatka’s climate, and hot springs have kept alive dozens of species decimated during the last ice age.”

  *****

  Sanderson’s men had been taking copious notes; on his signal, they moved to a terrain mockup of the area they would be landing on. Planning was everything in an operation like this; almost anything could go wrong, and according to Murphy’s Law, “If something can go wrong, it will go wrong and always at the worst possible time.”

  Epilogue

  The penetration team led by Marine Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Wes Sanderson consisted of 22 Special Warfare Operators plus John Thomas Rourke and Paul Rubenstein, both part of a very small group that had fought both old Soviet Union forces and remaining Russian forces after the Night of the War. They had been inserted three nights before by a High Altitude Low Opening parachute drop, known as a HALO.

  By the third night, there had still been no contact with the enemy. Rourke walked over to the campfire and sat down next to Sanderson, “Mr. Sanderson, I have been studying you. You’re what I would call a ‘little different,’ aren’t you?”

  Sanderson said, “I suppose I am; is there anything wrong with that?”

  “No,” Rourke said. “I don’t mean anything negative by that comment. I’m a little different also. Actually, I embrace that difference. There are very few people I would want to be like. I was just wondering what your story is.”

  “My story,” Sanderson said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well for one thing,” Rourke said, “your speech patterns are not familiar to me. Where are you from? I don’t believe you are from the States, are you?”

  “No, not originally,” Sanderson said. “I am a naturalized American citizen; I’m adopted. My birth parents came from what your people call the Gallia. I was born to one of the Wild Tribes of Gallia. After the Night of the War, our people were reduced to a few scattered family units trying to survive, and our civilization returned to the savagery of the ancients. My father was the leader of our clan, and we led a hard and brutal life.”

  “When I was 13, a group of strangers came to our land; they were archaeologists led by a gentleman, Dr. Wesley Sanderson. They stayed with our clan for almost six months and studied our people, and Dr. Sanderson told us stories of what he thought our history might have been. I particularly liked his stories about the Sarmatians, an ancient people that flourished from about the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD. They spoke Scythian and Indo-European languages of the Eastern Iranian family.”

  “Their territory, which was known as Sarmatia, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia, later known as the modern Ukraine and Southern Russia all the way to a smaller extent of the northern eastern Balkans around Moldova. At their greatest period of expansion, around 100 BC, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga. They bordered the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.”

  “They were nomadic Steppe land fighters; skilled with bow and spear from horseback. Supposedly, they were descended from the Scythians and the Amazons. That Amazon legend was widely accepted among Greeks and later, Romans and Sarmatian women had a much higher social standing than their Mediterranean counterparts.”

  “The Sarmatians also had a near religious fondness for their swords; one worship process involved a sword sticking up from the ground. This could have been the foundation for the ‘sword in the stone’ story tied to King Arthur. The bravest of their people took the title ‘Narts’ which some historians suggest may have evolved into the English word ‘Knights.’ There is even a story about a magical woman dressed in white, and somehow associated with water, who helps the hero acquire his sword, similar to the Arthurian Lady of the Lake.”

  “Three days after he and his party left, our clan was attacked by a neighboring clan. I was on a hunting trip and returned too late. My village was destroyed, the smoke still rising from the fires that only a few days before had been our homes. I found my father dead and my mother dying. She told me to leave and find Dr. Sanderson, and then, she died.”

  “After burying my family, I set out on horseback to find his team. Four days later, I came across his camp and told him what had happened. Sanderson opened not only his heart but his home to me. Upon his return, Dr. Sanderson formally adopted me, hence my name. My birth name is almost unpronounceable in English, so he gave me his. He always called me Adam. My adopted father and mother never had children of their own. They gave me the middle name of Adam; that’s what they always called me. They taught me your language and made sure I was educated with a classical orientation. Their graciousness gave me a new name, a new family, and a new life. He enrolled me in school and ‘civilized’ me. Years later, I had just turned 18 and was away at college when my adopted father and mother were on another archaeological encampment with the wild tribes, and he was killed by a marauding band of butchers.”

  “I dropped out of college and joined the Marines. I guess, somehow, I wanted to avenge his death, but by that time, I had already decided that his world of academia was not for me. I needed more action; the Marines gave me that and more, more direction and more challenge. You could say I had reinvented myself once again. That was when I stopped using my middle name and went to Wesley.”

  “This is all I have left from that old life,” Sanderson said as he removed an amulet from around his neck and handed it to Rourke. It was a piece of carved antler about two inches long and an inch wide. One side had been flattened, and on the flat, someone had carved the head of a horse; its mane stood out behind the head, flowing as if it were racing.

  “This is beautiful,” Rourke said. “How did you come by it?”

  “My birth father carved it for me when I was about 10,” Sanderson said reclaiming the treasure and placing it around his neck again. “I have no idea who my people really were; my adopted father’s stories about the Sarmatians were upon my favorites, so I adopted their legends as my own. I’ve always had an ear for languages, and that has helped me in my new career. Anyway,” Sanderson said, “that’s my story, not much of one. I am the last of my clan; I have no more history, no more foundation for my life except what I remember from my childhood and what I assimilated from stories.”

  Rourke smiled, “I think you’ve done pretty well, Mr. Sanderson.”

  In that instant, the night exploded around them with impact detonations and energy blasts ripping the fabric of the night. Sanderson hollered, “Sparks, get on the radio!”

  Sparks, the radioman, was already broadcasting on the special frequency they had been assigned, “We are taking fire. I repeat, we are taking fire.”

  Rourke’s last sardonic thought was The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming.

  *****

  Over 5,000 miles away in Göbekli Tepe Turkey, Natalia Tiemerovna-Rourke, former Major in the Russian KGB and current First Lady of the United States, was in the fight of her life, and she knew she wasn’t winn
ing. What had started out as a peaceful archeological dig looking for evidence of a prehistory contact with an alien race exploded into a full-blown attack by unseen forces. Six of her security protective detail and four of the archeologists were down already; half of them appeared dead.

  The radio used to maintain contact with the outside world had taken a direct hit in the first moments of the attack; it sat at her feet smoking, a useless jumble of components. At first, she had feared the attack was from the alien race. Next, she feared it was a Russian force, either of which would probably have been an improvement over the reality. They were under attack by a marauding band from one of the Wild Tribes of Gallia. These guys were armed with semi and full automatic weapons; but as advanced as that appeared to make them, they still ate the captives. Their lucky victims were dead before the process took place; the unlucky, Natalia did not want to think about that...

  Author's Note: Bob Anderson

  When my friend Jerry Ahern called and asked me what I thought about resurrecting John Thomas Rourke and THE SURVIVALIST series, I was excited. THE SURVIVALIST was my favorite series long before I met and got to know Jerry and his wife Sharon. I told Jerry I would help in any way I could. We brainstormed and I started doing some research for him. We discussed several story lines, little realizing how important that research would be to me in just a few months.

  After Jerry’s untimely death July 24th, 2012, his wife, Sharon, asked me to join her in bringing the series back—an honor I never imagined. The task of bringing John Thomas Rourke back to life was daunting. Jerry’s story lines, several going on simultaneously in each book, his attention to detail, his knowledge of tactics and weapons, all combined to form the most demanding and challenging writing assignment I ever received.