For the people ... (Soldier Up Book 4)

by Steven Linde

  Captain Derek Webb was Colonel Magnus’s aide-de-camp; he was a graduate of MIT with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He graduated in the top two percent of his class at MIT and was by all accounts a brilliant man. That brilliance though was questioned by his family and friends when right after graduation he went into the Army and Officer Candidate School. What they didn’t know about him was that he had two dreams, one was to graduate from MIT and the second was to join the Army. After the lights went out earlier in the evening, Captain Webb kept his own counsel and observed everything around him and what was truly happening on post. He was seeing everything going on and drawing conclusions from these observations and linked those back to his knowledge of electrical engineering and modern warfare.

  During the most recent staff meeting Captain Webb being the least senior person in the room in terms of rank sat in the back of the room and kept quiet. He watched as Colonel Magnus, Lieutenant Colonels Ford, Owen and Burns and Majors Fisher and Barnes all discussed the current situation. Each man had his own idea of what was going on and their own solution. Captain Webb noticed two things that they were ignoring the obvious and they were working against each other and not together as a team. During a break Captain Webb approached Colonel Magnus, “Sir may I speak with you privately?”

  Colonel Magnus looked down at Captain Webb, he was all of five foot six to the Colonels rather tall frame, “What is it Captain we’re busy?” said the Colonel gruffly.

  Captain Webb knew then that he wasn’t going to get the private time, “Sir I believe you’re all ignoring the obvious.”

  Colonel Magnus was aware that Captain Webb was a brilliant man and very insightful that’s why he selected him as his aide-de-camp. The Colonel stopped what he was doing, looked at the Captain again, he could tell that Captain was ready to explode, “Alright Captain what have you got?”

  “Sir let me write this all on the whiteboard it’s better to be able to visualize it.”

  “By all means knock yourself out.”

  Captain Webb started to outline everything that died a few hours ago, cars, generators, cell phones, electricity, no running water, communications, and his list went on and on. “Sir what does this all mean to you?”

  “I don’t know Captain that’s what we have been discussing for the past few hours which you have sat in on.”

  “Yes sir but the one thing none of you has mentioned is EMP. These are all signs that there have been some sort of EMP event, whether nuclear or solar I don’t know and I don’t think matters right now.”

  The kid was right thought Colonel Magnus they were missing the obvious, “Damn.” Said Colonel Magnus. “Captain get everyone back in here now ASAP and I want you to walk us all through this.”

  Captain Webb found them eating MRE’s in the Lt. Colonel Ford’s office, he hustled them all back into the conference room, none of them happy about it.

  “Captain Webb has come up with a theory regarding our current predicament and I think we should all hear it.” Said Colonel Magnus. “Go ahead Captain.”

  Captain Webb returned to the white board where he had mapped out the day’s events and linked each one of them back to some sort of EMP event. After he did that he went into a brief explanation of EMP, how it worked, EMP weapons, solar flares and more, everything he could remember. By the end of it, he had the entire staff sold on it, Major Barnes asked, “So what do we do know Captain? Bend over and kiss our ass’s good-bye…”

  “You’re out of line Major!” barked Colonel Magnus at the Major.

  “Please go on Captain you’re doing an excellent job.” Stated the Colonel.

  “Sir’s we actually have a lot of options available to us. I believe the first thing we do is continue to have all units hold in place. At daybreak we get a full accounting of equipment that’s working and not working. We need to also determine how much food that we really have available perishable and non-perishable and then secure it. At that time we needed to get a handle on the water situation how much we’re going to need and then secure that.”

  “Alright, anything else Captain?” asked Colonel Magnus.

  Captain Webb looked around the room knowing what he had to say next wasn’t going to be popular. “Yes sir there is.”

  “Go ahead than son, let’s hear it.” Said the Colonel.

  “Yes sir, well….the electricity isn’t coming back on and all resources are finite at this time. We need to secure everything now for our own future.”

  “Speak English please Captain.” Said Lt. Colonel Owen.

  Captain Webb looked at Colonel Owen, “Yes sir.” Captain Webb cleared his throat. “We need to secure the big box stores, super markets, and any stores that sell weapons and ammo, gas stations, pharmacies and anything else that an army might need from civilian sources. We need to do this now before the civilian population realizes help isn’t coming and the looting starts.”

  There was immediate push back from the group, Colonel Magnus stood, “At ease, at ease” he ordered. “I asked Captain Webb to put it all out there if you have anything to say you say it to me!” said Colonel Magnus angrily. “Please take a seat at the table Captain.”

  “Yes sir.” Replied the Captain, he was no longer sitting at the back of the room but at the table with the rest of the staff.

  “Sir you aren’t seriously considering this are you?” asked Lt. Colonel Burns.

  “I’m not saying I’m not or I am at this time. I asked Captain Webb to give us his assessment that’s all right now.” Said the Colonel. “This is what I do want done right now. Send word to all units to continue to stay put and secure. At daybreak I want all units to determine what’s working and what’s not. That includes vehicles, computers, generators, everything. I want quartermaster to get on the ball and report all food, water and fuel stores available to us on post. I want a briefing on all of this at noon by all of you today, no excuses. Let’s find out what we have, determine how long we can hold out on our own before we make any further decisions. Any questions?”

  No one spoke up or raised their hands.

  “Good the meeting is adjourned get moving now, be back here at noon for a briefing. With that there was a uniform response from everyone, “Yes sir.” They all dispersed except for Captain Webb and Colonel Magnus.

  “Captain stick around I want to talk to you more about this EMP thing I want to understand as much as I can and what our options might really be.”

  “Yes sir.” Was Captain Webb’s only response.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Pentagon was thrown into chaos the night of the event; it was hard to believe that the entire complex was still being fed electricity by an external source. The Pentagon had spent hundreds of millions of dollars studying EMP and its effects on the nation. Yet hadn’t implemented many of the recommended changes only because they were unable to convince congress that an EMP attack was imminent and that huge solar flares that would cause a worldwide blackout seemed pretty far-fetched. The lower levels of the Pentagon went dark and the generators that were supposed to protect them that were supposedly EMP shielded weren’t. It was beyond dark in those lower floors, people were able to find their ways to stairwells and feel their way up to the ground floor. So much went wrong that wasn’t supposed to the first several hours if not days was total chaos.

  Since the EMP event happened on a Saturday night the majority of the Pentagon staff was gone. No doubt there were people there; communications was a twenty-four seven operation as well as other NOC’s located in the building by service. There were others that had no lives other than their work and seldom left the building and not to forget the managing of two wars and countless other incursions by US forces all over the world at any given time. It wasn’t as busy during the weekends as it was during the week, but it was still busy. It just happened that US Army General Omar Wallace, a four star, was working late that Saturday night. He was the US Military Joint Chief of Staff; he was receiving several briefings regarding Afghanistan, I
raq, Lebanon, Israel and that status of US forces in those areas. He was taking a break in his office and eating dinner when the lights went out. Although he had worked in the Pentagon for years he couldn’t remember anytime the lights went out. He had recalled hearing that even when the plane hit the building on 9/11 much of the facility still had power.

  He had a flashlight in his gear, which was tucked way near the closet in his office, he knew the general direction of the closet and felt his way around the office, bumping and cussing his way there. He found his field gear, yanked off the flashlight and turned it on, the light was dim, and he didn’t know how long the batteries had been in the damn thing. One of the perks about being the Chief of Staff is that he didn’t have to go to the field too often. However, right now with no lights and the batteries dying, he felt he needed to check his field gear out a little more often. He made his way out of his office, down the corridor and into the conference room there they were all supposed to meet again in ten more minutes. Luckily there were all there now and each one of them had their own flashlights, “What the hell’s going on?” asked General Wallace.

  “No idea Omar we were discussing it ourselves it would seem the entire building has gone dark.” Replied Admiral White.

  “Is that even possible?” asked Major General Brooks, USMC.

  “It would seem so.” Stated General Wallace. “Gentleman I don’t believe this is supposed to happen to the Pentagon. I’ve been led to believe that there are redundant systems in place that wouldn’t allow a total blackout of the building, but it happened. I want answers!”

  Each man in the room nodded and stepped quickly out of the conference room heading to their respective offices and departments. Once back in their offices, they called what staff they had available and passed on orders to find out what the status is regarding their own communications, overall electronics, and anything else that might be relevant to the current situation regarding their own areas of responsibilities. Within an hour or so the reports they had asked for started to flow in, generally the reports were verbal. After the number of reports became somewhat overwhelming for the General or Admiral they were asked to submit the report in writing after the briefing. Which meant, of course, at this time all of those written reports were going to be done in handwriting and not on a computer terminal.

  The news coming in was not good, there were several consistent reports, and lights were not only out at the Pentagon but across the entire city, in addition, there were stalled vehicles on the expressway and just about every street. Also, most civilian vehicles would not start and right now about fifty percent of the military vehicles at the Pentagon would start, later on they would figure it was because of the EMP shielding. There was no running water any place in the building and all of the backup generators, electrical and batteries, were fried, these were civilian generators it was learned later that had no EMP shielding. The generators wouldn’t be able to be replaced anytime soon, they would have to bring in Army generators to supply the building with electricity, but that was going to be a huge undertaking, meaning a lot of generators with a lot of fuel.

  They learned that all communications were down in the building which also meant landlines, cell phones, satellite, radio, microwave, everything, there was nothing going out or coming in. Since all of the communications were down there was no way to reach out to the utilities to find out when power and the other services would be restored. A meeting was set up with General Wallace at 1800 that same day, each and every man present was sure power and other services would be restored by then.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Mr. President.” Jake said. “I have great news! We’ve got working trains; one of them is an old armored World War Two train and a passenger, both steam locomotives.”

  “That’s wonderful news Jake! Where are they now?” Asked President Washington.

  “Sir, for now they are still at the museum sitting outside under guard by the 3rd Infantry Regiment. The caretakers at the museum who were still there are Engineers.”

  “Engineers? You mean train Engineers correct?” silly question the President knew but asked it anyway.

  Jake thinking he didn’t really just ask that did he? “Yes Mr. President Train engineers, they can drive the trains. They have offered up to train new engineers and to teach people how to maintain and repair them.”

  “What’s the plan then?”

  “Well….” Jake had actually been thinking about it. “Sir I think it’s time we reach out and touch someone.”

  “What’s that mean? Please speak English.” Stated the President.

  “Sir …. I think we need utilize the armored train, outfit it with modern weapons, and push out south towards other military bases. I know there is a humanitarian crisis, but we can’t do it without security. We need to find out who’s with us and who’s against us. We would also need to be able to send at least a company element force on the train with vehicles.”

  “Jake please work with General Wallace and put a plan together. When will the train be ready? I’d like a briefing on the plan in the next seventy-two hours, can you do that?”

  “As far as I know sir the train is ready to roll now, but like I said we would need to modify with modern weapons and I don’t know what that would take. As far as the seventy-two hours, yes sir, if that’s what you want we can do it.”

  “Fine, let’s make it happen.”

  “Yes sir I’ll head over to talk to General Wallace now. What are your plans sir? Are you meeting with the Pentagon’s brain trust after this?” Jake was referring to the Pentagon’s scientists, five of them, Dr. Peter Anster, Dr. Beverly Wasserman, Dr. Eldan Nightly, Dr. Walter Cronkite, and Dr. Haden Bruckhalter. These were all specialists in Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and its effect on society.

  “Yes, they’re telling me they have some ideas, one being the trains which I told them we had already figured it out ourselves no thanks to them. It didn’t go over well needless to say, but it’s been nearly nine months and they haven’t come up with a damn thing that can help us. So we’ll see what they have.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll be leaving and heading over to the Pentagon. I’ll let you know if we get the plan done any sooner than seventy-two hours.”

  “Ok Jake, let’s make sure we do this right.”

  Jake nodded in the affirmative, turned and left the office. As he did the President’s secretary led the scientists into the oval office. With them was three medium size boxes that the President was not made aware of, in fact neither was the secret service, or what was left of the secret service and the boxes were never inspected.

  “What have you got there?” asked President Washington basically directed at the group.

  Without saying a word to the President the group quickly unpacked the boxes, which looked like an archaic radio set to the President, and set it up on his desk. They connected it to a hand cranked generator and ran a rather large looking antennae to the window and out onto the veranda.

  “To answer your question Mr. President.” Said Dr. Anster. “It’s a shortwave radio.”

  “What’s the point?” asked the President. “We’ve tried them they don’t work.”

  “No sir this radio has tubes, no modern circuitry in it. Please take a seat and watch.” Said Dr. Nightly.

  Dr. Wasserman and Dr. Eldan would take turns on cranking the generator, Dr. Anster and Dr. Nightly would operate the radio and Dr. Bruckhalter was taking care of the antennae. Dr. Eldan began cranking the hand generator; it was long, tiresome work and would require a much younger person to do this for any great period of time. After a couple of minutes Dr. Nightly turned on the power switch to the radio and to the President’s surprise it kicked to life. A bead of sweat was forming on Dr. Eldan’s face, he was sixty-six years old and it was definitely putting a strain on him, Dr. Wassereman was pushing seventy, as well of the rest of the scientists. President Washington quickly recognized it for what it was; he called in his secretary and told her to
get several secret service agents in here now.

  Dr. Nightly began to tune the radio; it began white noise over its speakers more commonly called radio static. President Washington was excited, at that time two secret service men stepped into the oval office. President Washington directed them to take over the cranking of the generator. They were able to switch out with Dr. Eldan without missing a step, Dr. Nightly tuned into one the national emergency stations, there was still nothing but static. She then began to speak into the microphone, “Anyone out there? Hello? Anyone out there?” No response. This was the first time the scientist had actually tried to reach out to determine if they could find anyone. They had powered up the radio and knew it worked prior to bringing it into the President’s office.

  President Washington called his secretary into his office again, he told her to send someone as fast as possible to the White House Communications Office and get radio people over here now, “NO! Not now.” The President said. “Tell them I wanted them here yesterday, tell them to come running!”

  Dr. Elden kept at it for ten more minutes with no success. President Washington ordered them to stand-down until the communication folks got here. Dr. Elden went ahead and powered off the radio step-by-step to ensure they didn’t accidentally damage the radio. Once that was done the secret service agent stopped with the hand crank. They only had to wait for fifteen minutes before Staff Sergeant, US Army, Willy Maxwell, Corporal Donna Byrd and Specialist Billy Cox arrived. Corporal Byrd was the first one to recognize the radio for what it was, “No way!” she said. “Sergeant Maxwell do you realize what they have here?”