PATRIOTS
AWAKENING
By R. M. Strauhs
Published by
Remlon Publishing
Wichita, Ks
Copyright @ 2011 by R. M. Strauhs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent from the copyright owner.
Unless otherwise stated here, this is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are fictionalized representations of actual persons or events. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank all my family for putting up with me while I entered the world of writing. To my husband who kept pushing me forward to get it published. A special thanks to Aunt Bonnie for her professional advice, support, and assistance. To my friends: Bill, Peggy, Gayla, and Mike H. for all their help and advice.
PROLOGUE
Jarmain Euclaid enjoyed the lush green mountains north of Denver. The months of July, August, and September were just too hot for him to tolerate comfortably in Dallas, where he normally kept a finger on his corporate operations. The Colorado Mountains were cool and crisp in the evenings, like his chalet in the Alps. Of course, he could run his entire financial and manufacturing empire from here if he brought in a half dozen trusted employees, but that wasn’t his intent. This private compound was Jarmain’s place of solitude - - the retreat where he dreamed up his best moneymaking ideas. On the mountain, he was free to dream and dwell on only one thing, increasing the size of his worldwide operations. He was already the world’s richest man, but that was by no means enough. He could never get enough money or possessions.
His quest for complete solitude was so deeply ingrained, Jarmain never allowed the housekeeping staff or cook to be in the same area of the twenty thousand square foot mansion in the mountains that he occupied. And there was no such thing as visitors or staff staying overnight. His only companion in Colorado was Marcia. Fifty year old Jarmain was still quite an active man, not to mention his Hollywood good looks.
Marcia was twenty years his junior, but old enough to be experienced in what a man liked, and young enough to have a youthful body and beautiful face. She was his personal secretary, but she and Jarmain spent more time in bed, in the pool or walking around his mountain retreat than she spent doing the secretarial duties. On top of all her natural attributes, Marcia was highly intelligent and had been privy to Jarmain’s upcoming company takeovers and business maneuvers before anyone else in his corporation had a hint of his next move. I need her but how much can I trust her?
The one habit Jarmain brought from with him from the city to Colorado was watching four hours of satellite television each day. He never watched any sort of entertainment channels but rather world news and business news. It was quite likely no other man on Earth knew as much about everything happening in the business world or world politics as Jarmain Euclaid. His photographic memory served him well in deciding all his business moves, based on what he knew of the economy of a company or a country and future lucrative markets.
Never had he failed in business and now he owned or controlled more major companies than any other ten investors put together. Not to mention all the politicians and military leaders he had in his pocket. Even though he was as scheming and ruthless as any businessman who ever lived, it always amazed him how people would sell their very soul, and were more than willing to sell out their own country for money. To Jarmain, money was a big joke -- nothing but pieces of paper with which to barter. He knew the real wealth lay in how much land, how much manufacturing, and how many people one owned. Owning people was the most important key to success.
Now as they sat by the indoor pool, Marcia in the raw, he watched the World Business Front news channel, another large company he owned. WBF reported . . . a university science team in Germany working on stopping hurricanes in their tracks. Jarmain leaned forward and listened to the scientist in charge of the project explain what they were doing.
“You see, we are working on the theory that we can discharge billions upon billions of tiny magnetically charged particles into the winds at the center of a hurricane. These particles will automatically align themselves in the same polarity. That is to say, they will all have their positive poles pointed in the same direction. Then, with a huge magnetic field generator aboard one of the new Wulffgar cargo jets, we send electromagnetic pulses at the particles. If we send a polarized burst that has a positive signature toward the positive end of the particles, the burst will have the effect of repelling the particles and slowing the winds.”
The reporter asked, “Sort of like the dynamic braking on an electric motor?”
The scientist, a Doctor James Blair, seemed excited that a reporter would understand what he was saying. “Yes, yes! Exactly. That is precisely how it will work.”
“Doctor Blair, what if you fired a burst of electrons with their negative ends toward the positive end of the particles?”
“Well, uh . . . of course it would likely increase the speed of the wind.”
“Then, this technology could actually create a hurricane by using several generators in a circle about an air mass laced with your particles.”
Doctor Blair’s brow wrinkled as if he had not even thought about this aspect of his research. “Yes, I suppose one could assume that might work, but my God, why would anyone want to . . . deliberately create a hurricane?”
The reporter chuckled, “Just exploring the possibilities, Doctor.”
Tiring of the program, Marcia shifted restlessly and asked Jarmain, “What are we going to do for dinner?”
Without taking his eyes off the giant screen, he waved his hand and made a shushing sound.
“I had no idea you were that interested in hurricanes, sweetheart. Sorry.” A small pout appeared around her mouth as she walked to the side of the pool and dove in. Even her beautifully tanned, naked body didn’t divert his attention from the television screen.
Jarmain did watch her from the corner of his eye as she climbed from the pool a few minutes later and wrapped a huge beach towel about her body. But he continued to focus on the interview. He had never thought about anything like being attached emotionally to another human being. People were to be used for ones own pleasures or purposes . . . nothing more.
Getting attached to anything other than wealth and power just didn’t fit into his schedule. That is, until Marcia had been his companion for a while. As much as he fought it, she had some sort of hold on him. He wasn’t sure if he felt something real for Marcia, or if it was only her nymphomaniac approach to sex, ready to dive into bed at the drop of the slightest hint. He did know he enjoyed having her with him.
The last feeling he had that even approached what one might call love was as a small boy, when his father gave him a puppy. Funny, but every time he looked at Marcia, he thought about that sweet, innocent, puppy from long ago. The authorities always thought the drowning of Jarmain’s father was a drunken accident, but after his dad drowned his new puppy because it peed on the floor, well that sort of thing just couldn’t go unpunished.
Jarmain made a mental note of the doctor’s name and the fact that his project was being conducted at the University of Stuttgart. Then, he removed his shorts, walked to the pool edge where Marcia sat with her feet hanging in the water, and joined her. With his arm behind her, he flung both himself and her into the pool. Swimming under water, he approached from below and hugged her before surfacing.
With her arms wrapped around him, she pulled him tight agains
t her body and smiled.
Jarmain leaned back and stared at her, a slight smile on his lips.
“What are you looking at?”
He shook his head slowly, “I’m smiling at the greatest woman a man could ask for.”
In their six year relationship, never once had he uttered any sort of compliment or words of affection. She had been treated very well and paid extremely well, like a high class whore, and that was pretty much the way she felt, even though their relationship was much more than that to her. This remark was so unlike him; she didn’t know how to answer.
He laughed at her confused look, squeezed both her breasts in his hands and said, “Tell you what, I have a couple of calls to make, then why don’t we get dressed, pop over to Denver, and have dinner at a nice restaurant? You call and make the reservation.” With that, he swam to the side of the pool, climbed out, grabbed a towel from the patio table, and walked naked through the wide French doors toward their bedroom.
He dried off, went from the bedroom to his office, and placed a call on his scrambled communication system to Kurt Knop in Berlin. “Kurt, there is a Doctor James Blair working on a research project at the University of Stuttgart. I want him and his team fired. Then, I want them working for me. Let me know when you have it set up, and we’ll fly the good doctor to Switzerland.”
His next call was to his most trusted assistant, Bill Daugherty. “Bill, I need an atmospheric research company bought or set up by the end of next week. I’ll explain later.”
A few moments later, when he walked back into the bedroom, Marcia lay seductively on the bed.
Jarmain laughed, “You really are a nympho, do you know that?” He wrapped his muscular arms around her and took her with force. Pulling free, he lay spent for a moment, then sprang to his feet and headed for the shower, Marcia following.
As they showered together, she spoke softly, almost shyly. “Jarmain, could I ask you something without making you angry?”
“Have I ever been angry with you?”
“No. I’ve seen you angry with other people, and I don’t want you angry with me.”
“Hon, you can ask me anything. If I don’t want to answer, I won’t answer.” He said it with a smile and knew he would answer whatever she asked.
She wrapped her arms around him again. Marcia leaned her head back and looked him in the eyes. “Do you think I’m a whore?”
“What?” He stared at her. “Now, why in the world would you ask something like that? Hell, no! I don’t think of you as a whore. Why would I? Do I treat you like one?”
“No, of course you don’t. It’s just that . . . well, sometimes I think of myself that way. I know this is going to make you angry, but I have to tell you. I want you to just hold me in your arms after we make love. You know, snuggle-like. You don’t really care how I feel about you, do you?”
He stepped back and looked at her for some time before speaking again. Why were there tears in her eyes? “How do you feel about me?”
“Dammit, Jarmain, I love you. Yes, I love the great sex. You’re as good a lover as a woman could ask for, and, the truth is that’s all I wanted it to be, but it’s become more. It became much more than sex a long time ago.”
He smiled at her, “Did you make our reservations?”
She pushed back from him and stared at the floor before he took her in his arms.
“Look, Marcia, I’ve never allowed anyone to get close to me. I’ve never told you about how my old man drowned my puppy. Later that same night . . . dear old dad . . . fell and accidentally drowned while in a drunken stupor. Dad never worked much and we were dirt poor. My mother . . . would rather grab a quick piece and a few bucks from a stranger than hug me. As a young boy, I decided I’d never live like that. My only goal since that time was to amass wealth, without relationships that could hurt me. So, I’m not too good at this love thing. But, you’re very special. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Jarmain pulled her close and whispered, “Do you know how hard it is to find a nymphomaniac that only likes men?”
Her eyes brightened and she laughed. “I’m glad I’m more than just a . . .” She kissed his naked chest, and said. “Well, super lover, let’s get dressed. We have an hour until we’re supposed to show at Philman’s Grille.”
Thirty minutes later, the blades of the large passenger helicopter sliced through the air taking the couple to the old Denver airport. An hour later as they ate lobster, he wondered if Marcia would still love him if she knew what he and several of the world’s wealthiest men were planning.
Like every new enterprise he had undertaken, Jarmain was excited at the prospect of creating the technology--not to stop hurricanes--but to create them. What a fantastic weapon to be used in his goal of world dominance. His phony geothermal project up and down the New Madrid Fault sitting along the Mississippi was well underway. Pump high pressure fuel into those wells, ignite them, and the pressure and underground explosions would cause a catastrophic earthquake.
~ 1 ~
Washington, D.C.
10:05 PM, May 28, 2009
Burt Logan sat with his wife watching the ten o’clock news after having dinner out with friends. The news was mainly the same, a couple of murders in D.C.; the FBI had named two more terrorists in the bombing of the US Army barracks at Fort Hood, Texas a year earlier.
Then, Burt sat up and listened closely as the network newscaster said, “In West Texas, authorities are at a loss to explain the tragic murder of the five-member observatory crew and the destruction of equipment at the McDonald Observatory. One of the five victims who worked at the observatory was an astronomy professor; the remaining four were senior students from the University.
“It seemed nothing was missing from either the observatory or its operators. All the victims were found in a small auxiliary building, their hands and feet bound, with one bullet fired into the backs of their heads, execution style. The Pecos County coroner examining the scene said they all died instantly.
“Local rancher, Clyde Worthy, who regularly visited the observatory, which joined his property, found the murdered observatory personnel yesterday. It seems, according to preliminary reports, the crew was slain four days ago.”
Leaning forward and eyes wide-open, Burt’s wife asked, “My, God, who would do such a thing? Why?”
Burt only shook his head. He had an unusually tense expression on his face as he concentrated on the newsman.
“The Texas Ranger in charge of the investigation said they have been unable to find a single clue as to why anyone would do this, or who might have committed the murders. When asked if it could be the work of the same terrorist group that killed seventy-three soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, the Texas Ranger Lieutenant said that wouldn’t make sense, but they were investigating and exploring all avenues to find the perpetrators.”
Burt’s wife kept shaking her head in disbelief and started to say something, but he hushed her.
The newscaster continued. “In other news this evening, a report has leaked from NASA concerning the health of the five Americans, three Russians, and four British scientists aboard the International Space Station. According to the report, one crew member experienced some sort of viral infection that is of concern to NASA but is not serious. When asked to elaborate on the how, what, and why of the virus, NASA officials refused to furnish further information until, as they put it, the situation has been analyzed.”
Burt stood and paced back and forth across the living room, wracking his brain about why the people he and his group kept tabs on might want to rid the observatory of its crew and wreck the place to the point of rendering it useless. He smiled to himself and wondered why every crime he saw reported made him suspicious. Yet, he automatically thought they could potentially be connected to the group within the US who weren’t satisfied with our form of government and would rather join a world government. These murders in Texas could easily just be the work of some damned deranged crazy, and he knew it. But now, he was extr
emely concerned about the space lab crew.
Completely hidden from the entire world, except for a few NASA people and a few of his people, was the fact that the last module put in place on the space station was an experimental laser weapon. The weapon . . . designed to hone in on any target on Earth . . . could reach even the backside of the Earth from Skylab, bouncing its laser from one space mirror to another. One of Burt’s colleagues was aboard and designated to test the weapon shortly. The observatory crew dead, the Skylab crew ill . . . both with a common link to space . . . could there be a connection? Burt would get little sleep this night.
Washington Watch Offices
8:00 AM, May 29, 2009
Gerald Baldwin was excited about something. He threw the door open to Burt’s office and nearly yelled his question, “Have you heard about the observatories?”
“No. What are you talking about?” Burt asked his assistant.
Gerald dropped a stack of faxes taken from the AP, UPI, and CNN news network feeds, which they just happened to have tapped into. “Look at these. Hackers have disabled half the observatories around the world. Fried their damned computers, man. That means they can’t operate any of their telescopes. And this, after that crew in Texas being murdered and their observatory wrecked. What do you think is up?”
Burt glanced through the stack of papers and shook his head, then stood and moved to the window of his fifth floor office. As he stared out at the city, he thought . . . What does this mean? Why would someone want all the observatories out of business? If this many observatories have been reported hacked and destroyed, damned sure more will follow, but why? Something someone doesn’t want the world to see? Something big must be about to happen.
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