Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 (3 page)

Mike swallowed hard and led Alyssa back down the street and out of the contractors' line of sight.

"What the heck was that about?"  Alyssa asked angrily. "He said he knew something about Drew!"

Mike shook his head. "All he said was your name and address. He never actually said anything about your husband other than mentioning some letter. If he knew about a letter, why not just tell us where your husband is? He stayed away from any real details like that on purpose. I think he was using smart glasses to look up information on you."

Alyssa frowned suddenly, her anger temporarily stifled by confusion. "Why would he do that?" she asked.

Mike gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "How should I know?"  he replied. "All I know is I'm not planning on sticking around to find out."

Ch. 3

The Daily Brief

Terry Price stepped into the room and immediately everyone stood, snapping to attention. Their response so caught him off guard that he nearly stumbled. None of the men were in uniform, but that hardly mattered. Some things become so deeply ingrained in a person's mind and actions over years of training that they become instinct rather than conscious thought. In the same way a doctor is always a doctor, these men had long since become military men in every sense of the word.

Terry was immediately both humbled and embarrassed. "At ease, gentlemen," he said uncomfortably. "I'm sorry to be late."

There was a rustle as the men all returned to their seats. Terry went to the desk at the center of the small theater-style briefing room. A screen descended from the ceiling behind him, and the lights dimmed to half strength. Terry picked up a remote control from the desk and pressed a button to activate the screen. The entire wall was a curved smart screen that took a moment to boot up. While the display program loaded, Terry turned to the room and held up a copy of the briefing file.

"I'm sure you all read the file," he said. "I know I owe you more of an explanation, and I swear that I will give it to you when we have the time. Right now, though, there are a few more pressing matters. There were questions I didn't have the answers to when I wrote the paperwork you're now holding, and some of those answers I have found since."

Terry turned to the screen as the last stages of the boot process finished. He tapped a few commands on the remote and opened the briefing presentation file. The first slide was a looping video that showed a NORAD tracking map. Four radar tracks rose above an outline of the continental US. At nearly the same instant, they detonated.

"Almost five days ago," Terry said, "four nuclear-equipped missiles were fired from container ships just off our coast. The missiles climbed, attained an altitude of 250km, and detonated. Judging from satellite telemetry, none of these four warheads was more than a few dozen kilotons, and they were high enough up that there was no physical damage from their detonation. They did put out a large amount of gamma rays for devices of that size and were likely some form of super pulse weapon. The Electromagnetic Pulses created, however, radiated down through the atmosphere and caused an induced current overload that burned out the nation's power production and distribution grid."

Terry paused and looked at the grave faces staring back at him. "Let me repeat that," he said. "The nation's power grid has taken a direct hit and has been brought down. Roughly two hours after the initial attack, the Russian President, during a live press conference, announced—North Korea as the aggressor."  Terry clicked a button, and the screen changed to a view of Putin's press announcement. "During that live press event, the Russian President declared that Russia would lead the charge to avenge the United States. He then proceeded to launch missiles from mobile road platforms that targeted and destroyed nearly our entire satellite network."

Terry clicked again, and the screen showed a satellite video image tracking a plume of white smoke that rose and then moved out of the frame of reference. A few seconds later, the image cut off in static. He left the stack playing behind him as he addressed the silent room.

"Gentlemen, we are under attack," Terry said plainly. "And at the moment, we are losing."

There was an uncomfortable murmur from the assembled men. They were all highly trained former special operations soldiers and sailors, and they were not accustomed to losing.

“When this all happened,” Terry continued, “I expected to see Russian Tu-95’s coming over the pole at us. But that never happened. Yesterday morning, my staff succeeded in tapping into the European sat-net and we found out why.”

Terry clicked his remote control and the screen split into two images. On the right side of the screen was an image of Eastern Europe with Scandinavia on the upper edge of the shot; the left side of the screen showed Western Europe from Portugal to Germany.  Thick columns of cloud covered a good portion of the continent and obscured much of the ground from the satellite’s cameras. There were tiny dots of gray in the Mediterranean and North Seas that looked like ships. Terry used the laser pointer built into the hand remote to highlight two areas in the deep blue waters.

“These are Russian fleets,” Terry said, “complete with aircraft carriers, heavy missile cruisers, and at least six submarines. The cloud cover you see is actually smoke rising from thirty seven cities across mainland Europe. Shortly after taking out our satellites, the Russians began an aggressive bombardment. Two large EMP’s were detonated above the continent, crippling their infrastructure in much the same way ours was brought down. With the lines of command and communication cut, the Russians seem to have met little resistance.”

The screen shifted again to show a broad view of China and southeast Asia with Japan on the right edge of the picture. More columns of smoke rose from the areas of South Korea, Vietnam, and along the Japanese islands.

“At the same time Russia was launching its European offensive,” Terry continued, “China launched a massive attack in southern Asia. They pushed through South Korea, attacked Vietnam, and hit Japan hard. The newly commissioned Chinese aircraft carriers are both holding anchor about two hundred miles off Japan’s coast launching attack sorties around the clock.”

Terry clicked the remote again, and the screen shifted to show an image of the United States taken from high orbit at night. Along the east and west coasts, the image was peppered with bright cities where lights clustered together like dew sparkling on a spider web in the early morning sun. “This image was taken two weeks ago from an extremely classified monitoring satellite in high Earth orbit,” Terry said, and he clicked the remote again. The screen changed to the same perspective, but the entire image was so dark that it was difficult to make out that it was even land. “This image was taken last night.”

Terry powered down the smart screen and looked up to face the grim expressions and steely gazes from the assembled veterans. “The world is at war, gentlemen, and the United States has been knocked completely out of the fight,” Terry said into the silence. “I’ve brought you all here because I mean to change that.”

There was no eruption of applause or cheers. The men simply nodded. They had each seen combat more than once in their distinguished careers, often in the worst, most hopeless areas of the world. They’d seen man's raw brutality unleashed against humanity and the death and destruction that was the result. They knew the truth about war that only those who have seen and lived it can understand. This would not be a war for treasures, or territory, or resources, or even to spread the blessings of liberty and freedom to the oppressed.

This war would be fought for survival.

Ch. 4

A Position Of Strength

The man in Joe's grip tried to twist and turn, but Joe squeezed just a bit harder with the crook of his elbow, so the captive got the point and settled down. Joe surveyed the faces looking back at him, wide-eyed and blinking. Nearly all of the men in the crowd held a pistol or a shotgun, and more than one of the women did as well. The brief moment of shock was still hanging in the air, and the people hadn't quite decided what to do with the new comers yet. As long as Joe kept them off balance, he should be able to stay one step ahead of them.

"Now, I know a few of you," Joe said, "and a few of you know me. But what I can't figure out is what the hell you're all doing here looking like you're getting ready to burn Benny MacPhail's pharmacy to the ground!"

The crowd began shouting answers at once, each person trying to be heard over the one next to him. Joe let the noise rise for a moment, then whistled loudly through his teeth. "Enough!" he yelled into the silence. "I'm gonna ask questions, and you're gonna answer. Got it?" Joe growled. The man in his grip nodded as much as he could. "Good. Now, why are you all here?"

"We need medicine," the man answered. "Insulin, blood thinners, blood pressure meds. My little girl's got asthma. When it gets hot, she can't breathe well and coughs all night."

Joe took a deep breath through his nose and lowered his Beretta slowly. "Look, if I let you go, are we going to have problems?"  The man shook his head, so Joe loosened his grip and let the man step away from him, rubbing his throat. "I know things are bad, and you're all scared. But this isn’t the way to get things done."

"We just came up to talk, to buy the medicine we needed," the man said, shaking his right wrist, and rubbing his arm. "MacPhail said no, and some people started yelling. I guess he got scared and ran inside."

"Where's the police?" Joe asked. "The  department is less than a half mile down the road. Why didn't you just go get help there and have the officers talk to MacPhail?"

"We tried," the man said, "but no one was there."

"The Chief's dead," a voice called from the crowd. "They found him face down at the front door of the department the first morning after, his keys still in his hand. None of the rest of the force has been back since."

Joe bit back a curse as a few of the people in the crowd started shouting again. Chief Tyson was a prominent figure in and around Bennett, and he'd led the city police force for more than fifteen years. The man was over seventy years old, but the quiet town had been peaceful enough even for a man his age to handle.

Joe had never stopped to think that the chief might have been old enough to have a pacemaker.

"Okay," Joe called. "Okay!  Here's what I want you all to do. Get paper and something to write with. Write down the medications you need and the dosing. I'm going to go in and talk some sense into Benny so that he'll let you all get what you need."

"What makes you think he'll listen to you and give us what we need?"  the ring leader asked.

"If he doesn't," Joe replied simply, "there's enough people out here to tear this place down around his ears, that's what."

"If you can get him to give us the medicine, we'll leave," the man said. "I just want to take care of my little girl."

Joe nodded. "There's a dollar store at the end of the block. They've got notebooks and pens. If you make a list, I'll get MacPhail to fill it for you, okay? There's no reason that we can't do this whole business with some sense of order."

"I'll send someone to get the pens and notebooks," the man said, "but the rest of us stay here until we get what we need."

The crowd nodded and some murmured agreement. Joe motioned for Henderson to keep an eye on the crowd as he backed up to the door of the pharmacy. He knocked twice on the glass door and waited. Joe could hear the rustling noises of someone inside the store moving, but there was no response at first. Joe swallowed hard, and, trying not to let his nervousness show, he knocked again.

"How do I know I can trust you?" a muffled voice called from the other side of the door.

"Benny, it's Joe Tillman," Joe said. "You've known my wife since she was a kid, and you know me. If you don't let me in to talk, this crowd is gonna go from scared to pissed off real quick. They'll break your door down eventually, take everything you have and burn this place to the ground. You deal with me, or you deal with them. Now open the door."

A brief silence followed, and Joe felt a knot growing in the pit of his stomach. Then with a soft click, the door opened a crack. Joe nodded to Henderson, and the two of them stepped into the darkness of the pharmacy. As soon as the door closed, Benny's hand darted out and snapped the lock closed again, and he shined a bright LED flashlight in their eyes.

"Yes, I know you," Benny said, pointing at Joe. "But you, I don't recognize at all."

"That's Corporal Henderson," Joe said, taking the pharmacist by the arm. "He's with me. Now, you need to listen because I'm not going to have time to repeat myself. Those people out there are scared, and they're on the verge of desperate. That makes them dangerous. In about twenty minutes, thirty if we're lucky, they are going to present you with a list of demands, and when you can't meet all of them, there's going to be trouble. The kind where some people end up bleeding and others end up dead. Understand?"

Joe reached the pharmacy counter and released Benny. The pharmacist rubbed his upper arm, his eyes wide, his breath coming in hard pants as if he'd been running for miles. "They already demanded everything I have, Joe," Benny said, scratching at his left temple. "I only have so much, and there's other people that need medicine too. They want everything now, right now, and some of it I don't have. Some of it I can't give them. They don't even have prescriptions. What am I supposed to do about that?"

Joe pulled a folded piece of paper from his vest pocket and handed it to the pharmacist. “What you need to focus on is filling this order and putting it in a bag,” Joe said. “Don’t worry about the people outside for right now. We’ll deal with them in a minute. It’ll take them a little bit to write down their demands and that works to our favor. Now, start filling this order, okay?”