Doomsday Anarchy

by Bobby Akart

  Cort exhaled. Interestingly, during dinner, the stimulating conversation, coupled with the adult beverages, was the first time he hadn’t been replaying the events of forty-eight hours ago in his head.

  “Honey, you don’t have to—” Meredith began, trying to protect her husband from the memories of the crash.

  “No, it’s fine. Actually, it helps. Two things stand out. One, we were on final approach into Mobile. You could see the lights of Pensacola on the right side of the aircraft and the oil rig platforms on the left side where I was sitting. Second, the power loss was total. I mean everything. Emergency lighting, cell phones, and anything electronic.”

  “EMP,” offered Blair.

  “More specifically, an RFW,” added Tom. “That’s short for radio frequency weapon. The military, and not just ours, has been targeting a variety of advanced weaponry that can be used to disable the electronics of specific targets using a directed burst of energy—an electromagnetic pulse, as Blair suggested.”

  Ryan asked Cort, “How far was the aircraft from these oil platforms? Close enough to be hit with an RFW?”

  “Absolutely, but I don’t recall seeing any flash of light or traces of a high-energy beam,” he replied.

  “You wouldn’t necessarily,” interrupted Tom. “Plus, the burst occurs so quickly, it would be barely perceptible to the naked eye.”

  Ryan wrote this information in the column designated Mobile. “Tom, is it safe to assume that a civilian couldn’t get access to a weapon like this?”

  “True, and not only that, most terrorist organizations, from al-Qaeda to ISIS to Hamas, couldn’t obtain one either. North Korea, maybe, but doubtful. This kind of technology is in its infancy, relatively speaking. The Russians and Chinese are working on it, but we’re way ahead of them.”

  Tom sat backwards into one of Ryan’s leather chairs. Meredith addressed him directly. “Are you suggesting that our own military might have shot down my husband’s plane?”

  “No, not necessarily. All I’m saying is that we’ve got the technology and it works. I can’t say the same for the technology of our adversaries.”

  Ryan wrote the word military with a question mark after it under Mobile. He then walked in front of the column designated Philly.

  “This couldn’t have been an RFW,” he began. “The outage was too widespread. Only a nuclear-driven EMP could kill the power from Baltimore northward into New Jersey. Yet it was isolated.”

  Tom leaned back in his chair and spread his arms with his palms facing upward. “I hate to say this, but once again, I must point to our military capabilities. We’ve successfully tested submarine-based nuclear-tipped warheads that are capable of flying and detonating at very low altitudes. The Starfish Prime testing of six decades ago focused on HEMPs—high-altitude electromagnetic pulse detonations.”

  “That’s all I’m familiar with,” said Blair.

  Cort wandered through the middle of the group. “I can tell you why the low-altitude nukes have been developed. It actually follows the lead of the Russians in a way. Moscow had successfully used cyber attacks against critical infrastructure in the past as a precursor to a ground incursion. Georgia, Estonia, and, later, Ukraine are all examples of this. By taking down the power grid and disabling communications, the smaller countries were incapable of fending off the Russian invasions.”

  “So we plan on invading Mexico or Canada?” asked Meredith, who’d become intrigued by the conversation. Her husband rarely talked shop in front of her.

  Cort chuckled. “Yeah, um, not on the drawing board to my knowledge. However, the use of a targeted EMP is an ideal way to disable an enemy’s electronics without causing similar harm to its neighbors. For example, we could take out the command and communications structure in Damascus, Syria, without destroying the electronics in nearby Beirut, for example.”

  “Exactly right, Cort. Again, it goes back to our military capabilities. The launching of a high-altitude EMP requires a rocket, with booster separation, the whole nine yards. The sub-launched low-altitude EMPs come flying out of the bottom of the ocean, race toward the detonation target at hundreds of miles an hour, and barely leave a trace at detonation.”

  Ryan wrote this information under the column marked Philly. He sighed and shook his head. He had turned to ask for people’s opinions about U.S. military involvement when they were interrupted.

  Chapter 51

  Haven House

  The Haven

  The rest of the group had made their way into Ryan’s study, leaving Charlotte Echols behind to keep an eye on Hannah, who was watching television alone in the family room. She had finished clearing the table of glassware when she heard a gentle knocking at the door. Initially, she thought about hollering for Ryan or Echo to answer it, but then she shrugged it off. At the Haven, she’d never felt safer despite what was happening around the country. Besides, the bad guys don’t knock.

  Charlotte opened the door and was astonished to find a shivering and bloodied Skylar standing in front of her. “My goodness, child. What has happened to you? Come in, come in.”

  “Okay,” said Skylar sheepishly as she stepped through the massive wood doorway. “Um, I’m sorry to bother you, but is my dad here?”

  “Why, of course, Skylar. He thought you’d be at home with your brother.”

  “Hey, Skylar!” greeted Hannah, who’d heard her new friend’s voice. “Wow! Did you wrestle a bear?”

  Mrs. Echols shut the door and rushed off to find Delta.

  “Hey,” began Skylar. “I, um, you’re never gonna believe this. I saw an all-white raccoon.”

  “No way!” Hannah was genuinely intrigued.

  “Way. It was dark and I saw it in the road. It looked like it was glowing, like a ghost.”

  “I wanna see it!”

  “Yeah, maybe tomorrow. Um, I kinda need to talk to my dad first.”

  Delta rushed into the room with the rest of the group in tow. “Sky, baby girl, what happened? Where’s Ethan?”

  “Sorry, Daddy. That’s why I’m here. Um, I fell down on the road, but I’m okay except for my hand.”

  Delta turned around and searched for Blair. She was already headed for the bathroom to retrieve some first aid supplies and waved to him as she left.

  “Come here, honey. Sit down at the dining table and tell us what happened.”

  “I’ll get a glass of juice, or do you want hot chocolate?” offered Charlotte.

  “Hot chocolate, please.”

  “Baby girl, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Daddy. Ethan never came home today. After Hannah and Miss Meredith dropped me off, I started painting and, um, the next I knew, it was dark out, and Ethan wasn’t home.”

  Delta glanced around at the curious faces and then closed his eyes. He couldn’t decide who to berate first, himself for leaving his young daughter unattended, or his son, who’d disappeared, shirking his responsibilities to watch over his sister.

  “I’ll call the front gate and let Alpha know what’s going on,” said Echo, who walked toward the fireplace to place the call.

  Meredith and Hannah sat next to Skylar. Meredith fixed the child’s disheveled hair while Hannah picked out a few more pebbles that remained embedded in Skylar’s jeans. Blair returned with a wet cloth, some gauze, and Neosporin to clean up Skylar’s wounds, which were not significant, but likely painful, nonetheless.

  “Delta, wasn’t your son working with Alpha this afternoon on his drone-surveillance project?” asked Ryan.

  Delta rose and turned to Ryan. He rubbed his temples and then ran his hands down his face in a sign of exasperation. “Alpha touched base with me at midday and said Ethan was enthusiastically taking to the project. He didn’t have a set time to finish for the day, and I just assumed he’d be back at the cabin before dark, as I instructed.”

  “That was two hours ago,” interjected Meredith in a slightly condescending tone of voice. Delta took the hit. No matter how safe the Haven was, you should alw
ays know where your children are.

  Echo returned to the group. “Alpha is notifying the security team. He’s sent guys to the barn and also around the property.”

  “Good,” said Ryan. “I have an idea. Join me in the study. Echo, call Alpha back and tell him to come to the house.”

  “He’s already on his way,” said Echo.

  “Ryan, I need to go look—” started Delta before Ryan interrupted him.

  “I understand, but hang on until Alpha arrives. Let’s go look at the drone footage. Also, this may relate to something else that happened today.”

  “What?” asked Delta.

  “First, let’s take a look, and then we’ll discuss this with Alpha.”

  The guys headed back into the study, where Ryan settled into his chair and powered up one of the television monitors on his wall. With a few keystrokes on the computer’s keyboard, he pulled up a program that displayed the names of all six drones in the Haven’s air force. In a spreadsheet fashion, the monitor displayed when the drones had last provided aerial footage to the computer’s hard drive. The only active camera that sent a recorded feed during the day was H-Quad-1. The other cameras could’ve been active, just not recording.

  While Ryan ran through the footage at four times normal speed, Alpha entered the room and addressed the group. “Okay, the last time I saw Ethan was around two thirty or a quarter to three. Thereabouts. He seemed to be doing fine, although I didn’t speak with him.”

  “That coincides with the footage,” added Ryan. “Man, he was all over the place. Really, he was flying too fast to effectively surveil anything.”

  “Does he have a cell phone?” asked Cort. “Let’s try to call him.”

  “Nah,” said Delta. “His battery died and I told him I’d find a charger for it. Frankly, all he wanted to do was contact his mother, who’s on a cruise and would create all kinds of complications, so I put him off.”

  Alpha took a deep breath and exhaled. “Well, I might have screwed up that program.”

  “Whadya mean?” asked Delta.

  “Well, the boy asked me whether you’d been looking for the charger, and I told him I didn’t know anything about it. Sorry, man. If I’d known—”

  “Crap,” said Delta.

  “Yeah, well, I showed him where they are,” continued Delta and then added, “You know, his attitude changed a little bit, but I thought it was just a teenager thing. You know, moody and all.”

  “Here we go,” interrupted Ryan. “I know this property. Dammit, Alpha. The sheriff was right.”

  “What? The sheriff?” asked Delta.

  Ryan paused the video at the point where Ethan had made multiple passes along the perimeter fence near the farmhouse adjacent to the Haven. Then he pressed play as the H-Quad-1 suddenly changed its orientation and flew at a high rate of speed before being shut down at the barn.

  Alpha gave his opinion. “He saw what he was looking for and made his move.”

  Ryan added, “Do you think the kid was smart enough to shut down the video feed via the controller?”

  “Yeah,” replied Alpha. “It’s not that difficult for a tech-savvy teen. We could pull the feed from the other drones, but what I just saw is far from coincidental.”

  “Would you guys please tell me what you’re talking about?” asked Delta.

  Ryan leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers behind his head. “Late this afternoon, just before dark, I got a call from the front gate when the Burke County sheriff paid us a visit. He actually wanted to come in and look around, but I took a hard stance with him. Turns out his hunch might have been right.” Ryan looked at Alpha, who furrowed his brow and nodded.

  “What did the sheriff want?”

  “The old couple at the adjacent farm had their car stolen this afternoon. He wasn’t accusing anyone, but it’s part of his job to check with the surrounding residents to see if they’d seen anything. I think he was also curious and was using the car theft as an excuse to look around. We sent him on his way since he didn’t have a warrant.”

  “Jesus,” said Delta as he began to aimlessly walk around the room while rubbing his hands through his hair. “He stole a car. I mean, what the hell?”

  Alpha’s radio squawked to life and the room became silent as he spoke to Bravo. “Go ahead.”

  “There’s nothing out of the ordinary at HB-1 other than a go-bag missing from one of the lockers. I’m checking with the team to see if anyone pulled it for some reason.”

  “Are all the quads there?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Alpha signed off and returned the radio to his utility belt. “Delta, Ethan has a charger now and can be reached by phone. I suggest you try to call him.”

  Delta nodded and pulled his cell phone out. He called several times, but his son didn’t pick up the call. He left messages each time and then added text messaging to his contact attempts.

  He shrugged and then collapsed into a chair in front of Ryan’s desk. “What should I do? I mean, I’ve gotta go find him, right?”

  Cort spoke up. “Listen, I don’t profess to know anything about teenage boys from a dysfunctional family. Please, I don’t mean to be insulting, just truthful. But you’d never find him out there. Maybe he’s heading back home. Maybe he’s decided to go to Florida for the winter. All I know is this. There’s a frightened little girl out there that needs your help. I have one of those and I understand them. She needs her daddy and doesn’t deserve to be abandoned while you go on a wild-goose chase.”

  “That’s pretty blunt, Cort,” said Delta angrily. “He’s my son.”

  “Yes, and from what you’ve relayed to us all, he’s also very independent. Listen, I’m just throwing in my two cents’ worth. If you wanna go after him, by all means, go. We’ll take care of Skylar. But if you’re gonna chase after him to Philly, where the power outage is wreaking havoc, and take that young girl with you… Well, to me, as a dad, that’s the height of irresponsibility.”

  The men in the room allowed Cort’s words to linger. It was tough talk, but perhaps it was what Delta needed to hear.

  Chapter 52

  Cofer Road

  South Richmond, Virginia

  Ethan Hightower was dejected and scared. He’d driven a little over half of his five-hundred-mile journey when the Oldsmobile he’d stolen developed a loud ticking sound under the hood. He didn’t know anything about cars. The Olds was hard to drive at times because it was larger than his mom’s Toyota, but he quickly got the hang of it.

  It was much faster than his mom’s car. When there was a clear stretch of highway, the opposite of the busy southbound lane of I-95, Ethan opened up the throttle, allowing the gas-guzzling Oldsmobile to reach ninety miles an hour. He cranked up the radio, rolled down the windows, and searched for a functioning radio station to listen to. He was having the ride of his life and he intended to enjoy every moment.

  The car’s motor hadn’t been tested like that in two decades, and the oil gaskets were none too happy. Soon, a leak developed, and as Ethan squandered gas, the engine lost its oil.

  He’d made it to South Richmond and pulled off at an exit in search of a gas station. With only a few dollars and some loose change he’d found in the glove box, he hoped to pay for some gas and steal the rest. He never got the chance.

  He turned west off the interstate and drove around in search of an open gas station. He smiled as he saw the lights of the Emerald Fast Mart near Cofer Road. The Olds limped toward the station; the pinging sound of the engine had now turned into a full-blown clatter.

  Just as he entered the parking lot, the motor seized and shut down. All of the lights on his dashboard lit up with various shades of red and yellow, indicating the death of the Oldsmobile. Ethan sat there in disbelief. He turned off the ignition and tried to start the motor. It wouldn’t turn over, prompting him to beat the steering wheel in anger.

  “Now what am I supposed to do?” he asked aloud as he studied his surroundings. There were
no cars at the fuel pumps of the convenience store, but there were certainly plenty of patrons milling about the entrance. Young men carried on animated conversations amidst clouds of cigarette smoke. Brown paper bags with the necks of beer or liquor bottles were in their hands as they argued about world events or sports or the weather.

  Ethan didn’t know or care. He needed help, so he approached the men. Shy and unsure, Ethan finally mustered the courage to speak to the men, who’d given him the once-over but didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Hey, um, do you guys know anything about cars? Mine broke down and I think—”

  One of the men cut him off before he could finish. “Man, we don’t care nothin’ ’bout you or your busted-up old car. Go ahead on and don’t go bustin’ in on our conversation.”

  The rest of the men started laughing and toasted their liquor bottles together, allowing the loud clink of glass to put an exclamation point on the man’s admonition to Ethan.

  Ethan—young, naïve, and idealistic—persisted. “Come on, guys. I’m from out of town. My mom is missing, and I could use a break.”

  One of the men grinned, his gold teeth glimmering in the fluorescent light shining from the gas station’s canopy. He was the largest of the group and appeared to be the drunkest. He spun the cap onto his bottle of wine and forcefully shoved it into the chest of the first man who’d addressed Ethan. He was flexing the fingers on his right hand as he stood a little taller and approached Ethan.

  “Look here, man. You don’t listen too well.”

  The man had a swagger, a side-to-side swaying movement, as he walked toward Ethan. Ethan stepped back, but it was too late. A right fist connected with his jaw, spinning him around like a top until he landed facedown on the oil-covered pavement.

  Ethan tried to raise his arm to beg the man to stop, but his plea for mercy was ignored. Egged on by his drunk friends, the heavyset man kicked his size fourteen Air Jordans repeatedly into the side of Ethan’s body, knocking the wind out of the boy and likely fracturing several ribs.