by Bobby Akart
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Other Works by Bestselling Author Bobby Akart
The Lone Star Series
Axis of Evil
Beyond Borders
Lines in the Sand
Texas Strong
Fifth Column
Suicide Six
The Pandemic Series
Beginnings
The Innocents
Level 6
Quietus
The Blackout Series
36 Hours
Zero Hour
Turning Point
Shiloh Ranch
Hornet’s Nest
Devil’s Homecoming
The Boston Brahmin Series
The Loyal Nine
Cyber Attack
Martial Law
False Flag
The Mechanics
Choose Freedom
Patriot’s Farewell
Seeds of Liberty (Companion Guide)
The Prepping for Tomorrow Series
Cyber Warfare
EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse
Economic Collapse
Lines in the Sand
The Lone Star Series, Book Three
by
Bobby Akart
Contents
Dedications
Acknowledgements
About the Author, Bobby Akart
Foreword by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Epigraph
Preface
PART ONE The Twelve-Hour War
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
PART TWO Road Trips
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
PART THREE Beyond Borders
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
PART FOUR All Is Not Well
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Excerpt from TEXAS STRONG
Copyright Information
Dedications
Every day, I wake up to a beautiful world filled with the undying love of my wife and the loyalty of our pups. Without them, none of my books would be possible. I wish every family could have what we have. The Lone Star Series is dedicated to the love and support of my family. I will always protect you from anything that would disrupt our happiness.
Acknowledgements
Writing a book that is both informative and entertaining requires a tremendous team effort. Writing is the easy part. For their efforts in making the Lone Star series, a reality, I would like to thank Hristo Argirov Kovatliev for his incredible cover art, Pauline Nolet for her editorial prowess, Stef Mcdaid for making this manuscript decipherable in so many formats, Sean Runnette and the folks at Audible Studios for producing the incredible narration, and the Team—Shirley, Denise, Joe, and Jim, whose advice, friendship and attention to detail is priceless.
A special thank-you to Kevin Baron and the team at Defense One for providing invaluable insight into the North Korean threat and how we’d defend against it. Also, thank you to Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, Center for National Defense, for her extensive background material on missile defense, nuclear weapons modernization and arms control.
Also, enough can’t be said for the efforts of Dr. Peter Vincent Pry as he continues to warn our lawmakers of the threats we face from an EMP. Dr. Pry is an unsung hero who works tirelessly to protect America and keep us aware of activities to protect the grid.
Thank you all!
Choose Freedom!
About the Author, Bobby Akart
Bestselling author Bobby Akart has been ranked by Amazon as the #3 Bestselling Religion & Spirituality Author, the #5 Bestselling Science Fiction Author, and the #7 Bestselling Historical Author. He has written nineteen international bestsellers, in forty different fiction and nonfiction genres, including the critically acclaimed Boston Brahmin series, the bestselling Blackout series, the frighteningly realistic Pandemic Series, his highly cited nonfiction Prepping for Tomorrow series and his latest project—the Lone Star series, which has already produced two #1 bestsellers.
Bobby has provided his readers a diverse range of topics that are both informative and entertaining. His attention to detail and impeccable research have allowed him to capture the imaginations of his readers through his fictional works, and bring them valuable knowledge through his nonfiction books.
SIGN UP for Bobby Akart’s mailing list to receive special offers, bonus content, and you’ll be the first to receive news about new releases in the Lone Star series, updates on his other series, special offers, and bonus content. You can contact Bobby directly by email ([email protected]) or through his website:
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Foreword
by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Chief of Staff, Congressional EMP Commission
Executive Director, Task Force on National and Homeland Security
The recent escalating war of words and actions with rogue nations like North Korea and Iran has given rise to a new sense of urgency about threats we face—especially the existential threat that is a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. I am pleased to write this foreword for author Bobby Akart as he continues to inform his readers, through his works of fiction, about the EMP threat, both man-made and naturally occurring.
With the Lone Star series, you will learn about the potential of nuclear-armed satellites flying over America daily in low Earth orbit, positioned to collapse our power grid, destroy our way of life, and possibly kill up to ninety percent of Americans.
The Congressional EMP Commission warns North Korea may already pose a worldwide threat, not only by ICBM, but by satellites, two of which presently orbit over the United States and every country on Earth.
&n
bsp; A single satellite, if nuclear-armed, detonated at high-altitude would generate an EMP capable of blacking out power grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructure.
Yet, after massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, their biggest threat to the U.S. and the world remains unacknowledged—nuclear EMP attack.
The EMP threat continues to be low priority and largely ignored, even though on September 2, 2017, North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack.
Two days after their H-Bomb test, on September 4, Pyongyang also released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing a “super-EMP” weapon generating 100,000 volts/meter.
North Korea’s development of a super-EMP weapon that generates 100,000 volts/meter is a technological watershed more threatening than the development of an H-Bomb and ICBM because even the U.S. nuclear deterrent, the best-protected U.S. military forces, are EMP hardened to survive only 50,000 volts/meter.
My colleague EMP Commission Chairman William Robert Graham warned Congress in 2008 that Russia had developed super-EMP weapons and most likely transferred that technology to North Korea allegedly by accident, according to Russian generals.
The result of this newly discovered relationship between Russia and North Korea is that the DPRK now has the technology to win a nuclear war. At the very least, a North Korean EMP attack could paralyze the U.S. nuclear deterrent and prevent U.S. retaliation, perhaps even by U.S. submarines at sea that cannot launch missiles without receiving an Emergency Action Message from the president.
However, the warning signs have gone largely ignored. Although North Korea, Russia, and China have all made nuclear threats against the United States recently, in the case of North Korea and Russia repeatedly, most analysts dismiss the war of words as mere bluster and nuclear sabre rattling, not to be taken seriously.
In the West, generations of leaders and citizens have been educated that use of nuclear weapons is unthinkable and the ultimate horror. Not so in Russia, China, and North Korea, where their nuclear capabilities are publicly paraded—missile launches and exercises are televised as a show of strength, an important part of national pride.
Then there is the issue of an EMP attack. An electromagnetic pulse attack would be perfect for implementing Russia’s strategy of “de-escalation,” where a conflict with the U.S. and its allies would be won by limited nuclear use. It’s their version of “shock and awe” to cow the U.S. into submission. The same kind of attack is viewed as an acceptable option by China and North Korea as well.
An EMP attack would be the most militarily effective use of one or a few nuclear weapons, while also being the most acceptable nuclear option in world opinion, the option most likely to be construed in the U.S. and internationally as “restrained” and a “warning shot” without direct loss of life.
Because an electromagnetic pulse destroys electronics instead of blasting cities, even some analysts in Germany and Japan, among the most antinuclear nations, regard EMP attacks as an acceptable use of nuclear weapons. A high-altitude EMP (“HEMP”) attack entails detonating a nuclear weapon at 30–400 kilometers altitude—above the atmosphere, in outer space, so high that no nuclear effects, not even the sound of the explosion, would be experienced on the ground, except the resulting EMP.
An EMP attack will kill far more people than nuclear blasting a city through indirect effects—by blacking out electric grids and destroying life-sustaining critical infrastructures like communications, transportation, food and water—in the long run. But the millions of fatalities likely to eventually result from EMP will take months to develop, as slow as starvation.
Thus, a nation hit with an EMP attack will have powerful incentives to cease hostilities, focus on repairing their critical infrastructures while there is still time and opportunity to recover, and avert national extinction.
Indeed, an EMP attack or demonstration made to “de-escalate” a crisis or conflict is very likely to raise a chorus of voices in the West against nuclear escalation and send Western leaders in a panicked search for the first “off ramp.”
Axis of Evil and the entire Lone Star series are books of fiction that are based upon historical fact. The geopolitical factors in this series leading up to a potentially catastrophic collapse of America’s power grid are based upon real-world scenarios.
Author Bobby Akart has written several fiction and nonfiction books with the intent to raise awareness about the threats we face from an EMP, whether via a massive solar storm or delivered by a nuclear warhead. While many books have been written about the results of nuclear war and EMPs, few have tackled the subject of using satellites as a means of delivering the fatal blow, until now.
The Lone Star series is written to be thought-provoking. It will be a reminder to us all that, as Bobby says, you never know when the day before is the day before. Prepare for tomorrow.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Chief of Staff
Congressional EMP Commission
Executive Director
Task Force on National and Homeland Security
About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry served as chief of staff of Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission (2001-2017), and is currently the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional Advisory Board dedicated to achieving protection of the United States from electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber warfare, mass-destruction terrorism and other threats to civilian critical infrastructures, on an accelerated basis. Dr. Pry also is director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, an advisory board to Congress on policies to counter weapons of mass destruction. Foreign governments, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and Kazakhstan consult with Dr. Pry on EMP, cyber, and other strategic threats.
Dr. Pry served on the staffs of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (2008–2009); the Commission on the New Strategic Posture of the United States (2006–2008); and the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack (2001–2008).
Dr. Pry served as professional staff on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) of the U.S. Congress, with portfolios in nuclear strategy, WMD, Russia, China, NATO, the Middle East, Intelligence, and Terrorism (1995–2001). While serving on the HASC, Dr. Pry was chief advisor to the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and to the chairman of the Terrorism Panel. Dr. Pry played a key role: running hearings in Congress that warned terrorists and rogue states could pose EMP and cyber threats, establishing the Congressional EMP Commission, helping the commission develop plans to protect the United States from EMP and cyber warfare, and working closely with senior scientists and the nation’s top experts on critical infrastructures, EMP and cyber warfare.
Dr. Pry was an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, responsible for analyzing Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy, operational plans, military doctrine, threat perceptions, and developing U.S. paradigms for strategic warning (1985–1995). He also served as a verification analyst at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency responsible for assessing Soviet arms control treaty compliance (1984–1985).
Dr. Pry has written numerous books on national security issues, including Blackout Wars; Apocalypse Unknown: The Struggle To Protect America From An Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe; Electric Armageddon: Civil-Military Preparedness For An Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe; War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink; Nuclear Wars: Exchanges and Outcomes; The Strategic Nuclear Balance: And Why It Matters; and Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal. You may view his canon of work by visiting his Amazon Author page.
Dr. Pry often appears on TV and radio as an expert on national security issues. The BBC made his book War Scare into a two-hour TV documentary Soviet War
Scare 1983, and his book Electric Armageddon was the basis for another TV documentary Electronic Armageddon made by National Geographic.
Epigraph
In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such an adulterous woman. So, what do You say?”
They said this to test Him, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with His finger.
When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.”
~ John 8:5-7
*****
No matter how big your house is, how your new your car is, or how big your bank account is, all of our graves will be the same size.
~ Anonymous
*****
Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.
~ J. Robert Oppenheimer, Physicist & Father of the Atomic Bomb
*****
The living would envy the dead.
~ Nikita Khrushchev, on nuclear war
*****
They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.
~ President Donald J. Trump
*****
Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and say—enough is enough. If you have an unspoken policy to move the line, know this …
What you allow is what will continue.
~ your most humble servant
Preface
The phrase line in the sand has been used for centuries in several historical and military contexts. From the days of the Roman Empire until the present geopolitical strife between the United States and North Korea, a line in the sand has been used both figuratively and physically to describe a point of no return—a metaphor for an event or moment in time beyond which the decision and its resulting consequences are permanently decided and irreversible.
As early as 168 BC, history shows that one Roman leader, in an effort to convince an adversary to concede his demands, slowly walked around the king and drew a line in the form of a circle. “Before you cross this circle, I want you to give me a reply for the Roman senate,” the Roman consul demanded. The king, who was occupying Roman lands in Egypt, was warned to acquiesce or be destroyed. Staying within the circle, the king nodded his agreement and extended his hand to the Roman consul. Only then did the Roman consul shake it and remove the line with his foot.