by Roger Weston
“You mean like where to unleash your next calamity?”
“Yes, but don’t act so self-righteous about it, you hypocrite. If I cut you in on the profits, you’d join up just as fast as the dozens of world leaders who are already onboard.”
Chuck shook his head and looked down at the deck.
“What? Do you think you’re above being bought? Is that it?”
“I think there are many people in the world who care about their brothers and sisters and neighbors—who will fight to protect them. You can kill me, but others will follow in my footsteps.”
“Wishful thinking. Naïve thinking. But if you’re right, they too will fail. Anyone who opposes me will fail miserably. Not even sovereign nations can stand against me because I have a three-legged stool of invincibility. Each leg of that stool is a force multiplier that makes me unstoppable. The first leg is the cooperation of the ex-US president who locked the American taxpayer into financing my operations long term.”
“How?”
“An offshore minerals treaty, which will be law within forty-eight hours.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Right after my first-wave attack, I will give my network in the US senate the go-ahead. The second leg of that stool is the ionospheric heater. This is the greatest weapon that the earth has ever seen. With it I have the ability to turn the earth itself against my enemies. I own the earth. I own the weather.” He stalked back and forth like a man possessed. “Nobody can stand before me. My wrath strikes down from the sky as lightning; it scorches the earth beneath your feet. Oppose me and I will wipe out half a million citizens of your country and rake in billions of dollars in the process. They cannot fight back because they don’t know where I am or where I will be. They won’t see me coming or going. When calamity strikes, it will be my wrath—the wrath of General Lazar. Thunder and lightning will announce my arrival. They will be my calling card. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes will follow in my wake. If I sneeze, a tsunami will wipe out thousands. Overpopulation will be a thing of the past.” He slashed the air with his hand.
“The third leg of that stool is the tactical genius that made me the man I am—yet so much more than a man—a son … of the sun. The military genius, the tactical mind that allowed me to rise to the top of the world’s greatest military—the Russian Army. Caesar himself would bow down to me. So would Napoleon, Frederick, Alexander, and Pompei. So would General MacArthur. Even the mighty General George Patton would bow down to the greatest military mind in history. No man in the chronicles of time has ever succeeded in taming the entire world. You’re looking a great general on the cusp of doing just that.
“It’s over, Brandt. The fact that you’re here proves that. No man alive can handle the Black Cobras, and you’re too isolated to escape.”
Wind howled eerily around the wheelhouse above.
“You should have known better than to go up against me,” Lazar continued. “The Russians tried to stop me, too. They locked me up in an insane asylum because they could not contain me. All of Siberia could not contain me. Nothing in my life caused me more pain than when Russia turned against me. But look what I have done. I took Russia’s betrayal and rose above it. Now, all of Russia is too small for me. Not even the mighty Russian army can stand before me, nor the American military, whose leaders will serve me.”
Chuck felt a rifle barrel jabbed into his back. Black Cobras to his left and right looked at him. Chuck had to admit to himself that the situation looked dire, not only for him, but for the whole world.
Lazar stalked back and forth across the flight deck. “And there you stand before me, Brandt. You stand before me with the audacity to think that you could come here—one single man—and take down the great General Lazar. Do you realize how absurd that is? Obviously you didn’t think this through. You didn’t think about the force multipliers making up the three legs of my royal stool. You didn’t realize that I am going to finish what Tupa Inca started. I’m not only going to unify the Americas, but I will exert my power all across the globe.
“And yet here you are—you—who not long ago was working as a leasing agent in a rundown apartment complex in Birmingham, Alabama and known for playing pool with Turkish Russians. You, who just days ago was working with down-and-outers in a soup kitchen. It’s like a bad joke. You stand there before me as if you would stop me and all my Black Cobra revolutionaries all by yourself—you. You stand there before me with your head held high after attempting a one-man attack on an aircraft carrier. And what weapon did you bring? A pistol. With that you endeavored to take on General Lazar and all the power of his mental, military, environmental, and political war machine.”
Stuart was led out on deck by three Black Cobras.
Lazar looked at him. “You’re late for the show.” He gestured toward Chuck. “This is the kind of man you work with? Sad.”
Now he turned back. “I will say one thing about you, Brandt: you’ve caused me more trouble than any other man alive. The fact that you’ve not only lived this long, but also caused mayhem for me is impressive. I have to admit, I’m going to be sorry to kill you. After you’re gone, there will be no one else left to challenge me. I’ve enjoyed our games. You have challenged me with your resourcefulness. I’ll tell you the truth: I might have hired you and promoted you. But you messed with my family. You took Maria and my wife from me and gave them protection. That is too much. For that, you will die indeed.
“Now is the time we have all been waiting for. Now is the time to unleash the ionospheric heater. I will bury the Gulf Coast of the United States under a wall of water that will make Katrina look like a ripple.”
CHAPTER 35
Five minutes till WMD attack
General Lazar climbed a ladder up onto a shipping container that was forward of the main superstructure and wheelhouse. Standing on a heated traction pad on the container, he gazed down on shy of two hundred men who had been temporarily excused from duty in order to hear him speak. Halogen deck lights attached to the superstructure cast a dim glow down upon them. All were armed. The ninety black-clad men held a variety of firearms, heavy on AK-47s. Twenty yards away, six big screens were set up and tied down against the wind. The wind blew stiff now—and cold enough to remind General Lazar of winters in Moscow and even Siberia. He had come far in life—from a student who was resented by his teachers due to his intellectual superiority to becoming a historical figure who would soon be resented by the world for his domination.
He gazed up and down the flight deck—all of which was dimly lit up by restored runway lights. The deck looked more like a container yard in St. Petersburg than it did the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Across the deck, opposite of the ship’s superstructure, two dozen shipping containers were lined up. He saw scientists in Arctic gear mulling around over there, going through their pre-detonation checklists. To his right, toward the bow, the runway was a container city. A hundred shipping containers were stacked there in close proximity to the newly-installed heavy-lift crane. Many containers were solo, but others were piggy-backed, one-atop-another.
In some areas containers were stacked four high.
Back astern, he saw a scattering of containers and the small antenna farm. In its day, the USS Forrestal had been the largest vessel ever constructed, over 1000-feet long. It was appropriate, he thought, that he should be her last owner, for in his day, he had been the greatest military tactician who had ever lived—even if his career had been cut short by jealous peers. The ship and the general shared something in common, glorious pasts—but they were both thought to be past their prime by the blind world. They shared something else in common. They were about to be married in infamy. The accomplishments of their past would be as mere chaff compared to what was about to happen.
General Lazar turned on his megaphone, but didn’t speak.
Freezing wind and snow blew across her decks, illuminated by halogen deck lights.
This was no ordinary night. There
had never been a night like this since the creation of the earth itself. In two minutes, the world would be changed forever. It would be controlled not by a traditional superpower—but by General Lazar.
He thought of Nikola Tesla. Tesla had been desperate man indeed when he’d fired his ionospheric heater. Lazar was not desperate. Lazar was fast becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. He would soon be the most powerful man alive.
He spoke through his megaphone on account of the wind. He said, “I control the greatest weapon known to man. In just minutes, you will see the world brought to its knees. For Tesla, the ionospheric heater was a peaceful demonstration. For me, it is an act of domination. Tesla envisioned a peace ray to create an umbrella of safety around his country. I am not so naïve. I seek destiny and power befitting of a man of my rare breed. I am the one they warned of in the Bible. I was born to dominate. I am a son of the sun. What the Incas did to South America, I will do to the world.”
“Caesar, Alexander, Scipio, Hannibal, and even the mighty Pachacuti—the great captains of history will take a back seat from now on.”
He thrust out his arm. “Even the air we breathe works for me now. Tesla’s tower was indeed an invention of epic power. One hundred billion watts of electric radio waves will respond to my orders. The atmosphere will serve me. Hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, floods—I control what only the gods control. Many came before me and tried for global domination—and they failed: Romans, Greeks, Mongols, the Corsican, and others—all tried, all failed.”
Lazar paced back and forth. His excited eyes glimmered with energy under the deck lights.
“Today will change the calculus of power and destiny. I am not an ordinary man. I am the beast mentioned in Revelation, and you, my Black Cobras, shall serve me well.” Lazar could see that they were cold, but none of them dared move a muscle.
The electricians and physicists moved to their stations in the containers. One gave Lazar a hand signal that they were ready.
Lazar nodded, and thought he saw fear in the man’s eyes.
Lazar lifted the megaphone and said, “Activate when ready.”
A minute of cold, funeral silence followed. The general looked out across the ocean, and not even all of the vastness could contain his ambition.
A loud humming sound rose over the blue, choppy water.
Lightning flashed white.
Hundreds of bright strikes lit up all around.
Pitch forks of fire stabbed the darkness—in all directions.
The sky came alive. The sea lit up. Reflections painted a lake of white fire.
Emanating from the antenna farm on the distant supertanker, a cloud of green light filled the sky.
Lightning splintered the green rolling light.
Hundreds of bolts of electric fire ravaged the air. The sky looked like a shattered, illuminated glass. Millions of watts of electricity emitted from the antennas on the deck of the supertanker. A massive particle beam shot into the atmosphere.
Lights of an aurora borealis lights danced across the sky. Indeed, it was the most beautiful thing that Lazar had ever seen in his life.
The big-screen televisions to the left of the rows of Black Cobras switched on. Green video feed was shown—video beamed down from a satellite with night-vision remote sensors. The green, grainy video showed a village of a few thousand people in the Peruvian Andes, to the north of Cuzco. A bolt of lightning the size of a tornado flashed down from the sky. The tornado of fire pounded the earth for no more than twenty seconds. Several minutes passed as the dust settled. All eyes were on the television screens. What was left was a huge crater and scorched earth. To General Lazar, it was a beautiful sight. He thought of how the Russians used a scorched earth strategy in the dead of winter to defeat Napoleon. I was there, Lazar thought. Now I use scorched earth as an offensive strategy.
Now the video feed switched to a major city: New Orleans.
Lazar chuckled.
Then two of his security men led Chuck at gunpoint over by the television screens.
Lazar lifted his megaphone. “Brandt, they say New Orleans never sleeps. I’m about to put it to sleep. I’m tempted to let you watch, but I think it best that you go to sleep first.”
The thugs led Chuck to an open space between the container that Lazar was standing on and the Black Cobras, who stood at attention, twenty yards away.
Lazar said, “Get down on your knees, Brandt.”
The prisoner charged his guard, laying him out on the deck, but four Black Cobras tackled him and piled onto him, holding him down.
Lazar said, “What a nuisance you have been. You were a fool. Resistance is futile. You should have known that. Shoot him!”
The men forced Brandt onto his knees, then backed away. One of them put a gun to his head.
“No!” the familiar voice came from behind Lazar, from a doorway into the superstructure. Lazar turned.
Dante Brulé ran out on deck. He stopped by a large Black Cobra who was a foot shorter. Twice the size of a normal man, his chest was like a bull’s chest. His head was like a boulder. He had his pistol aimed at the executioner. “Do not pull that trigger.”
He moved within twenty feet of Brandt, but he looked up at Lazar. “General, you promised me that it would be my priveledge to kill Brandt. I have been loyal to you. You gave me your word.”
“Time ran out on you, Brulé. You took too long. You had your chance.”
“Please, General. I have served you loyally. How would you repay me for loyalty? You told me that Brandt was mine. How will you repay loyalty?”
Lazar nodded. “He is right. General Lazar rewards loyalty.”
An electrician emerged from the containers. He crossed the deck and stopped a hundred feet behind the line of Black Cobras. “General, we are ready.”
“Stand by,” Lazar said.
“Good, now I’ll kill him,” Brulé said.
“We shall see.” Lazar smiled. “You said you were a better man than Brandt. Now, you’re going to have a chance to prove it. Put down your guns, Brulé. That is an order.”
Brulé looked confused, but he obeyed.
Lazar nodded at a Black Cobra, and the man collected the guns.
“Take off Brandt’s handcuffs,” Lazar said. This was done.
“Chuck Brandt, you are going to die. They say you are a legendary operative, and you are. But sooner or later, even a legend goes too far. He goes against a superior force. You should not have interfered with the operations of General Lazar. Brulé is going to kill you in hand-to-hand combat. If he is not successful, you will be shot.”
Lazar looked at his hundred Black Cobra terrorists. “They say that this man was the best, but look at him now. Watch what happens to him. This is the future of all who betray Lazar. Let the competition begin.”
Brandt looked at the static electricity in the air and lightning bolts lashing the ocean within fifty yards of the carrier. He saw a concentration of static electricity over distant shipping containers. “You will fail, General, as lunatics always do.”
Brandt smashed an elbow into the face of the Black Cobra beside him, then dove to the deck behind the nearest shipping container.
An explosion erupted from the cargo container where Chuck had placed the nitroglycerin, the unstable C4, and the unshunted blasting caps. The explosion took out the antenna farm on the carrier and caused a power surge on the distant supertanker. A huge blast tore through the antenna farm over on the supertanker. Electrical explosions erupted in all directions like fountains of sparks.
A massive BOOM utterly consumed the distant supertanker. An electrified concussion wave swept over the carrier. Bolts of electricity filled the air.
Black Cobra terrorists fell like dominoes on the flight deck, but Chuck was protected behind the big cargo container.
Many Black Cobras had collapsed as if struck with electric shocks.
They fell by the dozen—mowed down by a concentrated electrical storm.
Some were oddly untouched. One man got up, but the five men all around him lay unconscious. That scene repeated itself many times.
Of a hundred fallen men, Chuck guessed he saw fifty get back up. Still, he was vastly outnumbered. He looked around for Stuart, but didn’t see him.
URGENT: Thank you for reading this far! The next book in the series, GLOBAL TILT, is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy today. Now back to AMERICAN OP.
CHAPTER 36
A cage of lightening fenced in the two ships, the aircraft carrier and the supertanker, which was sinking half a mile away. A light rose on the air as if neon clouds were materializing. The aurora borealis was a moving, shifting light.
And the light showed Lazar something shocking.
“Paratroopers,” Lazar screamed into his megaphone. “Shoot them out of the sky.”
Secondary explosions ripped through the supertanker.
RPG’s streaked through the sky.
Ionospheric heaters on both the carrier and the supertanker blew up. Shrapnel flew. Black Cobras staggered around. A satellite disk fell from its perch up above the wheelhouse. Lazar screamed and fell. The big disk smashed down his legs. Black Cobras opened fire on parachutes and descending OFFSHORE commandos. The commandos fired back.
Lazar was screaming in pain, but even he was shooting at paratroopers. Chuck ran and dove on him, elbowed his face and knocked him out. Chuck carried the general behind a shipping container for cover then tied tourniquets around his legs, which were bleeding heavily. An OFFSHORE medic ran over. He’d arrived with the paratroopers.