Colton paused to think. He was exhausted, and he had no idea if he could trust this man. But what choice did he have? No one was coming to rescue him, and Thompson wasn’t going to just let Colton go. He had to find a way to escape and get back to Estes Park. He wouldn’t let anyone negotiate with Thompson, that was for sure.
He had only one choice. He would have to trust Clint—not just with his own life, but with the lives of everyone else in Estes Park.
“Okay,” Colton said at last. “Tell me everything you know.”
***
It was noon on the day after Raven had shot Don in the face on the trail near Storm Mountain. The night had been full of ups and downs, but Creek had pulled through. The dog now slept peacefully on the floor of Chief Colton’s office at the police station in Estes Park. After hammering out the terms of an alliance with John Kirkus and his fellow preppers, Raven had returned to Estes Park with Lindsey and Creek earlier that morning.
Raven hadn’t known if anyone would believe him about Don’s betrayal, which was why he let Lindsey do all the talking. While Raven waited for everyone to gather at town hall, he watched Creek sleep.
A patch covered the dog’s eye, and a bandage marked his shoulder where the doctor had removed more pellets. The Akita wouldn’t be back to work anytime soon, but he was alive. Thunderer had told Raven he’d lose more loved ones, but at least the universe hadn’t taken Creek from him. Raven wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep going if that happened.
Instead, he feared that Colton had been lost. Don had seemed certain that the chief wouldn’t be coming home. With Don and Hines dead, Colton missing, and the people they’d lost during the raider attack, the town was defended by a dwindling band of officers and volunteers. Their list of allies was growing thin while their enemies seemed to multiply.
Raven groaned as he shifted in his chair. Creek wasn’t the only one in bad shape. Raven had scored more cuts and bruises, and he was pretty sure his ear was about to fall off. Aside from the threat of infection, he wasn’t too worried. The injuries were just more scars on his already scarred body. All that mattered was that he was here to fight another day.
A knock on the door made Raven flinch. He turned to see his sister and Allie outside the office. He opened the door, and Sandra reached out to embrace him. She hung back at the last moment and scanned him up and down instead.
“Sam, you look like shi—” Sandra stopped herself from cursing and hugged Raven instead, embracing him in a bear hug that made him groan even louder.
Sandra pulled away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt…” her words trailed off again when she saw Creek stir on the floor, tail wagging.
“Oh my God,” Sandra said.
“Stay down, and don’t try and move, boy,” Raven said.
Creek rested his head back on the ground, his tail still whipping the carpet.
“What the heck happened to you guys?” Sandra asked.
Raven put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a long story. Don ambushed me and Lindsey at Storm Mountain. Apparently Don was behind the burning of the Stanley Hotel, and he also betrayed Colton by sending him to Fort Collins.”
“Allie, stay here with Creek,” Sandra said. She put her hand on Raven’s shoulder and turned him around, directing him into the hallway.
Great, another lecture.
Creek’s remaining eye followed Raven out of the room.
“It’s okay, boy, I’ll be right back,” Raven said over his shoulder.
As soon as they stepped into the hallway, footfalls sounded and Lindsey rounded the corner. She forced a smile and said, “Hey, Sandra.”
Sandra didn’t return the friendly gesture. “One of you needs to tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Detective, would you like to answer that?” Raven replied.
“I will in a bit, but right now we need to get to the conference room,” Lindsey said. “Sheriff Thompson is on the radio, and he wants to talk to the person in charge of Estes Park.”
“Stay here with Allie and Creek,” Raven said to Sandra.
“But…”
“Just listen to me for once,” Raven said.
Sandra let out a frustrated huff and walked back to Colton’s office while Raven followed Lindsey into the conference room. Mayor Andrews, Administrator Feagen, Detective Ryburn, Officer Matthew, Margaret, and several other staff members were inside. The shock on their faces told Raven that Lindsey had already broken the news about the previous night. He was glad not to have been here for the majority of the conversation.
“Who’s going to talk to Thompson?” Lindsey asked.
“Colton would want you in charge,” Officer Matthew said.
“Yeah, but Mayor Andrews is in charge of the town until he comes back,” Lindsey replied.
“Me?” Mayor Andrews asked, pointing at her chest. “I…I…”
Lindsey rolled her eyes and grabbed the radio receiver. Raven stepped up next to her.
“This is Detective Lindsey Plymouth,” she said.
“Never heard of you,” Thompson’s voice replied. “I’ll keep this very short. We have Chief Colton. And I’m told you have one of my men, Jason Cole.”
“Cole is the raider that hit us the other day,” Raven said quietly when Lindsey’s questioning eyes met his.
“If you don’t return him, then I’m afraid I’ll just have to keep Chief Colton. I’ve got a spot picked out for him right next to the former sheriff. If you ever want to see him alive again, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
There was another pause full of more shocked looks, and then Thompson added, “Oh, and we’re also going to need half of your medicine supplies, half of the elk meat, and the majority of your weapons. Then we’ll get scheduled drops each week. You will drop off the first load with Jason halfway down Highway 34 in three days. I’ll give you a few minutes to talk it over.”
Lindsey looked at Raven for guidance, something he’d never thought would happen.
“Do we comply with the demands?” Ryburn asked.
“Hell no,” Raven said. “That would leave us unarmed, and we need those supplies to get through the winter.”
“If we don’t, they will kill Colton.” Lindsey shook her head. “What do we do, Sam?”
Everyone else looked at Raven as if they expected him to lead them. Colton was being held prisoner, Jake Englewood was dead, and Gail Andrews was too flustered to organize a PTA meeting, let alone take charge of a town in crisis. He locked eyes with Lindsey. If anyone here should take the lead, it was her.
The radio crackled and Thompson’s voice surged back over the channel. “What’s your answer?”
Raven stepped over to Lindsey and whispered, “Tell them we’ll comply with their demands.”
“Are you crazy?” Lindsey asked, her eyes uncomprehending.
“Just trust me,” Raven said. “I have a plan. Don’t worry. We’re not handing over Cole and we’re not giving Thompson jack shit. We’re going to fight, and I’m going to get Colton back.”
He grinned at Lindsey. It was the smile of a man with a plan that was just crazy enough to work. After a moment, she smiled back at him. Together, they would protect the town and get Colton back safely. They would not allow Estes Park to fall.
Let the storm come, Raven thought. We’ll be ready.
—End of Book 3—
Turn the page to continue the adventure with
Trackers 4: The Damned
TRACKERS 4
~
THE DAMNED
For my twin brother Zachary Angaran Smith. Thank you for all that you do for at-risk youth. We need more men like you in this world.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
—William Shakespeare
Acknowledgements
Many people have a hand in the creation of this story. I’m grateful for all their help, criticism, and time. I’d like to start with the people I wrote this book for—the readers. You are the reason I always try to
write something fresh, and the reason I strive to always make each story better than—and different from—its predecessors. For those of you waiting on my other books, I thank you for your patience, and hope you enjoy the Trackers series.
Before you dive in, here’s a little background on how this story came to be. In 2016 I was finishing up book five of the Extinction Cycle, and at that time, I thought Extinction End would be the “end” of the series. I decided to write a new type of story—a story without monsters, zombies, or aliens—about a different type of threat to our national security.
Rewind ten years. I’m sitting at my desk as a planner with the State of Iowa. It was there that I learned a good deal about a terrifying weapon known as an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). During a meeting with several agencies, I was shocked to learn there wasn’t much being done to harden our utilities and critical facilities to protect against such a threat.
A few years later, I started working for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. I had several duties as a project officer, but my primary focus was on protecting infrastructure and working on the state hazard mitigation plan. During my tenure, I helped multiple communities apply for grants to build safe rooms in their schools or municipal buildings to protect from tornadoes. A few years later, I started working on grants that strengthened and hardened power lines in rural communities.
After several years of working in the disaster mitigation field, I learned of countless threats from natural disasters to manmade weapons, but the EMP, in my opinion, is the greatest of them all.
That brings us to today. We’re living in tumultuous times, and our enemies are constantly looking for ways to harm us, both domestically and abroad. We already know that cyber security is a major concern for the United States. North Korea, China, and Russia have all been caught hacking into our systems. We also know other countries are experimenting with technology that can shut down portions of our grid. But imagine a weapon that could shut down our entire grid. The perfectly strategized EMP attack gives our enemies an opportunity to do just that.
Before you start reading, I would like to take time to thank everyone that helped make this book a reality, starting with the Estes Park Police Department.
In the spring of 2016, my fiancée and I spent a week in Estes Park, Colorado, a place I had visited many times growing up. I wanted to show her this gorgeous tourist town that borders Rocky Mountain National Park, and I decided it would also make a good setting for a portion of Trackers.
The police department very graciously allowed me to tour their facilities and ride along with Officer Corey Richards. Department officers and staff explained police procedure for tracking lost people and their operations and response to natural disasters. Captain Eric Rose, who is in charge of the Emergency Operations Center, described what they went through in the flood of 2013, when Estes Park was quite literally cut off from surrounding communities.
I’ve spent time with many law enforcement departments over my career in government, and I can tell you Estes Park has one of the finest and most professional staffs I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Thank you to every officer for serving Estes Park and assisting with Trackers. I hope you find I did your community justice.
I’d also like to thank my literary agent, David Fugate, who has provided valuable feedback on each of my novels. The version you are reading today is much different than the manuscript I submitted, partly because of David’s excellent feedback.
Next up is my editor, Erin Elizabeth Long. She has had a hand in every book I’ve written thus far. I won’t lie—Trackers was a challenge for both of us, and Erin really encouraged me to continue pushing until I got the story right. Thanks, E. I appreciate you more than you know.
I also had a great group of beta readers that helped bring this story to life. You all know who you are. Thanks again for your assistance.
Trackers is more than just a post-apocalyptic thriller about the aftermath of an attack on American soil. It’s meant to be a mystery as much as it is a thriller. There are a lot of EMP stories out there, but I wanted to write one that included new themes and incorporated elements of Cherokee and Sioux folk stories, which I encountered when obtaining a degree in American Indian Studies.
This story, like many works of fiction, will require some suspension of belief, but hopefully not as much as my other science fiction stories. Any errors in this book rest solely with me, as the author is always the gatekeeper of the work.
In an interview several years ago, I was asked why I write. My response was that while my stories are meant to entertain, they are also meant to be a warning. Trackers could be a true story, and I hope our government continues to prepare and protect us from such a threat.
Much has happened on the North Korean peninsula since Trackers was first published in early 2017. The North Korean People’s Army has fired multiple ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, conducted several nuclear weapon tests, paraded two new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and even threatened thermonuclear war.
These frightening developments have ended the debate over whether or not the North Koreans have nuclear weapons, but it’s still not clear if they can actually deliver them by ICBMs. There are other ways to attack an enemy with nuclear weapons, however, and I explore one of them as a novelist in the Trackers series.
I don’t know the best way to approach the North Korean threat, but one thing is certain—if something isn’t done soon, the stability of the entire world could be at risk.
During my visit in 2016, Captain Eric Rose of the Estes Park Police Department told me that he wasn’t sure he was ready for a post-apocalyptic Estes Park. I’m not either, but only time will tell if the Trackers saga remains fiction.
With that said, I hope you enjoy the read, and as always, feel free to reach out to me on social media if you have questions or comments.
Best wishes,
Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Foreword
Dr. Arthur Bradley
Author of Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms and The Survivalist.
When used conventionally, a nuclear warhead could destroy a city and cover the surrounding region in deadly radiation. Horrible to be sure, but at least it would be localized. When detonated in the atmosphere at the right altitude, however, that same warhead could generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would cause almost unimaginable harm to our nation.
The most significant effect of such an attack would be damage to the nation’s electrical grid. Due to the interdependency of systems, the loss of electricity would result in a cascade of failures promulgating through every major infrastructure, including telecommunications, financial, petroleum and natural gas, transportation, food, water, emergency services, space operations, and government. Businesses, including banks, grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations, would all close. Critical services such as the distribution of water, fuel, and food would fail. Emergency services, including hospitals, police, and fire departments, would perhaps remain operable a little longer using generators and backup systems, but they too would collapse due to limited fuel distribution, as well as the loss of key personnel abandoning their posts.
In addition to the collapse of national infrastructures, an EMP could cause widespread damage to transportation systems, such as aircraft, automobiles, trucks, and boats, as well as supervisory control and data acquisition hardware used in telecommunications, fuel processing, and water purification systems. Such an attack could also damage in-space satellites and significantly hamper the government’s ability to provide a unified emergency response or even maintain civil order. Finally, many personal electronics could also be damaged, including our beloved computers and cell phones, as well as important health monitoring devices.
With the collapse of infrastructures, loss of commerce, and widespread damage to property, an EMP attack would introduce terrible financial ruin on the nation. Consider that it is estimated that even a modest
1-2 megaton warhead detonated over the Eastern Seaboard could cause in excess of a trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) dollars in damage.
Testing done in the 1960s, such as Starfish Prime and the Soviet’s Test 184, provided some idea of the potential damage, but weapons have become even more powerful and our world more technologically susceptible. No one really knows with certainty the extent of the damage that would be felt, but expert predictions range from catastrophic to apocalyptic. What is universally agreed upon is that the EMP attack allows for an almost unimaginable amount of damage to be done with nothing more than a single nuclear warhead and a missile capable of deploying it to the right altitude. Given that there are more than 128,000 such warheads and 10,000 such missiles in existence, it seems prudent to better understand and prepare for this very real and present danger.
What many do not know is that the U.S. has been openly threatened with an EMP strike by Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Leaderships of these countries have come to appreciate the truly asymmetric nature of such an attack. Consider that an EMP strike would be largely independent of weather, result in long-lasting infrastructure damage, and inflict a damage-to-cost ratio far greater than any conventional weapon, including a nuclear “dirty bomb.” Worse yet is that our enemies would not limit themselves to a single EMP strike. Rather, they would detonate several warheads, carefully timed and positioned across the nation to achieve maximum damage.
Author Nicholas Sansbury Smith understands how an attack could cripple the United States. I first spoke with him when he was working for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management in the disaster preparedness field. He reached out when he was writing a science fiction story about solar storms with some questions about my book, Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms. Since then, Nicholas has also spent a great deal of time researching EMPs.
Trackers is a work of fiction, but many of the places in the story are real. Utilizing his background in emergency management and disaster mitigation, Nicholas has done an excellent job of describing a realistic geopolitical crisis that sets the stage for an EMP attack. The following story is a terrifying scenario in which brave men and women must adapt to a challenging new world—a world that we could see ourselves being thrust into. Part of me wishes Nicholas had continued writing purely science fiction stories about aliens and government designed bio-weapons because Trackers is a novel that could become non-fiction.
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