Amanda came down with a mild cold from the ordeal, but Jason found himself battling pneumonia soon after. Amy spent two weeks doing all she could to nurse her first born back to health. Amanda tried daily to offer to help in any way she could, but Amy blamed her for his condition and refused to even feed him soup when she cooked it.
Jason fought hard, but in spite of everyone's best efforts, he died December 5th. By that time, the snow pack had risen to about six feet deep. Jessica and Taylor went as a team to try to find low spots they could shovel their way through to place his body until they could bury him, but were unable to even get off the porch. After a day, as the snow continued to fall, Mike insisted that they put Jason's body out the upstairs bedroom window of the room he had died in. All of them felt guilty. Like they were disrespecting the boy who had given his life to save someone else. The hard winter turned surprisingly long, making them wait until the first week of April before they could retrieve his body and give Jason a proper burial.
Mike felt particularly guilty. He had a great deal of respect for the young man, who stepped up to the task no matter what was ever asked of him. And in his mind, it was all his fault. He reasoned that Amanda wouldn't have been out there had he not run her off. And even if she had still left, had he not acted out so angrily and fallen, it would have been him who had gone to rescue her, not Jason.
Mike and Amanda both found immersing themselves in the politics of the war to be a distraction from the guilt and grief they both felt. Brazil had chosen to side with the Pacifics and Soviets, cutting all ties with the reorganized North American Union. This was a major turning point in the war, as the NAU's only remaining allies were the struggling nations of western Europe, Canada and Mexico.
Mike got the call one morning to join a conference call with the other advisers over SatLinc with the Joint Chiefs. Admiral Miller, as the acting chairman, led the call with a proposed plan of retaliation.
“I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I have a plan to take most of South America out of the war by levying an attack on Brazil,” the Admiral started.
While everyone remained silent waiting to hear the plan, Mike couldn't bite his tongue. “You're shittin' me!”
“Excuse me?!” the Admiral shot back, in disgust at the perceived disrespect.
“You want to attack Brazil? I understand the attacks on Pacific and Soviet bases being established around -”
“Mr. Paine, please hold your thoughts until I'm finished,” the Admiral demanded. “As I was saying, since Brazil has led the charge on the South American continent for uniting against us, I have a proposed plan of attack to show that we can't and won't tolerate such actions. If launched, Brazil would not be capable of continuing it's support of our enemies.”
“Okay, so what's this brilliant plan?” Mike asked. “Get to the details and save us the bullshit.”
Admiral Miller was clearly getting annoyed by the man he knew only as Mr. Thomas Paine. “Well, Mr. Paine, the plan is to launch a few dozen missiles into Brazil, targeting it's key infrastructure, without which, it will only barely be able to function. Half of these missiles would assure the complete demolition of the Itaipu Dam.”
Mike didn't know what that dam was, or it's significance, but the look on Amanda's face told him she knew exactly what he was talking about.
Chairman Miller continued, “The remaining missiles will be sent directly into Brazil's capital of Sao Paulo.”
“Oh my God!” Mike exclaimed before catching himself. “I'm sorry, Admiral, please continue telling us how many civilians you've got a hard-on to kill.”
“Mr. Paine, would you like to be disconnected from this conference, because I can have that done quite easily?”
“Please go on, Mr. Chairman,” Mike struggled to say respectfully.
“We would not be bombing civilian targets in Sao Paulo. Our object would be to destroy the hydroelectric dams at the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs.”
Amanda's mouth dropped as she hurriedly reached for the mute button on the microphone. “That's going to wipe out Sao Paulo worse than just bombing it! I'd bet at least two or three million people's homes and businesses lie in the lower regions of the city, and that's on the low end. Anyone who manages to survive the attack and flooding won't have any clean water!”
Mike unmuted his microphone as several of the others were talking about how it sounded to them like a good strategic attack with minimal civilian casualties. “So, Chairman Miller,” Mike spoke up over the others, “You want to eliminate the major power supplies for the country?”
“Precisely. It will be precision strike -”
“And what about the millions of people who live and work downstream of these reservoirs? What about the ten-plus million people who would have to figure out how to live without drinking water?”
“Mr. Paine, any attack will have a few casualties. But Brazilians are used to heavy rains, and will not have a problem finding reasonable drinking water supplies. Assuming the board doesn't override us by unanimous vote, the attack would commence a week from this coming Sunday, March 16th.”
“Excuse me,” General Laub, of the Air Force, interjected. “Since first reviewing this plan a few days ago, some of my intelligence officers presented me with an expanded version.”
“You'd like to hit other targets critical to Brazil's infrastructure?” Chairman Miller asked.
“No. I propose it's time we strike at mainland Russia and China. Let's level a comparable attack on their critical infrastructure as well. Concurrent attacks.”
Everyone was silent. Even Mike was too in shock to say anything.
After nearly two minutes of everyone pondering the thoughts of direct attacks, General Laub continued. “The attack on mainland China would hit at their pride and their power. Three Gorges Dam. This would be a critical blow to their electrical generation capabilities and agricultural irrigation. It would send a firm message that they need to end their hostile actions or risk further destruction.”
Mike was finally not alone is his reservations about these attacks ideas. Mr. Lee Ivey, a machinist who actively led fighting in several small west Texas towns before traveling to Austin, and who had worked with Mike and Amanda on the Sovereignty Act, questioned what sort of response the NAU could expect. “What if they decided to strike back by hitting Hoover Dam with a nuke?”
Mike answered him before the General or Admiral could. “Mr. Ivey, you already know where I stand on this shit-for-brains idea here, but Hoover Dam is something we investigated very thoroughly when the Guard bombed it's generators last year.”
Admiral Miller interrupted Mike to remind him it was Pacific spies who bombed Hoover Dam.
“Yeah, whatever. Hoover Dam isn't a major concern even to me,” Mike continued. “They can knock it off-line, but I don't think they can knock it down. I'd be more concerned about nukes falling on some of our major cities if we seriously struck them in their homeland. So far this has just been a proxy war. If we take it to their shores, you know damn good and well they're going to bring it to ours.”
“May I finish?” General Laub politely stated rhetorically. “The other strategic targets I propose we attack are in Russia. Ivankovo Dam and the Yamburg Gas Field on Gulf of Ob. Both are in remote areas, Mr. Paine, with a far less direct civilian impact than any of the other targets.”
“General,” Mr. Ivey again cut in. “How well will we be protected from retaliation strikes from them?”
“Our missile defense capabilities are our biggest strength against either of these two. They cannot stop our bombs from falling on them. We can and will intercept any missiles or aircraft they send our way. And in the impossible event they landed troops on our shores, especially after our recent brief civil war, the men and women of our eight nations are the best armed population ever, and will fight along side our troops to exterminate every foreign boot before they left the sands of our beaches.”
“Maybe so, General. I can't deny that migh
t be possible, though I have real doubts,” Mr. Ivey said, being far more diplomatic than Mike, in hopes of winning over the rest of the board members. “But, gentlemen, can any of you say that you can stop a high-altitude nuclear strike?”
Mike could see the blank stares he and Mr. Ivey were receiving over the video conference.
“Excuse me,” Richard Foster, of New York City, broke the silence. “But could someone please tell the rest of us what that is?”
Mr. Ivey cut in. “It's called an EMP attack. Something I used to laugh at people suggesting was a realistic possibility. But times have changed. It's blowin' up a nuke way up in the sky, and instead of killin' us with the explosion and radiation, it kills almost everything electrical in the skies and on the earth below it.”
Mr. Foster was joining Mike and Mr. Ivey in their reservations now. “You mean like an actual nationwide blackout? So we'd be without power for a little while. How long are we talking? A few days? A few weeks?”
Mike had to bring attention to the Joint Chief's complete silence, “Well, Admiral, General, you two certainly got quiet. Would you care to answer Mr. Foster's question for him. Just how long would it take to get -”
“Years,” Admiral Miller said. “Maybe a decade. Maybe even more if our allies faced the same attack.”
“Oh... damn!” Mr. Foster said as the ramifications of years without electricity clicked in his head.
“Look, gentlemen of the Board,” Chairman Miller said confidently. “While Mr. Paine and Mr. Ivey here seem eager to scare you into voting against this attack, they know our enemies will not launch any nuclear strike against our nations, whether surface or high-altitude. And they know this because they know we would detect the launch of those weapons and respond with an immediate barrage of nuclear attacks our self. And our counterparts in the Pacific and Soviet governments know we would launch a thousand nukes at both surface and high-altitude targets, forever eliminating their ability to recover.”
He paused to take a deep breath. “I support General Laub's proposed expansion of the attack, and can see that the rest of us here do as well. I cannot promise our missile defense systems will stop every single bomb they send from hitting our soil. But we will stop a significant majority. And nothing they launch will be nuclear.”
“May we reconvene in a little while?” Mrs. Chapman, of Florida, requested. “I'd like a few hours to think about this, and I'm sure I'm not alone.”
Mike and Mr. Ivey were the only ones who's decisions were made and firm. They didn't need any time to think. They were going to vote against the attack proposals.
Taylor noticed that Mike's office had been silent for more than an hour and went in to see what was going on. She walked in and asked why they were so quiet. Mike just ignored the question, so Amanda filled her in on what the Joint Chiefs were proposing.
Taylor was as shocked at the idea as Amanda and Mike had been when they first heard it. But her first question wasn't about how they would respond, or how we could repel the return attacks. She only wanted to know if they should be safe up on the ranch.
“Maybe,” Mike answered her. “We'll be far safer than most of the rest of the population, just as we were during the Guard's oppression. As long as they don't respond by hitting our nuclear power plants or actually nuke us, and as long as we can finish replacing the livestock I know we've lost in this snow, then we should be safe here. But I'm not confident that we can repel their return fire. There are just too many targets here that are too soft. If we do this, we will regret it.”
As he logged back on to the conference, neither Mike or Amanda could take a guess as to how the board would vote. But they soon learned. Mr. Ivey was the only one who joined him in opposition. Mike just shut his system down. “Damn. I feel sick. In a week and a half, we're going to kill tens of millions of people.”
That Sunday morning, They all gathered in the office at 3 am, while the children all slept, to watch the live video feeds of the attacks. Amanda and Taylor both started tearing up before the first explosions took place. The screens lit up as the missiles found their targets, all the explosions happening almost simultaneously.
As the views of the damage cleared from the initial blasts, water could be seen rushing downhill into the central area of Sao Paulo, as well as out of the Ivankovo Reservoir in Russia. Brazil's capitol was darkened and flooding, and Moscow's primary source of water was draining rapidly.
There was a lot of fire seen at the Itaipu and Three Gorges dams, but they were still standing. Mike sat quiet and emotionless, watching the screens as millions were being killed. The ladies cried for a while and were starting to compose themselves when, about ten minutes after the initial attack, Three Gorges Dam started to crumble.
“Shanghai is about to get washed out to sea, and maybe a hundred of the fourteen million people living there know it's coming.” Amanda said softly as she started crying again.
The Itaipu Dam held out another thirty minutes before one section of it fell in. The rushing water slowly tore most of the rest of it down.
“These bastards think the Pacifics and Soviets aren't going to unleash hell on us for this. I just pray they don't nuke us,” Mike said as he got up and walked out in disgust.
Chapter 18
Crushed
The first week of April came, and still no reprisal attack had come yet. A sudden end to winter had though, with ten bright, sunny, warm days. The remaining seven feet of snow had melted away everywhere the sun was hitting, and had mostly melted down even in the shade of the wooded areas. They got Jason's body buried, and tried to recover Amanda's truck, but found it washed a hundred feet further down the ditch by the runoff from the snow melt. The canyon running along side of the mountain where the houses sat turned into a raging river.
The next week, still no attack. Spring rains came, and came in abundance, keeping Mike's canyon filled and flowing rapidly.
“Well, the good news is, winter is over and all the major lakes are finally getting replenished from the drought of the last decade. The bad news is, I'm sure our reservoir has been washed away, I can't find any of our cattle, and only found five sheep and four goats still alive. The chickens and milk goats somehow survived in the barn though,” he told everyone that was sitting in the main room of the house.
“So now what?” Amy asked
“Now we wait until it's safe to take the tractor out to start rebuilding the road and making repairs around the farm,” Mike answered.
The news was full of stories about flooding happening across the continent. Even little Saint George had become a major headline for it's flooding. But the news also reported that the bright side of things was that the damage from the drought in the west had in fact been mostly reversed, at least temporarily. Even Lake Mead was almost back up to capacity, and forecast to keep rising for at least another two weeks.
Stories about devastation were also being talked about a lot. There were no official numbers out of Brazil, Russia and China, but all estimates were that more than fifty million people had died as a result of the attacks.
The Ogallala Nation was being hit by severe flooding as the Missouri River was taking in all the snow melt and rains too. What was a blessing to Grand Canyon was a curse to those on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. The Lincoln Nation and Confederate States were bracing themselves for the floods that would hit them as the Missouri River's waters made their way from Montana, to the Gulf of Mexico. It was going to be ugly, but wasn't expected to be quite as bad as the floods of 2011 had been.
The kids were all upstairs playing happily while the adults were downstairs. Taylor was playing cards with Amanda, Amy and Mike. Jessica was laying on the floor watching Anthony play with his little sister Keira. They were finally starting to relax again emotionally and mentally from the cabin fever of winter and all the events in the war.
“Rummy!” Mike called out, glad to finally win a hand, when his messenger began beeping. Then Amanda's started beeping as well.
“Oh shit! Oh, no. No, come on, we need to log on!” Amanda said, sounding panicked.
“What the hell is going on?” Mike asked.
“You said they were going to strike back. They are. The Soviets and Pacifics both have missiles in the air.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing to scramble into the office. Amanda pounded her fists on the desk impatiently as they were logging on to SatLinc. She was able to find a tracker for the incoming missiles and see where the NAU's intercept missiles were being launched.
“Come on, what's going on. I can't tell what's what? Where are these things going to hit. How many are there?” Amy went on rambling with questions faster than anyone could try to answer.
Mike sat back in his chair, “I'm assuming all the little dots moving towards the North American continent aren't our intercept missiles. It looks like the blue dots are our missiles, and the red ones are theirs.”
They continued to watch as several blue dots vanished from the screen as they crossed paths with the red dots. Mike leaned in as more dots kept appearing and disappearing. His heart started to sink in his chest. “Is it just me, or does that suddenly look like there's way more reds than blues?”
Amanda sighed as she answered him, “I guess we just wait to see if they hit us or not.”
Jessica hollered for the kids upstairs to come down. She held on to Keira and let Anthony sit in Amanda's lap. Taylor was holding on tightly to Mike and Brad's shoulders, and Amy stood with her arms around Anna and Stephanie. They all huddled in close together as they watched red dots disappearing in various places around the NAU before there were finally no more dots.
Crashed: The Death Of The Dollar Page 20