Trackers 2: The Hunted (A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Contents

  Trackers 2: The Hunted

  Copyright

  Books by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Trackers 2: The Hunted

  Copyright December 2016 by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by Elizabeth Mackey

  Edited by Erin Elizabeth Long

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

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  The Extinction Cycle Series (Offered by Orbit)

  Extinction Horizon

  Extinction Edge

  Extinction Age

  Extinction Evolution

  Extinction End

  Extinction Aftermath

  Extinction Lost (A Team Ghost Short Story)

  Extinction War (Coming Fall 2017)

  Trackers: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Series

  Trackers 1

  Trackers 2: The Hunted

  Trackers 3: The Storm (Coming Fall 2017)

  The Hell Divers Trilogy (Offered by Blackstone Publishing)

  Hell Divers 1

  Hell Divers 2: Ghosts

  Hell Divers 3: Deliverance (Coming Summer 2018)

  The Orbs Series (Offered by Simon451/Simon and Schuster)

  Solar Storms (An Orbs Prequel)

  White Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Red Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Orbs

  Orbs II: Stranded

  Orbs III: Redemption

  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

  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.

  For my Dad, relentless in his pursuit and fight for a better world.

  “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

  — Chief Seattle, 1854

  DR. MARTHA KOHLER staggered down Highway 7, somewhere south of Rocky Mountain National Park, in a radiation suit she had constructed out of garbage bags. A pair of ski goggles and a scarf shielded her face, but she was all too aware that they wouldn’t be enough to block the radiation drizzling from the skies.

  A nuclear blast had almost blinded her three nights ago, and the fireball had set fire to the surrounding forests. All around her were views of the apocalypse. Blackened evergreen trees swayed in the wind to the northeast, carrying the scent of burning pine needles. Flames engulfed an entire forest to the southwest, filling the sky with a wall of black smoke that choked out the sun.

  When her car stalled out on the road, she’d been stranded. The National Guard soldiers had told her to stay put and wait for help. After two days, she decided to take action. Waiting meant dying. Running at least gave her a chance to reach help before it was too late.

  Martha’s heart had been firing out of control since she had left her car. As a doctor, she knew what irradiation did to a human body. She had done everything she could to keep the radioactive material off her skin, but there was little she could do to stop breathing it into her lungs. A flimsy cotton scarf was no replacement for a CBRN suit.

  The deep rattle of a cough rose in her throat. The sound seemed to echo in the quiet afternoon. She licked her cracked lips, desperate for a drink of water. A stream snaked along the left side of the road, but drinking the water would be a death sentence.

  She slogged along, searching for supplies or someone to help her. She hadn’t seen another living person for three hours. Before that, a man had run from her, screaming nonsense about an alien invasion. Delirium was another sign of radiation sickness. For now, Martha’s mind seemed whole‌—‌but if it wasn’t, would she even know?

  She’d seen plenty of bodies on the road over the past few days. Another victim lay ahead. The elderly man was on his back, hands twisted like a praying mantis. A second corpse, rigid from rigor mortis, lay a few feet from the man. The gray-haired woman was facing him, curl
ed up in a fetal position. They had died within reach of one another.

  At least they were together, Martha thought. She’d lost her husband to a heart attack ten years ago. Regrets surfaced in her mind. They always found a way of coming to a head when disaster struck, things she would have said or done differently during their marriage.

  She sighed and pressed onward, even though stars were bursting before her vision. The journey was talking its toll, and she was only halfway to Denver. The soldiers had said to head that way to avoid radiation, but the bodies here told her she was still in the middle of the dead zone.

  Reaching out, she steadied herself on the side of a mini-van. Over the howl of the wind came a faint, scratchy sound like someone was trying to clear their throat. Something moved inside the van. Martha peered inside the back window. Two small figures were huddled together in the back seat. A body was slumped against the steering wheel, and judging by the pale, blistered skin on its exposed arm, the kids were probably orphans.

  She had been careful to avoid other people on the road. If anyone found out she possessed potassium iodide pills, which she carried in her medical bag, they would surely take them from her, maybe even hurt her to get them. But these kids weren’t going to hurt anyone, and she couldn’t just leave them here to die.

  She scanned the road again. There was motion down the highway to the east, directly under a bridge. Several clusters of bodies rested beneath the overpass. Loose clothing rippled in the wind, but there was no sign of anything or anyone alive that way.

  Satisfied, she opened the van door. The two kids reared back from her, their curly brown hair a disheveled mess.

  “Don’t hurt us,” the boy sniffled.

  Martha pulled down her scarf and pushed up her goggles so they could see her eyes. She could only imagine how terrifying she probably looked with the garbage bags covering most of her body. From a child’s eyes, she probably looked like an alien.