Percy's Mission

by Jerry D. Young

  The crews on the jobsite first tried their vehicles, and when they wouldn’t start, began to run. Charlie assumed they were headed home. He’d just dragged the bike into his tunnel home when the earth shook. A sudden wind pushed him a few feet down the tile, and then pulled him back.

  Suddenly he felt of his ears. There was blood coming from the left one. He wiped it away. As he was doing so, he noticed yesterday’s paper. It had some rules to follow in case of a nuclear attack. He had not read it yet. The earth still trembling, Charlie dragged his stuff down to the middle of the long pipe, sat down on a bucket, and began to read by the light of a small candle.

  After reading the first few paragraphs of the article, Charlie hurried out of the tunnel, and went to the stack of plywood near the building. Working quickly, but carefully, he leaned several sheets of plywood against the end of the piping.

  Figuring if he got into trouble, so be it, Charlie climbed up on the skid steer loader the construction outfit used around the building site. Fortunately the bucket was attached. It was the work of only a few minutes to push enough dirt into the hole, against the plywood, to provide shielding.

  That done, Charlie checked the site over carefully; taking everything he thought he might need into the basement of the building, then into the tunnel. That included several wheelbarrow loads of dirt.

  By the time he was finished he was aching and the fallout was starting to come down heavily. Making up a new bed, Charlie lay down, lighted the candle again and finished the article. After that he pulled his light blanket over himself and tried to fall asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Edward’s wife Emily was in Edward’s bank, talking to Angela about the shelter at the house and getting advice on what books to get and read, just in case. She never came to the bank, except on the days that Edward was out golfing. It had been sheer coincidence that she’d run into Angela at a nearby restaurant a few weeks previously and recognized her. Emily had struck up a conversation with Angela and they became friendly.

  Like Angela, Emily was worried about the world situation. Emily had been totally amazed when Edward told her it was too bad that she would lose her prize azaleas, for he was putting in a survival shelter.

  The only person she felt confident in confiding the news to was Angela. Edward and that scurrilous doctor had not played golf the week before, so Emily had to wait until today to see Angela. She wasn’t worried about Courtney seeing her and reporting it to her husband. Courtney always disappeared for several hours when Edward golfed during the week.

  Angela and Emily were talking in the break room when they felt the building suddenly shaking. “Oh My God!” cried Emily. “An earthquake!”

  “I don’t think so,” Angela replied. Both women hurried toward the bank lobby from the break room. The mushroom cloud was visible in the distance through the front windows of the bank.

  Emily repeated herself. “Oh My God!”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you people, but I’m heading home to find shelter,” Angela called out. She’d thought about the vault as shelter if something like this happened while she was here. But the building and vault were both old. The vault had neither a means to ventilate it, nor an inside lock release. Anyone using the vault for shelter would probably die of asphyxiation.

  “No! Wait!” Emily said, grabbing Angela’s arm. “Come with me to my house. That shelter is big enough for ten people for months. I don’t have a clue how to survive, and I know Edward doesn’t either.”

  “I doubt Mr. Baumgartner would welcome me,” replied Angela.

  “I don’t care! I welcome you. I don’t care how many supplies we have. Neither Edward nor I have any clue what we should do. Edward just bought the shelter for a status symbol among his banking cronies. Please. I’m begging you, Angela. Help me.”

  Angela thought about it and her own chances for survival at her apartment complex. She had a few weeks worth of supplies, but that basement was going to be crowded beyond belief.

  “Okay. But you have to deal with Mr. Baumgartner. If we’re going, we’d better get started. We’ll probably have to walk.”

  “Oh, no. I have the Mercedes.”

  “I doubt it will run, but let’s check.”

  It took all of a minute to decide the car wouldn’t start. Another minute and a very surprised Angela was urging Mrs. Baumgartner into her old Chevy, which started right up. Angela had not thought it would, due to the EMP.

  They did have to walk the last few blocks. The streets were gridlocked within a half hour of the attack. Angela got Emily out of the car and hurried to the rear of the car. Angela opened the trunk. It contained a fold up cart, a large backpack, and three large duffel style totes. There was also a moderate size waist pack with belt. Angela put it on first.

  It took only a few moments for Angela to set up the cart, add the three duffels to it and shoulder the pack. At Emily’s amazed look, Angela said, “My BOB. Bug out bag. I’ve been expecting something to happen.”

  Angela was doing fine, even with the load, but Emily was breathing heavily by the time they made it to the Baumgartner house. Emily nearly fainted when she found her daughter and son alone in the house. The babysitter had left immediately after the blast.

  “She’ll never work for me again!” declared Emily.

  Angela simply responded with, “The fallout has started. Let’s get the children into the shelter and see what we need to come back and get.”

  Emily herded the frightened children before her, Angela following as they made their way to the smooth, rounded entrance hatch of the shelter. Angela opened it without difficulty and had Emily go down first. Next Angela sent Catherine down, and then John. She lowered her bags to Emily. Finally she climbed down herself and closed and dogged the hatch.

  Angela took a few long moments to inspect the shelter and decided they really didn’t need to go back out for anything.

  Edward let Doc tee off, and then Doc’s wife. He was feeling good today. The building was coming along nicely. They would start constructing the vault the latter part of next week. The vault door was scheduled to arrive the day the rest of the vault was to be finished. The last independent bankers’ meeting had gone well.

  Some didn’t like the new restrictions on withdrawals, but it suited Edward. And those that had made preparations other than strictly financial had been suitably impressed with his ten-person shelter with just about all the options.

  He had food for ten for a year and water for six months. A generator that would provide full power for the shelter with fuel for two months. Battery capacity with a solar panel recharger that could stretch the generator use to four months or more. Every whiz-bang gizmo he’d been able to find to ensure his survival in style.

  Once he started buying he found the subject of preparations rather fascinating. As much as he distained it, he’d bought some gold and silver, though his portfolio of paper assets was much greater. He’d even bought two guns. He refused to buy a handgun, but the Steyr AUG had been irresistible. So had the Benelli police style shotgun. Oh, yes. Let the world bring what it might. He was ready.

  Except Edward happened to be playing golf on the north side of town. The side closest to the military base fifteen miles away. The three weren’t the only ones blinded by the brilliant flash of light. Nor were they the only ones the blast wave sent tumbling along the ground, their bodies bruised and battered beyond recognition. They weren’t the only ones to die. Just three of millions. Some quickly, like them. Some slowly, over time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Percy and the others didn’t find out the sequence of events or the identity of most of the targets hit until months later.

  China launched a nuclear attack on the US Fleets near Japan and Taiwan after the attack on Pyongyang. The US retaliated with a single nuke in an isolated area of China and a demand to cease hostilities. China responded with an all out attack on the US and Democratic Russia. This began the full-scale exchange by the nucle
ar powers.

  Every nuclear power in the world began launching ballistic missiles, tactical missiles, and cruise missiles, all with nuclear warheads. Nuclear bombs were launched from aircraft. The few artillery pieces that could fire nuclear shells were put into use, until counter battery fire put them out of commission. Several nations and terrorists alike detonated many in-situ nuclear devices emplaced over the years.

  Democratic Russia retaliated, primarily at China.

  When the exchange began between the United States and China, after China’s first EMP blast in subspace over the Midwest United States, the newly communist Russian Republics launched the missiles now under their control. They targeted mostly Germany, France, and Great Britain with their medium range missiles, and the United States with their long-range missiles. Spain, Italy, and Turkey also took hits on American bases in those countries.

  Several additional Russian Republics suffered Communist coups. They too turned their nuclear weapons on the West, including France and Great Britain.

  Those countries with the capability retaliated in kind. Germany seized the US missile forces within their borders and launched retaliatory strikes. The US forces also struck back with the nuclear forces still under their control.

  Israel struck nearly every Arab nation after Tel Aviv took a hit with a nuke from Iran and chemical and biological weapons from several other Arab nations.

  Israel was not the only nation to suffer chemical and biological attacks. Besides the few terrorist nuclear devices detonated, most traditionally Western nations had terrorist planted chemical and biological weapons activated. Some had been in place for years, their sleeper agent handlers just waiting for the appropriate time to activate them. China also launched some missiles with chemical and biological warheads.

  Many places took hits with multiple devices. Some intentionally, others because several countries targeted the same place for the same reasons.

  Both China and the United States, with the openly available information on potential earthquake and volcanic problem areas of the world, targeted their respective enemies’ tectonic weak spots. Targeted as well were nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams. For the most part, China and the United States were the only two nations that targeted geological formations. Both used the geological targeting heavily.

  The geological attacks worked as hoped. One of the missiles in the first wave of ballistic nuclear missiles from China targeted the Yellowstone caldera. The nuclear device triggered another massive super volcanic eruption similar to the one that had created the caldera previously. The local devastation was total. Massive waves of lava spread out for miles. Lava bombs, thick ash, and toxic gasses sprayed for miles more.

  The westerly winds carried huge quantities of ash for hundreds of miles across the northern tier of states and southern Canada, all the way to the Great Lakes. The ash mixed with the radioactive fallout, from not only the warhead that created the volcano, but the series of attacks against military, industrial, resource, and population targets in the Northwest and Northern Rockies.

  The Yellowstone caldera wasn’t the only tectonic weak spot hit. Many fault zones and dormant volcanoes took hits. Volcanic eruptions took place on a massive global scale, as did earthquakes.

  The Great Rift in Africa was hit with five small devices, unleashing gigantic tectonic activity at the point where one plate overrides another.

  The San Andreas Fault was only one of several fault complexes hit along their lengths. Destroyed dams flooded the river systems that lay downstream from them.

  The volcano on La Palma Island in the Canary Island chain was hit. As intended, the western side of the island slid into the ocean, creating a mega-tsunami. The tsunami caused great damage to the southern portion of Great Britain and a few other places. However, the major damage was to the entire eastern seacoast of the United States, already reeling from the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons being used.

  A series of huge waves, the largest of them towering over one hundred feet high when it hit the coast, devastated the entire eastern seaboard. Much of Florida was literally washed into the Gulf of Mexico. Other places were also devastated. The waves traveled inland as much as twelve miles in places, destroying nearly everything in their path.

  Many of the Caribbean Islands, like parts of the state of Florida, were scoured clean. Some disappeared all together. The eastern coast of Brazil also suffered massive damage from the tsunami.

  A new outlet channel for the Great Lakes opened when the New Madrid fault system and the fault system that includes the Saint Laurence Seaway received nuclear hits. Each of the Great Lakes was hit at least once, causing huge seiches. The combination of factors allowed the Great Lakes to begin draining from Lake Huron to the Ohio River at Cincinnati to the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois and thus to the Gulf of Mexico, creating a new bay which now extended northward up the old path of the Mississippi River to just south of Memphis, Tennessee.

  In addition to the geological targets, China targeted military, industrial, resource, and population centers, just as most of the other nations did, except, of course, in the areas where China wanted to take over in the Far East.

  Part of China’s goal was to cripple the United States’ ability to respond to China’s expansion plans. Therefore, they targeted not only the oil fields and refineries the US controlled directly, but also those in Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America to deny the resources to the United States. Brazil also took several nuclear hits with the aim being to destroy the industrial capacity it had developed, to deny its use by North America.

  China targeted all major cities in Australia and Japan to keep the Aussies and Japanese from interfering in China’s now much broader expansionist plans for not only India but all of Indochina as well.

  The US targeted China, North Korea, and the Russian Republics that launched against the US, with some limited strikes against those nations that attacked Israel. South Africa used her small stock of nuclear devices to decimate regional tribal rivals.

  Nuclear powered submarines and ships were sunk in several locations during the battles. Most were destroyed completely. A handful were sunk with reactors still mostly intact. When the controls failed, the reactors began to run out of control, pumping mega-joules of heat energy into ocean shallows and a few seas, off several coasts.

  Some fires started from the thermal radiation caused by the blasts, but most were put out by the blast waves and their reversals. Others succumbed to rain in areas with high humidity as the dust in the area mixed with the moisture and formed gigantic thunderstorms near many of the targets. Ash and smoke from fires still burning, and ash and gasses from activated volcanoes filled the air, mixed with radioactive fallout. Huge storm systems developed over the sites of the still active sunken nuclear reactors.

  Huge amounts of fresh water dumped into the Atlantic from the storm systems. This added more fresh water to the North Atlantic, already freshened by the melting sea ice and glaciers caused by global warming. The warm, heavily saline Gulf Stream began to sink beneath the less saline water of the east coast of the United States.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I don’t know,” Percy said, watching the western sky for a few moments before ushering the others inside. “But I don’t like it. If it’s nukes, we’re in for some bad fallout. If it is another earthquake, there probably will be more aftershocks. If it’s a volcano, we’re in for ash, And probably fallout.”

  They heard the blast of an air-horn over the outside monitor speaker. Percy ran for the door again, then to the gates. It was Andrew Buchanan driving the Wilkins Oil semi tractor. He had a seven thousand gallon trailer with a three thousand gallon pup behind it.

  “When it all hit the fan they’d just delivered the fuel trailers,” Andrew told them after Percy had him pull into the estate and park the trailers by the number one tank farm. “The guy dropped the tanks and took off like a rabbit. I guess he was lucky his truck was an old one. Ther
e’s a bunch of diesel trucks that aren’t running. I didn’t think EMP would get diesels.”

  “Not just the ignitions system that get fried,” Percy responded automatically. “How’d you wind up with the tanks out here?”

  “Mr. Wilkins was scared. He headed for the shelter some of the city employees made in City Hall for the townspeople. I was afraid something would happen to the fuel. Fuel is going to be really important. I knew you’d give it back. If that was the best thing to do.” Andy looked hopeful.

  “Of course I’ll give it back. I’m not sure bringing it here was the best thing, but it is safe. You were thinking on your feet. That’s good. But why did it take you so long to get here?”

  “I couldn’t get the truck started. It took me a while to find another Freightliner computer that wasn’t fried. Pete Broomhouser’s truck is down. Literally in pieces. The computer was in an old fridge he’s using to store some of the delicate parts while he’s working on it. I had to give him all the money I had and a check for everything I had in the bank. But I think it was worth it. I can always make more money.”