Treasonous Behavior- in the Beginning

by Robert Johnson

  Electronic waves a million times more powerful than any radio signal on the planet destroys all electronic devices in its path. All power grids turn off as if a simple switch were suddenly flipped. Like a silent weapon the EMP carries with it damaging voltage surges burning out semi-conductor chips in any electrical equipment within its line of sight. Every one of the more than 300,000,000 personal computers and laptops in America will shut down within a fraction of a second.

  All forms of telecommunication ends. Three hundred thirty million cell phones power down in the blink of an eye. Hard wired land phones fail, radios go silent, and televisions go dark. Untold numbers, perhaps billions of memory micro-chips, logic circuitry, SIM cards, and integrated circuits cease to function as the unseen pulse of death burns up the magical powers of silicon innovation. Every technologically advanced digitized piece of equipment and energized system developed over the last decades instantly become useless hunks of metal and plastic.

  All means of land transportation screech to a sudden halt without warning. Millions of automobiles, trucks, and SUVs slow to a stop. Commercial haulers charge forward with their weighted momentum, crashing into stationary structures. Police cruisers, city buses, fire engines, and motorcycles stop dead in the streets.

  Tens of thousands of accidents occur at the same moment. City intersections become massive pile ups as thousands of traffic lights go down and engines fail to respond. Law enforcement and military vehicles as well, become disabled, failing to respond to cries of help and increasing chaos. Millions of motorists become confused, angered, disoriented, stranded at their work places or from their homes.

  Freight trains pulling miles of loaded containers coast to a long but quiet stop. Passenger trains traveling cross country end up forsaken in the open scrub western deserts or the flat central plains of America. Packed commuter trains speeding along the metro corridor between Washington, DC and New York City roll to an end of their journey, still far from their destinations. Subway trains deep beneath the asphalt of Chicago and Boston and New York leave their hundreds of thousands of travelers isolated in the pitch black maze of tunnels.

  Ships hit by the pulse drift aimlessly without power. Monstrous oil tankers run aground in the Gulf. Cargo ships entering ports on both the east and west coasts float helplessly in the ocean currents. Cruise ships out of Miami flounder without purposeful direction. Naval aircraft carriers, cruisers, and battleships lie dormant in the San Diego and Newport News shipyards, unable to protect our shores. Pleasure boats and decked out yachts float adrift in open waters.

  Within seconds every aircraft in flight goes quiet and falls to earth. More than five thousand planes, including commercial airliners, private craft, air cargo carriers, helicopters, and military jets, are in the air at any given time over the skies of the United States. All are instantly doomed as the powerful pulse ruptures their vulnerable systems. Redundant backup systems fail just as easily.

  At an altitude of 35,000 feet, a cross country jetliner instantly loses power to its engines. Seasoned pilots frantically attempt to restart the turbines, but with no working controls their efforts prove useless. Hundreds of passengers strapped in their seats scream in horror when the lights go out and their plane begins to drop like a stone. Travelers and flight crew have a mere forty-six seconds to pray before they crash into the earth. Hundreds of thousands of other air passengers meet the same fate as planes hopelessly drop from the sky simultaneously.

  Elevators in large apartment houses, office buildings, and government centers stop mid-floor. Some free fall straight to crushing death. With no lights, no working phones, and no manner of escape, the poor souls remain in their stainless steel coffins. Heart pacemakers shut down, killing seniors blindly. Hospital ventilators stop ventilating patients. Critical monitors quit monitoring. Life saving devices cease saving.

  Every financial institution in the land is affected. Banks turn dark and completely unprotected. Alarm systems become worthless deterrents. All credit cards and debit cards and wire transfers are ended in mid-transaction. The New York Stock Exchange streams into mayhem as the giant money boards dim. Every company stock and every corporate or government bond simply vanishes into thin air. All bank account amounts disappear into cyberspace, as if they never existed. Savings and checking and pension plans are instantaneously wiped out, as if they never registered. Every dollar of government

  funding ceases to exist. No financial record in the path of the EMP survives.

  All retail stores in the country lock down without operating computers. Throughout the nation grocery stores hurry customers out of their businesses as the registers bind up, the frozen foods begin to melt, and the perishable products begin to sour and decay. Food soon becomes a major concern.

  In all homes and businesses, apartments and civic buildings, the electricity shuts off as the power grids burn out. Even daylight turns dark in residences and workplaces. Water pipes run dry, natural gas for heating quits delivery, refrigerators turn warm as houses turn cold in the lasting winter cold.

  Every single factor of modern living comes to an end in an instant. A total shutdown of the computerized age takes hold. Digital progress disintegrates. Within seconds of a solar electromagnetic pulse an entire advanced civilization is thrown back some two hundred years to when kerosene lit houses and steam drove machines. A thriving, rich country, once the envy of the world, becomes paralyzed and unprotected, people dying from the effects of an unseen force, and the rest running scared to death in anticipation of what might be coming next.

  Most people are ill-prepared for such a catastrophic disaster. Only days after the EMP strikes people run out of drinking water and turn to their toilets. Meager pantry food supplies are exhausted in two weeks time. Food, once plentiful, becomes a precious commodity. Medications are used up as patients gasp for air or fall to chest pains. Families are separated, most likely never to be reunited. News of the event remains nonexistent for the lack of power. Cries for help go unanswered and mayhem sets in and is common.

  People panic and live in fear. Alarm and chaos rule the day. People die from dehydration, and more from starvation. Soon others fail from untreated ailments. First the elderly and the sick, then young children. The devastation and lack of electricity continues for at least six months, perhaps much longer. Should the systems which inhabitants and businesses and governments once so casually relied on stay shut down for a full year, almost ninety percent of the American population will perish from starvation, disease, or societal chaos, and its ensuing collapse.

  But the normal phenomenon of solar flares is not the worst catastrophe inflicted upon an unprepared nation.

  Solar disturbances are but one cause of an EMP, a regular occurrence completely beyond control of mankind. Scientists, astronomers, and astrophysicists monitor and study the sun’s surface, constantly fearful of a massive flare up, a giant sunspot which can shoot out six times the diameter of the earth. World leaders aware of

  the catastrophic potential, pray a solar induced electromagnetic pulse will never come to pass on their watch. Common citizens following their mundane and trivial days ignore the possibility entirely.

  Equally devastating, though by far vastly more abhorrent than any other devious act of man conceived in history, is when an EMP is intentionally triggered. A first possible scenario is an EMP being created by sophisticated and well funded enemies of a state intent on paralyzing its foe.

  In the midst of the Dark Ages the widespread outbreak of the insidious black plague killed a mere fraction of those who could be wiped out by a strategically initiated EMP. Over a thousand centuries of man butchering his own kind pale in the shadow of an EMP aftermath. Millions were slaughtered during the Great Crusades. Millions more were massacred by the dictators of oppressed countries. Millions again were selectively eradicated by mad men in power, or starved to death by obsessed rulers intent on self-idolization, or enslaved and annihilated by fanatical godless men. Such historic carnage in tota
l would barely reach the potential death toll of a single electromagnetic pulse perfectly executed.

  An EMP event over the central plains of the United States would cause a staggering death toll of the American population. Upwards of 300,000,000 people on the continent would die from the long term aftermath effects of an intentional EMP explosion. There would be no bloodshed, no shots fired, no traditional killing, no death by standard warfare.

  Instead, the millions of citizens—men, women, and children—would perish from ultimate starvation, pervasive diseases, and eventual societal disintegration. In the hands of a radical group determined to annihilate the United States, an electromagnetic pulse would be the perfect weapon.

  Russia’s military has largely been dismantled since the breaking up of the Soviet Union. However, it still has the capability to slip a stealth nuclear submarine within a few miles of the American coasts and deploy a missile over the American continent. Russia would have no qualms in attempting to wipe out the western superpower in its striving to once again gain super status.

  A top secret Russian strategic submarine known as the SSBM, slips beneath the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico fifty miles off the shores of New Orleans. It carries a one megaton nuclear warhead on the tip of a medium range ballistic missile. This specially designed weapon is an enhanced super EMP, or E-bomb.

  The missile is aimed near the center of the continental United States, over the Nebraska-Kansas border, approximately one thousand miles in distance from the Gulf. Once deployed, it takes the missile only six and a half minutes to meet its target, too quick for U.S. domestic defenses to react. The nuclear devise explodes two-hundred miles above its ideal coordinates. The High Altitude EMP will have an effective range of over fifteen hundred miles rippling across the nation. It spreads into the southern portions of Canada and the northern sections of Mexico. The vast American shorelines of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and hundreds of miles of sea will be affected as well. Most of the Gulf of Mexico will also be covered by the pulse. Results of the intentional attack will be similar to those caused by a solar flare EMP, only more sinister.

  Except, it would open America to even more devastation. It would clear the path for Russia’s other mortal enemy, China, to stand tall in the number one spot of worldwide domination.

  Of course, China, the Red Dragon, with its huge, unmatched military force, could initiate its own assault against America. Its advanced EMP bombs are aimed at the eastern seaboard of the United States—the political, financial, and defense centers of the country. Long range intercontinental missiles or nuclear liftoffs from nearby secluded submarines could inevitably give Communist China the edge they have long desired. Such an injured nation could easily succumb to an invading naval force and savage takeover.

  In the end, China would lose its prominent economic trader, its favored trading status, its monetized security on trillions owed it by the U.S. But China would gain much, much more.

  Another rogue, dogmatic nation, North Korea, has secured the technology from Russia capable of launching ICBMs carrying 300 kiloton nuclear bombs. They are able to fire a preemptive long range nuclear missile orbiting over the South Pole, and detonating it over specific regions of the North American continent.

  Iran is another nation with an intense hatred toward the West, and in particular against Americans. It and any number of mobile terrorist groups are ever preparing to pull the trigger to annihilate the White Devil once and for all in an attempt to fulfill their prophetic destiny.

  The world is full of American enemies ready to eradicate the Great Satan. Most of them foreign, many of them domestic. But, there are even more malicious forces determined to stamp out the American way, if that is even feasible. As enemies within, they will eventually reveal their heinous and treasonous behavior to the astonishment of the American people and those who thought it could never happen.

  Which leads to the second possibility of an EMP being deliberately activated.

  It is something beyond comprehension to the average citizen. It shows the true evil nature of man in the pursuit of power and riches. With the backing of a small group of insiders, a leader of a nation resolute to use weapons of unspeakable destruction against his own people for his own designing agenda, could accomplish it. Such vile actions can only be halted if the citizens of a nation remain vigilant against the inherent wickedness of man and decide to take control of their own fate.

  There is only one question to ponder.

  Will the people stand up to such terror?

  Chapter 1

  The arctic freeze swept farther south over the high southwestern deserts and into the northern Mexican states. The uncommonly frigid air had taken a deadly grip on the entire North American continent. Climate changes and peculiar weather cycles continued to wreak havoc on the population days before the joyous Thanksgiving holiday.

  Cody Gordon drove his pickup truck into his driveway, hit the garage door remote button, and pulled into the garage next to his wife’s car. Although it wasn’t four o’clock yet, the heavy overcast and below freezing temperature made it feel much later. He was looking forward to the long weekend at home, a wonderful turkey meal with his family, and four whole days away from work. Tonight would be a great time to put some logs in the fireplace, build a roaring fire, and relax.

  But Cody couldn’t rid his mind of what had happened earlier that day.

  As he entered his house through the garage door, a strong smell of sautéed onions and garlic hit him. His wife Robin was cooking up the makings of a sausage stuffing for tomorrow’s bird. He removed his overcoat and hung it on a hook behind the door. He could hear the furnace running up his gas bill, but the heat from the kitchen felt good.

  “Smells wonderful, hon,” he mumbled automatically to Robin as she stirred the contents of the pan with a long-handled wooden spoon.

  He took in a long whiff of the pleasant aroma, though he was preoccupied with things other than food.

  Robin gently pushed him away. “This isn’t for you now.” She had a pot of tomato soup simmering on the stove and a grill pan heating up.

  “Since I’ll be cooking all day tomorrow we’re going to have soup and grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. And don’t you dare touch the pies. They’re for tomorrow.”

  He forced a half-hearted smile. “Okay,” Cody solemnly answered. “It’s dreadful out there,” he added, nodding toward the kitchen window. The wind was picking up and blowing the last of the autumn leaves off the tree branches. He gave his wife a quick kiss on her cheek and picked up the few pieces of mail from the breakfast counter. Nothing but bills and junk mail.

  He thought about what had taken place at work. How could such a horrible thing have happened? He wondered.

  “What’s wrong?” Robin asked Cody. After ten years of being married to this man she could easily tell when something was bothering him.

  He quickly blew off her question. “Not now, okay?” He glanced around the kitchen and small dining room, a lost look in his eyes. “Where’re the kids?”

  “They had half a day at school. They’re in their bedrooms getting their pajamas on. I told them they could watch TV after we eat dinner,” Robin said. She looked at her husband again. What’s wrong?

  “I’m going to get some firewood,” he told her. “It’s cold in here.”

  Cody looked out the back slider door near the dinner table. The small thermometer attached to the door frame indicated the outside temperature had dropped to nineteen degrees. It was unusually cold for southern Arizona in November. Should be in the fifties this time of year, he thought. He didn’t own warm winter gloves, so instead he went back into the garage to find his old leather work gloves.

  After a minute of searching he couldn’t find the damn gloves so he went back through the house, out the back door, and up to the pile of firewood against the side fence. Why the hell would he do that? He kept wondering. Cody loaded up his arms with dried mesquite logs and carried them to the back patio. He
dropped the wood near the doorway and went back to get another load. The freezing wind numbed his ears and cheeks. It cut through his button down shirt. He should have worn his jacket.

  He carried the second armload into the house, moved through the living room, scattering tiny pieces of mesquite bark on the floor, and placed the logs into the brass wood bin on the hearth. He methodically placed scraps of kindling sticks on the metal fire grate, stuffed a few pages of rolled up newspaper beneath them, and struck a match. The fire caught and he slowly stacked several smaller logs on the flames.

  The heat of the fire felt good. The blaze began to warm his body. He ran his hands close to the flames to take the chill off. He smelled the smoke swirling up the chimney. It reminded him of the last time he had started a fire. It was Christmas last year when the children were opening their gifts. They were excited that Santa had come to their house and given them most, if not all, of what they had wished for. He watched the fire for another minute and listened to the crackling of the wood as it burned and threw off glowing sparks.

  He wondered how things could change so much in one year.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Robin called out.

  From her bedroom Jennifer heard her mother. She came into the dining room and sat at her usual chair. “Mom, Jeffrey’s not coming. He’s still playing in his room.”

  The six year old girl was always trying to get her older brother in trouble because he picked on her every chance he got. “Want me go get him?” she asked, just to make a point.

  Before Robin said another word Jeffrey ran into the dining room, flannel Spiderman pajamas on and cotton socks on his feet. He slid into the room like Tom Cruise in his movie Risky Business. “Tada!” he said, stretching his scrawny arms to the sides as if he had just magically appeared.