For the people ... (Soldier Up Book 4) Page 3

  Lt. Danielson chewed out their asses and told them to get their heads back into the game, that they were headed overseas in a few weeks and the playing around needed to stop or it was going to get them all killed. Chief Todman responded, “No offense Lt but you’re out of here soon so what’s it matter?”

  “Chief it does matter, I don’t know that I’m leaving, I know I have an opportunity and that’s about it. If that opportunity falls through I’m still going back to Afghanistan with your sorry butt and I don’t want to get it shot off, got it?” said Lt. Danielson.

  “Yes sir, no worries, we got your back.” The Chief said.

  They had all picked up the pace and by 2130 they could see the beach where they had started from, they knew they were almost home and the week done with. As they were approaching the beach every single light in town went out.

  “Did you see that Lt?” asked the Chief excited.

  “Sure did Chief, just a power outage is all.” Lt. Danielson responded.

  The team was used to the dark it didn’t bother them, they moved as a single unit from the water to the beach. Although they were used to operating in the dark it was weird to see all of Virginia Beach blacked out, very surreal. They removed their fins and headed back to their POV’s, as they got closer they saw quite a few cars stalled out on the rode in and around the beach. Not one vehicle had any lights on and the occupants were out of the vehicles, wondering what the heck had happened. ‘This is new thought.’ Thought Lt. Danielson, “Sir, this isn’t a regular blackout.” Stated the Chief flatly.

  “I’m well aware of that Chief.”

  “Hey Lt,” said Doc. “What do you make of this?”

  “No idea Doc, no idea.” Replied the Lieutenant, “Alright gentlemen stow your gear in your respective vehicle and put on your running shoes. Its five miles back to base and we’re running it, if and when the lights come back on we’ll get rides back out to pick up our cars.”

  The SEAL’s threw their wetsuits and flippers in the trunks of their cars, grabbed a pair of socks and put on their running shoes. Once they were ready Lt. Danielson led them off in an easy jog heading back to base. If everything going on wasn’t strange enough for the people with the stalled cars on the roads, it just got stranger with almost a dozen men clearly in some sort of formation running by them in the dark. The irony wasn’t lost on the SEAL’s.

  The closer they got back to base the more vehicles they saw stalled, there were no lights on anywhere. A mile away from the base, they saw a couple of kids on dirt bikes riding around, lights on moving and weaving between the cars, everyone stared at them, wondering why the motorcycles were working and their cars weren’t. The SEAL’s stopped and watched the motorcycle’s they were wondering the same thing. Further, down a couple of blocks away they saw an elderly man driving what looked to be an old Willy’s Jeep, again the lights on, driving down the street, moving between vehicles when he could and if he couldn’t he took to the sidewalks or the side of the road when it was wide enough.

  An idea was starting to form in Lt. Danielson’s head, it bothered him, bothered him a lot, because if it was true life as they all knew it was going to change, it’ll never be the same. The gate onto base was now being guarded by no less than a dozen Sailors, possibly a couple of hundred people were trying to access the base all on foot. There was a huge line forming going back at least two blocks, security was checking everyone’s ID. Fortunately for them, they had a get out of jail free card which meant that they got to go to the head of the line, flash their cred’s and they were back on base quickly. Each SEAL now recognized there was something definitely going on.

  Chapter Seven

  Generally, Fort Bragg was busy every single day of the week, even Saturdays and Sundays, granted not as busy as it was during the week, but busy in comparison to other posts throughout the United States. Sergeant Major Valliant had been called back onto post that evening because of a training accident with several of the Soldiers in his Battalion. He had gotten a call from his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Conney, and asked to find out what happened. Reports that six men were hurt in some sort of accident during the current field exercise, they needed to get a handle on this before family members and others started to ask questions.

  As CSM Valliant arrived at the scene all of the men that had been involved in the training accident had either been treated or returned to their unit, two men were hospitalized with broken legs. It was a night jump and it wasn’t uncommon for one or two people to get hurt, it was uncommon that six men from a single company were hurt. CSM Valliant headed straight to the First Sergeant to get the scuttlebutt on the accident, First Sergeant Ronnie Talbot was six-foot-six, tall for a paratrooper, thirty-nine years old, and he had been in the Army since he was nineteen. He and CSM Valliant had gone through basic, AIT and jump school together, they were old friends.

  CSM Valiant walked into the companies CP and found First Sergeant Talbot, sitting inside one of the command vehicles writing up the after action report on the accident, the Army ran on its paperwork. First Sergeant Talbot saw the CSM walk into his CP he wasn’t thrilled right now to see his friend primarily because he knew it wasn’t going to be a ‘friend’ visit but in his official capacity as the Battalion CSM, “Hey First Sergeant what’s the word?” asked CSM Valliant.

  “Not much Sergeant Major.” First Sergeant Talbot responded.

  “What can you tell me about the training accident?” said CSM Valliant.

  “Night jump Sergeant Major you know how it goes.” The First Sergeant replied.

  “You know I do, but six injuries with two resulting in hospitalization is a bit much, especially for a single company don’t you think?

  “Jump master made a late call and the sticks exited the aircraft as it was leaving the DZ. The six that were injured hit the trees.”

  “Do you know why the jump master made the late call?”

  “Heart attack.”

  “You mean like a real heart attack? On the plane?”

  “Yes a real heart attack on the plane. The companies medic treated him right there and the CO took over and pushed everyone out the door.”

  “Why didn’t the CO order the sticks to stand-down and return to Pope?”

  “Yeah, don’t know Sergeant Major that’s the million dollar question isn’t it. Look Greg the CO is a good kid, I asked him the same thing you just asked, and he said he was only concerned with accomplishing the mission. There wasn’t much he could do about the jump master other than what he did and that was to have his medic treat him.”

  “Listen Ronnie, it’s getting late and I’m tired, is this all up-and-up or not? I gotta tell the boss something.” Said CSM Valliant.

  “I’d never lie to you about something like this Greg, other stuff, yeah but ….” And the generators throughout the CP went dead; all of the lights went out at once. “What the hell…” said Ronnie. It was pitch black out now, he pulled his small flashlight off of his gear, turned it on and nothing happened, “that’s weird I was using it no more than an hour ago and had put new batteries in it this morning.”

  CSM Valliant was looking around the CP there were no lights anywhere, most soldiers had some sort of flashlight with them, yet there wasn’t one shining. In addition, many of the Soldiers, against orders, had cell phones with them. Sometimes when the Soldiers didn’t have a flashlight they used the light of the cell phone to guide them. He didn’t see any of them either, he reached into his own pocket and pulled out his cellphone, turned it on, and it was dead.

  “Ronnie is your cell phone working?”

  First Sergeant Talbot reached into his pocket, pulled out his cellphone, and activated it, “Nope, its dead.”

  CSM Valliant asked, “What about your radios? They have battery backup right?”

  “Roger that,” said the First Sergeant. He walked to the back of the CP, better yet stumbled through the dark to where the radios were racked and being monitored by the operator. The First Sergeant asked Spec
ialist Irby, “We lose communications too?”

  “Yes top it’s all down, I don’t understand it though, they all have battery power supplies and it should have switched over, but those are dead too.”

  “Thank you Irby if anything changes let me know, alright?”

  “Sure Top will do.”

  First Sergeant Talbot returned to CSM Valliant, “Radios and battery backup dead too. What do you make of it?”

  “If it’s what I think it is we’re screwed. First, check all of the vehicles see what starts and what doesn’t, there should be one or two that do. If they find one bring it up we need to get back to battalion as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Eight

  Someone had found some kerosene lanterns and had spread them out through the White House; it was all a bit eerie. It was now after midnight and some information was starting to flow into the White House none of it good. There were vehicles stalled on every motorway throughout the city and freeways, people had yet to abandon their vehicles, most opted to stay with the vehicle for the night and hope things had changed by morning. The 3rd Infantry Regiment, the Army unit tasked with the defense of Washington D.C. had sent over one running Humvee and a driver. The vehicle was immediately confiscated by the Secret Service, which provoked an immediate armed response by the Army who took the vehicle back. At that point President Washington stepped in and instructed the Secretary of the Army and the Director of the Secret Service to play nice with each other or suffer the consequences, there were no more incidences such as that between the two services.

  The Humvee was taken and used to retrieve information on the various critical services throughout Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland much of it connected to the same power and water grids. It took hours for them to collect the information using the single vehicle, however, by the time they returned four older cars, year models 60 through 72 were found to be in perfect running order. Two of them were turned over to the Secret Service, they wanted all four, and the President once again stepped in and told them it’s the two cars or nothing.

  The two other cars were used by White House Police to help with the securing of the grounds. As the sun started to rise over the city reports trickled in that the power grid was down indefinitely and the same held true for water. There was no good news passing over the President’s desk, next up was that he put out the word that he wanted his scientific advisors brought in. He also sent word to the Pentagon to send over anyone that could explain to him what was happening. President Washington had his suspicions what was really happening, as the President he would be roundly criticized by his political adversaries if he didn’t have the Pentagon and some of the scientific community backing him up.

  As the day drew on reports of more and more people funneling into the streets because it was brutally hot out and their homes had no AC or fans as there was no electricity. The feeling throughout the city was still that the authorities would get everything straightened out soon and the electricity and water would be back on. It wasn’t going to happen, possibly not in their lifetimes, what they didn’t know yet, life was never going to be the same again.

  The scientists that the President requested, five of them, Dr. Peter Anster, Dr. Beverly Wasserman, Dr. Eldan Nightly, Dr. Walter Cronkite, and Dr. Haden Bruckhalter. These were all specialist in Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and its effect on society. Several minutes later the Pentagon’s scientists that specialized in EMP warfare arrived. They were directed toward the Presidential conference room on the second floor where introductions were made, however most of them knew each other. President Washington entered the room and asked for everyone to take a seat and let’s get the meeting underway.

  “Thank you for coming ladies and gentleman. As you’ve figured out by now you’ll know that you’re EMP specialists in your field, there are no other scientists here. I have a strong personal feeling that, granted it’s been less than twenty-four hours that we have suffered some sort of EMP event. I would love to hear your thoughts on that right now. Let’s start with Dr. Anster.”

  Dr. Anster was caught by surprise, he had that look of a deer caught in the headlights, “Aaaaaa….thank you Mr. President.” As he fumbled with his notes. “One moment please let me collect my thoughts….” Dr. Anster looked around the room, “I don’t know…I don’t know if this is an EMP event or not. I… I… mean it certainly looks like it and I can say all signs point to it, but I don’t have enough information at hand to say conclusively.”

  “What kind of information would you need Dr. Anster to come to that conclusion?” asked the President.

  “Well…Mr. President I would need to know the status of the utilities, electric, gas, water things of that nature.” Dr. Anster replied.

  “I sent my people out to check the utilities earlier this morning. They reported back to me an hour before you arrived. The power grid is down for the foreseeable future, everything at each location the electronics that run everything has been fried, not my words, but theirs.” President Washington said.

  “Oh my,” Dr. Anster said and plopped down into his chair, he was silent after that.

  President Washington looked at Dr. Anster and could tell he was now lost in thought; he wasn’t going to be back anytime soon. “Dr. Wasserman would you please tell us what you think?”

  Dr. Beverly Wasserman was one of the Pentagon Scientists that specialized in EMP warfare; she was tall, six foot, blonde, blue eyes, sharp mind and very passionate about her work. “Mr. President my colleagues and I, Dr. Bruckhalter and Dr. Cronkite, have looked at the information that came in from the field, regarding the utilities. Like everyone else here, we can see what’s happened with anything electrical. It is our opinion that this was an EMP event. However, with that said we have no idea how localized it may or may not be.”

  “What do you mean by localized?” asked the President.

  “Sir, we don’t know how far it reaches, is it a city issue, state, the entire east coast, the country or even the world.” Dr. Wasserman stated.

  The President asked the group, “Worst case scenario as far as localized?”

  “People are still expecting the government, the police to come to their aid and help them it’s how they have been conditioned.” Dr. Nightly said. “Most people have no idea how to survive without running water and the local supermarket. Within the next twenty-four hours if not already people will start to pillage stores, possibly riot if you will.”

  “Within a week,” Dr. Cronkite responded. “With no real police presence, because they have no transportation, radios, or telephones, people will start to take the law into their own hands. Guns! Mister President those that have them will react in one of two ways. The first group to use their guns to hurt people to force their will on them, rob them, and even kill them. The second group will use the guns to protect themselves, family, friends and hunt.”

  “By the middle of the first month and towards the end those that have been in denial will finally realize that help isn’t on the way. They will be running out of food and water realizing they’re going to have to venture out to find some. They’re scared and wondering what’s going to happen to them and their families. Once they venture out they’re going to find out that most of the stores have been looted and there’s not much for them, they’re going to panic.” Dr. Bruckhalter said.

  Dr. Anster breaks his silence, “Medical facilities Mr. President, they’re going to need help start today! Anyone on life support is dead already, those that need medications to stay alive will die when it runs out. Anyone that needs any type of machine, dialysis for instance, is going to die. Many medicines need to be refrigerated they will go bad.”

  “Damn.” The President said. “I hadn’t considered the hospitals yet.” He called in his Chief of Staff. “Jake we need to get people over to the hospitals to check them out. Anyway to get the Army involved? We need to get moving on this ASAP.”

  “Yes sir I’ll see what the 3rd can do to help.” The Chief of
Staff said. “Anything else sir?”

  “Yes Jake I want a brief back on that within the hour is that clear?”

  “I’m not sure what I can do in an hour sir.”

  “I’m not asking Jake, people’s lives are at jeopardy, you will contact the 3rd and get their ass in gear; tell them it’s by VOP for now. Their mission is to protect this city and it’s time they got it into gear and start to do their job!”

  “Mister President.” Dr. Anster said.

  “Yes doctor, anything else?” asked the President.

  “If it hasn’t already become painfully obvious aircraft are dropping from the skis or have already. I suggest you check the flight paths into the local airports.” Dr. Anster said.

  President Washington sat back in his chair thinking, there were fires now all over the city, the fire departments had no way to respond to them, he suspected many of those fires were caused by downed aircraft now. He knew what to expect at the airports it would be hell; dead bodies and downed aircraft every place. His day just got worse.

  Chapter Nine

  The 3rd Infantry Regiment was busy accounting for the vehicles, military and civilian that was running. Following that they had the signal units pulling out all of the communication equipment to determine what was working and what wasn’t, unfortunately ninety-nine percent what they had wasn’t working. In fact, all of the units on post were busy looking at their options which they were finding out now were very limited. The most urgent were the medical facilities that had no power, in the post medical center several people had already passed that were on life support which stopped immediately as soon as the power went out and they weren’t able to restore it.

  The medical center doctors and administrators, the ones that were able to make it in, which was about half the entire staff, knew that if power wasn’t restored soon, the patient mortality rate would skyrocket. Each day that passed there were two to three people that passed away. The other issues were food, water and medicines that they knew would run out within days. Much of the medicine needed to be refrigerated or it would go bad. Panic was setting in with the medical center administrators as people started dying because of the loss of power, even though a government facility, they still could be sued.