Cooper looked in Palmer’s direction and nodded. Palmer hopped off the sofa and went to comfort Fiorella. After a minute, she calmed down.
“I wasn’t afraid for my husband until now. His trip home would take him through major cities like Omaha and maybe Denver, depending on which route he chose. He’s a strong, smart man. The EMP attack wouldn’t faze him. He’d look at the power outage as an annoyance. But nuclear bombs flying around. That’s much different.”
Cooper rose and joined his sister by Fiorella’s side. “Ma’am, we’ll pray for his protection. He’ll find his way home through all of this. You have to stay strong.”
The group heard Morales coughing in the bedroom, so Palmer, Pacheco, and Fiorella rushed in there to check on him. This left Cooper alone with Riley.
Riley looked past Cooper until they were alone, and then he whispered, “Coop, shoot straight with me. Are we screwed?”
“I don’t know for certain. It ain’t good, that’s for sure. We’ll know real quick, though.”
“How?”
Cooper removed his hat and scruffed his hair. “Oh, we’ll feel the earth shake like it’s comin’ apart at the seams.”
Chapter 4
December 1
Sixty miles southeast of Hawaii
Pacific Ocean
Duncan Armstrong Jr. comforted his new friend as the two flew out of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea, earlier in the day. The last forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind of activity reminiscent of an episode of 24, one of Duncan’s favorite shows as a teen. Sook let out the emotional loss of her family, and despite the third-world conditions she’d lived in, a part of her would always be fond of her familial home in Sinmi-do, North Korea.
Upon their arrival in Guam, Duncan overcame some resistance from Air Force personnel to allowing them a seat on the Boeing C-17 Globemaster destined for San Diego. The large military transport was full to capacity with troops and military supplies returning to the States to help with the EMP-recovery effort.
After a brief argument, the Air Force personnel were called away, allowing Duncan and Sook to board the C-17. Keeping to themselves, the two cuddled in the backseat of a Humvee being returned to the States. The EMP had disabled most operating vehicles, and the military was in dire need of transportation for their personnel.
The C-17 was capable of transporting one hundred thirty-four troops on sidewall seats, together with six armored security vehicles. This flight’s payload included two M1117 Armored Security Vehicles and four Humvees. The need for ASVs back home puzzled Duncan when he saw them on board. They were commonly used in war theaters because of their mine-resistant hulls and their weapons capabilities.
Are things so bad in America that we need to use armored vehicles to control people?
His mind wandered as Sook fell asleep in his arms. For the first time since he and Park had entered North Korea with the goal of assassinating Kim Jong-un, he allowed himself to think about his family.
While in the service, like a lot of the guys, he’d carried a picture of his mom and dad, as well as his siblings. Once he entered the black-ops world of the CIA, this was a risk he couldn’t afford. Were he to be captured, emotional ties would be used against him to extract information. His possessions, and his mind, had to be devoid of the Armstrong Ranch and his family.
Now, with this incredible young woman by his side, he started to envision a reunion with his folks. He knew they would be accepting of Sook and their relationship, whatever that meant. This was new territory for Duncan. He’d never found time for a steady girlfriend. While other guys his age were focused on hookups and conquests, he was absorbed with his military career and staying alive on the field of battle.
Arriving at Camp Pendleton just north of San Diego would present a challenge for the pair. He wasn’t exactly sure how far it was to the ranch, but he guessed a thousand miles would be pretty accurate. There were very few operating vehicles, he’d been told in Guam, and many of those were being confiscated by the government.
His brothers and Palmer would have found a way home on horseback, something he’d shunned as a teen but would quickly embrace now. His mind calculated walking a thousand miles—two months. He could do it, but he wasn’t sure if Sook had the strength. Plus, the journey would be fraught with danger. If the military was returning ASVs to the U.S. to deal with the EMP’s aftermath, then things must be pretty ugly on the streets.
Duncan was weighing the different options and scenarios, including reaching out to his handlers, the same ones who had abandoned him in North Korea. The least they could do was arrange a ride for him back to Texas or some location close by. In exchange, he’d promise not to kill them when he found them. Leaving him and Park in North Korea to die was an unforgivable betrayal, one which he vowed to get revenge for on Park’s behalf.
A commotion outside the vehicle startled Duncan, which in turn caused Sook to stir awake. Shouts of look, look forced him to scoot up in his seat and poke his head out the Humvee’s rear window.
This new BC-17 variant of the Globemaster, initially proposed for civilian operators, had window portals scattered down both sides of the aircraft. Soldiers were huddled along the left side of the plane, taking turns pushing their faces against the window.
Based on his flight-time calculations and the gradual descent in altitude, he placed them nearing the California coast, almost home. He assumed everyone was enjoying a bird’s-eye view of their final destination.
Then someone exclaimed, “Oh my god!” Now Duncan had to see what was going on.
It was a cloudless evening, and at their cruising altitude of thirty-eight thousand feet, ordinarily the lights of most large cities could be seen flickering below them. He’d been told much of the continental U.S. had been impacted by the electromagnetic pulse inflicted by the Axis of Evil. California and its large population centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego were no exception.
However, it was not California that had garnered the passengers’ attention. Duncan took his turn at the window. His eyes were immediately drawn to the anomaly in the darkening sky.
When an object enters Earth’s atmosphere, it experiences pressure from gravity and drag. Gravity pulls an object down to Earth’s surface, but the particles of air making up the atmosphere rub against the object, creating friction and drag. This friction causes intense heat, which creates the illusion of the object speeding earthward having a brilliant, fiery tail.
What Duncan observed could’ve been a meteorite, but it wasn’t. His eyes strained to make out the landscape miles below their aircraft. Camp Pendleton’s lights were barely visible as they flickered just beyond the Pacific Ocean.
The object continued racing on its downward trajectory as the tension inside the Boeing C-17 grew higher, causing voices to fade away. The object sped up as the gravity of Earth assisted its descent.
Faster. Faster.
Impact.
The concussive blast caused the aircraft to tip from side to side, even from many miles away. What Duncan and the rest of the soldiers onboard the aircraft witnessed brought gasps, prayers, and tears to their eyes.
As the nuclear-tipped warhead made impact in Southern California, the atomic bomb detonated, suddenly releasing a massive amount of heat into the sky. A giant fireball rapidly developed and rose into the air, creating a vacuum effect and forming a mushroom cloud over the California coastline. The visual from above was unmistakable to everyone aboard.
San Diego had been destroyed.
Duncan closed his eyes for a few seconds and reopened them, hoping and praying this was a bad dream. It was not a dream, but it was indeed bad, because another streak of light caught his attention as it invaded the night sky.
“Another one!” someone shouted.
“And another. This can’t be!”
Duncan shook his head in disbelief as another streak of light hurtled toward the California coastline and struck Los Angeles and northward toward the Silicon Valle
y.
In each instance, with rapid succession, the sudden release of energy created temperatures to millions of degrees, similar to the heat on the surface of the sun. The mushroom clouds rose in a crescendo from south to north, leaving millions of dead and total destruction beneath them.
Duncan whispered aloud, “It is done,” unknowingly echoing the words of his sister, who was thousands of miles away in Montana.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS BONUS EXCERPT OF LINES IN THE SAND
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© 2018 Bobby Akart Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Bobby Akart Inc.
Table of Contents
Dedications
Acknowledgements
About the Author, Bobby Akart
Foreword by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Epigraph
Prologue
PART ONE Black Friday, November 25
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART TWO Saturday, November 26
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
PART THREE Sunday, November 27
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
PART FOUR Monday, November 28
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
PART FIVE Tuesday, November 29
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
PART SIX Wednesday, November 30
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
PART SEVEN Thursday, December 1
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Excerpt from LINES IN THE SAND
Copyright Information