Nuclear Winter First Strike by Bobby Akart (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

Defense communications team inside the Pentagon. The two had dated while in college, but there was nothing serious other than the usual kids-just-left-home-time-to-play relationship. They still got together for the occasional drink or dinner, followed by a noncommittal sleepover. It worked for both of the young DC professionals, who were trying to advance their careers rather than seeking to settle down.

Jenna Alan loved government. Her father had been a local politician with designs on higher office before a heart attack struck him while Jenna was obtaining her degree in broadcast journalism. In recent months, she’d been assigned press briefing duty and frequently took to the podium when her boss was traveling with the secretary of defense. Unlike Peter, who didn’t have that inside connection with the secretary of state, Jenna was always in the know when it came to the Pentagon’s inner workings.

She’d told Peter about the redeployment of the Nimitz strike group and the USS Georgia toward the Persian Gulf. The drums of war were beginning to beat louder, Peter had thought to himself as he listened to her detail the Pentagon’s moves, off the record, of course. The two had a very trusting relationship, allowing them to share information without fear of reading about it online later that day.

Like a good soldier, Peter had filed his press pool report soon after he’d been evacuated from the conference center. Unable to sleep, he’d ordered dinner and half a dozen Heinekens to relieve the stress. He sent out a text message blast to family and friends, letting them know he was safe. Then he sat down to write the best news article for the Washington Times he’d ever produced. He was the only journalist who’d witnessed the attack firsthand and lived to tell about it.

During his extensive self-edits, he chose to remove the details related to his killing of a terrorist and the use of the grenade to escape. He feared bringing unnecessary heat on his family. By midmorning in the States, his reporting was being cited and shared by every news agency in the country. He’d already received several requests to appear on camera for interviews as soon as he returned home.

The other big story of the news day was the president’s anticipated response. Peter knew the secretary of state and her team were never in imminent danger. Per the schedule, which was widely disseminated, she and the Israeli delegation had been having a preconference meeting on the top floor of the center. This fact struck Peter as odd, in that the terrorists could’ve easily deployed rocket-propelled grenade launchers to fire upon the upper levels. Either they weren’t prepared, or they were amateurs. That was not for him to speculate, so he didn’t in his reporting.

The world media began to immediately theorize whether Iran would take their retaliation against Israel to another level—the use of nuclear weapons. Despite the nuclear nonproliferation agreement entered into with Iran more than a decade prior, the rogue nation continued to develop enriched uranium. Quickly, with the help of North Korea and Russia, Iran had amassed nearly a hundred nuclear warheads, to put it on par with Israel in the region.

The nuclear silos dotting the mountains and desert region along the Iraqi border in western Iran were barely a thousand miles from the Israeli targets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. An Iranian nuclear warhead affixed to a cruise missile could strike Israel about twenty minutes after launch.

President Helton ran on a platform of stopping the nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He used especially strong words against North Korea, who was the primary supplier of technology and materials to the Tehran government. The DPRK’s actions had just been a continuation of their open defiance of the international community as it related to the nuclear arms race in South Asia and the Middle East.

As a result, the Pentagon was strongly urging the president to resume nuclear testing. Jenna had told Peter about a faction within the Department of Defense that wanted to abandon the current zero-yield standard, the prohibition of test explosions that produce a nuclear chain reaction of any kind. Congress had refused to provide the Pentagon funding for the testing, so they sought an end-run of the budgetary process by asking the new president to reallocate discretionary monies within the budget. Thus far, President Helton, who was decidedly anti-nuke, had resisted.

The other policy issue, as Peter saw it from the perspective of the State Department, was whether the countries like Iran, North Korea, and even Pakistan would see the president’s inaction as a sign of weakness. Publicly, the secretary of state did her level best to talk tough to America’s adversaries, warning them against the use of ballistic missiles in any conflict.

The continual war of words between America and her adversaries often reminded Peter of something his father, Hank, had told him when he was young. Words are cheap, but at times, they’re all you can afford. Words will just be words until you act on them.

He closed his eyes for a moment and envisioned what that would look like.

Chapter Ten

Saturday, October 19

Driftwood Key

Hank Albright operated a hotel and resort. He was not a cruise director responsible for keeping his guests entertained. Ordinarily, those who enjoyed the environs of Driftwood Key found plenty of things to do without keeping their eyes focused on the television while drinking coffee. He understood their insatiable desire to be in-the-know. He had been like that once until he had an awakening one day. He realized there was nothing he, on an individual basis, could do about newsworthy events. Unless they affected him or the inn, it was just clutter in his brain. This sense of independence from the outside world probably kept him off Prozac or from swimming in the bottom of a bottle of rum.

Because it was Saturday, many of the guests chose to avoid Key West because a cruise ship was in port. The citizens of Key West had passed a referendum limiting