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

until one day, during a press conference, a reporter set him straight. He took his anger out on me, and our marriage was over.”

“I’m sorry,” said Hank.

Erin shrugged and smiled nervously. “You know, it probably should’ve happened long before. He never supported me or encouraged me to pursue my goals and dreams. He wanted me on his arm at social gatherings or as a smiling face for his television commercials.”

Erin was talkative, and Hank enjoyed listening to her, so he decided to take the conversation further. “How long were you in Tallahassee? You must’ve impressed some important people to reach the top of the totem pole.”

“Well, I actually did a lot of things for Florida farmers and orange growers in particular. But more importantly, I built coalitions with both parties to get things done. I won my second election by a landslide. When the president began his campaign a couple of years ago, I pledged my support even though we were in opposite parties.”

“I bet that was awkward,” said Hank with a smile. “Didn’t you piss off your side of the aisle?”

“Like I said, eventually you make everyone mad.”

“Obviously, that bold step was appreciated by the president.”

“Okay. I’m gonna toot my own horn for a moment. The fact is, I practically delivered Florida for him on election day. My statewide campaign team worked tirelessly to get out the vote for the president. Without Florida, he couldn’t have been elected. Anyway, our efforts didn’t go unnoticed, so he rewarded me with secretary of agriculture. I’m the only one in the cabinet who isn’t in the president’s party.”

Hank was impressed. She was a politician, yet she wasn’t. She was a straight talker, a rarity in Washington, Tallahassee, or the Florida Keys, for that matter. He still sensed she was troubled.

“I didn’t see you yesterday, so I thought you’d returned to Washington.”

“No. Sadly, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, they don’t need me up there. If I were leading transportation, then certainly. That was the job I really wanted, but the president had to offer it to someone more acceptable to unions.”

“You’re still a cabinet member,” said Hank. “Wouldn’t you be involved in the national security meetings?”

She shook her head side to side. “I have the requisite security clearance but would have little to offer from the agriculture side, or at least that’s what they probably think.”

Hank glanced at her face to make eye contact. “I take it you disagree.”

There was a fallen palm tree ahead, and Erin pointed toward it, indicating what she had to say was worthy of sitting down to explain. Hank followed her lead and took her hand to help her up the slope through the soft sand. Once they’d settled in to watch a fishing boat meander out toward a reef, Erin dropped a bomb of her own.

“If we were to be attacked with nuclear warheads, the transportation secretary would have to deal with the threat of an EMP. However, the aftermath of what happened between two nuclear powers, even on the other side of the world, will bring a plague on our planet that could be much worse—nuclear winter.”

Chapter Eighteen

Sunday, October 20

Driftwood Key

Hank was not completely unaware of the terms—EMP and nuclear winter. He’d heard them mentioned in movies, news documentaries, and books he’d read in the past. However, he’d never bothered to study or research what they meant. Erin was about to enlighten him and open his eyes to the very real threats their nation faced from nuclear war.

“There are many aspects to the use of nuclear weapons most of the public is unaware of. They all can visualize the massive mushroom cloud full of debris and fire because they’ve seen the videos from testing decades ago or how it is digitally portrayed in movies.

“That part is certainly accurate. The tremendous amount of energy that is released at the impact site annihilates virtually everything within the blast radius, depending on the size of the warhead.

“World powers, namely the U.S.S.R. and the U.S., learned through a series of nuclear tests in the late fifties there was an unexpected side effect to atomic bomb detonations. In 1958, testing at the Pacific Proving Grounds located in the Marshall Islands, known as the Starfish Prime project, revealed the energy generated also had the ability to destroy the tiny vulnerable wiring of electronic devices. This side effect, as they initially called it, is known as an EMP, or electromagnetic pulse.

“The government began to experiment with warhead detonations at different altitudes. The higher above ground the nuclear warhead was detonated, the broader the reach of the energy waves and the highly charged particles released into the atmosphere. Ground detonation, while releasing the same types of particles, had a significantly smaller EMP effect because its particles were not launched into the atmosphere but were thwarted by geographic features like mountains.”

Hank was aware of EMPs and what they were capable of, but he did not know the altitude of the detonation made a difference on the area it impacted. He looked for clarity. “Let’s use an example. The Russians nuke St. Louis. I don’t know why they would, but it’s the center of the country. Now, if the nuke hits the city, how far out will the electronics be impacted?”

“Again, keep in mind that the size of the weapon and the altitude are very important variables. Low-yield nukes coupled with a ground-level detonation will have less of an EMP effect. High-yield, high-altitude detonations could potentially place the entirety of the continental U.S. in the dark.

“Now, a caveat. Our power grid is tied together from coast to coast, except for Texas, which I’ll explain in a moment. The Eastern and Western Interconnection grids rely upon one another to maintain the continuous flow of power to the highest-demand users. For example, electricity generated by hydroelectric dams in Tennessee might not need to send as much energy to the rural parts of the state, but they transfer it to major cities like