American Sanction

By Jim Burkett

While keeping a promise to a friend, ex SEALs and DHS Special Agent Nicholas West is caught up in a terrorist plot to release and sell a chemical agent more deadly than any ever seen by any country, to anyone willing to pay the price. The target is the United States.
After delivering a highly classified weapon to a covert organization, the weapon itself reveals that a terrorist, thought to have been killed years earlier, is still alive and has murdered a US Senator. Discovering the terrorist has recently released a chemical toxin on the streets of California, the organization issues a sanction and limitation of only 72 hours to find and kill the terrorist before he has a chance to market the deadly chemicals to other buyers operating with their own agenda.
It is a story filled with secrets, murder, humor, friendships, betrayal, sex and horror. The twists are many and it’s not over until the last page. When you think you have it all figured out, guess again!
From the author of ‘Declaration of Surrender’ comes a tale that you will want to read a second time and pass on to your friends. Prepare to believe in the unbelievable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inknbeans Press
• Release date: Aug 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452426211

Jim Burkett

Jim Burkett was born in a small coal mining town of West Virginia while his father was serving in Korea. Once his father returned, the family was transferred to Hawaii were they spent the next five years stationed at Hickum Air Force Base. While stationed in Hawaii, Jim spent as much time touring the submarines while they were in port as he was allowed.Their next tour took them to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. For six years, he spent his weekends going with his father to the different base facilities, often allowed permission to spend time with the airmen and officers listening to and watching as they went about their assignments, working on the planes and transports mechanics. At the age of 13, he lost his father who by this time was serving overseas once again.Years later, while pursuing a Computer Science degree, he met his future wife Cathy and they were married a year and a half later. Still married after 35 years, they have two sons and have been blessed with two grandchildren.In addition to his current Senior Systems Analyst position, he also serves as a senior staff photographer for a local magazine in the Tampa Bay area. Previously, he wrote a column for the SouthWinds Sailing magazine and worked on several projects including spending a week photographing the Canadian Olympic Team prior to the Beijing Olympics and the “Earthrace” boat which would later set a world speed record circumnavigating the globe. In 2006, he received the “Volunteer of the Year” award for his work with the Pediatric Cancer Foundation.Through his photography and writing, he feels privileged to have met and spent time with such men as General Tommy Franks, George Steinbrenner, Pete Bethune and Steve Yerrid to name only a few. One of his closest friends is a retired Secret Service agent who once served on Presidential detail under six presidents.Holding close to his military roots, he has continued to study military history and high-tech science and blends these into his first book Declaration of Surrender. Holding close to his two grandchildren, he has also developed a series of picture books for pre-readers and early readers called the Read With Me, Pops series.

Book preview

Chapter 1

EuroAmerican flight 1419 began its descent into Munich as the sunlight blinded the pilot’s visual sighting of the airport below. Captain Michael Red Ross was looking forward to the next two weeks after having scheduled and rescheduled vacation time over the past six months. The delay had been caused by a walkout of pilots who felt their six figure salary and benefits weren’t enough to keep their several mistresses, in different locations around the world, happy. Those who had not walked out had been compensated very well for their loyalty, along with being given the more favorable flight routes. It had been over two years since his last leave and the upcoming time in Bermuda, and extra money, would do him and his family good.

Coming from within the interior, he could hear the sounds of the passengers’ anticipation of arrival as they began to make their preparations for landing. He thought about several of the passengers he had met as they boarded the aircraft, and had extended a pleasant greeting to him. There had been the mother with her three sons, one of whom had just graduated from an Ivy League school and was on his way to Germany to begin his career. His mom teased that she would soon be able to retire and finally get that big vacation she had always wanted. The son promised he would make it happen.

Another was a couple who were on their honeymoon and seemed a bit too energetic for his liking. The new bride was having a hard time keeping her hands off her new husband, and although the man appeared to be trying to settle her down, Ross knew he was loving every minute of it.

His favorite had been the woman who had slowly made her way through the plane’s entry door, with hands protectively covering her mid-section. Looking down, he guessed she was about 8 months pregnant and expecting twins.

Having remembered all of their names, he reached out with one hand, picked up and began checking the passenger manifest to find their seat locations. The mother and her sons were in seats 14A through 14D. The expectant mother was seated in 21B and the new couple sat in first class, seats 2A and 2B. Ross made a mental note to be and sure to wish each of them the best of luck as they departed.

Approaching Düsseldorf International Airport, he could feel the crosswinds pushing the airplane gently off course and he applied several degrees right rudder to realign the plane’s desired position. He listened as each aircraft ahead of his was given their call-sign and runway assignment. After finally being cleared, he switched on the Seatbelt and No Smoking signs, extracted the landing gear and relayed the departing instructions, as well as the current weather forecast, to the passengers. Touchdown was in precisely four minutes.

Applying the left rudders this time, he began a small banked arc towards runway two-four-seven, pulling back on the throttles to slow the air speed. With less than two minutes to go, he leveled the wings to horizon and made one final visual check to verify all of the plane’s instruments were reading properly. A mile and a half away, a man peered through a field scope, following his approach, waiting for exactly the right moment. With the plane one hundred and fifty feet above the airfield, he flipped a switch on the remote he held in his hand.

Preparing to reverse engines and apply the brakes, Ross saw the small flicker on the instrument panel, coming from one of the warning lights. It was very brief and did not display again. Had he not been looking directly at the panel, he would have never seen it, nor would the logs show the blip ever being captured within the recordings of the black box.

A low voltage electrical charge flowed through a lead wire to the detonator located under the floor board of the co-pilots seat. As the current passed down the lead, it tripped and closed half of the primary circuit required to produce the spark needed for ignition. A secondary trigger sat waiting its command.

As the wheels touched the tarmac, Ross began pulling further back on the throttles and the plane eased down gently. Applying both feet firmly on the brakes, the 187 passengers could hear the engines screaming in unison as they strained against the immense gravitational pull, trying to assist in slowing down the metallic 20 ton beast hurtling down the concrete at over 300 miles per hour.

Nearing the end of the runway, the tower relayed instructions to change course and turn onto runway two-nine-zero, and approach gate seven. As he made the turn, he lifted his eyes from the flight deck; ahead was the largest commercial passenger airliner he had ever seen. He recognized it immediately. Sitting on an inside runway, the Stratobus A900 was preparing for its maiden voyage. At a cost of nearly 600 million dollars, there were only three in existence.

Across the bottom of the two wings, there were attached a total of six Rolls Royce engines, all fitted with electrically actuated thrust reversers. The avionics employed an Integrated Avionics architecture used in advance military aircraft. The seating capacity for this flight had been limited to 900 passengers, with all passengers being treated to first class, VIP luxuries. Cruising speed was Mach 0.90, nearing 600 miles per hour. On board was a small shopping center, casino and movie theater, along with a half dozen other small restaurants and gym facilities.

Reducing roll speed to twenty miles per hour and closing in on the Stratobus, he could not help but stare at its size. His own aircraft was dwarfed by the vast wingspan of the other plane. He watched as the last of the fueling trucks pulled away and the turbines began to start up as EuroAmerican flight 1419 eased even closer. Four hundred yards from the craft, Captain Ross once again heard the tower instruct him to cross over runways in front of the Stratobus and proceed towards the terminal. In the short distance, the turbines continued to increase speed.

Inside the solid glass terminal were just over one thousand passengers who had stayed after arriving from their earlier flights. In the mix were an additional hundred or so photographers, cameramen and reporters, present to capture the takeoff of one of the most spectacular aeronautical achievements mankind had ever built. From the exterior of the terminal, it would appear as if the people inside were stacked eighty feet high, separated only by the steel skeletal framing that ran both horizontally and vertically inside the glass casing. The elevators appeared to be individual, moving human spinal columns. It all reminded him of the ant farms he had played with as a boy.

Pulling back on the throttles four degrees to decrease the speed several knots, Ross reached for the Unfasten Seatbelt switch. Flipping it, he completed the secondary circuit. The back of the plane lifted from the blast, ripping away the tail section as the fireball ran the length of fuselage, then back out the open end of the carnage, sucked towards the whirling turbines of the Stratobus.

As the plane slammed back down onto the tarmac, seats sheared from their mountings. The charred bodies of seats 14A, 14B and 21B were among those engulfed in the fireball and sent flying towards the spinning blades of the Stratobus. In less than ten seconds, the first of the flames and bodies reached engine number three. The engine coughed several times, then began to shred apart as millions of small metal fragments exploded from their encapsulated compartment and headed outwards in all directions. In contemporaneous harmony, each of the remaining five engines began to erupt.

Glass in the terminal began to splinter, then shatter, sending billions of slivers cutting through the panicked crowd. One by one, the floors began to collapse. As the Stratobus became a raging inferno, the heat began twisting the wind currents at cyclonic speeds. Small to medium size aircraft and buildings structures became airborne, quickly becoming vaporized as they passed through the fire. Those who survived the flying glass and heat began to stand. One by one, they were lifted from their shoes, vacuumed into the vortex.

In the distance, a man smiled. After several moments, he turned and walked towards the master bedroom. Inside, two adults lay tied together, their eyes and mouths covered by a thin layer of cloth. Next to them, their four month old son played in his crib. Raising the Glock 17, the man double-tapped the heads of the parents, then placed the barrel against the chest of the child. Tightening his hand around the grip of the pistol, he began to slowly pull back on the trigger.  

A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and he heard a voice telling him it was time to go. As they both ran out the door, he quickly fired one round through the crib.

For the next five days, the inferno continued to burn, taking with it over two thousand lives. A total of seventeen firemen and police officers would also perish. Dozens more would have died had they not been told to stand down until it was safe to approach the remains and begin tagging the bodies that had not been completely turned to ash.  

Chapter 2

Large rain droplets smashed against the office window as the swirling wind outside pounded against the building’s structural frame. She stared, looking out, oblivious to the sounds and fury of another approaching seasonal storm. From her vantage point, she could see the cliffs below, the waves continuing to carve away at the granite rock as they had done for thousands of years. Lost in her thoughts, she fixated on the smooth patterns and details like a buyer examining a masterpiece of art one last time before a purchase.

Passing a hand gently over her stomach, she could remember where the baby’s foot had pressed against the inside wall. It had been such a small human feature in the cup of her hand. Simon would have been proud, she thought, as the tears rolled down onto the black dress, now hanging loose from her shoulders. She had hoped to surprise him on his return from the United States, knowing she could never break silence and contact him during a mission.

The doctors had warned them both that it would be an exceptionally high risk pregnancy at her age, but given the amount of scar tissue from the past incident, going full term would be almost impossible. For a while they put the idea aside. In their business, everything was a risk, but Simon was dead set against taking on any risk that he had control over that put her life in jeopardy. They finally accepted the fact that their careers took precedence and that bringing a child into the world could carry tribulations that neither wanted to accept.

Two and a half months after Simon had left for the United States, the self-testing applicator clearly indicated she was pregnant. Almost four months into the pregnancy, the doctors advised her she would not carry the baby full term and recommended she either abort now or prepare herself. She refused to believe they were right, but they eventually would be. Two days after the loss of the baby, she was notified of Simon’s death.

The funerals for both the baby and Simon were more than she could bear, having needed support reentering the car that waited to return her to headquarters. Her superiors begged her to take leave and get the much needed rest her mind and body would require, but this is where she felt most safe. Work would become the only obsession that gave her life purpose now.

Ignoring their requests would soon result in signs of fatigue and other poor decisions. Three weeks had passed and although she was handling herself professionally to all who came in contact with her, she remained devastated inside and did not know how much longer she could keep up the pretense without breaking down completely.

She never heard the phone ring on her desk and did not respond until a hand touched hers. Turning slowly to face her assistant, her mind could not register the words that were being spoken until it comprehended the name ‘Nicholas West’. As she looked up, she could see the ex DHS Special Agent standing outside her office, accompanied by two large well armed guards, each holding an M4 and strapped with a 9mm sidearm. In West’s hands, he held the case containing her deceased husband’s material goods, a sniper rifle she had given him as a birthday present 5 years earlier.

As she stood and approached Nick, she already felt a bond with the man, a man her husband had trusted and given his life protecting, a man to whom he had passed on a final request, knowing that this man would see it through to the end, out of total respect and gratitude. Nick West was a man of honor and beyond reproach.

Extending her hand, she placed it in Nick’s, then wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling herself against him warmly, lingered for a moment, then stepped back, offering a smile of welcome. For Nick, it was an unexpected greeting and he was unsure how to respond. Maybe it was how they welcomed one another in this country, he thought.

The staff was mildly shocked as well by the gesture and eyed one another for a brief moment, not having ever seen this behavior before from their superior. Whoever Nick West was, they immediately felt a guarded camaraderie with him and began to go back to their assigned responsibilities. The armed security held their positions until she nodded towards them, then took one final look and left.

Entering her office, she held the door then closed it behind him after Nick had passed. Pointing to a chair for him to sit, she began to walk around behind her desk, at which point Nick noticed how frail the woman looked. Nick waited for her to sit, then took his chair.

Welcome to Ireland, Mr. West. I hope the flight was pleasant. Also, thank you for bringing my husband’s personal belongings back. It means a great deal to both of us. She did not feel it was important to go into any further detail on her last comment.

Nick held his surprise as best he could, as it never occurred to him that the woman sitting on the other side of the desk would be Simon’s wife or that he was even married. Now the quick hug made sense. The more he learned of Simon, the greater the admiration and realization of just how private the man was. He also knew it was, in most part, the need to protect his loved ones from his enemies.

I have to confess that of the little time I spent with Simon, he did not mention to me that you were his wife. He only asked that I contact you and bring the equipment back in case he was unable to. I am very sorry for your loss.

Simon would not have been able to reveal that to anyone, even if wanted. We have very strict disciplines not to ever let anyone know that information. I could tell you didn’t know I was his wife by your reaction, and that is good. And I will trust you will not repeat that knowledge outside this office. She held her gaze on Nick for a moment, then felt slightly embarrassed that she had said it.

There is no need for me to; I know the importance of why you are asking. He hesitated before asking the next question.

Simon was very adamant that I bring the rifle back to you and you alone. If I felt my trip here was in any way in jeopardy, he wanted me to destroy it immediately, especially the scope. Can I ask why?

Olexia Syshchenko looked at him in surprise. Simon would have never passed