T. E. U.

By Joseph Farr

The story of the frantic hunt before eight massive murderous detonations and the story of life for one Northern California family after their world is changed forever. After twenty years of being buried in the ground, four black-market Cold War Russian-built UR-100N ICBM warheads turn up missing from a rose garden in Kazanluk, Bulgaria. It is only a matter of time before the world will be changed forever and millions of innocents will die. John Mullens, a young, idealistic, and edgy Central Intelligence Agency operator will try in vain to stop those responsible for stealing the missing nuclear warheads. Wittingly, he recruits the help of a key Bulgarian black marketer, Mr. Ivanof, an arrogant deadly boozer who, unbeknownst to Mullens, is the same man who stole the nuclear weapons from a Cold War naval base in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1991. Both men try desperately to hunt down the weapons before it is all too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312619609

Book preview

T. E. U.

T. E. U.

By Joseph Farr

Copyright © 2014, Joseph Farr

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-312-61960-9

Quote

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

—General Omar Bradley: November 11, 1948

Chapter 1: The Oaks

The wind-up alarm clock went off in the stark silence and black void of 4:00 a.m. Quickly, the man reached over to kill the bell on top. Then he carefully pulled the pin out of the back to prevent the clock from ringing any further and waking the others. After which, he began to pull the blankets off his fully clothed body.

If I am not back by late afternoon, you know what to do, the man whispered into the darkness, knowing this may just be his last trip and this comment would only upset his wife, but he had to say it anyway. He could hear his wife begin to sob again, but he did not say anything to comfort her. He just let her lie on the filthy hardwood floor and cry.

Honey, be careful out there please, the man’s wife finally whispered back into the darkness as he snuck out of the dirt-laden blankets they called a bed, on the floor of the big empty expanse of a once great living room in the old abandoned ranch house. He stood up and walked towards the empty kitchen in the dark, only turning back towards her at the hall door. There he almost whispered, I love you, but thought better of it before he slipped away into the dark. The woman sobbed harder once she realized the man had gone.

Before everyone had gone to bed the night before, he had hugged his children like it may be the last time ever, then he had even made love to his wife. There was no more to say but a lot to do, so he moved out of the room to do it. Gathering his gear up off the kitchen table in the light of only a partial moon, he headed out the kitchen door of the old ranch house, closing it and making sure it was locked, and then he walked into the darkness of the early morning. The dogs came to him one at a time, in a sign of respect and submission, sniffing around him in search of food. They had all been on the north end of the property all night, but they knew not to bark unless the danger was much closer. They had all heard the kitchen door open then close, which usually signaled mealtime, so they ran towards the man.

You don’t get to go up with me on this trip, guys. Maybe next time, the man said as he slipped out the main gate, careful to not let a dog slip past him. He locked the padlock that passed through the links of a rusty steel chain that secured the gate to the gatepost. Then he headed north down the road to where he would meet the deer trail and head up to the north pasture, which was a good few hours’ hike away. As he walked down the road, his heart sank. For most of the night before, he had stayed outside listening. Other than all the noise from up north on that long night, the valley was in a state of quiet fear. All the animals seemed to know danger was nearby. There were no owls hooting, no coyotes calling, not even steers occasionally bellowing. The valley seemed to sense that death was in the air. The man felt it too. He could not sleep that night and had only dozed off shortly before the alarm had gone off. As he walked down the dirt road, he ate a package of instant coffee and a pack of sugar. This combination would give him a burst of energy, which he would need as he turned off the road and onto the deer trail that ran up the draw to the ranch’s north pasture. The walk to the slope would take him over an hour. By the time he arrived, the sun was already on the way up off to the east. The gray light of dawn was approaching as he turned and made his way up the ridge.

Now he ignored the constant pain, which had become an old friend, as each twinge reminded him he was still alive. The man walked up the deer trail, a menacing sniper rifle slung over his right shoulder. Moving purposely yet quietly on the edge of the deep draw beneath expansive oaks, he carefully placed each step to not alert others to his presence. Many of the trees were over one hundred years old. Their twisted forms and great heights betrayed their real age. As it was early spring, the sprouting trees looked like coral formations way out on a submerged coral reef in the Pacific, with their small yellow, lime-green, or blue leaf buds poking out from the ends of the twisted branches. In the breeze, the tips of the branches wiggled as if they were alive and feeding on particles in air like living coral feeding in the sea. Their branches had become twisted in random patterns from years of vying for sunlight in the competitive world of the canopy.

The forest floor was littered with millions of crimson, brown, and yellow leaves that had fallen a few months earlier. Now dried out, they crackled as the man stepped on them. Patches of buckeye and bay trees, along with poison oak, dotted the forest floor. The red foliage of the poison oak was budding from the spindly leg-like branches of the oil-laced plants.

The man walked right through the poison oak patches, making no effort to avoid their caustic oils. As a child, this plant had made a cauliflower out of his right ear. The doctors, along with his parents, had feared he would lose his hearing due to the swelling and the subsequent infection. Having fought off the effects of this plant as a child, he now had full immunity. The oils, however, bonded to his clothes in deep layers. His wife and daughter, who normally did the laundry, were not immune. In this new world, infections could kill. The man would have to take great care and wash his clothes himself when he returned to the compound. Any small infection from a cut or even the common cold was looked at with horror now. Antibiotics were now rare, if one could find them at all, and most were past their expiration dates. Most were improperly stored, in either wet or hot environments, and this mistreatment most certainly destroyed their potency. When he was finished washing his clothes in the old tin washtub, he would need to keep the children away from it. He would also need to be careful not to touch anyone. A hot bath with lots of soap would do the trick. He had to remind himself over and over again to be sure and not expose his family to this danger. Shortly after everything had gone bad, after foraging for food his daughter had gotten a bad rash from this plant. She had unknowingly scratched at it until it was badly infected. She had become very ill afterwards, and for a while both parents had thought they might lose their oldest child.

As a child, the man had been rather sickly, but that was in a world of modern medicine—a world now gone forever. He had seemed to come down with all sorts of childhood maladies, most frequently throat-related infections, until they removed his tonsils in an emergency operation at the age of thirteen. The malady that caused the infection was known as quinsy, which forms large puss-filled infections behind the tonsils, closing off the throat to the point of suffocation. By the time his mother had gotten him to the ear, nose, and throat specialist, the infection was so bad he needed emergency surgery to open his airway. As a man, he had become strong under the motto, What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. He was a midsized man, about six feet in height. Worn by the years, his face made him look at least ten years older than his true age of forty-six. His eyes were deep hazel brown, with pools of blue that reflected the light, leaving one to second-guess their actual color in the sunlight. His pace was steady and purposed with a slight limp on the right side. The weight of the rifle shifted him slightly to the right, and each step felt heavier than the last, as he had been walking for some time. The pain of each step caused the limp to become more pronounced. When he was much younger, he injured his spine—an injury that the modern medicine of the day could not cure, just address the pain. Over the decades, he had learned to control the pain with his mind. Binoculars hung from his neck and bounced a little off his chest each time he took a step. The binoculars were old Israeli Army–issued 8x30 Steiners, light olive green and well worn from years of use. He had picked them up long before the troubles had started. On the back of each recital, their covers were taped securely to the frames. The man had cut rectangular slits into the covers, as military men often did, to offer sight through the holes and to minimize reflection from the sun.

The weapon was well kept but showed its years and many cleanings, with many wear marks over its bluing and wooden stock. The sniper rifle sported a high-powered, Soviet Cold War–era scope and had a heavy bore. From 1970 onward, Fabrica de Arme Cugir SA manufactured the PSL rifle, a near clone of the Russian-built Dragunov sniper rifle. The PSL chambered for the same ancient but deadly 7.62x54 cartridge as the Dragunov. The 7.62x54mm round was first produced by the Russian federation back in 1891. Despite its age, the round’s properties kept the cartridge in service longer than any other modern round ever devised. At the hands of a skilled marksman, this round could find and kill a target well over a half-mile away and kill that target dead with a single shot. The hole that it bore through flesh and bone was the size of a softball, after making a small quarter-sized entrance wound. The Germans called the round the Knüppel, or club, due to its ability to knock people literally off their feet. The round was equally deadly on game. Deer, elk, or wild hogs that dotted the landscape would fall immediately in their tracks if hit by it. Even an animal as mighty as the elk would only be capable of a few staggering steps before the damage the round caused dropped the animal and it took its last breaths.

In addition to the rifle, the man carried a large, tattered US military Alice backpack, and from it hung a clear plastic bottle filled with water. A black carabineer was on the side of the pack with a length of climbing rope hung at the ready, ranger-style. At the top of the pack was a small American flag and below it the Gadsden flag, better known as the Don’t Tread on Me flag, yellow with a coiled rattlesnake. The Gadsden flag was named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden, who designed it during the American Revolution. This flag was always associated with American patriots and Second Amendment circles before the end. Now it took on a much deeper, darker meaning for those who bore it. Stupid was an individual to mess with a man who bore this flag. Inside the pack were all the essentials for a prolonged patrol: food rations for a few days, dry socks, dry matches, a woolen blanket, some gold coins—though they were not worth anything to anyone anymore—extra ammo, and most importantly photos of his family, should he become separated from them for a long period of time. On his left hip hung a marine KA-BAR bayonet, and on his right a 9mm Beretta, its magazine filled to the top and one round chambered and ready to go—sixteen rounds in all. Just behind the pistol were two more magazines in their belt cases. The pistol’s safety was engaged, but the rifle’s was not. It was at the ready, with a round chambered already for what lay ahead, and so was the man.

Long before he got to the top of the ridge, the man knew what he was going to do.

The night before, the man and his family had heard the men, whom they called the river men, slipping noisily onto the pastures to the north of the compound just after dusk. The man’s son had coined the term river men, after seeing them for the first time on the banks of the Eel River. With the AR-15 rifle slung over his right shoulder, the boy ran excitedly to his father, who was seated at the kitchen table.

Papa, I think the river men are up on the north pasture. Sissy and I were out feeding the dogs and heard some shooting off to the north end of the valley. They were shouting, and we heard some screams that sounded like a—

What!? the man said by lantern light as he sat at the table cleaning the Mossberg 500 shotgun.

Before the boy could respond, his sister came running in just a step behind.

Dad. We heard shooting then some men shouting up there on the north pasture—

Honey, the mother responded with a white face. Your brother just told your father. Now take your brother back outside and see that the gates are all locked and the dogs are all off their chains. I want to make sure if those men come this way the dogs are free to run the perimeter of the fence tonight. Now, you head back out right now! The woman sternly looked at both of her children. They immediately disappeared out the door in the fast fading light of a late-winter evening.

You headed up? The woman looked at her husband with horror on her face.

The man did not respond. He simply finished cleaning the Mossberg, put it back together, placed it on the rack of weapons in the mop closet, and then pulled out his special rifle. Then the man looked up from his work. The woman stood in front of the stove, tears flowing down the sides of her face. He continued working and did not comfort the woman. There was further planning and work to be done.

The man and his family had watched them at the river days before, and they were still tormented by what they had seen. Up on the north pasture there were at least ten of them, gauging from all the noise they were making. They were likely traveling north along the old country road, which used to be congested on weekends with endless lines of combustion engine vehicles visiting the local vineyards that were once so prevalent in the region. Now these once great commercial arteries were barren, with the exception of foot traffic—those still alive fleeing the hell of the big cities in the south.

When the river men arrived on the north pasture, they made little effort to conceal their presence. The noise they made echoed down the valley all night long. Their hoots, hollers, and gunshots seemed to last until dawn. They must have all felt a huge sense of relief when they stumbled off the road and into the north pasture, seeing the healthy cattle looking back at them. It would have taken this group a week or more to reach the ranch if they had traveled by foot, but the man and his wife were certain they had heard diesel engines. They were most definitely first-wavers, individuals who fled the suburbs once they saw the cloud rise above the city. They had most certainly lied, killed, robbed, and murdered their way to the pasture, and the man understood this. These individuals on the pasture were the worst of mankind: evil, horrible, wretched individuals who could not be reasoned with.

Oh my god. What was that? the man’s wife called out from the bedroom hallway when the first shots echoed down the valley into the large ranch house like claps of lingering thunder from a storm moving ever closer. The terrified children were frozen beside the old oak ranch table, all color washed from their drawn faces. They had just run inside to tell their parents of the danger. The girl’s hands were trembling, as the series of shots seemed to increase in frequency. The little girl’s body twitched as each concussion of rifle fire made its way inside the old ranch house. Outside the open kitchen door, footsteps could be heard fast approaching on brick-lined covered porch. Mingled with the footsteps, the hum of diesel engines could be heard far away. The young woman appeared at the door with terror etched in her face.

The man spoke first. I take it you heard we have company on the north pasture? the man said with concern building in his voice.

The young woman at the doorway nodded in horror, then came inside and took a seat at the table beside the man, who had been cleaning his shotgun.

I hope it is not the river men! the young girl injected, standing at the table with her brother, as tears began to billow up in her eyes.

We don’t know who it is, honey, but we are going to find out! the man said as he looked into his wife’s terrified eyes, trying to calm the terror building inside his children.

Before long, a young man with an athletic build arrived in the doorway of the long hallway that led to the back bedrooms. The young man’s AR-15 was slung over his bare, shirtless shoulder.

Shit, you heard that? There must be a fucking lot of them up there! Sounds like big stuff—7.62s, maybe AKs. I can hear trucks too! Fucking shit. What are we going to do?

Language, the young woman said, pointing at the two children standing beside the table.

Oh shit. Sorry, kids, the young man said, then quickly added, Sorry, as he looked at the man and woman. The man nodded, indicating that the use of foul language in front of his children would be permitted this one time.

What are we going to do? the young man continued, looking at the young woman.

We, the man said, are not going to do anything. I will head up on my own in the morning. It is far too dark out there now. Best to head up early in the morning and assess this threat on my own without your help. The man began to pull gear together from around the kitchen and place it on the long kitchen table.

Alone? The hell you are! the woman said with much fear in her voice.

Right! the young man said sternly. I want to go with you. You can’t take all those people on by yourself!

Look, the man said calmly. We have been over this already. I work faster on my own.

What are you saying, man? the young man said as he reached over and poured himself a glass of water from the water pot on the stove and inhaled the cups contents.

I am saying I work faster alone. It is not personal, the man said, glancing over to the two children seated at the table, indicating to the younger man that he did not wish to divulge his plans in front of his family. The young man nodded in agreement, then walked over and grabbed the hand of the young woman and pulled her towards the hallway.

Children, it is about your bedtime, the man said, looking at his wife. Your mother and I need to do some talkin’. You two get off to bed now, the man said, pointing towards the long bedroom hallway, which led off the kitchen.

Another round of gunfire reverberated down the valley as the children ran down the hallway in horror.

Midway up the steep draw, the man turned and headed northeast up the ridge’s steep slope to gain the advantage he would need to act against the river men. He would need a sniping position with the rising sun to his back, making it difficult for them to see him. The hill was very steep, and the man’s legs burned as he climbed. His lungs were also burning as he hit the midway point up the hillside. For weeks, he had been operating on very few calories, often taking smaller portions of food so his children and wife could have more. His feet slipped every third or fourth step on the wet, dew-laden grass. The green grass had emerged a week or two before, after the first few late-winter storms had passed through, dropping some much-needed water to the earth. After a while, the man stopped and looked down into the draw below him. He could see a few does crossing the path on which he had been walking a few moments before. They were alert and uneasy as they crossed from the deep ravine covered in thickets of greasewood and poison oak on the west side of the ridge he was climbing. Their ears pointed sharply upwards, turning in opposite directions like radars on a battleship searching for threats. It had been several days since he had bathed. His scent had long since betrayed him to the deer. The deer’s keen sense of smell signaled them to danger over a quarter-mile away. The breeze had carried the man’s scent to them. This odor meant nothing more to the deer than danger now, as they had smelled such a scent before. The man saw the three does almost at the same time they saw him. All three instinctively froze, their heads and ears turning upwards towards the human high up on the side of the ridge. Two were heavy in the hindquarters and would bear young spotted fawns, up to two or three in late May or June, just when the grass was tallest and the oaks finished sprouting tender leaves. To the man, those fawns meant survival come the following spring.

The man began to think about the months ahead and what it would take to prepare for the next winter, which would be upon them faster than they would have wished. Just then, the rear doe’s ears flicked backwards down into the deep thicket at the bottom of the ravine, and her left hoof lifted off the ground almost to strike a pose. The other two does followed suit, and soon they all bolted up the hillside, away from the man with hardly a sound. Immediately, the man crouched down into a kneeling, shooting stance, raising the PSL to his right shoulder, using his left knee as a brace and his left elbow to steady the long length of the PSL. Nestling his right cheek upon the cheek rest of the wooden stock, he peered down the recital of the Russian PSO-1 6x42 scope. There was nothing like the superiority of Russian optics. Even in dim light they would vastly improve a shooter’s ability to quickly range and acquire a target.

Originally developed in 1964, the PSO-designated marksman riflescope was so advanced that even in the modern day there were few equals. Nitrogen filled and sealed to prevent fogging, and with an ingenious pattern range-finding reticule, this scope was built to withstand abuse. Built into the reticule, the bottom-left corner could be used to determine the range to an intended target. The man used this against a small oak roughly the size of a man to gain perspective on his distance to the threat, which was approaching the area where the deer had fled. He was roughly one hundred meters from that oak, well within range for the PSL’s lethality. He began to sweep the thicket, and he quickly found the source of the does’ insecurities. Ten sharp points popped up just slightly above the top of the thicket, moving forward at a steady pace. The man’s guard began to relax as he glassed the massive buck as it stepped out of the thicket and onto the trail. This magnificent animal was well over two hundred pounds, massive for black-tailed coastal deer.

Shit, the man cursed at his bad luck, then slowly stood up and continued his way up the steep incline to the ridgetop.

Properly dressed and salted, that meat would have lasted them a few weeks, maybe a month. It would have helped extend what now, with his currently rusty math, looked like meager rations. At the time, he stored the rations in the basement, and his wife had ridiculed him at a dinner party in front of their friends. The other wives were quick to join in on the dinner conversation ambush, not quite keen enough to realize just how wrong they were all to become just a few months later. The man had first put up three full months of rations for himself and his family, and he slowly added to it over time. The stores of rice, beans, cooking oil, dehydrated veggies, honey, and pounds of sugar and salt, plus the chickens they had raised since they were chicks, would help them survive now. As the man climbed, he began the math again, adding up the number of pails of rice and beans in the closet. After doing some calculating in his head, the man determined that they had eighty-three days of food for six people, if they extended what they had, or a little less than three months of rations left. The math was difficult not because he was ignorant but because he was hungry. Running the mathematics also took his mind off of the hunger pains and muscle weakness he felt as he climbed, and it kept him from reminiscing about life before they had to flee to the compound. Before the event, he had prided himself on having dual degrees in mathematics-related disciplines: economics and computer science, now both worthless in this new world. Then that piece of paper had made him an executive who solved problems that were much more mundane than the ones he faced today.

The man had been carefully rationing caloric intakes for himself, his family, the two young adults, and the dogs. Based on the calculations in his head, the stores of the food he had set aside years before were running out. Beyond just his family, there was the consideration of their three dogs, which fed daily on rats, rabbits, birds, and mammal table scraps, if there were any left after the family had eaten. In the old world, a fifty-pound sack of rice would feed a family of three for four months. In the new world, they worked hard to stretch that out as far as they could, to nearly half rations. The man had already greatly reduced his caloric intake each and every day, as had his wife, so that their children and adoptees could eat. He had lost significant weight, as had his wife. Their clothes hung on their gaunt frames, rather than fitting snuggly as they had just months before.

Rationing would be their lifeline in the days, months, and weeks ahead. Save today what you can eat tomorrow, he often thought. Between the stores of rice and beans, along with the occasional addition of protein brought in from hunting, they would have enough food to make it hopefully until next spring. He knew leaner times would come eventually, not to mention he would have to defend their rations against other men and nature itself. Insects and vermin were hungry too, and just a few hours of improperly stored rations would allow all manner of insect and vermin inside to infest pounds of staples. The man also knew that mobility was key to survival in this new world, but hauling hundreds of pounds of supplies was not an option if they needed to get moving fast and leave the compound. The man had to protect this spot and kill if necessary to keep it hidden from the locusts fast