Chapter 18

Nuclear Blast

“Missile in Bound!” “Missile in Bound!” “It’s a Nuke!” “Mid-America Nebraska/Kansas Area!” “ETA 3 Minutes” “Payload Unknown”

“Disconnect all batteries from electronics and seek cover.”

Everyone took the batteries out of as many items as they could reach while the drivers pulled the positive cable off the vehicle batteries. We had stopped at a cement bridge and everyone climbed down and under the bridge when we heard the thump of the blast.

“Don’t look toward the blast; put your back toward it and get against the cement side of the bridge” I shouted.

About ten minutes and we felt the hot strong wind blow past and a few minutes later a cold breeze was drawn back the opposite direction. We reconnected all the batteries and tried to contact anyone. We sped off for Fort Carson which was about 140 miles away. Our eta was about 1 ½ hours driving time.

It was a scary 17 minutes until we made contact with General Villa-Verne. She was glad to hear from us as we were the second group to make contact. Major Mike Murphy had made contact about 5 minutes before us from Cheyenne Mountain Command Center {NORAD}the ICBM hit Omaha Nebraska with an estimated 20-30 megaton warhead. The fallout would be about 1000 – 1500 miles. Covering the entire United States most of the bordering Canada and Mexico.

After finishing with a decontamination shower, we were all eating a good meal as General Villa-Verne briefed us via video conference.

As far as we can determine, the ICBM was launched from a former Soviet site and is probably a misfire or malfunction rather than a deliberate attack since there was only the one missile fired. This is based mostly on the fact that there has been no contact with anyone near or around where the launch originated. This is the driving force behind the new mission. Locate all missiles ours and theirs and disarm or render unusable immediately.

Major Murphy’s team along with my team would be going to Europe and Russia. A C5 cargo plane would be flying us to Berlin as our starting point. The General was coordinating with the military still functioning in Great Britain, Germany and a few other countries. We would be joined by allies as we moved further into Europe in an attempt to prevent and/or defuse any misunderstandings we might encounter. Two Armored Hummers with trailers {Water & Fuel}, Two MRAPs, Two RVs {Med & CIC}and four {3 man}Fast Attack Vehicles (FAV); two had M2 50 caliber machinegun, one had Mark 19 40mm grenade launcher, mounted to the roll bar and manned by the 3^rd person; each had M240 7.62mm machinegun on a swing arm manned by the person riding shotgun.

We landed in London five days later. We met with Lieutenant General Benjamin Moorhouse and he introduced Captain James Doogan and WO2 Kenneth Cartwright who would join our team both linguists and intel specialists. The C5 was checked and fueled while we had another video conference to update any new information, and we took off the next morning.