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Post by accountant on Apr 30, 2018 12:42:15 GMT -6
Very interesting geopolitical news. I can't wait to see what happens next. No seriously, I can't. Hurry up with the next chapter!!!  A. |
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Post by texican on Apr 30, 2018 13:40:17 GMT -6
FT,
Thanks for the chapter....
The virus has caused widespread chaos across the world....
Man made? ? ? ?
The UN is in for a world of hurt in America....
Another chapter will be happily devoured by the Moar Hounds....
Texican....
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Post by forthteller on May 1, 2018 8:38:36 GMT -6
FT, Thanks for the chapter.... The virus has caused widespread chaos across the world.... Man made? ? ? ? The UN is in for a world of hurt in America.... Another chapter will be happily devoured by the Moar Hounds.... Texican.... Because of climate change ice is melting in some areas of the world. In this case, the virologists working for Silade Pharmaceutical had sent a team to find possible viruses that had surfaced in the artic. I have read that this could actually happen, www.popsci.com/waking-up-ancient-viruses-from-melting-frozen-wasteland One paragraph in chapter 19 introduced the plan and in 20 and 26 it is developed and then gets out of control. |
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Post by texican on May 1, 2018 22:26:43 GMT -6
Because of climate change ice is melting in some areas of the world. In this case, the virologists working for Silade Pharmaceutical had sent a team to find possible viruses that had surfaced in the artic. I have read that this could actually happen, www.popsci.com/waking-up-ancient-viruses-from-melting-frozen-wasteland One paragraph in chapter 19 introduced the plan and in 20 and 26 it is developed and then gets out of control. FT, If one can dream of it, there are individuals that will try to do it regardless of the consequences.... Just how long has the nuclear button been setting across the world and not pushed?.?.?.? How long do we have before some insane fool pushes the button and the world goes bat sh!t crazy?.?.?.? Don't think we have very long to wait.... Texican.... |
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Post by forthteller on May 9, 2018 16:28:17 GMT -6
Chapter 32
Marisa
December, 2022
Getting off the plane In New York, Marisa de Sousa
braces for the cold. She despises the United States and everything it stands for. The materialism and sense of entitlement of these people has always amazed her. Even now, they still fight against the global economic equalization that will be taking place. They are ignorant to the fact that while they live in plenty, the majority of the world lives in utter poverty. Proudly spouting productivity, hard work, an out of date constitution and democracy they call it the “American dream.”
She muses that when the worlds wealth gets redistributed equally, and government is stabilized by the council of seven through well run corporations, the wold will be a fairer and more equitable place. She and the rest of the seven will be able to emerge from the shadows and be heralded as the heroes they are for their results, not the unfortunate actions they had to take to achieve world harmony.
With the actions they have taken in the past few years the world population has been cut in half, with a majority of the decline in the most heavily overpopulated regions. The sick, the infirm and the weak also suffered heavy casualties. While it was not planned, the Ice Age virus had escaped its planned target countries and gone global, but it has done exactly what Marisa would have wished, even sparing her own people. Climate change and world hunger will be over. With population control, organized means of production and world stability restored, a new prosperity will envelope the world.
Marisa had been summoned to the word UN headquarters for a private meeting with the UN Secretary General. She knew he wasn’t pleased with what had transpired recently, with so called rogue UN troops and some bad publicity about UN action in Europe and England but she was prepared with a plausible explanation. It had been a month since their last meeting and that had been with members of the G9. Presidents, prime ministers and one chancellor were all there, so there was never an opportunity to speak in private. Today was the day. He would either fall in line or he would need to be replaced. The Security Council was already on board.
Once into the customs area, Marisa walks up to the front of the line and passes her credentials to the agent processing the arrivals. He glances at her and motions for her to get in line and wait her turn.
An exasperated Marisa interrupts, “excuse me, do you know who I am?”
“Mam, you are first class and so is everyone here, you will all be processed ahead of the regular passengers and we will be able to serve you all more quickly if you can just wait your turn.”
“I am Marisa de Sousa, Chef de Cabinet of the United Nations. I will be passed through, I don’t need to be processed.”
“Mam, the laws are that everyone must pass screening upon entry into the USA. Would you please wait your turn?”
An angry man in the front of the line looks at Marisa and says, “if you weren’t so busy interrupting, we would all get through faster. Last I checked, United States is still a sovereign nation and your UN credentials do not trump my US citizenship. Get your ass in line so we can all get through this line.”
Marisa stomps to the back of the line and motions for he personal assistant, “I want you to get his name and address.”
The Assistant responds, “yes mam,” knowing full well what that meant for the unfortunate male passenger.
Once through the passenger line ups, Marisa marches out to the passenger pick up area and looks for her car. “Where is my car, did you arrange for it?”
Her personal assistant replies, “mam, the flight is an hour ahead of schedule. The car was dispatched only 20 minutes ago. I called, they thought they had a lot more time to get here.”
“And you couldn’t call from the plane to let them know we were ahead of schedule? Are you incompetent? Do I need another assistant?”
“Mam, I called dispatch as soon as I had information about the flight schedule. Your luggage is still not here yet as well.”
“Very well, I see I have to do everything myself.” Marisa motions to one of her bodyguards. “we will take a taxi.” As she starts towards the taxi stand.
To her assistant, Marisa says, “you stay behind and collect my luggage. Take it to the hotel and meet me at the UN headquarters later.”
Once at the stand, Marisa buts into a taxi just being loaded, opens the rear door and gets in. The bodyguard closes the door and apologetically explains to the driver who she is and why she was in such a hurry.
The couple who were about to take the cab, pluck their luggage from the taxi trunk and announce that they will take the next one in line. Shrugging his shoulders, the man says, “one is right here already, she didn’t save any time at all, just inconvenienced everyone.”
The bodyguard and driver both close their doors and Marisa says, “UN headquarters.”
In Portuguese the driver says, “on the way mam. 22 minutes”.
“you know who I am?”
“I do. I am also from Porto Alegre, the same town as you. We are all very proud of your accomplishments.”
“thank you so much. How long have you lived in the United States?”
“7 years. I became a citizen 2 years ago. I am still going to night school to upgrade my engineering degree so I can practice here.”
“You are an engineer in Brazil and cannot practice here? Why?”
“Their building practices are much different here and they have much stricter standards and building codes. I will make very good money when I am finished. It will be worth it.”
“You can rest assured, I will be making sure that training and education will be more universal in the future. The US has no right to put unreasonable expectations upon immigrants who should have their credentials recognized. This is an affront to equality.”
The taxi driver drives the rest of the way in silence. He is a little worried about what he had stirred up, he feels he was lucky to be here and in just a little while, he will be an engineer, living the “American dream.”
At the UN compound, Marisa gets out of the cab and leaves the driver and her bodyguard without a word of thanks. She heads into the building and passes by the security desk and is ushered by and into the elevators. They all know her and the word is, do not delay her in any way.
She heads up to the roof top restaurant and walks in. Waiting to be seated, she looks around and evaluates the dinners. All mid to upper lever UN officials. A couple of senior uniformed UN security forces and diplomats from various countries. Feeling important, she notes that everyone seemed to stop and look in her direction. With a slight smile she waits a moment until the minister from Brazil comes over and invites her to his table.
Marisa accepts his invite and allows him to lead her to his table. She then quickly takes a seat and pushes it in before he has a chance to. With a brief moment of awkwardness, he collects himself and takes his own seat. A cordial but very impersonal conversation takes place until the Minister announces that he must leave soon as he has a 3 o’clock appointment at the Venezuelan Embassy. They each have their dishes taken away and the Minister takes his leave.
Marisa sits by herself and sips on her glass of wine. She still has over an hour to wait before her meeting with the Secretary General so she goes over how she wants this conversation to go. Not knowing what he actually knows she goes over the different operations where the results were less than complimentary.
The staged truck high jackings are to reinforce the publics acceptance of UN Security. Most drivers don’t know the real danger on the highway is actually from those assigned to protect them. The regular hijackers rarely kill the drives and they don’t care who recognizes them.
Kidnappings and murders of alternative media personalities and kidnappings of scientists, virologists, economists and other individuals has sounded warning bells amongst independent media and is starting to get traction on mainstream media. Attempts to control the media message and strongarm tactics of some of the UN forces are also possible topics.
Marisa nurses her glass of wine for another half an hour and then signs her check and proceeds to the elevators.
Stepping off the elevator, Marisa breezes into the offices of the Secretary General and walks over to reception. “My plane was early, is there any chance the Secretary General can see me early?”
“I am sorry mam. He is in the office with the Ambassador from Italy at the moment. I have you scheduled for 4 o’clock. You are welcome to wait, or I can call you when he is available.”
“I will wait.” With that Marisa went into the waiting room and sat down. Pulling out her phone she calls a private phone number and when it rings and a non-descript message comes on, she pushes the 4.
Hundreds of miles away, in the white house, Barry Middleton feels a beep on his phone. He pulls it out and opens the screen. A message, 4. Marisa is in position. He will know in 1 hour whether the Secretary General will play ball or if they need to call an emergency meeting of the UN Security council. He knows that President Connolly is waiting on the same information.
At exactly 4 the receptionist comes into the waiting room, “the Secretary General will see you now.”
Marisa puts her phone away and stands. As she straightens her outfit, she once again goes through how she wants this conversation to go. Confidently, she follows the receptionist through the inner offices. The receptionist knocks on the Secretary Generals’ door.
“Enter.”
The receptionist opens the double doors and says, “The Chef de Cabinet, Marisa de Souza.”
The Secretary General stands and meets Marisa at the door and ushers her in. He points out a comfortable looking chair in front of a gas fireplace and bids her “take a seat.”
As she sits, the Secretary General takes a seat next to her, half facing the one she is in and half facing the fireplace.
“How was the flight, I understand it was an hour early.”
“Pleasant. The arrival to cold and snow at La Guardia was a little less so. I can never get used to New York winters.”
“You have not been in the New York or The Brussels headquarters much this year. I understand you spend most of your time at our compound at the Brooklyn navy yards. I wonder if you could help me understand why you spend so much time in our operations center and so little in our administration and management headquarters.”
“I am always here when you request or when a meeting requiring my presence is held. I believe I have greater influence in the trenches with the troops and the lower level diplomats.”
“Your place is in the embassies working with heads of state and ambassadors as they transition to the new unified currency and eventually the new unified western world. Instead, I hear you and certain members of our leadership have not followed our mandate and have interfered with sovereign internal security and policing in several countries. Our troops are peace keepers, they are to support local and police. not use those forces to support them.”
A confidant Marisa replies, “I have heard of some of these actions. They were unsanctioned and I can assure you the officers responsible have been disciplined.”
“I have tasked Hercule Precente to look int them. I expect a report this week.”
“Let me know what he finds.”
“I will. On another matter. Can you tell me what the insurgents at our US compound were after? Seven dead security guards and 5 dead computer analysts. And the murderers all escaped.”
Caught off guard, Marisa fumbles on her response. “She has not come up with a plausible explanation for why the insurgents had breached the compound. The United Nations have no reason to have anything of enough value to attract anything like that. “We have no idea. They never took anything from what we can tell. They wiped our computer system but it would not have taken an operation like that to do it. We have all been scratching our heads.”
The Secretary General says, “I know what they took.”
Marisa is shocked, “how could he know,” she thinks.
“Really, what would that be?” She replies in a curious tone.
He picks up a remote and pushes a button. A flat screen TV descends from a panel in the ceiling. Once it is down and in position, he flips on a menu, selects a video file and it starts playing.
On the screen is a moderately busy Paulding street. Time stamp shows 3:01. Slowly a military truck comes into view, several USA army ground troops disembark and take-up defensive positions. Un soldiers engage them and are quickly put down. Several winged black clothed men fly over the compound wall and land. The soldiers help them up, collect everything and load up. The trucks rumble off as sirens wail in the distance. The entire operation was less than 8 minutes. After that, he fast forwards to 4:00pm. Ambulances and police are everywhere. UN soldiers on cots are obviously alive, no blood and a few are walking about.
The Secretary General flips the button again and the menu appears. He selects another video file and pushes play. This one is the rooftop and it was likely filmed from a drone. The rooftop exit door opens and several men in dark clothes and covered faces emerge. A bound Marisa is among them. 7 civilians emerge and then some more dark clothed insurgents. As the drone circles in it is obvious the civilians are not captives, they are escapees. The insurgents sit Marisa in a safe spot and a chopper lands. Two of the men run to the chopper, followed by the seven civilians. They clamber on board, assisted by the men. The two men climb in as the chopper lifts off and leaves the view of the drones camera.
“I have more, do you want to see them?”
“I have seen enough, where did you get them.”
“Funny thing, they were on my desktop when I turned my system on this morning. I believed the story you gave the media until then.”
“So, I ask you again. What were they after.”
“You might as well know. We are getting all our economic advice from economists who are not interested in helping us. We have been holding them on the fourth floor along with several computer experts who work on our systems.”
“Slavery?”
“No. They were subversives who were publicly attempting to stop our mission. We arrested them to tried to dissuade them but they continued. Second time we arrested them, we brought them here.”
“Those were US Army choppers, the men on the street were US army, this was a rescue mission. They were rescuing US citizens from us, on US soil!”
As Marisa was trying to come up with an answer, the Secretary General fast forwards the video a bit and stops it as the door to the roof opens and several armed plain clothed individuals enter, moments after they have secured the roof, Barry Middleton appears. He looks around and walks over to where Marisa is sitting with her hands bound. After a short discussion, he bends and cuts her restraints free. “And Middleton is there as well.”
“He must have arrived with his security forces when the compound came under attack.”
“Marisa, you don’t understand, there was no attack, they were using non-lethal weapons, they were using stealth, they were rescuing their people. From you.”
An obviously angry Secretary General continues, “I have evidence and statements that there were no fatalities before the insurgents left, all the fatalities happened after. Is that what you call disciplined?”
“You don’t understand. Not all citizens in the western nations are welcoming to the UN and its new currency. We have done in the background what you and the rest of the UN are frightened to do. We have moved our agenda forward, it will be the best in the end. Sometimes the means is not pleasant but the achievement of our goals will justify them in the end.”
“Whose agenda. The United Nations, who want to bring about world equality through a common currency. Wealthy nations and individuals willingly sharing their excess with those who have little. Or yours, where you enslave entire nations to work for an elite few while you neglect entire nations suffering from a man-made virus and devasting poverty.”
“The world was headed to a catastrophic end with population increasing at an ever-increasing rate. We did what was necessary to insure the survival of the human race.”
“Billions of innocent people in predominantly third world nations? I found out all this information this morning. I have known you since you were a child, I mentored you, I helped you through your entire career and appointed you to your post in hopes that you will replace me when the time comes. You have left me no choice.” With this, He walks over to the intercom and pushes a button.
“Send in my security detail please.”
The door opens and two plainclothes men enter, silenced pistols leveled in his direction.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“It is time for me to replace you.” Marisa says. She had dialled the number of Barry Middleton after the second video, pushed the number 5 which had alerted him to the fact that the Secretary General was not going to play ball and he had enacted their replacement plan.”
“You cannot do this. There is a process. I would have to recommend you and that will never happen now. These videos will be made public.”
“Oh, but we can. You know what we are capable of. Your family is being watched right now as we speak. You will go before the security council and resign for health reasons. You will then recommend me as your interim replacement.
Simple as that.”
“They will not accept that. I have no history of health problems, nothing. Word of the misdeeds by your factions will be well known. They will find out.”
“Oh, they know about the factions. The misdeeds were committed by your faction. Those videos are the proof. That was me in handcuffs and Middleton freeing me. With the correct explanation, you will be responsible for everything. You see. Your choices are to play ball with us or take responsibility for all of it and we look like the heroes for cleaning up your mess. We win either way.”
The Secretary General slumps into his chair, “I trusted you, I treated you as my own daughter.”
“And it made you blind. Your altruistic ideals have made you blind to everything in the real world. People wont willingly share, they must be forced; they wont all willingly contribute, they must be motivated; and they will not do what is best for the community good, they must be lead. We are going to do that. Take him away. He goes to the third floor of our compound. I want double security on it.”
One of the security men says, “in cuffs Mam?”
“No” Marisa looks at the broken man, “I think he will go willingly.”
The plain clothes security men lead him out. One in front, the other in the rear. As they pass through his outer office and receptionist’s desk, he shudders as Petros has his head on the blotter in front of him. A pool of blood dripping from the desk. In the hallway are two dead uniformed UN security men, with a pair of paramedics or ambulance attendants collecting the bodies. They exchange nods with the two plain clothed security as they pass. “Another one in the office. Take them out the service elevator. Don’t let anyone see you.”
Inside the inner office, Marisa takes out her phone and dials a Washington number. Someone picks up on the other end. “We need a meeting. Extreme security.”
“Understood. Everyone?”
“Yes.”
“How soon.”
“Immediately or as soon as possible. Every day delay could be too late.”
“Is your line secure?”
“Yes. Yours.”
“I am on an encrypted line.”
“Good. Somebody knows everything. They sent enough information to the Secretary General to put me in Jail. Possibly executed for treason. We also need to get the security council together so he can resign and appoint me interim Secretary General. Then we need to get someone to take over as soon as the general Assembly convenes to elect a new Secretary General.”
“He absolutely wont fall in line?”
“I don’t think so. I just put hm on the third floor. I will be going over to talk with him shortly, with my most convincing argument. My feeling is that he may co operate for a short period but he will eventually fold. He is too short-sighted to see the bigger picture and too committed to his ideals to deviate from his lifetime goals.”
“I will set up the meeting. We should wait until then to replace him. Get his secretary to make an excuse for his absence.”
“Too late.”
“Sloppy. Think of something yourself then, make it good.”
“Sloppy? I did what I needed to. It was your security that cost us our guests and caused this problem. You need to get your shit together before you condemn my methods.” Marisa realizes she is shouting at a dial tone. “Asshole”
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Post by texican on May 9, 2018 23:34:19 GMT -6
FT,
And the clock continues to be wound tighter and tighter....
How soon will the clock explode?.?.?.?
Thanks for the chapter....
Texican....
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Post by forthteller on May 10, 2018 10:43:09 GMT -6
Chapter 33
Max and Sarah
January 2023 8:15 AM
“What time do you expect to be home?” Sarah asks Max as she puts away the last of the clean dishes. No dishwasher now but at least they still have hot and cold, running water.”
“I don’t know, I am going over to the warehouse because David is there with his equipment.” Max says as he sips his rare, freshly brewed coffee.
“What kind of equipment. I thought he was a computer expert?”
“The government has found a way to control independent media by intercepting everything that gets uploaded to the internet and it now blocks unapproved news. They have even located several independent news sites and arrested all the editors, reporters and writers. David has developed a method of uploading information onto the net that bypasses the regular channels.”
“I was on the net this morning, it seemed normal, I never noticed any lags. Are you sure.”
“David is sure. Most people are not aware because the system is almost instantaneous and they only block uploads that its algorithm picks up as subversive. Your uploads may or may not be monitored, David thinks they do not have the technology to monitor everything yet. He says that the limitation is manpower and expertise. When Brads crew rescued Jessica, they also rescued several computer experts. These people were kidnapped like Jessica and are more than happy to fill in a lot of the blanks’.”
“Can you get your reports out to the public now?”
“I hope so. David advised me to stop trying to upload in November because he thought they were close to finding the source of the inquiries. I would have been arrested if they found out. Stan was hoping to get everything public before the midterms but The UN had their Media monitoring algorithm up and running before we got a chance. David was busy with the UN plan to rescue Jessica so they put the Media plan on hold until now.”
“Stan? Is he the leader of the Libertarian party.?”
“Nope. Actually, my Stan is not Stan. All the senior agents are called stan, it is like a rank or something. I have no idea what his real name is. The Stan Jason works with is not the same guy, his Stan is actually a woman and her code name is Stella. Nobody has ever met her.”
“Where do all these guys and Girl come from?”
“Donald Trump was elected to ‘drain the swamp’ and found out pretty quickly he was never going to be able to, it was refilling faster than he drained it. While he was being attacked by the Democrats and the global elites, his own party was also complicit. For the first two years of his presidency he looked like a bumbling blowhard while in the background he was actually getting legislation passed, building relationships with other groups who had their own swamps and built his own secret investigative body.”
Frowning, Sarah takes a sip of her coffee. “not really my area of interest but I’ll bite, why didn’t he just task the DOJ or the FBI to do it. Not like I don’t already know, but I think you need to get it out so you are clear about why we are doing this.”
Max continues on, “the swamp was bigger and deeper then even he could imagine. Trump started a new security organization, like no other ever before. They had as their mandate, ‘investigate and expose any and all government and corporate corruption, regardless of political affiliation or societal status.” In other words, he authorized a WikiLeak organization to spy on and report on corruption. They are imbedded in every security organization imaginable, some major corporations and in many elected and appointed government positions. There are some in senior ranks of the Military as well. In turn, these people have created their own information networks. Interestingly, they don’t even know who the rest of the leaders are, only Trump knew and he was disappeared right after the 2020 presidential election.”
“So, who is in charge.”
“I don’t think anybody is. All we have is a bunch of whistle blowers who seek out and recruit allies. Our problem is that we know what and where all the corruption is, and we have evidence, but we cannot report it because the government and the corrupt corporations are complicit in controlling all the media, all the internet and all means of communication.”
Shrugging, Sarah reluctantly says, “you know about corporate corruption, what else is there?”
“I have heard that the Ice Age Virus is man made and they have a cure for it, that the drug addiction problem was accelerated by rumors of cocaine making people immune and that the civil unrest is actually fabricated to encourage us to accept UN security troops.”
“Do they have proof?”
“Until snapchat was compromised, I hear they can prove everything. I have not had communication with anyone for over a month. Once the public and all the military are aware of the conspiracy, it is only a matter of time.”
Sarah is starting to run out of questions so she says, “this effects us, how?”
As Max is about to answer, his burner phone beeps. He reaches into his pocket and flips open the antique. A one-word text, done.
Two blocks over, a man and a woman are sitting in a converted dental office, walls full of electronic and recording devices, several computers and printers and 3 landline phones are on the reception area desks. The windows are covered in white paper with closed and out of business written across them in bold black lettering. They are listening, slack jawed to the conversation between Max and Sarah.
The man looks at the woman, “do you think it’s true?”
“Who cares. We work for GMI, our job is to monitor subversives and report when they provide intelligence. I think this guy has just provided us with enough legal evidence so he can be arrested by the regular authorities.”
“No, just a bunch of conspiracy crap. The police could never get a warrant with this, I don’t think trying to post news to the net is illegal, conspiracy or not. Plus, if this is true, we don’t need the regular authorities to get wind of it. I think we need to send this to our DOJ contact, let him decide what to do with it.”
“He said that we are to provide him with written reports and copies of the conversation and not to contact him unless we absolutely have something he needs to know about right away.”
Standing up, the man says, “this guy is going to see that David kid. Richard needs to get a tail on him immediately. This kid is number one priority. He is wanted for murder in Canada and at the New York UN Headquarters.” With that he picks up one of the three landlines and dials a number.
3 rings later it is picked up. A scrambling sound is heard and a voice answers. “This better be important.”
The man in the office responds, “it is. Our subject is going to visit David Smit this morning. They have a way to post news to the private media outlets and get it online. These two know everything. It sounds like they have proof.”
“Everything? Are you sure?”
“They only talked about the corporate stuff but it sounds like they know a lot more.
“You know the account, send me the entire audio file. Good work. Keep on listening to your targets. Call me only if something else this urgent comes up.” Click, dial tone.
The man looks at the woman and says, “if they catch the guy, we may get a commendation. Maybe they get the whole works of them.”
The DOJ man gets on his phone and places a call to an undercover police officer on the street in front of Max’s apartment building. Our subject is leaving shortly to meet with David Smit. I want a tail on him and do not let him make you. Rotate every 2 blocks and make sure you do not lose him.
Max asks Sarah, “what does your day look like.”
“I will open the store at 10 and once the rest of the volunteers get there we will unpack the weekend donations. We are going to send our truck out to pick up donations in our boxes in the south west district today. It is getting hard to get enough donations to actually run the store.”
“I imagine it is. When was the last time we bought something to replace something that is not worn out? I bet a lot of what you get is junk as well.”
“True. We are able to make rags and salvage most of what we get but it is a lot of work. Not the same old retail job anymore.”
“I am so proud of you. Instead of moaning about losing the perfect job you have always wanted, you took your skills and now use them to help others. I just wish your mother was here to see it.”
Blushing, Sarah thanks him and says, “my mom always said you were going to change me, I doubt she saw the future we are in now but she knew. Dad is coming to town next week, he wants to see if you can help him with his corporate issues. A larger steel fabrication plant has made some overtures to take over his company.”
“Great. I always love helping your dad. Gotta go.” With that he kissed her goodbye and grabbing a warm coat headed out into the now unheated hallway. Pulling his jacket on as he waits for the elevator, he nervously looks around and searches for surveillance devices. “Gotta not look suspicious,” he reminds himself. The elevator descends and max steps out into the parkade as the doors open. Over to his white tesla he walks, attempting to look normal. Once inside, he breathes a sigh of relief.
Max exits the parkade and turns left onto the road and heads north. He drives carefully and predictably, trying not to notice the tail that he knows is on him. After a few kilometers he gets to a parkade below a now closed department store and office tower. He drives in and parks at the pre-arranged spot and exits the car. As he is just entering the elevator another car pulls into the parkade.
The doors close, max pushes the lobby button and waits as the elevator ascends. The doors open and max walks out the elevator and up to the reception desk. As he does so, police screech to a halt in front and several other non-descript cars start to set up a cordon around the building. Armed men and women in UN uniforms, police uniforms and plain clothes rush in and yell, “police, hands where we can see them.”
The receptionist and Max both stop and raise their hands. “Search them,” Shouts the obvious leader.
One of the police officers searches max and a female officer searches the receptionist.
Holding a wallet and keys the officer says, “nothing sir. He has Proper papers an Intur card and no cash.”
The female officer says, “Same, nothing.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I have an appointment with one of the firms here. We are negotiating a merger.”
“Search the building. I want every floor searched. Nobody gets out unless they are cleared.”
With that, the entire UN crew and the plainclothes personal split up and head out, leaving the local police in the lobby”
An hour later the Un and plain clothed leaders report back. “About half the building is still occupied by legal businesses and we did not find anyone who didn’t check out. We had one casualty though.”
“Nothing, a casualty. What happened.”
“A receptionist on the 4th floor had a phone in her hand, one of the uniforms thought it was a gun and fired.”
“Was she armed?”
“She is now.”
“Okay, get a meat wagon and make sure you have your stories straight.”
With that, the senior FBI agent heads down to the parkade and gets in his car. He doesn’t notice that the door is unlocked when he drops into the seat. Once settled, he takes out his phone and dials a number, “he wasn’t here. The target was meeting a client. All legit.”
Brad cannot hear the other side of the conversation because he is laying on the floor.
“No. I was supposed to meet him here in the parkade.” He listens to the other end. “I will check on them. It has to be a glitch in the system. I will get back to you with the whole conversation.” Pause as the other person talks. “Ok, I will.”
As he hangs up and is about to put the phone away a voice from the back seat says, “I will take that.”
He quickly hangs up as Brad grabs it from his hand. “With your left hand, reach into your holster and draw your weapon.”
He cannot see a gun and assumes it is pointed at his back through the seat. He reaches in with his left and as he does it he says, “my men will see you. You won’t get away.”
“Just hand it too me, your backup as well.”
“I don’t carry a backup.”
“We both know you do. Do it.”
He hands brad his backup.
Now, you take out your cuffs and attach your right hand to the steering wheel.
“I don’t have any.”
Brad holds out a large zap strap. “Use this.” The FBI man does.
“This is a federal offense.”
“So is conspiracy and corruption. I bet you get more time.”
“You won’t get out of here; my men will get you.”
“Since you were so secret with your parking, your people hardly even looked in here. Nobody knows I am here and they are going to give you your privacy. Oh, by the way, I wasn’t armed, does that make you feel any better?” With that he drops the clip from both handguns, ejects the rounds and wipes the guns clean.
Taking a picture of the serial number of both guns, brad drops both handguns on the floor. “I hope you still have these when they arrest you. I bet they have interesting ballistics.”
As brad gets out of the car to leave, the FBI man leans on the horn, nothing. He then struggles to get his keys out and inserts them in the ignition, nothing.
“Must have a dead battery.” With that, brad slips away and exits the stairwell to the adjoining building.
Brad drives out the parkade and turns left, away from the roadblocks and east on Royal Broughton. He blends in nicely in the Nissan leaf he is driving but he would much rather be driving his old F250. “time marches on.”
He turns left on 6th. He passes a series of warehouses and turns into a parking area. Half way down a garage door opens, he drives in and it closes. He parks and sits in the car for a few moments. As he gets out, hector meets him.
“They fell for it, didn’t they?”
“hook, line and sinker. Did David get what he needed?”
“He seems pretty excited. What happened to Max.”
“He will be okay. There were lots of municipal police in on it too. Assholes aren’t so stupid they would burn bridges with the locals.”
“Brad walks into the office area and sees David sitting at a collection of Video screens and several keyboards. His hands are flying from one to the other and back. “He looks like a concert conductor,” thinks Brad.
Walking up behind David, brad stops to see what he is doing. On one screen, a man and a woman are listening to something. Brad cannot hear and wonders if David is listening to them. On another screen is a map of the US with lines between highlighted points and numbers on the lines. Makes no sense to max but then again, this is not his world.
Sensing someone behind him, David turns and glances at Brad. “Any problems at the old Walmart?”
“Nope, just what we thought. They brought enough municipal police to make the operation look legit. We got photos of everyone involved. They didn’t have a warrant either. They were so sure they were going to find you there, they never bothered.”
“did you get trapped in the parkade? Peter said you were in there the whole time.”
“No, I went in on purpose, only the senior FBI man parked in there. I wanted to find our why. I had everyone set in place and there was nothing for me to do anyways.”
“So, nobody else went in there?”
“I was expecting that and I think he was too. Nobody showed. His team did a cursory search and then sealed it off.”
“Where did you hide?”
“Back seat of FBI guys car.”
“Really? How did you get in without setting off the alarm?”
“You have your gifts, I have mine. I brought you something” Max hands him the FBI mans phone.
“Who’s is it?”
“FBI guy who was in charge of operation. Last call was to his boss. He talked with someone about the job and something wrong with the surveillance recordings. I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. As soon as he hung up, I took the phone. These guys are so poorly trained and so lacking in discipline, I bet he doesn’t even repot it missing. I left him his guns and only zip tied him to the steering wheel, he is probably so embarrassed that he doesn’t report me even being there.”
David plugs it into one of his computers. He types something so fast that Max can’t follow him. In less that a minute the phone turns on and the screen apps open. David says, “there you go, lets see what you got. Yep, A phone list. First names only. Record of calls last few days. No texts but I can recover what was there. No pictures and nothing else. I will see if he has anything deleted. Good grab.”
David turns in his chair and says to Brad. “Those numbers are Washington DC, area code 202 and the other ones are New York, 917. The surveillance team called the same number he called last. Must be someone important at that number.”
“I also got pictures of the serial numbers of his guns.”
Chuckling, David tells Brad, “You should have heard Max and Sarah this morning. I almost believed it myself. The surveillance team was so convinced they called someone senior at the UN building and then sent the video file to his IP address. I piggybacked on it, swapped in a different recording, inserted a worm and now we are back in their system. I am going to make sure they don’t know this time.”
Turning back to his screens, David starts punching keys. “what should I put in place of the conversation I deleted, I would rather not let them know their surveillance is compromised?”
Brad says, “why not switch it with another one they recorded from another person of interest and put an older conversation from Brads in the other place. They would be blaming each other and looking for a glitch. Would be a hoot to see those idiots trying to figure it out.”
“Great idea Brad. Watching you in action, remind me to pay my bills, I wouldn’t want you after me.”
A video pops up on one of the screens. It is a real time display of several cameras along 6th. “Max is on route. Wait, he has a tail.”
On the console is a button and David pushes it. The traffic light turns yellow and then green again.
Max, driving down 6th sees the light and doesn’t turn into the parking lot. He drives straight through without even slowing. He crosses Airport Way and turns right on South Charles Street.
Max thinks to himself. “Sarah’s store is over on 12th and Dearborn. I think I will lead my friends there. Maybe they have some donations.”
Max arrives in the area and parks his tesla in front of the store. “I hope my tail keeps it safe here.” He says too himself. What he doesn’t know is that the neighbors around here all know who he is and that he is married to Sarah, the manager of the thrift store. Sarah has provided clothes and furniture to displaced people, let homeless camp out in the covered loading bay and has been feeding lunch to dozens of local kids over the past year. In gratitude the locals have put the word out that his car is off limits and the thrift store has not been broken into once this year.”
She sees him enter the store and heads over to greet him. “I thought you were with the guys today?” She says as she kisses him.
“Was going to but had a shadow. Can you use a little help here?
“Always. We have a bunch of small appliances and electronic stuff that could use testing and repairing if it something you can do. You know where everything is.”
“Ok, should be fun putting to use skills I haven’t used for years.”
“What are you going to do about your reports?”
“I need to use David’s system to do research if I don’t want them to get on to me but he may have a back door so I can use my own and not alert anyone. If I can get access I will put them on a flash drive and get it to David through Pedro. They still don’t know I started researching again after the scare last year when I sent out that report to all the media outlets. I would like to keep it that way.”
“Then why the listening device and all the following us around.”
“They think I can lead them to David. That is why David had us do our acting this morning. They are also after Jack as well.”
Meanwhile, at the surveillance apartment, the man and woman are trying to figure out how the audio files got switched. And now they cannot even find this mornings audio file. Crap. The door opens and in walks the FBI man.
“Have you sorted out your audio recording issues?”
“Not yet. We sent the file we had just listened to and it somehow got lost. We thought we had recovered it but it was from another surveillance subject. When we check their files, they have some of the lawyer ones and others that have no connection whatever. I cannot figure out how it is happening.”
“Malicious virus, someone else in your system?”
“We thought of that so we ran several scans. Nothing. Cannot find a back door either. We only access the net when we are about to send so it cannot be someone in our system. I think it is just old equipment, that is all.”
“Old equipment. Bullshit. I Have never heard of anything like this, unless someone screwed with it. Run the anti virus software again. I was told the whole UN system has been compromised and they cannot figure out how.”
“Stepping into the adjoining office, the FBI man makes a call.”
“We are kind of busy. What is it now?”
“I think our surveillance is blown. They have been a step ahead of us every time, we are being fed bullshit information and we have gotten nothing on them.”
“What about your operators. Do you trust them.”
“They have been on my staff for years, I have never had any reason to doubt their loyalty.”
“The leak is somewhere, either your people or your system, or is it you? Find it. I want your surveillance shut down and relocated.”
“While he was in the adjoining office, the female half of the surveillance team was looking out the window towards front street. As soon as she was certain her partner was looking away she made a gesture with her hands. Then she took a screw from the blind mechanism and slipped it into her pocket. She heads back to the computer system and asks her partner, “have you ever heard of a root-kit?”
“I have. I doubt there is one on our system.”
“If there is one on the main UN system and we access it to upload information, could someone who is messing in that system access us and make changes?”
“You know, that could happen. They would have left a trail and I may be able to find coding changes. Virus detection would not detect it because it may be recognized as authorized access. Good thinking.” He gets into the code and is deep in it when she says,
“Gotta go to the bathroom. Can you escort me.”
“Can’t. You have to wait for a few minutes while I get this code traced. I cannot lose my place.”
“She starts pacing and forces herself to pee a bit. “I gotta go, I am going to piss myself.”
“He looks over at her and sees the small wet spot on her beige pants. “Fine, go but make it quick.”
“She heads out the door, down the hall and to the bathroom. She enters the toilet and sits down to pee. Fishing the small screw from her pocket, she looks at it and wonders how something so small could possibly see anything from the tiny hole in it. “Oh well,” she thinks as she drops it into the toilet. Standing up, she flushes the toilet. She pulls up her straightens herself out. Just before she leaves the stall, she flushes the toilet again.
She is back in the room full of surveillance equipment when the FBI man comes in. “We are moving to another location to set up. This site is blown. I am getting some technicians in here. We need to find out what happened.”
“Are we taking any equipment?” The computer man says.
“Leave everything here. My people will find out the source of the leak and plug it. We have another safe house in this area.”
He had called a team of countersurveillance people who were already on route with their detection equipment. He had also sent a team over to the new safe house to plant surveillance equipment so he could spy on his own surveillance team. He strongly suspects one of them and he wants to find out who.
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Post by texican on May 11, 2018 0:56:22 GMT -6
FT,
Layers upon layers of hidden code that lead no where....
Now that must just peeooo the feds....
Thanks for the chapter....
Texican....
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Post by forthteller on May 11, 2018 9:23:04 GMT -6
FT, Layers upon layers of hidden code that lead no where.... Now that must just peeooo the feds.... Thanks for the chapter.... Texican.... Thanks for reading. I too am amazed at how this story has evolved. Two primary ways to control the population. Fear and ignorance. Too many Westerners are not afraid so that leaves only ignorance. Control the media and you control truth. Control communication and you prevent like minded from mobilizing. The battle is on two fronts here, The resistance cannot mobilize because they cannot communicate with one another and the public is not fully aware of what is actually happening. They have access to get the truth out now and communication is on the way. Will it be in time? As for the 7, they have too many irons in the fire and some of them are going to backfire in a catastrophic way, very soon. |
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Post by texican on May 11, 2018 21:15:14 GMT -6
FT, Layers upon layers of hidden code that lead no where.... Now that must just peeooo the feds.... Thanks for the chapter.... Texican.... Thanks for reading. I too am amazed at how this story has evolved. Two primary ways to control the population. Fear and ignorance. Too many Westerners are not afraid so that leaves only ignorance. Control the media and you control truth. Control communication and you prevent like minded from mobilizing. The battle is on two fronts here, The resistance cannot mobilize because they cannot communicate with one another and the public is not fully aware of what is actually happening. They have access to get the truth out now and communication is on the way. Will it be in time? As for the 7, they have too many irons in the fire and some of them are going to backfire in a catastrophic way, very soon. FT, This certainly mirrors what we are currently seeing with the media in America.... The brain dead sheeple can not discern truth from lies and prefer the lies.... Fake news working its subversive plots.... Texican.... |
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Post by gipsy on May 12, 2018 8:30:14 GMT -6
There is so much "BS" going on that you have to be careful that you do your own research
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Post by papaof2 on May 30, 2018 14:33:12 GMT -6
I saw some of that BS on TV the other evening and told my wife to shut it off before the pile in front of the TV got so big I'd have to rent a skid steer front loader to get the BS out of the house. My back's still hurting from doing all that shoveling and sweeping ;-)
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Post by forthteller on Jun 1, 2018 0:29:13 GMT -6
Chapter 34
House of cards starts to fall
January, 2023
Woo, woo. Ambulance sirens wail as President Connolly is being whisked away to a private hospital, for what the public will later be told was a minor heart attack. As the Ambulance enters the hospital grounds, security blankets the entrance and medical staff are there to take the patient right to the emergency department. One that has already been vacated buy all unnecessary staff.
The security cleared ambulance attendants unload the supposedly ailing patient and are permitted to take him directly into the emergency room. The doctor who accompanies the group from the ambulance to here, immediately begins a primary survey and asks them to take President Connolly into a private treatment room. They do and immediately leave the room. Inside are a male nurse, 2 secrete service personal, the doctor and a second female doctor who is a cardiologist.
Moments after the door closes, another man, dressed in stylish hospital clothes, emerges from the private bathroom. He looks remarkably like the president. He nods at the president and walks over to the bed and gets in. President Connolly flips his blanket aside and drops his legs over the side of the gurney he was just wheeled in on. He stands, one of the secret service men reach for his elbow to help steady him. He brushes the mans hand away and pretentiously walks into the bathroom.
5 Minutes later President Jonathon Connolly emerges, dressed as a physician, complete with a stethoscope and a nametag, Dr. Donald Richards. He now has a mustache, dark eyebrows and gray eyes. He is even two inches taller and appears a little stouter. To all but the most observative people, he would never be confused for the president.
President Connally, now Doctor Richards, leaves the room and heads down the hall to the elevator. The two attendants are still in the emergency area filling out administration papers. One is sitting in a position where he can see the door to the private treatment room they all went in. He also sees the tall doctor come out and is able to snap a picture with the camera on the end of his pen. The doctor waits and enters the elevator, the doors close and he is gone. The attendants finish their paperwork and head back to their unit, ready for their next assignment.
Dr Richards heads down the elevator and exits at the parkade level. He turns right and walks right to the non-descript blue Prius parked in the pre-arranged stall. Looking about, he surveys the area to see if he is being watched. Nothing. He unplugs the car gets in. As he silently backs up, he watches for signs of a tail. Nothing. “Home free,” he says as he heads out of the parkade.
As he is driving up the ramp, a homeless man walks across the front of the car causing his automated brakes to halt the car. The man slowly saunters across the sidewalk and belligerently looks the doctor’s way. As the doctor is looking at the homeless man, another person, presumably the homeless mans partner, crosses behind the rear of the car and pauses for just a moment to momentarily touch the rear bumper. She seamlessly attaches what looks like a piece of gum to the underside of the bumper and continues on her way, joining her partner on the sidewalk and saunters staggeringly down the street.
As Dr Richards/president Connolly drives to his prearranged rendezvous point, he nervously watches for signs of a tail, running a red light in the process and more than once crossing the center line. He was afraid to activate the self drive because he didn’t want to chance the possibility of being tracked and was lucky he never caused a crash on the way.
He arrives at the small private airstrip and drives to the front gate. He flashes his fake ID card to the bored security guard who opens the barricade and waves him in. Unknown to President Connolly, a small, minute explosion had just taken place under his rear bumper. He drives up to a small twin engine executive jet and gets out of the car. As he takes off the lab coat and tosses it on the seat and walks confidently to the jet, a man with an electronic device circles the car and passes its extended arm under and around the car. The agent takes out a handheld device and sweeps it around the doors and the inside of the car.
Confident, the agent opens the back door and puts the electronic devices in the back seat and drives the car into the nearest hanger. Parking it beside several other non-descript cars, he gets out and joins several other people who are lounging about a small waiting area.
President Connolly boards the waiting jet. Already seated are Barry Middleton and Marisa De Souza. He sits a couple rows up from them and relaxes.
The plane almost immediately begins taxiing to the runway as the pilot gets on the intercom to welcome his guests, “our flight time will be 1 hour and 45 minutes. We will be landing 10 miles east of Montreal where someone will be there to pick you up upon arrival. The temperature is currently 7 degrees Fahrenheit with a 10-mph wind.”
The pilot does not know who is on the plane and his door is locked from the outside. He also knows he will be waiting for their return on the plane. He still does not know who will be boarding for the return flight or even the destination.
The people who had hired him had agreed to let him out of the cockpit while he was waiting but he was not allowed off the plane and he was not allowed any outside communications. He was also not allowed to talk to any of the security people and he was to be back in his cockpit before the guests arrive for the flight back.
He was being paid a substantial amount for this service and he doubted it was criminal in nature so he was not at all displeased at the inconvenience. As a major airline pilot, there was not a lot of work anymore. Domestic and international flights had slowed to a trickle. These days, people had a tough enough time putting food on the table, most could never afford to fly anymore. Those who could afford to fly, were reluctant for fear of getting the ice age virus or one of the other new viruses that seem to keep popping up.
During the flight the pilot notices a second aircraft that came from the west and changed its heading to match his. It stayed just behind the left wing the entire way but he does not does not mention it to his contact.
The plane touches down and the pilot taxies to the prearranged spot. Several men with electronic devices quickly arrive and sweep the outside and cargo hold of the plane. They then open the doors and the three passengers disembark and head toward a waiting limousine. The men with the electronic devices head into the plane and perform a very efficient and coordinated sweep before leaving and locking the main door.
The pilot exits the now unlocked cabin door and goes to the kitchen where he gets himself something to drink and eat. Under his arm he has a novel that he just started and he is confident that he will get to read the whole thing before he has to fly again. He walks over to a comfortable seat and plops down on it. Opening his book and taking a sip of his juice, he settles in for what could be a very long wait.
The three passengers had all been ushered to a grey limousine and helped in. It was comfortable and stocked so President Connolly leans forward and immediately opens the bar and pours himself a scotch.
“You should lay off the booze!” Exclaims Barry Middleton. “You have a tendency to do things my people have to cover up when you drink.”
“You need to remember who the president is and who he can fire. Butt the hell out. One drink is nothing.”
“One drink leads to two, then three. You know how it goes, if you think firing me is a possibility you have another think coming.” Looking at Marisa, he gives a quick nod.
Marisa clears her throat. “Let’s stop this now, we have some major issues to discuss. We need to wait until we know we are in a secure environment and with the others before we say anything else. These guys are a lot better with surveillance than I though possible.
The car reaches its destination and turns into a private, very secluded driveway. The driver stops it directly in front of the main house and gets out to open the door. A waiting security guard waves him back into the car and opens the door himself. They exit the car and head to different areas of the house. President Connolly to find a drink, Marisa to find a place for her security and staff and Middleton to find an office to work out of.
Meanwhile, Stephen Cabot pulls back on the controls and smoothly lands the helicopter. He has been flying his own helicopter for over 10 years. Having his own unit gives him the confidence to make sure he isn’t being followed. He is here to pick up Patrick at the Malone-Dufort Airport and from there they are going to fly to the meeting site. His plan was to cross into Canada over the Akwesasne reserve and fly east along the river to the meeting site. He had already made arrangements with them to allow his low, below radar flight. He had done it many times over the last few years and has never had a problem. It works because the authorities are very reluctant to restrict airspace over the massive two country reserve and the people he dealt with were more than helpful with his other cross border shipments.
What Stephen Cabot doesn’t know is that the First Nations community is not interested in more colonialization from the United Nations and they have joined forces with the Canadian and US resistance in their common struggle. Their instructions were to allow Cabot and his chopper to cross their airspace but to report his route and exit point to the Canadian resistance.
Patrick Poulin arrives and parks his car in the public parking lot. He gets out and calmly walks over to the waiting chopper. Stephen waits until he is seated and starts spooling up the engines and the rotors. As soon as he hears the seatbelt click, he lifts off.
Over in the St Lawrence, a 36-foot cabin cruiser is docking at a local private marina. A waiting grey limousine is waiting in the pickup area.
On board is a trusted captain and 1 crewman plus two passengers. The small yacht is tied up and two men emerge from below decks. They are helped to the dock and head over to the waiting car. Hans gets there first and holds the door for the tall thin priest. Edwardo enters the car and sits facing the rear, Hans gets in and sits facing the front. No sooner has the door clicked shut, the car is under way. 10 minutes later the car is ushered through and into the parking area. Both men emerge and go through the electronic screening process before entering the large mansion.
Barry Middleton paces back and forth in his conscripted office. He has a full team taking care of security here and this time he cannot afford to fail. The UN headquarters breach had been a disaster. His credibility is being questioned and his very position on the council and as National Security advisor is at risk. One more stumble and he will be done.
The building they are meeting in is a virtual faraday cage so he knows no outside listening devices can penetrate the building. All the staff have been extensively vetted and all the computer systems are air gapped and have never been in contact with the UN computer system.
His best experts have been on the UN security breach and they cannot find any evidence of how the incursion occurred or how long they had been accessing it. The anarchists had done it somehow and in her fit of anger, Marisa had killed the minds that may have actually solved it. What is even worse, his experts tell him that there may still be a dormant worm on the system and it could be activated to cause further damage. UN brass believe it is cleaned out and are back to using the system but Middleton knows, it is still there. He has gained a new respect for this David and his co conspirators.
He is going to recommend to the council that they all be rounded up, regardless what the optics look like. At present, leaks from the UN soldiers who know that the official account is not the true story, have caused a massive outcry now that the David group has been able to disseminate contradicting news to the greater online community. Once again, his people cannot figure out how they have done it but the news stories keep popping up and they get thousands of views and shares before his people are able to take them down. There is no way they can arrest and detain everyone who shares the news and every algorithm his people create to block it is either too broad and blocks everything or cannot differentiate the fake news from the news the government approves.
With the dissemination of the opposing news, dissention within the major world militaries is widening. Some regular units are on board with the UN global unification but, almost all the militias and now several US Battle groups, the whole Canadian armed forces, most of the British and German forces and some leadership in other western forces are either actively resisting or are no longer willing to assist UN peacekeepers.
The more this kid exposes, the more difficult it is to keep everyone in line. Now even UN forces are deserting or refusing to comply with orders they claim are undemocratic.
Confident that there is absolutely no way a security breach could happen, he messages each of the council members and gets ready to head in for the meeting. It is going to be a doozy. With lots of blame to throw around, he doubts anybody will come out unscathed.
A security guard opens the door for him and he walks inside. As Middleton is holding the black chip, he takes the head spot at the table.
As he sits down he clears his throat and makes a show of his supposed authority. Once seated, he says, “Lets get this meeting underway. I trust everyone was sure they weren’t tailed.”
Grunts and head nods pervade the room.
Middleton tosses his chip into the bowl in front of him. “I would like to recommend that we immediately pick up and detain the entire Washington state resistance group. At this point, I don’t care what the public thinks. That group is doing more damage to our reputation on a daily basis then a single action with good news control would ever do. Getting them out of the picture will stop the negative messaging the public is now constantly exposed to.”
Cabot replies, “so you admit, your experts cannot match one college dropout?”
“Not a matter of matching. This kids’ friends released half my team and Marisa shot the remainder. I cannot just run out to the geek store and replace them. If we grab as many of the group as we can, we can get his location from one of them. They are mostly kids so they should break easily.”
Marisa shot back. “That group of geeks were either complicit or incompetent. They wouldn’t have solved your problem anyways, I did us all a favor shooting them.”
Unfazed, she continued on, “You have the largest and most extensive intelligence in the world at your disposal, the best computer programmers and engineers and a network of thousands of agents, yet you cannot shut down a simple hacker and a bunch of untrained subversives. I say charge them with espionage and put them away.”
Hans Christianson adds. “I agree, we need to stop the bad press and at this point, public opinion is not nearly as important as shutting down the network. Other resistance groups worldwide know what has happened here. They are getting bolder and are growing more problematic with every story this kid gets out. Several of my generals and senior officers are expressing reluctance to follow orders and it won’t be much longer before I have to take extreme measures to maintain control.”
“If we do this, we cannot afford to fail. It would need to be co-ordinated to be done at one time. If we don’t get them all and get him before he posts the action, it will make martyrs of them all and then we would have real problems. Do we have any other options?” Queried the president.
“We could covertly kidnap them without arousing an alarm. A quick interrogation will likely get us the kids computer location.”
“So far, all your operations have been outwitted by this bunch of amateurs, how do we know your people will do any better this time out?”
“The embassy was Marisa’s people. She won’t let my people in on anything there. I cannot run an operation with someone else countering my decisions and not sharing intel.”
“The embassy is not US soil; your people have no authority there.”
Stephen Cabot breaks in. I agree with Middleton, he is the security and intelligence advisor for the US and for us as well. If she keeps trying to run the show and won’t let each of us do our job, we can never succeed. She needs to let go and stick to the UN business and the currency exchanges.”
Hans Christianson adds, “we have the same issues with the UN leadership in Germany. They are so obnoxious; my police services will not even work with them. Why are they like this, they are Germans yet they act like they are better than us all.”
Marisa, feeling attacked retorts, “we are off topic, question was, does Middleton have his people pick up the group in any way necessary to shut it up? I say yes.”
Hans Christianson says, “Yes but no screwups this time.”
Edwardo Palmeno says, “Yes. I agree but we need to not make this a habit. Once we take the easier way, it gets easier and eventually this kind of action will be our first choice.”
Standing and facing everyone, President Connolly is not convinced. “I believe we can get legal warrants and arrest these people without the need to violate the American constitution. We have already done things that could see us hung for treason but kidnapping our own citizens and torturing them, the optics of this alone should be enough to stop us but if not, basic morality should. You can find the broadcast origin and shut it down.”
A red-faced Marisa fires back, “look who’s talking about morality. You got your eye on the kid? We need to get this done, the news has to stop.”
Stephen Cabot looks towards President Connolly, “I agree, we need to stay on the side of the law on this one. If it fails, it would be disastrous.”
All eyes are cast towards Patrick Poulin. He slowly composes his response and says, “in my country, we have rioting and murder. It is as a result of our manipulation of the refugee immigration routes, numbers, and access. The numbers are staggering, the death and suffering of the people in the camps and the damage and lives lost in the ghettos. I say no.”
Barry Middleton is just about to cast his deciding vote when Edwardo Palmeno interrupts. “I was too hasty in my decision, I too don’t think we want to kidnap and torture them. We have resistance groups in my country too and kidnapping these people will only galvanize opposition to the UN.”
“Very well, what do we do then.”
An exasperated President Connolly simply says, “do your job, find the source and shut it down.”
Middleton thinks to himself. I don’t need their permission to act in my own country. “If I get this done quietly, they will never know.”
Middleton shuffles the papers in front of him. “Next item, the military in almost every western nation is beginning to suffer from dissention within the ranks and now in the US several of our regiments are openly rejecting UN leadership. It started with the National guard units and when we tried to curtail that, the regular forces refused to support us. We either need more UN troops or a heavier hand. What is your opinion Hans?”
“We have lost the support of almost every military unit in Europe. They see support of the UN as almost traitorous and units that are pledging allegiance to their national flag are seen as heroes. I cannot pit my men against one another.”
Hans continues, “we need a major conflict elsewhere to distract attention and galvanize unity. I think that would work in the US as well. We may be able to get the smaller nations on board as well.”
Marisa slaps the table. “China is causing major problems with its demands for repayment of the sovereign debt it holds. They took major losses with the virus and have not been able to get their production of raw materials and finished goods back to any acceptable level. Could we ferment civil war?”
Barry Middleton replies, “not likely, they are united in their hatred of the west. Their media is well controlled and they have promoted the idea that the virus was an American creation. The only reason they have not launched a strike on the US is that the leadership knows that that would ensure their own destruction. Russia suffered the least from the virus and could easily walk in and pick up the leftovers. It is like a stalemate still. The only outsiders who have the resources are Iran, Pakistan and India but they have all been decimated by the virus and may not even have the ability to launce more than a fraction of their arsenal.”
Cardinal Edwardo Palmeno chimes in. “Has everyone forgotten about North Korea, they have nuclear weapons and we can direct them. In addition, they have-not even been touched by the virus. It would be believable to the world, expansion into south Korea and China.”
The entire group of seven looks at him with astonishment.
“What, just because I am a priest I cannot think about strategy?”
Hans responds. “He is right, an abbreviated war will enable the UN to step in and bring in international troops. We send in the most loyal units and rally the ones left behind. Ask Russia to aid us and we could galvanize the rest of the world.”
Patrick Poulin pipes in, “what happens if China strikes back or Russia gets involved without UN support. It could be catastrophic.”
Middleton answers. “my intelligence sources tell me that there is an internal power struggle going. With the assassination of Putin, his supporters are trying to maintain control and hardline communist supporters are attempting to push them out. It is not likely they will attack another communist nation. More likely, they would take a peacekeeping stance and try to galvanize the communist nations against the west.”
“If we launch North Korean missiles, how do we convince the world they did it. They will certainly know it wasn’t them. They are targeted on the west, not china,” queries Patrick.
Middleton answers, “nobody would believe them. The coincidental evidence would be really strong. My concern is that once they realize what has happened they will launch everything.”
Hans responds. “we launch the ones we need and disable everything else?”
“And leave them defenceless should China retaliate?”
“China outguns them 100 to one. If they retaliate, there will be nothing left.”
Having spent the whole time listening and evaluating the action being discussed, Stephen Cabot had finally decided it was time to try talking sense to this group of desperate people. “Are you listening to yourselves? You are seriously considering starting a nuclear war, one that could become continental and God forbid, intercontinental. We only think we know what these leaders will do, what happens if China or Russia thinks this is an opportunity to attack the US? The result would be a nuclear winter and what kind of a world would we have then.
The cardinal says with a curious expression on his face, “if it is Gods will.”
Cabot shoots back, “Gods will, bullshit. He isn’t starting a nuclear war, we are.”
“God uses us to do his work. Armageddon is prophesied in his word; how do you know this is not it?”
“You would hide behind religion to justify murdering millions of people?”
“And that is any different than murdering millions to bring about global unity and prosperity? I for one think the wold would do well with a total reset. I don’t think we have actually gone far enough.”
“So, you would encourage Armageddon?”
“Without us, the world was heading there anyways. Climate change, massive overpopulation, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. We would all be dead in 30 years, now at least some of us have a chance.”
“But nuclear destruction is not going to leave any planet to live on.”
Middleton stops the discussion. “Enough philosophy, we stay on top of it. I have people embedded in both China and Russia. We would have more than enough time to stop all inbound missiles before they re enter orbit. And we would be justified in launching a counterstrike. I say we vote on a limited strike from North Korea.”
“Agree.”
“Agree.”
“Agree.”
“Agree.”
“Agree.”
“I disagree,” says Stephen Cabot.
Patrick Poulin sighs and votes, “I also disagree, I think it is too dangerous a gamble.”
“5 to 2. We do it. When?”
Hans says, “immediately, I am near the end of my control over the military. They need to have something to do. How long until you can launch?”
“24 hours at the most.”
5 nods and 2 frowns.
Earlier.
The twin engine Cessna Citation 2 closes in on the private airstrip in the outskirts of Washington. It is low and below the radar. As it approaches and before it is visible to the naked eye, it veers to the right and circles the airport. On its second circle another jet hurdle down the runway and takes off. The Cessna heads in its direction and matches its speed. As the other jet gains altitude so does the Cessna. Within moments the Cessna is what seems like meters behind the right wing of the other jet and there it stays.
The two jets cross the Canadian boarder at 25,000 ft yet there is no radio query from Canadian authorities. The other jet begins descending 50 miles outside Montreal and the Cessna matches its speed and altitude. Once below radar the Cessna veers off and heads back towards the US boarder. Another person on board has radioed a contact in New York. This contact has in turn radioed a person in Montreal who has already got agents in the area of the Montreal private airstrip.
As the limousine pulls out the gate, an electric vehicle that was passing the entrance falls in behind it. Three miles later, another electric vehicle replaces the first and continues in the wake of the grey limousine. Eventually the grey limousine pulls into a driveway and disappears behind hedges and a large steel gate, the red electric car behind it drives on by. A second grey limousine pulls into the same driveway 20 minutes later. Its appearance reported by a woman sitting in a taxi cab parked down the street.
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Post by texican on Jun 3, 2018 19:14:08 GMT -6
FT,
Thanks for the chapter....
Looks like nuclear war is around the corner....
Texican....
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Post by forthteller on Jun 4, 2018 0:18:18 GMT -6
FT, Thanks for the chapter.... Looks like nuclear war is around the corner.... Texican.... It is a post apocalyptic forum. Gotta be an apocalypse, rules are rules, or are they? Even I don't know what is going to happen. The resistance could still save the day. My problem is that I thought I was semi retired, now i am back working more than full time, racing season is taking more time than i counted on and my crazy brain syndrome is barely idling. I hardly get any writing time. |
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Post by texican on Jun 9, 2018 0:46:04 GMT -6
FT, Thanks for the chapter.... Looks like nuclear war is around the corner.... Texican.... It is a post apocalyptic forum. Gotta be an apocalypse, rules are rules, or are they? Even I don't know what is going to happen. The resistance could still save the day. My problem is that I thought I was semi retired, now i am back working more than full time, racing season is taking more time than i counted on and my crazy brain syndrome is barely idling. I hardly get any writing time. FT, A minute here a minute there and yala.... another chapter.... Texican.... |
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Post by forthteller on Jun 13, 2018 0:06:45 GMT -6
Chapter 35
Jason
January 10, 2023
Jason wakes to the sound of incoming helicopters. He jumps out of his cot, pulls on a pair of combat pants and boots and runs out of his private room and into the temporary barracks he is staying in. A few soldiers are up, either going to or from sentry duty. Most are in their beds as it is 4:30 AM.
He goes in to the control center and walks right up to the duty officer who smartly salutes him. “At ease Lieutenant, I heard a chopper coming in. Is it expected.”
“It is a search and rescue chopper sir. They asked for permission to land. Say they have some injured hikers. We have the usual precaution underway. I did not think it was necessary to wake you sir. I have it handled. Sir”
“You do at that. lieutenant. Don’t let me get in the way. Would you mind if I get dressed and join your troops there?”
“Certainly sir. Sargent Patterson is commanding the squad. Good soldier sir.”
Jason heads back into his room and puts on the rest of his Canadian forces uniform, minus the CAF insignia. He does have LT Colonel epaulets on his shoulders though.
He gets to the chopper pad as the rotors are spinning down. Sargent Patterson is at the cockpit talking to the pilot. She waves the squad to stand down so they all lower their weapons but still keep them at the ready. She opens the sliding door and looks in.
2 soldiers are there and a pile of supplies. She waves them out and they climb from the chopper and double time past the still spinning rotors and to the area Jason is in. As they get closer Jason notes that the first is a corporal with a US combat uniform and a prominent US flag over his left breast. The second was a private, same US flag and it is his own son, Jack.
They walk up to the assembled soldiers who have now slung their weapons on their backs and crisply salute the duty officer and then Jason. Both stand at attention until the duty officer says, “stand easy men.”
Sargent Peterson and the pilot walk past the now still chopper and arrive as Jason is standing quietly talking to Jack. To the duty officer, she says, “Sir, they have sent us some supplies and this pilot has communications for Lt Colonel Smit.” She salutes Jason smartly and hands him a thick business letter sized envelope. Sealed and signed.
Jason takes the envelope and says, “do I need to remind everyone here, I am retired, I am only an advisor?”
The duty officer standing next to Jason says, “with all due respect sir, your advice and leadership is essential to this encampment. As we grow in size and train for the battle of our lives, we do not see you as retired. Every man and woman here will follow you without question, myself included.”
Jack is standing there and says, “Are you retired from being my father too?”
“Of course not, Jack. So good to see you, and in uniform too.”
The pilot interrupts, “sir, we have other deliveries to make today, we need to unload and be off. Your son can spend some time with you while we do that but we must be away at o eight hundred.”
“Very well Captain. Jack, would you like some breakfast.”
“Yes sir.”
“I am your dad, call me that.”
“Just messing with you. Did you ever think we might be standing together in uniforms someday?”
“Not in my wildest dreams or nightmares. I think this is closer to the latter.”
They head over to the makeshift kitchen and stand in line to get their meals. Several men and women stand at attention when they arrive and Jason tells them all, “as you were.” The soldiers all usher Jason and Jack to the front of the line and resume their breakfast routine.
At Breakfast Jason and Jack chat about what has been happening. How Jason’s sisters are doing. What Jessica is doing now that she is free. Jack fills him in on everything.
“now for the big one jack,
what is David up to?”
With a flourish of his hands, Jack proclaims, “you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. I am a private, he is some kind of a super spy. The only time I got to go see him, they made me wear a blindfold so I wouldn’t know where his headquarters is.”
“That isn’t because they don’t trust you Jack. That is so that if you were captured, the enemy could not force you to disclose the operation. Why did they take you there?”
“David had pictures of people he wanted me to see. They were of people he believes are responsible for the corruption going on. If I see any of them, I need to make sure I am always in public and to let him know as soon as possible. I spend most of my time with my unit but I have gone to visit Alicia and Jessica. Plus, I have gone up to Brads camp for the weekend.”
“Who is Brad? Name sounds familiar but I can’t place him?”
“Cool dude. Jessica’s sorta boyfriend. He repos cars and businesses and stuff, has a carry permit and a really neat campsite in the mountains. We went fishing and hunting and I kicked his ass at the gun range. I am going to help him convert his truck to propane so he wants me to come visit again. Never seen a more paranoid guy in my life though. He is always on the lookout, always checking out the cars around and always looking at everyone around him.”
“I don’t call that paranoid, I call that vigilant and we all need to be more vigilant. Back to your brother, how is he doing?”
“I don’t know what to say. He has people coming and going all the time, spends all his time in his headquarters and has rooms full of computer stuff. He seems happy though.”
“And Alicia?”
“She is driving for Alana. Local only though. Too much risk out of town. Hijackings and UN check stops.”
“UN check stops?”
“Yeah, they have a list of contraband that is not allowed to be transported or even owned. And sometimes they take a portion that they call a toll for highway protection. Alana is really pissed about it. She says the highway bandits are UN soldiers and even has proof of it. David posted it on his news feed. It is getting major circulation, even on the mainstream media.”
“Wow, how did he manage to get that out?”
“I don’t know but he thinks the government will shut down public access to the internet soon if they cannot develop filters to stop news and information they don’t want leaking out.”
“Wow, I have been out of the loop for so long, I never knew.”
“Less than 6 months dad. Holy crap, its not that long. I have to admit we were quite worried when we never heard from you for a few months.”
“6 months is a long time when you look at what is unfolding. We will be facing a civil war in mere months, both in Canada and the United States.”
“Europe and south America as well dad. Same crap is happening there too. We have been in contact with resistance groups there too. The plague has been devastating in areas south of the 50th parallel. Up to 50 percent of the population dead or permanently disabled in some southern countries. This is the news I have read.”
“We haven’t heard most of this information; how do you know all of this?”
“David found a way to bypass their filters and editors. He gets his information to all the independent news providers and also to the mainstreams news. It gets out and disseminated before the government can shut it down. I know that the towns around here will be willing to support your unit now because they know the truth.”
Sargent Peterson enters the mess. “Private Smit, time to go. Wheels up in 5 minutes.” She salutes Jason and leaves the room, replacing her headdress as she exits.
“See you soon, dad. Read the letter, I bet it explains a lot.” With that Jack salutes and leaves the mess.
“Incredulous,” Jason ponders a moment before he stands to take his and Jacks tray to the dishrack. He still has the thick, unopened envelope under his arm so he heads to the office he shares with Captain Wilcox. He enters and locks the door, sits at the disk and opens the envelope.
Inside is a smaller envelope containing several memory chips. A handwritten letter from David and several official looking documents with a Cascadia Emblem and a flag on the bottom that looks like the stars and stripes with a lion and 6 stars around it. Most of the documents are officer commissions and senior NCO appointments.
He unfolds the letter from David and begins to read.
Hi Dad, I am so glad to know that you not only made it to safety, but that you have been able to put your incredible leadership skills to use as you transform your cobbled together unit into a cohesive, trained fighting force. We may need your units’ assistance in the struggle to come. You may not know this but we have provided you with air cover for the past few months to give you the chance to gel as a unit and the supplies you have received are to help further your mission.
Everything I am writing to you now can be verified on the memory chips I included in the package you have before you. It is advised that you share the information with your leaders and even your rank and file so they will know what we are up against.
First off, the United Nations is trying to unite the whole western world in a global economy with global governance. While their intentions are truly benevolent, they have opened the door for great corruption in their naivety and several international elitist groups are vying for control. The main threat comes from a group of seven who control most of the production and economy of the western world. They have kidnaped the Secretary General and have replaced him with one of their own but have been manipulating the UN for several years.
The president of the United States is one of the 7 as are several of the chief executives of the 5 largest corporations in the world and the most influential man in the roman Catholic Church.
Of greatest concern is that this group is responsible for the deaths of billions by engineering the plague and fermenting numerous conflicts and wars over the past several years. I have not yet found out how long they have been active as I only found out the details I know wile I was looking for Jessica. The people I am working with have been alerted to some of their activities for several years. You won’t have heard of them, the are the National Security Service and they are very clandestine. You spoke with one of them a couple of months back, the woman who arranged your chopper.
Other pieces of the puzzle have come to light as my friend Max was able to penetrate their financial operations and paint a picture of the corporate corruption that has lead to major monopolies and oligopolies over the last few years. It would seem that this group believes they can save the world by taking it over by force and running it in their vision of utopia. They are ruthless and dedicated.
What you will see from the information included in the chips, this group looks like it is going to incite a limited nuclear war between china and North Korea but our analysis believes there is no way this will stay limited. Russia is poised to strike a weakened USA as is China with a radically diminished population and a desire for vengeance. We think both countries are willing to launch a mutually destructive strike, even if it means their own destruction.
In addition, I have located and am tracking 3 satellites that are armed with nuclear missiles that may be designed for emp 1 and 3 attacks. While we have no actual data on the destructive effects such a device may have, china has 2 satellites and Russia has at least 1 that are capable of launching no less than 10 warheads each. At best the US could intercept 50 percent of them with its Ground Based Midcourse Missile Defense system. Should the effectiveness be at the lower end of the spectrum, the electrical grid and most unprotected computer systems would be at risk. If it is on the high end the results would be catastrophic.
Your unit is well placed to be unaffected by either event. I would recommend you place all your communication and electronic devices under immediate protection. And that you protect your aircraft and vehicles should a worst-case scenario occur.
As for communication. There are many units like yours spread throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and a majority of Western Europe. At present, the are no secure means of immediate communication so we are using drops with encrypted communications. The key to the encryption is on the blue 32 gig memory chip. For instantaneous communication we are usind the radios but they are not secure.
The documents in the package are not yet official. They are the failsafe if civil war breaks out and we are left with no nation to support. The National guard units of the States of Montana, Washington, Oregon and Idaho as well as the provinces of BC and Alberta have all expressed the desire to unify should hostilities break out.
My team and others in every location are working hard to stop the conspiracy and inform the public of the truth. We now have gained access to the internet and can post news and videos that bypass the censors. It usually takes several hours before the conspirators identify and shut down the news. Public opinions has evolved to the point that the UN can no longer conscript police forces or military units so they must use their own forces. We have had numerous UN troops desert and join our units so they are stretched thin.
Unfortunately, the President and the Congress are still dedicated to the false UN agenda and they have ordered the regular forces to support and protect UN assets and operations. The President is still the commander in Chief and the senior leadership will most definitely follow orders. If they are ordered to engage dissenting US units, we are not certain what will happen but we need to be prepared for an all out civil war.
On a personal note. I am very happy doing what I am. I work with brilliant people like Jessica and Sam, I have new friends who help me in any way they can and I am making a difference. I also have enough influence to get some of the things I want, I hope you had a nice visit with Jack. I know you were always disappointed that I went into computer engineering but it has turned out to be the greatest asset I have been able to offer in service to my fellows. I rarely see Jack or Alisha as I am on the most wanted list and cannot move about freely but I hope that will soon change as the truth becomes known and the real criminals end up in prison.
I hope to see you in the near future.
David.
Jason folds the letter and puts it aside. He sits for a while and sips his coffee. Most wanted list, this world has certainly turned itself upside down. After a while he takes the memory chips and inserts them into his desktop.
Videos and news from around the world is on the first two. All complete with evidence, witness accounts and a summary of what was presented. He puts those chips into a small holder and labels it.
The last video starts with the ice age virus and how it was modified in a lab after being found in the melting artic ice. It documents the lab tests and the field tests. There are projected infection models and results of distribution tests. Also reams of emails as the virus spun out of control and the makers raced to find a vaccine.
After several hours he is finished with the news and now is looking at a video of a man who describes himself as a Stan. Stan introduces himself and holds up 7 large file folders and he explains that they are evidence of criminal activity of the 7 people who are attempting to control the UN and through it the whole western world. “We will be sending copies of every file and this entire video to every news agency in the whole world, main stream and independent. The public will know by tomorrow morning who is trying to take over the whole free world and what they have done and are willing to do to achieve it.”
On screen, Stan tells the audience that the following is an actual voice recording of a meeting of the seven in a rural area near Montreal. The meeting was last night and the video skips to the part where they are discussing the act of instigating a limited nuclear conflict in the far east. This explains the unscheduled supply run, Jacks visit and the letter.
Getting up, he decides to call in his leaders and all of the non-essential enlisted. They need to see all this info before the 7 launch the attack. There is no telling what might happen and his unit needs to be prepared. He walks out the door and into the control center. The duty officer snaps to attention and crisply salutes. “At ease Lieutenant. I need you to round up our entire team and get them into the school gym so I can speak to them all. I need a big screen TV and a laptop. All non-essential personnel need to be present. This is top priority, right now.”
“You heard him private, lets get the word out.” Both exit the command center and Jason is left standing there alone.
20 minutes later
Jason is standing before several hundred hushed soldiers and a few civilians. “I have to let you all know, we have trained and come together as a cohesive unit and I am very proud of you all. Unfortunately, it looks like that training will soon be put to use as it looks like war is almost inevitable. I need everyone to see the information that has been compiled by our friends, after you all see this we need to get ready.
During the presentation, Jason skips through a lot but plays the most important clips in their entirety. He plays the final clip and the last part of the discussion, everyone listens with disbelief when they hear the plans. Jason shuts the system down and motions for the lights to come up.
You all heard it. This group is going to start a nuclear war in the far east. Our analysis of the situation is that there is a very high likelihood of all out war. Our intelligence sources have indicated that the Chinese and the Russians have the capability to launch EMP missiles from orbiting satellites and that they will launch those first before an all out nuclear attack. The satellites will be in position from 0200 until 0600 tomorrow and every day after. I need us ready to take an emp hit without taking damage. You all know what to do, let’s go.
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Post by texican on Jun 13, 2018 10:50:13 GMT -6
FT, Blood and guts and nuke war.... Now why haven't the 7 been eliminated?  Would definitely throw a wrench into the process.... Thanks for the chapter.... Texican.... ps: Chapter posted at 1:53 in the morning.... FT, what dedication.... The window ac unit in my office die last Friday night as I was working on a major report that I had to get out.... Pulled the old ac out of the case and put it on top of an adjacent lateral cabinet.... The son came in from the Dallas burbs to pickup a wood stove to take to Colorado to install in a home he owns that he is trying to sell.... He and I put the ac unit on a utility cart and hauled it out of the house.... Wasted most of Saturday getting the new 18,000 btu window ac unit from Paris Texas not France.... Live in the foot hills of SE okieland.... Was able to keep the office cool enough with fans and a little cooling from the rest of the house to finish the report Sunday night late and emailed out.... Working on a second report that has to go out this week.... Did I say I am retired or I guess semi-retired.... Finally reached the point early Wednesday morning about 1 am that it was time to install the window ac unit before the wife headed back to Dallas Wednesday morning for an eye doc appointment and to see about my mom that is no longer in good health. After unboxing the window ac unit in the back of the van, tried to remove the ac unit from the case, but no go.... Pulled the window ac unit still in its case onto utility cart. Then pulled the old case from the wall opening.... Then brought in the new window ac unit.... Did I mention that the window ac unit weighed 118 pounds.... which at one time was 1/2 of what I weighed, but no more.... Picked up the window ac unit in its case and placed it on a lateral file cabinet next to the wall penetration.... Being 6-3 but 67 years old, was the first hard task to complete.... Now the wife put a box that my new printer came from on top of the utility cart, but not tall enough to get close to the wall opening.... Took the wife's tool box and put on top of the box and it was close to being the right height.... slid the 118 pound window ac unit in its case on top of the tool box on top of the printer box on top of the wheeled utility cart.... Texican ingenuity.... Everything balanced.... One final lift and push and the window ac was in its new home in the wall opening.... Plugged it in and it came on and started cooling.... Sitting at my desk working in a cold air stream.... I remember the days when all we had were swamp coolers.... Refrigerated air is just outstanding.... Texican.... |
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Post by gipsy on Jun 13, 2018 12:46:49 GMT -6
Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome
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Post by forthteller on Jun 13, 2018 18:25:01 GMT -6
FT, Blood and guts and nuke war.... Now why haven't the 7 been eliminated? Would definitely throw a wrench into the process.... Thanks for the chapter.... Texican.... ps: Chapter posted at 1:53 in the morning.... FT, what dedication.... The window ac unit in my office die last Friday night as I was working on a major report that I had to get out.... Pulled the old ac out of the case and put it on top of an adjacent lateral cabinet.... The son came in from the Dallas burbs to pickup a wood stove to take to Colorado to install in a home he owns that he is trying to sell.... He and I put the ac unit on a utility cart and hauled it out of the house.... Wasted most of Saturday getting the new 18,000 btu window ac unit from Paris Texas not France.... Live in the foot hills of SE okieland.... Was able to keep the office cool enough with fans and a little cooling from the rest of the house to finish the report Sunday night late and emailed out.... Working on a second report that has to go out this week.... Did I say I am retired or I guess semi-retired.... Finally reached the point early Wednesday morning about 1 am that it was time to install the window ac unit before the wife headed back to Dallas Wednesday morning for an eye doc appointment and to see about my mom that is no longer in good health. After unboxing the window ac unit in the back of the van, tried to remove the ac unit from the case, but no go.... Pulled the window ac unit still in its case onto utility cart. Then pulled the old case from the wall opening.... Then brought in the new window ac unit.... Did I mention that the window ac unit weighed 118 pounds.... which at one time was 1/2 of what I weighed, but no more.... Picked up the window ac unit in its case and placed it on a lateral file cabinet next to the wall penetration.... Being 6-3 but 67 years old, was the first hard task to complete.... Now the wife put a box that my new printer came from on top of the utility cart, but not tall enough to get close to the wall opening.... Took the wife's tool box and put on top of the box and it was close to being the right height.... slid the 118 pound window ac unit in its case on top of the tool box on top of the printer box on top of the wheeled utility cart.... Texican ingenuity.... Everything balanced.... One final lift and push and the window ac was in its new home in the wall opening.... Plugged it in and it came on and started cooling.... Sitting at my desk working in a cold air stream.... I remember the days when all we had were swamp coolers.... Refrigerated air is just outstanding.... Texican.... |
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Post by forthteller on Jun 13, 2018 18:37:18 GMT -6
the 7 haven't been eliminated because the National security organization has its mandate; Investigate and inform. The are to expose all corruption and illegal activities in any and all government agencies. They are empowered to enlist spies in every organization, wire tap and hack any communications and directives and use any form of media and news to get their findings out to the public. They have an open warrant to do whatever they need to investigate and because nobody they expose goes on trial they are not required to use due process. Government empowered WikiLeaks at the highest level is really the only way to root out and eliminate all corruption and to keep it out. They do not kill but they may provide information that results in death. Now that they have been able to infiltrate the censured news, it is more than likely the 7 will be arrested and tried for their crimes but I doubt any will be taken alive.
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Post by forthteller on Jun 26, 2018 1:18:07 GMT -6
Chapter 36
Jack and Brad
January 12, 2023
“6 more inches to the right.” Shouts Jack as Brad eases the boom over. “Right there. Now down slowly” Jack says as he guides the propane tank onto the mounting bolts inside the bed of the lime green Ford.
Brad watches as Jack unhooks the chain and lets it swing free. He deftly lifts the boom and swings it to the left. Once over a clear spot he lowers the boom and shuts the hoe down. He climbs out and scrambles up the back of his lifted truck. Jack is just torqueing the last anchor bolt down. As he stands, Jack goes over the installation instructions once again so Brad can change the tank when it is empty.
They have 6 horizontal 200lb tanks with about 46 gallons in each. With some modifications the truck should get about 15 to 20 MPG. A range of 700 plus miles per tank. With the fuel shortages there is no way of knowing when they will be able to get more. Brad has several solar panels and can charge his car when he is here and has solar panels on his father’s house so he can charge it there. It is not likely they will use the truck much but it will be nice if it is available if they need it.
Jack hops over the side and lands on the ground beside the truck. “Okay, fire it up.”
Brad turns the key and the truck fires up almost instantly. In moments it is roughly idling and Brad smiles as he hears the familiar low rumble. He gives the truck a few shots with the pedal and listens to the throaty roar as it smooth’s out with increased RPM.
“Sounds just like it did before. Will it run as good as on gas?”
“it may be a little harder to start on real cold mornings and it will have a bit less power but you won’t really notice the difference. We need to get the under-hood faraday cage done now before we are done. Then I want to put some shielding on your ignition wiring and we will be good to go. “
“Do you need my help?”
“No, I got this. You can put the backhoe away.”
Brad goes back to the backhoe and picks up the chains and stows them in the storage box. He gets in and drives the hoe over to the sea can and drives it in. Once clear of the door, he shuts it off and takes out the key. He jumps out and heads deeper into the sea can. He opens his big safe and reaching up, punches in the code. Slipping the key onto one of the hooks, Brad says to himself, “I should clean my guns, haven’t used them for a while.”
“Why not use them and then clean them,” quips Jack who is now standing in the doorway. “I need some BX cable or something like it, do you have anything like that.”
“What is BX cable?”
“Electrical wire wrapped with metal,” Jack explains as he uses his hands to illustrate what he was describing.”
“There is a bunch of short stuff in the metal recycle bin. Left over from when Pedro wired our second trailer. I will get you some. How much?”
“Three or four feet.”
“Be right back,” says Brad as he slams the safe shut and it clicks locked. “Anything else you need?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Brad jumps into the Kubota and heads over to the recycling bin outside the front gate and Jack heads back to the truck.
As jack gets to the truck he realizes he needs some metal rods or bars that he can use for the EMP shield he was designing for the Solar panels. “I think I will go look and see what is in there myself.” Brad took the Kubota so Jack decides to walk. He heads north past the three neighbor lots and turns left. As he passes the various lots he evaluates the preparation and preparedness of the various lots. Most have solar panels and 1 or 2 trailers but only one other site has a sea can or any other sign they were prepared for anything more than camping. “Shame,” he thinks. “Nobody is prepared for what is coming.”
As Jack approaches the gate he can see two men talking to Brad. Quickly dropping to cover, he sneaks closer to the gate to see if he can tell what is going on. The Kubota is on the inside of the gate and the gate is still locked. Brad must have gone through the man gate. Jack gets close enough to see that both men were on the pictures David had shown him. Since Jack knows these two are not here for any good reason he decides to get back to the site and get some firepower.
As he runs back, he makes a quick call on his radio phone. “Private Smit here. Two bogeys identified at Brad Richards retreat. Need immediate backup, over.” He hangs up.
In an Expropriated house at a nearby town, a radio operator catches the radio conversation. He instantly makes a call. “Have confirmation. Jack Smit is at the Brad Collins site. We have two men on site, he is already aware of their presence.”
Jack gets back to the site. He quickly runs into the sea can and punches a code into jacks safe. Forgetting to disarm the alarm, he grabs a 9ml handgun, 2 mags and puts one in the gun. and slips it into his belt. With a thought he takes a second one and loads it with another magazine. He then takes a 308 hunting rifle off the rack and steps back. As he closes the door, the alarm starts going off. The loud blast piercing the wilderness camp.
At the gate, Brad is just keying in the password with zip tie cuffs on and an assault rifle trained on him. One of the two men says, “What’s that alarm for?”
Jack knows his alarm sound but he replies, “sounds like it is from the south east, must be one of my neighbors. I didn’t know anyone else was up here. “
As Brad is saying this, the second man gets a call. He looks at the call display and answers it. “Mitchell here.”
After listening for a few moments, he looks over at Brad and says. Jack Smit is here with you, where is he?
Brad knows jack has just accessed the gun case so he must somehow know the two men are here. “We were working on my truck and I came to the recycle bin to get some metal scraps. He is still working on the truck.”
“Take us to your site and I don’t want you to raise any alarms.” To the other man he says, “Smit knows we are here. Heads up, he may be trying to ambush us. And I bet he also set off that alarm. We have a team on route, we just need to make sure he doesn’t get away.”
“What about this guy?”
“We don’t need him,” he says as he draws his sidearm and prepares to shoot Brad.
Crack, a small hole in his forehead appears and he falls to the ground. The second man raises his weapon and is seconds from firing on Brad, another crack and the side of his head blows out. He falls to the ground with a thud.
Jack runs to Brad and whips out his pocket knife. He cuts Brads cuffs off and brushes them to the ground. Without talking they both set off at a good run back to the site. Jack provides cover while Brad enters the sea can. Brad opens the gun safe, reaches for the keypad on the top and shuts off the alarm. He opens a hidden door inside the cabinet and grabs an AR15 and several magazines. He exits the sea can and closes and locks the door.
“Nice shooting. Now what Mr. soldier.”
“We have two choices. Move or stay. If we take the truck we would leave an obvious trail in the snow and if we go on foot they would still track us down. If we stay, we need to hold them off until our reinforcements arrive, I think theirs are a lot closer. Since we do not know how many, I have to assume they send a team similar to the one they tried to take our house in Canada with. One team leader and 5 soldiers. If they are as stupid as these two, it would barely be a match but I somehow doubt they are all this untrained. They will be heavily armed.
“Why not just drive out in the truck?”
“The road is pretty secluded for the first 10 miles, they could ambush us anywhere along the way. Where would be the best place to hole up?”
“Rock cliffs above the firing range. We would leave tracks though so they would know where we were.”
“is there any way they could circle around behind us?”
“Not easily. In the snow it would take them several hours unless they bring in a chopper.”
“How about a defensible place to hide. Can’t be flammable and needs to be reasonably bulletproof.”
“We have a stone meeting place near the firing range. We can get there on the plowed road without leaving tracks.”
“I like it. We need to hold out until our guys get here. I am going to radio our contact, I cannot tell them where we are going to hide because all radio bands are most likely being monitored. I already radioed them about our sighting of the two I had seen pictures of and I think that message was monitored.”
“I think so too; those guys knew you were here.”
Brad put the radio to his ear. “Pvt smit here. 2 bogeys are down but we have information they already have a fire team on route. No information on team size but the last two I have seen were 6 people with a second backup team.
“Let’s go and set up a defense,” says Brad.
They quickly run to the stone building without leaving a trail. Brad unlocks the door and they step inside, closing and locking it behind them. Jack surveys the inside. A large meeting room, door to the north and a second one to the east. Jack looks in the north room, kitchen, window facing the rear. Not likely a good vantage point. He looks in the East room. An office with a large desk and several chairs, a sofa and several bookcases. Window facing the road. We can watch from here but there is no way to stop them getting in once they know where we are. They would lob in smoke grenades or stun grenades and then breach the front door. Probably rear door as well.”
Jack looks at the far side. “Where do the stairs lead?”
“Not sure what it was before. It is a store room now. Low ceiling height. No windows.”
“Is the any way out to the roof.”
“I don’t know. Let’s look around.”
They search the upstairs and find a roof hatch in a closet. It has a padlock on it but Brad takes a pocket knife out and flips it open. He has filed one of the regular implements into a lockpick. Deftly, he opens the lock and hands it to jack. He flips open the hatch and climbs up onto the flat, snow covered roof. As he looks to the east, he can see 2 vehicles coming. Jack, sees them too. Jack crouches and motions for Brad to do the same.
The vehicles come closer and enter the gate. Jack can now see clearly. They are tan united nations trucks and they come to a stop near the two dead UN soldiers. Several UN soldiers clamber out and set up a perimeter. An officer gets out of the other truck as well 4 plainclothes men. She walks over and inspects the bodies and the tracks around the area. She is holding something that could be a map or a satellite photo and motions a couple of the soldiers over. Pointing at the paper, she points at the road and appears to be giving directions. The two soldiers each take a few other soldiers and strike off leaving the officer and two of the men who are not wearing uniforms.
Brad and Jack are carful to not be seen but they need to know if the soldiers are close. 20 minutes later they can hear someone attempting to open the door to the stone building.
Jack quietly says, “they will do a room by room, and then they will search the upper rooms as well. If we are lucky they will not find the roof hatch or even think to look for it.”
Jack says to Brad. “We need to wait until at least two are on the roof, I will take the south you take the east. They are here for me so they will only shoot at you because you are expendable but it will take them a few moments to identify you and I.” They both silently take their positions and wait, unable to hear what is going on below them.
Minutes tick by. 20 minutes later, a helicopter can be heard in the distance. Jack motions to Brad. They are sitting ducks if it is a UN chopper but it is more likely from Jacks unit as it is in bound from the south west. They both ease closer to the hatch, in case they have to make a hasty exit. Now they have their attention divided between the hatch and the chopper.
As it comes closer, the olive green becomes more apparent. Jack is able to quickly recognize it as a Hughes MD 500 utility aircraft. His unit has several. He waits as it approaches his campsite and at the last moment radios in. “Private Smit here, we are cornered on the roof 500 yards to the north east. May be hostiles when you arrive.”
The chopper veers towards the stone building and the spotter immediately sights the two men on the roof. “Got them Captain 20 degrees to your left, 200 yards.” At this point shots are fired from the ground and someone from one of the trucks is shouldering an RPG.
The hatch opens and a man clambers up. Jack shouts, “hold it right there.”
The man rolls off to the side, produces a weapon and fires one shot towards brad, both brad and Jack return fire. A second man springs from the hatch, an assault weapon already trained in Jacks direction, this man too is dispatched. Another voice yells from the hatch. “We only want Smit. This can end now if he comes with us.” The woman stays below the hatch. “We have a chopper on the way and reinforcements, we aren’t leaving without you.”
“Come and get us,” shouts Brad as he tosses a smoke canister into the hatch. Scrambling and noises as several people scramble out of the room and to clear air in the lower rooms.
Another chopper is in bound from the east and it is a black hawk. Cannot be from Jacks unit as they don’t have any. The Hughes peels off to meet the incoming Blackhawk and gains altitude. The Blackhawk does the same but not before the Hughes releases two guided missiles about a minute apart. The first misses and begins to circle back to the target, the second is locked on and continues on its path. The Blackhawk releases a stream of decoys and dives to the right, the second missile explodes as it strikes the decoys but the first has done a full turn and is now heading directly at the the Blackhawk. The Blackhawk veers to the left and pulls up, the second missile explodes close enough to cause the Blackhawk to stagger, mid air. Smoke begins to emit from it as it veers away and fades off in the distance.
The remaining UN soldiers and agents scramble out of the building and clamber into the two trucks. They disappear in a cloud of white and brown, mixed snow and gravel. Out the gate and gone.
Having observed this the Hughes lands in a nearby clearing and begins to spool down its engines. Several uniformed soldiers spring from it and take updefensive positions.
Moments later, Jack and Brad emerge from the building and approach the Chopper. Several soldiers train their weapons on them until a Master Sergeant exits the bird and crisply orders them to “stand down.” The lower their weapons and the Sergeant approaches Brad and Jack.
The Sergeant salutes Brad and says, “are we all clear, sir.”
Brad extends his hand and says, “names Brad, not sir.”
“Yes sir, I mean Brad. I was told to provide support for a civilian with a rank equivalent of a captain. I do not know what service you are in but you are highly regarded by my commander.”
An incredulous Jack looks on. “Sir. Captain. When did this happen?”
“I will fill you in later.”
Jack addresses the sergeant. “Sergeant, we have two dead near the gate and two more on the roof. Would like me and some of your troops to retrieve them.”
“My men will take care of that private, well done here. I am told they were after you, they obviously have no idea who your friend is.”
“What about the others that got away, Sergeant?”
“They didn’t get away. We had some ground troops set up a roadblock down the road. We got them all, the UN has already denied any connection to them or their action.”
“What do you do with them.”
“We document them, question them and then turn them over to the federal authorities. Hopefully they are charged with treason but somehow, I doubt it.
“Let’s take a walk.” Says the sergeant to Brad and Jack.
Once clear of the other men, The Sargent starts. “Jack, your brother is concerned the insurgents are about to start an isolated nuclear war in the far east and he is going to expose them to the world for it. You are at risk because they want to find him and shut him down before he does that. They think you can lead them to him. I am afraid you need to get back to camp and will have to stay there until it is safe for you.”
Brad asks, “how did they know he was here?”
“My best guess is that someone who has a site here or somebody that monitors your security cameras alerted them.”
Jack asks the sergeant, “we were in the process of installing EMP shields on our exposed electronics. Can I report after I finish that?”
“I think that would be okay. Dismissed.”
Brad and Jack walk back to the sea can and put their weapons away. They both keep a handgun, just in case.
Back to work, Jack finishes the wire mesh cage over the solar panels. “How do you know this works,” asks Brad.
My dad did experiments with smaller solar panels at our place in Canada. He built his own EMP machine that could wipe electronics in a 10-foot radius and he said he could make one that could do it even further if he had the equipment. Chicken mesh 5 inches from the panels worked the best for good sun penetration but 0 EMP penetration. You will have power, even if the Russians drop the bomb on us.
Brad and Jack clean up the area and put everything away. They eat some dinner and lock up. As they pass, Brad slaps his old truck, “glad to have you back Marcus.” They unplug the electric car and get in. Brad turns on the radio and tunes it to his favorite country station and they drive out the front gate. “I am going to drop you at your camp, it is going to be late. Do you think they will put me up for the night?”
“They would, Captain. You going to tell me how that happened?”
“I am not actually a captain. I am a special agent with the National Security Service, David must have told them that so they would place more importance on getting me out alive as well.”
“Were you on the team that rescued Jessica from the UN Headquarters?”
“I was. Flying off the roof was pretty cool. We had to leave behind some scientists and the assholes killed them all and blamed us for it. David got video of it all and released the whole op video last week to the news. Public is getting pretty sick of these clowns, won’t be long before they are kicked out of the US.”
“Where are you going tomorrow, back to work or back to the agency?”
“I have a big job coming up. We will be securing the assets of the largest wholesale food and consumer goods company in the state. 2 warehouses in 2 different cities. When the announce tomorrow, looters and others will be beating the door down as soon as their security pulls out. I have to have my teams in place before 4.”
Elsewhere, David is at his consul and he has just downloaded the video of the entire event. Immediately he starts putting together his news real and it will only be moments before he uploads the entire video to every mainstream and outlaw news outlet on the north America and as many as he can access throughout the world. With luck, it will 20 minutes before they are aware of the feed and an hour before they are able to modify their algorithm to block any further spread of the video on the nets. By then, so many people will have seen it and it is only a matter of time before the main stream media finally starts reporting on the UN abuses.
David pushes enter and the file uploads to the internet. Once done he picks up his secure phone and someone on the other end of his direct line answers. “Hello, pleas identify yourself.”
“DS359F27”
“Identity confirmed. Go on”
“You have 10 detainees coming in from the Brad Richards interaction. I would like a chance to question them and get video.”
“That would be acceptable. Do you think you can safely travel here?”
“I can. Let me know when and where. I will be there.”
“Will you be posting the interrogation?
“I will if we get anything from them. We need to do a proper interrogation. It will look better for us if we follow the Geneva Convention and those who claim to support it don’t. Can we keep them separate so they don’t collude before I get a chance to talk to them?”
“We already did that. They are being treated well and a couple of the American members want to talk already. The European soldiers and the two British agents are demanding immediate release and refuse to cooperate in any way.”
“Do we know who the leader is. She is the same woman who was involved in the kidnapping of Jessica several years back.”
“Nothing yet.”
“Ok. Let me know then.” David hangs up.
The next thing David has on his agenda is to find out who alerted the UN security force to Jacks presence at Brads camp. There is always a trail when technology is involved and he intends to follow it.
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Post by 9idrr on Jun 26, 2018 22:09:56 GMT -6
Always glad to see more of this one.
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Post by texican on Jun 27, 2018 21:33:55 GMT -6
FT,
Thanks for the chapter....
Now,
Brad and Jack walk back to the sea can and put their weapons away. They both keep a handgun, just in case.
Handguns when you have long guns....
Way to trusting....
Jack and Brad need to tighten up weapons while they can....
Better to carry and not need than to need and not have....
Especially in enemy territory....
Texican....
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Post by forthteller on Jun 27, 2018 23:21:44 GMT -6
FT, Thanks for the chapter.... Now, Brad and Jack walk back to the sea can and put their weapons away. They both keep a handgun, just in case.Handguns when you have long guns.... Way to trusting.... Jack and Brad need to tighten up weapons while they can.... Better to carry and not need than to need and not have.... Especially in enemy territory.... Texican.... Thanks for reading Back in 2020 President Connolly passed several pieces of legislation. Bill HR 2974 All automatic and semi automatic weapons are now illegal to purchase or possess. An amnesty will exist until December 31, 2020 after which, use and possession is a felony, punishable by 2 to 10 years in a federal institution. Chapter 20, the end is here. Brad is allowed to carry because was deputized as a law enforcement person by the corrupt government but he has to hide his automatic weapons and he did turn in a few just to make them happy. Jack took a hunting rifle because he did not know Brad has a hidden compartment in the gun case. He still dispatched the two UN kidnappers with it. |
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