White Hot Skies, Sruvival and Redemption

Pedro Hermosa Gonzales is approaching the border crossing; although he has made the crossing hundreds of times he is always apprehensive. He has never been stopped, or searched in detail, so he feels a little silly. His English is impeccable, with a proper Spanish accent, which on the surface, is normal for someone whose living is making deliveries north of the border. His documentation is airtight. His semi is clean and well kept, the refrigeration trailer clean and shiny, scrubbed down before each trip north, to ensure there is no hint of contraband present. Pedro wants no problems making his deliveries. His story for the defunct refrigeration trailer is simple; he got it cheap, allowing him to own it outright. His documentation is flawless; it says he was born far to the south, not far from Tapachula near the border with Guatemala. His parents are listed as deceased with no other living family members. The truth is much different; he has never been further south than Mexico City, yet his background cover, has never been challenged.

In truth, his name is not Pedro, as his documentation was bought from the best of sources money can bribe, he was not born in Mexico, or even in the Western Hemisphere, and neither English nor Spanish are his native language.

Pedro’s refrigeration rig is thirty inches shorter inside than out, and the massive non-working refrigeration unit hollowed out, making a concealed compartment ten feet wide, and lined with lead. The lead doesn’t add enough weight to make a difference at the scales, but it is enough to keep the cargo from registering should one of the Inspectors on the American side of the border decide to check. No one ever did. The cargo manifest always matching the weight the scales indicate he is hauling, a fact, if checked, would be verified at the home office in Mexico City. The Shipping Clerk is careful to make sure everything matches, and like Pedro, so too, his documentation is flawless.

For more than a year, he has been delivering black market high yield nuclear devices to contacts in the United States. Where his contacts take them, he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t ask.

Pedro settles down by the time he reaches the border. He knows most of the US Border Patrol Agents working the station. He wonders why they do not rotate more often; believing familiarity is a security risk.

Buenos Dias Tim, how is your family? Pedro knows Tim likes to talk, and as long as all the documentation is correct, Tim is friendly.

Fine. Still wishing we get re-assigned to an area with more trees and rain.

Tim hates the desert country. It is either too hot or too cold. He half jokes that on just two days each year, is the temperature comfortable, and then even on those two days it lasts just twenty minutes.

Pedro, when are you going to fix the refrigeration unit, and start hauling produce?

Pedro laughs and gives Tim the pat answer. When I can afford it amigo.

Tim glances at the manifest and waves Pedro on through; Tim trusts Pedro, something Pedro has worked hard to make happen.

Pedro heads north on US 35 for San Antonio before heading west on I-10. The traffic is light, and holding to the speed limit, he makes good time to the drop point. His time is so good, he calls ahead to make sure they will arrive a short time after he does, fearing if everyone arrived together, it will draw attention. The meeting place is just off I-10 several miles northwest of Comfort, on an access road to a stone quarry. Pedro times his arrival for dusk. The nukes are transferred to a tow truck there under the pretense of working on a break problem. The use of the access road keeps the State Troopers from stopping and asking questions, or helping with traffic safety. The crew opens the bottom of the trailer, lowers the four nukes onto a cart, which is winched into floor of the huge tow truck. The entire operation takes less than half an hour.

Pedro makes his parts delivery in Albuquerque, New Mexico on time the next morning, and heads back the way he came, to do it all again the next week, but toward Dallas.

To date Pedro has delivered thirty-two warheads in this manner. Pedro is not high enough up in his country’s Secret Police Service, to know the full plan. What he does know, is he is one of many who have been working on a great project of Allah since the hostages were released. The fall of the former Soviet Union made things easier, his country’s oil money, and the Russian black market made a deal, the details of which Pedro was not privileged too.

Pedro does know something of nukes from the intense training he was subject to in taking this mission; of the thirty-two nukes he has smuggled into the United States, five have a rated yield of twenty megatons, twelve are rated at five megatons and fifteen of them at 750 kilotons. How many others are smuggling in warheads, Pedro doesn’t know. He does know the Great Satan is going to pay for all the evils of the West, and its perverse religion of the Satanic Christianity. This thought makes Pedro happy, and comforts him for the years away from home and family. He hopes this mission will end soon, so he may return home and retire a hero. However, his job is not done yet.

While Pedro is one of many to bring in the nukes to the US, he is now needed to help move them again to the target areas under a new, and just as air tight identity as his last.

***

Some recruits are who they say they are.

Jay Pittman, was born and raised in the United States, in college, he converts to Islam. He contemplated changing his name to one of Islam, but his Cleric, Mohamed Hussein Shabazzi, counsels him against doing so, citing further alienation by his family. Jay expressed a desire to his Cleric, to lead his siblings to Islam at some time in the future. His Cleric, knowing of his desire, advises Jay to keep his Infidel name until he succeeds in bringing his siblings into the arms of Allah.

Cleric Shabazzi can see the depth of hate Jay has for the land of his birth, and cultivates it to further the cause of Jihad. Knowing if he allows Jay to take an Islamic name, it will limit his use of Jay to do the work of Allah later.

***

Hondo traffic, Cessna November 19239 Delta Julie, six miles northeast, two thousand, descending to seventeen hundred, full stop, request traffic.

November six Delta Julie, Hondo traffic, no reported traffic, winds Two Niner Zero at sixteen, land runway three one, advise pattern entry

Roger, Two Niner Zero at sixteen, advise pattern entry three one.

Several minutes later, Jay is on the ground, taxing his Cessna Grand Caravan to the parking ramp, where his reception committee is waiting for him.

Jay has never met the two individual standing next to the small box truck waiting for him at the edge of ramp parking area, yet he knows who they are, as he had been required to memorize a photo of each individual. He learned early in his indoctrination into Jihad, personal identification, is more secure than code words, signs, and counter signs. He trusts his Cleric; the two men waiting for him are who he has been assured they are.

They shake hands, but say little to each other, each has a job to do getting the aircraft ready for the return flight, and do it without question. The crate they load into the aircraft is not large, just over four feet long by eighteen inches deep, and wide. It is however heavy, weighing almost 700 pounds, well under the weight the Caravan is rated to haul.

Jay checks the weather with the FSS, and files a return flight plan back to Indianapolis, he and Ahemd, his passenger, are required to be back in Indianapolis at 15:45 EDT time. Jay’s Jeppesen E6 calculator says his flight time is 5 hours and 22 minutes, meaning he has to be wheels up by 9:25 CST. He has built in a fudge factor for winds aloft, by planning to cruise under the max-sustained cruise of 184 kts. He has been admonished not to arrive early, nor to be late. With traffic holds, and taxi time once on the ground, he calculates his block time as close as he can, he doesn’t want to be chewed out for not following instructions precisely.

For once, the weather matches the forecast, though he has to slow his indicated airspeed, as the tail wind is faster than expected. His passenger is a bore, saying little on the trip back. Jay learned long ago, not to intrude, and ask questions. The less he knows, the less he can spill if something trips him up and he is noticed, and taken by the Satanist American Law Enforcement. Even the locals could make his mission harder to complete if he gives them cause to think he knows things he should not.

Jay’s flight plan calls for him to cross I-65 south of Indianapolis and turn north, east of the city, and the I–465 loop, This route gives him the preferred straight in approach.

Northeast of Shelbyville Jay calls Indianapolis Approach Control, Indy approach, Cessna November 19239 Delta Julie,

November Niner Delta Julie,

Roger, Niner Delta Julie, northeast of Shelbyville, inbound with information Kilo, full stop.

Niner Delta Julie, squawk 7121 and ident.

7121 and ident, roger

Jay does as instructed and waits.

Six Delta Julie, turn left heading Two Three Zero and start decent to final for Two Three Right.

Two Three Zero, starting decent for Two Three Right. Jay is distracted, for most of the five-hour flight; Ahmed has not said more than a dozen words. Now he is whispering prayers, which Jay can hear in his headset, and worries ATC can also hear. Ahmed’s briefcase is open, and he is sweating profusely. Jay glances at the thermometer in the cockpit and sees it is 68 degrees, nothing to sweat about.

Jay finishes setting his approach, terror building in his mind as he watches Ahmed's intent search for landmarks out the front of the aircraft. Ahmed spots Lucas Oil Stadium and Victory field off the left wing as they cross Meridian Street, and becomes less agitated, yet more intense and deliberate in his moves.

Jay, who has never questioned Islam and Jihad, is questioning everything now wonders, what the cargo is, and the ultimate goal of the flight. He glances at the time, it is 15:31, he is worried about his schedule and being precise, when his headphones are screaming in his ear, Ahmed is screaming "Allah… but Ahmed never finishes it. The plane is consumed in a blinding flash of a five-megaton blast.

Chapter 2

Larry Wade is cold. He has been pinned down in a blinding blizzard for the past six days, one, which shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. Though he is snow bound, on foot, and unable to travel, he is more worried about his wife, Anne. She is home alone; he assumes the nuke, which killed his truck, and phone, killed the power and water at home, leaving Anne with only the fireplaces to keep her warm. If the snow is as bad at the house as it is where he is trapped, she could get lost, and freeze to death going to the woodpile across the yard.

Larry is not from snow country, being born and raised where the Four Seasons are called Earthquake, Fire, Flood, and Riots. Yet, until this storm came up, he loved winter. Now however, he is worried. His dad raised him on stories of blinding snowstorms, blizzards so bad, they had to string a wire guide from barn to house to keep from getting lost and freezing to death. Had he any doubts about the veracity of the stories before, he believes them now. The snow came fast and hard, and within minutes visibility dropped from a few miles down to inches. At first, he was not too worried, this is after all, late September, and snow this time of year in Southeast Indiana is not unheard of, though this much is rare. Even in the dead of winter, he had seen this before, and expected, as in the past, for the heavy stuff to let up in less than thirty minutes. Now, six days later, Larry is starting to think he is seeing the beginning of a new Ice Age.

Larry spent time in the service if his country, and learned the basics of being prepared for war, and civil unrest. He witnessed the riots in Los Angles in the 1960s, and later in the 90s when a congressional representative, upset over a trial verdict, instigated the King Riots. He knew first hand, just because this is the United States, there is no protection from the nut cases, and the always pissed off. Further proof was given at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and on 9/11, in New York City, and Washington DC.

In all their preparedness for just about anything, and everything, this was not something they ever saw coming, and between sleeping, and checking the snow fall, Larry is kicking himself for not planning for the storm.

Larry planned for things to get bad, but never believed he would see it happen to him and his family. It all changed a week ago on his way home from work. Now he lies in a sleeping bag going over in his head the things he should have done, and it is not helping. He can’t go back and buy this or that item. He can’t place a stash here and there. He can’t buy the bigger BOB, Bug Out Bag, he finds he now needs.

He is stuck in a blizzard, with little in food, and no weapons. He was sure he could get home; even walking in less than three days as he lives forty-eight miles as the crow flies from his work, or to be more accurate, where he worked. He is sure, even if the blast did not take the building down, it is damaged to the point where it is no longer safe. He never counted on a weeklong blizzard. Unarmed, because he abided by the Federal Regulations of where he worked, he can’t defend himself from man or beast. He has a carry permit, but works for the Federal government, who threatened legal action if a random search found the lock box welded into his vehicle held his handgun. Now his playing by the rules might kill him.

Larry wishes he knew what time it is, the EMP also killed his watch. He judges yet another hour has passed, and it is time to dig his way out, and see what the weather is doing. The sound of the wind has long been muffled out by an ever increasing layer of snow piling onto his make shift Four Season Shelter. He had strung a rope between two trees, and draped, and staked two tarps to make a windbreak slash snow fence for his Passage 1 Tent. He even managed a spot outside the rainfly to set up his stove; a simple one made with a soda can fueled by Heet. He did not have much which needed cooking. Unfolding his shovel, he once again digs through almost seven feet of snow to the surface to see what the weather is doing. Night has come, and he lets his eyes adjust to total darkness. After a few minutes, he is heartened to see the full moon’s blurry disk through thinning clouds, with the snow falling now in light fits, instead feeling he is in the center of a Ping-Pong ball. Larry notices it seems to be warmer, and the snow falling now, is big puffy flakes, melting after landing on his jacket.

Larry decides he will sit outside his shelter and take in the ever-clearing view. Bing stuck in a blizzard in a one-person tent for six long days has taken its toll. He wished many times he had packed a book or two in his BOB. Within an hour the sky is clear, clearer than Larry has ever seen it; clearer than the night he spent years ago camped at over 12,000 feet. Orion is bright, and the Seven Sisters can be counted with the naked eye. The Sisters are straight overhead, which tells Larry, sunrise in not far off.

The snow is deep, and walking is going to take all he has. He now wishes it would turn bitter cold again, and form a hard crust he can walk on without sinking to his waist. No matter, he is determined to get back home, and starts planning his actions and route. He is sure he is not more than fifteen miles from home. Nevertheless, he is also sure the direct route is not possible. He doesn’t want to walk through downtown Hope. He doesn’t know anyone there, and strangers may not be welcome.

As much as he wants to get started, he knows being cooped up in the shelter has left him stiff and sore. Starting out cold in these conditions is asking for an injury, so he decides to wait for the sun so he can warm up, stretch out the kinks, and more important, see what he is doing as he breaks camp.

The sun peeks up over the eastern horizon with a stinging brightness, the reflection off the snow making it worse. The sunglasses help for a while, but as the sun rises, they become less effective. He finds his gloves unusable to work the knots loose on the ropes, and uses his bare hands to take them apart. Within minutes, he is in pain, and his hands are red. It is too warm to be just from the cold. He notices his face burns too. With sudden awareness why, he grabs his gloves, and with his back to the rising sun re-ties the knots to his shelter, and dives back in. He is going to have to travel at night.

Larry is afraid this was not