Starfish Prime (Blackfox Chronicles Book 2) (13 page)

“Ever heard of morning wood?” She looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face.

“
Que?”

“Morning wood,” Char repeated. 

“What are you talking about? You must have been dreaming,” she offered. 

“Yeah, dreaming about you sweetheart,” he said while taking her hand and placing it on his engorged manhood. 

“Oh,” she said, suddenly understanding. “Muy grande.”

“Well, you know what they say about morning wood: It’s the Chuck Norris of hard-ons; when Chuck shows up, you know someone is going down!” The woman sighed and slowly lowered her head beneath the covers. 

After another spirited session, Rosita retreated to the bathroom while Char got dressed. On the top of the dresser was the pair of handcuffs that he had recently worn. He smiled and slipped them into his back pocket. He slowly descended the wide wooden staircase and found the four women sitting in the living room, watching an old Mexican movie and drinking wine.

“Is everything OK?” said Char 

“Yes, we are just waiting for Rosita and Gabriella,” one of the women answered. 

“And the two men?”
 

“They sleeping,” another answered in English, causing all of the women to giggle. 

Char returned upstairs, approached the other bedroom, listened at the door for a moment and heard nothing. He tentatively pushed open the door, looked in and saw one large lump in the center of the bed. He approached Davis and heard him softly breathing. Satisfied, he withdrew the handcuffs from his pocket and handcuffed him to the bed. He found Beavers in a similar state in the third bedroom and after locating his handcuffs, repeated the process. 

Char paid Gabriella, the tall redhead, one thousand for the girls and a large gold Double Eagle to be paid to Laura for se
rvices rendered. He took an unopened bottle of wine, left the keys and his bobby pin on the top of the bar, and closed the door behind him. He checked his watch; it was five seventeen in the morning. He would have to leave before sunup, but he wasn’t worried as the channel was well marked and the GPS would guide the boat. With any luck, Char would be back in Colombian waters in two days.

Carabobo Launch Complex  

Stal had hunted down a man broken beneath the yoke of an intolerant Chinese society. Chen had once been a senior nuclear physicist from the China University of Science & Technology, until the allegation of a gay sexual liaison with a subordinate doomed his career. 

He was summarily fired in disgrace from his position and blackballed within academia, forcing him to work as a student tutor. The penumbra of guilt that settled over his marriage after the allegation surfaced poisoned his relationship with his wife, but their rapidly diminishing financial fortune was the proverbial last straw that caused her to leave. Chen contemplated suicide daily, but hung on hoping that something would change. 

Nearly three months ago, Stal appeared on the man’s doorstep at a small apartment he rented in the south of Beijing after being forced out of his seven room townhouse in the fashionable West End. He was ushered into a small dayroom and shown to a threadbare sofa. They found that the only language they shared was English and Stal quickly got down to the matter at hand. 

“What do you know about the term Starfish Prime,” asked

Stal. 

“Quite a lot, said Chen. Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States in the early sixties. The thermonuclear warhead was built to specifically generate an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The weapon was set to explode 250 miles above a point that was about
thirty miles southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the Americans in outer space. It produced a yield equivalent to 1.4 megatons of TNT. The Starfish EMP project led to a revolution in understanding the effect of electromagnetic pulse.” 

Stal looked at the man and smiled. “Can you replicate the e
ffect?” 

“I don’t think so, not without a nuclear warhead.” said Chen

“And if given access to an actual warhead?” said Stal with a smile. 

“Then, probably yes, but the conversion would be dangerous,” cautioned Chen.

“How so?” asked the Russian. 

“The warhead’s shielding would have to be lightened to ma
ximize the effect of the gamma rays the nuclear device would generate in detonation.”

“Yes, of course,” replied Stal. 

In Chen’s opinion, the man seemed blissfully removed from such details. Stal dismissed the concern and went on to speak emphatically about the project, offering Dr. Chen the technical lead of a team that he could recruit with full autonomy.  He offered money that would allow Chen to woo back his wife and live anywhere he wished. 

Over the course of the last several months, Chen had asse
mbled a team drawn from mostly former colleagues that had either retired or been involved in different scandals with similar outcomes. 

The missile and warhead had recently arrived in five large crates and they immediately got to work reassembling it. The real work was preparing the warhead to maximize the generation of an electromagnetic pulse. To do this, the underside bomb casing would be thinned from its current thickness of two inches to a yet to be determined level. Given the austere conditions, no truly modern industrial scale solutions were available. The only viable resolution was to employ multiple angle grinders with cutting wheels to grind off the excess steel. It was slow, tedious and da
ngerous work, but required to maximize the electromagnetic pulse effect.

If a large enough
warhead was detonated at the right distance and location, every single electrical device within range would be destroyed. In short, the target audience would be thrown back, if not to the Stone Age, to the late nineteenth century at the very least. 

Stal hadn’t seen Chen since hiring him but knew that he had been busy assembling his team and relocating to Amazonia. The site was austere, but the Chinese are a hardy lot, Stal ensured
there would be sufficient creature comforts to keep them content while the bigger plan unfolded.

Stal had arrived that day and demanded an immediate pr
ogress report and visual inspection of the facilities. Overall, Chen was pleased with the progress his workers had made in preparing the installation and the missile. Yet the Colonel’s highly critical demeanor was about to become well known to the senior team members. He had given them fifteen minutes of warning that he intended to view the site, figuring that the sooner the Chinese scientists got used to his autocratic style, the better they would get along. 

He was given a cursory tour of the facilities including the control room, the launch pad, and the warehouse being used to assemble the missile. They returned from the inspection covered with dust and sweat. Chen ushered the man into a stuffy
glass sided conference room that had been hastily cleaned to accommodate his arrival. 

Without direction, Stal took a seat at the head of the table and allowed a female hostess to pour him a tall glass of ice water b
efore he summarily dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He left Chen standing and without refreshment. 

“I’ve read all your progress reports, Doctor Chen, said Stal. Just tell me how close you are to having the weapon ready for launch on April 1st.” 

“Well, we are not sure that we can meet the required goals for the weapon. We have lightened the casing somewhat, however there have been problems with radiation poisoning involved with this,” replied Doctor Chen in heavily accented English. 

Stal smacked the table with his hand causing the drink to fall over and spill its contents.

“So? Use the local laborers if you have to―just get the warhead properly prepared on time.” 

Chen nodded slowly. “We have done so and three workers were badly burned. How do we explain workers dying of radi
ation sickness to whatever authorities exist in this area of the country?” 

“Leave that to me,” Stal replied arrogantly. 

“What do we do when more workers start showing signs of radiation sickness?”

“Fire them or kill them, I don’t care which.” Stal enjoyed shocking the man. 

“On second thought, call Van Achtenberg and he will take care of the workers―we can’t have any more burn victims showing up at the local clinic now, can we?” Chen said nothing as there was nothing to say. Stal stood up and strode from the room. Apparently, the meeting was over.

Chen sat down at the long wooden conference table. It was stained with water damage, and although it was less than five years old, already looked like a neglected antique. Someone’s idea of what might have been, thought Chen. He lit the last of his Davidoff Gold cigarettes. He supposed he would have to start smoking the Marlboros smuggled from Colombia. They were readily available in the small store that had materialized at the end of the compound a week after they had started clearing it.

Another miracle of capitalism, he thought ruefully.  

Chen blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling and grew pensive. As was often the case with fascists, whether they were from the right or the left of the political spectrum, the end always justifies the means. There were numerous petty examples of this scattered throughout his past life―the farmer who sold wood alcohol to his neighbors labeled as whiskey, the gang that sold rat meat passed off as lamb, and the company that knowingly sold tainted baby formula. All were but petty betrayals for commercial gain. The question remained―would desperation
make him do the same thing? Not just to the poor Venezuelan workers, but also the intended target of Stal’s nefarious scheme? It would seem that he had entered into truly uncharted ethical territory. 

Chen walked to the window and watched a group of local l
aborers busily engaged in laying new conduit to house fiber-optic cabling that would connect the network of telemetry computers. The original fiber cabling and conduit had been looted soon after the installation was completed. Several Chinese telecom specialists hovered about the workers; presumably haranguing them in broken Spanish while they labored in the tropic heat to bury the new pipe. 

***

Stal had asked his security chief to set up a meeting with the local National Guard commander, given the need for a heightened security posture. 

“The National Guard major won’t be able to meet with you until tomorrow, as he has been summoned to Caracas to attend a meeting,” said Peter Van Achtenberg as the colonel seated hi
mself in the Range Rover. 

“Then show me the security plan for the compound,” ordered

Stal. 

Van Achtenberg nodded and accelerated the vehicle to the launch pad along a narrow access road that had been newly laid with gravel.

“We don’t have enough men to have a complete perimeter defense, explained the Afrikaner, but we use the gantry as a watchtower manned by a machine gun team with a Vektor SS-77 and night vision equipment. It’s manned twenty four hours a day,” he said, pointing to the gantry.  Stal nodded, but said nothing.  This made Van Achtenberg nervous. He pointed to the fence line. 

“This twelve foot, barbwire-topped chain link fence used to completely surround the compound, but much of it has been stripped by looters. We have covered some of these open areas with defended strong points, and in others we strung cameras connected to the fiber optic LAN and emplaced
command detonated mines, all monitored by the Security Command

Center.”
 

“Take me there,” the colonel ordered. The Afrikaner nodded, wheeled the vehicle around, and returned to the compound. In roughly the center stood a one-story, unpainted cinderblock building with a flat roof festooned with antennas of varying height. They entered the control room and interrupted three Ch
inese technicians. All stopped what they were doing and turned towards the pair. A guard dressed in old South African camouflage utilities stood up from behind a control panel and saluted. 

“Hello, Peter.”

“Hello, Gunther. This is Colonel Stal, the boss.” The guard saluted and Stal nodded his head slightly.

“Give him a rundown of the perimeter defenses.”

“This is the main control panel. We have night vision cameras at twelve strategic locations around the perimeter as indicated by the black dots on the map,” said the man, indicting a computer display on a flat screen in front of him. 

“Sensors have been installed on the existing fence line, and we have a crew of locals reinstalling missing perimeter defense with concertina and command detonated mines, which will be controlled from here.”

“And air defense?” asked the Colonel. 

“That’s the best part, interjected Van Achtenberg with a sly smile. The Chavez regime has ordered the deployment of an S300VM missile system to protect this compound. It will provide active defense against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, fixed-wing aircraft, as well as precision-guided munitions. With this in place, we will be untouchable!”  “Fool, no one is untouchable! Those that think they are will quickly b
ecome extinct,” replied Stal.

The remarks stung and the security chief was doubly emba
rrassed because it had happened in front of a subordinate. Stal examined the remaining space and engaged the Chinese in a similar interrogation about the flight telemetry equipment that would occupy the rest of the room. After ten minutes, he seemed satisfied and indicated to Van Achtenberg that he was ready to leave. 

The security chief expertly wheeled the vehicle down the ru
tted jungle road towards the 1920s-vintage, tropical style tin roofed house that the colonel would be occupying. 

“Your luggage has been placed inside and the house has been supplied with food and drink. You should be very comfortable.”   “Good, I think I will take this opportunity to get acquainted with the girl you told me about. What is her name?”

“Gloria,” replied the Afrikaner. 

“She is locked in your bedroom. One of my guys spotted her when they took some workers in for treatment of their burns, and
she was waiting on her father to finish work. She was dressed in a cute schoolgirl outfit, and we thought you would like her.”

“Gloria, what a lovely name!” said Stal like a starving man
anticipating a particularly delicious meal.