Antarctic Blast Read online

giving all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. That was enough to put him over and give him the election.

  The Brothers of Ehud were determined to remove President Wilson. They went as far as to consider a nuclear strike on Washington D.C. The possibility of actually moving into or dropping a nuclear weapon on any major U.S. city was unlikely to be successful. The U.S. had many secret detectors in place, and airspace security had been incredibly improved after the 911 attack. If any plane deviated from its flight plan, it would be immediately intercepted. The Brotherhood had not infiltrated the Nation’s intelligence and security forces sufficiently to have good odds at attempting a successful assassination. Captain Lee’s revelation resurfaced, and now they had the resources to make it a reality. They had refurbished two B-1 bombers that they had taken from the stock that had been decommissioned in the Arizona desert. They could now secretly divert enough ordnance, and it would not be considered missing for up to three days. The planes could cut across Mexico to the Pacific, and then fly low circumventing radar. Two refueling operations would be needed, but with their connections in the air force, it was more than possible.

  A three foot increase in sea level would flood much of southern Florida at high tide, and it would poison ground water and disrupt sewage systems. The Florida real estate market would collapse, and soon up to fifteen million refugees would be moving inland to higher ground. This alone would overwhelm the federal government. The addition of other coastal disruptions would be icing on the cake for the Brotherhood, making the government even more unstable. The Brotherhood was now in a position to benefit from the probable chaos and would be able to launch a coup at the peak of the turmoil. It was decided; operation “Antarctic Blast” was a go.

  Lieutenant Mike Canfield hailed from the South and was a year and a half out of the Air Force Academy. He had joined the Navigators there in order to fit in. He had been raised in a fundamentalist’s home, so he could talk the talk. Shortly after graduation, he had been recruited by the F.B.I. to infiltrate possible extremist groups within the air force. They sought him out when it was discovered during the background investigation for his clearance that he thought all the religious stuff was BS, and that he had faked it at the academy in order to fit in. His ex-girlfriend let it slip when the F.B.I. interviewed her during the investigation.

  Mike needed the secret clearance to be allowed to learn about nuclear ordnance, particularly its transfer from truck to bomber and the reverse. He now oversaw the loading of B-2 bombers and could do it himself blindfolded. He had been recruited into the Brotherhood in June, but they had had their eyes on him the whole time that he was at the academy. They now trusted him, and they required his expertise.

  Mike had been given a state of the art satellite phone by his handlers at the F.B.I. It would work anywhere in the world and would automatically transmit his location. He would check-in weekly usually with nothing to report, but now he told his handlers that something was up. The Brotherhood had been immensely upset by the election of James Wilson, and he could feel that something big was about to break.

  It was mid-January, summer in Antarctica and the time when the greatest superpower on Earth made a peaceful transition of that power from one civilian leader to another. This time the Brothers of Ehud planned to disrupt this process and usher in a theocratic form of government. One where a council of elders would have absolute say, and all laws would need to be in accord with Biblical scripture.

  The B-1’s were fueled and readied; the refueling operations were a go and the ordnance was ready to be diverted. Mike was blindfolded and taken to the airfield in Arizona where the B-1’s were supposed to be mothballed. There they waited for the ordnance to arrive. Mike knew nothing about the targets or the goal of the operation. When the trucks arrived, he could see that he was there to help load thermonuclear weapons onto the bombers. He thought he was going to be sick and was able to get a very short time alone to compose himself. In that brief couple of seconds, he turned on his phone and sent a short text. He turned it off and replaced it in the secret pocket of his jacket.

  Major Jack Edington, Captain Lee and Captain Armstrong were the flight crew for the first bomber. The B-1’s usual compliment was four men, but the defensive specialist would not be needed for this mission. Weight and fuel consumption were critical mission parameters, and if they were by chance intercepted, counter measures would be of little help. After they took off, the second crew would wait twenty hours and then follow. With the first bomber in the air, the ground crew noticed that Lieutenant Canfield was nowhere to be found. At this point they had to maintain radio silence and could not contact the B-1. Mike had stowed away with the ordnance. He wasn’t sure why, because there was little that he could do to sabotage the operation. If they attained maximum altitude, he would likely die from asphyxia and hypothermia. He tried his phone; there was no signal.

  He was lucky. They flew low to avoid radar. They were detected at the Mexican border, but Major Edington kicked in the afterburners and sped out over the Pacific where they disappeared from the radar screens. Mike was grateful for the breathable air and mild temperatures until they got to the refueling coordinates. There they jumped up to twenty thousand feet to dock with the tanker. Mike almost passed out from the thin air. When they were again flying low, his mind cleared and he realized that fuel consumption was probably a critical parameter for this mission. If he could sabotage the fuel system, they might have to abort. All he had was his multi-tool and a little knowledge about bomber systems.

  He tried to remember all he knew about the B-1. He started removing the panels that he could access, and then he found it: the emergency dump valve. If you needed to ditch an aircraft over a populated area, you needed to dump the fuel tanks first, and this valve was the essential component of that system. He worked for about an hour and was able to get the valve to be stuck partially open. The result was about a twenty percent increase in fuel expenditure.

  Detective Johnson had already had a rough day at the office and was just now having time to check his messages. When he got to Mike’s message, he shouted “Shit! Oh shit!” He checked Mike’s GPS coordinates at the time that Mike had sent the message, and then dispatched a team to that location. Then he called his director, who then called the Secretary of the Defense and the President. The text said: “hapn now broknarow.” Broken Arrow is the well-known code phrase for missing nuclear weapons.

  Major Edington was beginning to notice that his fuel consumption was excessive. He did some calculations and determined that they could not complete the mission as planned. The plan was to deliver the payloads, and then head north and eject over Argentina. Now they could only succeed in hitting the majority of the targets and would have to ditch or eject in Antarctica, a suicide mission. Major Edington was not one for committing suicide, and he consulted Captain Lee on scrubbing the mission. Captain Lee agreed to abort, and then he stealthily pulled his sidearm and shot the major in the head. “This mission has been ordained by God.” He took control of the aircraft, determined that if he could not hit all the targets, he would do more damage to the ones that he could. Captain Armstrong agreed.

  Mike heard the gunshot. He assumed that there had been a disagreement about aborting the mission. He had not felt any course corrections, so he knew which side had won. They continued to fly for several hours and then climbed to thirty thousand feet, bombing altitude. Mike passed out from lack of oxygen.

  Captain Armstrong dropped the first bomb at the critical site of the Lone Pine Glacier near its grounding zone where the floating ice buttressed the ice sheet. He did the same to the Thwaites and the Wilkes. Captain Lee did not have enough fuel to strike the interior targets, so they pounded the Wilkes ice plug with all their remaining ordnance. Lee now took a course inland where he would try to set down somewhere on the Wilkes ice sheet. As they began to descend, Captain Armstrong ejected. Captain Lee successfully landed the B-1. He exited the cockpit, removed his helmet, and sta
red at the mushroom clouds in the distance. Dropping his helmet, he started to walk towards these beautiful signs from God.

  Slowly Mike regained consciousness. The air was still a little thin with the ice sheet being over two miles thick. He exited the aircraft through the landing gear and saw Captain Lee’s helmet and tracks. There was no sign of Armstrong. He tried his phone.

  “Mike is that you? Where are you?”

  “You tell me Johnson, you have the GPS.”

  “You are in Antarctica.”

  “Antarctica! We fucking nuked Antarctic?”

  “They were attempting to raise sea levels. You know Biblical flood and all that. They might have succeeded too if not for your message. We were able to stop the second sortie and capture their team.”

  “I was able to sabotage the fuel system. I don’t know what good it did, but I think Captain Lee shot Major Edington in a disagreement about aborting the mission.”

  “So Edington is dead, what about Lee?”

  “His tracks lead in the direction of the mushroom clouds, and there is no sign of Captain Armstrong. I think he ejected. So it’s just me here with the plane.”

  “Hold tight, we have your location. We will try to get a team to you ASAP, but it still might take a few days maybe longer.”

  “Hurry, I know it is summertime down here, but it is still cold as fuck.”

  Mike collected Captain Lee’s helmet and the Major’s flight suit and gloves. He settled into the fuselage of the B-1 to await his rescue.

  Professor Collins was on the team to assess the damage to the ice sheets. From what they could determine, they predicted that global sea levels would rise at three times the pre-detonation rate, roughly half an inch per year in the short term. The future of the west Antarctic ice sheets was in serious doubt. Many scientists predicted that they would no longer exist by the end of the century. The positive feedback loops involved in their destruction meant that sea level rise would accelerate in the coming decades. Increasing global temperatures and melting in Greenland would only hasten the inevitable.

  Shortly after his inauguration, President Wilson started a full scale investigation into the incident and promised to root out religious extremists from our armed forces. Then he posthumously awarded the medal of valor to Lieutenant Michael Canfield and presented the award to Mike’s father. The U.S. and the other industrial countries continued their addiction to fossil fuels as global temperatures steadily increased.

  In a small town in Montana, Mike Smith worked as a cashier at the local market. Under the witness protection program, he could not contact his family or past acquaintances. Michael Canfield was dead to all who knew him except for his contacts in the F.B.I.