Castle Bravo Read online

  CASTLE BRAVO

  Also By Karna Small Bodman

  Checkmate

  Gambit

  Final Finesse

  And Coming Soon …

  Trust But Verify

  CASTLE BRAVO

  BY

  KARNA SMALL BODMAN

  Copyright © 2012 by Karna Small Bodman

  This edition published by Regnery Publishing in 2018. Originally published in hardcover by Karna Small Bodman in 2012.

  Sample chapter from Trust But Verify copyright © 2018 by Karna Small Bodman.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

  Regnery Fiction™ is a trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation Regnery® is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

  Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress

  ISBN 978-1-62157-783-6

  e-book ISBN 978-1-62157-853-6

  Published in the United States by

  Regnery Fiction

  An Imprint of Regnery Publishing

  A Division of Salem Media Group

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  Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHARACTERS

  CHAPTER ONE: THE WHITE HOUSE—PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER TWO: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER THREE: RONGELAP, THE MARSHALL ISLANDS– EARLY FEBRUARY, 1954

  CHAPTER FOUR: UCLA CAMPUS, LOS ANGELES—PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER FIVE: WASHINGTON, D.C.

  CHAPTER SIX: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

  CHAPTER SEVEN: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER EIGHT: ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER NINE: ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  CHAPTER TEN: UCLA CAMPUS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER TWELVE: WASHINGTON, D.C.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: WASHINGTON, D.C.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: FRANKFURT, GERMANY

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: WASHINGTON, D.C.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: SOUTH OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: SOUTH OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: SOUTH OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: WASHINGTON, DC

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: SOUTHWESTERN KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: GEORGETOWN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: NAPLES, FLORIDA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE ARAL SEA, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY: HOUSTON, TEXAS

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: GEORGETOWN

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: EAST OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FIFTY: EAST OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE: THE PACIFIC

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX: CALIFORNIA COAST

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT: THE PACIFIC

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER SIXTY: LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE: THE WHITE HOUSE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO: GEORGETOWN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Welcome to the new revised story of Castle Bravo featuring a very real, very current threat to the national security of our country—one that could send shock waves to destroy our communications, transportation, sanitation and so much more.

  The inspiration for this thriller came from an enlightening and frightening conversation I had with the director of our Missile Defense Agency. He emphasized that President Reagan’s dream of a “security shield” in the form of an expanded missile defense system here and abroad would be one of the needed protections against the threat posed in this novel.

  In terms of gathering research, I am indebted to Ambassador Beth Jones, books written about the Nuclear Disarmament Agreements forged by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar and articles in The Wall Street Journal. I also found diaries of survivors of nuclear testing carried out many decades ago.

  I also want to thank Regnery Publishing for re-issuing this updated series. We all hope you enjoy these stories of international challenges and political intrigue: Checkmate, Gambit, Final Finesse, Castle Bravo as well as my new thriller Trust but Verify.

  CASTLE BRAVO—The actual code name for a Top Secret US Government project.

  CHARACTERS

  THE PRINCIPALS

  Tripp Adams, Vice President, GeoGlobal Oil & Gas

  Pete Kalani, UCLA Student

  Samantha Reid, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security

  Dr. Cameron Talbot, Missile Defense Expert

  WHITE HOUSE STAFF

  Michael Benson, Chief of Staff

  Ken Cosgrove, National Security Advisor

  Hunt Daniels, Special Assistant to the President for Nuclear and Proliferation Issues

  Max Federman, Assistant to the President for Political Affairs

  Jayson Keller, Vice President of the United States

  Angela Marconi, Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison

  Jim Shilling, Deputy Director, White House Office of Homeland Security

  Joan Tillman, Administrative Assistant to Samantha Reid

  FOREIGN NATIONALS

  Sergei Baltiev, Opposition Leader in Kazakhstan

  Nurlan Remizov, Exchange Student

  Zhanar Remizov, Nurlan’s Sister

  Viktor Surleimenov, President of Kazakhstan

  OTHERS

  William Ignatius, Secretary of Defense

  Godfrey Nims, Lobbyist for GeoGlobal Oil & Gas

  Jake Reid, Father of Samantha Reid

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WHITE HOUSE—PRESENT DAY


  Could it happen here? Samantha Reid leaned over and studied the new classified report. It had been sitting on her desk in a special envelope when she arrived in the West Wing at 6:30 a.m.

  The sun was just rising, creating wisps of light orange reflections on the Potomac River when she had pulled out of the garage below her Georgetown condo and headed toward the White House. She had been in a somber mood that morning as she mulled over the recent threats her Office of Homeland Security was investigating.

  She had only been in the top job a few weeks and already it seemed that the tips, rumors and intel traffic were pouring in like some restless diluvial tide. There were concerns raised by the CDC about a biological attack using a new strain of virus. The Transportation Department had issued an alert about security on the Acela, the popular train that ran from Washington, D.C. to New York and then on to Boston. There were stories of bombs set to go off in the Lincoln Tunnel, threats of poisons in the food supply, and one particularly vocal group had distributed instructions all over the internet describing how easy it would be to blow up trains transporting hazardous chemicals.

  Bad as they all were, each one was fairly localized. They could kill a lot of innocent people and do terrible damage to a certain section of the country, but this … this could be catastrophic. This new report eclipsed all the other memos in her inbox. She stared at the last paragraph. “This could change life as we know it and set us back to the year 1910.”

  Samantha pushed a long strand of dark brown hair out of her eyes, shoved the report back inside the envelope, tossed it into her safe and slammed it shut.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “Do you know where your money is?”

  The six deputy directors of the White House Office of Homeland Security stared at their boss. Samantha often asked thought-provoking questions at their morning staff meetings, but what was she getting at this time?

  “Do you mean what bank it’s in?” the head of the Borders and Transportation section asked.

  “Is it really in a bank?” Samantha pressed.

  “Well, sure it is. I get statements.”

  Samantha looked around the small conference table in her second floor West Wing office. “Anyone else know where his money is? Today? Any day?”

  “Sorry. I don’t get it,” her deputy, Jim Shilling said. “I wonder who’s on her grassy knoll this time?” he murmured to the staffer next to him. Then glancing at his watch, he said to Samantha, “I thought we were going to review the latest on our Chemical and Biological Readiness Program this morning and talk about that CDC warning.”

  “I know that’s your directorate, and we’ll get to that in a minute,” Samantha answered. “But first, I’d like to know if any of you has a clue what you’d do if you actually did not know where your money was? You didn’t know, so you couldn’t get it. Not for food, not for medical care. Not for anything.”

  Her question was met with a half dozen blank stares. She glanced down at a sheaf of notes she had in front of her marked Top Secret and continued. “Let’s say there was a massive power failure of some sort, and all the computers went down at once. None of the banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds, nobody had any record of their deposits, their assets, their payment schedules, their debts. Then what?”

  “Then they wait until the power comes back on,” Jim said. “Besides, all the banks have back-up systems. We have power failures all the time after hurricanes, earthquakes, whatever. So what’s the big deal?”

  “Back-up systems? Some New York banks have back-up systems in Jersey City. Too close,” Samantha said with a wave of her hand. “No. What I’m asking you to consider is a situation where all of the computers, the stock market, the ATM’s, the railroads, the cars, the hospitals with all of our new electronic medical records, the telephone system, the electricity grid, refrigeration, water treatment, in fact everything using electronics, all of it is fried and won’t work anymore. Not for a long while, maybe months, maybe as much as a year, until all the systems are repaired or replaced. No water, no food. Millions of Americans would die!”

  “Hey, Samantha, you’re talking about an EMP attack, right? That’s never happened.” one staffer stated.

  “Yes, I’m talking about an electro-magnetic pulse,” she said in a serious tone. “And that North Korean dictator did once issue an EMP threat, but that was a while back, and nobody paid enough attention. Now, finally, we have a few people who are paying attention. And that’s something we should focus on as well.”

  “Okay, but look,” Jim countered, “If he, or anybody else, tried to stage an attack like that somewhere in our country, we’d flatten Pyongyang.”

  “Wait,” her deputy for Energy and Nuclear Issues interrupted. “I know you’re talking about what happens when even a small nuke is detonated way up in the atmosphere. It sends out those magnetic waves, like massive micro-waves. We all know our military has developed some weapons using the same concept, just not with nuclear materials. But we don’t have any intel that says other countries are developing them too, do we?”

  “She’s right about the Pentagon having some of those new E-weapons,” Jim volunteered. “They’ve had them for years. In fact, remember back at the beginning of the Iraq war, we knocked out an entire TV center in Baghdad with a single small E-bomb. Well that’s what they called it then. The Air Force dropped it to screw up their communications. But then we backed off.” He stared at Samantha and pressed on. “So, why are you bringing it up now when we’ve got so many other things to deal with? And besides, it’s never been used except for that one time. At least not any other time that I can remember.”

  “Actually, it did happen a long time ago,” she replied.

  “When?” A chorus of voices intoned all at once.

  “Okay, I know it was before any of us were born,” Samantha said. “But I’m sure you all know about, or have read about, the series of nuclear tests our government conducted back in the 40’s and 50’s.”

  “Sure. Weren’t they out in the Pacific somewhere?” the head of the executive secretariat asked.

  “Yeah, the Marshall Islands,” Jim said. “We weren’t the only ones, though. The Russians, well the Soviets, they tested weapons too in Central Asia. And a bunch of people were exposed to radiation, right?”

  “Yes, they were,” Samantha said. “But as I think back on it, we were trying to prove we had such powerful weapons, no one would ever attack us again.”

  “Sort of, ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’,” Jim said with a sly grin.

  Samantha raised one eyebrow and replied, “Something like that. But my point is that we set off those bombs, out in places like Enewetok, Johnston Island, Bikini Atoll where some of the effects actually rained down on another island, and one of the results was that over two thousand miles away in Hawaii the streets lights dimmed, electrical systems were screwed up, circuit breakers were tripped, and there was permanent damage done to a telecommunications relay facility. And that was over half a century ago when we weren’t relying on computers and networks like we are today.”

  “So why bring it up now? I haven’t heard about any new EMP threats out there.” Jim said.

  “Well, I just did. There are threats. They just haven’t been carried out yet.” She glanced down at the papers in front of her. “This morning I got a classified memo from a contact at DOD about how, in addition to North Korea, Iran has been working on EMP weapons, and China is refining the technology as well. As for Iran, remember that high altitude Shahab III missile they tested a while back?” Her comment was met with silent nods. “And we’ve seen them practice the launch of a mobile ballistic missile from a ship in the Caspian Sea. What this means is that they could launch a small nuclear device high enough into space to trigger an EMP off one of our coasts if they wanted to. And I don’t even want to think about some terrorist group getting their hands on one.”

  “So, bottom line, what are you suggesting?” Jim a
sked.

  Samantha turned to face him. “What I’m saying is that since I read the latest intel, I’ve done more digging, and I believe this is a threat worth pursuing. Big time. We had a Commission that looked into these issues. It was appointed years ago, but nobody paid any attention to their reports either. They testified before the House Armed Services Committee and made a whole host of recommendations on ways to protect ourselves. But then that commission was disbanded. Congress didn’t want to appropriate any money to protect the grid or anything else, except some military installations and Air Force One.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Jim asked. “You know we’ve got a ton of other stuff on our plate right now. I mean, that WMD panel is telling everyone to focus on biological threats.”

  “And the DOT is about to put out new rules on train safety,” another staffer added. “We’re still trying to infiltrate that group that keeps threatening to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel. Well, the FBI is, I mean.”

  Samantha nodded as she assessed the anxious looks of her staff. “Look, I know we’ve got a ton of issues right now. Things we have to coordinate with the agencies. But our job isn’t just to react to threats, but to anticipate them. And this EMP thing is really bugging me. What we need to do is rattle some cages. I’m going to bring this up on our inter-agency conference call this morning and ask for a threat assessment.”

  “Sounds like a full-employment act for our Missile Defense Agency,” Jim remarked.

  “They could be part of it,” Samantha said. “The trouble is, the difference between us and the bad guys is that while they make plans, we just keep having meetings and appointing commissions. And that’s not good enough. We’ve got to get this kind of threat on the president’s radar screen before some group or some country decides it’s time to set off a blast that could send this country back to the last century!”

  CHAPTER THREE