Nuclear Winter First Strike by Bobby Akart (top ten books of all time .TXT) 📕

the nation’s nuclear arsenal. He would be joined by everyone within his team. The best of the best who’d gathered in Isfahan to assess North Korea’s technological advances using low-Earth orbiting satellites as a means to launch nuclear warheads.

To be sure, dropping a bomb on the facility at this hour would more than accomplish his employer’s purposes. However, bombs left breadcrumbs, trails of evidence of where they came from, easily allowing fingers of blame to be pointed. Operatives like him were ghosts, before and after death.

Agent L retreated from the weapon, slightly concerned about a malfunction or a case of mistaken identity. He scanned the perimeter and confirmed his plan to extract himself from the compound when the time came. He checked his watch. It was 5:03. The grassy area was filled with INTC personnel, men only, kneeling on their prayer blankets.

He studied his digital watch.

5:04. Sunrise.

From a satellite high above the planet, artificial intelligence pulled the trigger on the computer-controlled machine gun. The powerful 7.62-millimeter rounds poured out of the drum magazines affixed to the bottom of the weapon. The laser sights, powered by the AI, scanned the courtyard full of those in prayer, searching for movement. Any quiver or flinch or deep breath created a target for the weapon, which immediately locked on and riddled the body with bullets.

Agent L was astonished at the speed and accuracy of the killing. No human being, including a trained killer like himself, could accomplish the slaughter of over a hundred people in mere seconds. The incredible killing machine then turned its sights on the security personnel manning the perimeter.

One by one, the targets were eliminated with ease. The electronically controlled gun turret swept back and forth, alternating between the armed guards on the perimeter wall and the security personnel racing through the front entrance to lend an assist. Shouting and screams of agony filled the air as the weapon spent hundreds of rounds, killing everyone.

Agent L heard sirens in the distance. Helicopters could be heard inbound. He scooped up his rifle and ran to the rear of the utility yard, where he climbed the chain-link fence at the point where it adjoined the perimeter wall. He ran along the top of the wall until he reached the northernmost side of the compound, relieved that the building stood between him and the most destructive automatic weapon he’d ever witnessed.

As dust rose into the morning sky from the vehicles approaching the facility, Agent L paused to look toward the rising sun in the east. He was certain his employers—in Beijing—would be pleased with the results.

Part I

One Week in October

Day one, Friday, October 18

Chapter One

Friday, October 18

Driftwood Key

Florida Keys, USA

Hank Albright looked out across the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Off in the distance, storm clouds were brewing, causing the points of the waves to lance up and down. The miniature pinpricks at their crests were white against the backdrop of the bluish-green gulf. It was never ending. A perpetual motion machine of energy coming ashore, teeming with life and creatures and an entire world he’d spent his life admiring.

He’d always been drawn to the water. He had been born on Driftwood Key in the Albright family home, which had been there since the early days following the connection of the string of islands to the mainland via the Flagler Railroad. The original Conchs, as those early settlers were called at the turn of the twentieth century, were dependent on the pristine waters for survival.

Albrights, Russells, Pinders, and Parkers shared a common background. Their forefathers were American Tories who fled the Thirteen Colonies at the end of the Revolution to a new home in the Bahamas. They became fishermen and sailors. They discovered the bounty beneath the pristine Caribbean waters and made a life for themselves.

Their descendants ultimately found their way to the Florida Keys when transportation generated commerce and trade routes to a burgeoning American economy. They brought their trade and craft with them and harvested the sea of the large mollusks known as conch.

The Albrights were pioneers in their own right. In a way, the Florida Keys was somewhat of a wilderness at the time the Flagler Railroad was built. Like their counterparts who’d traveled to the west on the mainland, the new settlers built towns, established local governments, and created businesses to sustain themselves. Today, the one-hundred-twenty-five-mile-long chain of islands that begins just south of Miami and stretches to within ninety miles of Cuba is known for its sun, sand, surf, and tourism.

Hank, despite having lived his entire fifty-one years on Driftwood Key, never tired of the deep scent of saltwater, the moist tropical air, and the mild subtropical climate. Certainly, hurricanes were a factor, but Driftwood Key and the buildings that dotted its landscape had withstood the worst of what Mother Nature had to offer. Thus far, anyway.

He slid his hands into the pockets of his white linen pants. Hank didn’t have a uniform per se, but if he did, white linen pants topped with a Tommy Bahama camp shirt would be it. No shoes required. He looked and dressed the part of a retired islander with sun-kissed skin, bleach-blond hair, and a slightly weathered face courtesy of years of exposure to the sun and salty sea.

Hank, however, was not retired. He operated the Driftwood Key Inn, a property on the National Register of Historic Places, built by the Albright family in the early 1920s. The inn, which was more of a village, actually, was situated on a twenty-eight-acre island in the heart of the Middle Keys just west of Marathon.

Driftwood Key was unique in that it was not located directly on State Road A1A, a north-south Florida highway that runs along the Atlantic Ocean from Key West to Fernandina Beach at the Georgia border. Many a crooner had belted out a song about A1A, providing imagery of swaying palm trees and margaritas to music lovers.

The Albright property was an