Texas Strong: Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Fiction (The Lone Star Series Book 4) Read online

  Thank you for downloading TEXAS STRONG, book four of The Lone Star Series, by Author Bobby Akart.

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  Other Works by Bestselling Author Bobby Akart

  The Lone Star Series

  Axis of Evil

  Beyond Borders

  Lines in the Sand

  Texas Strong

  Fifth Column

  Suicide Six

  The Pandemic Series

  Beginnings

  The Innocents

  Level 6

  Quietus

  The Blackout Series

  36 Hours

  Zero Hour

  Turning Point

  Shiloh Ranch

  Hornet’s Nest

  Devil’s Homecoming

  The Boston Brahmin Series

  The Loyal Nine

  Cyber Attack

  Martial Law

  False Flag

  The Mechanics

  Choose Freedom

  Patriot’s Farewell

  Seeds of Liberty (Companion Guide)

  The Prepping for Tomorrow Series

  Cyber Warfare

  EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse

  Economic Collapse

  Texas Strong

  The Lone Star Series, Book Four

  by

  Bobby Akart

  Contents

  Dedications

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author, Bobby Akart

  Foreword by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  PART TWO

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  PART THREE

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  EXCERPT from FIFTH COLUMN

  Copyright Information

  Dedications

  Every day, I wake up to a beautiful world filled with the undying love of my wife and the loyalty of our pups. Without them, none of my books would be possible. I wish every family could have what we have.

  The Lone Star Series is dedicated to the love and support of my family. I will always protect you from anything that would disrupt our happiness.

  Acknowledgements

  Writing a book that is both informative and entertaining requires a tremendous team effort. Writing is the easy part. For their efforts in making Beyond Borders, book two in the Lone Star series, a reality, I would like to thank Hristo Argirov Kovatliev for his incredible cover art, Pauline Nolet for her editorial prowess, Stef Mcdaid for making this manuscript decipherable in so many formats, Sean Runnette and the folks at Audible Studios for producing the incredible narration, and the Team—Shirley, Denise, Joe, and Jim, whose advice, friendship and attention to detail is priceless.

  A special thank-you to Kevin Baron and the team at Defense One for providing invaluable insight into the North Korean threat and how we’d defend against it. Also, thank you to Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, Center for National Defense, for her extensive background material on missile defense, nuclear weapons modernization and arms control.

  Thank you all!

  Choose Freedom!

  About the Author, Bobby Akart

  Bestselling author Bobby Akart has been ranked by Amazon as the #3 Bestselling Religion & Spirituality Author, the #5 Bestselling Science Fiction Author, the #7 Bestselling Historical Author and the #10 Bestselling Horror Author. He has written twenty international bestsellers, in forty different fiction and nonfiction genres, including the critically acclaimed Boston Brahmin series, the bestselling Blackout series, the frighteningly realistic Pandemic Series, his highly cited nonfiction Prepping for Tomorrow series and his latest project—the Lone Star series, which has already produced four #1 bestsellers.

  Bobby has provided his readers a diverse range of topics that are both informative and entertaining. His attention to detail and impeccable research have allowed him to capture the imaginations of his readers through his fictional works and bring them valuable knowledge through his nonfiction books.

  SIGN UP for Bobby Akart’s mailing list to receive special offers, bonus content, and you’ll be the first to receive news about new releases in the Lone Star series, updates on his other series, special offers, and bonus content. You can contact Bobby directly by email ([email protected]) or through his website:

  BobbyAkart.com

  Foreword

  by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  Chief of Staff, Congressional EMP Commission

  Executive Director, Task Force on National and Homeland Security

  The recent escalating war of words and actions with rogue nations like North Korea and Iran has given rise to a new sense of urgency about threats we face—especially the existential threat that is a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. I am pleased to write this foreword for author Bobby Akart as he continues to inform his readers, through his works of fiction, about the EMP threat, both man-made and naturally occurring.

  With the Lone Star series, you will learn about the potential of nuclear-armed satellites flying over America daily in low Earth orbit, positioned to collapse our power grid, destroy our way of life, and possibly kill up to ninety percent of Americans.

  The Congressional EMP Commission warns North Korea may already pose a worldwide threat, not only by ICBM, but by satellites, two of which presently orbit over the United States and every country on Earth.

  A single satellite, if nuclear-armed, detonated at high-altitude would generate an EMP capable of blacking out power grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructure.

  Yet, after massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, their biggest threat to the U.S. and the world remains unacknowledged—nuclear EMP attack.

  The EMP
threat continues to be low priority and largely ignored, even though on September 2, 2017, North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack.

  Two days after their H-Bomb test, on September 4, Pyongyang also released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing a “super-EMP” weapon generating 100,000 volts/meter.

  North Korea’s development of a super-EMP weapon that generates 100,000 volts/meter is a technological watershed more threatening than the development of an H-Bomb and ICBM because even the U.S. nuclear deterrent, the best-protected U.S. military forces, are EMP hardened to survive only 50,000 volts/meter.

  My colleague EMP Commission Chairman William Robert Graham warned Congress in 2008 that Russia had developed super-EMP weapons and most likely transferred that technology to North Korea allegedly by accident, according to Russian generals.

  The result of this newly discovered relationship between Russia and North Korea is that the DPRK now has the technology to win a nuclear war. At the very least, a North Korean EMP attack could paralyze the U.S. nuclear deterrent and prevent U.S. retaliation, perhaps even by U.S. submarines at sea that cannot launch missiles without receiving an Emergency Action Message from the president.

  However, the warning signs have gone largely ignored. Although North Korea, Russia, and China have all made nuclear threats against the United States recently, in the case of North Korea and Russia repeatedly, most analysts dismiss the war of words as mere bluster and nuclear sabre rattling, not to be taken seriously.

  In the West, generations of leaders and citizens have been educated that use of nuclear weapons is unthinkable and the ultimate horror. Not so in Russia, China, and North Korea, where their nuclear capabilities are publicly paraded—missile launches and exercises are televised as a show of strength, an important part of national pride.

  Then there is the issue of an EMP attack. An electromagnetic pulse attack would be perfect for implementing Russia’s strategy of “de-escalation,” where a conflict with the U.S. and its allies would be won by limited nuclear use. It’s their version of “shock and awe” to cow the U.S. into submission. The same kind of attack is viewed as an acceptable option by China and North Korea as well.

  An EMP attack would be the most militarily effective use of one or a few nuclear weapons, while also being the most acceptable nuclear option in world opinion, the option most likely to be construed in the U.S. and internationally as “restrained” and a “warning shot” without direct loss of life.

  Because an electromagnetic pulse destroys electronics instead of blasting cities, even some analysts in Germany and Japan, among the most antinuclear nations, regard EMP attacks as an acceptable use of nuclear weapons. A high-altitude EMP (“HEMP”) attack entails detonating a nuclear weapon at 30–400 kilometers altitude—above the atmosphere, in outer space, so high that no nuclear effects, not even the sound of the explosion, would be experienced on the ground, except the resulting EMP.

  An EMP attack will kill far more people than nuclear blasting a city through indirect effects—by blacking out electric grids and destroying life-sustaining critical infrastructures like communications, transportation, food and water—in the long run. But the millions of fatalities likely to eventually result from EMP will take months to develop, as slow as starvation.

  Thus, a nation hit with an EMP attack will have powerful incentives to cease hostilities, focus on repairing their critical infrastructures while there is still time and opportunity to recover, and avert national extinction.

  Indeed, an EMP attack or demonstration made to “de-escalate” a crisis or conflict is very likely to raise a chorus of voices in the West against nuclear escalation and send Western leaders in a panicked search for the first “off ramp.”

  Axis of Evil and the entire Lone Star series are books of fiction that are based upon historical fact. The geopolitical factors in this series leading up to a potentially catastrophic collapse of America’s power grid are based upon real-world scenarios.

  Author Bobby Akart has written several fiction and nonfiction books with the intent to raise awareness about the threats we face from an EMP, whether via a massive solar storm or delivered by a nuclear warhead. While many books have been written about the results of nuclear war and EMPs, few have tackled the subject of using satellites as a means of delivering the fatal blow, until now.

  The Lone Star series is written to be thought-provoking. It will be a reminder to us all that, as Bobby says, you never know when the day before is the day before. Prepare for tomorrow.

  Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  Chief of Staff

  Congressional EMP Commission

  Executive Director

  Task Force on National and Homeland Security

  About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  Dr. Peter Vincent Pry served as chief of staff of Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission (2001-2017), and is currently the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional Advisory Board dedicated to achieving protection of the United States from electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber warfare, mass-destruction terrorism and other threats to civilian critical infrastructures, on an accelerated basis. Dr. Pry also is director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, an advisory board to Congress on policies to counter weapons of mass destruction. Foreign governments, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and Kazakhstan consult with Dr. Pry on EMP, cyber, and other strategic threats.

  Dr. Pry served on the staffs of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (2008–2009); the Commission on the New Strategic Posture of the United States (2006–2008); and the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack (2001–2008).

  Dr. Pry served as professional staff on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) of the U.S. Congress, with portfolios in nuclear strategy, WMD, Russia, China, NATO, the Middle East, Intelligence, and Terrorism (1995–2001). While serving on the HASC, Dr. Pry was chief advisor to the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and to the chairman of the Terrorism Panel. Dr. Pry played a key role: running hearings in Congress that warned terrorists and rogue states could pose EMP and cyber threats, establishing the Congressional EMP Commission, helping the commission develop plans to protect the United States from EMP and cyber warfare, and working closely with senior scientists and the nation’s top experts on critical infrastructures, EMP and cyber warfare.

  Dr. Pry was an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, responsible for analyzing Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy, operational plans, military doctrine, threat perceptions, and developing U.S. paradigms for strategic warning (1985–1995). He also served as a verification analyst at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency responsible for assessing Soviet arms control treaty compliance (1984–1985).

  Dr. Pry has written numerous books on national security issues, including Blackout Wars; Apocalypse Unknown: The Struggle To Protect America From An Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe; Electric Armageddon: Civil-Military Preparedness For An Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe; War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink; Nuclear Wars: Exchanges and Outcomes; The Strategic Nuclear Balance: And Why It Matters; and Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal. You may view his canon of work by visiting his Amazon Author page.

  Dr. Pry often appears on TV and radio as an expert on national security issues. The BBC made his book War Scare into a two-hour TV documentary Soviet War Scare 1983, and his book Electric Armageddon was the basis for another TV documentary Electronic Armageddon made by National Geographic.

  Epigraph

  “Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

  ~ John Steinbeck

  *****

  “Texas can make it without the United States but the U
nited States cannot make it without Texas.”

  ~ Sam Houston

  *****

  Texas is a state of mind.

  ~ Anonymous

  *****

  Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

  ~ Coach Eric Taylor, Friday Night Lights

  *****

  The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

  ~ Carl von Clausewitz

  *****

  A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable for he is known and he carries his banners openly.

  ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Philosopher

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Christmas Day 2022

  The Armstrong Ranch

  Borden County, Texas

  “Daddy,” whispered Palmer, the youngest of the Armstrong children and the only daughter. If there ever was an apple of a father’s eye, Palmer fit the bill. In Major’s eyes, she was the spittin’ image of his darling Lucy. As Palmer grew out of her pigtails and found herself as a young woman, Major talked to and treated her with utmost respect. He set expectations of how a man should treat a lady and hoped she’d never settle for anything less. Above all, he loved her and took pride in her accomplishments as she grew up. A bond existed between them as a result, one that was somewhat different from the bond between Major and his sons.

  “Yes, honey,” he replied as the conversation between the boys and Preacher continued.

  “I’ve never seen Momma like this. Anytime we try to get together and talk about what we’ve been through, and especially what might happen next, she breaks up the conversation. Is she okay?”

  Major furrowed his brows before answering. He’d asked himself the same question. Lucy had remained strong throughout this ordeal. She acted very much like a general on a battlefield. She was organized, authoritative, and unflappable most of the time. Naturally, she worried about her children’s safety but not to the point of emotional breakdown.