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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Inferno

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Hector Flores and Javier Perez were a quarter mile from the lodge. They had snuck out just after the electricity went off, during the hubbub from that time until the generators kicked on, the two kitchen helpers had made their move.

They followed a little used dirt trail leading away from the property, assuming that whoever was watching the place might not know about the trail. As they started to go around a bend and into a more open area, Perez smelled something. He also saw what appeared to be a raging fire somewhere ahead

"Hey Hector, you smell that? You see that?"

Flores stopped and dropped to one knee, he raised his head and sniffed the air. It was the smell of burning, the smell of death. He motioned Perez to wait, then he moved forward at a crouch.

Ahead of them on the trail, was a burning vehicle, with at least two bodies inside.

"Javi, come up here." Flores hissed at his companion.

"What is it?" Then Perez saw the burning car. "That's Hollister car, yeah?"

"Yeah, those have to be some of the guards in there. I know Hollister went out with the QRF, none of them came back."

"The other guys left in the vans, right?"

"Si, somebody decided to take Hollister's car as well. Looks like that was a very bad idea."

Flores started to speak when a voice came out of the shadows ...

"Deberíais correr, muy rápido.¹"

Flores and Perez took off running down the trail. The nightmare was out there, in the shadows, they were everywhere.


Hawthorne was getting desperate, Conwell had informed him that more of the lodge's staff had fled the premises. Otto Birmingham had died of his wounds thirty minutes ago, and now his phone was ringing. Maybe it wasn't the government who had cut the service.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, Mr. Hawthorne, my name is, well, my name is unimportant. It should suffice to say that I represent the United States government. Did Congressman Birmingham die yet?"

Hawthorne went pale as a sheet, "Who the hell is this, I am a member of the ..."

"Not anymore you aren't. You and the rest of the SIlver Dozen were impeached late last night. The House of Representatives sent it on to the Senate, who voted unanimously to convict. You and your colleagues have been stripped of your offices. Now, you re nothing more than a criminal illegally occupying government property."

Hawthorne sat down heavily in the nearest chair. "How dare they do that when ..."

"Tried in absentia, I'm sure you're familiar with the term. It's a new day Franky-boy and you and your friends aren't part of it. Welcome to the ash heap of history."


Miles away, in Washington DC, LCDR Josh Higgins set a phone back in its cradle. He looked white as a sheet. President Nakagawa noticed immediately.

"What now, Josh?"

"We have reports of a nuclear exchange between the Chinese and Indian navies."

"What?!"

"The Chinese naval detachment headed for the Middle East was hailed by an Indian patrol vessel. The Chinese opened fire."

"An Indian attack boat was in the area and fired a torpedo at the Chinese task force. It was a nuclear torpedo."

"Dear God ..." the President stared into space, his worst nightmare seemed about to become reality.

"A Chinese submarine was also in the area and returned fire, with another nuclear tipped torpedo. Fortunately they missed, but Beijing will learn of this soon."

"Get the Chinese on the phone, we need to settle this or things are going to spin out of control." Nakagawa headed for the White House Communications Room. As he left he turned to Bill Aspinall, "Get Nightwatch prepped ASAP, we might need it before the night is through."

"What about Hawthorne and the Dozen?" Aspinall asked as he pulled the President away from the rest of the staff.

Nakagawa thought for a moment, thought of the number of people who had already died and the thought of untold millions dying if the missiles flew. All because of men like Hawthorne and their political aspirations.

"Burn them down, no survivors."


After speaking with the unnamed man on the phone, Hawthorne had been confused. He knew they were trapped, Congressman Abrahams had stepped out into the open with his hands in the air, shouting "I surrender."

He had watched in horror as the man's head seemed to explode. He sat there, wondering if he had any moves left. The glass to his bedroom shattered. He saw a smoking hissing cylindrical object spinning on his bedroom floor. He wondered ...

The blast destroyed most of the room and killed Hawthorne instantly. Other devices began exploding throughout the lodge. Within moments the building was ablaze with all of its occupants lying dead or near death.


Howard keyed his satellite phone, "Hi, this is Mo Whitson, I'm out on Greathouse Road, just north of Frank. My son and I are out here camping and we heard this series of loud booms. Looks like the big hunting lodge up there is on fire!"

The dispatcher at the local police tried to get more details, she knew exactly which lodge the man had been talking about, but the man had hung up almost immediately. She got on the radio and started the fire fighting effort rolling.

She knew it would take time to get crews out there, but she had to try.

It was her job.




¹ You should run, very fast.

58 comments:

  1. No " before "Flores started to speak…" .
    I am greatly enjoying this new tale; the contemporariality of it is quite striking.
    -JLM

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  2. I was thinking of the twists and turns that these dozen would produce as they tried to weasel their way through every crack, back door, and compromised individual they know so well...
    But when the rot has reached this depth, then there is hope that good men still exist.
    Time to cut wire and deal with the problem, not pretty, not nice, but long over due.
    It is the last note that sets the "New" order, instead of people who did things they knew were wrong and then saying:
    "I was just following orders"
    It is now the average person doing the best they can because: "...but she had to try.
    It was her job."
    Great story line and now the pressing issue becomes whether the new President can somehow convince age old enemies to back off on the canned sunshine.
    MSG Grumpy

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  3. No love lost between CCP land and India; the new President will have his hands full there. As far as Hawthorne and the rest of his fellow traitors, kinetics solves that problem, Sarge.

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    1. Best to squash that problem so that they can concentrate on preventing a potential end of the world scenaro.

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  4. As far as the Chinese situation as Paul Harvey might say "Now the REST of the Story".

    Standing well clear of both sides is something Founding Father and President Adams would say. As America has a well-earned reputation of sticking our noses into other folks' troubles, BOTH Sides here will be hyper aware of Americans in the AO.

    I'd carefully like Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis reach out directly to the Russians to keep a lid on this.

    Not to mention plenty of other hotheads out there with grudges to repay.

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    1. We need to tread carefully there, no direct involvement. If possible.

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    2. I think there's something to be said for distinguishing a tactical exchange of weapons that happen to have nuclear warheads - especially at sea - and the phrase "Nuclear Exchange" which conjures up that end of the world scenario. Torpedoes and even medium range missiles are not ICBMs.
      Standing well clear of both sides would be a must; hopefully the US is not bound by treaty with India. Else wise treat this like Princip at Sarajevo, not our business. Yeah I know we got sucked into that one eventually ( including both of my GrandFathers) but Nakagawa isn't the Wilsons.
      Boat Guy

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    3. Tactical versus strategic, a good point!

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    4. Only tactical, yes. But after eighty years, Pandora's Box has reopened.

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    5. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. It might make people take a deep breath before going further.

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  5. I hope and pray that your Muse isn't really Cassandra.

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  6. OOF
    Silver Dozen ahd it coming, but nuke exchange between India and China would be catastrophic, let alone if China goes for US targets.

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    1. A nuke exchange between China and India would indeed be catastrophic - for them - but perhaps instructive for the rest of the world.
      BG

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    2. fallout aside, there would be mild case of nuclear winter effect... think 1816
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

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    3. Nuclear winter, the stuff of nightmares.

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    4. That would be REAL climate change, for a change.

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    5. Actual and really man-made this time.

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  7. "You should run, very fast", I like it!

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    1. "Cut those two a huss" as an old-time Jarhead would say
      BG

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    2. ...From the jazz bar in Animal House "If I were you boys, I'd..." "Leave!. That's a good idea. Leave!!!...

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  8. People in politics are usually very poor estimators of their value or their shelf life.

    To Joe's point, if you drew Cassandra as your Muse we are in a heap of trouble.

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  9. Unfortunately this is all too credible. We ARE in a heap of trouble already; trillions of debt, an overreaching entrenched unelected bureaucracy, and a thoroughly compromised and abusive Federal intelligence and law-enforcement "community" come to mind.
    The real question is; do we have enough Nakagawas and will they prevail?
    Boat Guy

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    1. We need hard headed pragmatists. We have far too many soft headed "elites."

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    2. A heap of trouble already... The last Pres election had a huge amount of oddity in the vote count and no one officially noticed, they actually said I didn't see what I saw. Then the ruling cabal weaponized the govt against it's only rival ... and that was not working. Next the SECRET SERVICE allowed a shooter to get several tries at murdering the only rival (the shots missed the rival).
      All this and crickets... Then the cabal announces who they want for President, she was chosen properly they say, no one needs to vote for her, don't worry.
      3 months from Tuesday is election day... what has changed since the last one? Besides the millions of new illegal voters in places that had oddities counting the votes last time..
      To quote the Boat Guy, "We ARE in a heap of trouble already".

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    3. I await the election with bated breath.

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  10. The ocean nukes are a sideshow. Hope it stays that way. Still think it could be very probable that the PLAN carried... escapees, refugees, bug-outers. Remains to be seen who was on-board. Family members of the PLAN? Senior CCP members and their people? And, of course, why the mad dash to Africa right after or during a political change? All questions I doubt the Muse will easily answer.

    I feel bad for any 'innocent' in the filthy SD's lodge. Real innocents, like remaining staff who just work there. Or family members who got dragged out there. The rest? Quick and sudden death is too good. Though, well, fire burns out infection quite well.

    America has the power still to be a calming influence upon the world stage. It depends, of course, who is in charge. Just look at every president after Reagan. All except one were what we would call warmongers. Constant strife, constant struggle, often with negative gain to the US. Even Bush I and the Iraq War. Sigh. Trump was the only one to deescalate things worldwide, even getting the NORKs to settle down (seems treating Kim the Terrible like a real person rather than a noisy troublesome kid worked. And then the following administration threw all of that away.)

    Maybe our new president (in the story) will have that Trumpian ability to yell "Settle Down!" and be heard and respected enough to get the now-very wound-up Indians and Chinese settled. Hope that Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines can help mitigate what's happening without any escalation.

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    1. I am thinking ocean nukes is quite unrealistic.
      Only US and Soviets had nukes to spare from strategic deterrence to use nuclear torps and ASCMs.
      China has relatively few like 500 at the moment , and India, even less, so probably they each reserve them for deterrence uses.
      Anyway , once nukes start flying there is no telling where this will end, with Pakistanis maybe joining exchange, and Russia not above preemptive strike against China if it feels threatened. Oh and North Korea is ALWAYS on the edge...

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    2. Don't think right now, this is in the future. A faliling Russian government, cash-strapped, might consider selling their technology. Besides which, nuclear torpedoes are far simpler to produce than ICBMs. Can take out an entire carrier task force.

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    3. The nuke torpedoes of the bad old days were potent but not enough for a whole battle group. Formations were/are(?) pretty widely dispersed.
      That said having served in those days - and neither "confirming nor denying their presence" - there were such things as nuclear depth charges as well. Very glad the big War at Sea with USSR never happened.
      BG

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    4. 20kt or so... maybe not BG taken out , but Carrier Killers, to be sure.
      If PLAN lost another CV, there will be huge face loss.
      Remember, East Asia much revolves about reputation.
      Not gonna lie, its Hitchckock like series, it started from earthquake and then all the time the pressure is up...
      Cant wait for next episode. Love the fog of war depiction, there is no mention of exact losses and class lost,
      Rememeber the initial IJN recon report at Midway by fateful "late" floatplane from Tone?
      First it mentioned just 10 ships location and speed, then after 10 minutes or so it mentioned offhandly that "Enemy is accompanied by something resembling carrier"
      Wonder what Russia is up to meanwhile, I assume whatever government there is in Kremlin is not going to leave good crisis to waste.

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    5. Yes, what is going on in the Kremlin?

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  11. The Pacific - Indian Ocean theater could be the next Sarajevo.

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    1. And not the South China Sea? (I was looking at a globe)

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    2. It's part of the Pacific theater.

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    3. Dont be next Bismarck. PLEASE/
      "The Europe has become apowder keg, and it is gonna blow up because of something stupid in the Balkans" - Bismarck , late in 1890s.
      Sarajevo is in the Balkans.
      There are multiple possible triggers in SE Asia from Taiwan, to China fighting any of the states bordering nine dash line: Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Phillipines, Singapore... And in slight extension, NE Asia , Japan and both Korea.
      And then there is land frontier with India, also part of IndoPac. OOF...

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    4. India - China is a major hot spot!

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  12. Gone nuke? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZuMe5RvxPQ

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  13. Please let WISCONSIN, COLUMBIA, and their sisters stay deep and quiet!

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  14. The commander of the PLAN Task Force in the IO has got to be upset right now. He has active threats around him, both sides opened up cans of sunshine but he probably isn't getting any answers from HQ, all the big-wigs are running for their lives. And even with a communications blackout he has to know the Fuijian and the whole task force was lost in the typhoon.

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    Replies
    1. Things in the Indian Ocean are very confused at the moment. More tomorrow.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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