New Earth:
The Search for Justice
By
R.D. Pittman
Copyright © 2011 Two Pitts Publishing LLC
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0432-5
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Fiction Caveat
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Rickard D. Pittman
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my mother, Faye Marie Bobo Pittman.
She was a true Texas woman in every sense of the word.
My mother was dedicated to our father and a steady hand in raising four children.
Her only request to her children was that we be courteous, kind, and fair to others.
She always held greater expectations for me; she encouraged me to explore my limits.
She never discouraged the use of my active imagination.
In many ways I am what I am today…because of her.
Chapter 1
A Dark Day
Alex Hanken felt more than just used, he felt betrayed. Admiral Torrance and his fellow conspirators, whoever they were, would not get away with this insult to all Americans. Coup`d etat’s were something that happened in third world countries, not in the United States. Admiral Torrance had dispatched Marine ground troops to the various survival sites throughout the nation, and put the personnel stationed there under house arrest. Until Torrance could get a feel for the site commander’s level of loyalty to him no one was allowed in to or out of the sites. His biggest concern was Alex, since he had a vast military arsenal at his disposal, which Torrance himself assigned to Hanken just a few months prior. Alex’s command center at Petersen AFB was surrounded by Marines and in essence locked down, so no one could escape. Admiral Torrance didn’t know it, but Alex had command center control from the mountain residence he occupied adjacent to the base.
Alex had chosen to have his son Curt install redundant communication and data systems at the residence; he could command all facilities nationwide from there. More importantly, he had control of all nuclear ground and air forces in the United States; he simply needed to get his backup plan executed to free his other resources.
He had to admit, using the threat of incoming asteroids hitting the earth, and the need to redeploy all troops from overseas to stateside was a well-conceived cover-up. He knew somebody other than Torrance was behind this—without a doubt—they were powerful people. Alex had to operate on several fronts, first, secure the facilities under his control. Second, stabilize the country. Then and only then could he begin the process of ferreting out the conspirators.
Admiral Torrance had devised a two-day operational stress test of the survival facilities, as a cover for the government takeover. The President and all cabinet members, including the Congress, would be in locked down bunkers for the duration of the operational test. That very fact gave Alex pause for concern; the heads of government were out of position…all of them at once. Those concerns prompted him to devise a backup plan in the event of an attack by an unfriendly nation. He would conduct his monitoring of the stress test from the residence with its redundant systems. Next, he would have his entire family and security detail in the residence with him. The secret bunker in the residence could be utilized as an escape avenue if necessary. Admiral Torrance had no knowledge of this, only the President knew of the escape tunnel leading out of the bunker. When they assigned the mountainside retreat to Alex, he discovered the exit tunnel off of one of the rooms in the bunker. The bunker was accessed by elevator, from within the residence.
The third component of his backup plan was to have a strike force on standby at secret locations. Since he was assigned the 101st Airborne and the 1st Special Forces as his assault battalions, he merged the two fighting groups, with their specialized talents, into eight separate brigades of three thousand men each. Each brigade had two hundred Blackhawk troop helicopters, and one hundred fifteen Apache attack helicopters for an airborne assault, if necessary. Alex sent two brigades to a site just north of Whiteman AFB. The B-2 Bomber squadron was based at Whiteman, along with three fighter wings of F-35’s. He sent another brigade to the Coeur d’Alene area where Alex had designed a huge depot of munitions stored in abandoned mines that were converted to survival shelters and ammo bunkers. In addition, the municipal airport had been converted to an airbase, housing thirty F-35’s and two C-17 tankers. He sent brigades to Seattle for Ft. Lewis and McChord AFB protection, and one near Las Vegas to ensure that Nellis AFB was secure with its inventory of tactical nuclear weapons. The remaining two brigades were broken down into ten company sized units and dispatched to other locations near key installations throughout the US, which included NORAD and SAC headquarters, the nerve centers for the nuclear forces.
Alex gathered everyone together in the residence Sandi, her daughter Liz, Curt and his wife Cynthia, FBI agents Evans and Somers, and the ten man Navy Seal team. Summoning the courage, yet cognizant that he had been naïve and thoroughly manipulated, he steeled himself and stared with eyes fixed at his assembled cadre…then spoke.
“No doubt all of you are in shock at what has just happened. You’re probably wondering what does this mean and what will or should we do? I’ll tell you what we will do; we will give up our lives to free this country, if that’s what it takes. Just as a precaution, I had placed several brigades of our assault troops throughout the nation at selected strategic sites. I will shortly give them the go ahead to engage the Marines who have orders to secure those locations for Admiral Torrance. I pray there is little bloodshed, but we must seize the initiative early, with lightning speed and a determined resolve. After I have given the orders to the brigade commanders, I will teleconference the site commanders and inform them of the impending action to take place at their site. But, before that, I must determine the level of commitment these facility commanders have to Admiral Torrance or to the cause of freedom.
“Once that has been accomplished we need to execute
