It was enough to wheedle him from the back up to the front. A few minutes later, Richard Weismann took the stage to a round of rousing applause. Andy didn’t clap once, and kept his face glued to his phone’s display.
“Hey,” Jake whispered, “put that thing away, buddy. Let’s be respectful.”
Weismann was in his early sixties, and looked like anybody you might see at a business convention. He wasn’t too tall, had a bit of a belly, and not much hair left on a splendidly round head. He didn’t look anything like those characters on Duck Dynasty, an image that often came to people’s minds when they thought about preppers.
“Good afternoon, friends,” Weismann began. His microphone kicked feedback, so he adjusted the height until it was gone. “It’s great to be back here at the SRBR. I always look forward to the chance to speak, and this is one of my favorite expos on the circuit. Today I’m here to talk about self-reliance. When the power goes out and the grid goes down, how will you stay warm? When the supermarket shelves go bare, how will you feed your family?”
Weismann paused for dramatic effect. He was an eloquent speaker. In a few sentences, he had captivated his audience and could have held their attention indefinitely.
“I’m going to tell you a little story to get the conversation started. The folks at NORAD go from a quiet morning, sipping coffee and observing the world from the comfort of their computer monitors, when chaos erupts. A ballistic missile has been launched from a cargo ship off the U.S. coast. The weapon is designed to release EMP, an electromagnetic pulse capable of destroying the U.S. power grid. A single explosion over the Midwest produces electronic waves a million times more powerful than any radio signal on earth. The current and voltage surges that follow will literally cook the semiconductor chips of critical electronic devices. In an instant, communications will fail. Computers will lose power. Car batteries will no longer function, and transportation will come to a complete and grinding halt. Telecommunications are down everywhere. You can’t get a cell phone signal, let alone make a call.
“The power grid will be out, and probably out for months. Every bit of electronics we use-medical devices, gasoline pumps, phones, cars, water pumps-will no longer function. Of course the stock market crashes, since all trading has abruptly ceased. Bank accounts are gone, lost in a black hole of the crippled electrical grid. A single blast, if detonated high enough over the middle of the country, will be enough to plunge us all into total darkness. Food stocks will run out quickly. Everything about our current way of life will end in the sizzle of burnt-out circuitry, and we’ll be plunged back to a preindustrialized society.
“Who could possess such a weapon? China, Russia, North Korea, and even Iran or Hezbollah, that’s who. It’s been estimated that a year after an EMP strike, between seventy-five and ninety percent of the U.S. population will perish from disease, starvation, and overall societal collapse. Imagine it. You wake up one morning and nothing works. No running water. No food in the stores. No money in your bank accounts. No hospitals. No transportation. Nothing works the way it once did. Cities in darkness. How will you live? How will your family live? We are lying to ourselves when we say we are prepared for this attack. We are not prepared as a country. But you can be prepared as individuals.”
“Oh, give me a freakin’ break.”
The dissenting voice, meant to be spoken as an undertone, came out loud and attracted a great deal of attention. The murmurs rippled from front to back and grew in volume until Weismann could no longer be heard.
Jake looked at Andy with what, at first, was a bemused expression. Andy had retreated to the safety of his smartphone screen; he did not take notice of Jake’s now-angry stare.
“Young man, it would appear you disagree with the scenario I’ve outlined here.” Richard Weismann, accustomed to confronting his critics, did not seem the least bit perturbed by the interruption.
Andy looked up and realized Weismann was addressing him directly. Andy turned to his father for guidance.
“Your bed-you made it, you deal with it,” Jake said, a little gruffness evident in his voice.
Andy stood, looked around at the sizable crowd, and pocketed his phone with a confident air.
“Look, I’m not denying the science behind EMP, Mr. Weismann,” Andy began, speaking respectfully and earnestly. “What we’re really talking about is the Compton effect. In 1925, the physicist Arthur Compton asserted that photons of electromagnetic energy would loosen electrons from atoms with low atomic numbers. This would create fluctuating electric currents and induce a powerful magnetic field capable of knocking out electronic circuitry. I get that. It’s real. But do you honestly believe a country like North Korea or Iran, or some terrorist organization like Hezbollah or, say, ISIS, could develop a warhead sophisticated enough to deliver a really damaging EMP blast? Have you honestly studied the technology required to make an EMP-optimized warhead?”
“Determined foes can overcome even the most challenging hurdles,” Weismann said.
“Yeah, well, dedicating my life to a technically implausible scenario makes no sense to me. Oh, wait-a rogue nation could launch a weapon from a freighter off the U.S. coast. You said that. So maybe it’s not so far-fetched. Let’s see, Iran’s Shahab-3 is the only medium-range missile small enough to be launched from one of those boats. But it has a payload capacity of maybe one thousand kilograms, which doesn’t come close to the devastation that you describe. And any terrorist cell that miraculously gets a nuclear-type weapon is going to blow up a city, not risk wasting their crown jewel on a complex EMP strike that’s likely to fail.”
Hushed conversation passed through the crowd. Jake was wide-eyed and astonished. Where did he learn all this?
“You’re forgetting our other enemies, young man,” Weismann said.
“That’s right. But let me ask you, why would Russia do it? Or China? I’ll tell you the answer. They wouldn’t. The trace-back would result in catastrophic nuclear war. We’ve had nuclear weapons for decades, and nobody is using them in wartime for a reason. Besides, our economies are joined at the hip. There’s a major economic deterrent here nobody is talking about.”
Weismann no longer appeared amused. “Since you seem so well versed on the topic, young man, what would you suggest we do?”
Andy turned to Jake. His body language was that of a child having to confess an uncomfortable truth.
“I’d stop living my life in constant fear,” he said. “I’d learn how to do things for myself-things like gardening, mechanical repairs, self-defense, and whatnot-simply because it was interesting to me. I wouldn’t come to these conferences anymore. I wouldn’t prepare for the future at the expense of enjoying my present.”
“So, why are you here?” Weismann asked.
Jake’s eyes held Andy’s in a head-on stare.
“Because I love my dad more than anything,” Andy said. “But I can’t do this anymore.”
Andy walked across the room, heading for the exit. And Jake watched him go.
CHAPTER 12
Jake bought his 2007 Chevy Tahoe because of the aggressive tires, towing capacity, and ability to traverse most terrains. He didn’t know how he’d get to his bug-out location when TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It) came, so the car offered an option if the woods behind his trailer were impassable.
Jake saved all year for the expo. Normally, he would have stocked up on supplies-freeze-dried foods, seed, communication equipment, medical kits, and homeopathic medicine-and the Tahoe was a good way of hauling it all home. But Andy had demanded they leave the expo early. Jake didn’t argue, so the back of the car contained only the camping gear they’d brought and some clothes.