David Golemon - Ancients

Across the border, barely a whisper of the earth's movements were felt as the South Korean military, along with the twenty-eight thousand American troops stationed at the border, went on full alert as a precaution against the North.

Across the Sea of Japan, seismographs measured tremors that went off the charts. Within minutes, word spread over the newswires that an 11.8 earthquake had rocked North Korea, the largest earth movement ever recorded. Immediately calls were sent into North Korea requesting that humanitarian forces be allowed to cross the border and land in ports for assistance to their people. However, the requests from frantic neighbors and other nations of the world went unanswered. They were informed, however, that the Communist military of Kim Jong Il had gone on full alert and division upon division had started to assemble at rallying points near the border.

The first strike of Thor's Hammer had sounded, and the world was stunned by its power.

In the haze of the evening, when the sun was at its lowest point before disappearing into the flat wastelands of his country, the Iraqi general who had supervised the rebuilding of his nation's tank divisions after the devastating war with the UN used his binoculars to scan the miles directly to his front. The newly elected government of Iraq was using the American and British equipment that had been gifted to demonstrate a show of strength for his Iranian neighbors. Two full combat-equipped divisions were in place along a 170-mile front of the common border. It was indeed impressive, and the general knew that he could crush the Iranians in less than a day if it came to that.

"General, our radar has picked up a large aircraft in Iraqi airspace that has strayed from the designated commercial route. It is at thirty thousand feet and holding steady on a northerly heading. We have deduced it is a French-built Airbus commercial heavy."

"Very well, keep me informed. Also bring the air-defense batteries to full alert."

The Iraqi colonel nodded and moved off.

The general could not be concerned with a pilot who did not know his own routes. His concern was the five thousand Iranian T-90 tanks that faced him less than four miles away.

His priorities would soon shift.

The ranking Iranian general was just starting his evening prayers, when a tremendous headache suddenly struck him. It seemed to resonate from his inner ear and travel to the center of his brain. He became dizzy and almost fell over on his prayer rug. He steadied himself, feeling nauseated and shaky. Then the headache passed as suddenly as it had come. He straightened, using both hands to right himself, and that was when he felt the first tremors through the palms of his hands.

Outside, a thousand tank men had experienced the same effects as the general, some worse, others less, but they all had felt it as a wave that passed through them. Then they became disoriented as the earth started to move in earnest.

A hundred miles to the west, the same devastating headaches and earth movement were felt by the Iraqi military as they, too, were preparing for evening prayers.

Suddenly and without much more warning than a slight tremor, the earth became a liquid wave. On both sides of the border, tanks and men were tossed about as if they were walking upon a liquid surface. The movement increased as the very air became a wavy, disorienting wall of displacement. The earth cracked along a line that almost mirrored the border between the two nations. On both sides, artillery batteries were knocked over and explosions were heard and felt as air-defense batteries were tipped and knocked from their launchers.

The first of the Iranian tanks disappeared into a giant void hundreds of yards across that opened up as if the very earth had disappeared. Thirty-five tanks and their crews vanished in a split second. The devastation did not stop there. The fault opened even farther, faster than any of the men or their machines could respond to. In less than a minute, 90 percent of the Iranian divisions had disappeared. It was as if they had never existed.

On the Iraqi side of the border, the ground split and rushed toward the newly installed corps commander's HQ. The entire reinforced camp exploded upward and outward as if it had been sprayed off the desert floor by a giant fire hose. The land situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers rose to a height of 170 feet before it started its plunge back to the rivers. Then the rivers rippled violently, emptying their waters into the sky and surrounding desert. Entire villages and towns collapsed and were shaken into the desert sands. The fault ripped north into Baghdad and south into the Persian Gulf. The quake was causing the newly repaired capital city of Baghdad to moan as if it were a tired animal caught by the throat and shaken by a powerful beast. Towering buildings fell into their smaller neighbors, immediately killing hundreds of thousands.

Out at sea, three commercial oil tankers being escorted by two British destroyers through the Strait of Hormuz were suddenly pushed a mile from the shores of the United Arab Emirates as the gulf waters retreated from a conjoining undersea quake. Then the giant swell of water rushed back toward the land that it had only moments before vacated. The sea rose one hundred feet before the watery tumult crushed the two warships and capsized the three supertankers. The tsunami continued into Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, destroying the coastal cities and dragging back into the gulf more than 130,000 souls.

Finally, the earth became still.

Above, the supposed off-course commercial jetliner turned away after overflying a fifty-mile-long line of recent oil-well excavations that had gone unnoticed in the previous weeks just inside the Iraqi border.

The second strike of Thor's Hammer was complete, and the chess game had begun in earnest.

On the quiet river, a fishing boat bobbed gently at anchor. A red and blue striped awning was spread out over the length of the boat and its occupants were unseen. Several fishing poles were lazily bending over the gentle current.

The quiet of the late afternoon was harshly broken by the sound of a boat motor as it approached the anchored fishing vessel in the center of the laziest part of the river. This second boat was painted dull green and there were several men standing at its gunwales. As they approached the center of the Nile, they scrutinized the anchored boat with suspicious eyes. They saw a small American flag near the stern, next to the powerful outboard motor. The stars and stripes caught the gentle evening breeze and then relaxed as the brief respite against the heat dwindled to nothing.

The men watched as a lone head popped up from the interior of the boat and looked their way. One hand plopped over the side and struck the water and then the man gently rubbed water on his face. The men in the approaching boat sneered and the tall black man at the stern said only one word: "Americans."

They watched as the dark-haired man slid slowly into the boat as they moved on toward their destination. All twelve men were armed with lethal-looking machetes and four of them had Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles. The African leader kept his eyes on the American boat but relaxed when the American didn't reappear. Then he looked at the American camp across the way and saw that they were being watched from there also. He thought that after he was finished he just might as well see what the American archaeo-logical dig had in the way of ransom. He smiled and hefted his automatic rifle and its weight felt good to him, offering up that surge of power he always received when he was about to take human life.