Don Pendleton - Act Of War

Shaking the net a few times to straighten out the folds and to warm up the muscles in his skinny arms, the fisherman then twisted sharply at the hip and the net flew out to land in the water with barely a splash to announce its arrival.

The small lead weights woven along the edge of the net dragged it down swiftly, and the man promptly began to haul the net up again, his fingers expertly testing for any additional weight that meant a catch.

But the net was empty, so he cast again. Fishing was more of an art than anything else, and a man needed patience almost as much as a net. This time, the net held a dozen yellow fin trout. Happily, he emptied the net into the empty plastic box and cast once more. It was a long time ago, but he vaguely remembered when the lake had been a peaceful fishing village. However, a few years ago the Communists had sent in armed troops to throw everybody out of their ancestral shacks, and then had an army of workers build the massive dam. Now he came here to fish and recall better times. Somehow, the trout he caught always brought back memories of his idyllic youth. Silly, but true.

From the woods surrounding the lake there came a snap of a breaking tree branch, and the old man froze motionless, nervously glancing around, his heart pounding. Thankfully there was nobody in sight. Fishing on the government lake was strictly forbidden for some reason. It had taken a thousand men five years to build the huge concrete dam that blocked off the Wei River, creating the huge artificial lake. Now Beijing controlled the water for the crops, and the electricity for the lights and distant factories. Good for the government, but only more taxes for the struggling farmers and workers. Nobody was allowed to be on the lake, not even to sail paper boats on festive days or to send out a floating candle for a dead loved one. Scandalous!

Unexpectedly the entire lake shook, and the old man almost dropped the net from surprise. A ripple expanded to the shores and came racing back, the water seeming to rise quickly as huge bubbles came up from below like a pot about to boil.

Suddenly the middle of the watery expanse started to bulge, the surface rising higher and higher until it burst apart and exploded into a vertical column of fiery steam that blasted high into the air.

Screaming in terror, the fisherman threw away the net and grabbed onto the gunwale of the boat as it was shoved aside by the strident explosion of steam. An instant later a deafening concussion vomited from the roiling depths, spreading the lake wide-open. A monstrous wave cast the old man and boat aside, sending them flying over the top of the concrete dam toward the distant mountains.

Horribly scalded, the terrified fisherman could only desperately hold on to the boat as it sailed through the air. Glancing down at the bubbling lake, he saw a wealth of writhing flames expand from the murky depths, then the boat hit the trees and blackness filled his universe.

Mounting in fury and volume, the nuclear fireball of the underwater Red Army weapons depot continued to expand, fully exposing the radioactive ruins of the illegal base hidden for years from the prying eyes of the annoying UN spy satellites. A split second later the physical shock wave crossed the churning expanse of the lake like an express train and the dam violently shattered, massive chunks of steel-reinforced concrete blowing out across the river valley below like the discharge of a shotgun. Ten thousand trees were mashed flat for half a mile, the destructive force of the fifteen DF-31 underwater missiles armed with tactical nuclear warheads was multiplied a hundredfold from being trapped under the lake. Tumbling wreckage from the destroyed dam plowed into the nearby hills like meteors throwing out geysers of earth and the boiling lake rushed through the yawning gap to thunderously churn along the river valley, destroying everything in its path. At a little vacation jetty, colorful boats were blown into splinters and rental cottages exploded, the startled families inside parboiled in a microsecond from the radioactive steam cloud, their death screams lost in the Dantian cacophony.

Disguised as an old barn, a military pillbox from the Glorious War for Freedom shuddered from the arrival of the searing torrent, the thick ferroconcrete walls withstanding the titanic pressure for almost a heartbeat before crumbling. Instantly dead, the soldiers tumbled away with all of the other debris propelled by the rampaging cascade.

T EN MILES DOWN THE Wei River valley in the small village of Tzang-Su, a teenage boy in a lookout tower dropped a pair of binoculars from his shaking hands. He was supposed to be looking for forest fires instead of trying to see into the bedroom of the girl that he was attracted to. But a flash from the north had caught his attention and his stomach lurched at the sight of the Wei River dam exploding like a house of cards.

A soft rumble could be heard, slowly increasing in volume, and the teen shook off the shock to spin around and rush for an old WWII radio sitting on a small table. A hurried glance informed him that the battery was fully charged, so he slapped the big red button on the side. He knew that would instantly send a signal to Beijing for emergency assistance. But could the soldiers in their helicopters arrive in time? The tidal wave from the dam could be seen moving above the treeline…no, it was moving through the forest, crushing aside the thick trees like blades of grass!

Suddenly from the nearby village the air-raid siren began to loudly wail, the noise rapidly increasing in volume until the windows on the homes and cars shook from the raw force of the clarion warning.

Everybody stopped whatever they were doing at the noise. The dam had broken? Surely this was only another government test. There hadn’t been a hard rain for many months….

Then the townspeople caught the muted vibration and saw the nearby river start to dramatically rise, climbing over the wooden docks and spreading across the streets, small vegetable gardens and freshly mowed lawns.

Shrieking hysterically, the people of Tzang-Su dropped whatever they had been doing and blindly raced for the public library. There was a large bomb shelter located in the basement, a holdover from the WWII. Long ago, the stout bunker had protected their grandparents from the aerial bombardments of the hated Japanese, and then had saved their parents from the brutal “political cleansing” of the Red Army. Now it would save them all from this onrushing disaster!

But upon reaching the library, it was painfully apparent that the bunker was too small to hold everybody in town. Instantly the people began to frantically struggle to be the first inside the imagined safety of the small bunker. But as more, and even more people attempted to jam into the zigzagging antiradiation corridor leading to the lead-lined door, fighting broke out among the mad press of bodies. Women began to shriek, men cursed, children wept. Knives flashed, guns fired. Soon, fresh blood flowed on the dirty concrete floor, and it became impossible to tell the living from the dead in the raw chaos.

The savage battle was still raging when the boiling wave of radioactive water thundered around a curve of the river valley, the churning wash a hideous slurry of steaming mud, broken trees and lifeless human bodies.

Looming high above the fishing village, the nuclear tsunami seemed to pause before slamming onto the village like the wrath of an angry god, flattening the wooden homes and smashing apart the few brick buildings. The sound of shattering glass overwhelmed the warning siren, and then it went silent, vanished in the maelstrom. A split second later the wave exploded through the side of the library, sending out a halo of stained glass to slice apart the people struggling to get into the ridiculously undersize bunker. Unexpectedly a flood of cars and tree trunks tore away the roof and punched more holes in the stone block walls. Still fighting among themselves, the cursing townsfolk screamed in terror as the water hit, the deadly waters rushing through every opening and crevice with trip-hammer force.