.....C L O S E P A G E

Click 'Return' icon to close this page and

return to the home page for 'Morgan Island'.

..........M O R G A N I S L A N D

The following excerpt is taken from 'The Time and Space Trilogy'; Book 2, 'Morgan Island'. Midway through the second book, Terry Morgan, the main character, dreams he is the leader of a new society at a place of his own creation called 'Morgan Island'. Like most of his other dreams this 'Story Time' tale is very vivid as well as very frightening.

..........E X C E R P T

CHAPTER 35 War!

At 09:53, April 17, District of Columbia time, President Reginald Thornton signed a short letter that declared Terry Morgan an uncooperative American fugitive. The letter further stated that the Government of the United States of America was taking appropriate action to capture the criminal and bring him to justice.

A middle-aged clerk at the White House casually took another bite out of her cream cheese-smothered bagel from her left hand as she put the one page message into a facsimile machine with her right. She punched a phone number into the keyboard of the machine and pressed the 'Send' button. Seconds later, the formal 'Declaration of War' arrived at Morgan Island.

Five minutess after the President was informed that the message had been sent, he made a series of phone calls. First, however, he privately consulted with Imam Mahmaud Mugniyeh and discussed the updated particulars of their invasion plans. He then called his Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the replacement Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Affairs Advisor, his Chief of Staff and the CIA Director into a White House conference room for an urgent conference.

"For crying out loud, Reggie," sputtered the Secretary of State, "there's thousands of American and foreign tourists on that island. You can't just go in and bomb the crap out of Morgan City and the power plant while many of our citizens are lying on the beaches sipping Pina Coladas. Geez, man, there are people from half the countries of the world there. They'll all jump out of their bathing suits when they hear the first bomb go off."

"I agree, I can't condone this reckless action Mr. President," admonished the Vice President. "You should at least allow time for the tourists to flee the island before you send warplanes and troops..."

"Damn it, this isn't a war, it's a police action," defended POTUS. "We're sending law enforcement personnel trained in foreign operations to capture a wanted fugitive. People from places like Israel should be used to seeing the military exercising their right and duty to enforce the law and maintain order. We're not going there with the intent of killing any citizens, only to arrest their terrorist leader."

"Sure as hell doesn't sound like you're sending a few cops to serve an arrest warrant on the man," warned the National Security Affairs Advisor with a wavering voice that passionately spoke of his strong disagreement with his Commander-in-Chief.

"I'm not here to argue policy or procedure, people," the President ominously said. "The plan has already been set in motion. I only brought you together so we can watch it unfold."

"Aaaah, hell!" exclaimed the Secretary of State, Jack Hale, who rose abruptly from his chair and angrily turned toward the wall as though the act would somehow conceal his strong displeasure over the current state of affairs he was helpless to change. His knuckles were turning white in his clenched fists.

"What the hell's your problem, Jack?"

"I can't...I refuse to be a part of this madness, Reggie. You have no right..."

"I can and you will. Those are my orders."

At 10:03, fighter aircraft lifted off simultaneously from several air bases along the southern coast of the United States, from Texas to Florida and from an aircraft carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk, at sea off the coast of South Carolina.

A first wave of 113 fighters and stealth bombers gathered into attack formations and headed south.

At 10:39 a.m., only fifteen aircraft remained in the air. The survivors, all FA-18's from the USS Kitty Hawk, continued on toward their primary targets, the Morgan Island Tidal Power Plant and any active radar installations or SAM missile sites that might be detected by the aircraft on the way in.

For the rest of the air armada, there was utter chaos. As if by magic, the engines of all the fighters and bombers suddenly failed at the same instant. The military officers back at headquarters were dumbfounded. There were whispers bantered about that Morgan Island possessed a secret energy ray that swept over the fleet like a magnetic storm, knocking out all the electrical power on the aircraft. Science specialists speculated that the aircraft may have been the victims of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) unleashed by Morgan's evil empire. Nobody could conceive of any other way for so many aircraft to be shut down simultaneously.

Little did anyone know that the incredible power behind the felling of such awesome military might was nothing more than a group of thirty-four geriatric ladies maneuvering their computer mice on rubber pads while chatting about their grandchildren and retirement activities.

The ladies merely matched up the numbered dots on the screen with a menu on their monitors and then clicked the buttons that sent a message to the tiny "Gremlin" microchips onboard the fighters. The virus programs that were loaded into the weapons, months or even years before, quickly did their dirty deed before the aircraft were three-miles inside Morgan Island airspace.

The planes fell silently from the sky. The warm, moist air was filled with the parachutes of frustrated young pilots and weapons specialists who were screaming out their rage as they drifted down to the sea that was waiting for them below.

From intercepted, supposedly secure, military communications, the defense leaders on Morgan Island knew that there were 113 aircraft in the air armada. The electronic maps only detected the paths of 98 airplanes however. That left fifteen aircraft without secret microchips onboard and thus fifteen aircraft that would not crash when the 'Gremlin' viruses were unleashed.

The computers beneath Morgan City plotted the projected path of the remaining airplanes. An interception point was determined and the coordinates sent to the men who controlled the 'Gulls' that were tasked with finishing the job.

Bart Sutherland and twenty-nine other volunteer, part-time pilots were at their computer workstations focused so intently on their monitors that they all appeared to be in a trance. Their squadron of 'Gull' drones had departed Morgan City ten minutes before the invaders reached the limits of Morgan Island airspace. The drones were circling slowly at five hundred feet when the pilots received word that survivors managed to escape the 'Gremlin' attack. Seconds later, the coordinates of a new intercept point was sent to Sutherland and the others and as one, they raced their 'Gulls' to confront the enemy.

This excerpt is just the first portion of Chapter 35 of the novel,'Morgan Island'. The 'Gull' and 'Gremlin' are only two of an arsenal of futuristic weapons created inside the fertile mind of Terry Morgan.