The Rangers Are Coming Read Free Page B

to threaten the true faith.  They must be destroyed!”
                  “Which is the purpose of our meeting here today,” said the mullah. “Iran’s nuclear program has continued to progress secretly.  We must strike America before our supposedly dormant program brings the issue to light again.”
                  “I’m pleased to announce we have developed several nuclear weapons. It’s taken us six years, but I am able to report that six such weapons have been successfully smuggled into the United States and are ready for detonation.”
                  “What are their locations,” asked the Egyptian representative?”
                  “New York City, Washington, D.C., the CIA headquarters in Langley, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Denver, Colorado,” said the Iranian.
                  “Why Denver?” asked one of the others.
                  “Because Denver is on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and the radiation from the blast will be blown across the entire center of the country.”
                  “Our estimates are that 50 million people will die immediately from the explosions and that an additional 100 million people will die from radiation exposure in the following two weeks to a month.”
                  “Goodbye to the Great Satan,” cried the Iranian mullah, “Allah Akbar!”
                  “Brothers,” said the Saudi, “A week from today, we will strike.”
     
    Branson, Missouri
    It was minutes before One O’clock in the afternoon in New York City on September 11.  A van pulled into a parking garage in midtown Manhattan.  At the same time, a van pulled up along the outer fence of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  Vans were also pulling into parking garages in Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.
    The drivers of each van took out cell phones and waited quietly as the moments moved toward the top of the hour.  As the phones reached the exact time, each of the drivers said in loud voices, “Allah, Akbar!”, and entered a number in their phones.  Simultaneously there were intensely bright lights that signaled the detonation of each of the six nuclear bombs across America.
    In Washington, the Capitol, White House, all the monuments, the Supreme Court, the Smithsonian Museums, and every building within five miles of ground zero were instantly vaporized and the blast blew down every building for ten miles.
    The headquarters of the CIA in Langley simply ceased to exist.
    The Island of Manhattan became a heap of superheated rubble, as all the great buildings, museums, harbors, and the Statue of Liberty vanished in a few seconds.
    In Chicago, the blast pushed the waters of Lake Michigan back hundreds of feet and when they returned, they were only washing over a steaming cauldron of devastation.
    In Denver, the blast spread out from downtown, all the way to the Denver Tech Center.  The campuses of the University of Denver, and the complex of buildings that made up the University of Colorado campus in Denver, evaporated in an explosion of dust, heat, and burning fire.
    In Los Angeles, the crowded freeways, the sprawling downtown, and the coastal communities were nothing more than huge piles of rubble.
    Millions of Americans were killed instantly.  The Vice-President and all his staff, the legislators in both houses of Congress never knew what hit them.  The entire compliment of personnel in the CIA headquarters was blown into tiny pieces.  More millions died in Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.
    The men and women in the orbiting space station looked down and saw six enormous mushroom clouds spreading out over the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.
    America had been dealt a deathblow.  She would never rise again.
    In Branson, Missouri, far away from any of the deadly explosions, Arcadia Martin froze in her steps as she was walking near the