This is bad, really, really bad, Lee thought.
He started to consider the cause, which he was starting to, but did not want to accept. Lee had studied and planned, but doubted it would happen. Maybe the power outage and the explosion are related. Lee was overcome by the feeling this event was bigger. Much, much bigger. The room was already getting stuffy from the lack of air-conditioning. Lee stood and considered the impossible.
Lee Garrett had come to downtown Vegas for his work. He was there to oversee a new fireworks and special effects project for one of the large Freemont street casinos. He had driven up the day before from his home in Agua Dulce California, which was a small rural community outside Los Angeles, north out of the San Fernando Valley. It was roughly two hundred miles by car. The trip would normally take Lee around four hours. Staring out at the darkened Las Vegas city, however, gave Lee a chilling feeling that Agua Dulce was not going to be four hours away for the return trip home. The large fire was still burning and appeared to be spreading. He could tell that flames and smoke were overrunning many tall buildings.
Lee noticed something else. Many of the cars below had headlights, taillights, or even some hazard flashers, but he saw no cars moving. He could see flashing lights frozen in space on some type of emergency vehicle. Surely hundreds of emergency vehicles and First Responders should be screaming full speed to the giant inferno on the northwest side of town. He saw none in any direction. Was Lee’s nagging hunch correct?
Lee’s full name was Lee Andrew Garrett. Most people knew him as Lee, but a few friends and an Uncle who shared the name knew him as Andy. At the age of fifty-two, Lee’s occupation was that of a special effects consultant and engineer. Married with two sons and a daughter. Lee was hoping his family all had made it to his house. He had insisted sometimes against pushback the family plan for emergencies, so he hoped and prayed they were all safe.
Although not a military veteran himself, Lee had involvement in the defense department for years. He consulted on their MOUT training facilities around the country. MOUT stood for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. MOUTs were fake towns or villages that units would attack or defend as part of intensive training. The Army had tapped into the special effects industry to bring more reality to the training bases. Lee’s company added realistic but safe explosions using natural gas or propane and pyrotechnic devices. Also added were other types of booby traps, bullet hits, and special effects to keep soldiers on their toes and make training more realistic and even scary at times. When any explosion goes off near you, safe or not, it will definitely get your attention or as special effects people say, “pucker up your asshole.”
Besides Lee’s love for his family and friends and his rewarding professional life, he had a hobby which now may be of paramount importance to his survival. Prepping. Yes, Lee was one of those nutcase doomsday preppers. He took preparation seriously in his work, and he took it to a new level in his prepping. He spent hours planning for different types of natural or man-made disasters. With his wife and family members, Lee spent hours on hours, plus a fair amount of money on plans, and equipment all in case of the worst scenarios. They had stockpiles of prepper supplies at their home. Both of them read everything they could find on the subject, bought tons of stuff, and stockpiled crap to the point of driving the rest of the family nuts. Lee and Madison both religiously carried oversized backpacks in their cars just in case. A popular name for a prepper backpack was “Bug Out Bag.” Other names used were G-O-O-D, or “Get Out of Dodge Bag,” or W-T-S-H-T-F, as “When the Shit Hits the Fan Bag.” Lee preferred BOB. It was simple. Lee kept two bags ready always. He carried a three-day bag daily in his SUV, going to and from work and around the Los Angeles area. Madison and the kids carried identical bags in their cars. For longer trips, Lee would put a larger seven-day bag into his Ford Explorer. He had loaded the larger bag for the trip up to Las Vegas. Lee was not sure of the situation yet, but he thought, Thankfully I bought the big bag.
Lee picked up the flashlight and hit the power button. It illuminated and lit up the room. “Well, at least it is working.” Years of traveling with a flashlight in his luggage just paid off. Lee used the flashlight to find his duffel, inside which was a small lockbox containing a Ruger LC-9 small automatic pistol. Being a gun owner in California made it tough. The laws on weapon carry were strict. To legally carry a pistol inside a car within California, you had to unload it and lock it inside a box separate from any ammunition. The small lockbox fulfilled the requirement, and Lee had simply put the box with the pistol in his duffel when he unloaded it and other items from the car while checking into the hotel. Knowing the gun held an empty magazine, Lee had taken two fully loaded magazines out of his BOB and tossed them in the bottom of the duffel bag. Lee now fished a loaded mag from his duffel bag, ejected the empty from the small pistol, inserted a full, pulled back the slide, and sent a round into the chamber. The gun was ready to fire. Not having extra shells, he placed the empty mag back into his duffel. Lee was not sure why he felt compelled to load the weapon, but he had a bad feeling.
Lee quickly put on some shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. He was now hearing noise from the hallway. He went to the door and listened. Someone was pounding on a door, and a male voice was raising all kinds of hell.
“Fucking electric door locks are out. Goddamn it. Nineteen fucking floors of stairs and the door is locked. This sucks!” the loud man shouted.
Another male voice chimed in, “Let’s kick the fucking door in.”
Heavy pounding and kicking followed. Other doors in the hall started to open. Lee did the same, slowly opening his door, but keeping the Ruger at his side as he leaned out to look up and down the hall. Emergency lights were on at each end of the hall, casting an eerie glow up and down the long corridor. Lee saw two middle-aged, semi-overweight men dressed in the typical American Vegas tourist clothing consisting of golf shirts, long shorts, and sneakers. The two loud and probably half-drunk men were in the hall a few doors down on the right, furiously kicking at their room door. Other heads and partial bodies were leaning out several doors, watching the two irritated patrons doing their best to break into what Lee only hoped was their room.
A middle-aged woman, who reminded Lee of Peg from the Married with Children TV show, was standing in her door across the hall in between his room and the two pissed-off drunks. She spoke up directing her question to them, causing a temporarily pause of their determined breaking and entering attempt.
“What’s going on?” the woman asked.
One of the men turned and answered, “Power’s out all over. The casino TVs came on with the emergency broadcast system but then just went black. We heard someone say that one of the TV news stations said something about a nuke going off in Washington. Bout then all the stations went out. And there was a big ass plane crash North of here. We heard the screaming noise of the plane just before the explosion. There is a big fucking fire burning. We walked up here from the Freemont Street. Now these goddamn electronic locks are busted too. Cell phones are all dead. Everyone is getting really pissed downstairs.”
“Is that your room?” the woman asked.
“No, lady, we are just kicking in the door of some other room. Yes, this is our fucking room. You better not let your door close or you will be in the same shit tuna boat as us,” said one of the irritated men.
Without another word to the two angry men, the woman in the doorway turned back into her room and closed the door. Many conversations were starting up and down the hall between various guests all standing partially in their doorways. Lee closed his door and went back to the window. Looking outside, he could see there was no real change outside. It was total blackness except for vehicle lights and the big fire. The headlamps of the cars provided some light at street level. Lee could see many cars had the hoods up and people leaning into the engine compartments. As much as Lee was hoping for another explanation, his suspicion was starting to make terrible sense. This was not just a power outage. This was far worse. This much damage was an EMP, or Electro Magnetic Pulse. An EMP was a high-power surge of energy, which theory agreed was capable of taking down the power grids and sensitive electronics. There were two main EMP scenarios. First was a massive solar flare. Few scientists and engineers thought a solar flare could inflict this kind of damage on the power system plus kill nearly every car in