The Rise of Walsanto (Self-Inflicted Series Book 1) Read online

  the Self Inflicted series

  Book 1

  The Rise of

  Walsanto

  Boyd Craven Jr.

  with Valerie de Armas

  The entire Self Inflicted series is a work of fiction. All names, characters and entities throughout it are a product of the author’s imagination, and represent no real person or entity, living or dead. Public locales or names are used only to build atmosphere for the reader’s mind. All of the science depicted in this story is based on reality, and so are its obvious warnings. This isn’t really happening right now. Or is it?

  Copyright © 2013

  Boyd Craven Jr.

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without the prior written consent of the author. You may not circulate this publication in any format.

  This series is dedicated to all of the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters of the world. May you be watchful and awake enough, that you never allow this to befall you.

  Chapter 1

  Washington, DC

  Pre-Spring 2018

  15th St NW & Constitution Ave NW

  The driver approached the intersection of Constitution Ave NW on 15th St NW. This was part of his routine multiple times daily, five days a week. His detail brought guests of the White House from Ronald Reagan National Airport to the White House complex and back again, securely. They followed strict protocol. The light turned yellow as the forward guard car approached it. It paused, so as not to break the caravan and turned on its flashers in order to proceed through the light together in a safe, orderly fashion.

  The limo driver looked in his rearview mirror to make sure the rear guard was right behind him. It was. He looked into the back seat through his mirror and told the two passengers, “Left turn, right turn and we’re there. It’ll be less than a minute.”

  When he lowered his eyes again to look forward through the windshield, it was just in time to see glass shattering and to hear a loud crash, as a full sized white van turning left onto 15th St smashed into the forward guard’s car head-on, driving it back against the front of the limo. His reflexes were quick, but just as he hit reverse to back up; the rear guard’s car was pushed up against the rear of the limo by yet another white van behind it. They were trapped! He saw two dark figures coming back on either side of the forward guard and two dark figures coming forward on either side of the rear guard.

  He heard the sound of suppressed automatic fire and some really loud individual shots. He shouted “Get down!” to his passengers as he drew his weapon and hit the panic button on the dash to call help to his location. The windshield shattered in his face. He had time to form half of a thought in his mind before his lights went out.

  “That’s bullet-proof-“

  “Get out! Get out quickly!” the men shouted in English with heavy Asian accents, on either side of the limo.

  Both passengers were forced at gunpoint to exit the driver’s side rear door. The white van from the front of the wreck pulled around the driver’s side of the limo and screeched to a halt right in front of them. The sliding side door was already open. “Get in! Get in quickly!” the men shouted again. They all piled in, and away it went, the side door closing as they moved. Behind them, the light turned green. All of this had taken place during the course of one red light.

  Sirens approached from the direction of the White House complex. Two tail cars pulled in behind of the two identical white vans from traffic as they drove away quickly, but conservatively. At the first main intersection, the vans turned in opposite directions. Nobody noticed them. All eyes were on the limo, which was on fire at the intersection, and all of the emergency vehicles bearing down on it.

  A short time later, one of the white vans was discovered abandoned just off an exit of US 1 N about fifteen miles away and the other was found near an exit of US 1 S about twelve miles away. Both had minor cosmetic damage to the sheet metal of the heavily reinforced front end and had been wiped entirely clean. Not a fingerprint, nor a shred of forensic evidence was to be had.

  Witnesses later told authorities that the white vans had collided at low speed into the front and rear guards, then accelerated, pushing them tightly against the limo. Five men exited each vehicle. All were dressed in drab, black, military-type uniforms with no identifying features. One man on each five man team was huge. He walked almost like a robot. The huge men carried huge long guns that were incredibly loud when fired compared to the machine guns the other men fired.

  The huge men shot through the front windshields of each of the two guard cars, killing the guards in each before they had time to do anything. Then they all went for the limo, killing that driver in the same way. Immediately, the huge men entered one of the white vans and the remaining men fired towards the surrounding vehicles tires, but appeared not to be trying to hit anyone. Everyone ducked and covered, and when they looked up again, the white vans were gone. All of the witnesses told the same story. Nobody even knew which way they went.

  The entire White House complex was locked down as soon as the gunfire was reported. The President was on site today in preparation for the meeting, and was moved to the interior secure location. He was immediately briefed on what had occurred. This had obviously been well planned and very brazen. It had taken place, minutes before, in broad daylight, as mid-morning traffic flowed around the perimeter of the White House compound.

  Just prior to arriving at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a meeting with the President and the heads of five branches of his advisory cabinet, one minute away from the White House, a heavily armed strike force had kidnapped the spokesperson and the head of research and development of Grymsanto Labs. Killed were the driver of the limo and all guards assigned by the White House to transport them safely from the airport to that meeting.

  As soon as he was given the news, President James asked, “Do we have the Grymsanto location secure?” He looked left, looked right. “No? Do it now!”

  People moved. Fast.

  Minutes after those phone calls were made from the White House a huge firefight took place in the middle of the country. Just outside the main entrance of Grymsanto headquarters, local police battled two teams of four men dressed in black, military-style body armor. As the officer in command received the call that SWAT teams and backup were on the way, a huge man dressed in black got out of each white van. They walked slowly and robot-like directly at the police cars firing some huge caliber semi-automatic rifles. The rounds tore right through the squad cars, hitting the men taking cover behind them. Those that weren’t killed outright were forced to retreat behind the corner of the building. The bullets found them there too, right through the building.

  The attack force loaded back into the white vans, appearing to abort their mission (whatever it had been) but came instead face-to-face with an overwhelming force of police, SWAT and DHS troops. The vans quickly emptied again. This time, eight men formed a defensive position in front of the vans with what looked like drab black riot shields. The two huge men were in place just behind them, and began firing those large caliber rifles again at the authorities with deadly effect.

  The researchers and staff inside the Y shaped building had watched the entire incident unfold, just outside the windows, in disbelief. Security had initially raised the alarm and ordered everyone away from the front, fearing car bombs because of the way the vans had driven right up to the building facing the entrance. At first, everyone had rushed away from the front of the building, but when the gunfire started, curiosity got the better of them, a
nd they gradually came back to the windows to see what was going on. It was a very one sided battle. The police’s bullets had no effect at all on their opponents’ body armor. The police however, had no body armor and stood no chance against the attackers. It was horrible to watch. The lightly equipped police officers quickly abandoned their vehicles and moved to cover behind the armored SWAT and DHS vehicles.

  The attack force’s apparent single defensive formation became two offensive formations suddenly as they advanced rapidly towards law enforcement, on foot. As soon as the offensive formations were well underway, closing the distance between themselves and the first line of abandoned police cars, both white vans accelerated straight towards the building. One headed for the center of each wing of the Y on either side of the main entrance. Upon jumping the curbs and contacting the building, both vans exploded with tremendous force, dropping both wings of the building along with everyone inside into burning heaps of rubble.

  Then, law enforcement caught their first break. The force of the explosions was so great that all of the attackers were knocked clean off of their feet from behind. As they scrambled to regain an upright position and reorganize themselves, DHS armored vehicles began pounding them relentlessly with their 50 caliber turret guns and quickly decimated the entire group.

  “Sir,” one of the agents said, after lifting the mask on one of the huge men, “you better get a look at this!”

  “What do you have here?” the senior agent asked.

  “Sir, what the Hell? What is this?” he said gesturing to one of the smaller men, now unmasked. He had definite Asian features, but a more narrow than round face, and his eyes were different… the pupils shaped all wrong, almost like a cat’s. The most astonishing thing about this dead man however, was his smooth gray/green skin!

  “Holy shit!” exclaimed another agent nearby, as he unmasked one of the huge men. “Look at this one!”

  The face had extra wide features and a flattened nose. While obviously Asian looking, that hair-lined face and that hairy body looked almost… gorilla-like! Once again, that smooth gray/green skin anyplace not covered by the coarse hair.

  Though they were too far away for distinct voices, none of this was missed by the news cameras with all of their wonderful zoom capabilities. Those weird looking dead faces were on TV screens everywhere, live. The contrasting size of the huge dead man compared to the live DHS agents was so apparent that any child would have noticed it. People became glued to their TVs, unsure whether it was all real. Speculation as to what this meant, and what these men were by the media quickly went beyond ridiculous. They had them billed as everything from aliens to mutant animals in about one minute on global TV.

  “Damn! Uh… Is the area secure now?” shouted the senior agent. “Are they all dead?”

  “Yes sir, we’re just waiting for the meat wagon, and we have ambulances for our wounded inbound.”

  “Secure those weapons they dropped. I don’t know what can blow through armored glass like that. It’s supposed to stop small bombs and heavy rifle rounds.”

  “Uh sir,” another agent started, as he hefted one of the massive rifles, “This thing looks like a 20mm cannon, or anti-aircraft rounds…”

  “That’s friggin’ crazy…” Another muttered.

  “Here, look at this casing,” he said, tossing a still warm brass casing to him.

  It showed a small stamping on it, .950 JDJ. The agent tossed over an unfired round that was almost five inches long. It had twice the heft of a .50 A&E round of a Desert Eagle pistol cartridge that the agent had tested out at the range the past year.

  “Somebody tag this gun, the bastard weighs a ton! And somebody get the press out of here!” the senior agent shouted. “Cameras OFF. Right now! In fact, confiscate those 3 over there right now! This is matter of National Security.”

  Agents grabbed camera equipment away from camera men. When the camera men scuffled with them over it, law enforcement took them into custody, and whisked them away. It was too late. There was no taking back what had already been broadcast. There were only two things on every TV screen in the world being repeated over and over from that point forward; the close-up video of the surprise and horror of the agents as they unmasked the weird dead faces, and the arrests of the camera men and the confiscation of their equipment.

  Reporters that were much further away were thrown into a frenzy of activity. Questions were shouted rapid-fire and non-stop over the yellow tape, placed there by the police who had responded, but they remained unanswered.

  “This is going to be a long day. I’m glad I’m not you,” another agent told his boss.

  “Oh? Why’s that?” the senior agent asked sarcastically.

  “Because, this doesn’t make a damned bit of sense from the word go, sir! At least we were able to finally stop them… whatever the hell they are!”

  “I wonder what they were after,” the senior agent asked no one in particular.

  The newly arriving news rigs captured everything that they could and broadcast it live until they too had their cameras confiscated and were detained. Within minutes, no broadcasts were outbound from the attack site. There was no traffic in or out, neither by foot, nor by vehicle. Everyone and every vehicle had been detained and thoroughly searched, as DHS made sure that none of the media were terrorists in disguise. In short order, everyone was cleared and released from the scene, minus their cameras.

  The eyes and hearts of the nation, and the world, were captured once again by this obvious and undeniable act of terrorism, but also by the surprise at what they had seen on their TV screens. The guessing game of what these men were, and who was responsible for this began with a vengeance. The news media were frothing for answers, but none were given. Nobody had any yet.

  All Grymsanto Labs locations of any type around the country were being evacuated and guarded by local police. Employees were sent home. Bomb sniffing dogs searched every building. Nothing else was found.

  People everywhere wondered if this was the start of something larger, or yet just another random act of terror. They stayed at home as much as they could, in fear of going anywhere that there were large gatherings of people. History was repeating itself again in one sense, and history had been made in yet another.

  Chapter 2

  Washington, DC

  The next morning

  The White House

  President Calvin James held an emergency meeting in the Oval Office early the next morning. In attendance were his:

  Chief of Staff - Carl Johnson

  Sec. of Agriculture - Charles Blayton

  Director DHS - Dennis Scott

  Sec. of Interior - Dorothy Garfield

  Sec. of Treasury - Paul Langdon

  “Alright folks, we have a lot of ground to cover. Before we leave this room today, we are all going to be on the same page with what’s happened to Grymsanto Labs, why it’s so important, and what we can do about it. In looking around the room, some of you may be wondering why you have been called upon today. Quite simply, this is a different type of threat than we have ever dealt with before. It requires a different mix of talent, assembled to work together, than ever before. Why, is about to become very clear to all of you.

  “Grymsanto Labs has made a discovery that will forever change the way food is grown on the planet. Yesterday’s meeting was to be the first of many, deciding our role as leaders of the free world, in ending world hunger. Someone went to extreme lengths to prevent that meeting from taking place. We know who that someone is, and today you’re here to discuss their possible motives, and what can and should be done about them.

  “All of us here know that no discovery of any significance can be hidden entirely. Everything is watched by our intelligence people. It’s what they do. When the researchers at Grymsanto began working on yet another genetic modification to corn, not much out of the ordinary attention was given to it. When they actually got results like they did, tremendous results, it got noticed. Here are satel
lite images of one of their field tests,” he nodded towards a screen on the wall.

  On the screen was the image of a member of Grymsanto’s research team taking measurements of some gray/green corn plants more than twice as tall as she was. Each plant had 5 ears, as long as her arm and nearly as thick as her legs.

  “Once satellite digital reconnaissance reports anything worth investigating, the CIA begins the insertion of personnel to gather hard intelligence and report back. So, we had people inside Grymsanto already. We just lost them in this attack.

  “Not only was the CIA aware that Grymsanto had made a discovery that mattered, they were also aware that the Chinese have teams working on something quite similar for rice plants. It’s unclear exactly how much progress they have made, but we know for a fact that they are working on it, and absolutely nothing is off limits over there.

  “What both sides are working on is identifying the genetics responsible for growth rates and maturity rates of food and feed crops that are most significant to their own people. Here, that’s corn. In China, it’s rice. Logic says that once genetic improvements are made to this one crop, the same improvements can be applied rapidly to all other food crops and feed crops, one at a time.

  “Specifically, Grymsanto has discovered how to alter corn plants to grow twice as big, twice as fast. This allows for twice the yield in half of the time. That allows for two crops per year, where only one crop or even no crop was possible before. Doing the math tells you that at bare minimum, the world’s supply of corn at least and possibly rice, will more than quadruple immediately, soon to be followed by everything else.

  “It’s unclear to us who discovered what first, and who is copying the other, but it is abundantly clear that yesterday, an effort was made by the Chinese to eliminate their competition before they could officially report their findings to us. The kidnapping tells us that they want the research information that Grymsanto has on their corn, too. They already lead in rice production; they can’t lead in corn too.”