An action thriller by Jock Miller


Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.


purchase on Amazon.com





The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.

As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.


The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.

The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.

Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.


Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


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February 20, 2013


An excerpt from Jock Miller's
Fossil River

Plus a chance to win a brand new Kindle Fire HD
"... Step aside Jurassic Park, your rival has just entered the ring."

When a panicked America is literally running out of gas, the last possible energy resource is discovered in a remote wilderness area in Alaska. There's just one little problem -- the area is fiercely guarded by intelligent, flying, and ferocious dinosaurs.
Fossil River is a riveting reality check on America’s challenging energy future, and a glue-you-to-your seat roller coaster ride from adventure to terror and back. A scary,
fast read!"


It's north to Alaska in this Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt from this "blazing good read."
by Jock Miller

28 rave reviews!
 
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
 
Here's the set-up:

Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died. Now, in this riveting action thriller, the tables are turning!

The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries have increased due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty. Lack of gas has citizens  panicking at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that would plunge the nation into a deep depression, much worse than that of 1929. At the last moment,  the U.S. discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit, in a remote mountain range in Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve. How to get it becomes the burning question -- preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

In preliminary scouts, nobody gets out alive -- and nobody can identify the predator -- until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the nearly-inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. Then when
Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park, all hell breaks loose.

Will the U.S. Marines succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy catastrophe in recorded history?
Praise from reviewers and readers:

Fossil River is a terrific read. Miller has created a fast-paced, intricate thriller that is a pure adrenalin rush. Be prepared to stay up long into the night with this book.”  -
-James Swain, author of
The Night Monster

“In the spirit of Michael Crighton, Jock Miller brings us Fossil River, a paleontological thriller sure to please. This tasty bit of fantasy science centered in a national park under siege, brings us living dinosaurs, smart attractive women, environmental messages, and enough action and suspense to make it perfect for a long plane ride."
--Dr. Mark A. Norell, Chairman and Curator Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History


"... Step aside Jurassic Park, your rival has just entered the ring."

Fossil River is a riveting reality check on America’s challenging energy future, and a glue-you-to-your seat roller coaster ride from adventure to terror and back. A scary fast read!"

"...adventure, escapism, romance, and pure FUN."

"A blazing good read. Couldn't put it down. Great action scenes."


an excerpt from
Fossil River
by Jock Miller
 
Copyright © 2013 by Jock Miller and published here with his permission

                          PART I
                    CHAPTER 1
     
Butch Giselson’s alarm sounded at 4:30 a.m. AKST, a two-hour time difference from his Mountain Time in Wyoming. But he was already awake, his chartered floatplane at ready.
Giselson had fantasized about this day for months. He’d studied the Orvis catalogue, selected the perfect gear, and read whatever he could get his hands on about fishing gold-medal rivers with the fervor of a kid obsessed with electronic games.
Two summers ago, he’d traveled to the Rio Grande River in Tierra del Fuego to fish for large sea-run brown trout at the southern tip of Argentina. Last summer he traveled to the Kenai River for big Russian rainbow trout, steelhead, Dolly Varden, and Chinook salmon. Now he was in quest of trophy native rainbows and oversized steelhead in the rarely-fished waters of Alaska’s legendary Fossil River. It promised to be the most challenging of them all. In fact, Giselson wasn’t even sure he could find the Fossil after poring over maps, satellite GPS pictures, and topographical charts. The thin blue river line in the Noatak National Preserve had no river name listed—but through the process of elimination, he assumed it had to be the Fossil.
Giselson had ventured into the wilderness many times before, but this time would be different, he told himself. When fishing the other famous rivers of the world, Giselson had fishing guides. But after countless calls to outfitters and guide services in the Noatak Preserve region, he found nobody willing to take him. Two of the five guides he’d contacted had never even heard of the Fossil River. Bottom line: there would be no guide.
Giselson’s charter pilot would fly east up the Noatak River in a de Havilland Beaver DHC-2. He knew the plane well—no pontoons this time. He’d be dropped off between the Maiyu Merak Mountains and the Brooks Mountain Range, 136 miles upriver. Hopefully, there would be an ATV waiting for him when he arrived. He’d paid the rental fee the day before his arrival, and a riverboat was to make the ATV deposit on the south bank of the Noatak River.
The Fossil cut through wilderness that was so remote and inaccessible that tales of fishing the river were passed along as legend by the old-timers who haunted the solitary fisherman’s bar, The Master Baiter, on the outskirts of the small town of Noatak, population 510. The tales mesmerized Giselson. Not one of the fishermen Giselson had met the night before had actually ever fished the Fossil himself; their stories were all rumor and hearsay. But to Giselson, they were utterly irresistible.
He’d stayed up past midnight the night before reviewing old maps and double-checking his equipment: a five-weight impregnated bamboo fly rod, which had been a gift from his father on his sixteenth birthday; four- and five-weight tippets; a wicker creel with that wonderful smell that brought back memories of a great day fishing; a fly vest including dry and wet flies of all sizes; silicon dry fly dressing; a snap-free net attached to the back of his vest; a hunting knife; neoprene waders; a new Apple iPhone that he guessed might not have a signal deep into the wilderness; a satellite GPS.
And a Smith & Wesson SW1911DK his father gave him on his twenty-first birthday. It held one ten-round clip, which he zipped into the inside pocket of his vest with another box of shells. “Just in case,” he said, shrugging, knowing that Noatak Park’s six-and-a-half million acres contained the largest grizzly population in North America.
It was first light when Giselson’s small plane touched down on the Noatak. A flock of mergansers took off from the river at the sound of the engine roar. The pilot negotiated a two-wheeled landing on a thin strip of shoreline not more than fifteen feet wide—confirming the agility of the de Havilland and its Pratt and Whitney engine. Giselson smiled with pleasure when he saw the ATV not thirty yards from the planned drop.
“Great job,” Giselson chortled appreciatively.
“Great plane,” the pilot grunted, his raspy voice confirming he could’ve used another two hours of sleep and two more cups of Joe.
“Great pilot.”
“Up here, you have to be,” the pilot responded with a nod. “But thanks.”
The fisherman looked at his watch. “I’ll be here at nine o’clock sharp tonight. Sun doesn’t set until close to midnight so I’ve got extra time to fish. Not a bad deal for a fly fisherman,” Giselson said.
The pilot exhaled. “You be careful in there. You got a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck,” the pilot intoned.
The comment bothered Giselson. Something about it sounded a little more ominous than simply saying good luck in fishing. He decided to let it go and hopped out of the plane. Then he gathered his equipment and watched the pilot throttle up the engine into a roar of power. The small plane lifted off the thin strip of shoreline, circled once, than vanished into the western horizon.
The air was cool and the thought of large trout and steelhead gripped Giselson’s mind. He loaded up the ATV. The engine came alive, and the GPS he held in his hand marked his exact spot. He took in a long breath of crisp mountain air and gunned the ATV up and over the south bank ledge in a high arc. Life was great, he told himself.
He cut a diagonal path toward the Maiyu Merak Mountain Range. On the map, there was no indication of any road or path beyond the river, but the rumors he’d heard mentioned a stretch of the southeast fork of the Fossil that was hidden somewhere between four mountains south of the Noatak River.
From the maps and history of the vast mountain range, he knew there were nine active glaciers, three active volcanoes of the thirty in Alaska, and more than 200 lakes within Noatak Park, sprawling 400 majestic miles across Alaska east to west. He knew that the Noatak River’s origin began far to the east, high up in the mountains winding through the range until it spilled into the Chukchi Sea.
He pressed on in his ATV. It was smooth riding at first, then tougher, and as he threaded his way between mountain ridges, it became almost impassable. By 8:20 a.m., Giselson had run up into a rock ravine so steep that he was forced to stop. He took a deep, frustrating breath of morning air and surveyed the sprawling mountain peaks up ahead.
One peak spewed a cloud of billowing smoke, and the fisherman realized he’d never before been this close to a live volcano. In the distance, he saw two Dall sheep butting heads.
He had no choice; he would have to hike toward the river with the hope of intersecting it. He marked the ATV on his GPS, shouldered his equipment, and began a slow, arduous climb.

                              ***
Giselson walked for more than an hour. At first, he moved through the mountain vegetation with little resistance. But soon the mix of thick alders, Douglas fir, Ponderosa Pine, and Native Mountain Ash thickened and slowed his progress. The chokecherry that grew along the new path he was now blazing became almost impassible.
A machete would have been helpful, he thought, but carrying one would have been cumbersome. Then, in the distance, Giselson saw a wall of Fish & Wildlife Agency posters, each with a different message:

NO TRESPASSING!
DANGER AHEAD!
NO ACCESS!

Giselson had trespassed many times on private property to reach gold medal fishing streams, so he wasn’t intimated. But how in the hell did the park rangers even find this place—and why such a strong warning?
Only one sign bothered him: a skull and crossbones with the message that, if he trespassed he was taking his life in his own hands and Noatak National Park would not be held responsible.
He walked around the sign and pressed forward.
Giselson maintained his relentless pace for another two hours, stopping only to read his compass, check his GPS, and scan his map.  The promise of landing trophy native trout and steelhead pulled him through the dense terrain like a carrot leading a horse. He topped a high ridge and stopped to take in the view.
He heard something in the distance. It was faint at first, but it soon built to a thunderous roar.
Giselson walked cautiously toward the sound. He climbed atop the next ridge and peered down into the valley. What he saw coming around the valley bend below was a herd of caribou running in a stampede, dust swirling above them. Something had spooked them.
“Fucking reindeer,” Giselson said in shocked surprise. The only thing missing was Santa Claus and his sleigh.     
Giselson crossed three more ridges and stopped abruptly. In front of him stood a steep outcrop of rock, a thick ridge maybe 100 feet high that rose awkwardly from the dense forest.
The wall of rock and dirt rose up to form a jagged rim at the top of the incline and, for the first time, Giselson considered turning back. This outcrop must have been deposited by a glacier thousands of years before, he thought. He looked down mountain. The view was vast and desolate, as if an unseen hand had sculpted every gleaming snow-capped mountain in wondrous perfection. It took his breath away.  
He walked sixty paces to the right but found no access. Too steep. He took a long swig of water from his canteen, then trudged back to the left.  It was impossible. He’d never be able to scale this ridge.
But he kept following the wall of rock. He’d come too far to give up easily. Then he saw it: a crevice between two large boulders. He would have missed the opening were it not for the small streak of mid-morning sun that lit up the tiny slice in the rock wall. He went closer for a look.
Rusted steel bars had been bolted in place to prevent access.
Why would someone do that this far from civilization? He pulled on each one. They were firmly drilled into the rock.
Finally he found one bar, higher than the others, that was loose.
He climbed the ladder of bars and pushed and prodded on the loose bar until it snapped free.
He crawled into the narrow rock slit and wormed his way through it. Then he began to shimmy snake-like up through the tight crevice that wended back and forth across the wall.
An hour later, sweaty and out of breath, he reached the top of the jagged ridge, which seemed to stretch out for miles around him. A thick fog hovered over the forest canopy like white icing on a chocolate cake.        
The trees atop the ridge seemed oddly out of place. They were taller even than the trees in the forest below, and he couldn’t identify some of them. They were growing from the arid ridge in an irregular pattern, as if sewn by a drunken wind. This was truly virgin wilderness.
Something else struck him as odd. As he moved up and onto the ground of what he realized was a hanging mountain valley, he noticed the temperature was growing warmer, not cooler. Instead of sixty degrees Fahrenheit in June, it had to top seventy. Even stranger, the tree density seemed to thicken the higher he climbed.
Alaska has some strange country, he thought. He forged on, listening for any distant sound of a river. Nothing yet.
At one point, it had grown so warm and humid he considered taking off his fishing vest and stuffing it into his backpack. But the thought of suiting up and putting together his five-weight Orvis rod sent a surge of adrenaline into his step and he pressed on without removing his gear.
Pockets of deep snow, mostly on the north slope of the valley, still remained, but didn’t seem to cool the temperate air. Up ahead, maybe 300 yards, a misty fog bank hung on the massive pine-tree canopy. Puffs of steamy vapor escaped from jagged crevasses in the earth’s crust with an eerie hiss, thickening the fog.
Another hundred yards across the plateau, Giselson stopped and cocked his head. He could hear the whisper of moving water. He picked up his pace. Sweat was beading on his forehead.
As he pressed on, he began to think about what fly he would use. Dry or wet? Deer-hair Royal Wolf, Rat-faced McDougal, or Bead-head Prince Nymph? Maybe both, with the wet serving as a trailer? His pulse quickened as his mind raced through his options.
The thick underbrush was finally beginning to thin. Giselson stepped out into a clearing and caught his breath. Before him was a steep rushing gorge. He raised his eyes and took in the spray of white water plunging down between the huge mountain boulders.
In the distance, far to the east, rose Mount St. Lincoln. He realized that the small thin, jagged line that broke the face of the peak was another massive waterfall. Fossil River Falls, the highest natural waterfall in Alaska. At 814 feet it was triple the height of Colorado’s Telluride Bridal Falls that fed into its San Juan River, which he had also fished.
Giselson made his way carefully down the slick rocks. His neoprene boots gripped the mossy surface without fault. He knelt down and took two cans of Coors Lite from his fishing vest and placed them carefully into the river for cooling, but the temperature of the Fossil surprised him. The water was warm, almost hot from volcanic activity, he thought, just like the Fire Hole River in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. The rainbows he’d caught there were warm to the touch. He took his beers out of the river and set them on a rock slab.
He stepped within twelve feet of the first pool and stripped out line while false casting across the bottom part of the pool, knowing that feeding trout and steelhead would always face upstream. His #18 Royal Wolf dry fly hit the water with hardly a dimple and floated downstream.
The man stared at the fly, waiting. Out of the corner of his eye, he tracked a large shadow moving beneath the surface, a silhouette of wild perfection. The shadow rose and hesitated for a split second before the enormous trout sipped the fly into its mouth.
Instinctively, he lifted his rod tip until he hit resistance. The muscular rainbow leapt from the water and Giselson watched, eyes wide, as if he were in a trance. Eight minutes passed, then another ten, before the fish turned ashore, jumping three more times.
When Giselson was certain the fish was tired, he kneaded the line through his fingers, and slowly, carefully brought the fish in, where it flopped extravagantly on the river rocks. He dropped his reel to the ground, leaned over, and held the fish with both hands—the girth was that thick—while he worked his measuring tape from his vest pocket. The trout measured twenty-nine-and-a-half inches and the flesh was warm. He guessed its weight at over twelve pounds. Breathless, he stood mesmerized by the kaleidoscope that radiated across its shimmering flesh, the rainbow streak on its side the richest he had ever seen.
Giselson was usually a catch-and-release man. But he longed to taste the native pink meat, so he quickly gutted the fish and slipped it into the creel he wore slung across his back, ten inches of fish and tail poking out of the creel hole.
I’ll go to The Master Baiter tonight when I return and play show-and-tell with the old-timers. A broad grin spread across his face. He rewarded himself with a cool beer, leaving the other can on the slab of red rock for when he returned.
He moved upstream, hugging the bank, carefully placing his fly along the far wall of the next pool. The moment the fly hit the water, a steelhead sipped the fly into its gaping mouth. The sound of the splash broke the tranquility of the scene like a slap across the face. He grinned with appreciation.
Now he was completely lost in the beauty of the sport. He landed the fish, which he guessed to weigh fifteen pounds, then released it back into the river.
He fished the next two pools upriver, catching two more fish of equal size, both rainbows. The trip into the valley between mountains had been well worth the risk. He walked around the gorge, having to go inland somewhat to negotiate the expanded width of the river.
He felt like the only man to have ever fished here, and he knew this feeling was what gave the Fossil River its reputation. He felt like he’d just scaled Everest or landed on the moon.
As Giselson forged the left side of the river, he heard a strange, unfamiliar sound that stopped him short.
It was coming from upriver.
At first, he thought it sounded like an elk’s bugle, but it was too high-pitched and sharp. Whatever it was, its call sent a shudder down his spine.
He stopped and waited for another call. Nothing came. Slowly now as he advanced upriver, his eyes combed the thick woods that hugged the banks on both sides.
The next pool he came upon was large and enclosed by a high ridge of boulders that seemed to form an almost perfect circle. He peered down into the crystal clear water, which was about ten feet deep.
Rocks littered the bottom. Some were round sandstone, others gray with sharp edges, still others pink. He could see the shadow of large fish hovering behind a cluster of stones.
He stepped down to the very edge of the pool and raised his rod, stripping out line in a perfect arc, front-to-back, double hauling for distance.
Just before his fly hit the water, a high-pitched screech startled him. What was meant to be a smooth silent cast collapsed into a tangle of green line, and Giselson knew he had spooked the pool.
But he also knew that something was terribly wrong.
His heart was pounding in his chest now. Beads of sweat rolled down his brow, stinging his eyes. He stepped out of the water and stood rigid, eyes scanning the deep woods on both sides of the river. He took two steps back and heard a rustle in the brush on the opposite bank. His mind filled with the image of a grizzly bear on the hunt. Bushes moved, branches snapped. His eyes widened.
He pulled his Smith & Wesson from his vest, unlocked the safety, and fired three quick rounds into the dense trees on the opposite riverbank. The report echoed across the valley. Then there was silence, save for the soft lulling sound of the Fossil River.
Nothing moved. Giselson turned slowly, 360 degrees. Then he cursed his overactive imagination.
“Don’t be an asshole.” He tucked the gun back into his vest and looked into the pool before him. His imagination was playing tricks on him, he thought. He coached himself to relax. Again, he felt for the gun in his vest pocket and took in a deep breath of mountain air.
Without warning, a deafening sound swept across the river, but this time it was familiar, and it came from the sky.
He looked up. A thin vale of fog still hovered over the valley, but he could now see specks of cerulean blue Alaskan sky peeking through the clouds. In the distance, he heard the din of jet engines and then the belly of a silver plane appeared above him. It’s too low, Giselson thought—but just the sight of it gave him a new sense of security.
That was short-lived.   

                               ***
Giselson shook his head, trying to make sense of the lost-world feeling that enveloped him. There was something else eerie about this place: the smell. He tilted his nose upwind and took in another deep breath of mountain air.
It’s oil. Yes, he decided, the smell was definitely oil, but it was faint and seemed to waft into his sensory system, then vanish. How strange. His GPS read 7,800 feet.
An eerie screeching that seemed to be coming from all directions at once shattered his reverie and filled him with unmitigated fear.
Something was stalking him.
And whatever it was had to be more than one. Maybe two or more.
A shape streaked to his left.
Then he saw movement across the river so fast that he couldn’t register what it was—yet he knew in an instant it was not a grizzly bear. He pulled his gun out again, this time aware his hand was shaking. He tried to steady the motion and, as he did, turned slowly, pointing the weapon. He fired a shot. The sound reverberated through the mountain valley and gave him a modicum of confidence.
There was another ear-piercing screech and movement to his left; to his right, a rustling behind him. Something upriver seemed to be gliding right-to-left across the stream. Something large. He thought he saw wings, but the fog had thickened and left him with a fuzzy image.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelled.
Then he saw another streak of motion in the distance, and his eyes widened in disbelief. He saw color: blackish brown with patches of blue, maybe some red. He thought he saw feathers, but wasn’t sure. Feathers made no sense.
He’d seen the size of it this time and it was large: ten to twelve feet long, six to eight feet tall. Most terrifying was the creatures’ speed and agility. Somehow, Giselson knew, they were communicating to each other.
And closing in fast.
The bushes rustled again and shook with intensity. He was encircled. In one panicked and desperate motion, Giselson emptied his remaining seven rounds in all directions. The Rocky Mountain range seemed to explode with the salvo.
Then it happened.
Before he could even reach for more ammo in his vest pocket, something enormous lunged at him and tore at his face, blinding him and spinning him around. He flailed wildly, arms wind-milling for balance.
The impact sent him falling backward toward the river. His legs churned to regain ground. He blinked in disbelief. Everything around him seemed to be tinted red. Then he realized blood was spurting from his scalp, down his forehead, and into his eyes.
He looked down at his chest and saw a gaping vertical wound that ran from his sternum to his crotch. His hands instinctively moved to cover his guts. He threw his head back and let out a gurgling scream for help.
That’s when he was attacked and surrounded again.
Before his lacerated body fell into the Fossil River, Giselson’s eyes went blank, and his mind had already been paralyzed by a sight that forced his heart to beat its last pulse in one convulsive shiver of dread.

***
The strong current pulled his mangled corpse toward the center of the fast-moving river. His fishing gear fell away and floated downstream, and the once gin-clear water of the Fossil was now the color of a cheap rosé wine.
Giselson’s tattered, bloodied vest caught on a tree branch. His creel, heavy with the trout he’d gutted earlier, sank to the bottom.
Moments later, the dead fish slipped from the creel basket and floated toward the surface. There, caught in the strong swirl of undercurrent, it was swept down river and around the bend toward the Noatak.


                   CHAPTER 2

One hundred and fifty million years ago, the majestic mountains of the American Northwest were nothing more than sand ridges that rolled along the bottom of a vast ocean teeming with prehistoric life.
When the plates of the continent heaved and collided, the earth buckled and bent, creating a dramatically contoured landmass where once there was ocean.
Then came the dinosaurs—vast lumbering herbivore packs and carnivore colonies that roamed the region to hunt amid dense, giant forests. The pathway for this colossal land migration of flora and fauna leading from Siberia to North America was across the Bering Land Bridge that connected Asia to Alaska, surrounded by the Chukchi Sea.
Gently rolling lands pocked with ponds and swamps teemed with creatures feeding on a plethora of small protozoa. Vegetation burst into full bloom and the dinosaurs thrived.  The region was overrun with thousands of species, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Deinonychus, Triceratops, and the duck-billed Hadrosaurus.  Teleost fish began to appear in tidal pools along with ammonites, belemnites, echinoids, and the first sponges.    
Then, in the Cenozoic Era, a massive meteorite approached earth at an unimaginable velocity, imploding with devastating impact in the northwest corner of Mexico—and sending massive flames, fumes, and dark clouds encircling the globe. On impact, the crater was 100 miles long and six miles wide.
The reverberation must have been excruciating to all living things. The heat from the explosion was beyond measure. Everything in the meteorite’s wake was torched within a nanosecond.
Iridium, found in the shale near the site of implosion, confirmed that the massive object was from outer space. Iridium was also discovered at other points around the earth, including the Burgess Shale Quarry in Alberta, Canada where 60,000 fossils were found, and further north into Alaska in the mountain banks of the Colville River and on the north shore of the Beaufort Sea.
On all seven continents, living creatures lay in piles of slowly rotting flesh, bone, and waste, together with withering and smoldering vegetation and forestation. Over time, the decaying mass oozed beneath the earth’s crust. During the Carboniferous era, it would be buried for one hundred million years, slowly to percolate into fossil fuel.
 
                            ***                                      
Approximately 170 million years ago, long before dinosaurs and tar sands existed, the plates of North America shifted and slid over one another with intense force. Layers of rock warped and folded like massive sheets of cauldron-hot steel. The slabs of ancient Protozoic rock lurched from the west and rolled over the younger, more supple, Mesozoic rock layers spilling from the east, creating the Lewis Overthrust. Ultimately, it would become the vast Rocky Mountain Range.                        
Thousands of years later, the human race’s demand on the global energy supply of fossil fuel was slowly destroying the global landscape. The Industrial Revolution had left an indelible mark. Smokestacks belched carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and greenhouse gases began taking a toll on all living things.
To protect the ozone layer and avoid global warming, environmentalists had succeeded in blocking expanded production of coal gasification plants. Operating costs had become prohibitive. The environmentalists of E.L.F., The Sierra Club, and Greenpeace also worked to prevent oil exploration of all public and private lands. When the earthquake hit Japan in 2011, the tsunami that followed killed thousands.
Similarly, TEPCO’s six Fukushima nuclear reactor plants sent a tidal wave of fear around the earth as the nuclear meltdown sent radioactivity into the water and atmosphere. Across the Pacific, it was found in cow’s milk. As a result, the United States reevaluated its entire nuclear program.
Over 100 U.S. nuclear power plants provided the nation with more than twenty percent of the nation’s electric energy. The disaster forced each of them to reevaluate their safety regulations. Some shut down. None were allowed to expand.
Solar and wind energy had proven too inefficient and costly to produce enough energy to make a short-term difference. But politicians were desperate to appease the public so they pushed for approval of any energy program that held any promise.
What no one knew was that the United States’ strategic oil reserves were riding on empty—and supplies from all over the world were dwindling with surprising rapidity.
The nation was on the verge of losing power.
Military-fueled demands to carry out international missions on land, sea, and air cut deeply into domestic fuel supplies. Cars, trucks, buses, and commercial airlines were sacrificed in favor of military mobility fuels to protect the nation. Gas at the pumps doubled, then tripled in price. Worse, it was being rationed and lines at gas stations were slowly causing consumers to panic. As desperate consumers fought to fill up their tanks, riots broke out.
The commercial airline industry, unable to get enough jet fuel to keep up with flight demand, was beginning to unravel, cutting back flight schedules, raising prices dramatically, and laying off employees.
Without gas, industries all over the nation began to announce mass layoffs. It was a crisis of epic proportions. And it had come on fast.

***
The President of the United States, Peter Barton, summoned an ad hoc cabinet in hopes of diverting the perfect storm. Barton’s Department of Defense was guzzling fifty-eight percent of every barrel of fossil fuel to power his military. Barton had named his last-ditch agenda Operation Torch.
As President Barton lifted the weekly energy report off his desk to study it, the phone rang.           
“Morning, Mr. President.” It was Secretary of Energy Tyler Conlon.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” the President said. “A lot faster than we expected.”
“Yes, sir. Time’s running out. We’ll be lucky if we can last another three months with current inventory. Operation Torch has to succeed. There are spot outages across the country already,” said Conlon.
Barton took in a deep, labored breath. “I know,” he said. “We only have one option.”
... Continued...

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About the Author:
Jock Miller

 
Jock Miller received a BS degree in Zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University and attended Harvard Business School.

Before starting his own publishing company, Miller served as Director of Marketing and Sales Service for Billboard Publications, Inc, the
n as Director of Circulation for the twelve magazine publishing company. He has appeared on many television and radio talk shows, including the Today show. 

Miller is Director Emeritus of The First National Bank of Long Island where he served on the board for 23 years. He is past President of the boards of The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum and The Huntington Arts Council, and served on the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery Board of Directors.

Miller has received the Pericles Award for his work promoting people with disAbilites, Wounded Warriors, Minorities and Women into the workforce through his company, EOP, Inc.


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