Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (23 page)

“Now I feel guilty that Martie and I haven’t helped,” commented Preston.

“Don’t worry,” replied Buck. There were more than enough pilots once we got them arriving from overseas. It’s just that I wanted to look after my own aircraft. Only
Baby Huey
has been spared flying 24/7 because the President needs a helicopter for the White House pickups. It wasn’t the pilots we needed, it was aircraft and you guys wouldn’t have helped much with your Mustangs.”

“So that’s why my civilian aircraft disappeared?” Preston asked. They reached the end of the runway and Preston showed the general his idea on the new runway area. They spaced out the longest length of ground and agreed that the new runway would add another thousand feet for a larger range of aircraft to land. “What do the F-4 Phantoms need for takeoff and landing?” Preston asked General Patterson.

“I flew them for three years in my early flying days,” replied the general. “I would get them off fully laden in 3,200 feet and land in less. Luckily the altitude here is not a factor. Since we have walked out 3,700 feet, if you trimmed all the at trees both ends down to ten feet or less for a couple of hundred feet at either end, we could get everything we are currently flying in here except for the jumbo jets.”

“What about those Chinese fighters we captured, General?” asked Preston, the group now heading back down the open space to consider room for hangars and other equipment.

“They are totally useless for much,” General Patterson replied. “Our engineers can’t work on them, apart from normal servicing and daily maintenance. We are thinking of using them as a barter card with the Chinese government for supplies or rare earth materials for electronic manufacture and whatever we can exchange them for. I’ve got this feeling that you want to learn to fly jets, Preston, Carlos?” The general stopped walking and looked at them eye to eye. Preston looked at Carlos and realized that the general knew what he was thinking. Carlos nodded that he was interested.

“It would be nice. What do you have available in a size 10?” Preston joked. The general looked at them sternly and carried on walking. “I’ll see what I can find. You guys are going to be the death of me.”

Preston asked the general a question he had refrained from asking since the first week he heard about then-Major Patterson, when the major had flown in to thwart the incoming enemy at JFK. Since then the poor soldier had not had a day off from duty and was the only one who had not gone home to visit family, or even worry about them.

“Don’t you have any family you are worried about, General?” Preston asked.

“Fortunately, I don’t and I suppose that gives me time and space to do my job,” General Patterson replied. “I was married for a couple of years, but did not have children and my wife left me a year or two ago and promptly had a child with a new man. My parents, like yours, Preston, were killed in an aircraft accident several years ago. I was an only child and I haven’t kept up with any other family members. I find solace in my job and keep myself busy. One day I’m sure the right girl will come into my life, but until then I must do my bit for my country.”

For the next thirty minutes they spaced the area between the two runways, placing hangars here and there including a maintenance hangar and a second fuel storage area. The engineer informed them that they already had five large 10,000-gallon underground tanks ready at Seymour Johnson and they were working on an extra-wide tractor-trailer unit to bring them in on.

There was enough hangar space for two Wings of aircraft and for several houses or accommodation units towards the northern end where the two runways would intersect. It would be a little noisy, but that wasn’t important at this moment.

Two houses could be built next to Preston’s main house: one for the President’s new accommodations, then a larger building to house a security unit and several rooms for pilots and crew with showers and toilets. Another septic tank or two could be placed there to add to the two units he used, one for the hangar and one for the main house.

A cold gust hit them from the north—maybe a cold front was coming in—and it was time to return to the hangar and join the party that could be heard with the increasing sound of music as they approached.

Mo Wang – Island of Roatán, Honduras – February

Mo Wang found that his suitcase of one hundred dollar bills was still a worthwhile currency on the island of Roatán, just off the coast of Honduras, where he ended up after leaving the ship. Its main town, Coxen Hole, was a sleepy hollow and apart from no aircraft flying in, no Internet, no cell phones and no television or radio, the place was as it had always looked.

There were still old cars and trucks using the main roads. The island had many generators, the population always prepared for hurricanes in the summer months and these were all now in full operation. There was a little crime, but nothing more than the usual, apart from people crashing lines at the gas stations to get fuel for their taxis and generators. Even the electrical grid on the island still worked. They had been laying a new undersea line to the mainland, but it was not yet complete. Large Wartsila Generators had been installed to add to the island’s growing needs back in 2008/9 and the twenty-year-old models were still used as backups.

Along with the rest of the world, new electronic equipment failed at midnight Eastern Time. But the older models came back on with enough power to produce one-third of the island’s needs and give electricity to the several gas stations, restaurants, shops and houses for different parts of the day.

A system of electrical blackouts went into force, as they usually did after a hurricane had passed through. Each third of the island had power for two hours and then went without for four.

It was a bind, but the island was slow paced and prepared for this type of inconvenience which normally only lasted for a day or two. Unfortunately, this time it had been a couple of weeks since the power had gone out and the first ship from the mainland—a forty-year-old ferry which had not been in service for several years but still toured along the mainland’s coast for tourists—arrived to tell them of the chaos on the mainland.

With the first ferry of the year, six weeks late, arrived Mo Wang. He knew where he was, having a Chinese map of the area, and he disembarked, the only person to do so. The ferry captain told the tourists who had been waiting for transportation back to civilization, their lives and their jobs, that they were safer on the island until things got better and the world was turned back on again. He had orders not to return anybody to the mainland until further notice.

The ferry left, with its usual stocks of freshly caught fish from the storage warehouse for the mainland and the forty or so tourists who had waited weeks for a ship, sat about trying to figure out what to do next. Most had run out of money, the ATMs didn’t work and their vacations now became nightmares.

Mo Wang realized that these people did not know anything about what had happened to the world. There was no television news, or radio news apart from maybe working local stations and he was sure that they had Zedong’s Electronic parts installed here as well.

A group of five ladies sat on the wharf stunned that they were not going home. They looked to be wealthy Europeans or Americans, and as the others shuffled off to figure out what to do and how to pay for an extended stay, they just sat there on the ground, their suitcases packed and all looked at him, the only person left on the quay.

“How come we aren’t allowed to leave, but they let you on this island?” asked one of the two older ladies in a mixed foreign-English accent. She looked about forty and had two younger girls, twin daughters by the look of them, about seventeen or eighteen. The other older lady also looked like a mother with a daughter, about the same age as the first family.

Mo Wang raised his new hat, a fancy Panama Special purchased when he had left the ship. It had gone well with his escape clothes: fine European-cut trousers with a matching jacket over a soft white cotton shirt. He had three outfits of these well-made “Made in China” clothes as the attire he had planned to wear in New York when the ships arrived there. Now traveling for five days on dirty, dusty buses, he had dressed that day on the mainland into his only clean set to look like a tourist when he arrived at his destination.

He was about two decades older than the two older ladies, but he doffed his hat as a gentleman would, and now, used to speaking English following his conversations with Carlos and Lee over the satellite phone still in his jacket pocket, answered the lady.

“Yes, Madame,” he replied. “You might think this island is not to your pleasure at this moment, but if you knew what was going on in the world, you might be gratified to be here. It doesn’t look like a bad place,” he stated, looking around the buildings. He could see and hear music and normal sounds. He did not hear gunfire.

“Well, we were supposed to leave and return to Paris a week ago, but we have run out of cash, the ATMs don’t work and we have run out of vacation food in the villa we rented. What are we supposed to do if the banks or machines won’t give us money?”

“You are French?” Mo asked.

“Yes, but we usually live in New York most of the year. We live in Manhattan and use our family house just outside Paris for a few months of the year.”

“My name is Mo Wang, I live near Shanghai, China,” Mo stated, holding out his hand copying how westerners introduce themselves. The lady looked him over and reluctantly took it.

“My name is Marie de Bonnet, my two daughters Cheri and Annabel. They were born in America and go to school there. This is my friend from Paris, Beatrice de Loy and her daughter Virginie.” Mo shook hands with the second lady. “Can you tell us what is happening out there, Mr. Wang?”

“You said that you have accommodations here, Madame?” Mo asked.

“Yes, a very large villa a few miles to the east of the town and overlooking the sea. We are about to be evicted if we don’t pay for our extended stay and we have nowhere else to go, and nothing to eat until the banks accept international business. They have been closed for a couple of weeks now and nobody can get any money. It is very shameful.”

“I have money, and need a place to stay. If there is room for me at your villa and if you would be so kind to extend an invitation, we can solve two problems at the same time, Madame. May I make this offer?” Mo asked.

“First, let me ask you, Mr. Wang, why are you arriving here today on the island?” Mme. de Bonnet asked factually.

“One of my nieces owns and runs a dry cleaning business here on the island,” he replied truthfully. “I haven’t spoken to her for a couple of years and lost her address. I was hoping to surprise her with a visit, but had to leave my ship in Panama at the canal. There are problems in the world I don’t want to describe at this moment and many problems at the Panama Canal with no ships being allowed to pass through.”

The five ladies stood up. They were all tall and Mo was beaten by a few inches by all five girls, even the young and slender teenagers. He noticed that their clothes looked expensive and he recognized pure gold Rolex watches on both the older ladies’ wrists. He still missed his silver one he had been forced to use as payment to a Panama local to get off the ship and to dry land. The five girls were well-tanned, and he saw a very wealthy and an extremely beautiful group of females in front of him who needed help. He was just the man who would help beautiful ladies in distress.

On the way to the nearest taxi rank Mo noticed that the third store was a jewelry store; it was open and he saw several Rolex models as well as a newer version of his old one in the window. He asked the ladies for a few minutes and he came out ten minutes later wearing his new gold watch like theirs. The girls were looking at a clothing shop a few windows down when he caught up to them. The jeweler had bartered with him over price and once she saw Mo holding a fistful of American dollar bills, let the watch go for ten percent off for cash.

The small town was running much like it had always done and they entered an old minivan for the journey to the Villa.

Once up a hill and inside the villa’s gate, he paid the driver with local currency he had received in change for his watch purchase, asked the driver to wait in case he would be returning to town, and was quite shocked to see the size of the villa and the splendor the ladies were vacationing in.

The lounge and open kitchen faced the sea, a hundred feet below. He walked outside to see the view and saw steps down to a swimming pool half way down and then a small private beach with a long boat jetty below the pool. The boat jetty immediately grabbed his attention. Tied to the jetty was a large sailing boat, seventy feet or more. He didn’t know much about fancy sailing boats but it looked like it could travel a fair distance.

“There is a large bedroom and en-suite bathroom we haven’t used over here to the right of the lounge area, Mr. Wang,” Mme. De Bonnet showed him. “We are all sleeping upstairs and you can have the privacy of the only bedroom on this level. I’m sure the horrible agent will be by later to give us our evacuation papers, and I warn you she is a mean lady, a German I believe, and not someone I want to meet again.”

“How much money will she be expecting?” Mo asked politely.

“We are a week behind on our paid reservations; she took a check for three days from me at $1,000 a day, but there is a reduced monthly rate. We paid her $35,000 for the time we had planned to stay here, six weeks. Her next booking in this villa we assume hasn’t arrived and is a week or two late, so I’m sure she could be persuaded to take less than the usual daily fee.”

“I will see what I can do,” Mo replied. What about food and provisions?” he asked. “Where is your husband Madame, I was expecting to meet him here.” Mo had been expecting to be introduced to the men in the group upon arrival and then politely asked to leave by them.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you, Mr. Wang. My husband is still in New York; he is a commodities broker and couldn’t leave when I left for Paris before Christmas. We arrived here on the day before New Year’s Eve and he was supposed to fly in three weeks ago for our last week here. My friend Beatrice is a single lady.”