Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (24 page)

Mo realized that he was in a very luxurious residence with five beautiful women who needed his money, and his help. He wasn’t in a bad position after all. He pulled out three $100 bills and asked if the girls wanted to shop for food. The minivan taxi was still outside and he was sure they needed some.

Madame de Bonnet graciously accepted the money, asked her daughter to go to the bedroom for her checkbook and wrote him a check for the money loaned.

He realized that they knew so little about the rest of the world, her husband was probably a frozen corpse in their fancy New York accommodations, if there were any accommodations left, and the check was not even worth the paper it was written on. It made her happy to have something to go shopping with and Mo asked them to get a few good steaks a few bottles of red wine and champagne, handing her another $300.

They excitedly left in the minivan and left him to the stern German realty lady who arrived fifteen minutes later.

“And who are you?” she asked directly as he opened the door refreshed after a quick shower in his private gold-colored bathroom.

“A friend of the family,” he replied as unfriendly as she had spoken to him.

“I have several important customers arriving in the next day or two from the mainland and need you out of here immediately, unless you can pay your bill, Mister Friend of the Family,” she stated in a thick German accent.

“Do you accept American dollars?” asked Mo innocently. “There are none of your visitors arriving soon and the ferry service to the island is not working. Nobody will be allowed on or off the island until further notice.”

“That’s fine. I still need you out of here so that I can get it cleaned for the owners, or you can pay to stay on,” she replied. “It’s a thousand American dollars per day, the French lady still owes me for four days and another week will cost another seven thousand.”

“How much for a month?” asked Mo.

“Monthly fees are reduced to $25,000 per month, but that doesn’t allow you use of the yacht at the slip for sunbathing or any parties. Nobody is allowed to set foot on the yacht, understand?”

“Then we start our month from four days ago,” and he asked the plump lady to wait while he went to retrieve the money. Her eyes lit up at the large number of hundred-dollar bills he returned with. He handed her the money from his suitcase which now showed a small hole. It was not so full anymore.

“I will put a receipt in the letterbox at the front gate and, if you must leave, I will give you a pro-rata refund if the booked visitors arrive anytime in the next twenty-six days. Understand Mr. ….?”

“Smith,” Mo replied.

“Yes, sure, Herr Smith,” she smirked. “No funny business in this house. You are booked through to March 10th and you must be out by 11:30 am on that day, if nobody has arrived before then.” He nodded smiling to himself as she swept off in a beaten-up taxi, her fancy German car probably scrap metal.

The girls returned a couple of hours later and saw Mo down by the beach walking the pier and looking at the yacht they had illegally sunbathed on twice since their arrival. They got busy in the kitchen packing away the food having, for the first time in several days, fresh food to eat. The bakery still had fresh baked pastries, bagels and baguettes and they must have cleaned the small shop out. They told him that the supermarket’s shelves were half empty, the store waiting for fresh produce from the mainland.

Madame de Bonnet had a feeling that it might be a few weeks before stocks were replenished and had decided to buy what they could. There was an old but in those days extremely expensive upright freezer in the villa kitchen and she used up the money Mo had given her to help fill it. Mo suggested that they return to the supermarket and purchase what was left, plus put in an order with the bakery for a few days’ time.

The taxi, expecting to be paid handsomely, was still waiting outside the door so Mo and the two older ladies returned to town to load it up with whatever remained after their first buying spree.

There were five bottles of good French Champagne left on the shelf and a dozen bottles of excellent and expensive French wine and Mo purchased the lot. Mo had brought another $300 and their final bill was still over by a couple of hundred dollars, and the store manager allowed Mme. De Bonnet to pay by check, knowing where the ladies stayed was expensive, and he could always visit if there was a problem when the banks opened again.

The driver, sweating profusely, was employed to carry in the second large purchase of food and was paid with the remnants of local money Mo had got from his watch purchase. The driver seemed pleased with the amount and his poor minivan which had crawled up the hill with the two heavy loads easily headed back to town.

Mo returned inside after chatting to the driver, getting to know him, to find the girls in the kitchen filling an old freezer and a second refrigerator with food. Even bread was being frozen and the amount looked like it could last them for a couple of weeks.

“Girls, let’s make lunch. I’m sure Mr. Wang is as hungry as we are.”

Over lunch Mo Wang was quiet. The women waited to hear what he had to tell them about the world out there. They still didn’t have a clue that modern civilization had come to a dreadful end and Mo didn’t want to ruin this interesting meal of bread, cheese, salad and wine. He asked them to eat first, enjoy the food and then he would tell them once they were sitting in the lounge. He had been placed at the head of the large table which sat eight and they just looked at him throughout the meal, hungry for food and information.

For two hours he told them what they should know. That America, Europe and the rest of the world was in bad trouble. He explained to them why their cell phones, Internet, laptop computers and many electric gadgets in the house weren’t working. The radio and televisions in each bedroom and the lounge were dead. A couple of the kitchen units didn’t work, but the oven was gas, and the old fridges and freezer were working.

He found a very good and expensive bottle of whiskey in the liquor cabinet half full and had poured himself and the two older ladies a good amount as they sat and listened to him.

He told them about how nothing worked anymore around the world, that three nuclear explosions in China had blasted Taiwan, Beijing and Hong Kong off the face of the earth, that America was slowly dying, as was Europe and the rest of the first world countries. He told them that he had communications with others in the United States and he was thinking about traveling there. How, he still didn’t know but even on this little island they were on, life was about to get uncomfortable as food stocks emptied and gasoline dried up to run the electricity systems and the fishing boats.

Madame de Bonnet’s face went white when he explained that life in Paris and New York wasn’t there anymore. “How do you mean life just doesn’t exist in Paris and New York?” she asked.

“Imagine the outside temperatures in both the cities Madame,” he explained carefully. Sub-zero temperatures with possible snow on the ground, no?” They all nodded. “In both cities where millions of people live in accommodations with no heat, no electricity, no food other than what they had stored on New Year’s Eve, no water reaching the high apartments, or even the houses, no sanitary sewers working. Do I need to go on?”

“Surely the police and fire brigades are helping the people?” asked one of the young twins, her face shocked.

“There is absolutely nothing working,” Mo replied trying to make the ladies understand. “There are no vehicles running and that includes emergency vehicles, unless they are over thirty years old, like the old Japanese minivan we arrived here with. In America and France, the police, firemen and doctors and nurses are in the same predicament as the rest of the people.” Both older ladies took a large swig of their whiskeys at the same time.

“That’s why that horrible German lady arrived in that old taxi four days ago,” suggested Beatrice. “She’s the type that wouldn’t be seen dead in anything but her fancy new Mercedes.”

“So, if what you say is true, then I have a good chance that my husband is dead?” Madame De Bonnet asked, looking Mo in the eyes. He nodded silently. She put her head down and her daughters began crying. Mo left the room and went to sit and enjoy the hot sun by the pool, letting the truth sink in. They needed time to themselves and they would come out when ready. He fell asleep in the sun, hearing small waves lapping at the beach below him.

The beach was in a protected small bay which kept any larger swells out. He awoke to the sun going down over the mainland and there wasn’t a boat to be seen on the calm waters. The second lady, Beatrice was sitting on the sun loungers a few feet away and looking at the sunset, a glass of wine in her hand.

“How do you know all of this, Mr. Wang?” she asked, looking out at the sinking sun, in her thick French accent.

“I was part of it, Madame,” he replied. “There was going to be an attack on the United States by the company I used to work for in China. I did not want any part of it and left the attack convoy as it passed through the Panama Canal on its way to New York.”

“One Chinese company has caused all this and was going to attack the United States?” she asked, not really believing what he was saying.

“A powerful company, Zedong Electronics, spent thirty years planning this attack, Madame. They crippled the entire world when they terminated all the billions of electronic parts and devices they made. They produced all the iPhones and iPads for Apple, for example. They produced all the parts for the world’s cell phones, computers, car engine-management systems and all the modern parts for the world’s armies. They produced parts for the German lady’s Mercedes and for every electronic machine that doesn’t work in this house and on this island. They didn’t produce the electronic parts for the machines that do still work. It’s as simple as that.”

“But I don’t have an iPhone, I have a Blackberry and it doesn’t work,” she said.

“Every modern cell phone in the world doesn’t work anymore, every cell phone in the world is totally useless,” he replied.

“Then how can you know about the world if your cell phone doesn’t work either, Mr. Wang?” she asked, getting angry.

“Because I have three of only 500 satellite phones that still do work, Madame. Zedong Electronics needed communications to attack the world and these phones are the only communications left on the entire planet. I believe that your French president, if he is still alive, will have one soon. I found out that the attack on America was beaten off by the American forces, the attackers were killed and all these phones are now being distributed to the world’s leaders. I have direct communications to people in America and even the American President. I just don’t know his number.”

“Ridiculous!” she stammered. “You are saying that the whole world has lost civilization?”

“Yes, Madame, that is what I’m saying and soon the bad people everywhere will need to survive and they will take the law into their own hands. That was the original plan formed by my superiors. This little island is probably one of the safer places right now. That’s why I came here, to visit my niece and find a place to hide.” She put her head in her hands and began weeping. Mo looked towards the last remnants of the setting sun and let her be.

Dinner was a silent affair that night; the five girls were visibly upset and ignored the messenger of bad news.

They had lived the easy, carefree lives of people with money and once their security blanket against everything bad in life had been pulled away, their reactions were normal. Mo Wang, apart from being one of the top engineers in China in his day, was also one who had studied psychology all his younger life, had a degree in it and understood human behavior enough to be noticed by the Supreme Commander. That was why he had been pulled out of the engineering laboratories and into sourcing and training recruits back at the beginning of Zedong Electronics in the early 1980s.

The table ate slowly and no wine was offered with the meal. The girls kept their eyes down, absorbed in their own thoughts.

The next day was the same, except Madame De Bonnet asked Mo to call her by her first name, Marie. He asked her to call him by his first name as well, and asked how he could get to town. He wanted to check out supplies in the stores for the rest of the stay. She asked if he could drive and he said he was not a good driver, never owned a car in China and used public transport all his life. He didn’t tell her that he had been chauffeured wherever he needed to go for the last two decades.

Beatrice De Loy also suggested that the visitor call her by her first name. It looked like they would be house mates for a few weeks to come; he was paying their way and friendliness was not an expensive commodity.

“Mo, I could drive you home from town,” Beatrice suggested. “There are cars to rent in town; we had one for a few weeks and they have our information, but would not take our credit cards anymore. They couldn’t get them approved. The antiquated telephone system works and we could get Pedro, the minicab driver to pick us up.” Mo agreed and thirty minutes later the old blue minivan honked at the large iron front gates. Mo, Beatrice and her daughter Virginie walked out to meet Pedro the driver and they were whisked into town.

They were silent on the drive in, even the driver was silent. The daughter had not yet said a word to Mo and kept her head down, or looked outside the cab. He realized that she didn’t know what to do or say to the new man who had just arrived out of nowhere and now lived in the same house.

The stores had few shoppers, mostly locals. The fish market was the busiest place in town. Here boats were coming in, mostly old fishing boats with the day’s catch.

Mo asked Pedro to park, told him that he was hired for the day and to help them carry their purchases. Fish had always been Mo’s favorite.

There were small and large fish, fresh off the boats. He recognized many, only knowing their names in Chinese and he decided that a rental car wasn’t needed if Pedro and his minivan were always available.

He saw a couple of nice-sized fish: one looked like a small tuna of about fifteen to twenty pounds. He asked Pedro which he thought was the best fish to eat and the taxi driver agreed that the small tuna he was looking at as well as a King Fish next to the tuna—a game fish—were both excellent to eat. Beatrice stated that they had a grill on the porch by the pool and each of the fish would make half a dozen meals. He asked for both of them to be bagged, and purchased a large slab of meat from a far larger tuna.