Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (28 page)

“Early in the afternoon before New Year’s Eve, I wanted to wish my grandmother in France Happy New Year.”

“Have you tried it since?” Mo asked.

“We all have, the twins have tried to reach their boyfriends in New York and their father, but their phones are completely dead. They tried mine and it didn’t work either.”

“You turn on the television and radio system in the villa a dozen times a day I’ve noticed,” Mo added. She nodded and replied that it was always the same. Nothing. “That is exactly how all modern electrical instruments of communications are working all over the world.”

“Then how do we have electricity? The taxi works, but nothing else,” Virginie asked, confused. Just then it started to rain and large tropical drops began to hit the concrete around the pool so they moved to the loungers under the gazebo on the other side of the pool.

From this vantage point Mo could see the pool and the beach, and watch a small fishing boat as it headed past the island towards the Honduras mainland three hours sailing away.

“The company responsible for this world destruction was named Zedong Electronics,” started Mo as they sat down. Marie De Bonnet joined them, running easily down the last stairs as the rain began to fall in earnest. She also pulled up a lounger to listen. “It was based close to where I lived in Shanghai. They started their mission to destroy all electronics in the early 1980s. I bet that your cell phone and all the other girls’ phones were made by Zedong Electronics, or had parts made by Zedong Electronics in them.”

“Who was Zedong Electronics?” asked Virginie, and Mo spent an hour telling them what he knew: How the last members of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Tse Tung started the company shortly after they lost power. How he was recruited, first as an engineer and then as a recruiting officer And finally, how they manipulated the world’s electronic parts and instruments to terminate with a radio frequency at exactly midnight Eastern Time on last New Year’s Eve. It was a thirty-year plan, he explained, and the idea was to attack and invade the United States of America and take over the country as their new headquarters.”

“Why did they hurt the rest of the world, and why France if they wanted America?” was the young girl’s next question.

“Simple,” replied Mo. “They couldn’t control where the parts went, and if the Europeans got involved with their attack on America they might have had the power to stop it. They even made sure that my home country, China, and also Russia would not get involved with their domination of the United States. China, Russia and every other country in the world is in the exact same condition we are.”

Virginie thought about what he had just said while Marie asked a question.

“So, Monsieur Engineer, what still works and what doesn’t in this world?”

“Marie, the only electronic equipment that still works was either manufactured before 1982 to 1985, or does not have any modern, or updated electronics made with any parts from Zedong Electronics. It’s as simple as that!” was his reply. “The minivan taxi is a 1984 Japanese model; it has carburetors but not a computerized engine-management system. The German lady has a new Mercedes which is entirely controlled by computers; it will never work again; the entire insides of the vehicle cannot be rebuilt using old parts, and nothing will fit. The electrical grid here on the island must have older electronic generators, pre-1985, and I think they must be backups for the more modern system, since we only get eight hours of electricity a day. We’ve had constant electricity here because I found the villa’s backup generator behind the empty car garages. I also found a few extra cans of gasoline down in the dock cabin, enough for about week. There is a lot more fuel down there but it is diesel for the boat.”

There was silence as the girls thought over what he had said. Marie was the first to ask the next question. “So that means that everybody we know in the world could be dead?”

“No, Marie, you are wrong. Yes, there are many who are dead from winter conditions, or starvation, but there will be areas where survival is quite easy, like on this island for another week or more.”

“Then what happens?” asked Beatrice.

“Then, Madame, I assume the whole island’s infrastructure will crumble and life here will become very dangerous, as it is in the bad areas of the world. The island will run out of gasoline and diesel, the electricity generators will fail. Then the shops will be empty of basic foodstuffs. Yes, fish and island produce will become the staple diet of the local community, but in every community there are good and bad people. This was part of Zedong’s strategy: to enable the bad people in all the corners of the world to take control by force. Life on this island for people like you, the tourists, will become extremely dangerous. You don’t belong here and bad people might feel it necessary to get rid of everybody who doesn’t belong, me included.”

The girls’ faces became white as they realized what he had just said and pictures went through their minds of what could happen to them if bad people captured them. Virginie swallowed hard. “What about the police?” she asked.

“I would assume that they will be the first to stand up against any bad people and they will either win a fight against the bad people or be the first to die. Also, in many countries the police are often bonded, or friendly with the bad people in some way.”

“What do you think we should do?” asked Marie.

“Prepare to leave the island within a week,” replied Mo bluntly. “I visited what I believe are all of the stores on the island and purchased what I could. There is not much left. If you remember, last night we came to the conclusion that we have enough food for the six of us for a month, a little more if we eat less. I do not believe that we will find anything more, except fish which will always be around. We can catch our own fish; we have the yacht if we need it.”

“We are not allowed to use it,” replied Marie.

“Where are the keys to the yacht?” asked Mo.

“In the villa… in the office of my bedroom. We believe it is the owner’s private office. I don’t want to meet the German lady if she finds out we went fishing on the yacht,” Marie added.

“And if your lives are at stake?” asked Mo.

“Then I think we should go fishing and just not come back. It will save her questioning us,” Marie stated, trying to make a joke.

“Precisely,” replied Mo. “It is probably our only ticket out of here, until somebody else decides to take it before we do.”

“What do you mean?” asked Beatrice. “Actually steal the yacht and sail away? That is not a good idea and I would not do that.”

“Would it be a better idea if bad men were pulling down the gates and shooting to get in here to take any food, liquor and women and even steal the boat for their own escape? Would you still think it was a bad idea?” Mo asked.

Beatrice studied him for a while. She realized that he wasn’t joking; he was serious and she slowly nodded her head in agreement. So did Marie.

“Oui,” stated Virginie quietly, looking at the two older ladies and adding her understanding that things could go from bad to worse.

“Think about it, ladies,” Mo suggested. We still have time and I would like to see the inside of that ship; I’m an engineer after all. At minimum I could work out a plan to exit the villa if we need to.”

Marie rose and climbed the stairs to get the keys.

Now that the rain shower had ended, they walked down the stairs to the beach, and walked along the pier to the rear end of the yacht. There was a side gangway to what looked like an entrance to the lounge area and they stepped onto the steady yacht and went on board.

The second key opened the main, heavy wooden door and they stood still looking over the well fitted-out space. The floor appeared to be teak with a large rug in the middle. The rear area had two couches in an “L” shape and the forward area contained a six-seat dining table backing onto an open-plan bar, behind which was the galley. Six stairs led up to the next higher level of the yacht. Marie opened the door and when Mo stepped into the control room he was taken aback. He had never sailed before, had never stepped aboard a luxury yacht before, and the dials on the control dash astonished him.

“Have you been in here before?” he asked Marie.

“We wanted to but, of course, we are not allowed. It is stated in big black letters in the lease. Beatrice and I are competent sailors. Both of our husbands are, or were, professional sailors. Beatrice’s late husband often sailed in the America’s Cup, the biggest yacht race in the world, and my husband helped many teams compete by paying for the expensive yachts. My husband and I have, or had, a fifty-foot ketch moored in Long Island, New York, and often sailed her across the Atlantic to the French coast. I wanted to take this boat out the minute I saw her, but I’ve never seen instruments this complicated in a sailing boat,” she stated, looking in amazement at the control panels in the dash area. “This yacht has more instruments than a power boat of her size. She is the most interesting yacht I have ever seen…and yet she doesn’t really look like a yacht.”

This got Mo’s attention and he sat in the left-side captain’s chair and studied the gauges. There were certainly two big engines, or more, by the look of her controls, and four separate fuel tanks. The radar screen looked old but very powerful and he had a sudden sinking feeling that this modern vessel was as useful as the latest American Aircraft Carriers; expensive scrap metal.

He looked forward, through the Portuguese bridge-type windows onto a short, flat deck and saw a rubber boat with small engine underneath the window Forward of the boat the space was clear to the pointed bow.

Mo suggested a tour and Marie and Beatrice agreed. Female curiosity had got the better of both of them. Entering the lounge area he asked her how long she thought the ship was and she replied eighty-two feet with a slimmer than usual seventeen-foot beam. “Most of the America’s Cup racing boats have the same dimensions as this yacht has,” Marie stated.

“What is the importance of a thinner ship?” asked Mo.

“More speed with less comfort. A luxury 80-foot yacht should have at least a 24- to 25-foot beam. Also, her sides slope more directly vertical into the water, more like a military vessel than a luxury yacht. I checked last time I came down here; she has a steel hull, not the usual cement or fiberglass; more like a warship.”

“Maybe she was a warship,” stated Mo simply, and Marie suddenly smacked the top of the dining table.

“Of course! How stupid of me!” she replied, a light going on behind her beautiful eyes. “I’ve being trying to analyze her and have spent a couple of weeks just trying to figure her out. She must have been a very small warship and was transformed into a private luxury yacht. Why would somebody do that?” she asked herself aloud.

“Several reasons,” suggested Mo. “The owner might just be a very rich man, or ex-navy, or like speed, or, he might even be a drug smuggler. But, by the look of her, it could be all of the above! She is certainly well appointed, but a piece of junk unless I can see the engines.”

“We haven’t been down there yet,” Marie stated showing him back down to the lounge and to the door to the engine room. It was in the wooden floor, hidden underneath the large expensive Oriental rug in the forward area of the lounge. “I swam next to her and she lies very shallow in the water with no keel. Her hull is less than six feet deep, which is not sufficient for a luxury yacht her length, and she has three propellers, two large and a smaller one in-between them, which is very weird for any boat. The sea bottom around the boat is rock and it has been dug out so that she can sit so close to the beach at low tide and there is a channel dug outwards for about another fifty feet to allow her in and out.”

Underneath the floor entrance was a set of ten stairs and a thick sea-proof door was at the bottom facing aft. Mo felt for and found a light switch on the right-hand wall and they walked into a professional military-looking engine room painted white. For Mo the height was fine as he entered the lower deck, but for Marie she had to stoop a little; the ceiling was an inch too short for her six foot one inch frame.

Mo stood there frozen. The machinery was beautiful. The two engines on either side of where they stood were both big Cummins 800-horsepower six-cylinder diesels. But what really relieved him was seeing three large carburetors on top of each engine, a carburetor for each two cylinders. There was less than a foot of space between the top of the carburetors and the ceiling; pretty big engines in a small space. In between the rear of the engines and in the middle of the engine room was a third, much smaller diesel engine, about the size one would find on a tractor, or maybe in a yacht of this size.

“That middle engine is what I was expecting to see in here, not these monsters,” stated Marie holding a hand up to cover her mouth.

“Two large marine carburetor generators there on the port (left) side in front of the engines,” pointed Mo, “and the fuel system is certainly complicated, but a gravity, or suction-fed unit, I bet. All good so far and the engines are certainly not modern. I would say they are a couple of decades old and very thirsty for diesel fuel. That’s why there are two sets of engine controls on the control panel. I believe the smaller engine runs independently of the two big ones. It has its own fuel system and a backup or starter generator over there,” he pointed to two more generators on the starboard (right) wall in front of the other engine.

Four generators on a boat; I’ve never heard of that before,” exclaimed Marie. “My husband would have loved to see this configuration; it must have cost a lot of money.”

“The outer engines are big and the smaller engine is certainly a weird configuration, added as an extra, I believe,” continued Mo. He saw a small etched black shield with silver letters on the forward wall on a closed steel door which told him everything he needed to know:
“USCGC Point Harris WPB-82376, 22nd June 1970, Coast Guard Yard, Curtis Bay, Maryland.”

“Now let us see what electronics work up there in the control center. They also looked older but top quality products,” Mo stated.