Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (43 page)

He quickly pulled his aim higher and saw several pieces of a boat’s woodwork fly into the air, including a body, before all five boats turned the way they had come, and at full speed headed out of range. Mo was sure he saw smoke pouring out of the one he had hit.

“Beatrice, get me more mortar bombs. I only have three left out here!” He had explained the different ammo boxes to her and seconds later she and Virginie emerged dragging two boxes along the deck.

“I’m reducing speed, Mo, the engine temperatures are getting hot,” shouted Marie, and Mo felt the ship slow down slightly. Suddenly Marie screamed and he looked up to see three of the boats approaching fast and he heard the first explosion several yards off their port bow. The girls brought him the two boxes each with three bombs and he told them to get back inside and get ready to bring more as bullets stated hitting around them. He jumped for the machine gun, swung it to where the boats were and began firing. They suddenly slowed, each let off a mortar bomb, turned and screamed away.

Mo got their range and he peppered the rear of one of the boats before it got out of range. The bombs came close, two only yards behind the ship and one in front which drenched him as they ploughed through the hole where it had gone in seconds earlier.

“How far are the other ships?” Mo shouted to Marie.

“Nine miles, and now heading directly towards us at nearly forty knots! Mo, they must be warships at that speed, have radar or seen the explosion.” Mo looked up and saw a black cloud of smoke hanging over the horizon where the first boat had exploded.

Two of the speed boats began to head in again, their bows rising as they accelerated. He armed all nine bombs and got ready. They were certainly getting his ship’s range, but he was also learning fast. He also noticed the other three turning and realized they were going to get behind him, where the machine gun couldn’t be used.

“Beatrice, Lu, load two automatic rifles and go the back of the ship. It looks like they are going to attack us from where I can’t shoot!” screamed Mo as he saw the other two coming into range.

He was right. The other three boats came in behind and he changed position to aim the machine gun at the first two, letting out a long burst of fire. The closest one fired a mortar as his rounds peppered the boat and the driver veered around to head back, another body falling over the side as it turned away sharply. The second one came straight in as his gun stopped firing. He needed to change belts.

The bomb landed harmlessly several yards short and he aimed his mortar. The second boat was a little closer than the three coming in from behind and his quick brain worked out a plan.

There was little in the way of the mortar bomb if he pointed it over the ship, the bomb exiting nearly vertical. He watched through the site as the first boat let a mortar off and he slid two bombs in quickly towards the incoming boat and then turned the mortar around towards the other three now directly behind.

Bullets started buzzing around him and ricocheting off the steel harmlessly. He couldn’t aim at the boats behind, but they looked to be at about the same distance, and he let five bombs scream out of the tube one after the other. The first bomb landed close to the second speed boat and it veered off again. As the second bomb hit the water less than a foot behind it, a large wall of water swamped the turning boat and it stopped dead in the water.

Mo was about to get his last two mortars into the tubes when he saw the next two of his five shots straddle the first boat, causing the second boat to plough through a wall of water where the third bomb had a made a hole, and the third boat turned away as the fourth and fifth bombs landed close enough to soak its occupants.

“Bring three more boxes, Beatrice,” shouted Mo as he turned to begin loading the machine gun. The attack boats needed a couple of minutes to pump bilge water out of their boats, giving Mo a few minutes to prepare for the next attack. Mo had the machine gun ready and eight more mortar bombs armed when they began to close. This time they formed a line just out of range, stayed about eight hundred yards away, and at full speed began to circle the ship, much like the Indians did on horseback in the cowboy days. They completed one turn and one at the back turned in as one in the front did the same. There was no way Mo could cover both and he began firing the machine gun at the lead boat.

“Fire at the rear boat!” he screamed at the ladies behind. The front boat pulled away, but then two others came in on either side. He fired at the one off the port bow hoping that the girls were dealing with the others. He hit one of them as it came in and his bullets ripped it to pieces, the bow going in and stopping. He turned to face the other one on the starboard side and got off several rounds before a massive column of water exploded yards from the incoming boat, throwing somebody into the water. The boat turned on a dime and headed away northwards.

“What have the girls found to that is so big?”
he thought as he felt something graze his side. The front boat off his port bow was shooting at him. It did not see the Light Frigate approaching until it had unloaded several rounds, one entering Mo’s side.

Mo hadn’t seen the naval ships either, but watched as the boat shooting at him was lifted up, exploded in the air, fell back and disappeared with hundreds of pieces of debris shooting out in all directions. He suddenly felt weak and sat down, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the dropping boat parts and bodies making hundreds of splashes as they hit the water. He looked over to the west and saw the last two boats, one still smoking badly, heading as fast as they could back to Florida. Before he passed out, he heard the siren of a ship off in the distance and it sounded pretty powerful.

He awoke a couple of hours later in a hospital ward with a doctor or medic looking at him. Beatrice’s face was also there and he felt her holding his left hand.

“It’s time you woke up, Mo,” she stated.

“Am I alive, or in heaven?” he asked, looking into her beautiful face and putting on a weak smile.

“You have lost a lot of blood, but the medic says that it is a clean wound, didn’t hit any bones or vital organs, and you should be OK in a few days. We are heading to Virginia with the Colombian Navy. Marie has control of our ship and the good news is that your baby has no damage.

Several hours later he awoke again. This time nobody was sitting with him. He tried to sit up and the same medic returned and in English told him to rest. It was midnight and he needed more sleep.

Mo dreamed funny dreams, about being on a mortar bomb and watching as the bomb and he descended onto a speed boat. It was going to miss and he leaned over to try and steer it towards the boat. Suddenly he saw lots of girls in the boat looking up at him and he tried to steer the bomb away and suddenly sat up. He was still in the hospital and he felt the pain in his side.

A new medic returned and asked if he was hungry. Mo was a little and the medic helped him get dressed, not in his clothes but a set of military overalls.

His side was sore, but he felt OK, not dizzy or sick anymore, and he was rather looking forward to some food. This ship was far bigger than the Cutter. After climbing slowly up two levels of stairs he was helped into a dining room where eight chairs waited for people to use them. He noticed four sets of cutlery on the table and three men in the room waiting for him.

“Good morning, Señor Wang, please take the nearest seat. You look far better than when we carried you aboard yesterday. You have been asleep for 18 hours,” stated a man with a very flashy uniform. Mo knew that he was a man of high rank.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” bowed Mo, and he took the closest seat and sat down. “I assume it is you I must thank you for saving our lives yesterday.”

“Not really, Señor Wang. You were doing a pretty good job sorting out your own problems. We were watching you for a few minutes when we realized that their tactics were getting better. One man can only shoot in so many directions and I think you had reached the maximum number of directions you could shoot. I think that you would have scared them off if you had beaten them back one more time, but we decided to intervene. Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Admiral Luiz Rodriquez, head of the Colombian Naval Forces. This is the Captain of this ship, Commander Perez, and his first officer Captain Ortez.” The men shook hands and they were served breakfast. “You have certainly got a good-looking crew, Señor Wang,” carried on Admiral Rodriquez. “My sailors could hardly keep their eyes off all the beautiful ladies and the fancy weapons you are carrying aboard. May I assume you have international papers to own one heavy 7.62-mm machine gun, one 80-mm mortar and American M-16 automatic rifles at sea?”

“Have you or your men been aboard, Admiral?” Mo asked.

“I was thinking of searching your vessel, Señor Wang, until we realized that we weren’t in any danger from your crew, or family, except for maybe our sailors wanting to jump ship. It is a very strange ship you have, Señor, half steel and half wood and it looks like her lines are half yacht and half….”

“Military vessel,” helped Mo.

“Yes, you took the words out of my mouth. When we first saw you, you looked like a type of vessel which would be owned by either a very rich man or a man smuggling drugs. I first thought you were the rich man, not the drug smuggler until I saw the array of weapons on your bow. That got me thinking. You were fighting off drug smugglers or pirates who wanted your ship for themselves, which increased my good thoughts about you. Of course, as soon as I saw your crew, I couldn’t believe that a low-life gangster would find that many beautiful European girls as crew members. So, I decided not to board your ship yet. She sails well at 15 knots and we are prepared to escort you to your destination which, funnily enough, is the direction we are going. Now that you are feeling better, I would like to have a tour of your ship as soon as our breakfast is over and we transfer you back to your vessel.” Mo nodded his approval.

The admiral’s ship radioed Marie to instruct her to slow and prepare for Señor Wang and others to join them. With that, the two ships slowed down in the becalmed sea to get closer to each other.

Fifteen minutes later there was no need for ropes or any assistance to get across as the sea was calm. Two seamen jumped across the two feet of water between the stationary ships and down four feet to the deck of the Cutter.

Several men helped Mo across by putting him in a large basket and literally passing it across. The medic didn’t want the wound opened. The admiral and Captain Ortez jumped over. Four more soldiers joined them and stood guard at either side of the bridge.

Mo was helped out of the basket and walked by himself to the bridge. He noticed that the ladies had replaced the tarpaulin over the guns and had cleaned the deck. He couldn’t see any blood stains.

He asked the ladies to remove the tarp. Beatrice knew how to set the two guns to return to their compartments, and he would return the weapons to their hiding places once ready. They weren’t needed with the extra fire power around them.

Mo invited the admiral and the captain into the lounge as Marie increased the revs and they returned to fifteen knots.

“Please sit down, Admiral. Would you like a beer or coke?” Mo asked. The admiral asked for a coke and his eyes grew large when he saw that it was a bottle from his homeland. The admiral looked at him. “Admiral, I have a good story to tell you about whom this ship belongs to, and I think you will be surprised.” The admiral nodded and Mo began his story, starting with his jumping ship in Panama and arriving in Roatán. He had just got to the part where he was being taken to the Villa when Beatrice entered and told him that the weapons were ready. He excused himself and returned the guns to the interior of the ship.

“Captain, the guns have disappeared,” stated the guards in Spanish. Mo smiled, understanding what they were shouting about, and the captain went to check. He came back and reported to the admiral.

“This ship gets more and more interesting, Señor Wang. Are you sure you are not Chinese Secret Service or something? This ship is something I would see in a James Bond movie,” added the admiral, not moving from his seat.

Mo continued to relate his story, about the villa, the shooting on the island and their only way to escape, with the villa owner’s ship.

“And do you know the name of the villa owner you commandeered the ship from?” smiled the admiral about to get the smile taken off his face.

“A Colombian senator, Admiral, hence the Colombian Coca-Cola you are drinking,” he added. The smile hung on the Admiral’s face like it wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.

“And his name?” asked the admiral softly.

April 1st Meeting

Early on April 1st, 2013, Preston’s airfield came alive. Sally and Martie had flown in together the night before, Sally in the Pilatus from California, and Martie finally returned to the farm flying her Mustang.

Both Preston and Carlos were glad to see the girls. So were Little Beth, Clint, the dogs, and even Smokey the cat who appeared out of nowhere to rub against their legs once the aircraft had been closed down.

Martie and Sally couldn’t believe how good the airfield looked with all the new modifications. They both had to land on the new runway just to see how long and smooth it was. To Martie, it was long; she didn’t even have to use her brakes to land. She reached the northern end, and then taxied down the original runway to her usual parking place, to be towed backwards into the hangar with the lawn tractor, next to Preston’s P-51.

The meeting at Andrews was going to be a crucial assembly. Although spring was in the air, crops were being planted and the snows were receding north, it was also three months since the whole country had shut down. The MRE rations were running out and life was to become very interesting for the rest of the year.

Preston and Carlos, with the two ever-present dogs bounding around them, showed the two girls the newly modified airfield. The two runways and the adjoining taxiway on the southern end looked pristine: pitch black, with new white and yellow painted lines perfectly unused, bright and clean of tire marks. The now-complete hangars and their accommodations were still empty of aircraft except for Carlos’ Colombian DC-3 which had found a new home, even though he preferred his old one in Preston’s original hangar.