INVASION USA (Book 2) - The Battle For New York (12 page)

It was pretty slow and slippery going back down the hill, but the driver was good and they made it back to base at exactly 3:00 am. Carlos was surprised to see four C-130s parked on the apron, their engines starting up as he arrived. “Lee, you are coming with me? How long will it take to get your wife and daughter packed up?” Carlos asked.

“It won’t take them long to get ready,” Lee replied and ran off to tell them they were leaving.

“Good morning, Carlos,” greeted Pete Allen, walking up to the tired astronomer. “We can sleep enroute. The men found and packed what you asked for. It’s packed in Tom. Sally is back at Andrews resting. We can fly together in Jerry, talk, and catch up on the way.”

“We need to wait for Lee Wang,” Carlos stalled. “It is imperative Lee comes with us, Pete. He and I think that we can find out who is behind this, and he might even be able to deactivate their satellites.”

“That’s worth waiting for,” Pete responded, and it was only five minutes later when Lee and his family returned from a room behind the Officers’ Mess and followed Pete’s instructions to follow him and get aboard Jerry. Carlos and Pete were far too exhausted to even think of flying themselves.

Carlos walked up the ramp into Jerry and got a tired hello from Jennifer who was resting on a foam mattress in the rear. A few familiar faces also looked at the new visitors. Maggie and the kids were there and she seemed to be half asleep next to a man that he assumed was her husband, and who was totally out cold. Carlos had never met him before, but he knew about Will’s phobia of flying and winked at Maggie.

“Hi, Carlos,” she smiled sweetly, sitting on the floor of the aircraft holding her husband’s head in her lap. “Will is under heavy sedation. I told the doctor at Edwards that if he was conscious he would not get on the plane, so the Doc gave him a double dose of whatever it was—a damn hurricane wouldn’t wake him up. I hear you have been busy!”

“Yep,” he replied. “I need some of that sleep medication Will was given, though. I’m very tired. Oh, this is my buddy, Lee Wang, his wife Lin, and their daughter Ling.” The newcomers were quickly acquainted and they all opened side seats next to Jennifer to sit down for take-off.

“You also look done in, Jennifer,” Carlos remarked as he seat belted himself in next to her.

“Lots of hours, Carlos,” she replied.

The pilots weren’t messing around. They taxied to the end of the runway at an alarming speed, completed their final checks on the way, and went straight into their take-off runs as each one reached the end of the runway. These guys were certainly in a hurry.

All four C-130s climbed into the dark, cold sky—dawn still many hours away—and General Allen came back to see everybody.

“Do we have satellite connection, Carlos?” he asked.

“Yes, we have a simple connection. Navistar P will soon be stationery over Utah. For how long, I don’t know. It depends on how good you guys made her, but she’s flying well up there. The re-positioning will still take a couple of days. It’s still dark, but with dawn an hour out over the eastern seaboard, I believe that our U.S. visual on screen is both coastlines plus 300 miles of ocean either side in a day or two. I could have made her go further out, but it would have taken weeks to align her even further, and I didn’t think it was necessary. With any shipping, 300 miles is at least a full 24-hour warning.” Pete looked at Carlos.

“We have a television truck on board Tom, and several of the computers you wanted and a couple of old television sets in storage. Are we going to see the satellite broadcast on them?”

“I believe so,” Carlos replied tiredly. “I also think we can set up a communication feed to the other bases. Lee and I are working on trying to mate the radio feed into the television trucks. Or, I was actually thinking we could use the old simple commercial Hughes Satellite Internet systems around the country to communicate to every base and the White House. It will take a few weeks to get that far, but I need your guys all over the country to go out and find the Hughes two-way satellite systems and we can go from there.”

Carlos then changed the subject, hardly taking a breath. “Two of those other C-130s flying with us look very different than the others.”

“Good eyes, as usual,” replied the general. “This is my secret project for my favorite air base museum at Hill AFB. The first one is one of the original Vietnam-era AC-130 Gunships. I have had people working on her for over a year now at Edwards. She is the same model as Tom and Jerry, but over the years has been made as original as she was back in ‘Nam. I reckon she has cost as much as an F-22, but she still has her added 105mm howitzer, fuel drop tanks and air-refueling intact. We were going to take them off next year. Most importantly, however, she has been refitted with all her original electrical gauges and flight systems. That’s why she can still fly but also still has the latest fire power— the same as the more modern 130 Gunships that are now all grounded permanently.

“Ghost Rider and one other, Easy Girl, have the only 105mm howitzers still flying, as well as the full load of 20mm and 40mm cannons. Ghost Rider actually went down twice in ‘Nam, but was repaired and survived. Her older sister had the call sign ‘First Lady,’ and was put out to pasture years ago in one of our museums. This gal has upgraded engines, and no modern electronics, or she wouldn’t be flying. Her underbelly is thin armor and that 105 mm howitzer makes your teeth rattle when it goes off. Ghost Rider is my real baby, and she is the only one of three old, secret Gunships still flying. I lovingly put her back together and later today she will serve as ‘Air Force One’—a real promotion for this old girl!”

“The president is moving?” Carlos asked.

“He wants to come and visit you guys,” the general continued. “The guy just wants to get out of Dodge and see the world, and I don’t blame him. Now let’s get some sleep. It looks like we all need it. Will Smart will be wide awake later when he realizes that he has flown across country and missed it all. I’m dying to see his face!” He smiled, grabbing a foam mattress from a pile and a few blankets and lay down. He was asleep in seconds, and the rest weren’t far behind him.

*****

Preston was up early, about an hour after everyone got to sleep in Jerry almost 1,300 miles to his west. Oliver and his new pal, Spot the puppy, were by his side. Preston couldn’t sleep and was beginning to worry about the possible incoming attack. They had such sketchy news about everything. It was a clear, but still dark morning. The temperature was 32 degrees and he wanted to walk. The Air Force guys had worked all night on the perimeter fence and it wouldn’t be long before the runway would be receiving visitors.

He had heard over the radio, from Edwards and now Hill, that aircraft were coming his way. He knew that Lady Dandy was airborne out of Salt Lake City, and that C-130s were headed into Salt Lake to refuel. They were all expected around lunch time. A radio operator had answered when Preston called and spoke for the first time to Hill Air Force Base relaying the weird instructions from the general. Pretty interesting instructions, but he felt something exciting was about to happen.

Baby Huey was predictably parked behind the fuel tanks, out of the way of the fixed-wing aircraft. She couldn’t just taxi forward and get fueled up, so Buck had lifted her up and landed her on the dirt where the fuel line could easily reach her. Preston hotwired the pump and began to fill her tanks. She was off to Washington as soon as Buck got in. Poor Buck would be having a very long day. It took nearly 15 minutes as the slow pumps, not made for large deliveries of fuel, pumped just under 200 gallons into the helicopter—she was thirsty.

After turning off the pump, he went to look for a rug to place on the floor of Baby Huey’s belly along with a couple of easy chairs. He went to the lounge and moved the wooden coffee table and the round rug underneath it out to the helicopter. The rug had been a present from Martie’s grandfather and was an oval copy of the American flag. Preston placed both in the rear of the helicopter. The six-foot rug fit well and covered much of the metal floor. He walked into the hangar and took the new set of EZ-Boys from the downstairs room. Nobody was upstairs. Carlos, Buck, and Barbara were on their way from Salt Lake City, both Sally and Jennifer were still flying, and the Smarts were in California.

Martie had washed all the bedding in their 20-year old washing machine the previous evening, which, with the old gas dryer, were the only electrical machines still working at the farm. The new washing machine he had purchased a couple of years ago was dead, and he was thankful that he had just put the old one out in the barn.

Preston moved each chair on a small four-wheeled trailer he often pulled around the farm behind his green lawn tractor, and then went back to get the two-seater couch—the smallest of three Martie had purchased for the party. The other two were double the size and wouldn’t fit. The radio operator had stated that they would need a minimum of three chairs.

He was done, and the inside rear of the helicopter looked like a small, comfortable lounge. He locked the side door behind the couch from the outside so nobody could get in or fall out of that side since the people on the couch would have no parachutes if the door was opened in flight. She was ready.

Then he thought about drinks. He went back and unplugged the small bar refrigerator he had used before Martie shopped for the fly-in. It was still cold, and would be colder still if he left it outside for a couple of hours. He placed it in the rear of Baby Huey, and filled it with cans of soda, Gatorade, and beer from the stocks purchased from the closed-down gas station. He placed a tray of potato chip bags on a rubber mat on top of the fridge, but then he took them out and refilled the black wooden tray with dozens of packets of Southwest peanuts and pretzels. He hoped their guests would see the humor in it. He put a box of Jerky on top of the bags. He was quite impressed with his accomplishments.

“Looks like a mini Oval Office,” laughed Martie, sneaking up behind him and giving him a good morning hug. “Pete Allen will think he’s the president sitting in here.”

“Just following orders, love,” Preston replied. “Buck is flying her out later this morning.”

“I just got off the radio with Jennifer,” Martie reported. “Actually, she relayed our conversation through Hill’s new radio. She said that both Tom and Jerry are coming in with a few others and a surprise. They have Will Smart on board with Maggie and the kids. Will has been completely sedated since Edwards, is sleeping like a baby, and doesn’t even know that he is flying across the country.”

“That will certainly screw up his internal time clock,” laughed Preston. “He’s going to suffer badly from jetlag, poor guy. It will be fun to see his reaction when he wakes up.”

“I’ll do up the beds before they get here, in case they need to let him sleep,” Martie answered. “Let’s go walk around and see what the soldiers have done.”

With Oliver and the happy puppy in tow, and with little Beth still asleep, they walked down the runway towards the guard tower.

“Good morning, sir,” came a voice from 30 feet up. “We have been working all night and I think we are about done.”

The walkers said good morning back and continued down the driveway and around the corner, their progress being forwarded by radio. The gate was now a mass of barbed wire, and nobody could get through it without armor.

“Good morning, sir. ma’am,” the tired sergeant in charge nodded to them as they walked up. “Those dogs never stop playing. I wish I had as much energy.”

“Good morning, Sergeant,” replied the walkers in unison. “It looks like we are now secure from the road. Is that true?”

“Yes, sir! We have put down over 300 yards of triple-lined wire, and the whole stretch can be seen from the fire tower. We wanted to put some trip wires down, but then thought that the dogs could walk into them, so we wanted to ask your permission first. Then, I had an idea last night about the possible attack we might be getting. If we lure the attack away from the perimeter—say on the dirt road just as you turn off the highway—and put up a barrier across the dirt road about 200 yards in from the asphalt—we can stop them before they reach the gate of the property.”

“Sounds good,” replied Preston. “A sort of ambush zone?”

“Correct, sir, basic military tactics,” replied the sergeant. “I was going to ask Mr. David if we could place his armored cars at the other end of the dirt road several yards into the forest on the other side of the road. They could be camouflaged under brush and cut off the escape route once the attackers realize it’s a trap.”

“It sounds good. I’m sure David would enjoy the action. Those machine guns will rip anything civilian to shreds in seconds. I’ve seen them in action,” replied Preston.

“There is enough brush along where your fence goes and we can position a dozen or so men down the road to ambush whoever arrives and help the guards at the barrier and the tower,” the sergeant added. “We currently have 32 fully-operational soldiers on site, and that should be enough.”

“Unfortunately, I need a couple of your soldiers to set up a guard post at RDU airport this morning,” added Preston. “There is a ton of stuff there—food, and gasoline in the large fuel tanks—and I think we are going to need everything we can get our hands on. I will ask General Allen to set up a permanent 24/7 guard at the main gates and I was even going to ask Joe for the use of one of his jeeps to patrol the airport’s perimeter.”

“Not a problem, sir,” the sergeant replied. “I’m sure a C-130 will fly into a base later today and they can always bring back more troops. The general said that there was little chance of an attack today. It will take at least a day for them to find us and ready themselves, but from midnight tonight we should be prepared for action. We are nearly done here The men are going to rest this morning, get six hours of sleep and then we will get back at it. I will forward my ideas about the ambush to the general when he arrives. It will only take a couple of hours to take fresh troops into RDU from Seymour Johnson, and I don’t need to send any men from here. They already know the layout of the land and that is real valuable right now.” Preston agreed, and he and Martie said their goodbyes and walked back to the house.