INVASION USA (Book 2) - The Battle For New York (7 page)

It would be dark by the time they landed and Sally would get a rest while another pilot flew them back to Andrews. On the way, General Allen told Buck about the developing Air Force they now had. Edwards AFB would have their own C-130 ready in a day or two. There was the F-4 Falcon at Edwards, two pilots would fly her over to Hill AFB tomorrow, once she was ready for flight. Two more Hueys in the museum could be operational within a week, and now that they would have electricity in a few hours, they could work 24/7 on the aircraft. He told Buck about the two flyable F-4s already at Hill and his loan of an HC-130—a Hercules fuel tanker used in Vietnam that he called Mother Goose—to Preston in North Carolina. She would be ready at Hill AFB in the morning and could get into Preston’s airstrip half loaded with fuel. It could refuel his airfield tanks daily and since it had pre-1980 pumps, it could suck fuel out of anything—even a commercial airport system or a tractor-trailer.

Then the general told them about Ghost Rider, an AC-130A Gunship that was already airborne out of Edwards AFB and on its way to Andrews AFB. The gunship was to be delivered to the newly built wing of Washington’s Air and Space Museum in its original Vietnam colors, and they would see it at Andrews later when they arrived. The general was excited about this one.

They were expecting to pick up Carlos, return to Andrews, and then talk to the president early the next morning. They flew into Hill Air Force Base, its runway briefly lighted, and the general was told that Carlos would not be returning until morning.

The sergeant, who had delivered Carlos and Lee up the mountain, had returned two hours before the general, and the only two troop carriers and trailers that were operational, were already in downtown Salt Lake City working on Carlos’ orders to acquire as many television trucks as possible. Several dozen soldiers were inspecting the museum and forgotten areas of storage hangars for any old televisions or computers.

Two old 1970-era color televisions had already been located and tested. They worked, and three old computers like the ones Carlos wanted were located on a back shelf of the Repairs and Museum Storage Depot near the base’s aircraft museum.

They also had sent word to Andrews and Edwards AFBs with another C-130 that had come in from Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, to look for the same kind of equipment. They had had radio communications for over thirty minutes now. An old base radio from the Vietnam War was now operational and working with Preston’s frequency and solar towers. This gave them a total of four communication stations across the country—Preston’s farm, Andrews AFB, Hill AFB, and Edwards AFB.

National communications was getting better!

North Carolina – Preparations for an Attack

Preston’s airstrip was busy, and in between flights he checked the asphalt on his runway for damage. He and Joe had built it well, with Preston spending a lot more money than needed to strengthen the ground under the asphalt. There were three layers of granite rock, stones, and chips on top of each other to allow the asphalt to bed down on a strong base. But neither man had ever expected it to handle the larger-than-life C-130s that were now coming and going on a daily basis—every arrival heavier than the one before.

Apart from a slight normal crack here and there, however, it seemed to be standing up well. The C-130s, meant for dirt landings, had several tires in their undercarriage wheel-wells, which distributed the weight a little, and up to now all the aircraft had landed and taken off with very little cargo. That was until Jennifer came in from Salt Lake City.

“Tom” the C-130 returned a couple of hours after Carlos left that morning. It was 10:00 am on the second day when Preston heard Jennifer call in over the radio in the lounge. He had just set up the powerful speakers from the new “kaput” stereo system to work outside on the roof of the house to broadcast to anybody working that somebody was coming in for a landing. There was much that had already been completed outside. The barbed wire had been installed along the front fence area and around the only gate at the entrance to the property.

The barbed wire was weird stuff, and dangerous, as Preston found out when he was helping to stretch it out. Thick protective gloves were needed. The rolls were extremely thick and weighed a couple of hundred pounds. The forklift had been needed to transport them to the gate, which was pretty tough for the little guy on an uneven road surface with its small wheels. It had taken most of the morning to string out the first six rolls. Each roll was placed on the ground and the wire end tied to Preston’s truck. He pulled it away from the roll and the round wire formation just elongated out 100 feet and became a twisted length of dangerous wire, three feet high and three feet in diameter. The next one was pulled out next to the first one, and then the third was placed on top of the first two, creating a triangular effect and becoming a six foot high wall.

The same was done on the other side of the gate, and then the gate was dressed in cut sections of the wire. It still moved, but was virtually impenetrable when shut. Preston left the men and his truck to complete the next 100 feet and returned to inspect the runway.

“Hi Jennifer, Preston here,” he responded to her call. It was pretty quiet in the house with several members gone and the new arrivals still sleeping.

“Hi Preston, I’m about 20 minutes out coming in a little heavier this time. I have some Christmas gifts for you from the Rockies,” she replied.

“Wind from the north, five to ten miles an hour, temperature 38 degrees, runway lights are removed, you have the whole field. Over.”

“Roger,” she replied. “Will be coming in from the south, unpacking, and then refueling at your neighbors to the south. They are now up and running and selling gas.”

“Good to hear that. We are heading out anyway to get some extra, just in case, but I’ll wait for you,” he replied.

She came in, her rear tires hitting hard on the ground several feet before the beginning of the asphalt and using the whole runway this time, her propellers on full feathering, breaking down her speed. This time, he did see plumes of blue smoke spew out from the tires as she came to a heavy stop.

He was surprised to see a small, camouflaged bulldozer and a second forklift back out of the rear of the C-130. That was not all. There were another two dozen troops, tents, two porta-potties, boxes of rations, gas cylinders, and another dozen rolls of barbed wire. Then three large mortars, nearly five feet tall, and dozens of cases of mortar bombs on pallets were lifted out. Lastly, bags of what looked like sandbag cases, on plastic wrapped pallets were forklifted out.

“We are digging in here,” stated Jennifer, standing next to Preston and wiping her face with a cloth. “We are planning to increase your perimeter around the airfield, take down the brush and the trees with our old Vietnam museum-piece mini-dozer here, stolen from Hill’s museum, and set up a perimeter of sandbagged mortar and machine gun placements—especially around the entrance, which should have the barbed wire up and ready to repel any unwanted people.”

“Yes, we installed the first 200 feet of it this morning. Horrible stuff, that barbed wire,” Preston replied. “We are going to need at least 600 yards of the stuff just for the front area and I worked out another 700-800 yards to cover the sides. The rest of the perimeter should be OK with the natural water boundary. We can’t do the whole lot?”

“I agree,” acknowledged Jennifer. “Just enough to stop anybody coming in from the farm’s frontal boundary. Once we clear the brush around the sides, we can protect it with night goggles and infrared warning devices. I know that the wildlife will cause some issues, but that can’t be helped. The troops will have what’s left of the wire out front by tonight and the general wants to place tripwires outside the fence to warn us of any human creepy-crawlies crawling around out there. The general thinks that an attack could happen here as soon as tomorrow night and we need to be ready for them. Tomorrow we have a platoon of Marine snipers coming in and they will be placed up and down the highway to let us know if we are going to get company. They will make sure that nobody leaves the party. I suggest that you have one of your aircraft ready. You might be the air backup, Preston, and actually get to use your machine guns. I know Martie is not dying to use them on humans, and I’m not sure, but that could happen.”

Joe radioed in that they were on their way over, and Jennifer was impressed at the loud speakers blaring out the message. The guards at the gate heard it on their radios and replied that they would look out for them. It was time to go and get the other two fuel trailers.

“I saw a couple of little Cessna 172s at the airport and thought of getting someone up there to patrol tomorrow,” said Preston, nodding up at the sky. “When some of our fly-in pilots actually return, and we are almost out of flyers right now, it could be an early warning system to get something up there to serve as a spotter plane. A Cessna 172 could stay up there for four hours at a time, and as long as the heater works, it could give some of our fancy Air Force or civilian pilots some very boring flying time.”

“Nobody thinks that anything will happen today,” replied Jennifer. “It’s only been 36 hours since New Year’s Eve, and they couldn’t have seen our transponders until we used them eight hours later. If they have troops in the United States, the general thinks that they will have to travel in from around Washington or even further north. It will take them time to decipher their information, contact their troops who will need to find transportation, and then drive down here. The highways are pretty lousy up around Washington, and must be worse further north. If they start moving today, probably later today, they would still only be here by dawn tomorrow at the earliest, and then they will still have to case the joint. That is when our troops will let us know, and of course your ‘eye in the sky’ if you get one up during daylight hours. Anyway, I’m headed off to Seymour Johnson to refuel, grab some more men, and the wire they are putting together right now, and return here. Then I think I’m going north.”

“How much fuel can the Air Force get their hands on right now?” asked Preston.

“They have set up a system hotwiring one tank of jet fuel at Seymour Johnson. It’s the smallest one of three tanks, but still holds about a million gallons. The other two are bigger. Andrews AFB has your generator up and running and has access to a fuel tank similar to one at Seymour Johnson. Hill AFB should have one selling gas soon, as well as Edwards AFB, so we have enough jet fuel to start a war, just not enough airplanes to use it all.” Jennifer paused to look at her watch and check the weather pattern above her.

“Also, before I forget, there are one or two more C-130s in service as of later today, so expect some new traffic in here. I hear we might have three old F-4s serviceable today or tomorrow as well. They were General Allen’s retirement project for the Air Force museums. He told me that he had Tom and Jerry completed, two F-4s at Hill, and a third one at Edwards, I heard. Mother Goose is a surprise—one he wouldn’t even tell me or Sally. Mother Goose should be here sometime today and his ‘surprise’ to you will hopefully be here by morning. Mother Goose is yours, on loan from the Air Force for awhile. I was told not to tell you about her, or the surprise—the even bigger surprise.”

Preston was left still puzzled as he watched Jennifer in the now empty C-130 taxi to take off for Seymour Johnson. He stood with Joe, David, and the team of Joe’s sons ready to roll back to RDU. This time they had the two armored cars, the Saracen, and the two tractors to pull the fuel trailers back. Both he and Martie, who was taking little Beth with her, would fly two more Cessnas back.

They left the front gate, which was now looking very secure, and Preston was surprised to see his truck at the end of his driveway with a large new green wooden sign on two legs being lifted out of it. They stopped and went over to the men digging the holes in the ground for it with shovels. “Strong Air Force Base,” it read in big letters across the top with the picture of a Stealth Bomber in the middle. “Government Area ~ Do Not Enter” was written underneath in smaller letters. Preston smiled. “The general has been hard at work,” he said to the crew.

They drove down US 64 towards the city and the airport. Carlos’ three Colombian bodyguards accompanied them this time, as well as the sergeant and four men in the Saracen. They all added fire power and wanted to see the country and the effects of this disaster on the surrounding area. The ‘newbies’ hadn’t seen much except a street or two in New York, or flying over in aircraft from Seymour Johnson. Preston rode in the Saracen with Martie and little Beth, who would not leave Martie’s side. Little Beth had slept well, was full of food, and seemed to have recovered a little from the shock of her harrowing ordeal.

The road was as quiet as the last time. The air smelled like smoke again and he could see the rising of smoke here and there through the trees in the more densely populated areas to the east of them— fires that had not been there yesterday. This time, they turned right down state road 751—a rural road that would take them to the entrance of the nuclear power station in New Hill.

Three miles later, they turned into the main drive to the power plant. The gates were locked and there was no movement. The main buildings were off the road by 100 yards or so, and the armored car easily tore down the gates so they could drive through. The first building was nothing more than offices and a welcome center, and they continued past it for another mile. This time, they came to a second gate—the same kind as the first—and it was locked, with no guards at the small guard house. This time there was a bell to be pressed and several seconds later a guard came running down the road.

“Are you the Army?” he asked. “We are not allowed to let anybody through unless you are the government. There are two gun positions in the woods and they are armed.”

“We are on orders from the President of the United States,” Preston answered, getting out of the Saracen’s side door. “Washington wants to know the condition of all the nuclear reactors immediately and whether they are a severe danger to the country. There are no communications and these troops here are Air Force personnel out of Seymour Johnson. The Air Force is willing to place troops here for protection against any future terrorist threats, but first they want to check to see if the reactor is safe.” The guard ran back the way he had come, presumably to report back, and the gate opened several minutes later to allow them through.