The 13: Fall (48 page)

B
oz stood at the front of the bridge of the HMS
Queen Elizabeth
, the flagship of the Royal Navy. They had been at sea now for over a day and were getting close to American waters. Boz had been on a lot of carriers before, but this by far was one of the most sophisticated pieces of machinery he’d ever seen. The propulsion and navigation systems alone were state-of-the-art technology. Not even the Americans had anything like this yet. Of course, with the previous two administrations cutting the defense budget by nearly two-thirds, it was no wonder the Brits had finally bested them. And the
Queen Elizabeth
was just the tip of this spear. The HMS
Prince of Wales
, the
Queen Elizabeth
‘s counterpart, was right on their tail, along with twenty-three other warships.

Prime Minister Bungard had been livid when he had gotten word. Pretty much his entire Royal Navy had been hijacked. He had assumed immediately that it was Eli Craig who had arranged all of this. He wasted little time getting Craig on the phone once word got out. He had threatened to hang Craig at the Tower of London when he got back. Bungard said he would bring Craig, and every participating commanding officer with him, up on treason charges and would have them imprisoned for life.

Eli had kept his calm throughout the short conversation but quickly reminded the prime minister that—as he had so eloquently put it—over half his navy had mutinied on him. How did he think that was going to go over at Parliament? The prime minister quickly quieted down after that. Eli continued by telling him that what was done was done and that it should’ve been Bungard’s decision in the first place to help the Americans. Eli had continued, charging that Bungard was a coward and a disgrace to King William and their country. And then he gave the final blow. Eli told him that once the Chinese heard that England was coming to the rescue of the United States, it wouldn’t matter to them who had made the decision. The fact was England was about to wage war on China. The mother country was coming to the aid of her child. And whether Bungard liked it or not, he was in this now, so he’d better figure out how to make this look like it was his idea all along. Or it would be Bungard who was the one being strung up at the Tower of London. That was the end of the conversation, as Bungard slammed the phone down. Within an hour, information came back to the HMS
Queen Elizabeth
that Bungard had called a special session of Parliament and announced that, along with key strategic leaders—namely, Eli Craig—he had ordered the Royal Navy to lead a covert operation to come to the assistance of the United States.

Though it was well known the Chinese had perhaps the best stealth technology available, the Brits had some pretty good stuff of their own. For the last ten years, teams of Russian, German, and defected Chinese scientists had been acquired to develop what had been first installed on the
Queen Elizabeth.
When the ship had been commissioned and officially put out to sea, the Royal Navy ran a myriad of ghost operations, testing out the new stealth technology, which had proven nothing but successful. Over the next few years, every ship in the navy had been outfitted with it. And unless the Chinese had developed something new in the last six months, Eli assured Boz that no one should see them coming. Short of someone flying directly over them or another ship literally crossing their path, they were invisible.

There were two problems with that, Boz realized. One, no one knew they were coming. Not even Keene. And there was no way to get word to them. Once the
Queen Elizabeth
and the fleet had gone dark, that was it. There was no communication outside of ship-to-ship coms. The second problem: they had no idea what they were headed into. They were now only hours away from the American coast and they would have to stay dark until the last possible moment. Once the fighter aircraft took off from the decks, they would be completely visible. And then, it was no turning back. Boz only prayed that they wouldn’t be too late.

The sun had already set, and the cloud cover was thick. Hardly a star in the sky. Eli had just returned to the bridge as Boz was looking out on the horizon.

“Pretty dark out there, mate.”

“Yeah, I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

Eli waved it off. “That’s a good thing. Gonna help us see the coast when we come up on it. Less light up there means we’ll be able to see the landscape better.”

“And who knows what we’re going to see,” Boz said quietly.

Eli put his hand on Boz’s shoulder. “It’s never as bad as you think. You told me that once. Remember?” He turned and pointed to the fleet behind them. “We’ve got a lot of boys back there who are completely sold out. They know that if America falls, the entire world could be next. This isn’t just about your country. It’s about theirs. And they aren’t going to let that happen.”

Boz nodded. He knew his friend was right. The Chinese might not be looking for a world war, but if America fell, they’d get one. Every country on the planet—aside from China’s current allies—would be gearing up for an invasion. And more than likely, they wouldn’t wait. They’d be proactive. And with the nuclear capabilities of other nations, and China’s track record of being irresponsible on every other level of diplomacy, it wouldn’t take long before someone decided that launching them all would be the only option. He hoped and prayed that wasn’t what God was going to allow to happen.

“It’s just sad that it’s had to come to this, Eli.”

“I know, mate. So if God allows us to get out of this alive, we’ll just know we have a lot of work to do.”

Boz patted his friend on the shoulder and left the bridge. He went downstairs and out onto the deck. He walked up and down, looking at the aircraft that were already positioned to take off and head into battle. He felt a huge weight pressing down on him. Boz looked down at his watch. Only two hours left. He found a small bench and sat down. He folded his hands and closed his eyes. And began to pray.

   CHAPTER 75   

J
ennings sat at a conference table with Bob Sykes and President Walker. They had coms up on every unit they had deployed in the southern and Albany regions. The first of the American troops had returned from Afghanistan and had landed at Andrews. They were immediately deployed to the Albany front. More would be returning over the next several hours as the fleet of C-class cargo planes came in, though it would still be several days before the majority of the equipment and troops would make it back. Jennings hoped they could last that long. He was sure they were about to find out. The sun had been down for an hour now and the wait was on.

Jennings thought back to the days of the American Revolution, when war was done differently. Men would line up in regiments in fields, according to ranks, and then march on one another. It wasn’t until a few farmers and hunters realized that they couldn’t win the war by conventional methods that everything had changed. From that moment on, war was no longer conducted in a gentlemanly way. No longer did the armies of generals stand and face one another in open fields, and only during the daytime. Raids on troops and forts began to happen at unexpected times, during the night and on Sundays. The enemy was being targeted in close quarters along roads and in the thicket of the forests. Guerrilla warfare was born.

Jennings looked over at Walker, who was fidgeting and biting his fingernails. Sykes, on the other hand, looked calm and collected. The two men couldn’t be more different. Jennings, for the second time that day, said a silent prayer. He thanked God that at least Walker had the wherewithal to remove himself from this part of it.

The three men sat in silence for another ten minutes before the first radio call came in. A series of mortars had been fired on the forward unit in Albany. The Chinese infantry had engaged.

Within seconds, the entire command center at the bunker was in full swing. Sykes began to call out orders and check in with the other stations and regiments. They, too, had been engaged. The mortar shells and gunfire could be heard as they filled the room over the coms monitoring the northern front. Sykes and the Joint Chiefs began barking out commands to the troops. Seconds later, the other half of the coms lit up. The Chinese had coordinated their attacks on the southern front to happen at the same time.

The Chao Qis came first with a massive air attack. Most of Albany and half of Atlanta were leveled in less than an hour, clearing the way for the Chinese infantry and armaments to move. The American troops were taking heavy fire. Jennings listened, as the People’s Liberation Army pressed forward.

The next two hours were painful. While the northern front was holding its own, the southern front was having trouble. With Florida being accessible from the Gulf or the Atlantic, the Chinese continued bringing up ships from the south. Sykes was forced to send what air support he had left to Major General McIntyre, to aid the men and women from Fort Benning and Parris Island, leaving Washington vulnerable. No doubt a thought-out strategy by the Chinese.

Within an hour of Syke’s decision, four Chinese cargo ships appeared off the coast of Delaware, having sneaked past the already weak American coastal blockade. As soon as they were noticed, Sykes sent out four Apaches and two Blackhawks, but the ships had already gotten into Delaware Bay. The Apaches were able to inflict some damage, but the ships had already run aground. The Apache and Blackhawk pilots quickly learned that the ships weren’t ordinary cargo ships. They had been outfitted with surface-to-air defense missiles. Within seconds of the Americans’ arrival, the Chinese launched an attack. The Apaches and Blackhawks continued to evade and attack, but the Chinese ships, carrying infantry, vehicles, and WZ-10 attack helicopters, were being unloaded at an extraordinary pace. It only took a few minutes for the Chinese to get the WZ-10s in the air. The Blackhawks and Apaches, outnumbered and outgunned, were forced to retreat back to Andrews. The pilots had estimated anywhere from three to five thousand Chinese foot soldiers on each vessel. With less than a hundred miles separating them from Washington, DC, it appeared the Chinese would successfully invade the nation’s capitol, regardless of whether or not the Americans held off the northern and southern attack.

   CHAPTER 76