The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (11 page)

“What do you and I have in numbers?” asked Manuel, looking around for the half-empty bottle of American Bourbon he found at one of the bases they had ransacked.

In Laredo, we each had 25,000 men,” replied Alberto looking at a vast list of numbers on a scrap of cardboard in front of him. We were joined by 5,000 fresh men, the Gonzalez Cartel, here in Houston. I believe you and I had 20,000 other men join us between Laredo, San Antonio and here. That is 75,000 men we used to have Manuel, now we have only about 55,000 men. We had more than 2,000 vehicles of all types between us, now we have less than 1,250, mostly smaller vehicles. In those lost vehicles they destroyed over 400 troop transporters and thirty-four fuel tankers. We still have our five howitzers from San Antonio, tons of ammo and three ground-to-air missiles and one launcher left. We lost most of our rations and we have food for our men for two more days.”

By morning the storm was intensifying when Pedro’s men gave their numbers. They hadn’t slept a wink. “Manuel, out of the 60,000 men I started with in Laredo, I had 4,000 men join me and left 10,000 good men in San Antonio. After San Antonio more joined. Then Carlos Sanchez met us at the intersection with his Cartel of 15,000. That should have increased my numbers to 93,000 men.

Manuel, Alberto, I don’t know how many men and vehicles I have. Many hundreds were blown up and destroyed; even my own jeep took bullets, but still runs. Maybe more men are coming. I think I lost over 25,000 men just today. Manuel, my men have one aircraft missile, one launcher and three howitzers and 21 undamaged heavy machine guns from Fort Houston in San Antonio. I have one day’s food in two trucks; they hit over 30 of my trucks carrying food when one of their aircraft exploded and obliterated the road.”

Well any number over 100,000 well-armed men is still an army,” stated Manuel. “Let’s wait for our 50 trucks to arrive from the naval base in Corpus Christi. This little storm will blow over, and then we go and blow those Americans to pieces. What do you think about that?”

The Hurricane with No Name

With a heavy tailwind, the first Orion Hurricane Hunter returned at 05:15 on May 18th, and the crew didn’t need to wake up the admiral or the general. The wind and rain squalls were keeping them from a restful sleep. The rest of the pilots were still fast asleep; they were due at the 06:00 briefing. The wind squalls were now coming in from the north and, a lot of the pilots watching the weather had never seen drastic changes like this. The temperature outside had dropped twenty degrees in the last ten hours.

The flight crew reported back at 02:30 that they had found the storm. It was 120 miles off the Texas coast, a big one by the look of it, and they would report again once they had flown through the eye and out the other side. Their equipment was thirty years old and not as exact as the more modern equipment normally used, and there was no satellite help to guide them through, but they found the eye wall and thirty minutes later passed through the main body of the storm.

The second Orion was an hour behind them and followed a different route 50 miles closer to the coast to attempt to record the wind measurements of the frontal area of the storm. They were scheduled to land at 05:30, and during the flight home both aircraft could compare readings and have a report for the 06:00 briefing.

“It’s a big hurricane alright,” stated the commander of the first aircraft once all the dreary eyed pilots and crew met in the briefing room. “I also believe that a cold front went over us from the northwest yesterday and, if that happened, then we have a perfect storm down there about 120 miles off the Texas coast.”

The C-130 pilots had dropped the 93 members of the Seals with the second group of 3,000 Marines and full kit at 01:30 several miles north of the outskirts of Houston; it was just south of a small town called Spring, which General Patterson thought an appropriately named place to drop the men. At the drop point, there were less severe gusts when the men jumped at 1,000 feet, 10 aircraft at a time, into a clear area between two railway depots. The railway trucks could shield the men during the hurricane if need be, as well as give them a defensible position if enemy troops were in the vicinity. Also, it was a couple of miles to Houston’s main airport which could be a second shelter position from which to scour the city for enemy.

The Seals were dressed in civilian clothes and carried mercenary-type weapons like shotguns and AK 47s. Their aim was to find the enemy and infiltrate as members of the rebel army.

“I don’t believe you are going to get any more flights into Houston for the next 48 to 72 hours,” continued the Hurricane Hunter’s commander at the briefing. “Our read-outs show a full-fledged hurricane 300 miles wide and we have rated it as a Category Three. The hurricane eye looks like it is heading into the area east of Houston, somewhere between Galveston and Beaumont and will land in about ten to twelve hours. We can only gauge its forward movement on our second pass, but a hurricane of this size would normally average 12 to 17 miles an hour. At 03:05 this morning the eye was 91 miles off the coast, directly north of High Island. We are heading out again once our aircraft are refueled. I don’t believe Dyess is in any danger, but I would move your aircraft back to McConnell just in case, General.”

“You stated a cold front?” asked Admiral Rogers. “If it is a cold front that passed over this area yesterday —and I agree with you, I know a cold front when I smell one—then it must be either halting the forward movement of the hurricane, or the hurricane could possibly push it back over us, or both; just stop dead and pour rain down until the hurricane is consumed by the front. That could cause really destructive weather in Houston and the surrounding coastal areas.”

“Correct,” replied the commander. “That’s why we need to get back to measure how far the eye has moved and in which direction.”

“Pilots, head all aircraft back to McConnell. I want everybody out of here by midday. I will leave last in the Super Tweet at 11:59,” ordered General Patterson and the pilots got up to prepare.

“I’m going to do some hurricane and weather surveillance of the area in the Coast Guard C-130,” added Admiral Rogers. “She has old weather equipment on board, and I can monitor the area around Houston and relay any messages from my Seal Team. General Patterson, please fly some 130s into Camp Lejeune to pick up a third parachute drop of men and load a couple of the Gunships with extra ammo and supplies for the men already on the ground. We now have 6,000 Marines in and around Houston; and even with my 93 guys, that isn’t very many against a couple of hundred thousand rebels.”

General Patterson acknowledged and wanted a report on equipment movements from Harbin. He got on the phone to Mo Wang, still in China.

“It is going well here, General, we are working around the clock,” stated Mo once the general had asked him for his progress. “I have completed a timeline for the equipment at the factory where I’m currently standing, and will have the first of approximately 500 aircraft-loads ready in 14 days. The three Airbuses and all twenty 747s are flying out the food stocks and electronics from the airfield. The 747 Transporter is taking out munitions and loads of helicopter parts from the factory and all the weapons and ammunition you asked for from Colonel Zhing’s location.”

“Then it will take two months to move the entire factory? Is that correct Mo?” asked the general.

“That is correct,” Mo answered. “The airfield still has several outgoing flights with all the aircraft to go, counting two days per flight, before the storage depot is empty. Could I ask that you return my good friend Colonel Rhu who is still in Hawaii? He can help me with the inventory,” asked Mo. General Patterson said that he would send orders to Misawa.

“Do you need any more help: men or heavy duty machinery?” asked the general. Mo stated that he didn’t. “Those other four partially completed helicopters I saw in the factory. What has happened to those?”

“We decided that you might need them due to the new problems you are facing,” replied Mo. “So I ordered the factory to complete the helicopters. Two will be ready for testing tomorrow and the other two in a week.” General Patterson thanked Mo and told him to get the four completed Zhi-10s to Edwards Air Force Base as soon as their tests were done.

“Preston, Buck, Carlos come with me. Carlos I want you back at “The Cube” helping to get that satellite repositioned over us. How many more days do we need?”

“A week,” replied Carlos. We can see the western area of Texas and maybe the Dyess-area in six days and the Houston area several hours after that. I believe May 25th is our day. There is no way I can direct the satellite any faster.”

“Well, there is no flying here for a few days, so let’s go and check on what is happening in California.”

The other aircraft were already leaving; the winds were becoming stronger and the rain more constant instead of squalls. It looked like the whole of southern Texas was in for a lot of rain.

General Patterson gave new orders for an air force crew to fly out the twin-seat Super Tweet he was supposed to pilot. He, Preston, Buck, Carlos and Martie, who wasn’t going to be left behind, loaded their gear aboard
Blue Moon
to take off in dark and windy weather towards Travis Air Force Base.

* * *

“What do you think?” Lieutenant Colonel Clarke asked his five majors reporting in and whose men were going through the blackened and rain-drenched Mission Bend intersection. At midday on May 18th, it looked like dusk and the rain was coming down hard. Counting the dead was dirty, wet, work, especially checking for any identification.

“My men just can’t keep up with the numbers,” declared a couple of the men together. “There are just too many. It would be easier without this weather.”

“I think a cleanup team of thousands should head in to both these locations as soon as this all blows over, and then we can get an accurate count,” suggested the major.

At the Interstate-10 battleground, the carnage was very bad with thousands of dead bodies and body parts everywhere. Several badly wounded men were dealt with in accordance with their orders to take no prisoners. They counted seven thousand bodies and a thousand vehicles before they just gave up on I-10 and headed into Houston. They had been ordered to head to the area of the second attack on the highway south and the two intersections.

It was nearly impossible to count the dead and remains of bodies and vehicles; the wind and rain made visibility bad, and it was impossible for the men to take accurate numbers. The wind was cold, colder than when they began the previous day, and Colonel Clarke was happy to hear Admiral Rogers’s voice come faintly over his radio.

The colonel reported his numbers and stated that if it got any worse, he and his men would need to find shelter. Admiral Rogers told him of several large warehouses around and north of the second intersection where the last attack had taken place, but to be careful in case the enemy was still in the area. Admiral Rogers also told Colonel Clarke through a coded message that a second group of 3,000 Marines under Lieutenant Colonel Catlin were about seven miles north of the city airport, and Seal Team Six had also gone in and were heading for the airport in civilian dress. From now on the Marines had to be more careful about shooting on sight.

Lieutenant Colonel Clarke transmitted the urgent need for cleanup teams, and the admiral acknowledged. He had a good man to sort out this big problem, Mike Mallory.

* * *

The three Seal Team lieutenants were making good time to the intercontinental airport. They had consumed a quick meal inside several dry boxcars, and after a six hour nap, were still dry underneath their rain gear, and had a mile to go. None of them had seen any life. Even the dogs had disappeared to survive the heavy rain pelting everything. It was beginning to rain very hard and visibility was down to less than a hundred feet.

Their orders were to find the enemy. Once that was done, the non-Spanish-speaking men would set up a base of operations, and the two squads of six men would head into the melee of enemy and search out the commanders, whoever they were. Based on identification found on many of the dead bodies, they already knew the rebels were from Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and every country in Central America.

Lieutenant Colonel Clarke had earlier reported from the first scene of attack that several of the Hispanics carried U.S. papers such as Green Cards and even U.S. Passports. There had not been a black or white body in the whole search to date, and the Seal Team had been told that any whites or blacks they came across would probably be harmless civilians and should be given help.

Lieutenant Paul’s men were the first to reach the outer-perimeter fence to Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. They reached the northwestern tip of the airfield and couldn’t see past the first runway. Within a minute they had three holes cut into the fence, and the men slipped into the grassy verge around the runway tarmac heading out in a easterly direction as far as visibility would allow.

All three platoons had checked maps once they landed and mentally visualized the airport area. They had very little trouble staying hidden. The Seals didn’t expect anybody to be on guard, and their next job was to radio the Marines behind them to move south into what they hoped were drier and better accommodations at the airport terminals than the ransacked railway box cars.

The other two Seal platoons arrived at the opened fence holes, marked with a small white ribbon a minute later and found Lieutenant Paul and his men.

“We are lucky the weather is so bad,” shouted Lieutenant Paul to the whole group once all 93 men had congregated in the airport grounds. They were totally hidden from any prying eyes and were confident in standing around in the open. “We would have needed to wait until dark before we could get across the open runways. There is the taxiway, which has a flyover, or a bridge that goes over a road a hundred yards to our south. Why don’t the rest of you take cover while we go forward and check out the first terminals? If it’s all clear we’ll come back for you guys to join us. Stay put until you hear from one of us, understand? We won’t take a radio in case there are enemy there and somebody wants to search us.”