The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (40 page)

“Where are all your other men in your group, and what are they expected to do to complete their mission?”

“Everybody got different missions…… some are to attack… farmers and make them sign papers to buy stuff from this company…………a farming company, I think. I don’t know its name. Others are heading to destroy food places… like this one…… but most of the men, about 300 of us in total are supposed to be heading south on horseback… or trucks… to poison water depots…, or……… make farmers sign the documents……, or kill the f… f…ood……” and the man’s body gave up the will to live.

“Damn!” stated General Patterson getting up. “Let’s go and see Mallory and get all the food locations that could be in danger.

“You can’t go in there!” stated an Air Force doctor coming up to bar the men from Captain Mallory’s room.

“Captain, go and tend to somebody’s wounds, I’m busy!” and the doctor was swept aside as the three men entered. “Nurse, please wake the captain up for me. I need some life-saving information, and then I will leave him to rest,” he added to the army nurse tending him.

The nurse did as ordered and slowly Mike Mallory came to.

“Mike, I need every location you have, established or future. I think somebody in Washington has released information to a group to destroy these food stations.”

Mike Mallory told them the two dozen towns across the western states that already had food depots as well as another six which were due to get them in the next couple of months.

General Patterson thanked him and returned outside and called a dozen air bases to get troops into these towns, over a thousand men in each food station within twenty-four hours. Then they went out to see the remains of the enemy position.

“Find anything unusual?” asked the general to a tech sergeant in charge of searching for objects with a metal detector.

“Very little ammo left, just an AK 47 round here and there. Most of everything was ignited or burned from the napalm. I have a pile of stuff over here,” and he showed the three men to a selection of blackened items next to one of the burned out trucks. “A Chinese military combat boot including foot,” he stated pointing to a boot with a blackened mass still inside. We believe the next item is a barrel of a modern Chinese anti-aircraft weapon. It’s hard to determine what it was but I would guess it is part of a radar-equipped non-GPS guidance system still intact, and about ten years old. Three Chinese coins, a part of a major’s uniform, the medal strips on his breast didn’t burn as bad as the rest, nor did his rank on one of the blackened epilates. Name on uniform is Choo. Other than that, one hell of a mess and not much more to go by, except a small silver metal mini-briefcase case found in the burned out glove compartment of one of the other trucks. Its melted shut, but I have a guy trying to get it open.”

They waited patiently for the corporal to jimmy the small case. He finally did, and General Patterson was handed the small, heavy case and he thanked the man. The smell of burnt flesh was becoming overpowering, and they retreated back to the terminal building as another C-130 came in with more troops and medics.

They checked on Mike Mallory. Both Martie and Sally were chatting softly next to his bed and the three men left the girls to head back up to the control tower and look over the airport while checking what was in the small silver case.

“Just slightly underdone papers,” stated General Patterson, but I have a feeling I know where they are from. Preston, Carlos, look at the engraved emblem inside the top of the case. I’ve seen that emblem once or twice before.

“
MonteDiablo!”
stated Preston and Carlos together.

“Peter Westbrook had the same emblem on his jacket when he spoke to us the first time we met him at Andrews,” added Carlos.

“Yes, I remember,” continued the general. “When I was looking at the camera showing the inside of the closed hangar, both pilots had the same emblem on their flight jackets.” For several seconds, General Patterson flipped through the several pieces of paper. “Two pages with six copies all with
MonteDiablo’s
emblem on the top. A signed letter, it’s a contract actually, with Westbrook’s signature at the end of page two and the other party’s information left blank, I assume to be filled in.”

A copy was passed to Preston and Carlos and they read the two-page contract.

“So this is what all these deaths are all about,” Preston stated. “These are to be handed out by these gangsters to farmers in the area, and I would assume that the farmer signs it, or they kill him and his family. Mike Mallory was telling us about several farms being hit and whole families murdered in the last couple of weeks.”

“I think you hit the nail on the head,” replied General Patterson.

“This contract is between a farmer and
MonteDiablo
, to supply agricultural products for credit. It states here,” continued Carlos, reading page two of the contract, “that once the U.S. dollar, or any other form of currency, including the Chinese Yen, is returned as a form of payment, then the above mentioned farmer will begin paying
MonteDiablo
for all the farming supplies purchased by him.”

“I find the last paragraph interesting,” added General Patterson. “Product will only be purchased from
MonteDiablo
, by the farmer from the signing of this contract between the farmer and
MonteDiablo,
and if the farmer is found purchasing, or obtaining any other products for free, from any other source, including the U.S. government, U.S. military, or any other legal, or illegal source, then severe retributions will be held against the farmer and his family. It states here in black and white that his land will be seized by
MonteDiablo!”

“Isn’t a free society and capitalism a joy to behold!” stated Preston.

“So!” added Carlos. “The job of these banditos, or soldiers of MonteDiablo, is to drive around to farms, heavily armed, ask the farmers nicely to sign a contract with no end-date to purchase their products, and if the farmer decides that he doesn’t want to, they shoot or torture his family, and him, until he signs?”

“I think that is what is happening out there,” stated the general.

“I think our Colombian Cartels could come up here and learn a few lessons from these guys!” Carlos responded.

“I was up in Bethel, Alaska, north of you guys yesterday,” continued General Patterson. “Some kids told me that a team of soldiers and aircraft cleared out the detention center up there. Around a couple of hundred inmates disappeared. I think this could have happened at several locations. We already know from the guy, Charlie, that 200 men, mostly right wingers have been enlisted. Pretty ironic for right wingers to be hired by the Chinese; but it seems that Westbrook, apart from a couple of thousand Chinese soldiers, has a second army of a thousand or more American civilians driving around or even riding on horseback killing farmers, the guys we need more than anybody to keep this country alive.”

“I think that the whole country’s farming community could be at risk,” added Preston.

“I think so too, but thank God we have all our troops back. I’m going to empty every military base in the country, save enough men to repel any attacks, as we learned from Carlos’ Columbian cartel attacks, and get the guys mobile and on the ground to get these banditos, as you rightfully call them, Carlos.”

“I think it pretty important, as the old Calderón stated to my mother years ago to also ‘cut the head off the snake’”, replied Carlos. “That’s what we did with the senator and Police Chief Gonzalez, I think you had better warn the president that he has enemies inside his government and he needs to clean house.”

For the next hour, General Patterson was again on the satellite phone and made a couple of dozen calls. Preston and Carlos headed back to see the girls and saw that Mike was still asleep, his girlfriend sitting by his side.

“Now that we know who is to blame for this horrible massacre of innocent people, I think we should head back to North Carolina and get our three Mustangs,” Preston suggested to Carlos and Martie. “What about you Sally?”

“You guys head back. I’m happy going as the general’s co-pilot in whatever he flies. I think the Mustangs and their good fuel range will be an asset for continuing the search and will save the jet fighters being scrambled every time we think we see something. This Westbrook guy is going to be found.”

General Patterson agreed, stated that the 747 transporter with Wong and Chong flying was arriving in 90 minutes or so from Andrews, full of jeeps and men to begin looking for more of these bad guys. They could get a lift back to the East Coast, land at RDU, and fly over to Alaska to resume the search. He was going to spend the next couple of days of August in North Carolina and head back to Elmendorf on September 1st, a good day to meet up there.

After saying their goodbyes several hours later, and Sally giving Carlos a long goodbye kiss, they climbed aboard the loading door of the now empty 747 and joined the majors in the cockpit.

They both had ideas to help fly the aircraft over to the East Coast.

We’ve found them!

A day after the trio headed back to North Carolina, Buck flew into Elmendorf to refuel; the two gunships were already there. He had been left alone to finish the northwestern area of Alaska above Bethel, and had finally completed his search pattern. For the first time he felt the air to be warm enough to say so. Where he had based in Bethel, the weather had been in the mid-fifties during the day and low forties at night. Upon landing at Elmendorf he learned the gruesome news about what had happened in Oregon and was glad to hear that Mike and his girlfriend were alive.

The local pub was a noisy affair, and he and Barbara relaxed for two good nights, enjoying Alaskan beer with some of the locals. The locals enjoyed the outside company and asked dozens of questions about what was happening in the rest of the world.

The next morning was the day he and the other search aircraft, the two A-130 gunships, were to relocate to Dillingham. It was time to check out the Aleutian Islands and there was much flying to be done.

Information had been collected by the air force from several people who tried to go to the islands the previous few weeks. An important piece of information was that the Alaska Marine Highway, a Marine ferry transportation system, had only two of its smallest modern ferry vessels working and, so far this year, only ferried people as far as Kodiak and Port Lyons, halfway down the volcanic island chain and no further.

Over the usual meal of salmon and beer, Buck, Barbara, and the pilots of the gunships agreed that if the ferry had been to these ports, they were not being used by the bad guys. That left seven ports the ferry service had not been to since New Year’s Day, Chignik, Sand Point, King Cove, Cold Bay, False Pass, Atukan and Unalaska.

They had vague information on airports and small airfields, and one of the air force pilots remembered hearing about the extended runway at Cold Bay; something about an extended runway that was built for the Apollo program, or by NASA, for emergency shuttle landings.

Without much to back up the anecdotal stories, they decided to toss for the towns to be visited the next day, once they had flown into Dillingham. Because the AC-130s had double the speed and range of
Lady Dandy
, one pilot suggested that he fly out and check the farthest two towns, Atukan and Unalaska; the second gunship took the first three, Chignik, Sand Point and King Cove; Buck and Barbara would check out False Pass and then backtrack to Cold Bay.

Everyone agreed and then met up at Cold Bay for the night. There was supposed to be a motel in the town and they planned to use it.

“We are running out of places these guys could be. They could still be somewhere in Russia,” suggested Air Force Major Harditz, the man in charge of the search operation while General Patterson was down south. “I’m a little worried about you and Barbara, Buck. You are unarmed and cannot defend yourselves.”

“We fly a civilian aircraft and have flown around the country. Anybody could have shot at us. I think you guys are more in danger, you are slow, and don’t have the modern electronic defenses you are used to, just a thirty-year radar system,” replied Buck. “I don’t think many sane Americans are going to shoot at us.
Lady Dandy
has been flying for fifty years and can’t harm anybody.”

* * *

Meanwhile, Preston, Carlos—who was now cleared to fly by the doctors—and Martie, had hours earlier in the day said goodbye to Little Beth, Clint and the team back at the farm and flown into Hill Air Force Base to overnight and refuel.

Carlos needed a couple of hours to head up to his mountain observatory, now “Number Two Satellite Control Center,” above Salt Lake City to check out the satellites and pick up his team of a dozen astronomers, scientists and communication specialists stationed up there. He was to have a meeting at
The Cube
in California with his whole team the following day to design a plan of action to position the Chinese satellites into a simple U.S. only, Geostationary GPS/communications orbit. He also had to check how the old Navistar-P satellite was going.

He had given instructions to position Navistar-P, 350 miles northwest of its 200-mile high, central position over the middle of the United States to view more of Alaska, and lower it a hundred miles to try and get visuals on smaller ships and any other traffic.

The lower the height, the more of its lifespan was eroded away. The poor Navistar-P was not meant to be operating anymore, but it was, and he knew that the lower the altitude, the lower the life span the old test satellite had.

Navistar-P had only a year or two left in her and she wasn’t designed to sit at the optimal altitude; 22,300 miles above the planet. At exactly 22,300 miles above the equator, Carlos and every other satellite expert knew that the force of gravity was cancelled by the centrifugal force of the rotating universe. This is the ideal spot to park a geostationary satellite instead of orbital satellites like the old military GPS system used. Also there was less space junk to worry about. Unfortunately, the pictures of earth from Navistar-P at the higher altitude would be beautiful, but of absolutely no use to anybody.