The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (51 page)

He didn’t have time to check his watch as he pulled back on the stick, the aircraft was heavily loaded with well over a hundred people on board and his speed was still 10 knots below takeoff speed. He had a hundred yards of runway to go as he felt bullets hitting the aircraft somewhere.

Then he was airborne, but barely, the outer fence was coming up fast to meet him as he pulled his bloodied hands back hard. He felt the undercarriage hit the fence and then he was away in the darkness.

Alarms were going off everywhere in the cockpit as he grappled with the stricken airplane. There was no way he was going to get far and he immediately turned to port. The whole area behind him lit up as hundreds of explosions erupted at once, literally blowing up tons of weapons and ammo, thousands of gallons of fuel and he felt a massive shock wave hit the aircraft seconds later. He was still turning but a split second before the expected explosions he was looking towards the direction the two Shaheen missiles were expected to go and thought he saw a minute explosion in the blackness, but his eyes had to leave the area and concentrate on getting all these screaming people down.

Thinking of what Mike Mallory had done in New York, he decided that the dirt runway was his only bet. The aircraft was at 500 feet, fire was spreading and there wasn’t enough power to climb any higher.

Meanwhile Charlie Meyers had just exited the fence and was sprinting away when the world went bright a couple of hundred yards behind him. He turned and hit the ground hard as pieces of metal came at them, one large piece of hangar metal sliced right through Sergeant Mendez next to him as he fell to the ground. Charlie’s ear drums blew out, and he covered his head with his hands and screamed as deadly pieces of metal flew less than a foot above his body.

The massive explosions subsided at this distance as fast as they had erupted and Charlie felt hands grab him and pull him away. He thought he heard aircraft engines and then a fire in the sky as he blacked out.

Major Wong, still semi-calm, was extremely grateful that this aircraft had been built so well. There were flames on both wings, He could see them by the light coming into the cockpit from above and behind and was being told by several screaming passengers as he nursed the aircraft towards the south. He was losing altitude; the engines were about to overheat and he looked for the old runway. The light from the continuous blasts now behind him displayed the darker dirt line of the runway and he judged that he needed at least 400 yards to turn 180 degrees and put her down facing the fires. He had about 300 feet of altitude left and it was going to be close.

Lieutenant Paul was running towards the end of the runway, as soon as the massive explosions died down several hundred yards behind him, where the aircraft’s wheels had ripped open part of the outer fence. They just made the fence when the first parachutes opened up a few hundred yards in front of him and several new-sounding explosions began to pound the buildings behind him and his men. He thought them to be the 72-MM projectiles coming in from the three frigates ten miles away. He was supposed to be the eyes for the frigates and he found a slight rise, dropped behind it and with his satellite phone dialed up Admiral Rodriquez in charge of the ships’ guns. They were firing a hundred yards short and south of the main buildings, in the town itself and within several seconds, he had them taking out the buildings where thousands of enemy were running around in all directions.

The aircraft was in its death throes as Wong brought her down fifty feet from the beginning of the runway. It didn’t really matter where he brought her down. The ground was flat and he felt the broken undercarriage hit first. He had already managed to turn and fly level, but the joystick was dead in his hands as he worked on getting her down. He had engaged the ramp opening switch as he had turned in and a green light had come on, showing that it still worked.

With the undercarriage loose, the aircraft kissed the ground several yards in front of the runway, and proceeded to open a long furrow all the way down. Wong had closed down the fuel lines and engines seconds earlier and the aircraft took the whole of the 900-foot runway before coming to a grinding halt, taking out the building in which he had caught three hours of sleep a couple of hours earlier.

The force of the aircraft hitting the pile of rubble ended its forward motion and, unprepared, he hit his head on the side wall of the cockpit. He didn’t remember anything else.

The Final Cleanup

The Chinese soldiers, many already dead or wounded from the powerful initial explosions, fought bravely. The 72-MM projectiles coming in at 300 rounds a minute for three minutes put an end to any organized defense of the airfield.

As soon as the barrage ceased, the F-4s came in with 500-pounders and leveled any remaining buildings. The Chinese soldiers had no choice but to retreat to the town buildings of Cold Bay, where the Z-10 helicopters, their own Chinese-made helicopters, began pounding the town with hundreds of missiles.

The Marines, landing several hundred yards out from the eastern end and northern side of the main runway, advanced and easily took what they could on the airfield. Many areas, especially around where the three hangars had once stood were burning so hot that nobody could get close.

Instead they worked around the areas even though several small explosions were heard from the raging fires, spewing hot metal everywhere. They concentrated on pushing west and south and came upon several entrenched troops which were swiftly dealt with by air support.

There wasn’t one building standing at the airport by the time the Marines reached what was left of the southern perimeter fence; the remains of the 3,000 enemy were being bombarded by the helicopters and jets as they went in on alternate runs to demolish the town of Cold Bay.

Thirty minutes after the first massive explosions, white flags began to appear out of broken buildings and the Marines began a building-to-building search, bringing out unarmed Chinese troops, their hands high.

General Patterson, controlling the battle from the air in
Easy Girl
gave the order to take prisoners. He had seen the fiery crash of the Chinese transport aircraft as it went down earlier, but up to now he had not had the time to inspect the scene. Now dawn was breaking and he commanded his pilot to fly over the old runway. He had turned on his satellite phone, turned off for the battle and it immediately rang.

“Patterson,” he stated into the phone. He listened for several seconds as General Austin spoke to him and he responded with only two words, “Oh Crap!” before he hung up and looked down at the crash scene. The first of the three U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters, flown in with medics from the Colombian frigates, was landing and there were civilians everywhere. It looked like Major Wong had done his job. The second and third Seahawks were heading in east of the runway and since both the old and new runways were destroyed, his gunship couldn’t land; he could only watch from the air.

“Joe Paul to
Easy Girl
, Paul to
Easy Girl
, do you read? Over.”
General Patterson heard a familiar voice over the aircraft’s radio.

“Patterson here, Joe Paul.”

“We have two Seals dead, three injured; can we get them lifted aboard one of the ships? Two of the injured are pretty bad. Over!”

“Affirmative, there is a Seahawk coming in to you from the east.”

“Seahawk Two, copied that, going in,”

“What is happening down on the other airfield, Paul?” the general asked.

“Sorry, but my men have headed the other way to help the Seals on the eastern side. I can’t help you there.”

“Roger that. Out! Seahawk One at aircraft crash site, can you give me a report? Over.”

“Roger, we have one dead U.S. Air Force pilot, one injured pilot, one badly injured Seal, two dead male civilians, three wounded civilians and we are lifting off and ferrying the airman and injured to the vessels. ETA ten minutes and I’ve radioed ahead.”

The Seahawk below him lifted off and headed out to sea.

The sun was now blinding as
Easy Girl
, at a thousand feet, headed back towards the western edge of the runway. The runway was badly pitted from the 72-MM projectiles and there were only 500 or 600 hundred yards at the end which had evaded bombardment. Not enough to get the gunship down.

For the next twenty minutes, reports came in continuously. The fighter jets were long gone and so were the Z-10 helicopters, apart from three, which he had ordered to land on the undamaged western runway edge to conserve fuel and he was now alone in the sky.

Massive fires still raged where the hangars once stood. On the ground below him was a mass of bodies and live soldiers milling about and getting all the enemy soldiers into organized groups. There certainly weren’t more than a few hundred, he could see from his vantage point.

“There is an open grass expanse of clear ground on the southern side of the runway, General,” stated his pilot. “It is too short for us, but I believe a C-130 could get in and out if the outer fence was pulled down.”

Orders were given and Marines ran to the fence and began man-handling it.

Ten minutes later General Patterson watched as the first empty C-130 went in and stopped, feet to spare from the closest group of a dozen three-foot wide and deep holes made by the projectiles. The airfield certainly looked like it had a bad case of acne.

“Colonel Smith, Lieutenant Paul,” stated the general over his radio as he circled the runway, “I have to leave the rest of the evacuation up to you. Get the civilians up to our new airfield; fly them into Elmendorf, then the prisoners, then yourselves. I will send in a bulldozer to bury the enemy dead. I don’t want one person left here by the time the last C-130s leave. I have to go to Washington. We have won the war, but we have lost the president.”

New Government – New Laws

A week after General Patterson left Cold Bay, there were many heads bowed at a special sectioned-off part of Arlington cemetery. The funeral of the President of the United States of America was by invitation only.

Since the end of the last battle, nobody had been in command of the most powerful nation on earth.

The president and his two secret service agents had not been the only deaths in the meeting room. Watching live feed from cameras in the room, dozens of special agents had rushed the room when they saw the two Secret Service agents inside keel over in their seats.

Four of Westbrook’s bodyguards standing guard outside the doors were immediately gunned down and three large Secret Service agents literally turned the double doors into splinters as they crashed through it. The two Westbrook guards inside shot two of the incoming men before a barrage of bullets took them out and General Austin rushed into the room with medics.

It was too late. A potent and deadly poison, Rican, had been used by Westbrook and his two guards on the three dead Americans. The drug the air force had used in the food was only a temporary knockout drug. Everybody who ate and drank the coffee and food was lying face down on the floor or slumped in their chairs; they came around in prison cells an hour or so later.

The president was first to help himself to the food and drink, taking specially marked doughnuts free of the drug, to demonstrate to the others that the food was safe. He did not drink any beverages as they were also laced with the knockout drug.

General Patterson arrived in Dulles aboard the 747 direct from Elmendorf twelve hours after the death of the president; en route he had ordered General Austin to lock down Dulles, Capitol Hill and the White House so tight that even the rats felt locked in.

The whole of Washington was like a battle field when he arrived, thousands of soldiers making sure theirs was the only movement in the city.

When General Patterson landed in Dulles he was met by General Austin. Then, with six of the top military brass, they went to Andrews Air Force Base, where the president’s body had been transported.

Totally at a loss, General Patterson asked General Austin, “What do we do now?”

“Well, you are Chief of Staff, Patterson. I can only assume that with no vice-president, no Speaker of the House, actually no vetted politicians to take over the Oval Office temporarily, you are the one in command…unless you want the First Lady to take over, and she is not in a position to do so at the moment. We broke the news to her several hours ago.”

“Nobody ever thought that this country would ever be in such a position. Absolutely no leadership and only a couple of House Representatives we can’t trust to take over,” the general responded.

He had liked the president, getting to know him over the last several months. The poor man was just a normal guy; he even went solo in a Cessna, something that people in power would have been shocked at and never allowed; a total impossibility.

“Reminds me of that Clancy novel,” replied General Austin, “when the Japanese Airlines 747 goes into Capitol Hill and only Jack Ryan is left to become president.”

“Maybe we can learn from that,” responded Patterson. “It is not possible, or logical, or probable, for a military officer to take over the leadership position. I’m totally against it. It has to be a civilian, and I think I know just the right man to be interim president until we can get this country going again. When are Admiral Martin Rogers and General Watson arriving?” General Patterson asked General Austin.

“Both are due in two hours. We have a 747 flying both men in. General Watson has just been picked up at Dyess and Admiral Rogers is on an aircraft from San Diego. Did we hear anything about the Shaheen missiles they launched from Cold Bay?” asked General Austin.

“Yes, we had satellite reports on the missiles,” replied General Patterson. “Both missiles headed into the upper atmosphere as they were supposed to, and Carlos told me that it was impossible that the missiles were being directed by the satellites up there. He had set up a satellite communications blocker for any equipment that wasn’t a satellite phone. It is how the system is going to be used until we need to unblock the communications, which we will do when the Russian rocket goes up from Harbin with the three satellites atop of it, shortly. We can only assume that the onboard computers could have been pre-programmed to follow radio signals, airport-system output or even signals from the Gulfstreams themselves to give them location coordinates. We are checking out the two aircraft here at Andrews as we speak. Both missiles were less than 10 miles apart and 120 miles high when they disappeared from our screens at the same time; we never heard any reports from anywhere after that. They could still have armed themselves and gone down, but I don’t think that was at all possible with a pound of C-4 up both asses, as Major Wong reported to me. The experts believe both missiles were always programmed to arm their nuclear warheads once they had reentered earth’s lower atmosphere but they didn’t get that far. Major Wong said that he thought he saw a flash above him when he was trying to get his aircraft back onto the ground.”