Eden's War (A Distant Eden) (11 page)

Chapter 16

A
drian awoke immediately from a deep dream at the first of the three rapid knocks to the bulkhead door. As he pulled on a pair of clean undershorts, he said “Come in.”

Captain Morgan entered quickly. “Sorry to awaken you, sir, but we have new reports that you need to hear.”

“Tell me.” Adrian said.

“We have reports of a land-based Chinese army, a large one, moving across the border from Mexico near Del Rio sir. Best estimates – and they are from rough sources – is five hundred men, fully mechanized. Moving north rapidly.”

“Do we have air assets to hit them with or at least to get better intel?”

“Nothing to hit them with sir, only a couple of spotters already on the way out there; they should be reporting back within minutes.”

“Let’s get up to the tactical room.” Adrian finished dressing and followed the Captain out.

Adrian listened to the radio report as the pilot flew high over the enemy convoy. “I see about a hundred trucks, dozens of fuel tankers, heavy trucks carrying artillery. Looks like ten trucks with medium range missiles. They’re moving at fifty-miles-per-hour. They’re on Highway 90 moving northwest. They’ll reach the junction of Highway 163 in half an hour. Can’t hang around any longer, running close on fuel.”

“You get pictures?” Adrian asked.

“Yes sir, a lot of them.”

“Transmit the photos and hurry back, we may need you to fuel up and go out again. Good job, and thank you.”

“Yes sir, banking east now. Be back in forty-five minutes.”

Adrian turned to Morgan. “This has to tie in with our Chinese prisoner back at Fort Brazos. Get me a radio link to them.”

Two minutes later Adrian was talking to the intelligence officer in charge of the Chinese prisoner. “Lieutenant, we’ve just gotten a look at a large Chinese military contingent moving across the border into southern Texas, near Del Rio. This has to tie in with the scouting mission your prisoner was on. I need to know the goal of his mission. I still can’t understand it having anything to do with Lubbock; there’s nothing there that would help them. I have a bad feeling about where they are actually heading, and I need confirmation right now. If they’re going where I think they’re going… we’re going to have a hell of a time intercepting them with enough strength to do us any good. I don’t want to mobilize in the wrong place. Get that information in the next four hours, any way you can, but get it.”

“Yes sir. I’ll have it for you, if it’s at all possible.”

“Hurry it up, time is beyond critical.”

Adrian handed the microphone back to the radio man. Turning to the Captain, Adrian said, “Morgan, we’re going to have to mobilize and move at least a thousand men in the next few hours, two thousand would be better, but I need at least a thousand in place to intercept and hold the Chinese while we bring in more.” Pointing to a spot on the map, Adrian said, “I want two hundred right here, send the others here.” Adrian pointed to a second place on the map. “We have to get our men in place ahead of them. Start mobilizing.”

“Yes sir, but may I point out that it will seriously weaken our shoreline defenses, and apparently for not much. What possible strategic gain is there for the Chinese to take a semi-desert area with a low population density?”

“Get the troops moving, I’ll explain when I hear back from Fort Brazos.”

Three anxious hours later Adrian was again talking to the Lieutenant at Fort Brazos, “I sat the prisoner down with me and had lunch. I figured I would just ask him casually and if that didn’t work we’d go to more extreme measures. Turns out he was willing to talk – this “war’s over” ruse worked. He didn’t have a clue what we’ve done to him. As a result, I believe we can rely on this information as solid. He said that they were scouting a route to Amarillo. He doesn’t know what was interesting about Amarillo to the higher-ups, no one on his mission knew. Just that Amarillo was the ultimate goal.”

“Thank you Lieutenant. Your team performed excellently. It confirms what I feared. Give your men a well-earned pat on the back for me.”

“Yes sir, will do, and thank you. If I may ask, what’s important about Amarillo? And what do we do with the prisoner, sir?”

“I’d rather not say over the radio, you’ll get a full brief when you get here. Bring the prisoner with you, put him in the brig. Get here as soon as you can.”

Adrian paused for a long moment after handing off the microphone. “Morgan, how much progress in mobilizing troops?”

“ETA is four days sir.”

“Make it two. Make that happen, or there’s not much point in going. This has to be a full-out effort, use every resource available. This takes priority over the invasion fleet defense.”

“Yes sir, it will happen as you say. May I ask what’s so important about Amarillo?”

“There’s nothing strategically important to the Chinese about Amarillo, Morgan. But close by is Pantex. And
Pantex
is very strategically important to the Chinese – and to us.”

“Sir, I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll explain over dinner. I’m starving.”

“Pantex, Captain.” Adrian said after eating half his fried fish, “Is a nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. The only one of its kind. The bottom line is there are over twelve-thousand nuclear pits currently in storage there. Twelve thousand nuclear war heads that the Chinese can activate… and use. Imagine the devastation they can cause with those if China gets control of Pantex.” Adrian paused and then said softly, “We are finished. They will be able to fire nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach anywhere on the content from there. The invasion fleet has been one large diversion. They can lose every ship, every man, and even their own Navy, and still win hands down if they get that facility. Once they have it, they’ll ship most of the devices back to China to use against the Russians. This would give them the edge there.”

“Jesus, sir.”

“Jesus, indeed. As soon as you have the first troops moving, you will get another thousand men and every bit of fighting equipment you can find to Pantex to secure it. I doubt that the troop movement we spotted is going to be the only one. Hell, they can send troops from the Gulf of California or anywhere in Mexico to meet up with the one we spotted. And they surely will. They won’t rely on just one force, they’ll have at least two and probably three forces moving in, meeting up near Pantex to secure it. They’ll have other forces in Mexico staged to move in with missiles and possibly bomber aircraft. They’ll be bringing technicians and scientists to assemble the explosive triggers for the pits. Every damn thing they need is collected behind defenses that are paper thin. Chain link fences aren’t going to slow them down. They’ll be happy to take a ninety-percent casualty rate, but unless we get there right now and prepare for them they won’t lose two-percent.”

“Why meet them at Lamesa, sir?” Morgan asked, pointing to the spot on the map Adrian had identified for the troops to gather.

“If you look at the road map,” replied Adrian, “and they have to stick to roads, all roads from where they are to Pantex pretty much go through Lamesa. They’d have to swing way wide to go around it. But even if they do, from Lamesa we can swing with them. Lamesa is going to be a rough fight. These won’t be regular soldiers, these are going to be well trained, well-armed, and dedicated troops. These will be their best men, reserved especially for this mission. They’ll have teams out in front of them, clearing the way, securing bridges and the small towns they go through. This battle, the battle for Pantex is what this war is really about; they’ll spare nothing to get it. The invasion fleets still have to be dealt with, but this is priority number one, and there is no close second priority. We can lose every oil well and refinery if we have to. We’ll get them back later… if there is a later. But we cannot lose Pantex.”

Adrian looked down at the table. He knew this would be his last decent meal for a long time. “Morgan, the Gulf is your war to fight now. I’m going to Lamesa. Alert the communications team to go with me. We need immediate focus on where the other invasion army is coming from. As soon as it’s spotted, we’ll need troops on the ground in front of them, so assemble them now and put them on red alert to move out instantly. Our strategy is fairly simple: Intercept them before they get to Pantex, and destroy them or slow them down while we’re building up a defense at Pantex itself. Is that clear?”

Morgan looked Adrian dead in the eye. “Crystal clear sir. Count on me to make it happen.”

Adrian looked long and hard into Morgan’s eyes. “I am. And there’s one more thing I need you to make happen.” Adrian then explained in detail what he needed.

Adrian drove down Highway 137 from Stanton to Lamesa. “This land is so flat you can see tomorrow to the East and Yesterday to the West.” Adrian said to Race.

On his way to Lamesa Adrian had stopped at Fort Brazos. He had spent a precious hour with Linda, after telling Race to pick her two best Rangers to go with him to act as scouts.

Adrian turned the truck around and started back to Lamesa. They were silent until Adrian pulled off the road in the South side of town. He stopped next to a small dry wash that crossed the road. Getting out of the truck he looked around. All he saw was flat land covered with sporadic mesquite trees and the occasional residence or storage shed. “This is the best cover I’ve seen and it’s no cover at all. We would be better off going back further into town if there weren’t so many side streets they could use to avoid us. At least here we can see them maneuver. But they can see us too. Poor as it is, it’s our only option.”

Race replied. “It’s damn poor. Everyone will be exposed. This little draw will only afford minimal protection. Once we move out of it we’re wide open on all sides.”

“I know. We’re going to hit them here and pull back immediately, then hit them again and again as opportunity and terrain permit. We won’t get in a decisive battle here, but we can cripple them a bit if we play it right.”

“I don’t see any way to play it at all Adrian. It’s just a flat spot with no cover. If you see a plan here what is it?”

“Oh, I see a plan, and a decent one at that. I need to know how long that convoy is. How spread out are they? When they come to a halt how far apart do they spread out? Get on the radio and check in with Corpus Christi, see if they’ve had any opportunities to figure that out. If not we’ll do the best we can with the aerial photos.”

A few minutes later Race reported, “They don’t have much better information than the photos. So far they’ve only been spotted traveling. What do you have in mind?”

Adrian explained his attack plan.

Chapter 17

A
drian watched as the Chinese convoy came into sight a mile down the road. “Race, remind each operator to mind their own marks and wait until the first explosion, the one closest to us. Then they are to fire at will, as soon as they can.”

Race sent out a short radio message to the waiting men and women. They were scattered out along a line more-or-less perpendicular to the road. Each had taken a vantage point that allowed them to see a particular spot on the road. “Done Adrian, what next?”

“Nothing next. We wait and follow the plan.”

“Two minutes to target zone, Adrian,” Race reported. “They’re moving slower, probably because they’re coming into a town. I really don’t like letting their forward patrol past us, don’t like having them behind us.”

“All part of the plan. We know where they are, and when they come back, after we attack the convoy, we’ll be ready for them. Ready as we can be.”

The two minutes went by quickly. As the first truck in the convoy reached a point fifty-yards before the draw, Adrian depressed a signal generator.
Boom!
The first truck was blown upwards two feet and crashed back down a smoking ruin. Fire tore through the truck as the fuel tank burst and exploded into flames. Almost instantly after the first IED exploded, a series of explosions ripped through the convoy most of the way back. The IED’s had been placed under the center of the road, spread out at a distance designed to imitate the normal spacing of the convoy. The asphalt patches where the IED’s had been dug in were works of camouflage art, barely discernible even if you knew where to look. Using spray paint found in an abandoned hardware store, and dirt, they were nearly invisible. In less than three seconds, twenty furious eruptions followed Adrian’s blast.

Then the guerrilla teams on each side of the road opened up, sending bullets screaming into the trucks. Following Adrian’s orders to eliminate as much of the enemy’s artillery as possible, shoulder-launched rockets fired into the artillery trucks in a series of bruising explosions that ripped through much of the Chinese’s equipment, putting a few of them out of commission.

Snipers fired fifty-caliber armor piercing rounds into truck engines, attempting to disable them on the spot. Even so, the Chinese seriously outnumbered the Texas Militia, and on Adrian’s orders, the militia immediately pulled back and moved north as soon as return fire began to pick up. Adrian stood to lose too many soldiers in a sustained fire-fight. His strategy was to hit and withdraw, move to the next location and hit again, guerrilla-style. His plan was to do this over and over all the way back to Pantex if he had to. The Chinese convoy was damaged, but far from out.

The Chinese would now face the choice of either slowing down significantly, or moving along as fast as they could. Either option played well for the defenders. Slowing them down bought time that was desperately needed. If they didn’t slow down they were easier to hit.

Another force of a dozen soldiers were ready for the Chinese forward patrol that had passed by earlier. As the militia rapidly moved north leaving the smoking convoy behind they also moved into pre-planned positions waiting for the forward patrol to be contacted by their convoy and return. The patrol was back in less than ten minutes, moving at a high rate of speed.

As they entered the north side of town, they were hit from all sides by heavy small-arms fire and a half-dozen rocket launchers. They were wiped out within seconds. But the convoy was coming up rapidly, so Adrian had every soldier load into pre-positioned vehicles and speed away to the north again. Only a few spotters remained behind, hidden at the major road junctions. If the convoy didn’t take Highway 87 towards Lubbock, the most direct route towards Pantex, then Adrian would know as soon as they took a different road. There weren’t many alternate routes.

Race’s Rangers had previously scouted the next ambush spot along the road the Chinese would probably take. Soldiers were already nearly finished installing IEDs there. Other locations further north were being scouted, and the IED teams would move on to the north as soon as they could. The Chinese would know what to expect, but not exactly where. Forward patrols would be attacked wherever they were found; there were enough soldiers and firepower to eliminate the enemy patrols, and the Chinese commander would soon learn it was useless to send them out.

While scrambling to get to the next attack point Adrian received a radio call from Corpus Christi. “Mr. President, we’ve spotted another invasion force as you forecasted. It must have come from the Gulf of California. At the moment it is approaching Santa Rosa, New Mexico, traveling east on Interstate 40.”

“What size is the convoy?” Adrian asked grimly.

“A bit larger than the one you’re already dealing with sir.”

“Have you deployed our second group yet?”

“They’re in the air now. Where do you want them to land?”

“I’ll get a map and call you back.”

Ten minutes later Adrian called Corpus Christi. “Captain, land them east of Tucumcari, at Plaza Larga Creek. There’s a bit of terrain there, and overpasses we can blow as they cross. Tell them to rig the bridges as soon as they land. I have transport; I’ll be there a little after they are. Contact the Admiral to expect a call from me when I’m in the air.”

Adrian turned to Race, “Get half your troops on the plane and brief the other half on how to continue here.”

Race nodded, and then said “Suppose you get killed. What happens to the rest of us? You’re the glue holding this whole war together, Adrian, risking your life is crazy. When your plane went down in the mountains and we didn’t hear from you… we thought you were dead. The wind went out of everyone’s sails.”

“If I’d been killed, someone else would have stepped up and carried on, Race,” Adrian replied. “It’s always that way, always will be. But sitting in front of a big war board and moving troops around like chess pieces is not going to work, at least not for me. My job, as I see it, is to be at the front edge of developing threats, coming up with strategies and tactics as those threats evolve. Just like here. Now that our resistance pattern has developed and the troops know what to do, it’s time to move on and do it all over again. Everyone here understands their missions now, how to tactically engage the enemy. Think of it like coaching, because that’s essentially what I am doing. Once I get the team to a certain point, I move on to the next team, the next threat.

“The Admiral has the West Coast, Rutherford has the East Coast and Morgan has the Gulf. All good men, all extremely capable. They know what to do. We have Pantex, and it’s the most critical of all of our missions. We lose Pantex we lose the war, Race… and I don’t intend to lose Pantex.

Adrian talked to the Admiral throughout the entire short flight. The Admiral gave him a briefing on the state of the war on both coasts; it wasn’t good news. Chinese ships were slipping through and landing large fighting forces. At least five had made landfall so far, two on the West Coast and three on the East Coast. Troops were being diverted to intercept and fight, but none had arrived yet. The Admiral sounded like he was trying not to sound downcast about it. The Admiral didn’t understand land warfare nearly as well as naval warfare.

Adrian told him to hang tough, keep his ships ready, and to let the militias take care of the land war. “It looks to be a long, hard war, Admiral, and it’s going to look a lot worse before it gets better. But the Chinese ground troops have a couple of major problems. They have no resupply lines, and they can only hold the ground they stand on. We’ll bring them down by attrition, I guarantee it. Just keep their landings to the absolute minimum. We’re about to land, I’ll call you back later.”

Adrian’s C-130 landed on Interstate 40, five miles west of Plaza Larga Creek. The Texas border was twenty miles behind their landing spot; Pantex a mere one-hundred-twenty miles away. There weren’t many good places to hit the convoy between here and Pantex, so this had to be a hard hit. Adrian had less than one-hundred troops to work with this time – half of the air-lift hadn’t been able to get off the ground at Corpus Christi due to an engine malfunction. Operational aircraft were scarce, getting scarcer with every flight; and they were scattered up and down the coasts with no time to get to Corpus Christi and then to this remote New Mexican spot.

Adrian had called Corpus Christi on arrival and told Morgan, “We’ll slow them down, but they’re already damn close. As soon as I get this operation up and running, I’m heading to Pantex.”

The Plaza Larga Creek area where Interstate 40 crosses over was a desolate stretch of seem-desert. The “creek” was bone dry. There were two short, low bridges on the Interstate crossing the wide, sandy-bottom creek, one for each direction of traffic. A few hundred yards to the south was old Route 66, and it had a small bridge as well. Adrian would blow that bridge, too, not because the convoy would be coming down it, but to keep them from using it after they blew the Interstate bridges. . Concrete panels lined the west side of the creek for a short way either side of the two bridges.

Turning to Race, Adrian pointed at the concrete panels lining the west side of the creek flanking the Interstate bridges. “They won’t be stopped here long,” he said. “They can move over past those panels and cross without a lot of trouble. Might bog in the sand some, but with the manpower they have they won’t stayed bogged-down long. When they get back on the pavement they’ll speed up considerably to make up for lost time. That gives us very little time to set the next ambush. We’re going to hit them with IEDs while we drop the bridges, then we’re out of here. No small arms attack this time, not enough time or personnel.”

Adrian directed the IED placements on either side of the bridge in the eastbound lane. While the Chinese had the choice of either lane, they had been staying in the normal lane for their direction of travel. The lanes were widely separated going over the creek. The IEDs were placed before the bridge, taking into account the length of the convoy as it had been relayed to them. There wasn’t time to camouflage holes in the road, and the paving here was smooth enough to make that difficult anyway, so they were placed on both shoulders. Instead of the simple explosives they’d used before, here they used fragmentation type IEDs. As Adrian explained to the ordnance group, “Think of them as large claymore mines. The trucks won’t be driving directly over them, so the goal is to send shrapnel ripping through the trucks. Shape the charges to get maximum fragmentation spread towards the roadway.”

A variety of camouflage techniques were used. Abandoned cars disabled and left from the CME were used where they could be. Clumps of brush in some places, dirt piles in others. The goal was to distribute these in a way that didn’t suggest a pattern, it had to look random.