The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (38 page)

Who is in control of this?

Later the same day, Preston was doing the flying this time while Martie spent time looking outside the right side of the old 1980s Cessna 210 for any signs of large runways not on the map.

They were flying over Lake Clark National Park and hadn’t seen a sign of civilization for an hour. Preston had taken off from Elmendorf at dawn and their task for the day was to fly over the old, desolate and empty mining towns of Iditarod and old Flat City, and then down to the small town of Dillingham. The two old mining towns were still ghost towns, and showed no signs of new civilization, but could have been a well-planned secret location.

Sally was flying Carlos in the second Cessna 50 miles to their south, also towards Dillingham, but closer to the coast which was now full of debris, Carlos thought, from the Japanese Tsunami disaster a couple of years earlier. They spent an hour flying in long circles and then landing in Kodiak to ask the locals if they had seen any extra flight traffic or visitors in their community. The locals hadn’t.

Buck and Barbara were further north of both Preston and Sally, and aiming for Bethel, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants and the only detention center in that part of Alaska. Nobody had heard anything from this lone outpost, only reachable by sea or air, for several months.

One of the AC-130 gunships,
Easy Girl,
was twenty minutes further north of
Lady Dandy
, flying down the Kuskokwim River and checking out the small habitats down the river edges. On this day
Easy Girl
and
Lady Dandy
were packed with a dozen well-armed Marines in each aircraft and the AC-130, being faster, had flown a more northerly route than
Lady Dandy
to look out for ground movement and was scheduled to meet the DC-3 over the town.

None of the four aircraft had seen anything out of the ordinary on their first and second day of boring flying, and all were getting excited that the time to find something—anything—out of the ordinary, was getting closer.

Preston and Sally were being caught by a second, faster flying AC-130 gunship, thirty minutes behind them. Both gunships were to go into the larger town first and make the airports a safe landing point for the three unarmed civilian aircraft. All five aircraft were covering a lot of ground, visually checking for anything, and also scanning with the more sophisticated surveillance equipment on board the gunships. General Patterson was flying
Easy Girl
and would be heading into Bethel first. He was still able to talk to the base back in Anchorage, using
Mother Goose,
fully-fueled and flying high, 250 miles west of the Air Force base, as a message relay station. Two F-4s were at Elmendorf, as well as a dozen C-130s full of Marines, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

Twenty minutes later, and after a sweep of the town and its surrounding areas, General Patterson lowered
Easy Girl
onto the 6,400-foot long, wide main runway at Bethel Airport.
Lady Dandy
went in ten minutes later, after the first load of Marines made a perimeter for her safety.

The airport was eerily quiet, Buck noticed, as he and Barbara, the last to leave the DC-3 climbed out of the rear cargo door and stretched.

“Something doesn’t smell right here,” Buck stated to General Patterson.

“I agree. I already scrambled two F-4s and one of the C-130s with machine guns, two jeeps, gunship ammo and a platoon of Marines before we came in.
Mother Goose
is also heading our way and will bring in fuel for the F-4s. The fighters should be here in twenty minutes, the C-130 in two hours and we need to get the airport secure ASAP.”

There was nobody about and the first signs of trouble were that every small aircraft that Buck and Barbara opened and checked at the airport had been tampered with and were not flyable. Many had several bullet holes through the cockpit instrument panels and several were cold, old, and burnt out skeletons with grass and weeds already covering the metal parts.

“Somebody didn’t want anybody to fly out of here,” General Patterson stated as the lead F-4 pilot came on the radio asking for instructions. “PattersonKey to Foxtrot leader; do a swoop over the Yukon Kuskokwim Correction Center, here are the coordinates,” and the general read them from a map he was holding out on the runway. “Then fly down the town’s main street to tell anybody we are in town and come in on runway 18, temperature 55 degrees, wind speed strong, 12 knots from the east. Out.”

“
Roger that,”
was the answer from the F-4, still thirty miles out and, only the incoming breeze could be heard.

Twenty minutes later, with the F-4s on the ground and protected by the Marines, General Patterson, Buck and Barbara still hadn’t seen one local human being.

“They were not going to move until the C-130 and backup arrived and waited for any locals to show their heads.

A bunch of kids on bicycles did an hour later.

“What’s going on here, boys?” General Patterson asked the kids once he had shouted to the two Marines guarding the main gate to allow them in.

“We haven’t seen visitors since January, seven or eight months ago,” the oldest boy stated. Buck noticed that he looked clean, fed and healthy. “Not since the army of Chinese soldiers came in here and released all the prisoners from the jail and flew them out, just after New Year’s Day.”

“Chinese soldiers on American soil?” questioned the general.

“Yes, sir!” a smaller boy added.

“Real Chinese gooks, sir!” stated another boy.

“Is everybody in town okay?” asked Buck.

“Yes, sir!” stated the eldest boy. “The Chinese soldiers and several Americans in fancy clothes flew in, in jets, and took over the town. They left us civilians alone, but killed the dozen guards at the detention center and released all the prisoners and over a week flew them out from this airport.”

“Weren’t you guys snowed in?” asked General Patterson.

“Oh yes sir, over three feet of snow on the runway and the airport staff, who were also murdered, were first forced to clear it for the jets. A helicopter, a Chinese helicopter came in before the jets and landed the first soldiers, about six mean Chinese dudes, who got our guys here to clear the runway. Then these fancy jets came in with a bigger Chinese propeller airplane full of men and a couple of jeeps, and sort of took over the whole town.

“We had a small base of army soldiers just outside town, and they didn’t stand a chance. The Chinese killed all 20 of them, and then headed over to the prison. And, on their way through town they searched out every truck or car that was still working and shot its engine to pieces. They searched every house and business in the town and blew up all the radios people used to talk to others in the outer areas. Then they shot all the prison guards, took the prisoners, flew them out, and we never saw them again.”

“How many prisoners,” asked the general?

“About 225, Colonel,” stated one boy.

“General, to you young man, I was a colonel a month or so ago,” General Patterson smiled.

“Sorry, General,” the young boy replied. “It took them about a week, my dad was a cook at the detention center and was not there when they murdered his friends.”

Once the F-4s had been topped off with fuel they took off for Dillingham, 250 miles to their southeast, where the two Cessnas were soon due to land. General Patterson waited for the two jeeps and then did a complete surveillance of the town and detention center. The inhabitants were living well, had enough food and fuel for another few months, and told them that he would get a C-130 in with more generators, fuel and food before winter. He thanked the boys for their good information.

* * *

Preston was two miles behind the gunship and ahead of Sally, going in on finals for Dillingham airport when a new voice came over the radio.

“
Easy Girl, this is Foxtrot Four Leader, do not, I repeat do not land until we check out the airport. We are at Foxtrot Lima (Flight Level/Altitude) 21, 900 knots and 150 miles out from your location, ETA, ten minute. Over.”

“
Roger, abort landing,”
replied the pilot of the gunship.
“Aircraft behind me abort landing, climb, and follow me around. Out!”

“Roger that,” replied Preston and he retracted the undercarriage, decreased his wing flaps and increased the engine’s revs as ordered.

Sally did the same and Preston climbed hard, following the dot of
Easy Girl
in front of him. She was climbing away rapidly and he had the Cessna’s turbocharged engine on full power.

Minutes later, the F-4s swooped over the town of Dillingham, now a couple of miles ahead of them and
Easy Girl
headed down to also search, telling the two smaller aircraft to stay above 10,000 feet and wait for orders.

Twenty minutes later, with the F-4s heading back to Anchorage, Preston climbed out of the Cessna and headed towards the main terminal of Dillingham Airport.

A frightened voice in the airport tower, on seeing the F-4s fly over a few hundred feet above the airport and fully armed, stated the airport was safe, still under American civilian control, and nobody had seen anything odd since New Year’s Day, when nothing worked anymore.

The enemy was not based here either.

* * *

Mike Mallory’s head hurt badly, and he regained consciousness to feel a bandage being put around his head.

“How long have I been out?” he asked his Southwest flight attendant who was bandaging him.

“About eight minutes since those sods left. Twelve people dead and two still alive but won’t make it. I think that radio communication stopped them from killing all of us. That guy shot people until he ran out of ammo and then left. I watched them, and they are setting up some sort of shoulder rocket launcher outside, close to the main runway. The radio is dead. What do we do Mike?”

“Get somebody up to the control tower. Those guys sounded pretty rural and hopefully didn’t think about destroying the control tower,” he replied.

“We watched them enter the four aircraft out there, the FedEx Cargomaster, the two Red Cross aircraft, and the one we flew in on, and we heard gunfire. I think they destroyed all the aircraft’s instrument panels.”

“Okay, help me up; let’s get to the control tower. It was quite a way, and they had to climb several flights of stairs to get up there. The door was locked and several of the men helping Mike up the stairs kicked it in.

“We always lock it down for the night,” stated one of the men as they entered. Mike quickly checked the closest radio. It was still operational and he quickly found the frequency the C-130s would be using.

“Medford to incoming Charlie-130s, Medford airport to Charlie-130s, are you reading me? Come in. Over. ”

“
Who are you? State your identity, over.”
crackled the old radio.

“Mike Mallory, Southwest Captain under orders from PattersonKey. Do not go onto finals, enemy combatants on Medford runway with rocket launchers and you will be shot down! You need air support to clear the runway,” Mike stated into the microphone.

“
Are you crazy Captain, or whoever you are? But we will abort and circle. Do you have direct communications directly to PattersonKey? Over.”

“
Charlies, abort long finals and stay low, let’s circle until we find out what’s going on down there.”

Mike Mallory breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, Charlie 130, somebody has gone to get my phone. Do you have contact with any fire power? I believe these guys are American; they have modern weapons by what I can see, and heat-seeking, or infra-red possibilities. Get somebody out here to clean them out. They have four civilian trucks mid-runway on the runway crossover, both left and right side, civilians and amateurs, but dangerous. They just executed a dozen of our staff. Twelve causalities down here. Over.”

“
Wait one,”
the pilot responded and the radio went silent for several seconds.
“We have two Foxtrot Fives taking off from an air base to our south. ETA fifteen minutes, carrying heat for the guys on the ground. One Charlie 130 coming in closer to circle and keep them interested. We found an open section of highway about five miles north of the airport. Two jeeps are on board one of our aircraft and I will get them down and send them your way while I direct the heat onto target. I‘ve been told Medivac Charlie 130 enroute to you now as well. Over.”

Mike Mallory sat in the air-traffic controller’s chair, asked for a set of binoculars and looked along the horizon line from the control tower. He could just make out three flying dots west of the airport and spreading out to do their thing.

Then he looked towards the men half a mile away on the main runway. They had pointed one truck facing southeast and one pointing northwest on either side of the longest runway and directly on the crossing point of the two main runways. Mike could see dozens of men dressed in civilian clothes around the four vehicles; four had what looked like shoulder rocket launchers, modern looking ones, at the ready. Boxes of rockets or missiles were being unloaded and made ready and most of the men were using the vehicles as protection.

His head hurt like crazy, his eyes watered as he tried to focus, leaning on the desk to steady the glasses. Then he saw a military uniform, and it wasn’t American. It was a foreign uniform and had lots of red braiding on the breast and shoulders, and an odd style military hat.

“Crap!” he said aloud, as a second and a third soldier wearing the same uniform climbed out of the front seat of the same black truck. It had a shell over the rear bed and a couple of the American civilians ran towards the vehicles and began lifting off the rear shell. Mike noticed that it was a 1970s or early 80s Ford with an extra-long bed. He held his breath at what he saw once the shell had been tossed away.

“Charlie 130s, I have just seen three Chinese soldiers climb out of a truck. Men have pulled off the rear shell of one of the trucks, an old black Ford F-350, and there is some sort of anti-aircraft rocket launcher on the rear. It looks mean and deadly. Over!”