by T I WADE
When they were done, the fire engine pushed the car with the dead, frozen driver out of the way. It was the lightest vehicle in their way, and the fire engine made quick work of it. They all passed through the gap, all looking out of the windows for lions. It wasn’t every day that one could see lions on I-95!
They caught up with the big cats half an hour later. The lions were faster than the vehicles, which were now traveling at a good five to ten miles an hour. They were spooked by the sound of the vehicles, and hid behind a car under a bridge as the convoy passed by.
Forty minutes later, and still crawling around hundreds of vehicles on the highway, they reached the 295 bypass and decided to stay on it going south. By this time, they were past Trenton, New Jersey and a large gas station came up on their left with a clear feeder road off the highway. Captain Mallory was not comfortable getting off the highway just yet. There could be trouble in the more populated areas and he felt that they needed to wait for a more rural area to find a gas station that was safer.
Two hours later, they were bypassing Philly and the dead vehicles in the more densely populated area slowed them down to a snail’s pace for quite a while. They drove past the exit to Philadelphia International Airport and were finally able to speed up to nearly 20 miles an hour once they had passed the airport. They saw no signs of life and no obvious aircraft accidents, but large fires were still burning in and around the cities they passed, and they didn’t know if they were the only ones alive. They had not seen any other moving traffic on their trip since the gang they had dealt with that morning. The snow was clearing on the asphalt as the sun was melting it. Ice might be a factor in the mornings and Captain Mallory wanted to get as far south as possible before dark.
It was time for a break, however, when they came upon their fifth accident that required moving something. It was just south of Wilmington, Delaware on the Delaware Turnpike when they came across three trucks in one big pile and several cars flattened around and under them. One was a Wal-Mart tractor trailer and the other two were UPS trucks. They must have been all together when they crashed out of control.
The crew helped the passengers disembark the vehicles for a personal and stretch break. With the armed flight attendants as escorts, the ladies and children disappeared into some road brush for a few minutes to relieve themselves, with the men heading off in the opposite direction.
There was just enough room on one side to get the five vehicles through, and the crew drove them slowly past the accident. On the other side of the broken rigs, the captain, while relieving himself behind a crushed Porsche, saw a second Penske truck—a little smaller than the last one. It was next to a big SUV, as well as a second white truck that also looked like it used gas that was just sitting there undamaged several yards further down the road. All three vehicles were empty of people and in perfect shape. The owners had just left them there, and it looked like a good amount of fuel might be available. They had ten of the 5-gallon containers with them and they were able to fill all the vehicle tanks and still had enough to fill all the containers.
It took an hour to siphon all the gas, while the others enjoyed the warming sun, trying not to look at the odd frozen body in a vehicle here and there.
One hundred gallons of gas later, the captain suggested that they aim for a place he knew—Harford County Airport— just off the highway, about 15 miles away, and hopefully a good place to stay for the night.
They exited the highway for the first time and headed north on US 462. The captain had flown in and out of this little airport as a recreational flyer, and had spent the night in the area a couple of times. It was situated just north of Baltimore.
The area here, although it was still cold and the roads were still icy, was far less inhabited than where they had come from. Deer jumped across the road in front of them, and only a couple of dead motor vehicles were stranded in the road. Again, they didn’t see anybody outside, but now they could see people peeking at them from behind curtained windows, and wood smoke wafted in the air. Captain Mallory felt safer around here than in the city, and he wondered if the people they had left behind were still alive, and waiting for Uncle Sam to rescue them.
It took time. They drove carefully and slowly at 20 miles an hour and reached the airport without mishap. The gate was closed but not locked, and they drove in, noticing no other fresh tire tracks. They found the offices locked and didn’t want to break the door down. Instead, they found a relatively new and solid hangar with an easy-to-break lock on the hangar door. They opened it and, empty of the aircraft that normally resided there, it provided a lot of room—enough to get all the vehicles inside. It looked like someone’s private hangar. There was a room off to the side and a gas heater on the wall, and Captain Mallory asked John to see if it was connected. It was. He found some matches, lit the gas, and it immediately started warming the small room. There was a toilet off to one side and he discovered quickly that it too worked.
“The girls can bed down in this separate room tonight. It should be warm enough. We can set up the gas lamps and burners out here on the concrete, close the door, and be warmer than outside. What does everybody think?”
There was mass approval from the group, and they parked the vehicles inside and closed the door against the cold weather closing in outside. There was no electricity, but they had two gas lamps and even though it would be dark in a while, the gas in the room and the gas heaters they had bought would make it much warmer than being outside. The grill was brought out and immediately lit so it would also help warm the place. Chicken and sausages were laid out to thaw and the women and children were asked to cook dinner so the men could use the smaller room to change, use the bathroom, and get ready to spend the night in the larger, more uncomfortable space.
Chapter 2
‘Z’ Day 2 – Salt Lake City – Lee Wang – Satellites
The White House seemed back to normal when the power came on just an hour after dawn on Day 2. The White House was 300 miles south of ten Chinese termination squads—40 armed men driving south on I-95 in a convoy of eight old Ford and Chevy trucks and two smaller cars commandeered from the people who had owned them and who now lay dead in the streets around New York. They were about to leave the New York area and pass Newark Airport on the southbound side of the interstate, and didn’t see the tracks of Captain Mallory’s convoy joining the highway and making fresh tracks on the separated northbound lanes only an hour ahead of them.
Mo Wang’s termination squads had already checked out the first coordinates given to them over their satellite phones. There was nothing there, except a pile of empty five-gallon military fuel containers which they had destroyed. They then set several houses in the area on fire and shot and killed several of the inhabitants as they came out to see what was going on. The fires had spread quickly, destroying house after house.
The termination squads then left and within a couple of hours, Buck’s house no longer stood. It was just a black pile of destroyed timber now that the fire was dying down.
Like the northbound side of the highway, the southbound lanes were also a mass of metal everywhere, and it took their convoy quite some time to wind their way through it. At one point, it took them an hour to move a large truck out of the way. The Chinese men didn’t have the pushing power of the heavy fire engine in Captain Mallory’s group. The squads were heavily armed, and as the first convoy had learned, they had plastic hoses and canisters to siphon fuel out of the stationery vehicles around them.
They laughed when they came across the two lions, this time on their side of the highway. The previous convoy had scared them and they had jumped the crash barriers and been forced over to the other side. The two semi-tame lions were feeding on another body as the Chinese convoy came over the brow of the hill 100 from where they stood. They weren’t as hungry anymore, and they were beginning to get pissed off about these humans ruining their meals and the male roared in the direction of the stopped convoy with the lioness lookin
g on.
Its reward for that roar was a dozen bullets peppering its body and the body of its mate at the same time, amid much laughter from the vehicles. The convoy moved forward and several more shots took the life of the dying beasts as each vehicle passed. Sport was sport after all to the humans, and somebody had to show who the more powerful species was.
The president was waiting for something to do. His frustration could be seen by the Colombian Ambassador as they ate sandwiches in the Oval Office. Much of the area was finally up and running with the old electrical generator finally patched into the main system. It could push out enough power to light and heat about half of the large building. There was enough fuel in the stationary vehicles on the grounds to keep it going since the generator was nothing more than an old Ford gasoline engine with a roof-top exhaust vent built into the building structure around it.
The military men guarding the White House were moved into several of the larger rooms on the first floor so they could have the same warmth and light the president now had.
He still had no communication with the outside world, nor could they find more than the two electricians who had been on duty at midnight to look into repairing the communication equipment—of which there was a lot of in the White House. The president had no choice but to wait for General Allen’s return.
*****
Preston’s airfield was bustling well before dawn on the morning of the second day. Most were rested after a peaceful night’s sleep. The countryside around them was quiet and desolate. The guards had been up all night, however, and Oliver and the puppy were happy to have constant attention and followed the guards around like lapdogs. By dawn, they were back in the kitchen fast asleep and Martie could tell they would be asleep for a while. It was cute to see Oliver sharing his basket for the first time. Smokey the cat was still hiding somewhere in the house long forgotten by the two dogs.
Buck, Barbara, Maggie, and the kids ate breakfast at 4:00 am. They left shortly afterwards on their ten-hour non-stop flight to Salt Lake City. This time, the transponder switch was left in the off position, and Lady Dandy’s tanks and extra drop tanks were absolutely full. Her only freight was the lawn mower generator for Carlos when he got there, fuel for the generator, and 100 gallons of aviation fuel in five-gallon red containers, also for Carlos.
Maggie and the kids were hoping to get a ride to Edwards AFB from Hill AFB in Salt Lake to see Will. Carlos, much faster in the Mustang, was going to leave two hours after them and catch up with them over Denver. His maximum range was about 1,900 miles, and Preston’s airfield to Hill AFB was 1,820 miles. If the headwind was too strong, he would have to land in Denver and refuel from the 20 canisters Lady Dandy was carrying. If Denver was snowbound, they would have to find a suitable place to meet and refuel. Lady Dandy with her drop tanks had a larger 2,000-mile range.
Sally woke up when she heard Lady Dandy’s engines, and she and Carlos got up, showered and were in the house for breakfast by 6:00. Sally left at 7:00 am to be at Andrews by 8:00, her aircraft carrying the second of the two fully-operational truck generators. Her transponder was also off.
The sun rose at 7:40 am as Carlos, fueled to the top of his tanks, looked around at the weather, climbed in, and took off as soon as the engine was warm enough. He rose quickly through the cold morning air for optimal altitude to use as little fuel as he could. A couple of soldiers had even taken out Carlos’ gun ammo to give him less weight and more range. From this point forward, whoever was watching them would not see transponders from this farm.
He climbed high in the morning sunlight, the sun behind him as he climbed up to 15,000 feet, put on his oxygen mask, and then rose up to 38,000 feet for optimum cruising. Carlos’s biggest worry, flying without modern electronic direction and communicational aids, was the lack of ground-speed information, wind flow, and forward weather conditions. He had never pushed his aircraft to its full range, even when he could use all the modern help, but now he needed experience and luck to gauge the distance and speed needed to get to Salt Lake City.
“Hello, Buck, this is Carlos. Can you hear me?” he tried over his radio. A very scratchy voice came back that he did, and that the weather was clear so far. Buck was halfway there and he figured that their refueling meet-up was about three hours away.
“Hallo, darling!” scratched a familiar and very faint voice over Carlos’s radio.
“Hallo darling, yourself,” Carlos replied, happy to hear Sally’s voice. “Where has your radio protocol gone, Sally?”
“Where the rest of the world’s protocol has gone to—gone to pot,” she smiled back over her radio. “I’m in descent for my next port of call and I spoke to our old friend Jennifer a few seconds ago on our private frequency and heard she is on her way back to base. I will be losing contact with you in a few seconds and hopefully I will see you tonight. Know of any good hotels…?” and her voice faded.
“The airwaves are as bad as before with all these amateur radio operators,” added Jennifer’s voice to the conversation. “Hi guys, I’m pretty heavy and on my way home. Weather when I left the snowy mountains two hours ago was clear, temperature 25 degrees. The runway you guys are heading to in Mormon country is clear and I honestly think I have a headwind. I think I’m feeling the jet stream and it’s pushing me in a southwest direction. I’m at Flight Level 24 (24,000 feet) and it looks like there are little thin stratus further up, over.”
“I’m feeling the same vibes,” added Buck, “and I think I’m making up a bit of time. I reckon, Carlos, that you should head slightly north and turn in over our meeting airfield at ceiling, and if you can make it, glide in to our destination from there. I’m at Flight Level 23.”
“Roger that,” answered Carlos. “It is sure nice having company up here. I’m at Flight Level 41 and it’s absolutely beautiful up here. I’ll turn a little north and contact you in an hour. Buck, what’s your air speed? Mine’s 355, I’m keeping her cruise down a little to conserve fuel and I’m already at ceiling, over.”
“195, and on time, I think. Call me in an hour, out.”
“What do you have in your stocking, Jennifer, if you are heavy?” asked Carlos, with nothing better to do. It wasn’t as if they were taking up too much radio time. They were the only aircraft in the skies that they knew of.
“Oh! Lots of nice presents for Preston,” Jennifer replied. “I have lots of little things that go boom in the night, a couple dozen pilots onboard, and lots of this and lots of that. By the way, our leader at your mountain destination has a couple of things he’s putting together for you—some little old mountain toy with tracks instead of wheels so you can go and play in the snow. It’s quite cute and I want it after you’re done with it. Also they have left the light on for you. They found a couple of old vehicles and got them working and they have repaired a few things that light up at night when you want to land.”
“Sounds warm to me as well,” suggested Carlos.
“Oh boy! Carlos, they needed it pretty quickly and only a few buildings are nice and toasty,” she laughed back. “I’m going in to get some gas and then I’ll be heading north. This school bus driving is better than nothing but I need some action.”
“I’ve been told to expect some pretty soon. By the way, I assume you are flying quiet?” Carlos asked. Jennifer replied in code that Sally had told her about the transponders earlier. “See you later. Out,” Carlos ended.
Three hours later his P-51 flew over Denver International Airport at its maximum altitude of 41,900 feet. He had a sliver of both tanks still above the empty line and had told Buck ten minutes earlier that he was now aiming for Salt Lake City. Denver was clear far below him, the runway white as they had expected, and he couldn’t tell if he could land there anyway. Buck was already 50 miles behind him and had turned in for a direct flight into Salt Lake City.
He brought the throttle back a touch, put the nose down ten degrees and descended towards Hill Air Force Base at nearly 400 miles an hour, using as little
fuel as possible.
An hour later he swept over Hill at 1,500 feet above ground at 425 miles an hour, pulled her up into a vertical climb of 1,000 feet, turned sharp right, and then right again into short finals for the runway running north to south. His fuel gauges were flickering on empty and he landed and taxied to a group of people already waiting for him outside the main offices with a gas truck standing by.
Buck would still be in the air for another hour. Carlos’ flight had taken 5 hours, 45 minutes—the longest he had ever done in his P-51 and he was proud of her. He also knew that in strong headwind conditions, he most certainly would not have made it.
He waited as a short ladder was rolled up to his aircraft and he stood up, stretched his muscles, and looked at the people waiting for him. He got quite a shock to see his friend, Lee Wang with two Chinese ladies waiting for him—probably his wife and daughter. The base commander was also there with a couple of others.
He climbed down, and as all pilots do, headed off to the bathroom in the main office after saying a quick hello to everyone. He looked at his watch and remembered that he had gained two hours of time. It was Mountain Time here and only just mid-day.
Lunch was ready for him in the Officers Club, and they were all steered in that direction while the mechanics re-fueled his aircraft, checked the oil levels and gave the Silver Bullet a wipe down. They didn’t have much else to do.
“It is very good to see you again, friend Carlos,” stated Lee Wang when they sat down with the commander for lunch.
“I’m happy to see you are safe, and your wife and daughter,” replied Carlos. “We have much to catch up on, I hear.”
“I think we have,” Lee Wang agreed.
“Lee and I have had long chats about what’s happening,” added the base commander. “He wanted to talk to you first about several top secret things. General Allen, I’ve been told, is coming in later today, after visiting his naval buddy in Norfolk. He’s there right now. The general is coming here, refueling, and then he’s heading out to Edwards for a meeting. I’m going to go with him. We have a couple of small generators up and running, have landing lights, and just enough for a little warmth and basic necessities. I was told that we might get a bigger one—an old truck generator?”
