by T I WADE
Her main pump was connected and slowly the fuel began to flow. Her incoming pump did not have as much power as the larger pump generators airports often used to fill large aircraft, but she managed to draw 100 gallons a minute into her half-full tanks. At this rate, it would take two hours to fill the three gunships and another full hour to refill the tanker.
The three gunships taxied in close to her and again pipes were brought out. She could pump fuel out at a much faster rate with her second pump into one of the three waiting for fuel. They were not empty. The flight from South Korea had left them with third-full tanks, but they still needed to get to Moscow, which would be another 3,600 miles, or 12 hours of flying time nonstop, and the tanker would need to refuel the other three aircraft. Fortunately, they still had the soft bladders to help with range and another hour of fueling would have those full as well.
Nearly three hours later, they had just started filling the extra bladders when three vehicles drove into the airport. They were old, black Russian-looking cars, like something out of the 1960s. They had flags waving above the headlights and the sun, now rising just above the horizon, made the scene of the old war birds and black cars look like something out of an old movie, if one didn’t turn around and look at the modern 747 behind them.
Three men in black coats and hats got out of the cars. Each one had a younger man with him—an interpreter, Pete thought to himself—and they walked up to him. One of his men went back into Ghost Rider and brought out Mrs. Wang.
“Good morning,” greeted General Allen. “Do you take Amex for fuel?” One of the younger men started translating to the three men and they smiled. “I have just flown in from South Korea, via Japan. I’m here on a peaceful mission from the President of the United States to find out who caused this catastrophe worldwide and tell China and Russia that the United States did not do this horrible deed.” The same translator did his job and the three older men listened.
“I am the Interior Minister,” the translator began after listening to the man in the middle. “My colleague on my right is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the colleague on my left is from the Ministry of the Environment. By the age of your aircraft and the danger you have placed yourself in to fly these aircraft around the world we understand that the United States of America is not to blame for this catastrophe. We do not think that Russia is to blame either, but of course we would like verification of that. Unfortunately, we have had no communications outside of Beijing since the first day of this year.”
“Do you know that there is a Chinese invasion force at this moment sailing across the Pacific?” asked General Allen. “It is an invasion force of soldiers, Chinese soldiers, and they are intent on invading the United States in a week or so.”
“My apologies,” replied the Interior Minister. “Unfortunately, this invasion force you speak of has nothing to do with the current government of China. Taiwan, of course is another matter, but we know nothing of any Chinese army or invasion force. We have no information at all.”
“So, Mr. Minister, your government does not mind if we blow this invasion force out of the water?” asked General Allen, looking at Mrs. Wang to translate it for him. She did so. The three men looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs responded in rapid Chinese.
“We do not know of any invasion force, General,” Mrs. Wang translated for him. “If you believe there is one, then you must do what you have to do to defend your country. We are still on friendly terms with the United States of America and do not wish to invade your country. We do not want our country invaded either and I’m sure the perpetrators of this horrendous crime will come up against the wrath of your United States of America, and many other countries. We would like to be included in any form of international communications you may have, so that we can at least communicate between our two countries since it looks like this problem will not be solved overnight.”
“I agree, and thank you for your diplomacy,” replied General Allen. “I will be able to get a communications device to you if you allow us temporary landing rights at this civilian airport, and we could also bring a homing-beacon on our next flight to allow our aircraft to guide themselves in after that. As you see, we do not have very modern aircraft anymore. Just like your pilots, our pilots do not have satellite navigation,” Mrs. Wang translated.
“We would appreciate a communications device and will allow you landing and refueling rights at this airport. We will also make sure that we have equipment and power available to keep our runway clear and make our landing lights operational. It will still take us a few days. You may have our fuel in exchange for any communications devices you can give us. We need to set up new engineering establishments in our country to begin manufacturing new parts for new telephones,” he ended, smiling.
“I expect to have an aircraft here in a few days, and the pilots would appreciate good landing conditions. I am leaving now for Moscow and will hopefully have the same meeting with members of their government,” ended the general, shaking hands with the three men, who solemnly got back into their old limousines and drove off.
The Chinese army still hung around, hoping for more American chocolate and or cigarettes, General Allen believed—the same they had been given an hour earlier—this time, they received a case or each. They thanked the Americans by smiling and then drove off, leaving the General and his men totally alone in the middle of China.
The sun was well up by the time they had finished refueling. The General called Carlos as soon as the Chinese dignitaries left and asked him to place four more phones into the second polar-route HC-130. Carlos told him that the first of the two HC-130 tankers was already 30 minutes into its flight to Hill and then was aiming for California, Hawaii, and Japan as ordered. He had placed two extra phones in the aircraft just in case. The general asked how the polar-route flight was progressing, and was told that the parachutes had arrived and were being loaded, and that the aircraft was fully fueled and would be out of McGuire within 20 minutes. General Allen asked Carlos to put six more phones in that aircraft.
“I just want to point out, General,” answered Carlos. “We have 241 phones in total. Ninety-seven are, or will be, operational here, with another 80 heading out to other establishments. We don’t know how much feed the satellites can take, but for the next couple of years, I reckon that around 500 phone numbers will be the maximum since Lee has guessed that Zedong Electronics has somewhere between 300 and 500 of these phones set up, of which we already have 241.”
“Roger that,” replied General Allen. “Three of these phones are for future communications with the Chinese government and the other three I will offer the Russian government. The Chinese government has already paid for the phones.”
“You said PAID for them?” asked Carlos, puzzled.
“Yep! They paid for them,” laughed the general. “They paid 21,000 gallons of gas for them.”
“Okay,” replied Carlos. “I’ll put the phone numbers down as Chinese governmental phones.”
“And leave the red numbers on, in case the Zedong officials reappear and our friends here can contact them. Bye for now,” finished General Allen.
They took off directly for Moscow, 12 hours ahead of them, and they felt better after Carlos told them that even though there was a bad storm over northern Europe, and the whole of Britain and Scandinavia was clouded over, that the area around Moscow was clear and that it shouldn’t change for the next 12 hours. After 12 hours of sleeping and resting by all the men, except for the pilots on duty, they landed in icy conditions on Moscow Central Airport’s runway. The lights were on, the runway cleared, and three camouflaged single-seat, piston-engine trainer aircraft had come on their radar screens two hours earlier, just before dark. The three other 130s joined General Allen’s aircraft in formation, Ghost Rider guiding them into the capital of Russia.
*****
Oliver was doing his usual in the early morning on the tenth day. This
time he had company—a lot of company. Three men walked with him around the runway and checked the aircraft, stopping at each one and making mental notes while they chatted. Preston was on the left of the president, who was enjoying the morning walks and the freedom the White House couldn’t offer, and Mike Mallory walked on his right. The secret service men had been asked to keep watch but stay close to the house and nearer to the First Family, who now had the use of the whole house.
Grandpa Roebels and Michael were itching to get back to California, to check on the farm and their small engineering laboratory in their farm hangar, and start working on repairing the damage done to the aircraft equipment they had taken out of the general’s private ride.
They had left shortly afterwards in the Pilatus with two fully armed men as guards and an Air Force colonel—an ex-F-16 pilot who was to fly the aircraft back to the farm. Their flight plan was to land and refuel at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, deliver a satellite phone and orders from General Allen to form a civilian Air Force, and distribute any available military and civilian food to the people of Kansas.
From McConnell, they were to fly into Holloman AFB in New Mexico and give base leadership a phone as well as the same orders. From Holloman, they were flying up to Beale in northern California and then down to Travis Air Force Base to give them the same package. The two engineers would be dropped at their private airstrip, the two Air Force soldiers would first make sure that the farm was safe, and then they would remain with the two older men as protection.
The colonel would then make his way back across the states, visiting another five or six bases, handing out more packages and a presidential letter giving the base commanders the complete six phases of the food distribution plan copied on Presidential letterhead and with the Commander-in-Chief’s signature at the bottom. It was a one-page description for setting up the distribution system in their immediate areas. The president had received a packet of Presidential letterhead from the White House, and Martie typed and printed them out for him as needed.
Over the last two days, the entire group with the whole First Family involved, apart from having the odd battle with the enemy here and there, had worked on the plan when they had all been together at the farm. Preston had explained the latest developments of the plan to the general, and had gotten permission from the general to use all available Air Force personnel as long as their neighbor Army, Marine, Coast Guard, National Guard and Navy bases were included. The plan was pretty simple, and there was not much more that could be done for the people until the war was over.
Since there were so many Air Force bases around the country, the bases were perfect staging points for supplying food. Most of them had adequate food supplies to feed their personnel living on base, as well as thousands of civilians around the base, until the war was over. With the last news from the general, people were hopeful that it would only last another two weeks or so.
If they won the next battle, the enemy’s head would be cut off, and after the capture or destruction of the aircraft or ships they were using to enter the New York, the enemy would be at a disadvantage transporting fewer fighting soldiers over the ocean and into the United States.
Once the last battle was fought, only then could the whole new plan go into maximum effect with what was left of the country’s infrastructure. America needed all the C-130s to go to work feeding the people. The plan was to supply airports that had long enough runways to handle the C-130s with food in bulk that could then be distributed up to 200 miles in all directions by local aircraft. Each of the airports could be controlled by a platoon of soldiers, once there were enough soldiers and aircraft to fly them in, and they would guard the mission and the food.
The soldiers were to go out with each aircraft distributing the cases of rations to make sure that the food was handed out in a fair and orderly fashion. People would have to show their ID to get a week’s supply of food. The air bases would get their personnel working and count the millions of cases of military MREs (meal-ready to eat) that had their own flameless ration heater included, and FSRs (first strike rations) that were much lighter rations with a shorter shelf life and were eaten cold. Pilots flying out to distribute the food would need fuel. Luckily, many smaller airports still had supplies that could last several weeks, even into spring.
Phase One of the project was to get copies of the letter explaining the president’s plan on White House letterhead to all the Air Force bases in the country. Their first task was to communicate with any other Army, Navy, Coast Guard, National Guard, or Marine bases around the area and hand them a copy of the direct order from the president. Each Air Force base would receive a satellite phone, and a command center was set up at Andrews to begin work on the supply system after the war was over.
Phase Two had the Air Force bases locating and communicating with all local private airfields within 200 miles of their bases where aircraft could be commandeered for communications, as well as getting the airports ready to receive food supplies. This phase was to run from the war’s end to mid-spring, when most of the military food stores were expected to be exhausted.
Phase Three would then come into play. Farmers would be expected to grow fast, ready-to-eat food as soon as they could plant and grow. Then the whole distribution system would be reversed. Supplies from the farms would be then transported back to the Air Force bases for consumption and further redistribution. By this time, all the mobile Army or civilian vehicles would be commandeered to collect produce from the farms and redistribute.
Phase Four would be new canning and bottling plants set up at all the airports to allow food storage to begin for the next winter. Once that happened, the system would be self-sustaining and should grow to where the survivors are fed and would be able to give back by working in the production system. Only then could a dollar or a whole new currency be worth something again.
Preston had even gone ahead and designed Phases Five and Six, the retooling of all the engineering in the country to try and get the natural gas supplies up and running since they had only enough fuel to maybe last the country until the end of the summer. This is when the two older men got excited and flew back to California. One day every electrical company in the country would be reactivated, given electricity, and retooled to replace the billions of defunct parts that read “Made in China.”
Grandpa Roebels and Michael were excited to start work on that plan back in California. Their farm was luckily untouched and their first job was collecting several electrical engineers they knew who lived around them. Their idea was to get Silicone Valley up and running again within the next 12 months.
The meeting of the day on Preston’s farm was coming to an end by late that morning. The team—the First Family, the Smarts, Mike Mallory, John, Pam, Joe, David, Buck, Barbara, Ling, Martie, and Preston—was very happy with their accomplishments. The plan was in draft form, and Martie was printing off copies of the Presidential Order to be sent out.
The team was ready to fly into Seymour Johnson in every available aircraft to get the first load of food when the call came in from Carlos to Buck.
“Good morning to the farming community,” Carlos greeted them over the old radio, now in the hangar so it wouldn’t wake the First Family at all hours.
“Are you still alive up there, Carlos?” Preston stated into the radio mic.
“I would be more alive if I could get some sleep and see Sally for more than five minutes at a time! We are all working 20-hour shifts up here. We are allowed to use our radios again. Anyway, orders from Pete are for Buck to go down to Camp Lejeune and pick up 30 complete parachute sets. We need them up here at Mr. McGuire’s place ASAP, and I mean ASAP. We have an aircraft waiting for them. Martie, please ask the Commander-in-Chief to give you the order on letterhead. And guys, they are urgently needed so don’t dilly-dally getting up here. Full cruise power, please.” Martie’s letters from the President were almost all printed out, so Buck and Barbara got up, stretched, and
headed out to start pre-flight checks.
“Are you winning the war for us?” Preston asked Carlos.
“Boy! It’s moving fast up here. The only time anybody gets any rest up here is if you are lucky enough to go out on a flight as a passenger,” replied Carlos. “But, we have a fantastic plan, and you guys are going to love it. Unfortunately, it’s hush-hush at the moment.”
“Even hush-hush for me?” asked the president himself, smiling as he asked the question.
“Only because I can’t say anything over the radio, sir, but the plan, if it works, will help us get our troops back quicker,” responded Carlos.
“Any plan to help our guys get back automatically has my approval,” replied the president.
“That’s what Pete said you would say, sir,” replied Carlos. “Anyway, all the big Mamas will be up here working hard until further notice. You guys down there must do the best you can. And, by the way, you only have a week. Pete wants every available aircraft up here in seven day’s time—everything with guns that is.”
“We have the presidential letters for the food distribution, Carlos. Can you see that they are distributed when aircraft go out to any Alpha Foxtrot bases in the country? We have 50 copies for you,” said Preston, changing the topic.
“Send them up with Buck and I’ll get them out on every available flight,” replied Carlos.
Martie ran out to Lady Dandy, her engines starting up, and delivered all the necessary papers. Buck and Barbara quickly headed out for the Marine base in a southern direction. That left only four useable aircraft on the apron for transporting food—the FedEx Cargomaster, the 210, and the two Cessna 172s. Baby Huey was up at McGuire working her butt off, and the tanker had already left for McGuire earlier that morning, again on Pete Allen’s orders. Preston had quickly made sure that his underground fuel tanks were topped up from the local airport, since he had been given three hours advance notice.
