by T I WADE
“I’m thinking of only using three numbers, one for each location, and we have about 90 engineers from the Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force working on them right now. We expect the aircraft to be refueled by our new Chinese-American engineers, and they will have American Marines and pilots dressed the same as we did the last time. All we want is for them to lie low until the aircraft are out to sea. Then we conk them on the head and bring the aircraft into McGuire and Andrews—the whole bloody lot of them. As a backup, we will have our trusty pilots in the air in their World War II machines and they can persuade and Chinese pilots to turn around, or offer to shoot them down until the 747s with much higher air speeds quickly pull away from our aircraft. Then we will have no choice but to shoot them down. We have the frequencies they are using and we will just invite the Chinese pilots to choose life or death.
“We will only have minutes before they speed away from us?” asked Preston.
“Not if you are 20 miles in front of them and at maximum altitude,” replied Colonel Patterson. “Your four aircraft’s dive speeds are as fast as a 747 and you can warn them, even shoot one down. They won’t know what you’re flying until they see you and then they may go to maximum power and laugh at you, but they won’t laugh at the three F-4s they will meet next. The Phantoms will be our last resort to catch our sitting ducks.”
“The next phase of the master plan I discussed with the general was attacking the men who get off the aircraft. As you see below us, the New York harbor area has major highways and they will have to use them to get such a large number of troops over land to the harbor area. We will place ambush zones all the way down the highways and we will attack them from buildings, bridges, overpasses, and wherever we can shoot at them. We will have another 10,000 troops stationed at all the entrance points to the harbor. I’m sure some will get clever and move through side roads, buildings, and alleyways to get to their main rendezvous point, somewhere in the harbor. Phase Three is the sea battle. Vice Admiral Rogers already has his three submarines in the area and we will place them with their propellers facing the shore line and their torpedo tubes open and ready.”
Colonel Patterson went on for another hour pointing out the areas around New York Harbor and the best places to position the available hardware.
“What are we going to do about their aircraft?” Preston asked about their top-of-the-line fighters. “We will have no chance against them.”
“They can shoot you down before you even see them, but General Allen’s idea was to get rid of their runway, the aircraft carrier. Once that happens, they will have no choice but to land somewhere in the United States. It would be nice to get a few of those, and we’ll be ready for them. None of you guys will be in the air when they arrive. We will pound their runway and they will have a maximum of about three hours flying time, maybe four. We are going to hit them so hard that their fancy Chinese computers will not know what to defend themselves against first,” exclaimed Colonel Patterson. “But, it all depends on three scenarios—whether they all come in together unafraid, whether the Naval ships come in first, or whether the food ships are sent in first.”
Chapter 18
INVASION USA – The Battle for New York
Colonel Grady arrived two days later, on January 15th. Two of the trucks had broken down only 20 miles from the harbor area, and he sent two trucks back to get the 155mm howitzers they had been pulling. Every big gun was needed. A second convoy organized by Colonel Grady was scheduled to arrive out of the combined Army bases around Texas on January 17th and they had a dozen more 155mm guns, which seemed to be the biggest guns towable and that still worked. Most of the more recent Army artillery had been built with forms of computerized systems since the 1990s.
The airports now had 24,000 troops—8,000 stationed at each airport, and the fourth flight of 6,000 troops who flew into Newark direct from Baghdad were transported over the water into the main New York harbor by two World War II destroyers the Navy now had operational, as well as any old tug boats and barges still working.
Bulldozers from the airports were clearing the highways to the harbor area so that the incoming enemy would not have broken-down cars and trucks to use as cover. All of the major highways were already fenced on both sides of the road, and Colonel Patterson hoped that the enemy wouldn’t have wire cutters with them.
The Air Force wanted the incoming aircraft badly, and the airports would be cleared of American military personnel before the arrival except for the pilots and Marines now being flown out of Quantico instead of Camp Lejeune. The C-130s had already pulled 5,000 Marines out of Camp Lejeune, and the rest of the Marines were still overseas, apart from 3,500 men that were being deployed out of the closer Marine base. The idea was to collect men from more remote bases first, which took more time, and then bring them from bases closer and closer to New York.
US Marines would be the major attack force along the highways, and the invading soldiers would be left alone until they had exited the airports, so that the aircraft would not be in the middle of a firefight.
Within 24 hours, and after much discussion, the Chinese engineers had all decided to become Americans. They had seen the forces grouping around the zones of invasion and realized that the chairman could be on the losing side and there was a chance of survival if they stayed where they were. The engineers were civilians, not soldiers, and if they would be allowed to go back to China and collect family, then why not.
Over the second week, the numbers of soldiers grew by the day. Colonel Patterson worked nonstop to get General Allen’s plan into place, and by the end of the second week, it was time to get started on the harbor-area containment plan.
The Texas convoy arrived a day late, but it had grown in size traveling from Army base to Army base, collecting more trucks, howitzers, and tanks as it traveled across the eastern United States. By the time it trundled into New York and aimed for the harbor, the highways were clear and desolate, with faces of American soldiers looking out of every building as the hundred-mile convoy entered 440 south and progressed toward the New York harbor area.
They had traveled up I-70 and then I-78 into New York. The journey had taken six days, and several vehicles had broken down. Mechanics from the Army bases they stopped at returned in other trucks to collect any howitzers or important vehicles left behind.
Finally, the convoy arrived in New York and reached the check point at the I-78/440 intersection and prepared to guide vehicles to their positions around the large harbor area. Two hundred and seventy-three trucks, tanks, and jeeps, exactly the same types and models Colonel Grady had arrived with three days earlier at Preston’s farm, were told to go south to 278, turn left onto the Staten Island Expressway, and aim for Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton either side of the outer bridge into New York Harbor.
With a grand total of 50 155mm howitzers and dozens of truck loads of projectiles, 25 of the big guns were deployed in a line just off the water from the old, but still stable walls of Battery Weed to under the trees of the Arthur Von Briesen Park. The old dock area was too weak to have big guns firing on it, but several large mortar placements under camouflage netting were placed on the breaking concrete. The old Catlin Battery, last used during World War II, was also overgrown, so the guns were placed just off the rocky shoreline and under the first line of trees, giving them natural camouflage.
On the north shoreline, the second line of 25 guns were placed on the grassy areas on the north side along the Lief Ericson Highway, and again placed under camouflage so that nobody from the water could see the gun placements until the very last minute. Each gun had well over 100 projectiles, mostly armor-piercing, followed by HE. Several of the 70 smaller 105 mm howitzers were placed in between the larger guns on both sides, as well as on both ends of the bridge.
Over a ton of explosives were set under each strut right underneath the two main struts of the bridge. The main cables were also prepared with explosives and the whole main center was designed by the Air
Force and Army Engineers to explode and drop into the water. The Army Corp of Engineers in charge of the explosive work didn’t want to destroy the whole bridge, but just the center part, which could be rebuilt at a later stage. The engineers figured that the two concrete pillars would not be affected by the demolition of the middle part and dozens of mortars and rocket launchers were carried up by helicopter and placed on the highest positions in the area.
The colonel was not going to take any chances. Nobody had really done this type of warfare against Navy ships for 100 years or more—artillery cannons against ships—but the main idea was to fire so much at one time into the ships that their defense systems would become overloaded and not be able to repel all the projectiles going in. Aircraft would not be used in the initial battle, since they would just be cannon fodder for the superior Chinese fighter jets, and anti-aircraft guns were brought in from everywhere to give the bigger howitzer placements cover from the air.
It was assumed that the large container ships would be sent in first to test the waters, and that they would aim for and berth at the Global Terminal—the only docking facilities big enough for these massive container vessels. There would be room for all five to berth at the terminal, and several container cranes could unload one ship at a time. Colonel Patterson assumed that unloading one ship at a time was their plan since the Chinese engineers had been given a schedule and repair jobs for every piece of the Global Terminal only. The colonel thought that if he were the chairman, he would make sure the overall area was made safe before the engineers worked on getting the other dock areas repaired.
It was surprising how many old trucks the Army actually had, a miniscule percentage compared to the more modern vehicles of all types that were now useless metal junk until somebody got the electronics of the vehicles working again. But that could take years, or a decade, or even longer.
The president flew back to the White House for the first time in two weeks. It was as he had left it, but at least more communications were available and there were now both radio and satellite phone communications. The old Hughes satellite dishes were cropping up everywhere, and the president realized that a very limited internet communication system could be in the pipeline in a year or so.
*****
The cities of the United States and most of the countries in the Northern hemisphere were not nice places to be. With very little law and order, except in and around certain parts of New York, it was horribly cold. It was the middle of winter, and snow was building up so high that two-story houses were now underneath the snowline and people walked and gathered whatever they could above the ground level.
Crime was still on the increase. Every store was empty and often burnt to the ground, but underneath the snow, people lived away from the wind-chill factor that was present on a daily basis, and many dug tunnels from one house to the other and became scavengers, eating whatever they could find.
Luckily, the temperatures had been near or below freezing for most of the time since January 1st, because it kept the millions of dead bodies frozen, but once it warmed up, most people who were still alive had plans to evacuate the high population areas. These places would become cesspools of rotting corpses and diseases once spring arrived.
Many had already tried and found places as far south as they could go in the States, but winter was long and it would take months to walk to the warmer areas of Florida, Texas, and even Mexico.
Here, gangs had begun to get very powerful, had daily battles for territory control, and killed indiscriminately. Thousands died on a daily basis. Unfortunately, there really was no better place to go. Most people shot first before asking who was there, and nobody was safe.
*****
On the other hand, Panama was much warmer than the northern states, and gang violence was nonexistent due to the 10,000 Chinese soldiers who were in control of the area around the canal. It was probably one of the safer places to be at the moment.
Mo Wang, holding a suitcase in each hand and dressed in local attire, including a Panama hat, walked down a street in Puerto De Balboa, a couple of hundred yards from the massive Naval ships being supplied, and looking very much like a tourist. It had been a long journey to get off the ships.
Once they had dropped anchor to take on fuel and supplies from the military supply ships already there, he had carefully packed his two suitcases with some clothes and three satellite radios, his smaller suitcase of money, and all the valuables he had. He got himself and the suitcases aboard a large woven supply basket, about the size of a basket used by a hot air balloon.
The basket and several others like it hung from two thick ropes and transferred food stuffs across the water from one ship to another. It was impossible to get down to sea level from the aircraft carrier and he waited for dark before he made his move. The crew was hard at work transferring supplies from the smaller ship to the aircraft carrier’s supply doors three floors higher than the supply ship itself. He waited carefully until one of the baskets arrived and was unloaded before he made his move. Mo Wang walked up to the now empty basket, threw in his cases, told the sailors manning the basket that he was going to have a meeting with the supply ship’s captain, got in the empty basket, and was transferred to the supply ship within five minutes.
Nobody had expected him, or questioned him. It wasn’t their duty. He gave a few sailors on the other side a shock when his head suddenly appeared and he climbed over the side with his two suitcases and demanded where the captain was.
He was escorted halfway there when he told the sailors that their services weren’t needed anymore and asked if smaller boats from the Panama shore had made any appearances selling goods. He was told that they had, during the daylight hours, on the shore side of the ship and opposite the side of where the aircraft carrier towered over the smaller supply ship.
He slept through the rest of the warm night in a lifeboat, out of the way and under a tarp, and awoke to much noise early the next morning. There were at least 30 boats of all types close to the ship’s side several floors below and, carrying his belongings, he arrogantly walked down the stairs, as close to the small boats selling their wares as he could.
Nobody seemed interested in him, and since the Chinese sailors were busy with the supplies, he reached a crane-looking winch where most of the small boats had congregated. Two armed guards were there making sure that nobody used the crane to lift themselves into the boat. Mo Wang asked the men if they knew who knew how to work the winch because he needed to hitch a ride to shore to look for some girls for the officials on the aircraft carrier.
They automatically asked what was in the suitcases, and Mo Wang looked at them as if they were stupid and replied that they were full of money—useless money to entice the girls aboard. Not thinking that they had any control over what the officials wanted, they allowed the official-looking man to get into the smaller woven basket and he was winched down the three levels to the boats below.
The vendors tried to sell him fruit and clothing, but he finally motioned with his hands and in bad English stated that he wanted to go to shore. One boat captain, his boat a little bigger than the others, pushed his way through and asked in English what he was prepared to pay for the 300-yard boat ride to terra firma. He had already pulled three $100 American bills out of the thousands in his suitcase. The man agreed and then pointed to Mo’s old Rolex wristwatch. To Mo who had a lot of money, it was a fair deal for his 10-minute ride. Expensive, but at least he would be free, and his Rolex was 20 years old anyway. He was sure that he could find a replacement if he needed to know the time in his new world, which seemed unimportant at this precise moment.
He walked along the road in Puerto De Balboa and realized that even though little had changed here, it was still a port and a far more dangerous place than he was used to. He searched and located two Chinese soldiers walking around, he presumed to keep order, and he ordered them to escort him to a hotel or place of safety since he had important orders from his comrade
s on board the military ships.
His Chinese identification made them come to attention and salute him, and together they walked for an hour towards the better part of town where they found a decent hotel on the outskirts of Panama City and opposite a large bus depot where it seemed that old and colorful buses were still running.
Mo Wang thanked his two guards, gave them an American $100 bill each, and they seemed extremely happy, telling him the American money still worked well in Panama.
He then paid a $100 American Ben Franklin, got several local notes in return as change for two nights, and checked into the hotel under his real name. He went up to his room and changed into clothing that he had bartered for with the boat owner while he was bringing Mo into the harbor. He left his Chinese clothes in his room, one suitcase with warm clothing he wouldn’t need, pulled out a couple more Ben Franklins in case he needed to purchase something, and walked out of the back door, his remaining red suitcase in his left hand, the silver money suitcase in his right hand. With the large Panama-style hat covering his head, Mo Wang took the first bus out of town an hour later.
