The crowd went crazy and stormed the field to congratulate LT Espinosa and the rest of the Shoup players. Everyone was cheering and clapping, celebrating the great come-from-behind win. The merriment was cut short by the sounds of gunfire, though, as one of the Company A, Special Forces 1st Battalion soldiers emptied half a magazine of bullets into the air. Stunned, everyone looked up to find the field ringed with armed soldiers. One stepped forward and said in a loud voice, “Good. You win. Now go home. We have captured your ships, and anyone that goes to the pier will be shot. Your captain will contact you. Now, GO!”
Faced with a squad of heavily armed, angry-looking soldiers, the crowd rapidly dispersed. The glee of moments before had vanished.
I-5, South of Tacoma, WA, 1430 Pacific Daylight Time
No matter how many cars passed by the convoy, it still amused PLA Captain Zhu Jing to see the looks of wonderment on the faces of the people that passed by. Not only was it strange to see such a large convoy of military vehicles on the road, he expected, the HQ-9 SAM vehicles in the convoy were painted in the PLA’s blue pixilated camouflage, which very few Americans would probably ever have seen. The Red Chinese star should have been a giveaway that something was very out of the ordinary (and wrong,) but he wondered how many people recognized it. Not very many, he guessed, or none of the cars that passed him would have intentionally pulled back over into his lane of travel, in front of the 125mm smoothbore gun of his tank.
The thought of a Chinese column driving down an American road was so alien, he finally decided, that most Americans wouldn’t have even remotely considered the possibility. A student of history, he knew that the continental U.S. had not been invaded in over two hundred years. After that long, it would be hard to imagine that it could ever happen. The joke is on you, he thought.
Although most Americans wouldn’t have thought it possible, Captain Zhu had been dreaming about this drive for many years. In fact, he had been dreaming about driving his tank down the streets of Washington, DC, while he was patrolling the provincial capital of Urumqi, China, when riots broke out there in July, 2009. An enlisted man who had been a tank driver for ten years at that time, he had taken charge of his company of tanks when both of his officers were killed. In the ensuing three days of fighting, he had led the remaining 19 tanks in the company’s rescue of the local commissar, earning him a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant. Now, nine years later, he was a company commander in the 1st Armored Division of the Beijing Military Region. Many things had changed for him, but his dream remained the same. Even though he wasn’t driving down the streets of Washington, DC, his drive down I-5 in Washington State was quite good enough for him.
They reached their turnoff and left the highway at Exit 125. This close to their objective, speed was of the essence. As such, he didn’t stop for the red traffic light, but proceeded to run straight over the small import car that did. “Hah! Japanese!” he thought as he crushed the car and its unlucky owner into a thin flat sliver of metal. He led the procession east to the main gate. Directions he had downloaded from the internet a month before had indicated that he should use the left hand lane as he drove down Fairway Road, so that he could park at the visitor area to get a base pass. He hadn’t seriously considered that as an option, though; instead, he drove straight through the gate and past the two uniformed sentries that stared open-mouthed at him as he drove by. The first infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) pulled over, and the seven soldiers inside it got out to secure the gate.
He continued down Fairway Road, bearing left to turn onto Main Street. Two blocks after passing the softball fields, he took a left turn onto Tuskegee Airman Ave. and proceeded straight onto the airfield of McChord Air Force Base. He led the rest of the Type 99’s onto the ramp area where they went out to the C-17 aircraft that had been staged in nice rows, making them easier for him to guard. “How thoughtful of the Americans,” he mused. The ZBD-08 IFVs peeled off, with half of them going to the base operations building and the other half going to the tower facility at Hangar 4. Pulling up to their targets, the soldiers in the back jumped out and stormed the buildings. The airmen inside were neither armed nor prepared for such a lightning assault, and both facilities were quickly captured.
While this was going on, the HQ-9 and PGZ-95 batteries began setting up their defensive positions, with the Type 98 tanks providing over watch fire support. The airbase was quickly secured, even though most people in the area didn’t know it yet.
Five minutes behind them, this process was repeated at Fort Lewis, the army base located to the southwest of McChord Air Base. As there were many more combat-ready troops at Fort Lewis, including the 1st Special Forces Group and the 2nd Battalion of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, the force that crashed through the gate and took control of the administration building, armory and Gray Army Airfield was much larger in size. Thirty-one Type 99 tanks led the way, followed by 31 Type 98 tanks, 31 ZBD-08 personnel carriers and 30 of the new GAC J-Vans, each with 12 combat loaded troops. Bringing up the rear was a PGZ-95 battery, consisting of six of the tracked anti-aircraft guns, a command vehicle and three resupply trucks. All six of the PGZ-95 vehicles had their guns in anti-surface mode and were swiveling their turrets around continuously, looking for something to shoot.
Naval Air Station Fallon, NV, 1445 Pacific Daylight Time
Captain Jim “Muddy” Waters was having a bad day. As the Air Wing Commander for Carrier Air Wing 2, he was also known as ‘CAG,’ and he had a lot to be angry about. His squadrons looked like they hadn’t flown in months, the first full air wing practice strike had been nothing short of disastrous, with over half of his planes ‘killed’ on the practice range, and now he had some tower guy saying that Whidbey Island was under attack? Didn’t he have enough things going wrong without some moron starting outlandish rumors? There wasn’t any way that Whidbey Island, of all places, could be under attack, was there?
“So you think this is for real?” he asked his Deputy, Captain Don “Bambi” Heron.
“Well, I can’t tell you if it’s for real,” Bambi replied, “But I can tell you that he believes it’s for real. The tower chief said that he was on the phone with the Whidbey Island tower operator there an hour ago when the power went out. The chief at Whidbey said that their power went out at the same time, and that they had armed men parachuting onto the base. He also said that a Chinese transport had landed there on the runway. Right before the call was cut off, the chief said he heard what he thought was gunfire.”
“I asked Commander Meadows if any of his folks had heard anything strange from home,” he continued. “He tried to call his wife, and she said that she had just been turned away from the base at the front gate by Asian looking men armed with guns. I don’t know if that corroborates it, but even if it doesn’t, there is still something seriously strange going on.”
“You don’t think that Whidbey is doing some sort of Force Protection drill that these people just didn’t get the word on, do you?” asked CAG Waters.
“CAG, I’m as shocked as you are, but it sure seems like something is going on. If it weren’t odd enough that both Whidbey and Fallon had power outages at the same time, I called back to Virginia Beach to see if they had heard anything, and they had just had a power failure, too. In fact, it looks like whole sections of the country got hit with simultaneous black outs. I don’t know if we’re being invaded,” he repeated, “but something strange is definitely going on.”
“It sounds like Whidbey is under attack, after all,” said CDR Fred “Mighty Mite” Meadows breathlessly, as he came running in. “I had our officers call home to their spouses like you asked, Deputy, and two of them said that they had seen ‘hundreds’ of parachutes coming down onto the base, and two other spouses have been turned away from the base gates by armed men. They were told that the base is having a ‘drill,’ but I’ve never heard of the base closing down like that for a drill. Also, one of the spouses said that the weapons that the soldiers were holding at
the gates were not U.S. combat rifles. Apparently, the spouse is an avid gamer, and he said they looked like they were ‘bullpups,’ whatever those are.”
“That’s a rifle configuration where the clip goes in behind the trigger assembly,” said Captain Heron. CAG knew that his deputy was a bit of a ‘gun nut,’ who enjoyed hunting, which had long ago earned him the call sign ‘Bambi.’ “If they are using something like that, they definitely aren’t M-16s, and the soldiers are definitely not ours.”
“OK,” said CAG, “you’ve convinced me that something is wrong, although I’m having a hard time believing that the Chinese have taken over Whidbey Island. Who do we have flying on the next event?”
“The next event is pretty light,” said Bambi, “since most of the aircraft were on the air wing strike that just landed. We have a pair of Rhinos and a Prowler going to the Electronic Warfare Range and two Hornets going to the B-17 target for some bombing practice. There is also a tanker that will be available for them to get some airborne refueling practice.”
As part of the air wing training and work-up cycle, the aircrew had to prove that they could conduct air-to-air refueling like they would have to do on cruise. At the carrier, there would always be a tanker airborne whenever aircraft were flying. Not only would it be available to give pilots the extra gas they needed to complete their missions, but also to give extra gas to an aviator that was having problems landing on the carrier, so that he or she could make another couple of attempts. In order to get fuel, the pilot had to maneuver his plane and stick a foot-long probe into a metal basket trailing on a hose from the refueling aircraft. Once plugged in, the tanker could pass fuel to the other aircraft. The Air Force used a number of modified, large transport aircraft as tankers; at the aircraft carrier, the tanker was normally a F-18 with a specially modified tank that let the pilot transfer some of his fuel to another aircraft.
“OK,” said CAG, “let’s re-task the Rhinos and Prowler to go up north and take a look. They can fly up to the area around Tacoma and call them on the radio.” The Rhino aircraft was the term that aviators used to differentiate the E and F variants of the F-18 Super Hornet from the C and D variants of the original F-18 Hornet. A modification of the notoriously short-ranged Hornet aircraft, the Super Hornet versions were a little longer, had a little more gas, and were able to fly a little further than the original models. This made them a better choice to accompany the EA-6B Prowler aircraft up towards its home base. “The distance from Fallon to Whidbey is about 800 miles. We can have them get enough gas from the tanker to get them there and back.”
“They won’t have any live bombs or missiles onboard,” said Bambi, “but we probably still have time to make sure they have full ammunition loads for their guns.”
“That’s a good idea, Bambi,” said CAG. “Make it happen.” He looked at the EA-6B Commanding Officer. “Fred, I want you to lead the flight. Go up north, talk to the folks on Whidbey’s Approach and Tower frequencies and check it out. Stay back from the field until you can confirm what’s going on. Under no circumstances are you to risk any of the aircraft. If you even start to think things are getting squirrelly, haul ass and get back here. It’s much better to get the word back here so that we can start trying to figure out what we’re going to do. We’re the closest force available; it will fall on us to get it done.”
“Yes, sir,” said Commander Meadows. “We’ll take care of it.”
The CAG looked at his Deputy, “Bambi, we’d better go ahead and cancel the rest of the flight schedule for the day. We need people to start looking at what our options are, in case this all goes to shit on us.”
Downtown Seattle, WA, 1503 Pacific Daylight Time
Sam Burton hated his cell phone provider and wasn’t even sure why he still used it. He never seemed to be able to get a clear signal, much less the four bars that he was promised, no matter where he went. He’d now gone over two hours without being able to get a signal. While he understood that the big buildings in downtown Seattle could sometimes block signal reception, two hours was simply unacceptable! How was he supposed to conduct business when he was unable to make a call?
Just when he thought he couldn’t get any more frustrated, lo and behold, what should he see across the street but one of the cell phone provider’s local stores? Not able to take the time to go to a crosswalk in his fit of rage, he looked both ways and crossed in the middle of the block, causing two drivers to honk at him as they braked heavily and swerved to avoid him.
His mood didn’t improve upon entering the store, as both of the people working in it were already helping other customers, with several others waiting in line for both of them. Getting into the line of the prettier of the two, he stood there fuming while he waited his turn. He didn’t have to wait long, though, before he noticed that everyone else seemed to have the same problem that he did. Hah! It wasn’t just his phone, like the provider always said. It was the provider’s lousy service that was at fault, which he had always known was the culprit.
Sensing the growing frustration from everyone on the other side of the counter, the representative that Sam was waiting for looked at all of the people in line and asked in a louder voice, “Is everyone having the same problem with not getting a signal?” Everyone replied in the affirmative, with varying shades of anger and annoyance. Pulling out her phone, Stephanie, as was noted on her name tag, saw that her phone didn’t have service either. “That’s weird,” she said. “I always have four bars here.” She looked at her service partner. “It looks like we’ve got a pretty big problem; we better let the manager know.”
Sam watched as she picked up the landline and dialed. “Hi Jim,” she said. “This is Stephanie at the downtown store. We seem to be having a big problem with reception in the area. I don’t know if it is related to the power outage we had an hour ago, but nobody seems to be able to get a signal in the downtown area.”
She listened intently for a few seconds and then replied, “No, I don’t think there’s anyone important in town. I know there’s a conference at the convention center, but when isn’t there?” She looked around the room. “Does anyone know if the president or vice president is in town?” Seeing only shrugs or negative responses, she said into the phone, “No, no one thinks there are any dignitaries here.” She listened again for a bit and then thanked the person on the other end of the line and hung up.
“My manager has no idea what’s going on,” she said. “He said it appears that there is an active jammer in the area, because the cell towers seem to be working correctly, yet no one has a signal in the area. Sometimes the Secret Service does that when the president is in the area, to defeat assassination attempts, but it’s illegal for anyone else to use a communications jammer. He’s got all of our technicians working on the problem and assures me that the problem should be fixed very quickly.”
Sam shrugged as he turned and walked out of the store. Typical techno-babble to justify crappy service, he thought. There was a store for his company’s leading competitor near his house; he decided to stop and make the switch on his drive home.
Blair Terminal, The Port of Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, 1505 Pacific Daylight Time
Captain Du Jun saluted and reported, “Sir, we have almost finished unloading. The last system to unload, one of our HQ-19s, is running a little late. They misjudged a low area of the deck and got one of the missile transports stuck.” Captain Du stood only a couple of inches over five feet tall, so he was forced to look a long way up to talk to his superior who was five feet, ten inches tall. Both weighed about 160 pounds, so Captain Du was a bit on the stocky side while his superior was rather thin.
His superior, Major Pan Yan, had left the Xin Fei Zhou and was watching the unloading operation from the pier. The smoke from the destroyed customs office had cleared, and all of the longshoremen had been rounded up and sent home, leaving the pier occupied solely by the Chinese forces.
Major Pan was in charge of the forces that were deployed on the Xin Fei Zho
u. Although it had been modified so that it could carry military vehicles, he knew that the Xin Fei Zhou had originally been built as an automobile transport, and some of the conversion was “imperfect,” at best. While the missile’s cab fit well enough into the modified ship, the missile canisters that it pulled were a little taller. There were some spots that had to be avoided, which was challenging because of the vehicle’s large turning radius; apparently they had just found another low spot that wasn’t previously surveyed. He was happy that everything had, so far, gone relatively smoothly, but the HQ-19 was his best anti-aircraft system; not having it properly deployed was going to leave gaps in their air defense coverage. “What is the status of the system now?”
Captain Du Jun reported, “Because of the congestion in the ship, they lost some time trying to get a tow vehicle to it to pull it back out; however, one of the drivers suggested letting some of the air out of the tires, which would make it a little lower. This worked out, and they were able to get the transporter the rest of the way out with no problems. The canister that hit the roof was slightly damaged and will not be operable until the missile techs have time to check it out, but the other three canisters on that transporter should be fine.”
“That was a good plan,” said Major Pan Yan. “See that the person that spoke up is commended. Where was that system supposed to go?”
“That system was supposed to go to the northeast on the road the Americans call ‘I-90,’” said Captain Du Jun, consulting his notes. “The jammed transporter also blocked part of the PGZ-95 anti-air battery that was supposed to go with it. Three of those vehicles were loaded in front of the HQ-19, though, so I sent them on ahead. They should be on schedule. I hope that was OK; I know you said to keep all of the systems together, but I thought that was best to provide coverage for that valley.”
Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 1) Page 15
