The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath

by T I WADE

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” asked a stern voice from behind him.

  “Colonel Wong on General Lee’s orders looking for any animals making that foul smell in the underground area,” replied Wong, slowly standing up, turning, and looking into the eyes of a well-muscled Chinese soldier, also a colonel. Holding the nearly empty pack in his left hand tightly he felt in his right pocket for the Glock and silencer Charlie Meyers had given him, and looked the man of equal rank straight in his eyes.

  “How many of you stupid soldiers realize that the smell is not from an animal, but from rocket fuel. Are all you army soldiers so stupid?” the man responded looking at Wong as if he was a really dumb soldier.

  “I’m sorry, Colonel Wo,” Wong replied checking the man’s name tag on his uniform “but I’m only in charge of cleanliness here on base, and yesterday the general asked me to check out this foul animal smell before he comes down here later today.

  “How many times do I have to tell General Lee it is not from an animal? He is so typical for an army officer. He knows nothing about technology, only how to shoot people. Now, Colonel Wong, I will escort you out of here, and you are not to return to Hangar Three again, understand?” Wong nodded. “I will make explicit instructions at the security office that only General Lee, me and my men, and the engineers only, are allowed down here. People like you are not, and never were. Cleanliness! What a stupid department for a colonel. Now follow me.”

  Wong retrieved his second, now empty pack and the sprayer in the underground section and the larger man was about to lock him out and close the door behind him when he realized the colonel might find the explosives.

  “Colonel Wo, I have just sprayed toxic animal poison in there. If you go back in there for longer than a few minutes, it could eat your lungs away. I was only following orders and was about to hurry out when you found me. I suggest nobody goes in there for at least twelve hours, or they might never come out again.”

  “Stupid idea you spraying poison in there! Don’t you know how volatile rocket fuel is? And I’m certainly not getting my lungs damaged. I’ll lock it and tell the guards not to allow anybody in until the engineers go in after dark,” replied Colonel Wo, smartly stepping out of the door to save his lungs.

  “I would also recommend giving the engineers the night off as well, or they should enter with gas masks. It states on the cans twelve hours, but maybe the manufactures are wrong. I would give it at least another six hours to make sure.”

  “That’s fine, nobody needs to be in there until the aircraft return and everything is fully automated anyway. Colonel Wong, if I ever see you close to this hangar, my private domain, ever again, I will personally string you up and shoot you. Understand? Now go and tell Bo to destroy your name tag. You won’t need it anymore.”

  After Bo cut up the tag, he headed over to Hangar One. His legs were still slightly weak from the surprise meeting with the Commander of Hangar Three and it took a while for his pulse to return to less damaging levels.

  He looked around and saw two jeeps on the large airfield, both at opposite ends and it looked like Chong was doing his job.

  His only concern now was the prisoners and he watched as Colonel Wo headed into Hangar Two before he headed into Hangar One. Wong needed the larger man to forget about him a little. He headed upstairs to the living accommodations and saw the lounge was empty. Most of the doors were closed to the bedrooms and he checked for the radio, which was supposed to be in the Hangar somewhere. It hadn’t been downstairs, and he knocked on the closest door to the communal area, nobody shouted anything and he walked into an office with a radio sitting on the center desk. The room was empty.

  Colonel Wong placed his second to last charge under the steel desk the radio was on and closed the door behind him.

  Hangar Two was also pretty much empty. He realized that Colonel Wo must live in this hangar as he was pouring himself a cup of tea when Wong climbed the staircase and looked around the communal area.

  “Following me around, Wong? Tell me, how come I have never seen you on base before?”

  “I usually work while most of the men are asleep. Many areas of the airfield are cleaned at night by my staff when you soldiers are asleep. Because of my orders to spray Hangar Three this morning, I am late on my checks on my staff, which cleaned in here last night, Wo. Some stupid soldiers work while the real soldiers sleep,” Wong replied not letting the bigger man dominate him.

  “Well, tell your cleaning detail that my room, Room Three, needs the paper shredder emptied. It hasn’t been for weeks,” stated Wo, heading with his cup of tea to his room.

  This time Wong, pretty angry, marched into the hangar’s radio room and saw a man, a sergeant, behind the desk. “Sergeant, I’m not in a good mood and need to check this room. Go! Make yourself a cup of tea!”

  The sergeant saw the look on Wong’s face and headed out fast. He must have heard the confrontation between the two senior officers outside his closed door.

  Within seconds the device was under the steel desk holding the radio and suddenly Wong realized that he was one charge short. He needed one for the control tower and wanted to hit himself on the forehead. He released his self-directed anger by reminding himself that his favorite colonel would go up in smoke if he was in his room, once the radio went into lift-off mode! He smiled, still felt pissed-off, and left Hangar Two.

  He wanted to find the American girls, but they were nowhere to be seen, so he returned to Hangar One to “inspect” the cleanliness inside the aircraft he was hoping to fly out later that day.

  Again the hangar was deserted and for an hour he sat in the left seat in the cockpit and went through the pre-flight checks of the aircraft. They were written in Russian on one side and Chinese on the other and were little different than checks he would have done flying a slightly smaller C-130.

  A couple of hours later, he and Major Chong asked the driver to take them to the gate where he explained to the new guard commander that he and the major needed a walk and asked when the password changed From ‘Mao’, to ‘Zedong’. The lieutenant stated at 2:00 a.m., after the midnight changeover of fresh guards and the two men, now pretty well known, left the airfield.

  “Wow!” exclaimed the three lieutenants when the two officers sneaked back into the dirt runway buildings south of the camp.

  “You guys can join our Seal Team anytime you want,” added Charlie Myers. “We couldn’t have done any better than you. Both of you, not only have you fulfilled your mission planting explosives on the actual missiles, you got all the inner-defense positions. You have primed most of the place to go kaboom in eleven hours. Hey, Joe, we might as well go home, have a round of golf, and let these two air force dudes do our work for us.” Lieutenant Paul, studying the map drawn by Major Chong smiled back.

  Wong got on the satellite phone to General Patterson at Dillingham and brought him up-to-date on the improvements to the airfield and the general was grateful. He replied that the two Gulfstreams were expected in nine hours; he was transferring men and machinery into Dulles, the airport where the visitors wanted the meeting with the president for safety purposes; and, the meeting was due to start in ten hours.

  For the last two hours of daylight, the three leaders of the 90 Seals and the two air force pilots planned the upcoming night raid on Cold Bay Airport.

  Eight hours later, the first missile jeep was quietly taken out by the Seals, all now dressed in U.S. camouflage. The four semi-sleeping guards, double the number Wong had met on his first visit to the jeep, never stood a chance. Charlie Meyers told Wong and the others that he believed the higher guard activity was due to the Gulfstreams’ departures. There could be a heightened awareness around Cold Bay Airport, China!

  Within the hour, all seven jeeps were under the ownership of the Seals. Each jeep had two Seals disarming the missile system to make sure no missiles, manually or remote controlled would ever leave the jeeps again. The Chinese men, their throats cut lay undernea
th the jeeps, out of the way.

  Wong and Chong led three Chinese-uniformed Seals to the southern gate, Sergeant Rodriquez and two other Seals who could actually fit into the small Chinese uniforms. The last two men looked disheveled, as if they had been asleep, their caps pulled down low over their faces.

  “Guards, open up!” stated Colonel Wong as they approached the gate. It was just before 2:00 am, and it was the same time that the two Gulfstreams were about to head into Dulles in Washington.

  “Password!” was the reply.

  “Mao, or Zedong if it changed,” replied Colonel Wong.

  “Who are you and who are these other men?” ordered a guard who he had never seen before.

  “Colonel Wong, my second-in-command Major Chong and two guards we found sleeping on duty. Open up, I need to report them and get them replaced immediately.”

  “We never saw you leave, Colonel. How did you leave the airfield?” stated a third soldier, a lieutenant, standing on a lit cigarette and walking up to the gate from the guard house several feet away after hearing the commands at the gate. The security had certainly been stepped up a notch since his last entry, and that worried Wong, but it was too late to retreat now.

  “We headed out to check on the jeeps a couple of hours ago and left by the other gate, Lieutenant. Now open the gate I have my job to do. Who are you expecting, the American president… or the American Marines to sneak up on you? There is nobody else on this sad piece of property. Do I look like an American soldier, Sergeant?” stated Wong to the man waiting for orders from the lieutenant. “Sergeant, I will go with your lieutenant personally to the guardhouse, and he can phone the main gate to verify that Major Chong and I left. He needs to speak to Sergeant Cho, the man who opened the other gate for us. Now open the gate!”

  The sergeant, not getting an order from his lieutenant who had already turned and was walking to the guardhouse, unlocked the gate and allowed the four men into the compound.

  There were two lights above the gate, the second north gate was about 200 yards away, and their shapes could be seen by anybody interested. The guardhouse was purposely not in the well-lit area, Wong thought, for security purposes. As they entered, the two disheveled Seals walked up to the two gate guards, put an arm around them and shot them in the side, next to their hearts, three times with their silenced Glocks. Rodriquez was fast and hit the lieutenant, who had stopped in the darker area twenty feet away to turn around to see what the scuffles were about, with three out of three shots. They all watched as his body crumpled to the ground without a sound.

  Immediately Charlie Meyers began opening a hole through the outside perimeter fence adjacent to the guardhouse with heavy box cutters. Both Seals passed the bodies of the still upright dead guards to Wong and Chong, and they headed out of the light and towards the guardhouse carrying the slumped-over men as best they could without getting blood on their uniforms They hoped that it looked to the other guards watching from 200 yards away like they were helping a colleague. It was too great a distance to actually see what was going on, and they were sure to get a detachment of men to come and inspect.

  As soon as Sergeant Rodriquez reached the dead lieutenant, he silently rushed the guardhouse. He immediately saw the bright tell-tale tips of two cigarette butts by the back wall, where two, very quickly dead men were having a smoke break. The door to the guard house was closed, so he slid a fresh magazine into his Glock and, removing his night goggles, opened the door. Light streamed out of the brightly-lit room and the four men playing cards around a table each got a third eye as they looked up at him, and another four trying to sleep never knew what hit them as he sprayed the rest of his magazine into the heads of their sleeping bodies.

  Within seconds, Wong entered.

  “I hear men coming over from the other gate,” said Charlie Meyers as he came in and looked around. A last man came out of the bathroom at the rear of the guardhouse and his forehead suddenly looked like he had a bad case of acne. The man slumped to the floor as Charlie Meyers hit him three times and then hit the cabin’s light switch turning the whole place =dark.

  “Get any bodies behind the building,” Charlie Meyers ordered more men who were silently waiting by the open door. Wong knew all of the Seals had night goggles on, and while it took seconds for his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness, he heard bodies slithering about around him. “Here, put these on,” said Charlie; his cap was removed and a pair of night goggles was fitted over his blind eyes. Suddenly he could see again, although the view was all a dark green color, it was bright to the darkness he had just been in.

  “Guard detail, six men fifty yards away and ten seconds until reaching the light by the gate,” stated somebody.

  “Rodriquez, Shaw, Mendez, take them out, Go!” ordered Meyers. “Marks, Santana, Perks, help drag the bodies back here!”

  Men silently headed out and within minutes bodies could be heard being dragged into the growing pile.

  Charlie Meyers asked Sergeant Rodriquez, still dressed in his Chinese uniform, to give a message to the men standing on guard at the gate and he headed over. “Message from Charlie, keep your Chinese uniforms and caps on, stay at your guard positions at the gate. When the next group arrives to see what is going on, mumble something. I assume they have less than a dozen guards left at the northern gate. Perks, Marks and Sammy Smith will protect you from the dark side; you know what to do and guys try and get some uniforms without blood all over them.”

  “Majors, we are heading to Hangar One. Men, bring all three packs of Christmas presents. Joe Paul, Pete Murphy get your plans into operation and start taking out the machine gun and mortar posts. The Marines will be overhead in 59 minutes, explosions go up in 49 minutes. Let’s go!” And the groups lead by the three Seal lieutenants completed their mission of getting through the three new fence holes and headed in different directions.

  Hangar One was minimally lit and quiet once the two guards at the small rear door had been taken out, Wong entered first, alone. He motioned to the rest that it was clear and six Seals silently sneaked in, going around the darker shadows of the outer walls and they dispersed into the large open space. Major Chong’s job was to start the pre-checks on the aircraft while the small packs of C-4 were distributed around the vehicles inside, especially the three tanks and the more mobile jeeps with machine guns on them.

  Colonel Wong, with four other Seals and one of the backpacks, headed over to Hangar Two. Again two guards felt the sting of a silenced Glock and were dragged into the hangar once Wong gave them the all clear. It was also minimally lit. The two missing aircraft made the lifeless hangar look larger, and the Seals began handing out gifts to the dozens of armored vehicles in this hangar. Two small, mobile fuel tankers were the most important vehicles in Hangar Two and received gifts while Wong crept up the stairs.

  The lounge had three bloody Caucasian girls, half naked and semi-asleep on the couches and a Chinese major and a lieutenant colonel, also half-dressed and snoring, on the other two couches. One girl spied him as he entered, and he put his finger to his mouth for silence.

  He could see that the girls had been beaten, there was blood on all three of their gagged faces, and he crept down the staircase to tell two of the men standing guard.

  Both men silently ran up the stairs and the girl’s eyes widened as she saw American camouflage. She tried to make a noise, but luckily her gag kept her mouth silent. Six silent shots into the two snoring Chinese officers and a quick thud to the head from the butt of a Glock silenced the girl, and with a set of hand wire cutters the Seals quickly separated the other two girls, put two of them in fireman’s lifts and headed down the stairs for Hangar One.

  Wong looked around, placed a second charge under the desk in the radio room after checking to see that his first charge was still in place. Then he crept down the corridor to the end to open the last door to the largest room. It was locked and he waited for the two Seals to return.

  This time Charlie Meyers arr
ived with three men, saw Wong at the end, and silently moved over to him. Wong motioned that the door was locked, and Charlie pulled what looked like a girl’s hairpin from his upper jacket pocket and within seconds had the door open.

  “Who are you?” questioned a scared female American voice in the dark room. Charlie pulled his night goggles down again and headed into the dark interior. There were two thuds, then what sounded to Wong like wire cutters in action, and he was handed a light female form in a fireman’s lift on his shoulder.”

  “Tell two men to get in here. Wong you take her back to Hangar One, one of the men will carry the unconscious American civilian male in here to the aircraft,” whispered Charlie.

  The others were guarding the entrance as he and the Seal headed down the corridor, down the stairs and over to Hangar One. He passed several guarding the outside area and headed into the first hangar and gave both unconscious forms to men waiting in the door of the aircraft.

  Colonel Wong rearranged his uniform as Sergeant Rodriquez and his two guys, still wearing their Chinese uniforms, entered the rear door carrying half a dozen fresh uniforms.

  “No more guards, all deceased,” Rodriquez stated smiling at him. We are heading over to the control tower, Sir. Remember to pick us up. I don’t think Charlie needs these uniforms anymore and they stink. I don’t want to have to fight the rest of these guys on the southern side on my own, Sir, so remember you are our ticket out of here.“

  Major Wong nodded. “Sergeant, your ride home will be taxiing past the tower in twenty-one minutes. That gives us fifteen minutes before fireworks, so I will not be hanging around. The rear ramp will be open and just treat us like you would a bus; hop on.”

  With that he and two Seals headed up the stairs to the general’s room. The door was closed but unlocked. This time he remembered to close his eyes, slide his goggles down from his forehead, and went in.

  There were two sleeping forms on the large king-sized bed. The general and a fifth female form, again one hand was handcuffed to the bed. The Seals with him, in a blink of an eye hit both heads of the sleeping pair, cut the girl’s handcuffs, lifted both bodies onto their shoulders and headed out of the room. Wong spied a desk with an open laptop computer and took it.