by T I WADE
INVASION USA I
The End of Modern Civilization.
By
T I Wade
INVASION USA I. Copyright © 2011 by T I Wade.
All Rights Reserved.
Published in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Triple T Productions Inc., 200 Grayson Senters Way, Fuquay Varina, NC 27526.
http://www.TIWADE.com
Triple T ProducTions, Inc. books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Triple T Productions Inc., 200 Grayson Senters Way, Fuquay Varina, NC 27526.
eNovel EDITION – January 2012
Cover design by Jack Hillman, Hillman Design Group, Sedona, AZ
Library of Congress Catalogue-in-Publication Data
Wade, T I INVASION USA I / T I Wade.—1st ed.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to all the people who have helped me over the last two years in bringing this story to fruition.
First, I’d like to thank the two “Jacks” for helping me send this novel to your eReader.
To Jack Beatty for enjoying my writing enough in aiding me finalizing this long story from manuscript to finished product. Only people in the publishing industry know how much it costs, and the hundreds of hours of time and experience by several professional people to turn free-writing into a readable book.
To Jack Hillman who has set up the website, book cover design, the several download formats and the final typesetting for your reading pleasure.
To my wife Cathy and daughter Tischan Anne who gave me space and peace and quiet when I needed to write.
And to my son, Alexander who was the first to read it and enjoyed it enough at the age of 11 to give me my first and best review to date!
Thank you all.
Note from the Author:
This novel is only a story—a very long story of fiction, which could or might come true sometime in the future.
The people in this story are all are fictitious, but since the story takes place in our present day, some of the people mentioned could be real people.
No names have been given to these people and there were no thoughts to treat these people as good or bad people. Just people who are living at the time the story is written.
Are you ready to survive a life-changing moment that could turn your life upside-down sometime in the near future?
Think about it. You are the only person in the world, who can answer that question.
Are your human survival skills honed like a sharp hunter’s knife or a fancy butter knife sitting in soft butter?
Which knife are you?
Read on and find out!
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1:
Preston Strong and Martie Roebels
Chapter 2:
Buck McKinnon
Chapter 3:
China, Jiangsu Province
Chapter 4:
Sally Powers
Chapter 5:
Jiangsu Province-China 1980s
Chapter 6:
Will Smart, Maggie Smart, Ben and Oprah Smart
Chapter 7:
The Beginning of the Lead up to Midnight
Chapter 8:
Carlos Rodriquez
Chapter 9:
Preparations for the New Year’s Eve Fly-in
Chapter 10:
Jiangsu Province-China 2010
Chapter 11:
Christmas in North Carolina
Chapter 12:
Salt Lake City-Utah-December
Chapter 13:
Jiangsu Province-China-December
Chapter 14:
Christmas through to New Year’s Eve
Chapter 15:
Jiangsu Province-New Years Day-China Time Zone
Chapter 16:
Midnight Eastern Time-The End of Modern Civilization
Chapter 17:
Dawn-‘Z’ Day 1
Chapter 18:
-‘Z’ Day 1
Chapter 1
Preston Strong and Martie Roebels
It was nearly dark outside as the small yellow-colored crop duster aimed its nose for a final approach into the dark, asphalt-covered airfield now stretching out in front of it.
Ten homemade perimeter lights, 40 feet apart on each side of the runway, blinked on as Preston Strong double-clicked the “talk” button on his joystick and the gray outline of the runway came into view. The tarred runway was 920 yards, or 2,760 feet long—short for such a high-grade paved runway, but double the length needed for him to take off under a full weight of spray liquids, and enough room for any errors on dark, stormy-night landings when the sun had beaten him down to the ground. The runway lights, made out of large old truck lights, were aimed on high beam, a foot above the ground and facing inwards, lighting up the landing site enough for an experienced bush pilot to get in. Two green and one red light shone from either end of the long expanse of flat tarmac. A large D-8 caterpillar battery, always under-charge, gave the 26 lights enough power for ten minutes.
The wheels touched and Preston aimed the propeller at the open mouth of the hangar she resided in, away from the hot North Carolina sun during the summers and the odd snow-fall in winter. He pressed a simple residential garage door opener button he had modified to operate the 30-foot roller door, which kept out the weather when he needed to work in the large hangar. Preston had another three aircraft under draped tarpaulins in the hangar, as well as a separate set of rooms—a lounge area, study, bed and a bathroom—where he dabbled in everything electric. His golden Labrador Oliver spent more time at the house than Preston did, although normally in the shade of the white wrap-around porch.
Preston Strong lived electronics. It was a drug he was totally addicted to. Anything that moved or had a wire coming out of it, turned on or off, or smelled of making something else work fascinated him, especially the older, less technical stuff. It had taken him a year to get a 40-year old French two-cylinder car engine so well-balanced and so virtually quiet that it ran on a gallon of regular gasoline every 24 hours and powered everything in the hangar, as well as the runway charger to the D-8 battery. He had a slightly larger German 3-cylinder BMW engine from the 1950s, which powered up other 36-volt deep-cycle marine batteries in the house for the odd occasion he used it, and he could get by on a gallon and a half a day on needed usage. He hadn’t used the electrical grid for several years now.
His masters in electrical engineering at UNC had been a blast and he had sailed through, and his tinkering hadn’t stopped since he had finished his studies. Some of his professors still popped by the hangar from time to time to see what he was up to. He lived a mile or so north of Jordan Lake, just outside Apex, North Carolina on about 40 acres of farmland his father had bequeathed to him many years before in his will.
The lights came on in the house, and Oliver barked a friendly welcome to a well-known visitor.
“Must be Martie,” Preston said out loud as he switched off the inner hangar lights and pressed the outside door button to roll-close the large door. He looked back and watched as the real love of his life—a just completed twin-engine World War II P-38L Lightning— disappeared into the recesses of the darkening hangar.
“The four Browning are now clean and ready,” he thought to himself as he walked the 50 yards toward the house. “I’m sure that if I search the Internet I could find an old Hispano cannon, the only gun I’m now missing up front.
I wonder where I can get some live ammo for her new machine guns? I‘m sure I could also find some cannon rounds if I could find a cannon. They should go together, but maybe I should ask Carlos’ friend at Hill Air Force Base in Salt Lake City, or even Martie’s dad might know of a base where I could ask. I’m sure they could at least point me in the right direction. They could even point to some bombs or even some old rockets in storage somewhere… or maybe they won’t…”
“I got a store-cooked chicken, a pint of vanilla ice cream, and a six-pack of Yuenglings on my way over,” shouted a female voice from the direction of the house.
“I can smell the bird from here,” replied Preston, as he mounted the rear stairs to the kitchen door. Oliver was suddenly as eager as he.
“I saw your landing lights come on and knew you were incoming when I turned off 64,” she replied, turning to face him as he entered through the rusty screen door. Martie Roebels was nine years younger than him, a very lovely and young 29-year old blonde from German stock and as clever as he was, both in the spoken word and engineering.
Martie was a real engineer, not a dabbler like him. She practiced what she had learned at MIT by working for a software company at the Research Triangle Park, or RTP, just outside Durham. A lover of flying as much as he was, Martie owned her own Mustang—a P-51D given to her by her grandfather who had restored it to perfect condition a decade earlier. Preston stored it for her in the hangar next to his own older model, a P-51C in the far corner. He only allowed Martie and his best friend Carlos Rodriquez to see the aircraft inside the airport’s only hangar, since the antique aircraft were of extreme value.
Preston’s dream was to fly his P-51 beside her P-51, and have his best friend Carlos, who lived in Salt Lake City, fly his P-51C on his other wing. Boy, it sure would be a sight to see, that formation, but that day was still a few months away.
His trusty crop duster was his paying job and he knew every inch of the large farms in Orange and Chatham counties, and further beyond where he was paid to spray the acres of new farm crops whenever he was needed.
“Get anything done today?” asked Martie, giving him a man-sized bear hug as he tried to get his flying shoes off by the back door. At six-feet tall, she could hug like a grizzly and did not believe in soft men, or being soft with men. Her six-foot, six-inch grandfather had been in the German air force during the war. He had been captured and became an American prisoner of war. In 1946, he had been released and had decided to stay in his new country. Wolfgang Von Roebels had become an American citizen ten years later. In 1950, his first son Michael, Martie’s father, had been born to him and his new German-American wife in Redmond, Oregon.
“I sprayed organic fertilizer on the Holman farm in Chatham County this morning and the old Smith farm in Orange County this afternoon. A thousand acres in a day isn’t bad,” Preston replied, opening the fridge for his favorite beer. “Do you think I could write a letter to Hill Air Force Base in Utah… you know, to that guy Carlos introduced us to last year to see if I can get some .50-caliber ammo for our 51s? I want to see if all our Browning machine guns and now the four .50-caliber guns I‘ve been replacing on the P-38 are still all working perfectly.”
“Why? Are we going to war?” joked Martie. “I could always ask Grandpa if he knows anybody.” She returned carrying two steaming plates of food to the kitchen dining table she had already set. She didn’t live here, but she spent most her free time at the farm. Martie had a townhouse in Chapel Hill, left over from a semester at UNC after MIT, and just hadn’t sold it yet. “We could search for ammo in California at the same time,” Martie suggested cutting into her chicken leg and stuffing a portion into her mouth.
“I suppose 50-caliber ammo would be easy to find on the Internet. You can find anything on the Internet these days,” Preston answered. “But I hate the permits and questions the authorities might ask before they’ll allow civilians to have large amounts of live ammo in their procession,” returned Preston, grabbing two more beers from the refrigerator and screwing the tops off. He handed one to her. “Doesn’t your grandfather still have that Air Force buddy in Washington, or somewhere, where we could get some advice? I could also ask Buck in New York to see if he knows somebody. He said a few months ago that his Air Force contact—the one who has a share in Lady Dandy—was back in Washington with his DC-3 from somewhere overseas.”
“I’m going to visit Grandpa and Dad over the weekend. I will ask them,” she replied.
Her father, Michael Roebels was as big and strong as his father before him. At 20, he had attended UCLA and completed his first Ph.D. in engineering and modern electronics—the new form of communication excitement hitting the country in the early 1970s. He had been embarrassed about the “Von” in his name, thought it too brash, and had dropped it in everyday practice. It still showed on his official passport though.
After completing his second Ph.D. in electronics in 1975, also at MIT, Michael Roebels formed a new company with his father in San Diego right next to the main San Diego airport runway, and started designing navigation devices for fighter aircraft.
By 1983 and the birth of his daughter, Martie, the two men had their first military order for low-level flight navigators, and Michael purchased a new house in the growing suburb of La Jolla, north of San Diego. Their successful company was bought out by Raytheon in 1987, and after ten years of hard work, both men retired very comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Martie fell in love with flying at the age of four. Her father and grandfather had both purchased a couple of old biplanes and moved to a large slice of 100 acres of farmland in a new and popular wine area called Napa. The family invested their new fortune into wine country and decided to manufacture “German Liebfraumilch”—a type of semi-sweet white wine Wolfgang was partial to—and formed the unofficial Napa Luftwaffe Airport on their land at the same time.
Martie still remembered her first solo flight in her father’s self-built small tail dragger, an aircraft with a small rear wheel, at the age of 15. She was literally in heaven, flying over land and sea, and had to land the craft, much to her father’s dismay, with a coughing engine, totally out of fuel three long hours later. She was then hooked for life, and her most recent flight, in an old Cessna 172 as a flying instructor, was in Hillsborough the weekend before their chicken dinner. Afterwards, both she and Preston had celebrated her 2,000th flying hour with champagne and shrimp at a local restaurant. It had been a fun and great day to remember —October 12th.
***
Preston Strong was from American stock, with his great, great grandfather from Ireland and great, great grandmother of Puritan English descendants. His grandfather and grandmother had been born to farming families in Georgia, got married, and after the war in 1949 had moved further north and purchased the 200 acres of prime North Carolina farmland where Preston currently lived.
Times were tough in the 50s and 60s for the Strong family. His grandmother had passed away in 1954, when his father, Michael was ten. Most people believe that she took her own life, but his father told Preston long afterwards that his grandmother had lost two children—the daughters she had always dreamed about—to miscarriages before, Michael had been born, and she had never gotten over it.
Farming was not a well-paying profession in the 1960s, especially on a small farm of 200 acres, and Grandfather Strong was forced to sell 150 acres of it to cover growing farm debts and pay the mortgage off. This allowed the remaining 60 acres to become free and clear of debt. His grandfather gave up trying to make a living wage on the land, and learned to drive a truck in 1960 as a profession. He signed the best 40 acres with the house over to his son Michael, the only heir, and sold the other 20 acres to buy his first rig.
Four years later, Grandfather Strong was killed in a multiple-truck crash while crossing the Rockies in mid-winter, and his son received a small insurance policy payout and a bigger lawsuit payout from the national company whose rig driver was at fault. This had paid all other deb
ts and allowed Mike, as he was now known to his friends, to learn to fly, get a commercial pilot’s license, and be hired on by an airline ten years later in 1974.
Mike Strong was a new pilot with Pan Am when he met Mary Strong, nee-Parkins, who was a flight attendant instructor at Pan Am in Miami, and immediately fell in love. They were married within six weeks and Preston was born the same year. Mike was a good pilot, and was often away during Preston’s young life. His mother had been forced to give up her position with Pan Am and had become a doting housewife.
Preston always remembered his father’s advice when he saw him. “If you don’t do well in school, son, you won’t get into college.” Those words were relayed to him every time his father returned home from flying. Sometimes he was only home once or twice a month, but when he was home, he constantly drilled Preston on what was important; “Electronics, engineering and mechanics are the professions of the future, son.”
They often discussed Preston’s future, but it was cemented when he turned 12. As a belated birthday present, Michael took Preston with him on one of his short work flights. He was shown how all the gadgets in the cockpit worked. Preston was glued to every instrument and was even allowed to ride in the cockpit jump seat behind his father on the short leg to Atlanta and back. In those days, air travel security was far more lax. He never forgot that night. It was December 21st, 1986 in the airport restaurant when Preston told his father that he didn’t need to lecture anymore—he was hooked on electronics, any type of electronics.
