Butler was embarrassed to admit that he had somewhat stereotyped the prepper/survivalist community. It seemed that even the most intelligent members of society were clever enough to prepare for the worst. When he was forced to think about it, it really wasn’t that surprising. He’d just been watching far too much sensationalist TV where the average prepper was most definitely not an MIT graduate who was working at NASA or some other genius type organization.
The C130 was stripped. Its electronic components were strewn across the cabin floor, in some apparent order but to Butler, it looked like chaos. How they were going to rebuild it, he had no idea, but they assured him it would only take a few hours to get it back together.
An M4S rifle secured from the C130’s hold also sat stripped, its microchips alongside those of the C130’s.
Butler waited. They had called him over to give him an update on their findings. Preliminary findings, they had hastened to add.
“So guys, what did you find?”
The MIT professor spent the next few minutes talking a language that, as far as Butler was concerned, was from another world. Few words made any sense and the sentences that they were used in, even less. The rest of the group hung on every word, nodding enthusiastically.
“Whoa! Please can I have the ‘for dummies’ version over here?”
“My apologies, Mr. Butler,” replied the professor. “That was the simple version.”
One of the younger members of the group of geniuses stepped forward. “Put simply, these chips are utterly brilliant in their design and effectiveness. They look like any normal chip and act in exactly the way they should, but are far, far more intelligent. At their core is a tiny receiver. The receiver has been designed to look different on each chip type but is in fact exactly the same component. You’d never know that these different chip types carry the identical component.”
“But why would they go to all that trouble?” asked Butler, confused.
“Redundancy,’ he replied, as though Butler should have known. “Imagine you had a problem with one chip across your equipment. All you need is a second chip that’s not the same as the first chip to back it up. That way, if one goes down you can still do what you have to do. Likewise, in some instances, there’ll be a third and fourth line of redundancy. Also, you never have the same component across your entire range of equipment.”
He noted Butler was struggling slightly.
“Okay, consider I make potato chips. For those, I need potatoes. So I buy potatoes. Imagine I only bought potatoes from one field with one farmer but that field was ravaged by disease. My potatoes would be useless and I couldn’t make any chips. So what would I do?”
“You’d not rely on one farmer and one field, or even one type of potato,” replied Butler, nodding and smiling. “You’d buy from lots of different farmers and fields.”
“Exactly. So if one was bad, the others would cover for them.”
“So we haven’t got that?”
“Well yes, we do,” he replied, “but they each share one particular component which can stop them all at once if required.”
Butler nodded. He had been right from the very start and that had been why they had been so desperate to kill him. He could have stopped them before they had even started.
“So how long to change the chips?” he asked.
“Years,” came the response from the whole group.
“And that’s just to create them. You’d then need to strip down every piece of equipment, replace the chips and rebuild them,” added one.
“So the entire equipment of the US forces has been killed by these little bastards?”
“Wait a minute,” the younger one said, shaking his head. “We didn’t say they were dead. These chips aren’t dead, they’ve just been put on standby. The receivers just tell them to switch on and off and something has told them to switch off.”
“So we just need to switch them back on and our forces come back to life?”
“Well yes, except we’ve no idea how to do that,” said the young IT genius.
“That’s okay,” said Swanson, checking her watch as she joined the discussion, “you’ve still got about 60 hours to find out how.”
Chapter 76
They had been on the road for over three days and in every town they drove through, the situation worsened. Gas and food had become nonexistent. He had promised to get Lauren home and had every intention of doing so but as his car ran out of its last fluid ounce of gas, and with little food between them, he had to face the facts. Surviving was the best he could hope for. There were still over six hundred miles between them and Lauren’s parents.
He had had the choice, when the Rangers had left them at his car, to follow them back to their barracks and head back to Georgia - one tank of gas would have got them there - or do as promised and get his sister’s baby back to her. Bill Swann was a man of his word. He also hadn’t considered for a minute that the power outage would last so long. Three days and still there was nothing. Gas couldn’t be pumped. Fridges had stopped working. Generators had all but died. Only the last few could still be heard as they passed through the small towns that skirted I-80 in Indiana. Restaurants were closed. Food stores were closed.
America was closed.
People were begging for food. Some did it pathetically, others more aggressively and as time passed, the aggressive began to outweigh the pathetic. As the sun began to set on another night, he began to wonder how they were going to make the six hundred mile journey. He had little cash left. No ATMs were working and nothing was open anyway. They approached a motel, its sign said ‘Vacancies’. His mood lifted. Hungry and tired, they approached a door which hung askew, hanging on just one hinge. Bill walked into a deserted reception area. A few keys hung on hooks behind the desk. He grabbed a couple and walked through to a small dining area. It too was deserted. A door at the back led through to a kitchen. Its doors were wide open. Not a morsel of food was left. They walked through and out into the courtyard. The keys were surplus to requirements, every door was wide open. Each room had been picked bare. The flat screen TVs that were advertised were nowhere to be seen, likewise the coffee makers and radios. However, the beds were still there.
What the thieves could have done with the electrical equipment without power seemed irrelevant. They would sleep in a bed, hungry, but a lot more comfortable than they had been for the previous two nights.
Bill settled Mike and Lauren into one room and told them to keep the door closed. He couldn’t buy food but he could damn well hunt for it.
He walked out of the motel, across the almost desolate highway and with a vast expanse of open ground before him, settled down and waited for a target. It wasn’t long in coming. A deer came into his sights, over eight hundred yards away, but well within his range. He heard a rustle behind him but remained on target and fired. The deer went down, an instant kill.
“That’s damn fine shooting, sir,” said a voice from behind.
Bill had heard the two men approach but hadn’t wanted to turn and risk missing the deer. They had been almost silent in their approach, understanding what he was doing. They were hunters themselves.
“Thanks,” he said, turning to greet them. “Too much for us though, happy to share.”
“No that’s okay, friend, we’re fine,” they said, much to his astonishment. He was actually wondering if they would have let him have any without a fight.
“Are you sure? It’s too big for me to carry all this way. I’m afraid I’m just going to cut what I need and leave the rest. By the time I come back, I imagine it’ll be picked clean.”
“We were just driving past and saw you line up that shot. That is really impressive shooting.”
“You’ve got gas?” asked Bill, surprised.
“Friend, we have everything you can imagine, food, gas, what we don’t have much of is folks that shoot as fine as that over that distance.”
“Okay,” said Bill suspiciously.
&
nbsp; “We’re a couple of miles ahead of our main party, how’d you fancy joining us?”
“Joining you for what?”
“Teaching these Chinese bastards that they fucked with the wrong country!” spat the one that had remained quiet up until then. Bill could see why the other one had done most of the talking. He had also probably done his fair share of teaching the Chinese or at least their president that they had messed with the wrong country.
“I’ve got a niece who’d have to come with us, and her boyfriend,” he said. He wouldn’t miss the chance of helping in any way he could, but he wouldn’t leave Lauren to fend for herself.
“What age?”
“They’re in their twenties.”
“Can they shoot?”
“Absolutely!”
“Welcome to the Patriotic Guard of America, friend, Montana Division,” said the man smiling widely. “Next stop, Washington!”
Chapter 77
General Petlin’s desk was littered with updates from across America. Some kind of militia army was marching to take back the country. Its numbers were growing but not, alas for them, their capability. The ragtag army would be cannon fodder for his armored divisions, further bolstered by a number of deliveries from China. In a few days, the mass component of the Chinese forces would begin to arrive. Until then, his expeditionary force was more than capable of dealing with the uprising.
His initial equipment and five thousand troops had taken months to build, concealed in containers and shipped across as components. The stock of tanks, helicopters and armored personnel vehicles, were slowly building as planned until the day of the takeover. By taking down the American military and obliterating the world’s satellites, he had had free reign to fly in, unencumbered, whatever was necessary. His forces had built up over the last week to a point where he wondered whether they actually needed the sea bound force. His troops had total dominance of the United States.
With the securing of key military targets, he had begun to spread his forces around the country. His forces soon had every army base with over one hundred troops surrounded, effectively imprisoning the US military and its useless equipment. Of course, it was only useless until the main Chinese force arrived. They would then take custody of the equipment and bring it back to life and to full use. At all costs, he was to avoid destroying what ultimately would become Chinese equipment. A couple of attempts to break out had already taken place. In both instances, they had been quelled with brutal and overwhelming force. The US military had little capability to deal with his tanks and attack choppers.
The militia coming in from across the country had even less capability. He had two options, take them out as they arose, group by group, or wait until they had amassed and crush them in one decisive and humiliating blow. The group by group option had too many disadvantages, including the distribution of his forces throughout the country. He had pockets of strength where he needed them and wanted that to remain. They were also able to communicate in some way and attacking groups individually would alert others, allowing them to flee and potentially come back in the future or go guerilla on him. He had spent time in Afghanistan with the Soviet forces. That was something he’d avoid if at all possible.
One decisive and brutal show of force was without a doubt the best option for all involved, including the Americans. He would ensure that the event was filmed for portrayal as one of the first broadcasts when the regime announced itself to its new countrymen. It would be a fitting broadcast when they switched the power back on. His men would show no mercy, they would take no prisoners and offer no help to the wounded. It would be a warning to every American. Their world, their lives, their freedoms had gone forever.
He had to give it them, the numbers were impressive. Tens of thousands were using various circuitous routes to head to the capital. The Chinese satellites and his own spies were tracking their every move. Numbers had already swollen in two locations. He anticipated Camp Trust would be one target, while the other would most definitely be Washington and the White House.
Forewarned was forearmed. Not that they needed it, but he ordered a number of troop movements that would ensure they put on a very good show for the cameras. After all, they had a new nation to impress.
Chapter 78
Saturday July 11th 2015
President Jack King looked at the forces they had managed to assemble just to the Northwest of Washington near Poolesville, Maryland. It was not the most organized or well-dressed or well-armed group of men he had ever commanded, but they were damn sure the most eager. For the first time in over two hundred years, Americans were fighting for their own freedom. He had considered what he would say and how he would motivate the men and women who stood before him, ready to risk their lives for their country. He didn’t need to say anything. Before them was all the motivation they required. Their capital was in the control of a foreign force.
“Let’s get our freedom back!” shouted Jack. “God Bless America!”
The first to roll towards Washington were the pick-ups. The stingers would deal with the attack choppers. Jack didn’t even want to know how Victor and his ‘friends’ had acquired half the equipment on display; it was definitely not the time to complain. Behind that followed the .50 caliber machine gun armed pick-ups. Beyond that, his main force was some twenty thousand well armed and very well prepared US citizens.
His greatest concern was the tanks. They had a few RPGs available but from experience, they had little effect against the armor of modern tanks. They needed Butler to come through. He had promised he would not let them down but with an hour to go, Jack was getting nervous. The tanks would decimate them.
Victor King was having a similar concern to the North. His force could take Camp Trust and destroy the heart of the Chinese operation. His scouts had returned. A massive force of armor sat between him and his prize.
***
Butler was on schedule; he was in the C130. It was all about the timing. Thanks to some of his new IT wizards, he was able to communicate with his main force and would coordinate the attack and support of the ground forces. He realized the scale of the task they were undertaking and the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Without him, there would be no chance. Without him, it would be a massacre. Shit, he thought, I need to stop thinking and start doing.
“What’s wrong?” asked Swanson, who had noticed his sudden change of mood.
“Nothing, nothing , just….”
“What?”
“I just realized how important this all is. I mean in the history of our nation.”
She walked across from her seat and gave him a hug. “It’s okay, you’ve done more than anyone could ask already. Whatever happens, we did what we could,” she said encouragingly.
“You’re right.” He pushed her gently aside. It was not the time for sentiment, it was time for action. Swanson walked back to her station and watched as Butler counted down the last few seconds. She would be in control of the northern attack at the camp, while he would cover the southern attack against Washington.
He counted down the last three seconds and they both turned to their screens and radioed their respective teams. “Go, I repeat go!” they both said in unison.
The addition of a radar system that worked was just another of the staggering feats that had been achieved in the last five days. Tucson, Arizona was home to the largest aircraft boneyard in the world. Over twenty-six hundred acres stored almost four and a half thousand aircraft, most of which would never fly again. However, a large portion were simply stored, awaiting upgrade or for use at a later date.
Again, it had been the microchips. His guess had paid off. Shortly after arrival, a test flight of one of the older stored aircraft had proven he was correct. Anything prior to the Trust’s involvement was unaffected. The boneyard was theirs for the taking. Almost entirely manned by civilians, it had flown under the Chinese radar. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite that simple. They may have been able to secure some
aircraft but they still needed the weapons to arm them. Again, it came down to the most simple of solutions. If it didn’t need microchips, it was perfect. It also needed to be able to take out a tank. It needed to be relatively simple to resurrect from storage and simple to fly for even the most basic pilot. One aircraft ticked every box and there were over one hundred and sixty of them at the boneyard: The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, more commonly referred to as the Warthog.
It was a cannon with wings and built with one purpose in mind, to kill tanks. He had instantly been reminded of it when Victor had talked about a problem with tanks and how he had driven past them with Swanson in Baltimore.
They were perfect, simple, effective and utterly devastating, and with over seventy being prepped and readied in five days, along with a number of tankers to refuel them, they were the answer to the ground forces’ prayers. The Chinese were in for a surprise and not a pleasant one.
***
Jack had paused his forces when they neared their point of attack. As they formed up into their final attack positions, a familiar voice called across to Jack.
“President King!”
Jack looked across and looked through the man whose pick-up was pulling closer to him. It took him a few seconds to recognize him. “Shooter?”
Bill Swann nodded. “Sergeant Major Swann reporting for duty, sir!” he said with a proud smile.
“How in the hell did you get here?” asked Jack.
“That, sir, is a long story. But a couple of boys reckoned I could still shoot some. So here I am and I’ve been assigned to protect your sorry ass.”
ALL ACTION THRILLER BOXSET: THREE MURRAY MCDONALD STANDALONE THRILLERS Page 33
