“Why the rush to Asia, Pete?” asked the president.
“Carlos believes that if we take out their satellite communication station on the other side, we could take over complete control of all their operational satellite hardware. If we capture or kill their mercenary squads over here and relieve them of their cell phones, we could be in control of global communications again, plus I will get the chance to blow their headquarters off the face of the earth. I want to take one of the captured cell phones with me, since I heard from Carlos on my way in, that they have captured several American satellite phones. That could give me direct satellite contact with you, Mr. President. Carlos is going to get as many of the systems working as he can. I will take one with me on my flight, since he thinks that by using the aircraft’s transponder for short intervals and using the aircraft as a massive antenna for the satellite phone, he can satellite-guide me across the Bering Strait into Japan, and then on to my target. I can also warn you, Mr. President, about any attack on our aircraft by Chinese fighters when I get there. If that happens, you can act accordingly with a missile strike.”
“How many cell phones did they capture?” asked Buck.
“They have three fully-operational and three broken ones. Carlos said that he and Lee Wang can repair the three broken ones. There were ten in total and they have four for spare parts,” the general replied. “Why?”
“Any extra spare parts could be built into the dead ones you Air Force guys use,” suggested Buck. “I know Carlos has a satellite phone. I bet he hasn’t thought of replacing the electronic parts in his phone. I’ll tell him when I get down there later today.”
“Good point, Buck,” smiled the general. “My plan is still in the making, but if I survive over Nanjing, Mr. President, I want to fly into Beijing and find out the truth—whether or not the Chinese government has anything to do with this catastrophe. Then I want to fly up to Moscow. I’m sure I can refuel in both cities, and if the Chinese Government is friendly, they can fuel us up and get me to the Russian border. Or I can go via India since there must be tons of unused jet fuel at all the world’s commercial airports. If I take my own tanker, I can refuel anywhere. If I come up against opposition forces, I can relay the information back to you.”
“That’s one hell of a trip in old C-130s,” stated General Ward, no so optimistic. “You are going to need a lot of luck to find little Japan in the middle of nowhere, on low fuel reserves and without modern navigation. How long are you expecting to fly around the world, Pete?”
“Only ten days, Mike,” laughed General Allen. “I want to get from Moscow, through to our base in Turkey. My biggest challenge at the moment is getting our troops back to the States—a million men and women. Lady Luck is going to have to show her face. I believe that we must try to thwart any attack on our mainland by the opposition as soon as we can—by either Zedong Electronics or the Chinese or Russian governments. I don’t know how they plan to do it, but they will need fully working naval ships and aircraft carriers to get to us, and when they do, we must try and capture what we can, fill them up with gas, and send them over to the Middle East to bring back our troops.”
“South Korea should be okay, and our troops should survive in Europe, but with no back-up vehicles or protection in the Middle East and Africa, those guys have only a few weeks or months at most. I can’t do much here against the weather at the moment. You guys can start a food distribution system with a civilian air force and workforce, but over there I must find massive ships to bring back our men and women. First, I want to know who we are dealing with, and I believe that any attack on the United States will be caught by Carlos and Navistar P in time to prepare. I’m hoping I can get back in time to see the action—I will be returning via our base on the Azores, just within range of Andrews.”
*****
The boardroom on the 30th floor was busy. On Z-Day 4, the full membership of 16 men was in their seats. Once again, it was time for reports. The room had only one other man waiting to speak—the chief technical officer from the satellite communications department, one floor below. The chairman rose and gestured for silence.
“Before I get to my latest report, Comrades, I would like our specialist from downstairs, as well as Comrade Wang to give their reports on our first major attack on foreign soil.” He pointed to the technical officer.
“Comrades,” the gentleman started. “Comrade Wang and I have been in contact with our termination squads in America. It took a couple of hours, as it seems the battle was long and hard. We lost communications with them for over three hours. From the communications side, we are now up and running again and I will let you know of any news. Comrade Wang has the rest of the report.” He bowed and left the room.
“Comrade Chairman and fellow Comrades, I have excellent news from America,” Comrade Mo Wang smiled to the room, even though his gut was signaling to him that something wasn’t quite right. “We had a two-hour battle with Americans at the small airport in North Carolina. It was an unimportant and small air base and it seems that there was a platoon of 30 American soldiers guarding the propeller-driven aircraft. This caused our Comrades a bit of a problem and we unfortunately lost half of our brave men to the Americans. On the positive side, our men killed everybody there including all the American soldiers, as well as 20 pilots, several civilian and their families—a remarkable feat. Our squad commanders were brave and fought well, but many lost their lives in the attack.”
“If our commanders are dead, Comrade Wang, who are we communicating with?” asked the chairman.
“A young man I know well,” replied the stressed Wang. “A man I personally recruited, and even though I haven’t spoken to him for 30 years, I recognized his voice. I have given him command of the remaining troops and told him to stay at the base until I get authorization from you to send more troops to take over command from him. He stated that they are still seeing several small civilian aircraft around Raleigh and believe that the city’s international airport could be another place that has a group of aircraft. I have ordered him to go and take a look and told him that we would send in more squads to deal with any enemy problems before they are needed in New York and Washington.
“And this man is dependable?” asked the chairman. “I want him to remain close by that Raleigh airport until we get more squads in. It sounds like this area is full of civilian aircraft. I believe it may be due to the massive storm over the northern states. I will assume that these aircraft flew south and are congregating at this airport south of the storm. It is in our favor, as we could potentially destroy all of the remaining aircraft in one battle and then move our squads north to meet us in New York. Comrade Wang, send the 50 termination squads from the southern American border area to this Raleigh airport, and check with our technical staff downstairs to see if there has been any transponder movement around this city. They must destroy everything they see in this area! Once this problem is dealt with, then order our squads to move north.”
“We only have two and a half weeks before our arrival and we need all three major airports ready for our airborne troops, and with American aviation fuel flowing, to get our 30 747-400ERs and five Airbus 380s back to China. Thank you and well done Comrade Wang. I knew America wouldn’t be easy to invade and I’m sure we are going to deal with more problems before we can call North America our own. Wang, I want the rest of our East Coast termination squads in New York to get to the JFK airport on time. They will inspect and start up the six bulldozers we have hidden in the rented warehouse. The squads must be there 24 hours ahead of our aircraft, as planned. They must first clear the main runway at JFK and meet our incoming men and troops at the airport. And remind them, comrade, they have a ton of salt and the six bulldozers to do the job.”