by T I WADE
Each computer was connected to a Hughes Net satellite dish and thousands of messages were transmitted daily through the three Chinese satellites Carlos and Lee had repositioned above the United States for this reason.
The system wasn’t fast, but a hundred times faster than somebody reading the names over radios or satellite phones. Several computer engineers controlled the incoming information which never stopped, and the President, still alone in governing the country, had called a White House meeting with General Patterson and other staff to get up-to-date on the military reports.
“Thank you for coming, General, colonels and members of my staff. Each of you has a very important job to do,” started the President. “I will be here in Washington until our next major meeting at Andrews on April 1st. What are our figures to date? General Patterson, I need some good news, so tell me how our troop movements are doing.”
“Mr. President, over three days ago we changed from bringing in troops to the aircraft carrying in food supplies. We are still completing one troop flight across to Europe and a second one directly to the Middle East, daily. We have two of the 747 aircraft in maintenance for two days and another two coming in tomorrow. The 747 transporter has taken the cargo route of the two 747s in scheduled maintenance, and this change doesn’t decrease our lift totals very much. As of 72 hours ago, we have 679,000 troops back in the country. We have tallied up the remaining soldiers to get back and our numbers were out by over 190,000 men, once we got our numbers right. We still need to transport 420,000 men which will take more than 60 flight days, once we get back to troop flights in five days’ time. We have to increase our food flights by one extra day per change, to allow us to feed the growing numbers on our side of the pond.”
“I was told by the Chief of Staff in November last year that we only had a million soldiers overseas. Where has this increase come from, General?” the President asked, annoyed.
“I can only assume that you were not being told exact or up-to-date numbers, Mr. President,” General Patterson replied simply.
“Where is my old Chief of Staff?” asked the President, demanding somebody find him.
“His body and that of his wife were found at their home in Houston, Texas, Mr. President,” continued General Patterson. “They had been executed with a bullet in the back of the head. The three bodyguards were found in the front garden with several gunshot wounds. Everybody living on that street was executed. A couple of Texas congressmen, a senator and several military generals lived in the same gated community. The soldiers who were searching the area had a three-day battle with a group of over several hundred men who had ransacked a local National Guard armory and were well-armed. They killed the bad guys but lost several dozen good men in the process. Over a hundred bodyguards had been taken out before our troops arrived. It is believed that this army of men was hitting the more wealthy suburbs, going house to house and executing anybody inside. They did this in three large neighborhoods before the soldiers caught up with them, and it is believed that the gang killed a couple of thousand innocent civilians. Each of the houses had been ransacked and everything of value taken. One of the badly wounded gangsters told the soldiers of their new headquarters, an iron-fenced elementary school in the area. A second firefight ensued with another couple of dozen men. Their leaders, all local gangsters from Texas, were killed. Several had escaped from local prisons. Mountains of valuables were found, and important to us, IDs for the dead people were recovered and sent through to us a couple of days ago. Identifications included the politicians and the military personnel. These guys were doing a total sweep of this wealthy area for a couple of months.”
The President sat down and thought about what he had just heard. “What information do we have so far on other missing members of the government?” he asked General Patterson.
“That was to be my second report, Sir. We have found two more members of Congress alive, both uninterested in returning to Washington. One was holding off a dozen gangsters when the army went to check up on him in Arizona. He had personally killed half of them and he, his two sons and one daughter were ready and well-armed to take on the rest. The soldiers got rid of the gang members in that area and met with Congressman McDonald. He is not leaving his home and will offer his resignation if you order him to return. He said to tell you that he would return once soldiers had cleaned up his entire area. Congressman Broman in Montana has a 300-acre horse ranch and has beaten off three attacks. He said the same: put in a hundred men to protect his family and he would return. We can bring them in when you want us to, Mr. President.”
“What about the rest, General?”
“As of yesterday we have confirmed the deaths of 287 Congressmen and 91 senators. The Vice President and his wife were found dead in their house with both bodies dismembered by a mob. His bodyguards also perished in the attack. His bodyguards had killed a dozen people before they were killed. On the East Coast and northern areas of the country, many of the congressional and senate deaths were due to vehicle accidents around midnight, New Year’s Eve. Gang violence is the main reason for deaths in the south and on the West Coast.”
“It sounds like the whole country is in anarchy,” stated the President.
“I would say that in 90 percent of the country, you are right, Mr. President,” the general replied.
“What about all the police in the country. What happened to them?”
“To date reports in from all 50 states show identification of over 500,000 of the country’s deaths were policemen and 65 percent of these deaths were from violence. We assume gangs, or police-haters in those areas knew where the officers lived and went after them. In one town in Oklahoma, a prison of 400 inmates got loose and wiped out the local town. Over 3,000 deaths before the army went in and terminated all of the jail breakers. Ten percent of the deaths were policemen or prison wardens and their families.”
“How is the troop importation helping your numbers, General Patterson?” asked the President, sober and uneasy with all the bad news.
“We were getting in 10,000 per day and shipping out the same number of troops who had arrived a few days earlier, having been given a few days’ rest. The incoming troops were resting and being rearmed at the airport terminals in New York and at Andrews and McGuire. The really good news, Mr. President, is that Amtrak is back on track. The railways got their first train all the way through to Los Angeles from Washington yesterday. It completed the Midwest, Northeast and the Midwest California routes in ten days, having to wait to have snow cleared in the Chicago area for a day, and for about two hundred miles over the mountainous areas. It was an older engine, from the 1980s, and retired five years ago, and which was found still operational in an Amtrak storage facility. We called it the California Express and she took 4,500 soldiers, dropping off 100 soldiers in over thirty small towns where there weren’t any. The train was shot at a dozen times but apart from one train derailment outside Albuquerque where the attack occurred and where bulldozers were already clearing the undamaged tracks, she got through. Engineers had to shunt several other trains onto secondary rail lines with older engines and bulldozers. By the end of April we hope to have three trains a day leaving Washington in three different directions: one daily to Los Angeles, the Texas Eagle to Dallas, and Midwest South down to New Orleans. As the snow clears, we can get more of the northern routes cleared. The railways reported yesterday that they now have Hughes Net satellite dishes working across the country at many of the major railway stations, all protected by armed soldiers, Mr. President. The railways predict that twenty trains will be running by mid-year, transporting men to all the southern areas, 15,000 a day, and trains crisscrossing the country in both directions. Our latest plan is to take pressure off our aircraft and use the railways for troop movement until spring and then food distribution once all our men are stateside and relocated.”
“Things are looking up for once,” remarked a slightly happier President. “There should be dozens of goods tra
in available in the near future. I understand the trucking industry is done for, except for a few percent of trucks still operational. They can collect from railway stations and transport into smaller outlying areas, just like in the early days of the country.”
“Our plan exactly, Mr. President,” replied General Patterson. “We need to remember that any ground movement needs protection and we have twenty heavy box wagons being retrofitted with armored sides and these will be placed on each train. At least two of them will have rocket launchers, a Mutt jeep or two, mortars, and ammo, and the boxcars will have sleeping and eating quarters for the soldiers. Their roofs will slide open and their sides slide down so that they can fire from the wagon, or have the protection up with slits to fire out of.”
“Sounds like an old cowboy movie,” suggested the President.
“We are thinking of calling them Wells Fargo Wagons, Sir,” replied the general.
“OK, the bad news, please; deaths and the living.”
The general asked the two colonels in charge of recordings to give their reports.
“My name is Colonel Sinter, U.S. Marines, Mr. President. I’m in charge of recording the deaths. As of yesterday morning, total deaths countrywide, not including Hawaii and Alaska is 87,510,450 bodies with identification. Without identification, we have approximately 22,200,500 bodies, or body parts which can represent a body. We might double-count parts of the same body, but we do our best to at least take a fingerprint if it is possible. I believe that our accuracy figures are within 15 percent on body parts. We have covered 70 percent of the northern areas, but expect there are untold millions in cities that we still need to dig out.” The President nodded his thanks. One third of the country’s total population dead and still he knew that they were in for many more ghastly surprises.
“How far have you got into Manhattan and Chicago?” the President asked the colonel.
“We have covered about a third of Manhattan and half of the surrounding area. In Brooklyn and areas around Chicago, with busy airport hubs where planes fell out of the sky, there is absolutely nothing left, Sir. In these areas alone we believe that we will never find remains of up to two million people. The Chicago area around the railway station is now clear for a dozen blocks and also many of the more southern suburbs.”
“How many living?” was the President’s next question.
“Colonel Friday, U.S. Army, reporting on living civilians, Mr. President,” the second colonel spoke up. First, U.S. Military Troops: 1,467,550 alive and accounted for. Second, Military Families: we calculate there are approximately 4,500,000 spouses and children of military personnel eating military supplies from the five Chinese container ships. That food is now nearly used up, Sir. We haven’t managed to document the entire number of military spouses and children yet, but have 3,000 men working on it. Next, Food Rations for Civilians: 9,670,250 civilian men women and children have been given food rations from MRE rations and/or the Chinese rations. The fourth and last group includes mostly farmers and civilians working in or around the military bases who do not need aid, 3,950,900. We have taken this last number into account and this amount represents 30 percent of the possible farmers, or crop producers in the whole country. This number could increase to 10 million food growers. We are assuming that a total of between 80 to 130 million people will survive the winter conditions, but we cannot get an idea of how many of these will die due to gang- or other human-related violence. End of my report, Mr. President.”
Everybody in the room felt sick to their stomachs.
***
Many civilians, like Captain Mallory and many of his crew, worked nonstop helping to set up food stations across the country. He had John, his copilot, Pam Wallace and many others flying food across the country 24/7. On the 20th of March, the food nearly ran out. There were not enough rations to feed fifty more people in one of the food distribution points when flights of the food, arriving on the 747s, reached him in the middle of Tennessee. The system was struggling to keep up.
***
Thousands of soldiers cleared snow and collected frozen bodies in more than a dozen large northern cities. Civilians, also by the thousands helped take identification out of wallets, cars, pockets, and sometimes in the most unlikely places. One guy had his ID on the collar of his dead dog, lying stiff next to him in a Chicago suburb.
The cremation pits grew in numbers and by the 25th of March the Manhattan team was within two blocks of Times Square. They were working with heavy machinery clearing the snow with dozens of old dump trucks taking whole blocks of ice and snow, and human limbs sticking out of the blocks. On March 28th, they were digging in ice fields forty to fifty feet deep when they began to uncover piles of dead bodies nearly thirty feet high, one and a half blocks from Times Square. Another group coming in from the opposite side found the same. They had three blocks of human bodies thirty feet high. The numbers were staggering.
***
For Preston and Carlos the next several days were spent watching the airfield transform itself. Carlos flew out once to Salt Lake City to pick up Lee Wang and family. Their work was done at the Observatory and with the Hughes Net working through thousands of two-way satellite dishes around the country, the same satellite commands could be filed for delivery from any computer at Carlos’ headquarters, or at Andrews, or the one he had put together at Preston’s airfield. One of the smaller hangars had an office built for Carlos and its communication system was six Hughes Net satellite dishes, three pointing west and three pointing north, on top of a pole towering fifty feet over the hangar roof. It looked ugly, but nobody cared.
Preston heard from Martie twice and spoke over their satellite phones. She was working hard with her father, missing everybody and she would fly her Mustang with Sally in her Pilatus to the farm, as Preston suggested they needed a larger family vehicle. Their flight plan was to fly into Denver International, now an Air Force base and then nonstop into Andrews for the April meeting at the end of the month. Her father, Michael, was now happy to continue flying his Beechcraft. With Grandpa Roebels gone, he didn’t mind stopping to refuel every 700 miles.
Both men missed their girls, but Preston enjoyed having Little Beth and Clint around. The two quickly became inseparable; Little Beth was often seen pushing Clint’s wheelchair around the hangar and down the old runway with the dogs always tagging along around them.
The second runway was completed on March 22nd. It was left to harden in the sun for a couple of days and then a truck arrived and painted all the needed lines and markers. Preston was very impressed with the finished job.
Joe and his team often got Preston involved with construction of the President’s Mansion, as Joe called it. The single-story log cabin was only 2,000 square feet in size, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The trucks kept bringing in supplies on a daily basis from the bases to the south and by month-end the finish paint and trimmings were being applied. Preston told Joe that the house looked like one of those make-over projects that used to be on television. One day there was nothing and the next day there was a house.
The interior wasn’t very luxurious. Most of the furniture came from the storage depot at Fort Bragg and was reserved for the higher brass, but was used for the President’s House and the Officers’ Mess. The same quality furniture arrived for the larger building, the completed and operational control tower, and the several hangar accommodations.
On March 30th, two days before the next meeting was to be held at Andrews and a second meeting at Preston’s airfield, the hundreds of men began to clear up and return the farm to the way it was before the work had begun. Even bushes suddenly appeared on the dirt incline, separating the President’s House and other accommodations, and also in places out on the airfield where the two dogs weren’t used to finding a bush to mark.
That evening when Preston, Carlos, Sergeant Perry, Little Beth and Clint were enjoying a meal in the hangar’s lounge, Carlos’ satellite phone rang.
Carlos listened
for a second; it was Admiral Rogers telling him that he had his uncle with him in Norfolk. He also had some very interesting people with him.
His uncle came on the phone and in rapid Spanish sent greetings, relayed the news that he had sailed the three Frigates to Norfolk as planned, and also that they had picked up somebody who seemed to know a certain Señor Carlos Rodriquez!
They were on a very interesting ship belonging to a powerful political figure from Colombia and the admiral had saved them from an attack off the coast of Florida. He told Carlos that the gentleman in question was a Chinese fellow, a Mr. Mo Wang, and that he sent his regards to Carlos and that everybody could meet him and his entourage at Andrews Air Force Base in two days.
Carlos couldn’t believe this Mo Wang fellow. He was like a bug that just didn’t go away, and Preston laughed at Carlos when he completely rolled his eyes, listening to his uncle.
Chapter 15
Mo Wang – Florida and Virginia
Mo Wang called Pedro on the satellite phone at midnight as planned. It rang for less than a second before Pedro answered, breathless.
“Is that you, Pedro?” Mo asked.
Si, Señor Wang, this is Pedro. We have a big problem; the owner took the money for the boat and then the money for the gas. He pumped me twenty gallons before his fuel tank was empty. He shrugged his shoulders and left in his car. We do not have enough fuel to leave, so we went to our neighbors to purchase another forty gallons. We do not have enough to reach Cozumel, Señor Wang, what do we do?”
“Is diesel any good for you, Pedro?”
No, the engine is gasoline and diesel is no good, except for a small generator. We have no diesel, Señor. We are waiting for you to call.”
“How big is your boat?” asked Mo.
“Nine meters, twenty-seven feet long, Señor Wang. Shall we leave to meet you?” asked Pedro.