by Chris Harris
“Sergeant Michael Levinko, at your service Madam President. People vill be very happy to see you.”
He turned and spoke rapidly to his men and then into his radio, looking at a map and, with his tongue getting caught on the unfamiliar street names, he repeated their current location. Within minutes, more soldiers began appearing, coming from all directions as they ran to their location. Under direction of others they began to spread out in an outward-facing cordon centered around her location.
The sergeant turned to her. “We wait here. Rescue will be coming soon.”
Chapter
Six
Swall, CA
Staff Sergeant Eddie Edmunds was tired to the bone. Since the ‘uprising,’ as the locals proudly began calling their efforts to release themselves from the yolk of Chinese rule, he and the community had been working tirelessly to secure their position, expecting at any moment for an unstoppable Chinese retaliation to arrive in the form of heavy armor and high explosives.
Only a few had been party to the plan they’d hatched using the weekly pierogi-making meetings as cover. Operational security was key to the success of any mission. The Chinese had arrived in such force on an unprepared population still reeling from the news of the nuclear attacks that the humanitarian story they spun was initially believable. The lie was soon seen through as, although ordinary citizens were left alone, any law enforcement or military personnel either active or reserve were sought out and targeted. Some escaped, some were captured, but most resisted, their futile attempts met with a one-sided hail of lead. Leaders emerged and not from the places you would expect them to come from. Housewives, local farmers, and businessmen quietly stepped up to the plate and began discreetly making plans.
Eddie, a Marine Staff Sergeant, had been on leave from his training role at Camp Pendleton, south of Los Angeles. He tried to get back to see his folks as often as his duties allowed, taking advantage of at last being posted in the same state, and made the long road trip home at every opportunity.
His parents were elderly now. They’d adopted him later in life after realizing they could not have children naturally, but still wanted to raise a child they could call their own.
Both being Caucasian and being considered too old to adopt under the local rules, they did as many other couples chose to do and adopted a child from China. There were many agencies that offered, in exchange for money to smooth out the red tape, the chance to adopt an orphan who otherwise would have a bleak future in a country that held little regard for the welfare of the unfortunate. He had a happy childhood. His parents loved him and gave him every opportunity and chance that their modest lives allowed. Conscious of his Chinese heritage and not wanting him to forget where he came from, they encouraged him to be proud of his background. They ensured he attended Mandarin classes and other groups set up by parents in similar situations where adopted Chinese children had the chance to meet.
When the nuclear bombs exploded, and the invasion happened, his first thought was to immediately report back to his base. The last thing he saw though before the television channels shut down was a report of all the bases that had been destroyed in the nuclear blasts and the heavy conventional bombings that followed.
Camp Pendleton was on that list.
The arrival of the first Chinese soldiers and the immediate travel ban imposed, purportedly for their own safety, forced him to stay in Swall. Having not lived in the valley for many years, and so not appearing on any census or residential lists, he had managed to avoid the roundups of known servicemen and women. He watched through trained eyes as they smoothly and quickly took over control. He knew he had to do something to help free his country from the foreign invaders. He knew he was Chinese and outwardly looked no different to the thousands of armed men and women who arrived uninvited and unwanted. Even though he was of Chinese origin, he felt he was no more Chinese than an alien from outer space was. He was American, and it was his duty both as a citizen and a serving soldier of his country to fight for its freedom.
How he looked had all the way through his life stood him apart from others. During his formative years he withstood the occasional racist comments and subtle jibes that were said to his face or behind his back. His parents, understanding this would happen, prepared him and gave him the mental toughness to ignore it.
Even though he didn’t realize it himself, it never got him down. It had the opposite effect, in fact. He made himself be the most American person he could. Surely no ‘Slitty-eyed Commie Chink’ would still hold the school’s season touchdown record or score the winning goal in the county basketball championship. One also definitely would not be asked by Megan Jones, the head cheerleader and most beautiful girl in school, to be her date to the school prom. But he did.
For once his looks could work to his and everyone’s advantage
Getting a uniform was easy. The local launderette was commandeered by the Chinese and local women were ordered to work there. A few missing uniforms from all the hundreds washed everyday would not be noticed. After donning the uniform, he stole an unfortunate soldier’s sloppily unattended weapon and webbing and blended in with the invaders.
It was at the pierogi club that he was pretending to guard where he had first met others and the plan was hatched to poison Fat Joe’s tomatoes which they knew were being distributed to feed the soldiers. The outwardly willing locals set to work, gaining positions of trust with the Chinese. The ricin was manufactured easily. The local school’s chemistry teacher gathered and processed caster beans from the many plants of that name that grew wildly in the area.
The workers sent to Fat Joe’s farm had been carefully selected and told what to do with the small packets of highly toxic powder. Unaware of the doses required the tomatoes were poisoned with far more than was needed. This helped, though, as if only traces of the toxin were present the process, even though the end result would be the same, would take longer. The soldiers ingesting the massive doses were all dead by Sunday morning.
The few that escaped the poisoning were hunted down and killed by packs of locals, desperate to avenge loved ones and friends that had been killed directly by the Chinese or by the killer virus that had struck down a large portion of the population. Eddie stood outside the town hall which was being used to collect and sort through the huge quantity of weapons gathered from the dead soldiers.
The community had all mobilized. The dead were cleared away and buried in mass graves. The few locals who had escaped the purges and had military experience were given the job of preparing to defend the area. Eddie became their de facto leader. Their small but significant victory had killed hundreds of their enemy, but they knew there were hundreds of thousands more in the country and more on the way.
If discovered, which would only be a matter of time, they would expect no quarter to be given. They had crossed the line and must get ready to defend the freedom they had just earned with their lives.
Standing in the sun outside the town hall he watched a young girl happily playing in the park across the street, watched over by her mother. Her laughter struck a chord of a long ago, deeply buried memory.
He remembered his younger sister, but the memory was from such a different and distant part of his life that he rarely thought of her. When he had settled in America and his confidence and language had developed enough, he remembered distinctly the night he told his adoptive parents he had left a sister behind in China.
They were horrified and extremely upset to have been responsible for splitting them up. The adoption agency had given them no more background on him other than he was found living on the streets after being orphaned when both his parents were killed. There was no mention of a sister at all, otherwise they told him they would have adopted both of them.
His parents did try. They contacted the agency he had been adopted through and even employed a private detective in China to investigate, but no news about his sister was ever found. It was as if she had never existed. The girl’s
laughter reminded him of his long-lost sister. He wondered if she was alive and what had become of her.
Chapter
Seven
Somewhere in Virginia
Cal drove the bus onwards into the evening. Acting as his navigator was the older Englishman Gordon, who had helped persuade the international group of refugees that their best hope lay in following Cal to try and find the resistance fighters he had already met. His finger plotted their course on the only map they had been able to find, a small-scale map covering half of the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
The map the Chinese soldiers had abandoned on the bus was of no use to them. It had been manufactured for them specifically and was covered in unintelligible logograms and made no sense to any of them. Combining the group’s scant knowledge of what they had experienced they drew up the best route to follow. It was working and the bus, slowly chugging along, was taking them ever so slowly and cautiously to the cross Cal had marked on the map.
The roads when the bombing and invasion started were at first chaotic as everyone who could, fled. Following the initial panic, the road traffic had dropped to be virtually non-existent. Those who wanted to be somewhere else had tried, but in most cases failed, to get there, as they encountered the strategically set up roadblocks positioned by the Chinese to do exactly as they planned, which was to cripple the country’s transportation network.
Most of these people ended up in the camps and were now among the millions suffering from the biological weapon released on the tainted blankets they slept under. The rest hunkered down in their homes, waiting. Or if they had the skill and knowledge, had packed up and headed to the hills where many joined together, creating sprawling backwoods campsites far away from roads and towns. Stretching out dwindling supplies, hoping for news.
Gordon looked up from the map. “I am not quite sure where we are, but those are the Appalachians we can see rising ahead. If my memory serves me correctly they should be even more sparsely populated than we are finding it now. It may be a good idea to find somewhere to stop for the night. We are all just about done in and driving off the edge of a mountain road is not going to do any of us any good.”
Cal looked at him, a smile creeping across his tired face. “The Appalachians? Surely, and according to Laurel and Hardy, the mountains in Virginia are the Blue Ridge ones.”
Gordon chuckled at Cal’s attempt at humor. “Yes, they are, and you are correct. But for the sake of a geography lesson I will not educate you otherwise.”
He pointed ahead out of the window; the road was already rising forcing Cal to change down through the gears as they entered the foothills.
“Cal, take us to the Blue Ridge Mountains. But if you ask me to find you a lonesome pine, you can bloody well find it yourself!” The brief moment of levity passed when Cal looked down at the fuel gauge. It was hovering above the red line.
“We need to find some fuel for this thing soon otherwise we are going to be riding Shanks’s pony and I don’t fancy yomping the rest of the way.” Cal was still in poor shape, recovering from the grief of losing Louise and the radiation poisoning that had almost killed him. His hair had stopped falling out but the bare patches covering his head probably made the way he was feeling look worse.
“Yomping. Now that’s an expression that takes me back. Tell me Cal, have you served at some point?”
“I was a Royal Marine. Did a few tours in Afghanistan before I had seen enough and got out. I have been working in construction ever since.”
“Ah, which brigade?”
“Four-two.”
Gordon dropped the map and looked at him. “My word! You are not going to believe this. So was I.”
Cal almost steered the bus off the road. He braked and brought the bus to a stop and stared at Gordon. “No way!”
Gordon saluted saying, “Lieutenant Gordon Scott, Four-Two Commando at your service. Saw a bit of action in the Falklands before I too decided to try life on Civvy Street.”
Cal automatically returned the Salute. “Lance Corporal Owen Calhoun, Four-Two Commando, at yours too. Yomping! I can never complain about that because you did the mother of all yomps back then.” They shook hands happily and vigorously. Cal was referring to the incident which made the expression famous. During the Falklands Conflict in 1982, with their transport sunk, the Royal Marines completed a grueling fifty-six-mile, three-day ‘yomp’ over terrible terrain to take the fight to the Argentinian forces. The photo of a marine with a Union flag attached to his radio mast became one of the iconic pictures of the war. Knowing exactly what he was referring to Gordon smiled and shook his head.
“Ah I wasn’t involved in that particular event. That was four-zero. But I did walk a fair way myself across that desolate turd of a place. Those buggers after that thought they were all film stars and never let us forget it.” The other passengers on the bus, wondering why they had suddenly stopped, were beginning to stand up and ask questions.
Cal started to turn around and explain when a metallic tap at his window caused him to freeze.
Slowly looking around he could see the bus was surrounded by men pointing automatic weapons in their direction. More could be seen in the trees that lined the road. Keeping his hands in the open he slowly reached to the window and slid it open.
“Hello,” he said cautiously.
A man stepped forward. He was wearing uniform, but Cal knew he was not regular army. He let his rifle fall against the sling that held it to his body and with his hand resting on his holster walked up to the window. He spoke softly, but his voice had a deep power that could fill his church with threats of fire and brimstone if he needed it to.
“Well hello to you, young man. I can tell from your accent you aren’t from around these parts.” He smiled to soften the tone. “I wonder if you could help satiate my curiosity. Just before I was about to order my men to open fire as you are in a bus with a goddam Chinese flag stuck to it, you stop and the next thing we see, you two are saluting each other and shaking hands like long-lost cousins.”
He paused and peered at the rest of the passengers whose frightened faces were staring at him through the windows. “The one thing I can now tell is that you ain’t from China. Which is a good thing as if you were I would be saying a brief prayer over your ungodly Communist corpses by now. Let me introduce myself first. I’m the Reverend Jackson Charles Harris.”
He waved his arm around as if to indicate the others still pointing their weapons at the bus. “And I have the honor to lead the Appalachian Militia.”
Relief flooded through Cal’s body. The rest of the bus heard what he had said and instantly started cheering and clapping.
Cal smiled. “I’m Cal and this is my friend Gordon. We have recently been released from the camps and were on our way home until the sight of the cruise missiles flying overhead caused our guards to run away. I convinced them the best idea was to turn the bus around and head to West Virginia.”
The reverend raised his voice slightly to be heard over the noise still coming from the bus. “Why West Virginia, son?”
“I’m trying to find Captain Troy Gardner.”
At the mention of Troy’s name the reverend’s eyes went wide with shock. “Now just how in the hell do you know him?”
“I was the one he sent into the camps to send back the information needed to help liberate them, sir.”
Chapter
Eight
COBRA, Downing Street, London
Adriene Winslet sat back and absorbed what the general had just said. Like a walker, high on the mountains when the clouds lift, she could see clearly now.
Her previous decisions had been based on fear and trying to do what she thought was the best for the country that was reeling and falling into anarchy, its citizens fearful about running out of food and World War Three starting. She had been blinded to the true picture and her other cabinet members and aides in the majority had been suffering from the same blinkeredness.
; The general had tried to put his proposals forward before, but she had dismissed him as a warmonger, interested in securing a greater cut of the budget for the military.
She now understood that no matter what the Chinese said, food would not be arriving from the United States for a long time to come.
The minister for agriculture had confirmed what the general was saying. The reality of the situation was that even though the United Kingdom imported fifty percent of its foodstuffs, only a mere four percent of it came from the United States. The biggest portion of what the country needed came from Europe. She now understood what the phone call she received from the Chinese Premier truly meant when he said if they stayed out of the conflict then food would start flowing into the country again.
The Chinese knew the rest of Europe had no stomach for a conflict with them and would be exerting as much diplomatic and economic pressure as they could to make sure it stayed that way. And if that meant other countries using excuses about their own domestic problems as to why the exports the United Kingdom relied on had stopped, then so be it. The Chinese had most likely used those tactics to show what a formidable and ruthless enemy they were.
She looked at the cabinet ministers around the table.
“Gentlemen and ladies, we will prepare for war. I must go and see Her Majesty. After that I will address the nation and appraise them of the true situation. Their anger should not be aimed at us, but at China who is trying to redraw the world map using nuclear weapons and deceit. Hopefully that will pull everyone into line and put an end to the chaos and destruction they are causing. Ministers, go back to your offices and start to draw up plans and proposals as to how we can get this country working and feeding itself again. There must be dozens of plans drawn up by the Mandarins over the years and gathering dust.”