by Chris Harris
He looked forwards, steam and smoke from burning oil rose from under the hood. The engine block sticking out in front of them had absorbed most of the incoming fire, but it had paid the price. The truck was terminally damaged. Ignoring his dying companion by his side he wiped his own blood that was pouring down his face and engaged reverse again. The truck moved, but the smoke and steam billowing from under the hood increased and it began screeching and grinding as the engine started to tear itself apart.
Keeping his foot to the floor Leland coaxed every yard he could out of the dying truck. Distance was their only safety margin and the more of it the better. Within minutes flames began licking out from under the hood and he knew it was time to abandon it. Before it had stopped and not even checking or caring if his wounded companion was alive, he ordered Cobb to gather the unfortunate man’s weapons and magazines and prepare to abandon the truck.
The pursuit would be coming and there was no time to waste.
Before leaping from the cab, he glanced at the man beside him. The last of his lifeblood had left him and his unseeing eyes stared ahead, the panic and pain still showing on his slack features. Showing a rare moment of compassion, Leland closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for his soul, thanking him for the service he had given to his country before pulling a missed pistol magazine from his vest, and joining Cobb who was kneeling at the front of the now burning vehicle, his rifle pointing toward where they expected any moment for the pursuit to arrive from.
“Come on, Cobb, lets hightail it out of here.”
By the time they reached the tree line, racing engines could be heard approaching. Half a punishing hour later, Leland held up his hand to indicate to the man who had kept on his heels, following him through the dense woods, that he was stopping. They had come far enough and fast enough to be way ahead of any pursuing force.
Unable to speak, both men slumped to the floor, chests pumping as they tried to get as much oxygen as they could into their lungs. Leland, fitter than men half his age, waited for Cobb to stop retching before handing him a water bottle.
“What now, Gunny?” Cobb eventually managed to gasp.
“Son, I hate to fucking say it, but I think we’ve been had. Whatever Butler and the Movement planned it certainly didn’t include aerial bombing New York and having Commu-fucking Chinese bastards on United States soil. This puts us in a tricky situation. We started this with our few pissant bombs and taking down the stock exchange. But the next thing we know, nukes and other ordnance are reigning down on the States and now we are being shot at by Commies.”
He paused as he remembered a sight he thought he would never see. A mushroom cloud rising on the distant horizon in the direction of D.C.
“The enemy we were fighting was the government, but now it looks like they are going to need every patriot left to fight an invasion. Whatever we think about them, I think our reenlistment papers have just landed, delivered by an AK-powered Chinese bullet, and I for one am going to sign them. We were the American resistance and now it looks like we are the United States resistance.
“Semper Fi, Gunny. I’m with you all the way.”
Leland nodded at Cobb. “I still want to get back to my Kentucky boys. There is no way they are going down without a fight, and as I have said before, if they are snug in their hollers I’d put a hundred of them up against a whole division of Chinese bastards. But firstly, I want to see who we are up against. If it is an invasion, then they will be going for the big cities first.”
He checked his compass and pointed west. “Pittsburgh is the nearest and the only big city anywhere near our route south.” He stood and checked his weapon. “Are you up for a little recon mission, Cobb?”
In response the old marine stood up, checked, and with a pull, charged his weapon and said, “Lead on, Gunny. You just tell me when I can start killing those Communist fuckers.”
“Don’t worry, son, I have a feeling there will be plenty to go around soon enough.”
Twelve hours later the two men had slipped past the roadblocks and checkpoints that circled the city and, using their years of training, worked their way into a position on Mount Washington—the hill-cum-suburb that afforded an elevated view over downtown Pittsburgh. They found a concealed spot to observe from and whilst Cobb kept guard, Leland kept up a quiet commentary as he watched through his binoculars. What was left of the city was clearly under Chinese control. The city itself beyond the river had been destroyed by the nuclear blast. The skeletons and remains of the high-rise city center buildings were a stark reminder of the power humankind had harnessed when creating such a devastating weapon. The damage, though, did not extend to a wide radius.
The large parking lot below them on the banks of the river had been turned into a containment center. The buildings around it were scorched and flattened but beyond it, and on the hills leading up to where they observed from, the damage reduced greatly the further out the distance. Thousands of citizens were held behind rows of razor wire coils, guarded by soldiers wearing cumbersome radiation suits.
“They must have dialed back the yield on whatever bomb they aimed here,” Leland mused out loud. “But it looks to me as if the bastards are deliberately poisoning the people they are rounding up. Why else would they be holding them there? The radiation levels must be high enough to warrant the guards to wear protective gear but not citizens.”
Leland was almost right. The yield of the weapon had not been reduced deliberately; the device had failed to explode correctly and instead had fizzled out. The Chinese had sent a team of observers to investigate the success of the blast and had discovered not a complete city lying in ruins with millions of dead, but only a small area of destruction around ground zero. Extra troops had urgently been diverted from other areas to contain and process the hundreds of thousands of civilians they did not expect to have to deal with. Callously they decided to let the bomb that should have killed them do the job for them, albeit more slowly and painfully. They left the people exposed to the still-lethally high levels of radiation in the area. The citizens of Pittsburgh were not part of the plan, so needed to be disposed of.
Leland snorted in disgust. “The roadblocks we have seen are not to stop anyone getting in, they are stopping anyone escaping. Then they round them up, get them as close to the blast as they can and let the radiation do the rest.”
He observed trucks continually drive up and disgorge more citizens who were herded into the camp. What shocked him were the armored and other vehicles the Chinese were using. They were US military.
“Goddamn bastards are using our own stuff against us. They must have hit the National Guard barracks.”
A few hours of observation were all that was needed. The Chinese had complete control over the remains of city and were rounding up all its occupants. The fact that they were using US vehicles meant any force capable of resisting had been wiped out in the first phases of the attack, leaving the citizens defenseless. The captors were not benevolent either. Knowingly letting them absorb what would most likely be a lethal dose of radiation was not enough. A disturbance attracted his attention. Three men wearing military uniform fought back when the guards tried to separate them from women and children, presumably their families.
They were pulled to the floor by an overpowering number of guards and subjected to a vicious beating. Once order was restored, an officer walked up to the three men who now had their hands bound and were kneeling in a row. Without hesitation he drew his sidearm and shot all three in the head. The guards then ordered other civilians to pick their bodies up and throw them unceremoniously into the river.
Having seen enough and concerned about exposing themselves to the radiation, the two men began to make their escape from the city. Using a different route out and near to the edge of its limits they came across an entrance to a neighborhood that was barricaded with cars and heavy furniture. Entering the rear of a house that was a few hundred yards away over an open area of grass, they observed what
was going on.
The neighborhood had, by the looks of it, decided to band together to defend themselves. Men and women with a variety of weapons were standing guard. Both could see the defenses were not built by anyone with military experience. Though they did not have a lot to work with, what they had constructed was better than nothing if you were trying to defend yourself.
“Shall we go see if they can give us any intelligence? We should warn them about the radiation as well,” said Cobb.
“I don’t see why not. They may even have a car they can loan us,” Leland said with a wry chuckle. The last vehicle Leland had ‘borrowed’ was the truck and that had taken a bullet through the window to seal the deal.
Leland stood up, but Cobb grabbed his arm and pulled him down.
“Listen!” was all he said.
Leland strained his ears. A distant rumble of heavy engines could faintly be heard. Cobb pointed up to the sky, a small object was hovering high overhead.
“Gunny, look up. I think they are using drones.”
Even though he followed Cobbs’ finger upwards his eyesight was not good enough to spot the distant hovering object.
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” he grumbled. “The issue for us now is most likely those engines are heading this way. The defenses won’t hold up to a peashooter let alone anything heavier. Let’s go warn them, they may have chance to disperse and escape.”
Again, they stood up, but Cobb pulled Leland down again. They were too late, a hummer with an armored cupola mounting a fifty-caliber machine gun drove rapidly down the street. It was still bearing National Guard markings and flying the Stars and Stripes from its aerial.
Both immediately saw that the uniforms on the soldiers inside the vehicle were not American. They also were not wearing radiation suits and the men took some comfort from that. If the Chinese were not making their soldiers wear them then the levels must be low enough. The civilians in the barricade could not tell the difference and began cheering thinking help had arrived at last.
More lined the barricade as the cheering attracted others from the community. Both men watched from the darkened interior of the room. When the cupola started to rotate and point toward the barricade they knew with dreaded certainty what was going to happen next.
Cobb raised his weapon, but Leland slapped it down. “There ain’t nothing we can do, Cobb. Sorry to say but this isn’t our fight. And anyway, what the hell can we do against an armored Hummer?”
The cheering of the crowd subsided when more vehicles drove up to join the first. No one had emerged from the vehicles to acknowledge the welcome the community was giving them. As the latest arrival’s turrets rotated toward the puny barricade, the community realized all may not be as expected.
Panicked shouting now replaced the elation they had all felt moments before. Some fled from the barricade whilst others bravely raised their weapons.
The raising of weapons against them was the trigger the Chinese may have been waiting for. The community before them changed from non-threatening to threatening with that action. The three Hummers opened fire. The bullets, with the power to penetrate light armor and capable of reducing buildings to rubble, threw a devastating hail of heavy lead at the makeshift barricade. The brave but unfortunate defenders stood no chance.
Leland and Cobb watched with morbid fascination as some of the defenders futilely fired their weapons at their attackers. The human body is a fragile thing and when hit at close range with such a powerful and heavy object as a fifty-caliber bullet, the kinetic energy displaced produces devastating results. Bodies disintegrated, the fine red mist that sprayed from them staying in the air longer than the unrecognizable lumps of raw flesh and bone that were thrown back from the wall of cars and furniture.
The barricade, unable to stand against such power for more than a few seconds was reduced to lumps of metal and splinters. A heavier armored vehicle arrived and drove straight through the remains, followed by the Hummers.
They watched as the convoy drove on into the neighborhood. People tried to surrender, holding their hands up in the universal sign of submission but that did not stop them from continuing to spread death. Not satisfied, squads of soldiers dismounted from more vehicles that arrived and, covered by the smoking barrels of the machine guns, went house to house, dragging those who had tried to hide outside.
The message was clear. If you defy them, then your life is forfeit. The cowering, terrified families were executed as soon as they were discovered. Man, woman, or child; it did not matter to the soldiers. Darkness was falling when the Chinese left, content that no one was left alive.
Leland and Cobb had not spoken for hours. Their anger and rage at what they had witnesses too powerful to put into words. Silently they waited for the last engine noise to fade into silence before exiting the house and continuing their journey on foot.
Immediately after this, Leland experienced a paradigm shift in his attitude to his fellow Americans. Before this, they were part of the problem. In his opinion, they blindly followed the false government, giving it validity by accepting everything it did, and paying the taxes (without thought) that gave the powerful the resources to further control them.
Before this shift, he would have (and had without any guilt ever), robbed, killing if necessary, anyone who stood in the way of what he wanted. Now, every American was on the same side as him. His role as a fighter meant he was their protector too.
Using back roads, they found abandoned vehicles at houses or along the roadside. They drove until they ran out of fuel. The route they picked took them away from all population centers, but at times it was unavoidable. To their surprise the two mean-looking, heavily armed veterans were welcomed at small towns and villages. These remote places had yet to see any of the invaders, but they knew they may be coming. The television stations, under Chinese control, were broadcasting propaganda they just didn’t believe. One minute bombs were falling, and the next all was okay, and the benevolent Chinese had arrived to offer humanitarian aid.
These Americans offered them food and shelter, desperate to hear their news. Leland realized these communities could form the backbone of the Movement. The militias were well armed and capable, but numbers would be their biggest issue. There were not enough of them to take on the Chinese. These communities would provide the numbers to turn the militias into an army.
Leland told them everything he knew and had since discovered, though deliberately missing out his part in the beginning. Playing heavily on the inhuman nature of what they were facing, he left them with no uncertain knowledge of what would happen if they bowed to the will of the invaders.
The further south they journeyed the more communities they sought out to spread the seeds of rebellion. It was as General Liu had predicted: the Chinese tactics of oppression were feeding the sparks of rebellion and the flame was growing brighter.
Walking up a track in the foothills of Black Mountain, Cobb and Leland were alert and aware of their surroundings. A voice hidden in the deep bush ahead made them crouch instantly. They did not raise their weapons, however, as they knew to do so would signal instant lead-filled death.
“Well hi there, stranger. You sure are a mighty long ways from anywhere. Are ya’ll lost?”
Leland called back, “I ain’t lost at all. I’m Gunnery Sergeant Leland Pullen with Corporal Cobb here by my side, reckon you need some help in fighting some Chinese ticks that are latching on and sucking the blood from some fine American beef.”
The bush parted and a man stepped out wearing camouflage and a tactical vest adorned with magazines for the AR-15 he carried. “Gunny! That you?”
He squinted at Leland who was still crouching, holding his hands away from his weapons. He laughed and raised his voice. “Lower your weapons boys, we have the legend that is Gunny Pullen in our midst.”
He waved for them to stand.
“Let’s get you back to the command cabin. I’m sure they are going to be mighty glad t
o see you.”
Chapter
Eleven
Texas
Driving fast and with purpose, the ruse worked and General Liu left the suburbs of San Antonio. No checkpoint stopped them. The guards reasoned it was natural for a staff car containing a high-ranking official to be fleeing the noises of battle emanating from the city.
Turning off a main road they sped along a few miles of rural roads that eventually changed from tarmac to dirt. At the next checkpoint his car slowed to a stop, surprising him. The checkpoint was manned by Americans, some in uniform, most not, but all carrying weapons.
From the lack of surprise at seeing a car bearing Chinese flags, it was clear they were expected. Tommy Cho, now adjusted to his real name, had told Liu little on the journey apart from that he was a sergeant in the United States Army who had infiltrated the Chinese invaders when they first arrived. His luck held, and he had found himself attached to the headquarters group where his English skills had led to him being assigned as Liu’s aid.
Sergeant Cho spoke briefly to the guard at the checkpoint before being waved through. He followed the road which ended outside a large house. More guards were visible on the wide veranda that ran along the front of the property as he opened the general’s car door and led him inside. It was a hive of activity which stopped when the general, wearing his uniform, entered.