Occupied Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 2)

by Christopher Kennedy

  The other two helicopters returned fire, and Williamson’s soldiers began to die. The helicopters had four attachments for mounting rockets and missiles, two under each of their stub wings, with each attachment able to carry up to four missiles. Each helicopter carried 16 rockets, and both pilots began to walk them down the tree line of the field where the soldiers were hiding. The gunners did the same thing with their 25mm Bushmaster cannons, using their thermal sights to find and kill the American soldiers.

  The Z-15 helicopters on the ground were not so lucky. Originally built as civilian helos, they lacked much of the armor and shielding of the attack helicopters and were also sitting targets. Although only a quarter of the American troops were firing at the Z-15s, their fire was far more effective and a second helicopter was quickly destroyed. The pilots of the Z-15s did not have bullet-proof glass to hide behind, and the pilots of a third helicopter were killed before they could get it back off the ground. The final Z-15 began to struggle back into the air, the efforts of its one remaining pilot made more difficult by the dead weight of the copilot as he sagged forward onto the control stick. As the pilot reached over to pull back his partner, he too was hit, and the helicopter crashed back down to the ground, injuring most of the marines in the back that hadn’t jumped out on its initial touchdown.

  The troops still in the helicopters tried to use their fuselages as cover, and the marines that had dismounted took what cover they could find and returned fire. Even with most of the Americans continuing to shoot at the attack helicopters, the Chinese were still greatly outnumbered, and they were rapidly put out of action by the Americans who had good cover behind trees that they had cut down to make firing positions.

  The heavy-lift Z-8 helicopters, unarmed except for a door-mounted 20mm cannon, hovered out of the way of the Z-10s as they continued to battle the forces on the ground. One of the remaining attack helicopters swooped lower into the field, so that it could get a better angle on the soldiers and negate the cover of the trees. It fired its final two missiles, killing another six soldiers and wounding 13 more, but took a round through the engine’s cooling system. Fluid began streaming down the side of the helicopter and, within seconds, the engine began to overheat.

  The pilot struggled to get the helicopter back up into the air and away from the bullets that continued to impact on it. While he fought to get out of range, a bullet hit the canopy right in front of his face, causing him to automatically shy away. It left a mark on the glass, but caused no real damage. As the motor continued to strain to overcome gravity, heat built up until it finally seized, and the helicopter crashed to the ground several hundred yards away, eliciting a ragged cheer from the Americans that had been shooting at it.

  The pilots of the final attack helicopter were seasoned professionals and kept their helicopter a little further back from the incoming fire. This forced the Americans to shoot at the most protected areas of the helicopter, while the helicopter’s cannon chewed up the tree line and the soldiers hiding in it. Bullets continued to ricochet off the armored fuselage and cockpit, but the Americans were unable to hit anything vital. As the other helicopters were put out of action, the unrelenting American fire on the remaining helicopter grew even more intense. The pilot used every trick he knew, jinking the helo from side to side, as he tried in vain to keep the Americans from getting a good shot at him. His gunner remained focused on his thermal sight, pouring out fire at every target he could find. Ultimately, though, an incoming bullet was bound to hit something vital. There were too many aimed at them, and one round finally hit the ball bearings in between the swash plates of the main rotor’s drive shaft. The pilot started to lose control over the helicopter. Seeing that there was no one left to support on the ground, he pulled his aircraft back up and around to return to the ship. The Z-8s, unable to do much on their own and facing a tremendous increase in fire as the attack helicopter withdrew, turned and followed it.

  Seeing their support and transportation flying away, the few remaining Chinese marines in the field quickly put up their hands and surrendered. The Americans had held the field, although they had lost 287 dead and another 426 wounded, almost 25% of their forces.

  Task Force Top, PLAN Long, Naval Base Kitsap, WA, 1645 PDT

  Shuteye led the team forward into the ship from the well deck. He knew from Wu Tao that he needed to go forward into the interior of the ship, down a couple of decks and then back aft again to find the brig. Wu didn’t know exactly where it was, but knew it was somewhere on that deck. Seeing no one in the passageway as he opened the watertight door, he went in, followed by the rest of the team. As he walked along, he looked along the walls. Just like civilian cruise ships, the largest navy ships also have diagrams on the walls, showing the layout of the deck a person is on. He found the “You are here” dot and then the symbol for the ladder going down. He knew that the stairs on a naval vessel are much steeper than normal, so they were called ‘ladders.’ He needed to go to the next cross-passage and then right. As he reached the passage and turned right, he ran into a PLAN Sub-Lieutenant, the equivalent of a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade. “Watch where you are going!” exclaimed the Sub-Lieutenant in Chinese. Seeing the white men behind Shuteye, he opened his mouth to shout or yell, but was cut off as Shuteye jammed his pistol into the officer’s stomach, knocking part of his breath away.

  Shuteye backed him into the wall with the force of the pistol. “Say nothing and lead us to the brig, or I am going to repaint this passageway with your blood!” The officer looked terrified when he saw all of the pistols pointing at him; each looking larger than normal with their attached suppressors. He slowly turned around and went back the way he had come.

  As he reached the ladder well, which had stairs going both up and down, he started to go up. “Wait!” said Shuteye. “I know the brig is downstairs from here.”

  “No, it’s up,” he said, sprinting up the stairs. He drew a breath to yell for help, but was struck in the hip from Sergeant Chang’s silenced .45 caliber pistol, shattering it and causing him to slam into the rail and fall backwards down the stairs. A second shot missed and ricocheted up the steel ladder well. As he hit the deck, there was a loud crack, and both Shuteye and Top could see that his head was at an unnatural angle. If he wasn’t dead, he soon would be. They were more worried about the puddle of blood that was starting to pool around him.

  Top moved out of the way and told Corporal ‘Fergie’ Ferguson to pull the dead officer out of the ladder well. Looking down the hallway, he told the men to try the doors further down the passageway to see if one was open. Finding an unlocked door, one of the men looked inside to find a storage room, probably for the marines, as it was half-full of camping materials. Fergie pulled the dead officer inside while one of the other soldiers, PFC ‘Woody’ Woodard, found a towel inside the storage area and wiped up the blood trail leading to the room. It was impossible to clean up the blood in the ladder well without wasting too much time, so they locked the storage room door and continued down the ladder.

  Shuteye paused two decks down on Deck 5. There were two doors leading out of the ladder well. One door was labeled ‘Armory’ in Chinese characters; the door on the other side of the ladder well was labeled ‘Brig.’ “Give me a second to check,” he said. Receiving agreement, he slid out the door and into the passageway beyond. It led to a door about 15 feet down the corridor, with a closed door on both sides about halfway down. The door at the end of the hall had Chinese characters identifying it as the brig. Shuteye tested the door and found it locked, so he went back to the ladder well to get the rest of the group. Bringing them forward to the door, he told Top that it was locked.

  Looking at the door, Top saw that it was just a standard door, not a watertight door with a seal. He realized he had two choices, knock on the door and alert them to their presence, or try to smash it and charge in guns blazing. While the first option was potentially stealthier, whoever answered the door might ask for some sort of password. Failing
to get it, they would have problems and might have to charge in, anyway, but now everyone would be prepared. The other option, while offering the element of surprise, was a huge unknown. They might smash the door in to find Chinese soldiers in with the prisoners, complicating their targeting and potentially leading to the deaths of some of the hostages. Neither were great options, but he had to choose one.

  “OK,” he whispered, “here’s what we’re going to do.” He looked at the biggest man in the group, “Wall, I want you to kick in the door. I’ll be on the left; Fergie will be on the right. We’ll go through the door in standard combat spread. Shoot any Chinese soldiers, but be careful of any hostages that might be there. Everyone understand?”

  Everyone nodded agreement, and they took their places. The Wall took a deep breath, focused, and used every bit of his 256 pounds to kick the door near the latch on its left. The door sprang, slamming open to the right. Top and Fergie ran into the room, guns drawn, searching for targets, with the rest of the squad pouring in behind them.

  Top pulled up in surprise. Beyond the door was a large 30’x30’ jail cell with a small desk and office area on the Rangers’ side of the cell. The entire room was empty; there were neither hostages nor guards.

  Task Force SEAL, PLAN Long, Naval Base Kitsap, WA, 1645 PDT

  Four decks above Top, Ryan was in a ladder well looking at a diagram of the ship. Not seeing what he wanted, he went up another deck to the 01 level. In a bizarre naming convention that he didn’t understand, the highest deck that went the length of the ship was labeled the ‘1st Deck.’ Every deck below that was a sequentially numbered deck, ‘2nd Deck,’ ‘3rd Deck,’ etc. Every deck above the 1st Deck was called a ‘Level’ and was sequentially numbered going up, starting with the ‘01 Level,’ then the ‘02 Level,’ and so on. The well deck was on the 3rd deck; Top had gone down two decks to the 5th Deck while he had gone up two decks and now a level. He went up another ladder to the 02 Level and looked at the diagram. “Yep, there it is!” he said excitedly.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Jet. “Can I help?” He didn’t know all of the Chinese characters, but he at least knew some.

  “I’m looking for the Flag spaces,” said Ryan, meaning the rooms that the senior admiral onboard would be using. “See this area here?” he said pointing at the diagram. “It’s marked in red, which probably means for the normal enlisted soldiers and sailors to stay out. I’m guessing, but I think that’s either weapons or the ship’s admiral. Weapons’ spaces should be lower in the ship and more to the interior, so I think that’s where their admiral is. It’s also about where our admiral would be on a similar U.S. ship, and it’s got some bigger rooms nearby for standing watches and having conferences. I would bet money these two rooms here, joined together, are the admiral’s quarters.”

  Jet looked at the diagram. “I think you are right,” he said excitedly.

  “It’s down this passageway,” said Ryan, indicating one of the doors out of the ladder well. “You go first, look like you belong, move fast, and we’ll follow.” He took one last look at the diagram, memorizing the schematic. “Go!” he ordered.

  Jet strode purposefully out the door, nearly running into someone that was just about to open the door. As he stepped back in surprise, Ryan shot him three times in the chest, and then pushed Jet on down the passageway, leaving the Chinese lieutenant to bleed out on the floor. “We’ve got to rely on speed,” whispered Ryan urgently. The two men continued down the passageway with the other four Rangers close behind them.

  Thirty feet further down the passageway, two leather curtains in bright red blocked the passageway with big Chinese lettering. “My guess is that it says something like “Stay Out! Authorized Personnel Only!” translated Jet.

  “Great! This is the place!” said Ryan. Pushing past Jet, Ryan opened the curtains to find two Chinese officers standing outside a door, a junior lieutenant and a captain. He quickly shot them both and moved on, changing out his clip for a fresh one. He stopped two doors further down the passageway at a door with a lot of official looking markings on it. “This is the admiral’s office,” Ryan said. “I just hope he’s here!” He tried the door, quietly. Finding it unlocked, he whispered, “One, two, three!” and threw it open, charging in. Sitting behind a large, official-looking mahogany desk was a Chinese admiral, with a U.S. Navy captain sitting on the other side of the desk from him. Although there was a pistol on the desk, it wasn’t needed, as the navy captain was handcuffed to the chair.

  The Chinese admiral, a large man who was both tall and stout, started to grab for his gun, but thought better of it and slowly withdrew his hand as he saw that he was vastly outnumbered. Recognizing that the people bursting into his office were Americans, he smiled and said in English, “Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” said Ryan, “you’re coming with us.” Pointing at the captain, he told Jet to free him. There was a small key on the admiral’s desk that looked like it would fit the handcuffs.

  “Thanks,” said the captain. “How’d you get here? Are we winning?”

  “No,” replied Ryan, “we’re not winning yet, and how we got here is a long story that I’d rather tell you once we’re somewhere safer. I’ve got a group getting the rest of the hostages out of the brig. Do you know if there are any being held anywhere else?”

  “No one is being held in the brig,” answered the captain. “There were too many of us, so they put us in one of the marine enlisted berthing areas.”

  “Shit!” said Ryan. “I guess Top will have to figure it out.” Looking at the admiral, he motioned with his pistol toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  “And if I refuse?” asked the admiral, stalling for time.

  Ryan cocked the gun and looked at him. “You can come with us, or you can die.”

  A shout was heard from the passageway. “We just ran out of time. Move!” Ryan ordered the admiral.

  The admiral was just starting to get up when two Chinese officers ran in through the door, yelling something in Chinese. Both were met with a fusillade of bullets as six pistols fired on them simultaneously. They fell to the floor, both of them struck several times. Ryan turned back to the admiral to see him trying to grab the pistol from the desk. He fired once, striking him in the middle finger and removing the last knuckle. The admiral wailed something in Chinese as he balled his fist, protecting it with the other hand.

  “Unless you want another one through the head,” Ryan told the admiral, “get MOVING!” He looked at the captain, “If you’re ready to go, sir, I’d suggest we go quickly.”

  “This is your show,” said the captain, recognizing who was in charge. “Just tell me where to go.”

  Ryan instructed the massive Tiny to take charge of the admiral and BTO to help the captain, who didn’t look entirely steady on his feet. Tiny grabbed the admiral by his collar. Even though the admiral was a large man, and more than a little gone to fat, Tiny lifted him to his tip-toes. “Don’t be givin’ me no problems, suh,” Tiny told the admiral. “Ya hear?” Bleeding and in pain, the admiral didn’t say anything, although he did nod slightly. Tiny lowered him a fraction, allowing him to breathe, and said, “Good. Then we may just get along.”

  Opening the door, Ryan quickly stuck his head out and then back in. A gunshot was heard from the corridor. “This is taking too long,” said Ryan. He dove into the corridor, surprising the pistol-armed marine 20 feet down the passage. He fired three times before he crashed into the other side of the passageway, hitting the marine in the chest twice. The marine went down.

  Ryan stood up grimacing in pain. Fresh blood began welling from the earlier gunshot to his side. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he growled. “Follow me.” He led the way back to the ladder well, followed by the captain and BTO, Tiny and the Chinese admiral, and Jet. He had the Gordon twins, Corporal Austin ‘Good Twin’ Gordon and Private First Class Jamal ‘Bad Twin’ Gordon bring up the rear. As stealth was no longer an option, the twins had pulled out their
rifles and were ready to ‘rock and roll.’ Ryan had no idea which of them was which, so he just said, “you two bring up the rear,” and they did.

  The group made it back through the leather curtains and down to the ladder well. As Bad Twin was going through the door, the curtains parted slightly as someone looked through. Bad Twin fired a three round burst into the curtain and was rewarded with a grunt, as at least one bullet struck the person. The curtains closed, and Bad Twin joined the rest of the group hurrying down the stairs.

  Task Force Top, PLAN Long, Naval Base Kitsap, WA, 1650 PDT

  One of the primary military axioms when faced with an enemy is to never split your forces. Along the lines of, “if some is good, more is better,” the thinking is that it is better to keep your troops together and have enough power to overwhelm the enemy.

  Top violated the rule and split his group.

  He didn’t know where the hostages were being held, or if they were even on the ship any longer, but he did know where the armory was and knew that they were low on ammunition. He led his squad into the armory, killing the two Chinese soldiers that were supposed to be on guard, but were playing cards instead.

  Top was unimpressed with the armory. Until that point, he had thought they were just lucky that they hadn’t run into many soldiers while they had gone through the marines’ spaces onboard the ship. Seeing how empty the armory was, he realized that they had all disembarked, taking most of their weapons and ammunition with them. The only things remaining in the racks were a few rifles and RPG-69 launchers. As they went into the storage room, he was a little more encouraged to find a variety of boxes and crates. Shuteye only recognized a few of the labels (as most children were generally not taught the characters for things like ‘grenades’ and ‘explosives’ as a matter of course). Top didn’t have time to spend looking in all of the boxes; his mission was to find the hostages.