“What the hell was that?” asked one of the U.S. Navy captains in awe.
Ryan looked around. The wonder that he saw on the faces of the people as they watched the destruction of the massive ship was obvious, which made the sight of the former flagship sinking into the mud even more satisfying. How many people get to do that kind of stuff in their job every day?
“That was a little trick I learned from some of my ‘associates’ in Afghanistan,” explained Ryan. “You’ve heard of an improvised explosive device, right?” Everyone nodded in agreement. What I did was to just make a bigger one, using a bunch of Chinese explosives and tank shells. I was hoping to penetrate the hull of the ship; it looks like I may have done it.”
“No time for that now,” called Top, raining on his lecture parade. “We’ve got to take care of that incoming helicopter!”
Calvin looked up to see that it was only a couple of miles from the LCAC and was heading toward them. He could already see that the cannon in the door was manned; apparently they wanted to play ‘dueling machine guns’ with the LCAC. He was organizing the defense of the LCAC and getting the former hostages under cover when there was a dual ‘woosh’ from the front of the boat, and two plumes of smoke filled the main compartment of the LCAC. Calvin had been so focused on the incoming helo that he hadn’t noticed the twins in the front of the boat. Someone had told them that the armory team had found surface-to-air missiles on the Chinese ship and had brought several back with them to the LCAC. As Calvin was quickly realizing, everything was a competition with the twins.
They had decided to see who could be the first to shoot down the incoming helicopter. Calvin wasn’t worried as much about who shot it first, just that the helo wasn’t allowed to shoot at the women and children on the LCAC. As he watched, both missiles streaked toward the helicopter. Even though it tried to jink out of the way at the last minute, the missiles were much more agile than the large helicopter, and both impacted on the engines, with one hitting the left engine and the other hitting the right engine. As both engines lost power, the rotor blade slowed, and the giant helicopter fell slowly from the sky to splash into the Puget Sound like an oversized rock into a pond. Calvin could already hear the twins arguing about who hit it first.
“So that’s what getting shot down looks like,” said Calvin, standing next to Ryan. “I have to say that I like it a lot more when someone else is doing it.” He could see that people were spilling out of the helicopter as it started sinking. “Do you suppose we ought to go back and fish them out?”
Looking at the shore, Ryan pointed. “Those strange looking tanks moving toward the water’s edge are Chinese amphibious tanks. If they are ‘amphibious,’ that means they can swim out to where we are. Since they’re also ‘tanks,’ they have a big gun on the front that blows things up. Judging from the size of the detonation I made using some of their shells, there’s a lot of explosives in them. I vote that we let the Chinese pick up their own people today. In fact,” Ryan concluded, “I think we should leave now, before anyone else arrives.”
“I’m with you,” said Calvin. “I’m afraid of what will show up next if we stick around, especially with all of our VIP passengers.” He yelled over to Shuteye. Getting his attention, he pointed to the coxswain. “Tell him to take us home, please.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” shouted Shuteye back, smiling to himself for using navy lingo as he went to direct their Chinese driver.
Boeing Airplane Programs Manufacturing Site, Renton, WA, 1730 PDT
Calvin looked at his watch as the LCAC shut down inside its hangar at the Boeing Airplane Programs Manufacturing Site. He couldn’t believe that it had only been five hours since the last time he had shut down the LCAC here. So short a time period, and yet, how many times had he almost been killed during it? It might make a great book some time, he thought, but only if he published it under an alias and did not tell his mother. Twenty-six years old, and she’d still try to lock me up in my room if she knew about it.
With people able to hear themselves speak again, all of the former hostages wanted to thank their rescuers for coming to get them. The politicians and spouses were probably a little more enthusiastic in their praise. Unlike the military personnel, they had never prepared themselves mentally to be hostages. A momentary calm descended on the hangar. Except for the twins, who were still arguing. “Dude! I got it first!” “Like, no way! You know mine hit first!”
Everything looked like it would be OK until Calvin saw Rear Admiral Dan Barnaby, the Commander of Navy Region, Northwest. In this position, the admiral was the officer in charge of all of the navy activities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. If it was navy-related in the northwest part of the United States, he was responsible for it. Both tall and broad, the admiral’s uniform might have fit 20 pounds ago, but the buttons were now being perilously stress-tested by his ever-increasing girth. His dark hair was also on the outside edge of regulations and should probably have been cut a week ago. The fact that he had been held overnight onboard the Long and looked slightly rumpled did nothing to help his appearance.
His voice, however, still seemed to be functioning, and, judging by its volume, the admiral had not taken well to captivity. He appeared ready to start winning the war all by himself. As his feet hit the hangar floor, he began trying to take charge. Calvin could hear him from 30 feet away. “Soldier, who is in charge here! It was nice of you to bring us here, but this is not where our command headquarters are! We need to get to the base, so we can begin running the resistance and get the Chinese kicked out of our country! I need to speak to your commanding officer, right now! Point him out to me!”
Calvin hated people that only spoke in exclamation points. He sighed as he realized that this was one problem that he would have to handle; certainly it didn’t appear that any of the admiral’s staff of captains had any intention of getting in the admiral’s way. Ah, the joys of command. The only thing saving the situation at the moment was that the admiral had found the perfect person to talk to, Corporal Jimmy ‘Colonel’ Sanders. “Well, suh,” said Jimmy, with at least two syllables in the first word, “Ah’m shur dat him’s around here som’place, n’all, ‘cause he was cert’n’ly on dat dem dere bargey thang wid us. If’n y’all’d relax yahrselves and fix yahrselves a seat, Ah’ll try to hunt up the Lieutenant, suh.”
The admiral looked slightly bewildered at the Colonel’s speech. He decided to try again. “Soldier, what is your name! Who is this Lieutenant! Is this an Army organization or a Navy one! WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE!!!!”
Jimmy looked right back at the admiral, with the same look that a puppy gives you when you accidentally step on its tail, the ‘Why did you hurt me? What did I do?’ look. His accent only got worse as he got flustered and tried again. “Now suh, Ah’m fixin’ to git the Lieut’n’nt fuh y’all. T’ain’t no need to git rowdy n’all. Ah knows he’s aroun’ here somewhere or n’udder.” Seeing Calvin walking over, his eyes lit up at the solution to his problem. “Suh, Ah’m…”
“I got it, Jimmy, thanks,” Calvin said as he approached the admiral and saluted. “Hi, sir, Lieutenant Shawn Hobbs at your service. This little organization is…um…mine.”
“Lieutenant Hobbs! Why are you wearing an army uniform with the name Sanders on it! Wait! The last man had one too! What is going on here! How come I don’t know about this organization! Where are we! I’ve got places to go and things to do!”
Calvin laughed to himself. The admiral has things he has to do? Calvin would have happily traded all the things that he still had on his plate to accomplish. When the admiral took a breath, Calvin spoke up before he could continue. Calvin spoke a little louder than normal, hoping to distract him. Also, seeing that all of the former hostages had wandered over to see what the commotion was all about, he tried to pitch his voice so that everyone would hear it and save himself the trouble of repeating it.
“Here’s the short version of the story, sir. As you are all aware,” he
said, looking around to include everyone in the story, “China invaded the Seattle area yesterday. I was flying at Fallon, Nevada, and was sent here to see what was going on. I got shot down by a Chinese missile and was rescued by a SEAL who lived here in the mountains.” Calvin thought he heard Ryan snicker the word ‘helicopter;’ the fact that Calvin’s jet had been shot down by a helicopter was a source of great amusement to the SEAL. Calvin continued, “The SEAL also happens to have some good friends in the Ranger community and a lot of weapons, and when you add that all together, you end up with a group that has been doing its best to give the Chinese some payback. We were asked to drop what we were doing to come rescue you, so we did, but now we have to head back out again. That’s the short version; unfortunately, it’s also the only one we have time for right now. I also have some wounded men to see to…”
“Unacceptable!” interjected the admiral. “I’m in charge now, and you work for me! I’m the senior officer present! No one is leaving until I get some answers! I’m setting my staff up here, and you are going to provide security for this building while I work!” He finally noticed that the LCAC was Chinese. “We also have Chinese technology here that must be protected! How did it get here!”
“With all due respect,” said Calvin, cutting in again when the admiral took another breath. “We have to be going.” Seeing Master Chief approaching, he asked, “How are our wounded men doing?”
“Good, sir. We’re all loaded up and ready to go.” It wasn’t difficult to see his amusement at Calvin’s situation. “Would you like us to come back and get you later?” he asked with his eyes twinkling.
Seeing Master Chief dressed in his navy blue camouflage instead of the army green that everyone else was wearing, the admiral had a piece of normalcy that he could finally grab a hold of. “At last! A proper navy man, dressed as a navy man! Senior Chief! Set up a perimeter around this building, so that we can begin planning the return to our base! I have my staff, and we are ready to get to work!”
“Sorry, sir,” said Ryan with a smile. He didn’t look particularly sorry, “but the president has already given us additional tasking that we need to complete.” He didn’t feel like trying to explain that he was now a Master Chief, especially since he was still wearing the insignia of a Senior Chief Petty Officer.
“The president!” exclaimed the admiral. “Right! He’s in Washington! I’m right here! I need you to come with me and help re-establish some order from this chaos!”
“With all due respect, sir,” began Ryan, sounding about as respectful as he had sorry, “we have other tasks that we’re supposed to be working on.”
“No! I need you here right now!”
Calvin sighed. He hated having to do this, but he could see that Top had everyone loaded up, and they were all ready to go to the next job. “Um, Master Chief, can I borrow your phone, please?”
“With pleasure,” said Ryan with an evil grin. He could see where this was going to end and hoped they’d put it on speaker so that he could hear. In fact…“Here, sir, let me put it on speaker for you.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Calvin. He spoke into the phone for a minute and then handed the phone to the admiral. He met the Master Chief’s eyes as they walked a short way off and frowned at him. “Really, Master Chief? You know what’s about to happen to the admiral, right? You think that embarrassing him in front of all of these politicians and his staff is going to help with anything?”
“No, not particularly,” said Ryan, “but it sure would be fun and, you know…”
“Yeah, Master Chief, I know all about you and authority,” said Calvin, sighing. “Intimately. Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did I see that the Chinese admiral that you brought back was missing a finger?”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” exclaimed Ryan. “The admiral tried to grab a gun. It was self-defense! I didn’t break him on purpose! And besides, it was just the tip of his finger, not the whole finger.”
Calvin looked at him in mock disbelief, “Couldn’t you have grabbed his wrist or something? He’s like 250 pounds and more out of shape than even I am.”
Ryan winced. “Well, yeah, he is that, but other people were shooting at me, and I just didn’t have time!”
Calvin pressed, “So, what you’re really saying is that the out of shape admiral is faster than you?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all! I was ten feet away from him!” Ryan exclaimed. Calvin raised an eyebrow. “It may have even been more like twelve or thirteen feet!”
Calvin grinned. “Now you sound like our admiral; all your sentences are starting to end in exclamation points. Are you sure you’re not getting too old for this, Master Chief?”
“NO, SIR!” Ryan said emphatically.
“OK,” Calvin said with a twinkle in his eye, the grin now a full-fledged smile. “Just checking.”
* * * * *
Chapter Three: Evening, August 20, 2018
White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C., 2130 EDT (1830 PDT)
“What are you thinking? Are you sure that you even are thinking? If so, you are obviously having delusions of adequacy! Now stop bugging the platoon, give them whatever assistance they require and then get the hell out of their way! “DO I MAKE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR?” shouted the President of the United States, Bill Jacobs. Apparently, the person on the other end of the phone replied in the affirmative, because the president grunted a brief “Good,” and then hung up the phone.
“Thank you, Mr. President. The team was going to have problems getting anything else done in the area with Barnaby out of control there,” said Admiral James Wright, the Chief of Naval Operations.
“My pleasure,” said the president. “It was actually kind of fun, once I got warmed up to it. Now, you said that the team actually sank the Chinese amphibious assault ship?”
“Yes, sir,” chuckled Admiral Wright “as much as you can sink something that is tied up to a pier, anyway. Not only did they get the hostages off the ship and then sink the ship at the pier, they also brought back the Chinese Fleet Admiral that was in charge of the naval portion of the operation.”
“Those guys don’t do anything by half, do they?” asked the president. “What was it they were calling themselves?”
“The lieutenant that is leading them said they were the ‘1st Joint Special Operations Platoon.’ I get the feeling that the men in it are a special group.”
“No doubt,” said the president. “OK,” he continued, changing the subject. “Where do we stand with Taiwan?”
“We’re still in danger of losing the island,” said the Navy Intelligence captain that had been waiting to brief the president when the call from Seattle had come in. “We have some really good news, but we have some really bad news, as well. As you are aware, once the team in Seattle was able to successfully recover the nuclear weapons, you gave the ‘go ahead’ to engage in operations for the defense of Taiwan. We had two submarines in the area, the USS Seawolf (SSN-21) and the USS North Carolina (SSN-777); they have both gone on the offensive.”
“Our initial report from the North Carolina is outstanding. She caught an invasion wave in the middle of the South China Sea. Apparently, the Chinese thought that holding Seattle hostage would freeze us for longer that it did, and they sent over a wave of eight amphibious assault ships with only a Jiangwei-class frigate and a Luyang-class destroyer for protection. The North Carolina started by sinking the destroyer and the frigate with its initial torpedo volley and then proceeded to sink all eight of the transports. After the fourth one went down, the rest started abandoning ship rather than waiting to go down with all hands. The North Carolina’s commanding officer gave them time to abandon ship and then sank the remainder of them. Most of the people in the last four ships will survive, but all of the equipment is at the bottom of the South China Sea, and their soldiers are in rubber rafts. When we last talked to the North Carolina, they thought they had indications that the Chinese aircraft
carrier was nearby. It was the commanding officer’s intention to find it, track it and sink it. That’s the good news.”
“Things did not go so well for the Seawolf,” he continued. “Her patrol got off to a good start, with her sinking a Chinese Yukan-class tank landing ship that she found out on its own. Later, she found a convoy of eight Chinese transports and started shadowing them, looking to get a shot. The convoy appeared to be guarded by a Luyang-class destroyer, a Luzhou-class destroyer and a Sovremenny-class destroyer. The problem is that the Sovremenny-class destroyer was not a Chinese destroyer, but a Russian destroyer that was shadowing the Chinese convoy. The Russians have always shadowed our ships to watch how we trained, so that they would be better prepared to fight us in a war. Apparently, they were doing the same to the Chinese and were shadowing the convoy to see how the Chinese conducted amphibious operations. The bottom line is that the Seawolf sank that convoy. All of them, including the Russian destroyer. The State Department is on the phone with the Russians right now, and they are pissed. They don’t care that their ship was in a war zone. They want blood…”
Sommers’ House, North Bend, WA, 1845 PDT
“I’m not sure I can do another mission,” complained Calvin, lying down on the couch. “I don’t think I have an ounce of adrenaline left in my body. I am beat. How do you guys do this all the time?”
Occupied Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 2) Page 12