by T I WADE
Preston and Martie were first. “Mr. President, I’d like to introduce you to the owners of this farm, Mr. Preston Strong and Ms. Martie Roebels,” the general said. All parties shook hands.
“I’ve heard you guys are having more action down here than I’m seeing at the White House, so I hope you don’t mind my visit,” the president said with his world-famous smile.
“If I’d known you were coming, sir, I would have built a Presidential Suite for you,” replied Preston, grinning.
“It would have only taken us a week, Mr. President. General Allen could have given us a little more notice,” added Martie, also smiling at the president and winking at the general. “General, I need to speak to you about our now confirmed incoming visitors as soon as possible.”
“Okay, let’s get the introductions done,” the general replied. “Preston, you know everybody here, could you please introduce the president and his friends to all these fine folk while I have a conversation with your lady here? Preston, Martie, this is Carlos’ uncle, Uncle Philippe, the Colombian Ambassador to the United States, and Carlos’ father, Manuel.” They all shook hands.
“I’ve heard many good things about you, Preston and Martie,” the ambassador said as he greeted them. “Carlos really appreciates your friendship. These are my bodyguards—actually, family— Manuela, Mannie, and Dani.” The bodyguards quickly moved and stood with Carlos.
It was now up to Preston to introduce the president and ambassador to the rest of those in attendance. General Allen, anxious about the president’s safety, took Martie by the arm and led her away to talk.
The introductions were first made to all the civilians, and the president was extremely interested in his introduction to Lee Wang and family. Once the president had met everyone, Preston took him over to meet the troops while Carlos explained to his uncle and father who Lee and his family were. Preston introduced the president to Captains Powers and Watkins, who introduced him to the other pilots. The pilots spoke with their Commander-in-Chief for a few minutes and then Captain Powers introduced him to First Sergeant Perry, who in turn introduced him to each of the troops at attention.
By this time, the general was back and asked all personnel to move into the hangar where it was warm. It was time for a meeting. He asked First Sergeant Perry to attend and for volunteers to find snacks and drinks—it was going to be a long meeting. Joe enlisted some soldiers to follow him and his boys to the trailer and get several tables and chairs out of the back.
“Quite a set-up you have here, Preston,” the president stated, walking down the runway with its owner, a totally free man for the first time since he had become president four years earlier. He was without his bodyguards hounding him every step of the way. The perimeter was now secure, the defenses on the road nearly complete, and he wanted some fresh air while everybody was getting ready for the meeting. Both men spent a few minutes inspecting the old aircraft. Preston walked with the president, as did Oliver and the puppy. “It took a bit of money to get all this together.”
“It did, Mr. President,” he replied. “My father was the co-pilot on the flight that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the settlement money helped fund my airport.”
They quickly went over each aircraft. The two remaining Mustangs were parked next to the hospital tents on the south side of the old barn facing the runway, and the P-38 was next to them. The president was impressed. The FedEx Cargomaster was the last one on that side.
“You are doing FedEx deliveries these days?” the president queried.
“I’m thinking a little forward with this one and those Cessnas we commandeered from the Raleigh/Durham International airport, Mr. President,” Preston explained his idea. “I’m thinking about food distribution to the hungry in the area, and I know that the bases around here have well over five million meal rations in storage that were destined for our troops overseas. Since there is no way we can get them over there, I was hoping to use them to feed as many people on this side as we could.” The president was quiet when the mention of the overseas troops came up. He shook his head and looked down at the ground.
They completed the tour, and the last aircraft was the gunship, in which he had arrived in and was being refueled to take off and fly high for protection while the president was on the ground. The president was unfamiliar with the AC-130, and Preston asked the aircraft’s armaments officer to explain the weaponry pointing out of its left side.
“This is a 20mm Vulcan Cannon, sir—the same fitted to most Air Force aircraft since Vietnam, such as F-15s, F-4s, etc. It’s a Gatling gun that can fire up to 100 rounds a second and normally is used for the destruction of ground troops and small vehicles. We hold 3,000 rounds in Ghost Rider and normally use the cannon for short bursts of 300 to 400 rounds. The Bofors 40mm light anti-aircraft gun is for protection from the air. We carry 240 rounds and this baby saved Ghost Rider a couple times in Vietnam. The last gun, the big one, is the 105mm Howitzer. We carry 100 rounds for her, sir, and she is mainly used for larger ground vehicles like tanks or any buildings we need to flatten. We are currently carrying 60 rounds that can penetrate most armor on tanks and or many naval ships, as well as 40 rounds that are HE, or ‘high explosive.’ If anybody comes sniffing around tonight, we will see them miles away with our original and working infrared and heat scopes. We can see the movement of a mouse at 5,000 feet and she is one of two Air Force C-130s that were heavily modified during Vietnam. She, as well as all of these older C-130s we have flying, can be refueled in the air.”
Preston and the president thanked the man and walked back to the hangar. They entered the side door as the gunship began her whine, and Preston noticed the two armored cars disappearing down the driveway towards the gate. They entered the hangar and found that chairs of all sorts had been placed in rows for the meeting, the most comfortable ones in the front. Preston also noticed that three new rooms had appeared on the southern wall of the hangar with movable partitions, and he could see wooden army beds inside them. He figured there were about a dozen beds per room.
The general was waiting, and Preston was surprised to see Joe and David still in the room. They must have allowed the Air Force personnel to drive their valuable toys out to the ambush zone.
“Mr. President, you are seated next to the ambassador and Mr. Rodriquez. We need to get started,” instructed General Allen. “Preston, your seat is next to Martie, naturally.” Preston noticed that he was also sitting next to the president.
Everybody was in attendance. Next to Martie was Pam Wallace, the extremely pretty flight attendant, and next to her was Grandpa Roebels with Michael next to him. The second row was the ‘complete’ Smart family, Carlos, the three Colombian bodyguards, Sally, Buck, and Barbara. In the third row were Jennifer, David, Joe, and all his sons. The fourth row was the Air Force doctor, his chief nurse, First Sergeant Perry, and the technical sergeants, and the fifth and sixth rows were assorted Air Force personnel who were not currently on duty at the entrance or in the fire tower.
“Good evening, y’all,” the general smiled, using his best southern drawl. “We have two hours before Ghost Rider—the AC-130 gunship—is landing and the president leaves. Hopefully, we will not be attacked during our meeting, but I want Martie and her new friend to come up and tell us what they saw today and what we can expect. Martie, Pam, you have five minutes.” The two women got up and walked to the front of the room.
“This is Pam Wallace,” started Martie. “Pam is a senior flight attendant with Southwest Airlines, and was on a flight that took off from La Guardia four minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Her pilot, Captain Mike Mallory, managed to put his dysfunctional aircraft down in the water around New York with no loss of life. The captain, his crew, and many of his passengers drove south with a very interesting group of vehicles that I got a chance to see today, just north of the North Carolina state line.” Martie continued and gave her report on the Southwest crew and passengers she had met, as well as the convoy
of ten vehicles she had seen from the air—mostly old Chevy Suburbans and Ford trucks a couple of miles behind the Southwest convoy on the southbound side of the highway.
“Hi everyone! It’s so nice to see civilization again,” Pam started as Martie gave her the floor. “The rest of our group will be arriving at RDU tomorrow, thanks to Martie. I know that our two pilots will be itching to help you guys, if you can loan them some wings. They are out of a job at the moment. I also am a private pilot and can help you as a spotter pilot, if you need me.”
Pam grinned at the murmur of laughter she heard. “On a more serious note, the other convoy coming south has roughly ten vehicles with what looks like three to six people per vehicle. We never really got close enough to see for sure, but they killed two innocent people for no reason. They passed us during our first night. We had driven down the northbound lane, only because it was the only lane we could get onto in New York and we never bothered to change. The other convoy was driving in the southbound lane so we do not think they ever knew we were in the vicinity. We tried to catch up with them at one point, until we came across the two freshly dead bodies. They had been shot several times and every vehicle in the convoy had run over the bodies, flattening them into the snow. This led us to believe that they were people to be avoided, and we transferred back to the other side of the highway and stayed away from them until we turned off for our second night’s stay at a small airport just north of the North Carolina state line.”
At this point, Pam paused as if she was trying to figure out how to word what she wanted to say. “There is something I think we need to deal with pretty quickly, and that is how to feed and provide good drinking water to the U.S. civilians. Mr. President, General Allen, Captain Mallory spoke about this at our last overnight stop, and I think our Southwest team would like to take it further. We had a long talk with some farmers up in Maryland, and the captain told them to start farming and breeding animals as soon as the weather allows, and asked them to spread the word across the country, telling people to hold on and start finding ways to become self-sufficient. The farmers must produce food for the hungry as quickly as possible, protect themselves from attackers, and help people coming south from colder areas.” She got resounding applause from the group, and the president gave her a nod of approval. “To conclude, our trip south on the highway was horrible. We must have seen thousands of people dead in their vehicles or around them. It’s very cold out there and there must be millions of people, dead or dying from being exposed to these horrible weather conditions. The snow on the highway south of New York was up to six inches deep and icy conditions just before New Year’s Eve must have been the cause of many of the accidents. Many of the big fatal accidents happened near tractor trailers going out of control, and the carnage—just on the piece of highway south of Newark—was terrible. Thank you.”
Martie stepped back in to continue. “I had my binoculars fixed on the other convoy while I was in the air, and it looked like the vehicles were full of people, as Pam said. If they are coming our way, they most likely turned off I-95 about an hour ago and should be on the outskirts of Raleigh by now. The dead vehicles on the incoming roadways will slow them down for the last 20 miles or so, but if they are coming here, they should be in our area within the next couple of hours.”
The general thanked the two ladies for their reports and asked First Sergeant Perry to give his situation report on the defense structure for this potential attack scenario.
“Mr. President, Mr. Ambassador, General Allen,” Sergeant Perry began. “We have set up a perimeter around this field that is ready to hold off an ambitious attack. We have completed our ambush scenario along the 300-foot dirt road leading to the asphalt feeder road, and have changed it slightly since our initial ideas this morning. The men have made and painted a simple wooden airport sign with an arrow pointing to the entrance of the airport—the way we want them to come in. This is to make sure they drive into our ambush. We have a wall of sandbags across the dirt road 50 feet before the gate entrance to this property. This is to make sure that any incoming vehicles will have to stop. There are no vehicles allowed in or out except Mr. Joe and Mr. David. They turn left any way and one of David’s two armored cars has been placed further down the road, 250 feet behind the barrier. Our latest scenario takes the entrance gate out of the ambush. The armored ferret is behind a double wall of sandbags to protect it from any shoulder-operated missiles. It is positioned where the lights of any incoming vehicles will light up the barricade, but leave the armored car in the darkness behind the barricade, if they decide to attack before dawn. After dawn, we will review the ambush zone and make the barricade across the road the main focus point. If they open fire at the barricade, we will know that they aren’t friendly and fire back. The barricade is 3-foot high and made of a triple line of sandbags behind the turned-over dining tables we brought from Seymour Johnson.”
Sergeant Perry paused to fish some notes out of his pocket to make sure he had the information listed correctly. “The barrier will be manned by 20 soldiers with M4s and a machine gun on either side in the shallow drainage ditches, again protected by sandbags and camouflaged with heavy brush. There is no way around the barricade, and the 200 feet of road where any enemy vehicles would need to stop is fully visible from the fire tower. A third and fourth machine gun has been placed on the fire tower, which will be invisible before dawn, but unfortunately very visible in the daylight. Two small 2-inch mortars have been placed 200 yards inside the wired perimeter and are ready to fire into the ambush point. My plan is that there will be three to four men in civilian clothes with hunting rifles ‘guarding’ the barricade. I want the barricade to look like a bunch of farmers protecting their road from visitors, so we have hidden any forms of military presence as best we can. As soon as the men see the lights of vehicles, they will get behind the sandbags and shout to anyone to stop. That is when we expect action. The men will be surrounded by Air Force troops along the barricade with automatic carbines.”
“Last, we cannot allow the ambushers to retreat. Carlos has explained that the first items we must find are the communications devices they are using. He thinks that they are small satellite cell phones. So, we have set up a first retreat kill zone in the trees the other side of the entrance on the feeder road. Thanks to Mr. Joe and Mr. David, we have enough mobile radios for all groups and the commanders of each section to be in radio contact throughout the fight. The attack armament for the retreating ambushes is the second rat patrol jeep facing down the short piece of road from the trees on the other side of the feeder road. Again, we have placed sandbags around it for protection. The two machine guns will wreack havoc on any retreating enemy.
“A mile north and south on the feeder road, I have placed a platoon of 30 men who are to stay hidden in the forest until any convoy passes, and then they will close down the road and shoot anybody who runs into them with two mortars and machine guns. In the forest to the east of the feeder road, and dug in to protect themselves from friendly fire, are another dozen troops, spaced out every 100 feet with night goggles. Their job is to bring down anybody escaping through the forest. My last ambush position is one flanking ambush squad of 12 men who are behind sandbags, and are facing towards the ambush road area, and inside the perimeter fence. The perimeter fence is 20 yards from the road—a little closer than I would like if the mortars land short, but their job is to kill the ambushers from the side and to make sure our perimeter is not breached. That ends my report.”
“How strong is your barrier at the front of the road?” David asked.
“We have considered what would be the worst armaments that potential ambushers can carry in small vehicles,” replied the first sergeant. “The worst they could have are shoulder rocket launchers like an RPG, then rifle grenades, and machine guns. If they have anything more, then we could consider them a suicide squad. Our men have been issued with gas masks if the attackers are wearing them upon entry, Mr. David. We are hoping tha
t our forward troops on the feeder road using night binoculars and infrared scopes can tell us their exact numbers and whether they are wearing any protective equipment. That should tell us their intentions.”
“And this is complete and all the men are in position?” asked the general.
“Yes, sir. The men have camouflage gear, there is no snow at the moment, they have rations to last 24 hours, and apart from Mr. Joe, Mr. David, and me, we are ready for action.”
“Could they have mortars and decide to shell us from outside the one mile radius?” asked Preston.
“They could, sir, but anything that big couldn’t fit in a Suburban or Explorer,” Sergeant Perry answered. “The attackers might have small mortars, but I believe that our troops, from three angles, will be fast enough to keep them from setting up any mortars or tri-pod machine guns. I think that shoulder rocket launchers are the best bet, and we have several troops at the front barricade and on the sides of the ambush zone ready with flares. The flares are quick-action, low-level flares that will light up the scene within seconds. The men in the forest have sniper rifles with night scopes, as well as the men on both sides of the feeder road. I believe nobody can escape, sir.”
The General nodded, thanked the man, and Sergeant Perry asked to leave to complete final checks.
Preston noticed that one of David’s mobile radios had been placed to one side of the podium and it suddenly squawked a message calling Pete.
“Ghost Rider to Pete!”
“What’s up Ghost Rider?” Pete Allen replied, walking over to the radio and picking up the microphone.
“We have a visual of the ten vehicles moving through the middle of downtown Raleigh. We have seen several civilians go out to meet them and it looks like the men in the vehicles shoot to kill. There are several dead bodies on the streets they have been traveling. There is heavy civilian population in this area. Do you want us to take them out?”