“No, I don’t,” replied his commanding officer, “and it’s starting to worry me. I wanted to get up there a lot sooner than now, too. We were going to fly up with a couple of the ‘Bounty Hunters’ of Strike Fighter Squadron 2, but one of their Super Hornets developed a maintenance issue right after I coordinated everything with them, and had to drop out of the flight. CAG wouldn’t let us go with just one escort aircraft, so we had to switch out the Bounty Hunters’ aircraft with a couple from the Blue Blasters of VFA-34, and then I had to re-brief the entire flight with them. If I sound like I’m frustrated, it’s because I am.”
“What was the problem, Skipper?” asked Bob Dog.
“The problem was that the Blasters still fly the older F-18C model Hornet, which meant that the fuel is going to be a bit tighter than had originally been planned. Not only did I have to brief the flight and work out our communications plan, I also had to coordinate getting them to the tanker and making sure that they got every last bit of gas that they could. It was necessary for the overall success of the mission, but it took time. If there is something happening back home, and it certainly seems like there is, I want to know what’s going on now, not once whoever it is gets dug in and settled. Nothing else has been heard from the air base since the first few calls, and no one has been allowed on base. We only know that some group appears to be holding the base hostage, that the group looks Asian, and that they have strange looking rifles. No one knows who they are and I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” said Bob Dog, who had a wife and two children that lived outside of the base in Oak Harbor.
“Hey, Skipper,” said Goggles, “here come the Blasters.”
“Who are we flying with?” asked Bob Dog as the ground crew began removing the safeties from the two fighters’ gun systems.
Mighty Mite looked at his notes. “LT ‘Calvin’ Hobbs is in Blaster 203, and LTJG ‘Oscar’ Berkman is piloting Blaster 207,” he said.
“Calvin’s a good stick,” said Bob Dog, “and has been around a while, but Oscar’s one of their newbies. I don’t know him very well.” In addition to the duties Bob Dog had with the squadron, Mighty Mite knew that he was also a Landing Signal Officer (LSO) for the air wing. As an LSO, he was one of the people responsible for making sure that all of the air wing’s pilots landed safely onboard the carrier. It didn’t take long for the word to get around the LSO community about which pilots were good and which ones had to be watched closely.
Bob Dog saw that the ground crew had finished arming the Blasters, and Calvin gave him a thumb’s up, indicating they were ready to go. “The Blasters are ready,” he told Mighty Mite, who called the Tower for permission to take off. Mighty Mite sighed. They were finally on their way.
Fort Lewis Main Gate, Tacoma, Washington, 1625 Pacific Daylight Time
The convoy of trucks pulled up to the main gate of Fort Lewis on Clark Rd., only to find the gates closed, and strange looking tanks blocking their progress. Two oriental men in strange camouflage uniforms approached the first truck while at least 30 others watched. The two men in the driver’s compartment of the truck noticed that all of the men they could see had their weapons drawn and pointed in their general direction. This didn’t seem like any drill they had ever been a part of. Even more ominously, the guns of the tanks seemed to be tracking on them, following their every movement.
“Hi,” said the driver, Sergeant Adams, rolling down his window as the two men walked up. Sergeant Bill Adams was an experienced driver and had made this trip many times since he was stationed on the base. He had never had a reception like this, even on a Sunday. He was starting to be a little uncomfortable. “We’re coming back from a weekend at the Yakima Training Center. We need to get on post so that we can drop off all of the troops and gear.”
Both of the camouflaged men shook their heads. “I’m sorry,” the closer one said, “but that isn’t going to be possible at this time.” He pointed at a large amount of black smoke in the air in the direction of the airfield. “As you can see, there was an accident at the airfield, and a couple of large weapons are unsecured. Some gas was also released, so the base has been closed off. You won’t be able to enter the base at this time.”
“Where are we supposed to go with all of this stuff?” asked Sergeant Adams, nodding with his head toward the back of the truck.
“Do you have weapons and ammunition in the back?” asked the guard, by way of a reply.
“Yeah,” answered the sergeant, “we’ve got a whole load of weapons and a bunch of live ammunition.”
Both of the guards noticeably tensed up. “You’re going to have to leave the trucks here, then” said the second guard, who hadn’t spoken previously. “We can’t let them go out into town.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?” asked Sergeant Adams. “Sit here and babysit them or unload them so we can drive the trucks?”
“Actually,” said the second guard, “what you’re going to do is get out of the truck and leave. You will leave the truck here, and we’ll take care of it for you.”
“Excuse me,” said First Lieutenant Steven Ross, who was riding as the passenger in the truck, “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t really care a whole lot. What I do know is that I’m signed for this load of stuff, and I’m not going to just leave it sitting here. Nor am I just going to go off walking through town. I can’t even get a cell phone signal through to call my wife. I understand if there’s an emergency going on that has closed the base. Fine, we’ll pull off the road here and wait until it opens again, however long it takes. I, however, am not leaving.”
The lieutenant’s door was thrown open, and someone reached in, grabbed him and threw him to the ground outside. Sergeant Adams watched as the lieutenant started to sputter something about having the soldier charged with striking an officer; his voice stopped suddenly, however, when the muzzle of the soldier’s rifle was pressed against his nose.
“Hey, who are you guys, anyway?” asked Sergeant Adams, trying to do something distract the guards and defuse the tension. Looking at them a little closer, he noticed that the rifles the guards had weren’t M-16s. Not only weren’t they M-16s, they also didn’t look like any American rifle he had ever seen. The configuration was all wrong. He started to get a bad feeling about this; all of a sudden, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know who they were, anymore.
“Get out of the truck!” the guard closest to him commanded. Finding that he was now looking down the barrel of one of the strange-looking rifles, Sergeant Adams decided that now would be a good time to exit the vehicle. As he did so, he saw that the rest of the men that had been standing around had sprung into action and had surrounded the rest of the convoy of trucks. There must have been additional soldiers that had been previously hidden, too, because all of a sudden there was nearly a company of soldiers pointing rifles at the Americans in the convoy.
Sergeant Adams watched as all of the soldiers were forced to exit their vehicles and were searched for weapons. The soldiers prodded the Americans into a group, and another man came to stand in front of them. By the way he held himself, Sergeant Adams could tell that the newcomer was either an officer or a senior enlisted; he was used to command. Getting their attention, he addressed the group. “Who we are is unimportant at this moment, but it will all be made plain to you in good time. In the meantime, though, it is enough for you to know that the base is closed, and we have orders not to let weapons out into town. Unfortunately, we can’t let you stand around here, so you are going to have to go. Where you go isn’t important to me; all that’s important is that you leave and do not come back. I’m sure your chain of command will be in contact with you shortly. I’m sorry to have to make you walk, but those are my orders. That’s also all the information that I can give you about the drill that’s in progress on the base. All right, then, have a nice day.”
“Wait a minute,” said Lieutenant Ross. “I need a few of my men to stay here and stand guard over our equipment. I’ll lose
my commission if I just leave it here with someone I don’t know, just on your say-so. I need to speak to one of my superiors for authorization.”
“You’ll lose your commission if you walk off?” asked the camouflaged leader. The lieutenant nodded. “If you stay here,” the leader continued, “you will lose your life!” He drew his pistol. “I am going to count to 10, at which point, I will personally shoot anyone that is still standing here in front of me. No questions. Go!” He began to count, and most of the American soldiers started to walk off. Sergeant Adams joined them. The person with the pistol got to 5; looking back, Sergeant Adams saw that the lieutenant still hadn’t moved. The leader pointed the pistol at the lieutenant, continuing to count. By the time he got to 8, everyone had stopped, waiting to see what would happen when he got to 10. The man with the pistol had to be bluffing, they all thought.
The leader said 9. He cocked the hammer of the pistol. The lieutenant didn’t flinch. Sergeant Adams would never learn what the lieutenant was thinking, for, as the leader said 10, he pulled the trigger and fired a round through the lieutenant’s forehead. Sergeant Adams ran.
Conibear Shellhouse, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1645 PDT
The boathouse was deserted. It hadn’t been easy, but by being careful, Sara had made it to the boathouse undetected. Along the way, she had seen additional groups of soldiers herding what looked like students in the direction of the Intramural Activities Building. She wondered what the soldiers were doing with the students, and her mind feared the worst for her friend. She didn’t think it likely that the soldiers had arranged a giant intramural basketball tournament for the weekend and had parachuted onto campus just to set it up. There was something going on, something that involved those big boxes that the soldiers had been taking off the helicopters. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew that it was big. Anything that brought soldiers from another country here had to be extremely serious in nature.
She had no idea what to do. She wanted to help her friend, but she knew there was nothing she could do against armed soldiers. What was she going to do? Sneak up on one of them with a knife, kill him, take his rifle and start a one woman guerrilla war? Unlikely, since she didn’t even know how their rifles worked, much less how to use those grenade launcher things that she had seen some of the soldiers carrying.
The bottom line was that she needed help. She could go to the police, but she didn’t think that they would be much help. They might be able to perform crowd control against drunken, unruly students at a concert, but she expected that they would be out of their league against armed soldiers who were trained killers. Sure, the police might be able to kill a few of them, but the soldiers were going to win in the end and kill a lot more of the police.
She wanted to go home and tell her dad, but she didn’t think that he was the right person, either. Sure, he was good in the woods and knew how to hunt and fish, but he wasn’t trained to go against soldiers. Not only wouldn’t she get Erika back from the soldiers, she was also likely to lose her father. She was rapidly running out of options.
Then it dawned on her; she did know someone that was trained to fight soldiers. Not only someone that could fight them, but someone that was an elite soldier, a SEAL, the ‘best of the best.’ She thought for a minute and could see him at the top of Infinite Bliss; he was tall, handsome, blue-eyed and his name was….Ryan! If she could somehow find him, he would know how to get Erika back. He might even be able to do the sneaking up with a knife thing. Although he hadn’t been a SEAL in a couple of years, surely those things were like riding a bike? Once you know how to kill someone, you wouldn’t forget it, would you?
Realizing that Ryan was really her only good option, she knew that she had a problem. How do I find him? How do I find someone that probably doesn’t want to be found? If he was living in the national forest, he wouldn’t want his house (cabin? tent?) to be found, and would have gone to great lengths to put it where it wouldn’t be found and then would have camouflaged it to ensure that it wasn’t. Sara knew that she had good outdoorsman’s skills, but a trained SEAL would have skills on a whole different level.
What if he didn’t live in the forest? Then how would she find him? It wasn’t as if she could pull out a phone book and look up SEAL to find him. Looking up ‘Ryan’ was similarly unhelpful. Without his last name, she would never be able to pull his number out of the phone book, even if his apartment had a phone. If he didn’t live in it much, as she had thought when she met him, would he bother to have a phone? More likely, he would have a cell phone, or even a satellite phone, as far back into the woods as he lived. Her best bet would be to go to Mt. Garfield and try to find him. Perhaps if she got into the general vicinity of where he lived and yelled his name? Advertising his name at the top of her lungs probably wouldn’t win her any points with him, but it was the best she could do; it would have to suffice.
Having decided that, she just needed to figure out how she was going to get there. Her first plan to leave the campus was still her best bet. With the soldiers having moved on, she still had enough time left in the day to take one of the sailboats and make it across the water. From there, she could either try to borrow a phone to call her parents and have them come get her, or she could try hiking to North Bend on her own. However she got to her house, she could borrow one of her parents’ cars and drive up to Mt. Garfield at first light in the morning. Walking around the mountain in the dark was only a recipe for disaster. She’d somehow find Ryan and convince him to help. She wasn’t sure how she’d do it, but she had a couple hours of sailing time to work it out.
Having reached a decision, she pushed the sailboat into the water and set off. Ryan wasn’t getting any closer while she stood there.
Seattle Outskirts, WA, 1700 Pacific Daylight Time
“The lockdown is complete,” said Lieutenant Colonel Peng Yong. “I have gotten reports from each of the zones.”
“All of our forces were supposed to be in place by now,” said Colonel Zhang. “Are they?”
“It appears so,” said Lieutenant Colonel Peng. “In the southwest, our blockade is set on I-5, south of the town of Olympia. As you will recall, this blockade is largely symbolic, as automobiles can easily avoid the blockade by using the streets through the city. It does, however, serve to remind the citizens that we are there in force, as well as to prevent large-scale military convoys from that direction. We have two companies of tanks and a battery of anti-aircraft guns; it will be able to defend against anything but a well-organized military assault. There is also a battalion of soldiers there in support of the armor. An additional two companies of tanks and another battalion of troops in the area will help ensure that United States military forces will not slip through unopposed. There are also four tanks and the platoon of troops camped out on the Olympia airport to ensure that it won’t be used.” Colonel Zhang nodded. That was as it was supposed to be.
“In the east,” Lieutenant Colonel Peng continued, “the blockade is set up at the Olallie State Park, about six miles east of the town of North Bend, Washington. With a major U.S. Air Force base located in Spokane to the east, this blockade is manned by 2,000 troops, reinforced with a battalion of 124 tanks. These tanks are supported by both a PGZ-95 anti-aircraft battery and a HQ-19 surface-to-air missile battery that are both located in North Bend. There are another 500 soldiers and two companies of tanks located 17 miles to the north along Highway 2 to ensure that the Americans can’t sneak through that way, either.”
“Good,” said Colonel Zhang, nodding.
“Finally,” Lieutenant Colonel Peng finished, “in the north, the last blockade is set up on I-5 four miles south of Mt. Vernon. Two battalions of troops are in the area, as well as a battalion of tanks. There is another force of about 500 troops and two companies of tanks at Lake McMurray four miles to the east to ensure that the Americans don’t send a force down Highway 9.” Lieutenant Colonel Peng paused and looked up from his notes. “I’m sorry, sir, but I still
don’t see how any of these will stop a full scale assault.”
Colonel Zhang smiled. “They are not supposed to. Each of these forces is only supposed to maintain local control of its area; they were never expected to be able to defend against a determined, full-scale American assault. If the U.S. is able to get enough troops into the area, they will be able to break through our forces, if they choose. Our defenses around Seattle are somewhat like an egg. There is a thin shell that surrounds the area, which is strong enough to withstand some attacks; if you hit it hard enough, though, you can crack it quite easily.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Colonel Peng, “that is exactly what I’m saying! We can’t hold Seattle with these forces.”
Colonel Zhang smiled. “The best protection an egg has is that people try to treat it carefully to avoid breaking it. The purpose of our forces is to maintain local control and ensure that the majority of the American civilians don’t leave the Seattle area. They make better hostages for nuclear blackmail that way.”
M.V. Erawan, Pier 91, Seattle, WA, 1745 Pacific Daylight Time
Senator Jack Turner jumped up as the door opened. He and his family had been kept in a dark, unheated hold area of the ship for over three hours, and his head hurt from where the soldier had hit him with his rifle. He chilled slightly as three Asian-looking men entered the hold. Two were armed with rifles; the other had a pistol at his side, but kept it in his holster. The way the other two deferred to him, and the aura of dangerous competence he exuded, marked the man with the pistol as their leader.
Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 1) Page 18