Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 1)

by Christopher Kennedy

  “Well, I’m not the one who just got shot down by a helicopter,” the man said. He indicated the tube. “You’ll be happy to know that I shot him down so we don’t have to worry about him coming over to strafe us.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, that was my last SAM, so we’ll have to work on acquiring some more, if we’re going to help the effort anymore.”

  “Who are you,” asked Calvin, “freaking Rambo?”

  “Nope,” replied the man, “just your friendly neighborhood SEAL that happened to be passing by with a surface-to-air missile. My name’s Ryan O’Leary.”

  “Well, thank you, sir, for taking care of the helo. I never saw it; I just thought I had an engine failure. My name is Shawn Hobbs, but you can call me Calvin.”

  “I’m no ‘sir,’” said Ryan. “You can call me Ryan, or even Senior Chief, if you need to, although I’ve been out of the Navy for a couple of years now.” He sighed. “Damn sequestration.” Calvin could see the mental shrug as he continued, “Well, let’s get your chute packed up and get walking. We’re going to have to hurry to get back to the cabin by dark and you don’t want to be walking on the side of a mountain at night. We can talk more on the way.”

  Wilmington Village Apartments, Tacoma, WA, 2005 Pacific Daylight Time

  First Sergeant Aaron ‘Top’ Smith looked through the binoculars at the gate to Fort Lewis. “That’s definitely odd,” he said. As the senior enlisted person in the unit, Aaron was known by the honorific ‘Top’ to the members of the company.

  “Dude!” exclaimed Private First Class Jamal ‘Bad Twin’ Gordon in a distinctly ‘surfer dude’ accent. “Like, who are those guys? They all look funny, and they’ve got, like, funny looking weapons.” The Rangers were watching the front gate of the base from the roof of the Gordons’ apartment building at the Wilmington Village apartment complex on the other side of I-5 from the main gate. Bad Twin had called them after one of his friends, who had gone to the Yakima Training Facility, had stopped by the apartment with a story about how the people at the gate had shot their convoy commander in the head. PFC Gordon didn’t know what they’d been smoking on their weekend in Yakima, but obviously the National Guard guys had convinced his friend to do something. He’d better hope that there wasn’t a surprise drug test this week or he was done for.

  “I don’t know,” said Top. “It’s weird; the convoy trucks are still parked in front of the gate, just like your friend said.”

  “Umm, when you say they look ‘funny,’” commented Sergeant Jim ‘Shuteye’ Chang, “I’m sure you mean that in the nicest way, since they look like they’re Chinese, like me, right?”

  Now that Sergeant Chang mentioned it, Top saw that all of the soldiers at the front gate of the base did sort of look like Sergeant Chang, whose family had emigrated from the Guangzhou region of southern China when he was a child.

  “Dude! Like, he didn’t mean anything by it, he’s just insensitive that way,” said PFC Gordon’s identical twin brother, Corporal Austin ‘Good Twin’ Gordon. At least that was what Sergeant Chang thought, anyway. The two brothers looked so much alike that he couldn’t tell them apart, except in uniform when they had their different rank insignia on.

  “Regardless of any insensitivity,” said Top, looking through the binoculars again, “Shuteye is right; they do look Asian.”

  “No, Top, not just Asian, but Chinese, like me,” Shuteye insisted. “They don’t look Japanese or Filipino; they look Chinese.”

  Top looked again. Shuteye was right, they did look Chinese. “OK, I agree,” said Top, “they do look Chinese. But that doesn’t help figure out what’s going on. I don’t know of a unit that conducts base security that’s made up entirely of a single ethnic group. Do any of you?”

  Everyone replied with a chorus of “no.”

  “Well, there is obviously something going on,” Top decided. “There was a lot amount of shooting from the direction of the airfield earlier. I have no idea what that was about. There weren’t supposed to be any drills or operations this weekend. It doesn’t add up.” If there was one thing that Top had learned in his time in the Army, it was to trust his feelings. When something didn’t feel right, it usually wasn’t.

  As the group watched, they saw a silver Ford drive up to the gate. The car stopped when it was flagged down, one of the guards spoke to the driver, and then the driver turned the car around and drove off the base. It came straight across I-5 and pulled into the convenience store next to the apartment complex. “I’m going to go talk to whoever just got turned back by the guards,” said Top. “I’ll be right back.”

  Top left the apartment building and jogged over to the convenience store. The silver Ford was still parked out front. As he stood by the car, a woman came out of the store and walked up to the driver’s side of the car. She was one of the biggest women he had ever seen. Not fat, but big. She was easily six feet, two inches tall and had broader shoulders than a lot of the men in the company. Not only that, she also had muscles that most of the men would have been proud of. Not weightlifter ugly, but well toned from a lot of usage. Still, with long blond hair and a pretty face, she was still able to look very attractive. Just in a huge, intimidating sort of way.

  “Can I help you?” she asked in a mousy voice that seemed far too high for someone her size. Top was sure it was too high for anyone that was taller than about three feet and not a cartoon character.

  “Umm, yeah, hi,” Top stuttered. He was unprepared for the voice. “I’m First Sergeant Smith,” he said holding out his hand. “There’s something strange going on, on base, and I wondered if we could ask you a few questions about what the gate guards said when you just tried to get on base.”

  The woman didn’t take his hand; instead, she looked around as if trying to figure out who the ‘we’ was that Top referred to.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I generally don’t go off with men I don’t know, especially ones that are spying on me. Usually I call the police. Sometimes, I just kick the shit out of them. Which is it going to be for you?”

  Top was sure that if the voice had been another octave lower, the woman probably would have really scared him with the threat. The voice, though, just took all of the danger out of the threat. She was big and confident, but he was sure that he could take her in a fight; well, pretty sure anyway, but he didn’t really want to put it to the test at the moment.

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m not trying to do anything other than get some information from you, like I said. I’m going to reach around and get my wallet. Then I can show you that I’m who I say I am.” He expected her to take a step back to give herself room to run; he found himself a little intimidated when she instead stepped forward into easy grappling range. He was even more intimidated when she took up a stance like she was going to be the one to grapple him. He pulled out his wallet and removed his military ID. “See, I really am First Sergeant Smith,” he said.

  “Yes, you are indeed,” said the woman, starting to smile.

  The smile was even more disconcerting than the threat was, Top decided.

  “Anyway,” he said, “there are a group of us Rangers that have been watching the front gate, trying to figure out what is going on.” He pointed to the roof of the nearby apartment building where several of his men could be seen, still looking toward the base. “We’d appreciate it if you’d come tell us what the guards at the front gate said to you when you tried to get on base.”

  “I’d be happy to do that,” said the woman. “It’ll be nice to start getting to know some of the men.”

  “What?” asked Top. “What do you mean, get to know some of the men?”

  “I’m Corporal Suzi Taylor,” said the woman. “I’m your new rifleman.”

  NAS Fallon, NV, 2015 Pacific Daylight Time

  “Any word from Skybolt yet?” asked Captain Jim “Muddy” Waters.

  “No, sir,” replied his deputy, Captain Don “Bambi” Heron, “and I’ll tell you, I’m getting awfully worried. The Hor
nets should be about out of gas by now, even with what they got from the tanker.”

  “How about trying Seattle Center?” asked CAG. “Could you give Center a call and see what happened to them?”

  “Sure thing, CAG,” Captain Heron said. He went to the phone, looked at a cheat sheet of phone numbers posted by the phone and dialed the number for Seattle Center. Within a couple of rings, it was answered by a pleasant voice that said, “Good evening, Seattle Center, may I help you?”

  “Good evening, my name is Captain Heron,” Bambi responded, “and I am calling from NAS Fallon. We had three aircraft that flew up that way earlier this evening that we haven’t heard back from. Do you have any info on the Skybolt 501 flight?”

  “My goodness,” the Center operator said, “I hope you find them. Let me transfer you up to the radar room; they should be able to help you.” There was a pause and then, “Good evening, Assistant Traffic Manager Tom Fuller speaking. May I help you?”

  Captain Heron repeated his request for more information on the Skybolt flight. He was surprised at the response. “Yes, I remember them well, especially since I personally spoke to them,” said Mr. Fuller. “They didn’t do anything that we requested of them and almost got flight violated by me for failure to follow directions. Ultimately, they went VFR and proceeded to the northeast, descending until we lost them in the radar clutter. They said they had enough gas to fly under visual flight rules and then return to Fallon. Have they not returned?”

  “No they haven’t,” said Bambi, “and we are starting to get worried about them.”

  “Well, if you give me your phone number, I’ll give you a call if they turn back up,” replied Mr. Fuller.

  Captain Heron gave the number to him, thanked him and then signed off. Bambi filled in CAG with what he had learned. “It’s odd,” he said. “I wonder what was going on that they didn’t want to follow instructions? Mighty Mite must have learned something about whatever is going on at Whidbey that he wanted to pursue, which is why they went VFR. I have a bad feeling about what they found.”

  “I do, too,” said CAG. “I think we need to come up with a ‘Plan B.’”

  “I agree,” said Bambi. “I think we need some aircraft with different capabilities up there. Personally, I’d like to send up one of the E-2s; with their satellite radio, we can stay in touch with them all the way up there.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” said CAG, “and we’ll send two of the Super Hornet fighters to go up there with it.” After the first flight had launched, CAG had asked the air wing maintenance officer to ensure that they had eight F-18s standing by at all times, with four armed for anti-aircraft operations and four armed as bombers.

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bambi. “With the Hawkeye’s ability to see a hostile aircraft a long way out, especially with their new upgrades, they should be able to identify any threats to the flight long before they can pose a threat.”

  “I know the Black Eagles just got the E-2D variant, but what does that give them?” asked Lieutenant Harry ‘Steamer’ Pyle, one of the air wing staff’s two landing signal officers.

  “The Black Eagle Hawkeyes have an entirely new avionics suite,” said Bambi, “including the new APY-9 radar and an integrated satellite communications system. The new radar adds electronic scanning to the mechanical rotation of the radar, which greatly improves its detection and tracking potential. The aircraft is able to simultaneously detect both surface radar contacts and aircraft at low-speeds over water, down to 0 knots, and over land at speeds down to about 50 knots. The Hawkeye’s radar and identification systems can detect targets at ranges out to about 300 nautical miles and classify them with its onboard electronic support measures system at distances beyond that. The best part is that the new onboard communications and data processing/distribution subsystems are able to send the tactical picture back to us via satellite radio, so we’ll be able to see what they’re looking at.”

  “Cool,” said Steamer, an F-18 pilot who didn’t keep up with many non-pilot things.

  “If the Center doesn’t know what happened to the Skybolt flight, it is time to send out a group that can find them and bring them home. Launch ‘Plan B,’” said CAG.

  Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, WA, 2017 Pacific Daylight Time

  “Dude!” said one of the twins. “You’re really, like, in the Rangers?”

  Suzi glared at him. “Really? Do, I look like a dude to you?” Her gaze returned to the rest of the group. “But, yes, I’m the first female to complete Ranger School. I started out as an intel analyst and have been waiting for the Army to open up the Rangers to women. When I first enlisted in 2013, the Army said that they would be opening the Rangers to women by 2016. It didn’t quite happen that quickly, but I was ready for the opportunity when it finally came.” Although women had been permitted to serve in some hazardous jobs for many years, and many did so in Iraq and Afghanistan, it wasn’t until 2013 that the Secretary of Defense had finally lifted the ban on women in combat. At that time, senior leaders were charged with figuring out how to have women integrated by 2016. With typical military reluctance to change, it had taken until 2018 before women were allowed in the more ‘exclusive’ occupations, like the Rangers or SEALs.

  As the senior enlisted for the company, Top had known she was coming, but hadn’t expected her for a couple of weeks. “Didn’t your Ranger School class just graduate on Friday?” he asked.

  “Sure did,” she said. “I jumped on a plane the next day, yesterday, and here I am. I don’t have a lot of family, and I wanted to get started. Mostly, I just wanted to put Ranger School behind me.” Most of the men nodded, having all been through it.

  “I know,” said Shuteye. “Even though the Ranger School only lasts 61 days, it just seems like it is forever.”

  “Yeah, you got that right,” added Staff Sergeant Patrick ‘The Wall’ Dantone. The Wall was one of the few men in the company that could dwarf Suzi; he had received his call sign after someone had said that he was ‘about as big as a wall.’ At 6’4” and nearly 300 pounds, he was a big man. “It is a mental and physical nightmare, especially if you’re a big guy that needs to eat.” The students were generally awake more than 20 hours per day, while eating two or fewer meals a day totaling about 2,200 calories. While they were doing this, they were also carrying between 65-90 pounds of weapons, equipment, and training ammunition. Over the duration of the course, students could expect to carry these packs on over 200 miles of patrols. “I lost over 30 pounds,” he continued, “and was a mess for a couple of weeks afterward.”

  “Did you have any problems?” Top asked. His biggest issue with women in the company wasn’t so much with them being females, but with them carrying their own weight. If Suzi needed special treatment, she would not fit into the unit. If she couldn’t carry her own weight, he wanted to know that as soon as possible.

  “I didn’t have any problems with the physical or mental stuff,” Suzi said. “Sure, it sucked, but I was in better starting shape than most of the guys there. I had worked my ass off for five years by that point; I was ready. I can’t say the same for the other two women in my class. They expected to get special treatment for the physical stuff; they were both gone by the third day.” She paused. “My problem was that I got ‘peered out.’”

  Top knew that, in addition to getting graded by the instructors, students also had to pass a peer evaluation. Failing to score more than a 60% approval rating from your squad could result in disqualification, though that usually only happened if the student failed peer evaluation twice. Sometimes an individual was singled out by someone else in the squad arbitrarily; because of this, someone who was peered out would be moved to another squad to ensure that they were given a fair chance to complete the course. If the student got peered out a second time, it was usually assumed that the student was either lazy, incompetent, or couldn’t keep up; at this point, the student was usually dropped from the course.

  “I’m not saying I’m perf
ect,” continued Suzi, “but there were some people there that didn’t want a woman to succeed. No matter what I did, they still made fun of me and voted against me. Generally, about one quarter of the people wanted me to fail, and one quarter wanted me to succeed. The other half didn’t give a shit, as long as I pulled my weight and didn’t get them captured or killed, which I never did,” she said proudly. “Still, there were some that were out to get me, and they twisted other students’ arms to vote against me.” She sighed. “I got peered once, and it was the hardest thing for me to take, because I hadn’t done anything wrong, other than be born without a ‘Y’ chromosome.” She shrugged. “I got transferred to another squad, and it was like a breath of fresh air. I completed the rest of the course and was awarded the Robert Spencer Enlisted Leadership Award. Over half of my class dropped out, but I made it through,” she said proudly.

  Top was impressed; the Spencer Enlisted Leadership Award was a prestigious award that was given to the student who embodied the highest leadership spirit and ideals; it was not lightly given. The recipient of the Spencer award was hand-selected as the best leader. The fact that she got it, in spite of what he expected was some serious backstabbing to ensure that she failed, said a lot about her spirit and perseverance. “You’re certainly in good shape,” he noted. “Most people completing Ranger School are in the worst shape of their life afterwards, due to sleep deprivation and the constant work load.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that’s why I’m just getting here now. I was supposed to be on an early flight out yesterday, but I slept through my alarm and then half the day. I ended up having to catch the red-eye last night.” She paused and then laughed. “If it hadn’t been for the maid that came in to clean my room, I might still be sleeping. I’m sure she enjoyed cleaning my room; I was so tired I fell asleep completely clothed, without even getting under the covers. There wasn’t anything for her to do but stretch the sheets a little tighter.”