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

by Christopher Kennedy

  “How are you doing now?” asked The Wall. He also had already been told that Suzi would be coming to his squad, and he took care of his men. And women, too, now, he guessed.

  “I’m doing better now, although I’d be lying if I said I remembered any of the flights here. Happily, the flight attendants kept waking me up when it was time to get off the plane.” She smiled. “I missed out on the flight here to Sea-Tac,” she said. “There was a cute guy next to me, but I immediately fell asleep, and he left when we landed without waking me up.” Looking around, she said. “Just so you know, I hate it when a guy does that.”

  “OK,” said Top, “now that we’ve got introductions out of the way, what can you tell us about the gate guards? Did they look Chinese to you? What did they say?”

  “Oh, they’re Chinese, all right, as are the two Type 98 tanks that are sitting there guarding the gate.” She looked out toward the gate. With the better vantage point, she could see a little further. “The tanks that are hiding back past the gate are Type 99s.”

  “Are those old tanks?” Top asked. “I know that sometimes, we buy armored vehicles and take them out onto the test ranges to see how they fare when they’re hit with new weapons. Do you know if we bought some of them either to test or blow up?”

  “No,” said Suzi, “I really doubt it. The Type 99s, especially, are top-of-the-line tanks. They’re the best main battle tank the Chinese have and are almost as good as our M-1 Abrams tanks.”

  “OK,” one of the twins said, “so, like, what are they doing sitting on our base?”

  “And, like, what are the Chinese doing as our new gate guards?” asked the other twin.

  And then they said in unison, “And, dude, how do we get to drive one?”

  Suzi looked at Top in surprise, but Top just shook his head. “Don’t worry about them; they were tank drivers before they came over to the Rangers. They still think they can drive tanks and blow things up.”

  “Dude! We can, like, drive anything you put us in!” boasted one of the twins.

  “Dude! We’re, like, the best team you have at blowing stuff up, too!” added the other.

  “While I’ll give you the fact that you’re good at blowing things up with the RAWS,” Top agreed, “I doubt that there is any need for you to either drive or shoot any of the tanks that are sitting at the gate.” The twins were one of the weapons platoon’s anti-armor sections, equipped with the 84mm Ranger Anti-Tank Weapon System (RAWS).

  “The real question,” continued Top, “is what to do with this information.” He paused, thinking. “I tried to phone our commanding officer earlier, but wasn’t been able to get him. My cell phone hasn’t worked for shit all afternoon and even the landlines have been out at times. I’d email him, but the internet went out at about the same time that my cell phone died.” He paused. Top knew that his commanding officer (CO) was hard to reach anyway; he didn’t think that the CO liked talking to his enlisted soldiers, even his senior enlisted. “I think I’ll try to call the executive officer with the apartment’s land line.”

  Unlike his CO, who was sometimes hard to find, the XO was always available and answered on the first ring. “Hi, sir,” Top began, “this is First Sergeant Smith. Have you seen the news today?”

  “Hey Top,” answered the XO, First Lieutenant Odysseus Bollinger. “Yeah, there’s some weird stuff going on, for sure. I tried to call the CO, but his phone must be out. I was just thinking of running over to his house to see if he had any orders for us, since I hadn’t heard from him. My phone’s been out most of the afternoon.”

  “It’s not just yours,” said Top. “Phones have been out everywhere this afternoon, and there’s some strange shit going on all over the area. I’m standing here in the twins’ apartment across the street from the main gate of Fort Lewis and, I know this is going to sound unbelievable, but there are Chinese tanks at the front gate.”

  “C’mon, Top, what’s really going on? Is this some sort of test from the CO to see what I’d do if he were ever incapacitated?” asked the XO, who thought it sounded like something stupid the CO would do.

  Top answered, “No sir, the CO didn’t put me up to this.” Although, it did sound like some of the stupid shit the CO would pull, Top thought. “There really are Chinese tanks at the main gate, as well as a large number of Chinese-looking troops. Of note, the tanks were identified by our new corporal, Corporal Taylor, who used to be an Intel Specialist.” He didn’t mention that Corporal Taylor was a female. The Chinese at the gate was a big enough surprise.

  “Corporal Taylor is already here? Didn’t she just graduate two days ago? Shouldn’t she still be in bed?” the XO asked. Top sighed. It figured that the XO would know all about her. The XO had his finger on the pulse of the company and was as first-rate an officer as the CO was not. Not much got by him.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Top. “She’s doing pretty well, although I think she’s slept the last two days solid.”

  “I think I slept for three full days after I was done,” said the XO. “My wife thought I had died. She was already planning how to spend the insurance money when I woke up.” He laughed. “Startled the crap out of her when I said ‘hi.’ I think she may have wet herself.”

  Top laughed along with the XO, although he doubted that the XO’s wife would have been startled. He had found her to be one of the most methodical people he had ever met. “I doubt that, sir,” Top said. “I’m pretty sure that she would have checked for a pulse before she started spending the money.” He paused. “In any event, sir, I’m calling to see what you’d like us to do. There are what appear to be Chinese soldiers at the gate, and there was a lot of gunfire and explosions a couple of hours ago from the direction of the airfield. When the group that was at Yakima last week got back from training, the convoy wasn’t allowed to enter the base, and the guards confiscated their trucks. I can still see them sitting outside the gate. There was a story that the convoy commander got shot when he wouldn’t leave, but I can’t confirm that. Corporal Taylor has verified that the tanks at the gate are Chinese-made, although I have no idea how they got there.”

  “What’s the apartment number there?” asked the XO. “I’ll go see if I can find the CO, and then I’ll come by and take a look. Why don’t you see if you can round up a squad or two of the men, in case we need to do something?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it,” said Top. “The apartment number is 206.”

  “Anything else you can think of that I’m missing, Top?” asked the XO. Unlike the CO, the XO wasn’t afraid to take advantage of the first sergeant’s many years of experience. With a little bit of molding, the XO would make a fine leader. As long as the CO didn’t screw him up.

  “No, sir, not at the moment,” replied Top. “There’s something darn strange going on, but I’m not real sure what to do about it yet.”

  Near Mt. Garfield, WA, 2020 Pacific Daylight Time

  “I don’t get it,” said Calvin, seated at the table in Ryan’s cabin. “What do the Chinese think they have to gain here?” Although Ryan had started out with the intention of making it a one-room structure, between his Ranger and aviator friends, he had had enough visitors that he decided to wall off his bedroom for privacy. The other half of the house was split between a kitchen area and living space. Both men were seated at the kitchen table nursing beers while they discussed their observations of the day. Calvin was tired and sore, having had to walk the several miles back to the house after his ejection, all the while trying to figure out just what the heck was going on. Whidbey Island invaded? Surface-to-air missiles bringing down U.S. aircraft over U.S. territory? Helicopters shooting down planes? Everything that he held as an incontrovertible truth was suddenly found to be a lie. How did it happen? Why?

  “Well, I don’t know for sure,” replied Ryan, “but I called a friend of mine at the Pentagon today about something else. He said that the Chinese had invaded Taiwan at about the same time as the power and internet went down today. Kind of
a weird coincidence, eh?”

  “I guess that isn’t a big surprise,” said Calvin. “The damn Chinese have been playing around in our cyber stuff for a long time. If they were going to launch something as big as an invasion, they would want to disrupt our communications as much as possible. Even the places that had emergency generators would be down for at least a while, and then trying to regenerate a picture of what was going on would take time. I know there are probably lots of organizations that don’t have emergency generators, either. It would be a giant mess. Half the people wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone else, and no one would have any situational awareness on what’s going happening. If they disrupted parts of the internet, too, that would make things even more difficult for the civilian leadership, and would really screw with our command and control.

  “That’s what I think happened, too,” said Ryan. “If you think about it, what is the only thing that has stopped the Chinese from invading Taiwan before? We are,” he answered his own question and continued. “The only reason China hasn’t taken Taiwan before is that we’ve told them that if they try it, we’re going to kick their asses. It would be so bloody for them that they haven’t wanted to do it and possibly risk starting World War Three at the same time. But…” he paused, “what if they had a way for guaranteeing that the United States would not respond to an invasion of Taiwan. Do you think they would do it then?”

  “Yeah, I guess they might try, if they thought we wouldn’t intervene,” said Calvin. He could tell by the look that he got that he still wasn’t seeing it. “Sorry, I’m having a bad day. Getting shot down does that to you, I suppose. What the hell are you trying to say?”

  “OK, I’ll make it a little plainer for you. What do you suppose they would do to Taiwan if one of our cities was held hostage to guarantee our own good behavior?” Ryan raised his eyebrow inquisitively. “Think they might be a little more frisky?”

  “Oh, shit,” said Calvin, finally understanding a little. “What you’re saying is that everything going on in Seattle is a giant diversion so that they can get away with invading Taiwan?”

  “Exactly. What if, say, the Chinese said, ‘Let us have Taiwan, and we’ll let you have Seattle and all of its inhabitants back unharmed.’ What do you think the politicians would do?”

  “Shit,” said Calvin again. “Who knows? Some might say, ‘No negotiating with terrorists,’ while others might say, ‘Screw the Taiwanese; they don’t vote for me.’ And there’d probably be every opinion in between, with lots of running around like a barnyard full of chickens with their heads cut off. Complete hysteria. Who knows? Maybe some of them would just go ahead and give Seattle to the Chinese. You are talking about the same group of idiots that haven’t passed a budget in five years, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Ryan, “that’s pretty much what I think would happen, too. No cohesive planning or decision making skills among them. I also think that the Chinese are smart enough to figure that out, as well, which is why I think that is exactly what they’ve gone and done. Somehow, they’ve successfully invaded Seattle and are fortifying it, even as we speak. The anti-aircraft gun that shot down your wingman was one of a group of three that I saw at a truck stop on I-90. I had the opportunity to blow one of them up, so I was close enough to see that they were most definitely Chinese owned and operated. You tell me; why would there be three anti-aircraft guns sitting in a truck stop on I-90 if the Chinese hadn’t taken over Seattle?”

  “Shit,” repeated Calvin.

  “And they say SEALs don’t have big vocabularies,” said Ryan with a sigh. “Didn’t you have to go to college or something to become an officer? Is that the best they could teach you in expressive language?”

  “Yes, I went to college,” Calvin replied. “I’m just kind of having a hard time getting my mind to come to grips with the fact that we’ve been invaded. I don’t think this has happened in two hundred years…I’m kinda not used to the idea.”

  “204 years or so, if my math is correct,” said Ryan. “1814 is when the British burned Washington, DC, anyway. We did get our National Anthem out of that fight, though, at the Battle of Baltimore. That was the last time, if you don’t count the Mexicans in Texas. Of course, it wasn’t a state yet, then, so I’m not counting it. And I guess Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands in World War II, but I doubt most people would even know about that.”

  “OK, see? It’s been over two hundred years. And now, here the foreigners are, again, burning Washington. Excuse me for having a problem keeping up. Unlike some people, I haven’t been blowing up anti-aircraft guns all day.”

  “You should try it some time,” said Ryan. “It’s kind of fun. Until they start shooting at you, anyway.”

  “Um…I think I’ve had enough of the being shot at part for one day,” said Calvin. He paused, thoughtful. “Wait a minute…you blew up one of their anti-aircraft guns, and then a helicopter happens to be here. Was the helicopter that shot me down here because of you?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to figure that out,” answered Ryan. “Yeah, I’m guessing the helicopter was looking for me. If you’d have had the common sense to wait a couple more minutes before you flew by, I think I would have had it shot down. Well, either that or it would have killed me. One way or another, one of us wouldn’t have been here when you happened by. I think the smart money was on me getting the helo, but you never know; I’m optimistic, and I’ve been wrong before.”

  “OK, whatever; you’re the eternal optimist. So, Mr. Optimist, what exactly are you going to do about what’s going on in Seattle?” asked Calvin.

  “You mean, what are you going to do about it, flyboy?” replied Ryan. “Only one of us is in the military, and it ain’t me. The politicians thought that I wasn’t good enough, or something, and sent me home. What are you going to do?”

  “Well, my specialty is blowing things up from the air,” said Calvin, “but I’m fresh out of airplanes to do that with, and the closest replacement jet is over 800 miles away. I’m open to suggestions, if you’ve got any.”

  “I don’t have a plan yet, but I’m for going to bed early, getting up early and going into town to see what’s going on. Once we know that, we can make a plan. While we’re there, maybe we can get you some new clothes so that you don’t look quite so much like an out-of-place aviator. Maybe we can even find some trouble to get into along the way. How about that?”

  “Some of my best friends got killed today,” said Calvin. “I’m definitely up for some payback.”

  Ryan smiled. “I’d hoped you’d say that.”

  “By, the way,” asked Calvin, “do you have a phone I can use? I probably ought to call the squadron and let them know that I’m OK.”

  Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, AK, 2045 Alaska Daylight Time (2145 PDT)

  “What in the bloody hell is going on?” asked Lieutenant General Tom Simpson. General Simpson had many different responsibilities, including being the Commander of Alaskan Command and the Commander of the 11th Air Force; more importantly, he was also the Commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region (ANR). “As the ANR Commander, I am responsible for directing all of the air operations here in Alaska to defend against hostile threats. How am I supposed to do that if we don’t know who the enemy is?”

  Lieutenant General Simpson had called his staff together in his conference room at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska to figure out what was going on, so that he could hopefully put together some sort of plan for the next 24-48 hours. Elmendorf functioned as the headquarters for the ANR, one of the United States Air Force’s Sector Operations Control Centers. Equipped with the best technology money could buy, the mission of the control centers was to function as the primary command and control center for its North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) region during crisis or attack as long as it was able. Six E-3C airborne early warning and control aircraft were also assigned; command and control could be transitioned to them for survivability if the tactical situation warra
nted. Information was also passed to the NORAD Combat Operations Center at Colorado Springs, Colorado.

  “All I really want to know is if we are at war with China or not,” Lieutenant General Simpson said. “Has Congress declared war?” he asked. General Simpson was a tall, rail thin man who was always full of energy. He also had 33 years of service in the Air Force and was used to getting answers when he asked.

  “No word yet, sir,” replied his Chief of Staff, Colonel Devyn Walker, who until now had always made it his business to have those answers when asked. “Congress is meeting back in DC right now, but they haven’t been able to come to a decision. So far, all we have is the state of alert that we were put on this afternoon when the ambassador from China said it was conducting military operations in Taiwan. China never actually declared war, which has hampered some of the decision makers. If they had just said, ‘We declare war,’ everything would have been simple. We could have invoked all of our defense treaties and started trying to defend Taiwan.”

  “I suspect that is what the Chinese wanted,” said the general, “an America paralyzed by indecision.”

  “Probably so,” agreed Colonel Heather Vincent, his Operations Officer. An excellent planner, Colonel Vincent had a wide variety of options prepared for defending Alaska, if she were given the authorization to put any of them into effect. “By only declaring an exclusion zone limited to 200 miles from the island of Taiwan, they are limiting where we can apply force to get them to back down. At the moment, we don’t even have permission to turn back the passenger airliners that are still flying from China to the United States. All we can do is just watch them fly by.”

  She sounds as frustrated as I am, thought the general. He looked to his Intelligence Officer, Colonel Amanda Ware. “Well, if we are unable to do anything here, can you at least tell me what is going on in Taiwan?” he asked. “How is the battle going?”