by T I WADE
He spoke so fast that neither Preston nor Carlos got a word in. “Base commander, sorry to wake you at this lousy hour, when are those Colombian gunships ready to fly?” he questioned the Travis base commander. “Two days for the first five, great, we can test them out down here. We have a new war to fight; get them into Dyess ASAP, bye!” and he hung up on the poor guy who probably wasn’t even awake before the conversation was terminated. “I need every aircraft I can get to blast these 150,000 rebels out of our country. Preston, you wanted to see me?”
“Martie wants to go back to North Carolina for a day or so. I thought that we could return in our own aircraft, it will help give you numbers. Buck is fine flying Carlos’s Colombian DC-3 and I’m sure Carlos would like to collect his Mustang as the same time. I heard you sending out C-130s to the east coast, can we hitch a ride?”
“All thirty C-130s are leaving in twenty minutes for Camp Lejeune. I want 4,000 more Marines and all the other men I can get into the Houston area before this hurricane fizzles out in three days. I think that you should be back here in 72 hours or at least in the air by then. Also I want your P-38 Lightning here. Preston, can I loan you a pilot to fly it over?”
“As long as you give me a 747 once they finish transferring cargo to the U.S.,” suggested Preston.
“A what! A 747-400! What the hell are you going to do with that! You can’t even fly it or even get it anywhere near your airfield!” stated the general looking directly at Preston with a look of total shock.
“Martie also wants one and so does Carlos, as payment for the use of our aircraft,” added Preston.
“I do?” asked Carlos also looking at Preston as if he had totally lost it.
“Why?” asked General Patterson.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about the future. I don’t know if you know, but my father, Mike Strong, was the co-pilot for the Pan Am 747 Flight 103 that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland.”
“No, I didn’t know that Preston, I’m sorry for your loss,” replied General Patterson, his mind trying feverishly to solve the riddle Preston presented him.
“Well, after this war, I might have the opportunity to form the first new international airline in the world. I was thinking of calling it Mike’s Airline, after my father. You could be a shareholder if you want, General Patterson,” stated Preston with a straight face. The general could see that he wasn’t playing with him.
Carlos laughed out loud and slapped Preston on the back. “Now I know why we normal humans don’t think like you Preston. You are always one step ahead of everybody.
“I could pay you the first installment of $50 million dollars, and Martie has another $50 million for the down payment if we can ever get our investment accounts up and running again.”
“Is that how much you guys lost on New Year’s Eve?” General Patterson asked seriously.
“I’m sure Martie’s money from her grandfather’s estate would easily treble our deposit, but who knows if money will be worth anything for a while. I would prefer to have my money in aircraft, especially an airline like that British Airline mogul had, he was the only guy I was ever jealous of.” It took several moments for the general to answer Preston’s request.
“Once this war is over, Mr. Strong, send me, or the president an invoice and I’ll see what I can do. Now piss off and leave me to my bloody war,” he stated shaking his head.
“Pretty good move there, Preston,” Carlos stated putting his arm around his friend’s shoulders as they went to get packed up and tell a C-130 pilot that he should expect a flight-load of passengers bound for Apex, North Carolina. “Our own airline, huh? Now that’s one for the record books. Three whole beautiful 747-400s! I can sure get excited to learn to fly one of those babies.”
“I was thinking of asking for the ownership of RDU airport for our home base, but thought it too much to ask all at once!” Preston smiled.
Carlos just shook his head.
Since there was this hurricane brewing, and all fighter aircraft were grounded until further notice, all of the friends decided to join him and Martie for two days of rest at his farm in North Carolina.
The C-130 touched down several hours later and a couple of hours after Oliver and Puppy had done their morning ritual of checking out the perimeter fences.
Little Beth and Clint were being looked after by Will who was in control of the farm with Ben and Oprah, Marie, Beatrice and their daughters, as well as Mo’s sister and two children.
The farm had been a peaceful place since the aircraft had headed west and a single FedEx Cargomaster arrived once a week with a fresh guard crew and any supplies on offer from Seymour Johnson.
An arriving C-130 was a welcoming sight for the people at the farm to know somebody was returning. News was not getting out about what was happening, and the lovely spring weather was getting hot.
The group, with the kids’ help, had tilled a large vegetable garden under the guidance of Will in their absence; Preston even noticed it in the right hand seat of the C-130 as he brought her in to his new airstrip.
A mass of brown and healthy bodies erupted from several of the buildings as Preston taxied the aircraft onto his apron in front of the original hangar next to the main house.
The rear cargo door was lowered and the group of sleepy pilots were rushed at and hugged by the excited crowd. Clint was first to the back of the aircraft, Little Beth pushing him as fast as her little legs could run and not thinking about possible wheelchair accidents on the way.
Martie was now walking by herself with one bandage on her upper arm and one over her forehead covering a smaller cut. She was hit hard by Little Beth who nearly blew out the wind in her lungs.
“Martie, Martie! You’re home. We’ve missed you so much!” she shouted not noticing the injuries until she pulled away to look at Martie. “What happened? Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t know you were hurt. Did I hurt you?” she asked her face going white.
“No, I’m not that bad,” Martie replied. “Nothing a cold beer won’t fix, Little Beth. Hello Will” she said giving him, Oprah, and Ben a hug after Maggie was done being twirled around.
“Shall I get you one?” Little Beth asked.
“No, it’s a little early but come and tell me what you guys have done since I’ve been away,” she added bending over and giving Clint a special hug.
Sally was happy to be with Carlos; they exchanged hugs all around and then headed off to their usual hangar bedroom. Jennifer and Pam looked towards the farm entrance and saw what they were expecting, a rat patrol jeep with Joe and David, coming to see who had arrived.
Preston thanked the pilots who were readying the aircraft for its short flight into Cherry Point and got attacked by the kids as he was the last to exit.
“The general busy?” asked Marie as Preston pushed Clint in his wheelchair back to the house, and the first engine behind him began its whine.
“I’m afraid so. There is a large battle with rebels going on in Houston, a hurricane is coming through and we have been grounded for a few days.”
“And Mo?” asked Beatrice.
“He’s still in China, Beatrice, and will be for quite some time. I think he should be done there in a couple of months. I’m sorry to be the bearer of lousy news.”
“That’s OK, he said he would be a while,” she replied. “We have a big surprise for you and Martie behind the house. The whole team here, under Will’s guidance, has worked on it for three weeks, since you left.”
“I didn’t know you had green fingers, Will,” stated Preston smiling. “I saw your workmanship from the air.”
Martie was led there first by Little Beth who was proud of the group’s achievement. Martie was shocked to see nearly a quarter-acre vegetable garden already full of growing plants. The lettuce was beautiful, big and ready and she counted five rows of fifty plants. Then there were tomato plants by the dozens, still a week or so from producing little tomatoes and a special herb area where a couple of dozen herb plants alr
eady looked like they were ready for picking.
Martie and Preston were impressed; over 50 rows of corn, sunflowers, rows of beans, carrots and squash, and certainly this garden would add to the farm’s vegetable needs.
“Will decided that we needed to grow enough crops for at least 30 to 40 people,” stated Little Beth still holding Martie’s hand. “I have scolded Oliver and Puppy several times for digging in here, and I’m thinking of having the first vegetable garden to ever have a barbed wire fence around it.”
“That should keep the dogs and any visiting terrorists out of your vegetable garden. Great idea Little Beth,” Martie laughed.
Joe came up with David and shook hands.
“I assume a BBQ could be the way to go tonight. Y’all look like you need a good feeding. Meat and beer for fifty by the look of it,” stated Joe.
“And don’t forget a nice big salad, Joe. I have been dreaming of a real salad for months now,” added Martie. “I’m going to lie down for an hour, my heads hurts and I need an aspirin.”
The farm settled down as many decided that Martie had the best idea and an early siesta was in order. Little Beth and Clint headed into the hangar to continue their discussion with the Air Force guards about several hundred feet of new barbed wire being needed from Seymour Johnson for the vegetable garden, and since the church was finished, when was a swimming pool going to be built? Couldn’t they see that it was summer and a pool would be the next most important thing on the list!
Anybody could guess who the people in charge of the farm were and the adults let them be.
* * *
Colonel Garrote, Commander of the 2nd Marine Division was trying to hold onto his stomach as the C-130 tossed him and 99 squashed men in the aircraft meant for 90. He was in the lead C-130 of 30 from Camp Lejeune going into weather that wasn’t fit to live in, never mind hang from a parachute in.
This was certainly not the luxurious 747 flight he had enjoyed two weeks earlier flying home from Ramstein. They were twenty miles away from the drop zone as the red light in the aircraft came on, and the pilot stated five minutes to drop time.
The second group of Marines already on the ground under Lieutenant Colonel Catlin and part of his 2nd Marine Division had gone out from the railway yard to find a larger open field for a big LZ (Landing Zone) and found one a mile east in fifty acres of barren farmland with no power lines or other obstacles that might injure the parachutists.
The winds were now steady at around forty-five miles an hour with gusts up to sixty and the men would be dropped with the aircraft flying at just over stall speed and against the wind’s direction. This would slow down the aircraft’s forward speed and allow the 100 men to exit tightly.
The danger would be the T-10 parachutes being swept out of the landing area by the wind and the men were jumping in low and as light as possible with no packs, weapons or food. Three of the gunships, having a much smaller area for cargo, only a quarter of what the transporters had, each carried a pallet of equipment with everything aboard the men needed. They were also to drop in extremely low and allow five seconds for the parachutes to open; they were packed to protect an extremely hard landing seconds later.
Hurricane No-Name was still two hundred miles to their south, and the winds were now directly out of the east. They were rapidly growing in intensity and this would be the last drop before it would be impossible to land a parachute. In these conditions, the injuries could be high, but the best men had been picked for the drop.
Chapter 7
We need more Men!
After several hours on the phone, General Patterson found a recent return of soldiers at Fort Hood outside Killeen, Texas, which also had vehicles to transport a decent number of soldiers.
Fort Hood was home to the 1st Cavalry Division, of which 6,000 men had returned from Europe a week earlier. The transportation of the entire 1st Cavalry Division of 50,000 men in Europe had been halted due to the general’s decision to send the aircraft into China instead of Europe. They currently had 7,000 men on base, and the general was told that the base commander, a Major Deale, had just completed an inventory of mobile vehicles.
Fort Hood had thirty-one old, usable M35 troop transporters, twenty Vietnam-era Mutts with rocket launchers, several odd jeeps, fifty fuel tanker-trailers and three 5,000-gallon tanker trucks. What really excited General Patterson was that the base had dozens of old and rusty tanks and armored-vehicle carriers in storage, which were fully operational and reserved to be blasted as targets in the field; these old trucks had dozens of flatbed trailers and each trailer could haul as many soldiers as a C-130.
“Major Deale, you say you can transport 4,000 men in the usable vehicles you have there at Hood?”
“Yes, Sir; a couple need oil and a good service, but I think we could have 30 of these old target vehicles coupled to flatbeds and sent to Houston within six hours. We also have a couple of tanks—old girls—and a truck-load of HE (High Explosive) projectiles in storage. We could have them packed up and on the road in six to twelve hours.”
“Major Deale, do you have anybody to command the base in your absence?”
“Yes, Sir, my base commander is due in on this week’s 747 flight out of Ramstein.”
“Good. Leave somebody in temporary command, get base to active battle readiness and I want you to get as many men as you can into the Houston area. Destination is Spring, a small town several miles north of Houston. There are 12,000 Marines already there or heading there. Major, I want you there in twelve hours, and then return your empty vehicles to Fort Hood for a second load ASAP. I’m sending in 4,000 Marines in C-130s which will arrive at Fort Hood in about fifteen to twenty hours. That will give us 20,000 men and machines to defend our country. Major, the C-130s will continue to fly in troops into Fort Hood until we win our war, so I want whatever your guys can fight with: men, machinery, and supplies. Send in your first delivery and tell the drivers to stay fueled up; take tanker-trailers if needed, but I want 24-hour troop transportation until further notice, understand?”
The major acknowledged and suggested that the general call the 1st Armored Division in Fort Bliss, El Paso. Their troops, about 18,000, were also returning from Ramstein when the 747s were diverted and he knew that at least several thousand men had been flown over. He was friends with a Major Mike Johnson at “Old Ironsides” who had also been given a satellite phone upon his return to McGuire a week earlier. General Patterson thanked the major, asked him if he understood his orders, and hung up on him.
Major Johnson was happy that somebody wanted the use of his men. He had 5,000 currently on base and 3,000 who were on leave and looking after their families and farms around El Paso. Over 2,000 of them were from farming families and under a Captain Mike Mallory’s instructions, a Southwest Airlines captain, they had left the military until further notice to help with the area’s farming needs. Many others were helping. No, he hadn’t seen any border crossings in the El Paso area, but he had constant surveillance and needed 600 to 800 men to keep up the 200 mile border patrols he was running 24/7.
General Patterson told the major that he knew Mallory and would be contacting him next to begin possible cleanup operations on Interstate-10 outside Houston.
“Major, what mobile vehicles can you spare for troop deployment to Houston ASAP?”
“Hell, General, I have many of my jeeps and smaller vehicles on border patrol and, as you know, we have very few vehicles that are operational, but I have one old Abrams tank operational. She does our main gate guard duty and is there to offer her mean presence.”
“Get her oiled, armed and on a transporter, Major. How many M35 transporters do you have operational?”
“Only six, sir, but we have several old tractors with tank-trailers. That is the only other vehicle here that works, apart from two 150-MM howitzers standing outside headquarters.”
“Get the howitzers behind transporters and a truck of projectiles. How many men can you get aboard your mobile trail
ers at a push, Major?”
“Gee, General, with food, ammo and provisions, about 2,000 on twenty vehicles with two old fuel tankers and a couple of fuel trailers. That will clean my vehicles out.”
“You get everything you can on the road, without causing problems with your border duty. And I want them in Houston in twenty-four hours. It’s seven hundred miles from El Paso to Houston, the highways are clear and they will liaise with ingoing troops from your friend at Hood, Major Deale, who will be 500 miles ahead of you. He also has a satellite phone and you have his number. He can guide you and your guys in, understand?” The major did.
* * *
Manuel Calderón concluded his meeting and hit the sack for a few hours of sleep. This storm was getting really bad; many areas of the terminal were leaking rain water and the place was cold and damp.
Alberto had argued with Manuel for two hours not to keep all the men in one place. The Air Force could return at any minute and bomb the place if they knew they were there.
His older brother had laughed at him and told him to go outside and see for himself if aircraft could fly in this weather, let alone pinpoint bomb drops without visibility. Manuel respected the U.S. military, but even they couldn’t work in such terrible conditions. He also knew a hurricane when he smelled one, and this one was either going to drown them or keep them safe for as long as it was in the vicinity. They would stay put at this airfield for as long as the storm grew, and would then disperse northwards towards Dallas as soon as the winds began to dissipate.
* * *
Charlie Meyers was having a hard time driving. It was hard enough to see out of the windshield with the wipers working as fast as they could, but now he was trying to get around bodies all over the road and felt every one the truck tires went over; they were scattered everywhere.