by T I WADE
“So many airports!” exclaimed Mo Wang in shock. “That’s more than all the airports in the whole of China!”
“Mo, I think you are correct,” answered the general. “We are going to work Alaska from east to west; your team will search along the south coast, while the two Hurricane Hunters and two AC-130s check out all the airfields further north with cameras. If they find any extended runways, they will let us know, but they have thousands of square miles to fly and only 200-odd runways to check out. That means with you checking out the warmer areas in small aircraft, we should complete the reconnaissance of 300 airfields within ten to fourteen days, same with the larger aircraft. I don’t believe the Gulfstreams will fly again once they see or monitor other aircraft within their area, and I believe that they are west of Elmendorf. I want you guys to start from the east, to give them a few days to maybe fly somewhere. Then we can pick them up and close in on their field. Also we have ten days before the navy arrives. They are going to get involved and emphasize that we are still a powerful country, even to enemies within our borders. The Seals and Marines are already here and resting. Once we find the enemy, I want them to go in and check out their facilities before we mount any form of attack. I have this sinking feeling in my gut that these rich and powerful men have far more arms than we expect, and possibly nuclear missiles aimed at the mainland.”
For the next couple of days, the two Cessnas, under the control of Carlos and Martie, flew into a dozen dirt airstrips and five larger airports, Palmer, Valdez, Cordova, Yakutat, and met up for the second night in a small airport motel just outside the town of Haines.
There was a rowdy bar and the tired pilots and ground checkers were happy to grab a cold beer and listen to music from an old jukebox, with the always present sound of a generator close by.
They had asked over fifty people in and around the airports if they had seen anything out of the ordinary, and the answer was always the same: no.
The next morning they flew back to Elmendorf and were happy to see the Seals running around the airport perimeter, led by Charlie Meyers and Joe Paul.
Early the next morning General Patterson gave them another six airports and fourteen smaller dirt strips to check out, this time west of Anchorage. He warned the four that Dillingham Airport, their last stop, could have enemy, as it had a somewhat long tarmac runway and nobody had heard from this part of western Alaska for months.
Chapter 7
Mike Mallory – The Right Wing Threat
With his ever-flying Cessna 210, Mike Mallory and his new friend, Jenny, who had been one of his flight attendants on the Southwest flight, flew into Food Station 12, the newest food dispensing airport in Oregon. It was situated in Medford, a small town just north of the California state line.
In this part of the country, although farming was still a primary occupation, new strain on the distribution was coming from the thousands of people who had moved west and then south from eastern Washington, northern Oregon, northern Idaho and even as far as Montana, a few weeks into the new year. Now that summer had arrived these people had no way to return, or were not allowed back into their locked down areas. Nearly 500,000 people had settled in several new make-shift “container towns,” as they were now called and the farmers couldn’t feed the area’s four million people.
Mike Mallory was working out a plan to ship flights of food from the Mid-West and East Coast into Medford, calculating how much food one area could spare for the other.
A canning plant in Virginia had been given several military generators to re-establish its normally large operation, and it was working 24/7 to can any and all produce, which could be delivered; tomatoes and cucumbers from North Carolina, and onions and green vegetables from Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio were flown in daily using a dozen C-130s, and then canned goods were flown out to many of the food stations that needed more supplies than the area around them could produce. Several now empty Air Force warehouses were being used as food storage depots for the coming winter and fifty percent of everything canned was being shipped by the new Amtrak system to these bases. Mike Mallory’s main job was to try and juggle the current food needs with the future needs over the first full winter period. There wouldn’t be much to spare.
Coffee and fresh food stuffs were arriving once a week from Bogotá and Mike decided to fly one shipment into the Medford airport. The air force personnel, now under the command of Captain Mallory and given to him by General Patterson to help plan flights in and out of areas, had explained that Medford airport was perfect as a food distribution point. The terminals had been increased in size a couple of years earlier and the 8,000-foot runway could easily accommodate the 747 transporter landing with a heavy load.
“OK, where can we steal enough food to feed how many, Lieutenant Shaw?” Mike asked the air force officer in charge of the 747 distribution flights.
“We have 4,270,000 people in an area that used to be home to 1,750,000. There are approximately 12,900 small to medium and 300 large farms, and they can feed about four million. We are about a quarter of a million stomachs short and need a dozen incoming 747-loads a week to equal our needs, Mike.” The soldier responded.
“What about the Amtrak route through here?” Mike asked. “I cannot afford more than one flight a week into here.
“The old Coast Starlight route used to run straight through Medford from Sacramento to Portland. Currently we have a weekly route from Virginia through the mid-west, Salt Lake City, Sacramento and into San Francisco. We will have our tenth engine and train ready to run in the South Carolina refurbishment depot in a week. We could move it up to Virginia, load up as much as we can, and then get it over to our food distribution station in Iowa to see what is available there. It can pull its first load over to Sacramento and be the first train north in about fourteen days, as long as we have a full load for her at the two food points; that should be enough to feed this area for a month. Since we are only running two trains a day on our main line, there is plenty of railway room to get our new train back and forth on the Iowa/Virginia route once every two weeks; that will eliminate the need for 747s coming in.”
The team of just over forty civilian and military personnel had taken over the airport only two weeks earlier and even the main guard detail hadn’t yet arrived. They had six air force soldiers as a temporary unit helping set up the internal facilities when the attack came.
The airport was fenced and secured and only several dozen people knew of the newest food distribution point outside of the work force presently setting it up. The president had discussed the Oregon need with Mike Mallory a couple of weeks earlier in Washington and, for the first time the surviving members of both houses of Congress had been part of the discussions.
The attack was not large. At four the next morning, two of the Air Force soldiers walking the perimeter fence had their throats cut as five trucks, mostly old Fords and Dodges crashed through the closed airport gates and headed towards the main terminal. The airport tower, which housed the communications, was empty and dark, and the several generators turned off for the night.
The forty people were all asleep; they had worked a full day, and the first they heard of the attack was when the doors of their make-shift bedrooms, the old offices in the terminal building, were kicked open.
One by one each person was dragged out. The four remaining soldiers and several air force personnel were rounded up, and everybody was dragged or pushed into the main terminal area. Not a word was said by the attackers as most people asked what was going on.
Mike Mallory, already suffering from a bleeding head wound, when he had been aroused was pushed into the room. He was forced to sit in a line with his colleagues who were already there.
“What is going on here?” he asked a man who was dressed in black and wore a face mask. He was hit by the butt of the man’s AK 47 and told to shut up. One soldier tried to tackle him and was shot through the head with an extremely loud pistol by another man, also dressed i
n black. This atrocity silenced the rest of the work team and the last remaining people were thrown into the room. There were several women in the group. Two were air force personnel and the rest civilian food-aid workers.
“Maybe you fine people will now listen to what we have to say, not that it really matters,” said the man who was the only person who had a pistol and seemed to be in charge.
Mike Mallory heard an American accent and could see that the man was Caucasian by the skin showing around the eye holes in the face mask. His accent was also pretty local. He wasn’t that good, but the man’s accent sounded like he was from the Oregon/Idaho area.
“Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” stated Mike Mallory trying to stand up, which meant a third blow with the closest man’s rifle butt.
“Are you military?” the leader asked.
“No, Flight Captain with Southwest Airlines,” Mike Mallory replied.
“No, what? You piece of crap! You call me sir when you speak to me, understand?” and Mike Mallory received another butt to the head, which really made his head bleed. Semi-conscience, he slumped back and lay on the floor, face down.
“Leave the guy alone,” demanded one of the uniformed air force soldiers and received a third eye for his bravery. The leader who shot him smiled. He was really enjoying this.
“You bunch of capitalistic pigs better start behaving now. I’ve waited twenty years for this to happen and to get my own back from you and your crappy American government. I will be happy to shoot every one of you people. Now, shut up! Since the fancy airline captain is of no more use to me, who is second-in-command here?”
The air force lieutenant, who had been helping Mike Mallory the day earlier, and who was to be in command of this Food Distribution Station, stated that he was.
“Name, rank, and number, soldier,” laughed the leader.
“Lieutenant Peter Shaw, United States Air Force,” was his curt reply. The leader could see that he was angry and pointed his pistol at the man.
“There is nothing I hate more in this country than cops and soldiers. You had better get your attitude right young man, or you will be next. Since you might hold the important information we are after, I will keep you alive a little longer, but your attitude towards your new country’s leader pains me, so..” and the man turned and looked at the frightened group in front of him. He picked out the pretty middle-aged woman kneeling and wiping blood away from the unconscious airline captain with a cloth, and shot the man next to her in the head.
There were screams from several of the women around the poor civilian, and three of them were shot by the same man. Silence reigned again.
“You people are really stupid. Now I have to reload. Daniel, give me one of my full magazines.”
Mike Mallory felt the slim, light body of a woman fall across his back. He had just come back to the land of the living and his head was hurting bad. He was half under a table and a chair and, as his eyes focused, he saw in front of him, a yellow stub of a nearly used-up and discarded pencil. In the pocket his now bloody shirt, hard against his breast, he felt a couple of pieces of paper he had used to take down notes the day before. He slowly pulled them out, inch by inch.
“OK, Mr. Lieutenant Shaw, it’s time for you to tell me the names of the farmers around here you are working with and where they are located,” ordered the leader, smiling and certainly enjoying his new role of judge and executioner. “I want the farms who intend to supply this warehouse and the names of the farmers who are your main suppliers, now!”
Mike felt the body on top of him move slightly giving him hope that Jenny was still alive. As the lieutenant shouted out a list of names he remembered, Mike began to write short bloody notes on the paper, keeping his head on the ground and facing sideways so that he could see. “White Americans, 30-40, killing our staff, well armed, sound right wing, accent Idaho area, not Canadian…”
Suddenly the radio above him atop the table squawked. “Foxtrot Sierra Charlie (Food Supply Camp) 12, this is Foxtrot Sierra Charlie 7, are any of you awake? Over. I know it’s still early for the West Coast but its dawn over here, and I thought to get patched through a couple of aircraft and check in. There are three Charlie 130s with your Marine guard detachment on the way to you guys. Your Marines should be there in a short while. Just thought to warn you of incoming aircraft. Anybody awake there…?” And suddenly several rounds went into the radio still on the table above him.
“It looks like the cavalry is coming!” and four more rapid shots rang out. “Oh, crap! I’m out of ammo; we got what we were looking for. Get the missile launchers loaded and get out of here. We need to shoot those aircraft down before they land.”
Then a scurry of footsteps was heard out of the office area by a still alive Mike Mallory and silence reigned inside the terminal. He tried hard to not lose consciousness.
Chapter 8
Who is in control of this?
Later the same day, Preston was doing the flying this time while Martie spent time looking outside the right side of the old 1980s Cessna 210 for any signs of large runways not on the map.
They were flying over Lake Clark National Park and hadn’t seen a sign of civilization for an hour. Preston had taken off from Elmendorf at dawn and their task for the day was to fly over the old, desolate and empty mining towns of Iditarod and old Flat City, and then down to the small town of Dillingham. The two old mining towns were still ghost towns, and showed no signs of new civilization, but could have been a well-planned secret location.
Sally was flying Carlos in the second Cessna 50 miles to their south, also towards Dillingham, but closer to the coast which was now full of debris, Carlos thought, from the Japanese Tsunami disaster a couple of years earlier. They spent an hour flying in long circles and then landing in Kodiak to ask the locals if they had seen any extra flight traffic or visitors in their community. The locals hadn’t.
Buck and Barbara were further north of both Preston and Sally, and aiming for Bethel, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants and the only detention center in that part of Alaska. Nobody had heard anything from this lone outpost, only reachable by sea or air, for several months.
One of the AC-130 gunships, Easy Girl, was twenty minutes further north of Lady Dandy, flying down the Kuskokwim River and checking out the small habitats down the river edges. On this day Easy Girl and Lady Dandy were packed with a dozen well-armed Marines in each aircraft and the AC-130, being faster, had flown a more northerly route than Lady Dandy to look out for ground movement and was scheduled to meet the DC-3 over the town.
None of the four aircraft had seen anything out of the ordinary on their first and second day of boring flying, and all were getting excited that the time to find something—anything—out of the ordinary, was getting closer.
Preston and Sally were being caught by a second, faster flying AC-130 gunship, thirty minutes behind them. Both gunships were to go into the larger town first and make the airports a safe landing point for the three unarmed civilian aircraft. All five aircraft were covering a lot of ground, visually checking for anything, and also scanning with the more sophisticated surveillance equipment on board the gunships. General Patterson was flying Easy Girl and would be heading into Bethel first. He was still able to talk to the base back in Anchorage, using Mother Goose, fully-fueled and flying high, 250 miles west of the Air Force base, as a message relay station. Two F-4s were at Elmendorf, as well as a dozen C-130s full of Marines, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.
Twenty minutes later, and after a sweep of the town and its surrounding areas, General Patterson lowered Easy Girl onto the 6,400-foot long, wide main runway at Bethel Airport. Lady Dandy went in ten minutes later, after the first load of Marines made a perimeter for her safety.
The airport was eerily quiet, Buck noticed, as he and Barbara, the last to leave the DC-3 climbed out of the rear cargo door and stretched.
“Something doesn’t smell right here,” Buck stated to General
Patterson.
“I agree. I already scrambled two F-4s and one of the C-130s with machine guns, two jeeps, gunship ammo and a platoon of Marines before we came in. Mother Goose is also heading our way and will bring in fuel for the F-4s. The fighters should be here in twenty minutes, the C-130 in two hours and we need to get the airport secure ASAP.”
There was nobody about and the first signs of trouble were that every small aircraft that Buck and Barbara opened and checked at the airport had been tampered with and were not flyable. Many had several bullet holes through the cockpit instrument panels and several were cold, old, and burnt out skeletons with grass and weeds already covering the metal parts.
“Somebody didn’t want anybody to fly out of here,” General Patterson stated as the lead F-4 pilot came on the radio asking for instructions. “PattersonKey to Foxtrot leader; do a swoop over the Yukon Kuskokwim Correction Center, here are the coordinates,” and the general read them from a map he was holding out on the runway. “Then fly down the town’s main street to tell anybody we are in town and come in on runway 18, temperature 55 degrees, wind speed strong, 12 knots from the east. Out.”
“Roger that,” was the answer from the F-4, still thirty miles out and, only the incoming breeze could be heard.
Twenty minutes later, with the F-4s on the ground and protected by the Marines, General Patterson, Buck and Barbara still hadn’t seen one local human being.
“They were not going to move until the C-130 and backup arrived and waited for any locals to show their heads.
A bunch of kids on bicycles did an hour later.
“What’s going on here, boys?” General Patterson asked the kids once he had shouted to the two Marines guarding the main gate to allow them in.
“We haven’t seen visitors since January, seven or eight months ago,” the oldest boy stated. Buck noticed that he looked clean, fed and healthy. “Not since the army of Chinese soldiers came in here and released all the prisoners from the jail and flew them out, just after New Year’s Day.”