by T I WADE
“Maybe Cold Bay has become a new center for all the small towns and inhabitants in the area?” Buck suggested. The buildings looked like they had been empty for months. They looked through several windows and found the insides neatly in place, as if people were expecting to return. The only store-type building was locked up and Buck didn’t want to trespass. It wasn’t their job.
Thirty minutes later they were airborne for the return flight to Cold Bay where they were both certain that they would be given answers.
Lima Delta (Lady Dandy’s call sign) to Charlie, are you in range? Over,” Buck asked over the radio as they climbed up to 5,000 feet this time. At the higher altitude the air was getting chilly. They had enough time to reach their destination on time; actually they would be there first, twenty minutes ahead of the others, if they were on time.
There was no response and he waited another thirty minutes before trying again. This time he caught a scratchy noise of a voice. This told him that another twenty minutes would be needed for the closing aircraft to get closer to him and their far higher cruising speeds.
The day was breathtaking, the views over land and sea were rich in colors and they enjoyed their travels around Alaska immensely. Buck told Barbara that it had been some of the prettiest flying he had even seen.
Buck was descending into Cold Bay ten miles ahead of him, had just spoken to one of the AC-130s who was now only thirty miles behind him and rapidly catching up. He switched radio usage to his second aircraft radio, already primed to the locally used radio frequency and asked for landing instructions when a powerful and unseen Chinese missile went into Lady Dandy’s port engine and 60 pounds of High Explosive blew the engine, the fuel tanks, and the old aircraft into a million pieces.
Chapter 10
Cold Bay, Alaska.
The satellite phone in the operations room at Elmendorf Air Force Base rang.
“Elmendorf,” stated the airman on duty.
“Rogers for PattersonKey, is he there?” the man heard and he looked down his list of phone owners to see who this Rogers guy was.
“Sorry, Admiral, the general is on his way back from the mainland. His ETA, Elmendorf is two hours.”
“OK, tell him that my current position is three miles southeast of Kodiak, and in the area of Chiniak Bay. I have a shore tender I’m about to launch and head into the harbor to see what I can get in fresh provisions. What do you have there to supply us, young man?”
“Frozen salmon, Sir, about two tons on a couple of pallets in the freezer. Other than that, old frozen vegetables and frozen French fries, about a ton of each; that’s all the entire base can spare at this time, Sir.”
“I’ll take whatever you have. I’m sure you have a C-130 on the ramp, load the food aboard and get her into Kodiak. Do you have a heavy lift chopper? Our Seahawks aboard the frigates don’t have the underneath lift capabilities.”
“We have two Jolly Green Giants here, Sir.”
“Good. Ask a couple of pilots to fly one down here to Kodiak to lift the pallets aboard our ships offshore. She can’t miss them. Oh, yes…are the Seals with you?”
“Yes, bored to death, Sir!”
“Get a dozen of Lieutenant Paul’s guys into the 130; they can help the air force men move the pallets around.”
The radio operator hadn’t put the phone down before the radio buzzed.
“This is Elmendorf,” he stated into the receiver.
“Charlie is that you?”
“Affirmative. Over,” he replied to a voice he recognized—his older brother—Major Harditz, flying one of the AC-130s to Cold Bay.
“Charlie, get the airfield on high alert. We just saw a single missile launch on our radars, in the vicinity of Cold Bay and I believe it took out Lady Dandy. I think she’s down. We saw a very faint explosion ahead of us and Lady Dandy is not responding on the radio.”
“The general is two hours out on a 747. Do you want me to call him? Over.”
“Negative. I’ll call on my satellite phone, but get the base on High Alert and a Foxtrot Four over Cold Bay ASAP. Get the fighter airborne, it will take her 30 minutes to get here.”
“Not possible; the only Foxtrot Four with full drop tanks is on her way back with PattersonKey. The other one doesn’t have the range.”
“Damn. Get the Chinese helicopters to Dillingham for refueling and give Mother Goose orders to fly there as well. We will circle out of range until we hear from the boss.”
The young operator did as he was told and suddenly the air base was busy.
“What!” shouted General Patterson once he was told what had happened by the major. “Lady Dandy got a missile? Those bastards are going to fry, slowly. Stay out of missile range; thirty miles and under 2,000 feet should suffice. Do you think the enemy saw you on radar?”
“I’m sure sir. Pave Pronto was to our northwest when it happened, at 10,000 feet and fifty miles out; too far for an accurate ground-to-air missile on a propeller aircraft. We were ten miles closer, at 5,000 feet and 30 miles behind Lady Dandy when she disappeared from our radar screens. I’m sure that if they are using modern Chinese radar, they must have seen us at least 100 miles out.”
“Agreed! I have absolutely nothing to go in with and fry the bastards. The F-4 needs to refuel. Return to base, we need to launch a full attack. At least we know where they are.” And the call abruptly ended.
For the next several minutes he called up several air bases on the mainland and ordered as many aircraft to head into Elmendorf as he could. Admiral Rogers called him and slowly a plan formed.
Several hours later, and with many unhappy and angry faces around the room, including Preston, Martie, Carlos and Sally, the meeting at Elmendorf started. Outside everybody could hear the noise of incoming aircraft, one after the other.
“OK, ladies and gentlemen,” General Patterson began. “We have confirmed the downing of Lady Dandy. She has not returned to any of our bases. Their missile strike was effective and we are 100 percent sure Lady Dandy was hit.” There was silence in the room.
Preston was still shocked; Buck, his close friend, unarmed, and in a civilian aircraft, shot out of the sky. He felt a new, raw anger building up inside him. Preston felt it was time to teach these people a lesson, just like the others who had tried to invade the United States.
This time they were fellow countrymen, with greed and power as their main motivation for killing others. Buck and Barbara were good people and Buck was the only one of them who had never fired a bullet at anybody else in anger. He had always worked like a machine, flying people around and getting things done.
“We will have a funeral for our civilian pilots once the people who murdered them are brought to justice,” continued the general. “Now is not the time; we must end this aggression against our country now, and forever.” There were sounds of agreement from the forty people in the room. “I would go and bomb this little town until it fell off the map, but there could still be innocent civilians in Cold Bay, 108 of them at the last count. Plus, Mr. Westbrook and Mr. Bowers and their cronies might have Pakistani Shaheen II nuclear missiles aimed at the mainland. We will meet here again once Admiral Rogers is flown in. He has ordered supplies, and the chopper is already there and about to lift the food aboard ship. The admiral will return with the C-130.
Three hours later General Patterson called a second meeting. “Admiral Rogers, would you like to describe the plan we discussed upon your arrival an hour ago? Ladies and gentlemen, the admiral has a good plan to get our troops deployed in and around this town. Admiral?”
“Thanks, General. The remnants of our U.S. Pacific Fleet, namely one post World War II destroyer and two post World War II submarines are in the Kodiak area. The submarines are preserved Tang Class diesel submarines from the 1950s, and are heading towards Cold Bay as we speak. With our fleet are three light, more modern frigates of the Colombian Navy, loaned to us by Admiral Rodriquez who has given me full authority to make use of his ships. He is in Colombi
a helping elect a new government.
“It is not much of a fleet, but we must use what we‘ve got. I have with me a map of the land around Cold Bay. Often I thought it was an island, but this whole piece of land is actually connected to the mainland; unfortunately there are no roads to get a large army in there. We have to go in by sea and air, the old fashioned way.
“We have 90 members of Seal Team Six here at Elmendorf and we have two more teams arriving tonight, Seal Teams Four and Five; 280 of the best men the navy has. The Marines are shipping out men with parachutes today from three of their bases in 747s; 1,500 men will arrive tomorrow and a second load of 1,500 the next day. The army is filling the 747 Transporter down at Fort Bragg with the longest range artillery weapons we have. Every helicopter with lifting capacity is heading towards Elmendorf, working their way up the western United States, refueling as they go. We have a Chinese Container ship leaving Hawaii in an hour and will get here at full speed to transfer all this hardware onto the land mass around Cold Bay if we need it. I don’t think we will, but backup is always part of a good battle plan.
“I’m flying in with a separate 747 with enough underwater equipment from San Diego to get our Seals onto land, under the cover of darkness. Now, you see here on the map, Mortensens Lagoon, about five miles south of the Cold Bay runway?” He used a pointer to indicate the locations on the map now pegged onto the wall in front of everybody. “By the way, I will have extra maps here tomorrow. The sea charts show that the submarines will be able to get to within 300 yards of this beach here in about 60 hours’ time. It’s the deepest area with a sandy bottom, few rocks and only a couple hundred yards from the main ferry channel. I’m sure that the channel companies have dredged this area annually. I ordered our ships towards Cold Bay three hours ago and they are currently at 18 knots which is full speed for the slower submarines.
“I have arranged for our incoming supply ship, now five hours southwest of Kodiak, to change course and intercept our ships. Helicopters are transferring the first loads of men, food and equipment to the Colombian light frigates and will do so for the next three days. Distance is a problem, but we can ship needed supplies and helicopters into closer airports as the ships move westwards.
“The two submarines have the old World War II systems of internal/external evacuation chambers to allow men to leave ship while underwater; these chambers were often not designed into our more modern subs. Both submarines can release six men at a time through a pressure chamber while thirty feet underwater and the men can be ejected to the surface. Each sub can transport in fifty men or thirty men with supply packs and, this will also be done under the cover of darkness. Since we are going into fall, we have a seven-hour night window in which to operate close to shore.
“The navy is going to deploy the first sixty-two men of Seal Team Six onto the beach east of Mortensens Lagoon the first night and the rest of them the next night, weather permitting. Seal Team Five and Seal Team Four will parachute in with the Marines. That will give us nearly 100 men ready for anything and Seal Team Six will have two nights to check out the area and see if they can get into the hangars to find out if they have these missiles. Two miles south of the main runway is an old World War II runway.” Admiral Rogers pointed to a vague outline of a dirt runway. “I was part of a team flown in on the darn thing thirty years ago to check the area out as a possible naval facility. I also remember reconnaissance photos of the old airport taken a decade or so back and noticed the semi-ruined buildings; they were occupied buildings on my last visit. Whatever remains is enough to hide 100 Seals from any detection equipment that may be installed at the modern airport to the north. I’m sure they will have patrols around the area 24/7; our idea is to dress in whatever they are wearing and get men inside their camp. Only if and when we get confirmation that they have nuclear capabilities, can we go forward.”
“Thank you Admiral. With Seal Team Six on the ground, the rest of us can go home,” quipped General Patterson, returning to the front of the room. For the first time in that meeting there were several smiles. “Once we know that they have nuclear capabilities and it has been dealt with by the Seals, the Marines and the air force will go in. We know that their missiles, if they have them, won’t be as accurate without the old GPS system and, I believe the enemy doesn’t even know that they don’t have GPS guidance anymore. Unfortunately, with or without GPS, those missiles can still fly; where they fly, nobody knows and they may have been fitted with other manually-guided directional backup systems just in case. We cannot allow these missiles to go hot. I will have Z-10 helicopters with air-to-air missiles ready to shoot them down if they ever poke their noses above ground, or wherever they are. Once we are at this stage, we can flatten these guys once and for all. There are reports of up to 5,000 Chinese soldiers being housed in the area. Also, we know of a possible 250 U.S. civilian prisoners from the Bethel, Alaska area and approximately 300 right wing mercenaries from northern Idaho and Montana—the same guys who hit Medford, Oregon. I believe the last 400 to 500 civilians are not in Cold Bay, but in the States and visiting farmers. Within 72 hours every area on the mainland in which these anarchists could be operating will be teaming with U.S. troops and they will be found and taken out. Today alone three farmers and their entire families were murdered and their farm houses were burned; one in Washington State, one in southern Idaho and the third in central Colorado.
“I was informed that these farmers refused to sign paperwork put in front of them. We already know how and where these guys are operating; so far about 100 farms have been forced to sign these documents and we have a couple of Z-10 helicopters moving into these areas ready to blow these squads away. Latest reports are that these mercenaries are operating in truckloads of four, much like the Chinese hit squads seven months ago, and for all we know there could even be more Chinese hit squads helping them as well. It seems that Westbrook and Bowers had their men trained by the Chinese soldiers to act the same way as the first Chinese squads.
“So, it looks like these CEOs, Westbrook, Bowers and the other two are already responsible for dozens of deaths, including our pilot friends, and good U.S. farmers. I promise that while I breathe air, I’m going to get these guys. I’m going to follow Admiral Rogers’ plan. He is in command of Phase One of this mission and once the information is gathered, Phase Two will be the destruction of this base by the air force and Marines. Questions?”
“Why don’t we just nuke the area and be done with it?” asked an airman.
“Nothing I would like to do more, but we are west of the Continental United States, which I believe Westbrook and Bowers also know, due to the positioning of their base. That means radiation fallout will hit the jet stream and head over Alaska, areas of Canada and parts of the U.S. Also, we need to see who and what these guys are. Like a tumor, we need to isolate and exterminate the whole problem. This could just be a splinter group of another, even larger group. Last, these guys must have been working with Zedong Electronics before the end of last year, and if we can capture one or two alive, American or Chinese, we could extract vital information to find out if there are others out there. I want this to be the last attack on our country, so that we can rebuild in peace and not always have to watch our backs for bad guys for the rest of our lives.”
“Was the attack on our country from South America also Zedong Electronics related?” asked Captain Kohout, one of Easy Girl’s regular pilots.
“No, we did our homework, covered every possibility, and know from our allies in Colombia that there was no connection at all, or they wouldn’t have killed the 10,000 Chinese troops along the Panama Canal. Those Cartels, realized that money, their lifeline, was going to dry up; if there was no more money to be made in the drug business, then land, was the most valuable commodity. That is why I am opposed to immediately reinstituting a monetary system in our country. Yes, the ex-rich will bitch, and I’m sure the wannabe-rich and even the poor will bitch, but I believe it will suppress human greed, at
least for a while; once we are a strong nation again, then maybe cash will be allowed to return, and be king.”
With the meeting over, Preston and Martie headed off to their allotted room behind the Officer’s Mess. Both were solemn contemplating the murder of Buck and Barbara. So were Carlos and Sally, until General Patterson came to find them and invite them for a drink in the bar.
“One thing I always enjoyed as a kid was reading flying stories from World War II,” he started, as they headed in a group for the bar. “The downing of pilots became such a regular occurrence that they used to have a kitty, or pre-paid tab, at the bar and every day all the pilots put in small change or any money they had to spare into the kitty. When it was confirmed that one of their own went down, they took money out of the kitty and purchased a round of drinks in memory of the downed friend. I think we should do the same. There’s no flying tomorrow and we might as well toast our flying friends the old fashioned way.”
They did. Tired and after long hours of flying, the drinks were welcomed. The bar was made open with free drinks for all pilots and crew, and after several rounds, and an old upright piano being banged hard in the corner every now and again, names of recently downed pilots and friends were shouted out with the raising of dozens of glasses at the mention of each name.
Many names, over three dozen, were called out by different people. There had been a lot of downed pilots in the last several months.
Even General Patterson stayed and raised a glass, drink for drink with the rest, as many remembered good friends who no longer flew with them.
* * *
It was a different picture aboard the two Tang Class submarines slowly heading closer towards land, a couple of miles south of Cold Bay, two and a half days later.
Lieutenant Meyers and his thirty men had been first out of Elmendorf departing with full equipment in three large navy Seahawk helicopters; the U.S. Navy helicopters had hitched a ride north from San Diego on the helipads of the three Colombian frigates.