INVASION USA (Book 1) - The End of Modern Civilization

by T I WADE

  “Hey, Lee Wang?” everybody heard Carlos shout to someone in the observatory. “How come you’re cleaning tonight? Shouldn’t you be off for the long weekend?” They heard a response, but could not hear what the answer was. “Sorry guys,” continued Carlos. “I thought I would be alone up here this weekend, but our cleaning guy is working. Somebody must have forgotten to tell him not to come in. I don’t mind, though. He seems to love astronomy and I think he works extra hours so I’ll let him look through the telescope every now and then.”

  “How’s your rocketry?” Buck asked Sally.

  “Jealousy will get you nowhere, Mr. McKinnon. You should have joined the Air Force and flown real airplanes,” was the reply. There was laughter from all listening.

  “Don’t expect a free ride in Lady Dandy,” returned Buck, knowing that he was actually jealous of Sally’s new toy.

  “Jets are jets,” added Carlos who had a jet license himself. “Just a fancy computer you take off in and put down again when the gas runs out.”

  “What’s wrong with you men!” interrupted Martie. “Can’t take it when a girl has a faster airplane than you guys?”

  “Well said, Martie!” added Maggie.

  “You all are a bunch of flying nuts,” added Will. “They shouldn’t have invented flying. If God wanted men, or women in my wife’s case, to fly, he would have given all of you wings.”

  “Now, now, Will,” stated Martie again from North Carolina, joking. “At least we have a hobby. It’s safe, fun, and keeps us out of jail -- just a few less for you cops to put up with.”

  “Real men have wings, other men just have arms and flap around all day,” added Buck.

  “Harrow!” came a foreign voice over the radios, and the resulting silence was instantaneous.

  “Who’s that?” asked Will and Maggie together.

  “Harrow, fellow Americans,” said the strange voice again, and this time Carlo’s laughter could be heard in the background.

  “Hey guys, this is my astronomy buddy, Lee Wang,” said Carlos.

  “Hi Lee,” everyone answered in broken unison.

  “I had a buddy in L.A. called Lee Wang,” added Will Smart. “He cleaned my desk everyday at the precinct.”

  “Lee Wang, common name in China,” added Carlos’ friend. “I clean lavatory in observatory.” Everyone broke into laughter at the way Lee rhymed his words. “I, friend of Carlos from South America. He lets me look at the stars when he has spare time.”

  “He’s a good man and loves his star gazing,” added Carlos. “He has an incredible knowledge of the planets for a cleaner. I always tell him that he should have studied in China before he arrived here. His daughter is currently attending university in San Francisco. She is in her third year of law. Guess what, guys? Lee used to work at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino.”

  “Where’s that?” asked Will. “Apple Headquarters,” was the choired reply. “Just south of San Francisco,” added Lee. “Before that I cleaned at Microsoft headquarters for five years.”

  “Bloody Mary!” exclaimed Preston. “Now you’re going to tell us you’ve met Bill Gates and Steve Jobs?” There was silence on the airwaves as everybody waited.

  “Mr. Gates and Mr. Jobs don’t speak to cleaners,” was the reply. “But they often passed me in the corridors. So now I must clean Honaarable Mr. Rodreeequiz’s lavatory in this observatory if I want to see my stars tonight. Good method for telling me horserace winners for tomorrow. Bye, friends of friend.”

  Laughter and goodbyes were echoed from all listening. Even Oprah and Ben laughed at Lee Wang’s clever use of the English language.

  All continued chatting for another half an hour until Maggie stated that dinner, west-coast time, was ready and that the communication was about to end. Goodbyes and Happy Fourth of July’s were called out by all, with Preston asking Buck to stay on the radio. The others turned off their sets or left them on “low receive.”

  The old friends at the Smart Dude Ranch had a great weekend chatting and catching up. Sally was impressed with the Smart’s new house and said that she would fly up and visit every chance she had while stationed on the West Coast—especially since she never knew where she would be next, with most of the U.S. military already deployed in several parts of the world and nobody very happy about it.

  Chapter 7

  The Beginning of the Lead up to Midnight

  The underlying problem for the United States was that the country’s armed forces were not winning in the fight against terrorism. In addition to this, a knowledgeable President was about to leave the White House, and a new inexperienced one was about to take over.

  The recession that had started in late 2008 had finally disappeared by late 2011, but the current President had been blamed for the bad times that had actually begun during the previous administration. Politics was never fair in the good old USA. In 2011, gas prices went up to over $5.00 a gallon for most of the summer and led many to use other sources of energy in motor vehicles, including even electricity.

  Ben and Oprah Smart visited Preston Strong’s farm for their summer vacation that year. Maggie spent all the time she had off from her company with them, flying them there and back in the recently upgraded Cessna 210 she had invested in. The flight had taken three days each way, with five refueling airports carefully preplanned, and Will had stayed at work grumbling about how the rich and famous (his family) had the freedom to just fly around the country anytime they saw fit. And there was no way he was getting into one of those metal birds—no way!

  Preston and Martie were excited to have Maggie and the kids around, and Preston, Ben, and Oprah spent their 10 week visit fixing up all the old engines they could find and turning them into home-electrical power plants. The young Smarts had orders for another five complete units with neighbors living in Antelope Acres, and because electricity costs had also skyrocketed, a gallon or two of $5.00 gas per day to run one of their engines was still a decent savings on electricity for a medium- to large-size house. The neighbors were now eager for the “Smart Electricity Units” being built by 13-year old Ben and Oprah Smart.

  Sally Powers was happy flying in Yuma. She was due to finish her flight training in F-16s in 2012 and had already been given her marching orders. Her wing was going to deploy out of the country in February 2013, and she was rather excited to be going on active duty. She had acquired her new aircraft and had done most of her flight training on it. She was also looking forward to flying her newly purchased Pilatus across country to Preston’s farm to attend the friendly fly-in over Christmas and the New Year. She had a month’s leave coming up at the end of November and wanted to spend time with her friend Maggie in California and then fly over to North Carolina after that. Maggie was trying to get some time off, and was working on persuading her husband to fly with her and the kids to North Carolina to attend the fly-in in her smaller 210, but she was not going to win.

  Buck was living with Barbara Wright on Long Island. They had only met a month earlier, and she was already sleeping in his bed when she was in town, which was pretty often. She had put her house up for sale in Flagstaff and was trying to get end-of-year extra leave with the Arizona Aviation company she flew for to attend the fly-in with Buck.

  Buck didn’t know whether it was he or the Huey that the girls really went crazy over, but he didn’t really care. Before meeting Barbara, he hadn’t known how pleasurable it could be to be with the same woman in bed and this redhead kept him completely exhausted when she was in town. Apart from flying Buck, she also flew the Huey with the expertise a very experienced pilot could put into any flying aircraft. Even though she was still completing helicopter-flight training, she was a natural.

  Martie was happy to hear that her father would be flying her aging grandfather over from the west coast for Christmas and the fly-in. She found out a month before Christmas and sent Preston into a tail spin. He was just finishing up installing the Hispano cannon he had purchased online several months earlier in his be
loved P-38 Lightning, when Martie reminded him that they only had beds for three visitors and there could be as many as 10 if the whole Smart family made it.

  The next day, Preston looked around the hangar, and apart from the aircraft that belonged there, he saw hundreds and hundreds of metal and wooden boxes of .50-caliber ammunition rounds for the 16 machine guns he and Martie owned in their two P-51 Mustangs and his P-38 Lightning. She often joked over dinner that they must be the richest machine-gun owners in the entire world. Carlos had also a Mustang, and he had shipped another 20,000 rounds of his ammo for storage at the Strong Farm.

  Preston has purchased the World War II Hispano cannon for $30,000, which included another ton of cannon ammo in old wooden boxes. He suddenly realized “If somebody puts a couple of rounds into this hangar, there won’t be much farm left. The whole place will go up like a military munitions dump! We’d better not tell anybody, or we’ll be run out of town!”

  Then he looked inside the large bedroom he often used when he and Oliver were alone and suddenly remembered. “I’m also getting a dozen dummy 500-pound bombs next week. That should scare the life out of anyone staying here, even though they are only wooden dummies. Where can I put those?”

  It took Martie and Preston a day or so to figure it all out. Martie knew a friend at work who owned an old gas-operated forklift. She drove into work in the old 1980 Ford big block farm truck the next day and got the forklift loaded onto its bed. The farm had an old cattle loading ramp that was nothing more than an ancient heap of hardened rock, and she and Preston managed to off-load the forklift and move the ammo out of the hangar. There was an old red barn about 50 yards on the other side of the runway where Preston stored his Man engines and other bits and pieces. Preston usually only went in it when necessary, since it had begun to lean very slightly to one side over the last few years.

  On closer inspection, however, the couple found it to be sound and pretty watertight. The wooden floor looked quite clean and without much water damage. Three of the four barn doors on each end still worked, and the fourth one was permanently sealed in a closed position. It was perfect to serve as the farm’s new temporary munitions dump for the upcoming festivities. Moving the ammunition was pretty tiring work, as the boxes of rounds weighed over five tons, but when it was finished, the hangar looked more spacious and could fit one more aircraft in a squeeze.

  “How much do these wooden dummy bombs weigh?” Martie asked as they took a break and opened two cold Yuenglings.

  “I forgot to ask, but they are coming in on a large and closed 18-wheel delivery truck, so I think they must weigh 500 lbs. or more each,” replied Preston, downing half his bottle of beer. “Their specially-made connectors have been designed to fit under all four of our aircraft since they all have the same bomb-connector systems.”

  “How is the Lightning’s bombsite looking?” Martie asked.

  “I’ve serviced it, but it hasn’t been used for nearly four decades. It looks in perfect condition but like all of the Mustangs, the dummy bombs look like they are in perfect working order, but we won’t know for sure until we drop one somewhere. And by the way, they can only be used once. The expectation is that they will be destroyed on impact.”

  “Didn’t they cost over $500? It’s a rather expensive hobby we have got ourselves into, isn’t it?” added Martie, looking at Preston.

  “I agree, but since my share profits have started to rise again. I reckon my income this year will cover all our war-game expenses. I’m still going to be short on the Lightning by a couple of hundred thousand from last year, but she was worth every penny since there are less than 30 still flyable worldwide, and her value should double to at least a million, or even more in a couple of years. Apart from the ammo and the bombs, everything we have purchased has been a good investment. Hell, even the world’s most expensive motor car is still more expensive than the million and a half we have spent on our three aircraft.”

  “I’m so happy Grandpa and Dad are coming this year,” Martie said, changing the subject. “My Grandfather will have to have your whole guest room this year. He’s getting so old and I think will need nursing care pretty soon.”

  “Not with the way he still gets about,” replied Preston.

  Martie nodded. “Yes, but he is only active for very short periods of time these days, even though his brain is as sharp as a pin.”

  “Your father does a great job looking after him,” continued Preston. “I think both of them will enjoy seeing all the old flying machines once everybody is here.”

  “Well, I’m sure my father will want to sleep close to Grandpa, so he will have to have the last room in the house,” Martie thought out loud as she grabbed two more beers out of the cooler. They were sitting on the raised pallet of the silent forklift and looking into the roomier hangar. It was starting to get dark, but the night was still a reasonable temperature, with winter not yet sinking its cold teeth into the North Carolina landscape. “That means that everyone else will have to bunk in the hangar. Hey! Why don’t we do a number on the hangar and set up some rooms. I bet that if you got your ‘I can do anything’ neighbor and his boys in here for a couple of days, they could set up three or four bedrooms with a pilots lounge above it. There should be room above the current room to build a second floor, no?”

  “I was thinking of that, actually” replied Preston with a grin. “Carlos will be coming. As far as I know he’s coming without a bedmate. We know that he has his eyes on Sally, but that doesn’t help our cause much on bedrooms.”

  “They would be a good match,” mused Martie.

  “Buck has this new girl, Barbara I think he said her name was, and she is a fancy-pants pilot. They will share a room, no doubt. Then there is Sally. That makes three bedrooms.” Mattie nodded in agreement.

  “My problem is,” Preston continued. “What happens if Maggie can persuade the Detective to actually set foot in her flying machine? That will be another whole family of four, and there is not enough space for another bedroom if you want to build a party room upstairs. There is only one bathroom with a shower and that will not change between now and Christmas. I could squeeze in an upstairs toilet, but I have no room to put in a whole bathroom.”

  “If the Smarts come, then my father will have to bunk in Grandpa’s room. We can put a cot in there. If that doesn’t work then he’ll have to sleep in the lounge on the couch. Maggie and Will will have to take the last room with a queen bed in the house since we have two full bathrooms and the extra toilet. The kids will be happy to sleep anywhere and can have the new hangar upstairs room or the couch in the lounge if my father doesn’t use it. I’ll get a pull-down double bed and purchase all the furniture if you get the building built?” Martie offered.

  “Deal!” agreed Preston. “I’ll radio Joe next door. I know he’s a little short on work and this could give him a good Christmas boost for him and his sons.”

  The next morning, Preston tuned his ham radio to Joe’s private CB radio frequency, which was set up in case they ever needed each other in an emergency. They were neighbors after all, with no others around for a couple of miles. Joe’s larger 50-acre property bordered Preston’s and most of the flights out of Preston’s airfield took off or came in to land over Joe’s property since it was situated due west and north of the airfield. To the south of Preston’s farm was mostly lake, natural forest, and the NC64 highway two miles away. To the southeast and east was a forest reserve and no farms or houses for three miles. It was a pretty private section of countryside and Joe and family were the only people in the vicinity who saw arrivals and departures of the aircraft out of Preston’s field.

  Joe was a radio buff, but more into CB radio as he had several trucks and was in several types of businesses. He was also a carpenter and general handyman by trade. Two of his vehicles were old reefer trucks, with which he carried local beef and other frozen products for farmers. He also had two old Man diesel tractors and a couple of long-haul trailers. These 16-wheele
rs carried goods around North and South Carolina, and with five sons, he kept all of his work within the family. This was where Preston had gotten most of the large truck engines to build his generators.

  Joe was also a jeep fanatic. He collected old army jeeps and three of his jeeps he had rebuilt to copy ‘Rat Patrol’—Joe’s favorite old television show filmed back in the 1960s. Each jeep was painted its original army colors from World War II and copied with the desert colors of “Rat Patrol,” and had a forward and rear machine gun steel stand. Over the years, Joe had also collected the odd machine gun here and there to add to his jeeps. He arrived 30 minutes after getting off the radio with Preston.

  “Hi, Joe,” greeted Preston.

  “Howdy Preston, glad you called. I’m a little slow with work until the New Year, and all my boys are available if you want them.”

  “I have a surprise for you,” nodded Preston. “I have replaced the four old .30-caliber machine guns on the P-38 with bigger .50-caliber ones that I got out of a downed Mustang in Reno. So for you, my good and friendly neighbor, I have a couple of .30-caliber machine guns for you to borrow without ammo. You can’t purchase them, since I might need them back someday. I have only .50-caliber ammo, however, so you have to buy your own. You can mount them on your jeeps if you want, as long as I get them back in the same condition you get them in, in return for some work for pay I want done here in the hangar.”

  “Great!” replied Joe very excited. “I actually have tons of .30-caliber ammunition. I purchased two old .30-caliber guns from a collector last year and they came with thousands of rounds—enough to have a little war,” he smiled at Preston. “If you loan me the four, I can fix you up with some meat. I purchased five head of cattle from a farmer in Hillsborough and just had them processed.