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

by T I WADE

  The trip back was full of talk and chit-chat between the three women with the two kids sitting in front. The former roommates had been bumped to the rear seat by the Smart kids, as they knew that a verbal barrage of words would start between all of them. It always did when they got together.

  “How’s California treating you guys?” asked Preston of the twins sitting in front.

  “Great, Preston,” Oprah got in first. “We sold our sixth electrical generator last month to our last neighbor. Now all seven houses in our neighborhood are feeding into the power grid.”

  “We have a fun bunch of neighbors, Preston,” added Ben. “We wanted to be here, but we all had a great Christmas with over 40 of us eating together at one house. It was a swell day, but I’m glad to be back in North Carolina.”

  “Your dad is really a good guy after all, giving you flights for New Year’s Eve. Martie was really sad when she thought you guys wouldn’t make it. I would have enjoyed finally meeting your Dad. I don’t understand his fear of flying.”

  “Nor do we,” added Oprah.

  “But at least he was okay about us to coming over to see you guys,” interrupted, Ben. “We miss Oliver.”

  “Hey, guess what?” Preston asked them, having to shout over the laughter coming from the three in the rear seat. “I hitched up one of the big diesel motors to the hangar and the house, exactly how I showed you when you visited over the summer and boy, has it got power! Martie and I turned everything on that we could and the diesel just sat there on idle and took the load without breaking a rev or a sweat!”

  “Don’t you still have more of the big ones?” Ben asked.

  “I’ve got a couple more that can be turned on anytime and another couple still at Joe’s farm I’ve been working on. It wouldn’t take more than a couple of days to finish them up as well.”

  Within an hour and a half, they arrived back at the farm gate and Preston pushed the remote on his sun visor to open it up and let them through. The new visitors were introduced to everyone, and had to tour every single aircraft and vehicle. Ben did not want to climb out of the Saracen, but the three ladies offered to work on dinner so they could be alone in the house kitchen with a couple of bottles of wine. They had a lot of catching up to do, and it was only 4:00 pm.

  They produced a nice hot meal for the 14 guests that were staying that night. The number had grown since Christmas and the large hangar room was now always busy. The Smarts had been satisfied with Carlos’ old room, and he had moved his one backpack downstairs and out into the hangar. It was the evening of December 30th and nobody really wanted to go all out and party, but a steady line at the bar was obvious all night.

  Martie had felt like using Bloody Mary’s to celebrate that evening. The three former roommates had often guzzled them in their dorm room at MIT, and they had stopped on the way home and bought the shop out of fresh free-range eggs, 20 packs of bacon, a large bag of tomatoes for breakfast, and a dozen big bottles of normal and spicy Bloody Mary mix. The hangar bar’s stock of a case of vodka had hardly been touched thanks to Pete and his stash, and there were still a dozen cases of champagne of all types for New Year’s Eve.

  After dinner, everyone sat and chatted in the hangar room. The troops overseas were a favorite topic and Pete was all for bringing every one of them home. Some of the wars were a decade old, never winnable, and aggression against U.S. forces on all fronts had escalated drastically throughout the year. He mentioned that the increase in factions opposing U.S. troops looked like it might be coming to a climax soon. With over 2,000 deaths in the last several months alone, more than in the previous five years, something was going on.

  Buck and Carlos agreed with Pete, adding in the equation of all the electronic malfunctions around the world in the last couple of months—more than in the last decade combined. Preston shared that it would take months to get all the troops back that the President promised by the end of January, and everyone agreed with him. Even Pete, who did not discuss military issues very much, said that a full pull-out of 250,000 troops, using all available Air Force and available commercial air transportation, plus the use of the majority of the US Navy in different parts of the world, would take at least three months to execute. It would take over a year to get all military, civilian, and motorized personnel back to home soil. The White House did not understand the vast maneuvers that would be necessary to pull out such large numbers, and did not seem to listen to advice from anybody.

  Then the conversation turned towards the President himself. Most agreed that they liked the man. He had taken over lousy administration problems from the previous President, had no better opportunities after the last change in government, and apart from sending more and more troops out of the country, many at the White House were going deaf to the warnings by the President and most of the top brass. Congress had listened to the “let’s-take-over-the-world” military personnel in charge for so many years, and did very little positive for the American people. Gas prices were up to record levels, the U.S. dollar had devalued by over 15% compared to strong Asian currencies. U.S. unemployment stood at 14%, empty and foreclosed houses stood at about 1 in 40 countrywide. The jails were filling up with homeless and hungry civilians, and the news broadcasters continued to say that we were in the healthiest economic times America as ever seen.

  “Bullshit!” exclaimed Carlos and a few others.

  “Maybe it’s time to head to the islands somewhere,” suggested Barbara. “We have our Army and Air Force. We just need a few old naval frigates and submarines to stop the unwanted, take some farmers, some good-looking men and women with us, and start our own country.”

  There was much agreement and laughter in reaction to her comments, but most agreed that it was certainly worth thinking about.

  “It takes a lot of work and a lot of people to make a country go round,” interjected Preston. “Just here on this airfield, the daily chores never stop. Martie and I work hard, and so does Joe next door, just to keep our farms intact. I’m sure it would work, but if we do go to an island, could it be a small one with fewer chores?” They all laughed at that one.

  The last day of the year for billions of people all over the world started just like any other day. The sun rose and electronic apparati starting buzzing, blaring, heating, cooling, ticking, warning, and generally making as much noise as possible—especially in the United States, which had billions of every sort of electrical gadget money could buy.

  On the ranch, it was the second to last day of partying, as most of the departures would take place on January 2nd. Martie, Sally, and Maggie had spent the whole previous day catching up on gossip—enough to sink a battleship, as Carlos stated that morning over coffee. The weather was beginning to turn. The big storm was hitting the northeast and North Carolina was getting the fringes of it coming across from the west-northwest and just off-center of the runway.

  The wind was gusting at 15 knots, and it was the day planned for helicopter flying. Baby Huey had already been moved on a dolly and refueled by Buck, Preston, Carlos, and Pete earlier that morning. She had been rather thirsty from her trip down, since she did it non-stop, but 200 gallons of jet fuel later she was ready to fly. Buck’s Huey, the UH-1D version, had the extended body and could take 14-15 people seated in four rows of four behind the two pilots. Buck had found some old light-weight folding tin chairs at a military auction a year or so earlier and had brought them with him for this trip.

  It was going to be crowded, and the seats were not comfortable, but nobody cared as long as they got aboard. Barbara decided to stay behind, and that gave David and Joe a chance to get a seat. Grandpa Roebels was in the right seat next to Buck, and the rest just crammed in behind them. With the large cargo doors on either side pulled shut, they were already facing into the wind, and Buck started the turbo-shaft motor.

  Preston had filed a flight plan out to Wright Field at Kitty Hawk on the coast, and it would be a 70-minute flight. Weather at the coast was clear but windy. Ev
eryone was aboard. Luckily, two of the passengers were kids and that left a little more room for the adults. The three MIT girls were not allowed to sit together, so Sally, Carlos, Pete, and Ben sat in the first row, with Martie, Preston, Joe, and Oprah in the second, and Maggie, David, and Jennifer in the last row. Michael had been a passenger in Hueys often and had decided to stay in the hangar. There was something on television he wanted to watch.

  Buck warmed up the engine, brought the revs up, and felt the extra weight as she used a lot more power than normal to get airborne. He let her lean forward and the rotor blades bit into the wind and climbed quickly in a west-northwest direction, directly over Joe’s farm and then over the lake. It was noisy. This wasn’t a commercial flight, and the real thrill was being in a loud military aircraft and flying over the rest of the world at 130 miles an hour. They climbed up to 5,000 feet, and the heater worked hard to keep them warm. Everyone had worn warm outerwear, and some were even wearing winter gloves and hats. The colors were certainly not military, and they looked like a bunch of beginner snow skiers in a cable car.

  “Do we have permission to land at Wright Field?” shouted Buck to Preston.

  “No,” was the simple shouted reply. “But I don’t think they’ll mind. We are in an aircraft nearly as old, it’s the middle of winter, and it’s been closed for several weeks. The only part of the field we can hurt are a couple of blades of grass and there are acres of room.”

  They came in low over the old and famous field, and Buck decided to put her down close to the main building where it looked like there were one or two small cabins. The wind was stronger than back at the airport, which forced him to come in slowly and put her down very gently. He let the rotors come to a halt before he allowed the side doors to open, and they all got out, walking around and stretching their legs.

  The sun was still shining, but only just, and it would be an even colder trip back home. The place was empty of life and they spent the next hour inspecting the hill, the markings where Orville and Wilbur had taken their flights and felt the importance of the first place where man had actually flown in an aircraft so many years ago. For them, it was an important place to be. Even Pete Allen had never been here before and enjoyed reminiscing about the Wright Brothers and their expertise in bicycles which led them to be the first of millions of pilots to come—including them. Martie and Preston had packed some blankets, thermoses of coffee, and sandwiches, and they stopped behind one of the buildings to enjoy a picnic of sorts.

  Once everybody was ready and everything packed back into Baby Huey, Buck warmed her up. This time, he turned the helicopter’s nose directly north, as the wind had changed direction. He turned to starboard as they climbed and he took them over the beach and out to sea at 500 feet. Several people walking the beach pointed up to them as they flew by.

  The Huey then flew down to within 100 feet of the waves, and the ride become exhilarating. This was what helicopter flying was all about. For 15 minutes, Buck flew south a couple of hundred yards off the outer beaches on a slither of land called Cape Hatteras, still at 100 feet until Ocracoke came into view. Ocracoke was the southern town on Cape Hatteras, and once they flew past, he turned inland, rose 100 feet higher and flew over the vast waters and marshlands of Pamlico Sound.

  For 20 minutes, they flew all the way over water nearly up to the small town of Washington. A few miles out, Buck climbed up to a safer altitude of 4,000 feet, and they flew back to Apex, passing 30 miles north of Seymour Johnson. They landed at the Ranch just before dark, and everyone helped move the helicopter back into place, tie it down, and check the other aircraft. Then they all rushed inside to the warmth of the large hangar. It was getting cold outside.

  It was cold enough for several rounds of glűwein, and Martie warmed a case of red wine on the stove in a large pot in the hangar while Michael and Barbara walked in with interesting snacks they had made while the crowd was away. The New Year’s Eve party had started. It was nearly 6:00 and they still had six hours of the old year to go.

  Michael and Barbara had done a great job on food, and with the warm wine going down rapidly, and Cokes for the two young ones, Martie put U2 on the stereo and everybody finally got into the last party of the year.

  Chapter 15

  Jiangsu Province – China, Lunch – New Years Day

  Champagne was ready in ice buckets next to the buffet lunch table in the board room at Zedong Headquarters on the 30th floor. Three young girls would soon arrive and distribute lunch with glasses of champagne shortly after one 1:00. The men in the board room were excited. Thirty years of hard work was about to reach its conclusion. Secrecy was becoming unimportant at this delicate time, as the point of no return had already been reached and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

  At precisely 12.30 pm, the room went quiet as Chairman Wang Chunqiao got up and moved to the podium where behind him on the large wall were two digital, flattened world maps 30 feet across with flickering live feed from three Ziyuan-2 Chinese communication satellites designed and now privately owned by Zedong Electronics.

  The three satellites showed the entire world in its immediate situation. A computer situated one floor below the board room and the building’s electronics control center mapped the three live feeds together in one long, flattened world map, and displayed two individual maps on the wall, one underneath the other, by projector.

  Day and night could be easily seen on both maps—the only difference between the maps was that on the top one, all the world’s city lights across the dark area of the planet glowed brightly, and on the second one below it, many thousands of small markers showed up around the world with each a small light representing an aircraft locator number. Asia and Australia were in sunlight, as was Hawaii. It was 11.30 pm in Washington D.C., but the sun was just about to set in Hawaii. There was a clear and frozen dawn in Moscow and daylight across much of Russia.

  “We have reached our beginning. We have finally reached our Z-Day after 30 years of hard work,” the Chairman spoke from the front of the room. “I would like the final reports from the members who have scheduled reports to offer at this time. Once the reports are done, we will have lunch, view our live screens and watch our 30 years of planning and dedicated work change the world maps behind me. As most of you know, these are live pictures of our planet—fed from the three satellites we built on behalf of the Chinese government. We took over complete operational control of the Ziyuan-2 satellites yesterday, and from this morning forward they have been renamed their original names, after our Comrade Professor Jianbing who designed them. The three Jianbing satellites are communication satellites that do not carry any of our electrical parts, instead using parts purchased from a private Russian satellite company several years ago, and will be the only usable satellites in space once Z-Day is activated in 27 minutes. We designed them to work for our glorious government under our supervision until we are ready for them to work for our own project. The government was warned in Beijing two hours before we shut them out of the control-loop since they had directional communication information still running through them.”

  “Our valuable Zedong Electronics aircraft—the 30 Boeing 747-400ER aircraft and five Airbus 380s we leased to the government—have been made safe and are on the ground. We also warned our government about possible aircraft losses 24 hours ago. So, it has taken us 12 hours to move the three satellites into the same orbital speed as Earth, and they are exactly 294 miles out. They will give us live pictures of Earth until we need to move them in closer for our scheduled invasions around the world over the next 12 months.”

  The Chairman looked around the room. “So gentlemen, in a few hours the whole world is going to shut down and go dark. It will become very cold in the northern hemisphere once the inhabitants run out of any heating reserves, which is estimated to be seven to ten days. We will also terminate military establishments in our own country, to make sure that our own government does not and cannot oppose us and try to close us d
own here in Nanjing and Shanghai.”

  “We completed Phase I of our project last year—placing 110 termination squads with 440 of our well-trained Red Guard termination squads on the east and west coasts of North America. They have special satellite telephones and will be our ears and eyes. As you all know, I have a total distaste for the United States of America and what it stands for, and we will leave the other first-world countries to self-destruct over a much longer period. We are attacking the United States first. Our plan to invade America still stands, gentlemen. With over 440 specially trained killers already in America, we will give the people three weeks to destroy themselves, and then our food ships will go in and offer the remaining few food once they accept our new, red Chinese passports. We will have ten cargo ships fully loaded and ready to enter New York and Los Angeles, five on the Atlantic side and five on the Pacific-side two weeks later. Zedong Electronics will deploy our 30 commercial jumbo jets and the five Airbus 380s to ferry in troops at the same time our new aircraft carrier and escort arrive with the cargo ships in New York Harbor. That is 20,000 troops going into three airports around New York that will have been made safe by our 440 men on the ground.”

  “Another 4,000 Zedong Red Guard marines will be on our support vessels, and our four modern warships which will protect our new aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang. She will have her 30 fighter jets ready to make sure that we succeed and destroy any opposition at the most important entry points into our new country—New York Harbor, Washington D.C., and then Los Angeles. We will all be aboard the Shi Lang when we gloriously enter America under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which I will rename the ‘Comrade Wang Chunqiao Bridge.’”

  The Chairman paused while the room applauded his announcement. “Gentlemen, there are 16 large bridges in New York, and each one of you will have a bridge named in your honor once we change the name of New York City to Zedong City and Washington D.C. to Jiang Qing City a week later when our jumbo jets return with another 20,000 troops for our new capital. I will remove the statue of Lincoln from of his memorial and replace it with my own, which is currently being made in Shanghai, and we will have succeeded when I sit in the President’s chair behind the desk of power in my Oval Office. Any questions?”