by Wick Welker
“I won’t let you down. The Sirr can count on me.” Carter smiled at him.
“Are you certain that you’ll be able to get into the facility?”
“With the help of the Sirr, I can do anything,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Elise finally decided to ask Atash as he started to climb the ladder.
Atash turned to her and smiled. “Let’s not spoil the surprise.”
Chapter Seventeen: The Gulf of Paria, Venezuela
Small waves licked up the sides of dozens of steel hulls. The coastline behind the ships burst open with illuminated palm trees from the midday sun. The black and grey war ships of the Chinese and Venezuelan Navies appeared out of place in front of the long beaches that wrapped along the gulf. If it weren’t for the brewing of a battle, Raff imagined sunbathers lying peacefully on the beaches.
A quiet wind of salty air blew over the ship’s deck giving a welcome relief from the heat to the crew that hurried around their controls, perfecting their measurements, and shouting out commands. Defense Secretary, Jason Raff stood calmly aboard the USS America amphibious assault ship and watched as hundreds of men below the central command tower scurried across the deck. Raff was still angry that he was there. He was angry with the President who had panicked and rushed out two entire naval fleets and demanded that he go along with them to talk to the Chinese. If they didn’t listen to us a week ago, they’re not going to care what I have to say now, he thought.
He looked out over the water at the dozens of warships that were scattered around the open bay of a small city in the distance. He tried counting off the different ships that made up two naval fleets but got confused when he saw there were way more destroyers floating out in front of him than he had counted. He did know for a fact that there were two missile guided submarines beneath them but was unsure on the number of other assault ships from the Venezuelan Navy. He was just happy that the admiral was on the destroyer next to his, who knew all the details and would issue all the orders. Looking through binoculars, he saw black ships of the Chinese Navy just off the coast of Guiria, who had continually maintained radio silence.
His radio headset garbled as Admiral Juan Lessing shouted out his name. “Mr. Secretary, we will now begin our advancement toward the Chinese and Venezuelan Navy. They continue to maintain radio silence.”
“Did we get a confirmation about the water mines?” Raff asked.
“Yes, there are dozens confirmed by submarine. As our two fleets begin to converge on the coast, our first action will be disabling the mines before any other assault or aggression. Sir, are we going to attack if they still don’t provoke us?” Lessing asked.
“Absolutely. I have been instructed to regard their blatant naval mobilization and radio silence as an act of aggression against the United States.”
“I understand…”
“We will detonate the mines and give them ample time to respond to our radio requests, that they leave the coastline, and provide us with a timeline of when their entire Chinese Navy will be out of South America.”
“I honestly have no idea what they are thinking—we have them outmatched by at least two to one.”
“It’s just war games. They’re not going to attack us,” Raff said.
“It’s just strange.”
“We’ve got nothing to worry about. Both the President and I felt that the Chinese and Venezuela, and the rest of the world for that matter, need to see that even though everything else is going to shit, we’re not going to put up with military aggression against us.”
“It’s not this navy I’m worried about—it’s what parts of our country we’re leaving open to attack,” Lessing said.
“Both the President and CIA director say there is intel suggesting no imminent attacks inside the country right now. The navy you see right in front of you is the biggest threat to our country,” Raff said.
“All right, Secretary, we don’t need to be getting into this again right before we advance on them. I will proceed as commanded.”
“Thank you, and Godspeed,” Raff said.
Raff watched as Lessing’s destroyer moved up ahead of all the ships. The entire combined fleet clustered together and advanced toward the coast. He watched as dozens of ships moved to form two front flanks, leaving a main battalion of destroyers, cruisers, and frigates in the middle position. Far back behind them laid two aircraft carriers with a defending destroyer each, that burst into life with fighter jets flying off their runways. The air swarmed above them with sweeping jets that climbed up above the clouds and then crisscrossed down in front of their navy, skimming above the ocean only to disappear back up into the clouds to start the formation over again. The only thing we need are fireworks, Raff thought.
The Chinese fleet became visible in the distance, and maintained their stationary positions by the coast, as the U.S. fleet soared toward them. Raff flipped a switch on the radio in front of him. “This is Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, Jason Raff. We are regarding your militarization in this region as aggression against the United States. Please respond or we will be forced to intervene.” He flicked the switch back down, paused, and then gave out a sigh. Looking out through the deck he saw that the fleet was slowing down as it approached the Chinese ships.
Through his headset, Raff heard Lessing’s commands that he sent to the entire two fleets at once. “All fleet ships come to a stop at about two and a half knots from the enemy fleet. We will wait on submarine reconnaissance,” Lessing ordered.
As he looked out, Raff felt like he was standing at the back row of an amphitheater with dozens of warships extending up the side of the water in a semi-circular pattern. The entire fleet slowed in almost perfect unison, their tails of white water diminishing as they came to a stop. Raff left the radio open, hoping and waiting that the Chinese or Venezuelans would respond. They think they’re already past the point of no return, he thought. They’re here for a fight, but why here? Why would they lure us all the way down to Venezuela?
The waters settled, and the ocean became quiet with the ships resting in silence. Raff found himself suddenly wanting a first shot from the Chinese. Just a single bullet from a single barrel to finally decide that we will have a war today, he thought.
Suddenly, large fountains of water erupted in the ocean ahead of them. One after another, geysers shot up into the air, leaving behind foamy water with a surge of waves. “Our subs have found the mines and are now detonating them, all positions remain quiet,” Lessing said. The fountains kept erupting one after another across the front of the fleet, exposing the placement of each mine that the Chinese had laid down.
After the last blast, the waters finally calmed, leaving the navies looking back at each other, waiting. Raff flipped the radio switch. “Attention Chinese Navy, this is your final warning. We will be advancing onto your location and open fire if you do not leave these waters immediately. We will give you five minutes to respond.” Raff heard Rambert’s own desperate words coming out of his mouth.
The ocean was calm, and all ships remained motionless, waiting. Amongst the dozens of men in the control tower, the only sound was that of the low static hum from the radio. All men and women had their eyes looking beyond the windows to the black ships of their new enemy. The five minutes passed in an instant, and Admiral Lessing came onto the radio. “All ships advance onto enemy position, and do not open fire until I give the command, or until the enemy fires first. I repeat, do not fire until my command, or if the Chinese or Venezuelans fire on us first.”
The fleet moved forward, with the side flanks crossing over the mine barrier. Raff’s ship maintained its position at the back of the semicircular formation and started to move as the crew worked their controls. Advancing forward, the side flanks reached the Chinese ships first, with their cannons primed and ready to strike at the first shot. Raff gripped the edge of a control tower with one hand and held binoculars to his eyes with the other. He could now see the Chinese
naval men aboard their own ships, all standing completely motionless. He turned to another of their ships and saw the same thing: all men on all ships were in a complete standstill.
“Admiral,” Raff spoke over the radio, “why aren’t they doing anything? They’re all just standing around watching us.”
“I don’t know,” Lessing said with uncertainty. “But we’re advancing forward until they get the hell out of here.”
The U.S. fleet was now almost entirely intermingled with the Chinese ships. Raff dropped the binoculars and looked out of the side windows of the deck and saw a large Chinese destroyer at their side, its sides completely lined with Chinese soldiers holding rifles arms pointed toward the sky. They stood completely motionless, without expression. “What in the hell is going on?” Raff shouted out to anyone of the crew that was listening. “What are they doing?”
“All right, all ships to stop in current formation,” Lessing said over the radio. “Assume bravo formation with destroyers at the back line. Wait on my command.” The fleet came to a stop with a wall of U.S. ships lined up at the back of the assault, with other assault ships now spreading in between the Chinese ships.
Looking through his binoculars, Raff saw the Chinese ships laid out in front of them, with the Venezuelan ships and coastal city just beyond. His mind was caught up in a frenzy of scenarios and hypotheticals, trying to understand and guess what the Chinese were trying to do. Every ship was quiet with the monotonous stares of the naval soldiers looking out at them. Yet they aren’t really looking at us, he thought. They’re looking beyond us. What are they waiting for? They’re not waiting for us—they’re waiting for something else… Something planned, someone else, a trap, another navy, suicide bombers, what? What the hell are they doing?
In his clutter of thoughts, and through the silence of the battleships, he heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter thumping in the distance. As the sound grew slightly louder, he heard another set of helicopter blades coming in, followed by another. He heard Lessing on the radio, “Mr. Secretary, are you aware of any choppers that have been designated to join us?”
“What? No, you mean you don’t know who those helicopters are?”
“They’re U.S. Apaches and a cargo chopper, but they’re the first I’m hearing about this.”
“What do we do about it?”
“Hang on, I’ve got a guy on the phone to Eau Claire figuring it out. I’m sure it’s just some last minute backups that the President decided to send.”
“Admiral, what the hell? How do we not know about this?”
“Mr. Secretary, I could ask you the same thing. Just stand by,” Lessing replied.
Raff exhaled with annoyance into the headset and looked around at the ship’s crew, who mirrored his confused expression. “Let’s just see what the fuck is going on out there.” Raff ripped off his headset and burst out of the ship’s central command center, onto the outside deck, where dozens of sailors were poised under large turrets and missile batteries. Looking up, the sun glared down on him, but he could see several of the helicopters coming from the opposite direction from the Chinese ships. As they came closer he made out three, then four, Apache helicopters, with two larger choppers coming from behind them. They were flying at the fleet.
At the bow of his own ship, he saw an aircraft carrier a few hundred feet away. “Is there any room for those choppers to land out there?” he said to no one, blocking the sun out of his eyes. The helicopters made it to just over the aircraft carrier but flew right over it. It was then that Raff noticed each helicopter was towing several large objects beneath them. Grabbing a radio from his belt, he shouted into it, “Admiral, what kind of helicopters did you say they were?”
His radio chirped, and Lessing yelled out, “It’s four Apaches and two Chinook cargo choppers. I’ve no idea where they’re coming from.”
“Son of a bitch, those are the exact number and type of choppers that just went missing from El Paso. You need to shoot them down right this minute!” he yelled, alerting all the sailors around him who scrambled at the turrets.
“Are you certain?” Lessing asked.
“Can’t you see that they’re dragging something beneath them? We have no idea who is flying those things. Shoot them down right now!”
“I already gave out the order,” Lessing said.
The helicopters stayed flying in a tight formation and approached the space above Raff’s ship. Closer now, he saw large, bullet-shaped vessels hanging from the helicopters. “Get those turrets up and shoot those fucking choppers down right now!” he yelled out at the sailors, who began turning the large barreled turrets back toward the direction of the helicopters.
A missile from another ship shot out into the air and struck one of the Apaches above Raff’s ship. It exploded into a fireball. The wreckage fell forward and landed on the back end of the ship’s deck, toppled over several men, and then ripped over the side rail, falling down to the water below.
An Apache from behind immediately slowed, and then dropped to just a few dozen feet from above the water. The helicopter dropped its two metallic cylinders to the water below. A second missile shot from Raff’s ship and ripped through this second Apache as it attempted to fly away, making it plummet to the ocean.
The two larger cargo helicopters, carrying four of what Raff could only assume were bombs, split from the cluster of helicopters, and flew directly over two different destroyer ships. They accelerated toward the water divide between the U.S. and Chinese ships. As several missiles shot out behind them, they began dropping their bombs one at a time as they flew amongst the ships, distributing the bombs evenly down into the water. As the bombs plunged into the waters below, they sunk down deep, and then shot back up from their buoyancy.
Raff ducked as he waited for the bombs to go off, but then got back up after only hearing missiles firing off from the ships. The bombs bobbed up and down, swaying with the ocean tides.
Looking across the way with his binoculars, the Chinese continued to stand motionless as one of the Apache choppers made it past several airstrikes, and was now flying above their ships. It dropped one bomb into the water in between two of their destroyers and flew deeper amongst their other ships, where it dropped its last bomb. It then flew toward the coastline, unscathed from the U.S. missile attacks.
The other cargo chopper was finally hit after delivering all four of its bombs to the water and crashed down into a frigate ship, blasting through its top deck into the lower floors below, bringing down a large control tower. The other cargo ship had also dropped its last bomb and was attempting to pull away from the navy when a machine gunner caught its tail, causing it to spin in rapid circles, and crash down into the water.
Raff looked up, searching for the other Apaches that hadn’t been hit, wondering and cursing, when he heard a large eruption from the water below the ship. Peeking over the rail, he saw that the large metallic bomb in the water wasn’t a bomb at all. It had opened an outer shutter with several streams of liquid shooting into the air, quickly vaporizing into a fine mist.
“What…?” He got to his feet and grabbed his radio. “Admiral, what in the hell is going on?”
“I’m not quite sure, but I suggest,” he started coughing, “go and grab a gas mask now. All those bombs are making huge, huge clouds of gas that are coming up over my ship here.”
“Shit.” He dropped his radio. “Everybody, put on gasmasks!” Crewmen were running back and forth past him. One young girl began coughing uncontrollably and stumbled onto her hands and knees in front of him. “Hey, hey, come on.” Kneeling, he grabbed the girl by the arm, and helped her to her feet. “Where are the masks?” he yelled at her as another man fell down in front of him.
The girl lifted her arm and pointed at the floor, toward a slender compartment door that ran the length of a wall.
Covering his mouth with his hat, he inched toward the floorboard, and collapsed by the latch. Opening it, he found several rows of gasmasks and t
ook them out, sprawling them across the deck as other crewman put them on. Quickly, he stuck his face into one of the masks, and pulled the straps around the back of his head. The girl next to him had fallen down, clutching a mask in her hands without moving. Reaching down, he pushed the mask to her face and pulled the straps around her head.
He stood up to the chaos that had erupted on the deck. Men and woman were running and screaming as a fog poured out onto the waters, in between the ships. It built upward as each of the bombs continued to gush out constant streams of the liquid vapor. Squinting his eyes, he could see the Chinese crews in the same frenzy as the same clouds enveloped them, with men falling from their ships. As he watched the same turmoil of men and woman clawing at their eyes and gasping on their ships, two words came into his mind: set up.
He felt someone grabbing at his leg as the fog now rose up and over the edges of the ship’s deck. Looking down, the girl was attempting to get to her feet. Raff leaned in and propped her up against him, moving her back toward the door of the central command. He stopped when she thumped the side of her head into his shoulder and dug her nails into his back.
“Hey, hey, come on. Let’s get inside out of this shit,” he shouted, his voice echoing back to his ears from the mask over his face.
She then wrapped her arms around him in a bear hug and started to knock the front of her mask into the side of the chest.
“Hey, get off me!” he yelled, trying to free himself from her grasp. Grabbing her tightly gripped fingers from his side, he threw her down to the ground, and looked back at her.
Her mask had slid up to her forehead, exposing the bottom half of her face, which had erupted with blackened boils. A grayish liquid slowly oozed out of her mouth, carrying several of her loose teeth as it drip down her chin onto her uniform. She tried yelling out but only managed to stick out a bright red tongue that hung loosely at the corner of her mouth. Suddenly, her incisors chomped down quickly, nipping off the tip of her tongue as she howled out in pain.