Текст книги "The Battle for New York"

Автор книги: T. I. Wade

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

General Allen agreed, saying there should be enough to choose from in Osan, and he wanted the flight’s phone number so that he could talk. He immediately called Mother Goose and found them flying in pretty lousy weather, but now actually thinking they had a decent tailwind and that they could get back on schedule.

The flight commander, a sleepy Major Joe Patterson who was a multi-use pilot himself, told him that they were supposed to check in with Carlos in an hour. Ghost Rider was still working on the several radio frequencies they had received from the Russian military. These radio frequencies were expected to work well into China. Pete Allen gave all the Russian beacon frequencies to the pilots of the tanker, and after several minutes Patterson told him that they had new fixes on three very faint radio beacons—enough to plot their exact position by intersecting the three beacon locations to their aircraft’s position. They came back, thanking him and telling him that they did have a tailwind, were 110 miles off course but 160 miles closer to Osan than they thought, and that they could make it in with 40 minutes of fuel to spare.

General Allen called Carlos back. “Carlos, did you know that you could be out of a job as the world’s only air traffic controller pretty soon?” he laughed into the phone.

“Thank God for that!” Carlos replied. “Being out of a job will give me a chance to fly instead of watch the world’s weather for you all.”

All the flight personnel who were not flying managed to get another four hours more sleep before the bad weather and turbulence made it almost impossible. The general was pretty refreshed after seven good hours, however, and decided to shave, with a bowl and a bottle of water serving as his shaving equipment.

The C-130s were strong aircraft, and the elements battering the aircraft outside were not much of a concern. The luxury of very faint radio beacons still obtainable at 29,000 feet were also helping all the aircraft stay on course, and three hours after the general shaved, they landed at Osan in snowy conditions on a freshly cleared white runway—one hour after Mother Goose had arrived direct from McGuire AFB. It was the morning of the ninth day—cold, blustery, and snowy.

All of the men on the mission who had done nothing but sleep in some cozy bit of space on the airplane were rested and ready for action. Major Patterson had already rounded up another ten experienced C-17 and Stratotanker pilots at Osan, and 30 men were going over the parachute gear, preparing it for use and familiarizing themselves with the best the Marines had. One of the flown in radio beacons was already being set up close to the southern end of Osan’s longest runway, and would be operational by take-off.

General Allen immediately held a meeting with all soldiers, pilots, and crew.

“Ok, guys, I want to hear your plan,” said the general, “but first I want Mother Goose to head up to Misawa in Japan ASAP and get the second radio beacon operational. I will personally deliver the third one to Beijing once our operation at Shanghai Pudong International Airport is over.

“OK! I want the 30 parachutes dropped in low by Blue Moon and Easy Girl, with fifteen men per aircraft plus a pallet of arms. They will go in just before dawn, and the final decision on your landing site is perfect. The open land between the ocean and the west side of the airport should be far enough away for the snow to blanket any aircraft sounds.

“Captain Wong? Well done at JFK. This one is going to be just as easy, as long as we don’t end up with troops blocking the runways with trucks, or whatever they have that can stop the Air China aircraft from taking off. We cannot win a war against the larger numbers of troops they must have stationed there, but remember complete surprise is on our side. Now, tell me exactly how you did it at JFK, and what is your plan for getting into the aircraft here?”

Major Patterson and Captain Wong spent an hour telling General Allen what had happened at JFK, as well as the plan they had formulated on their flight over the North Pole at 31,000 feet. It was very risky, but the element of surprise and the way the Chinese engineers and soldiers had reacted to hearing of the Supreme Commander’s surprise visit, it certainly could be done again. Hopefully, nobody knew where the Supreme Commander was at the moment, but it didn’t matter, and to the men they were going to encounter, he was most probably God!

Mother Goose left two hours later, refueled, and headed on her way to Japan, then over to Hawaii, and back to McGuire. She had done her job. Now it was up to the men she had brought in to increase the size of the U.S. Air Force, commercially.

The snow came and went, winds moving it around, and toward nightfall it began to fall in earnest. The bulldozers worked to keep the runway clear. Only an inch or two had fallen when Blue Moon, Easy Girl, and the second HC-130 tanker were fully fueled and the two gunships, each carrying 15 men each took off two hours before dawn.

The flight was 90 minutes into Shanghai, and the general would only take off in Ghost Rider once the men were on the ground. He needed to conserve fuel. He wouldn’t have the backup of a tanker anymore, and Beijing was a straight flight line this time with the aid of the Russian radio beacons.

This time, the satellite phones would be the main communication tool—smaller and lighter than radios—and the men were dressed in the same clothing taken off the termination squads in New York.

Both gunships were able to guide themselves into the area accurately with their infrared scanners. Mrs. Wang had been transferred into Blue Moon and once the men were down, they were to refuel from the tanker and all head into Omsk, 2,850 miles away.

From Omsk, they would fly into Moscow and deliver the three promised cell phones, and then head for Turkey, which was the meeting point for all the U.S. aircraft heading back to the States. General Allen would be the last in, once he had delivered the radio beacon into Beijing, refueled, and then flown into Omsk for more fuel. He would also then head south into Turkey.

The pilots reported reasonable snowfall over the area and it didn’t take them long to find the mapped out LZ (landing zone) several hundred yards southwest of the airport. Snow wasn’t falling and the clouds were scattered. The dark of night just before dawn was not a problem for the scanners aboard the gunship. Both aircrafts’ speed was slowed as much as possible to reduce engine noise. The pilots reduced altitude down to 900 feet and the jumpers only had seconds before they landed.

All Marines were experienced at this and they had gone over the drills several times with the less-experienced pilots—teaching them low-level static-line parachute tactics. The tanker stayed aloft at 20,000 feet. She couldn’t help in any way, and she waited patiently for the two gunships to rejoin her. The rear door of the AC-130s opened, and the jump lights turned from red to green. Fifteen men ran out the back two at a time on each side of both aircraft in three second intervals. Their parachute’s ripcords were pulled by the static lines inside the aircraft as they jumped. The last man ran out on one side and seconds later a large case of carefully packed AK-47s and ammunition was pushed out on the other side of the both aircraft by two men. Its larger parachute’s ripcord was also pulled as it left the aircraft.

The two aircraft immediately banked right and glided out to sea as silently as possible and gently gained altitude to meet up with the tanker. Together they turned far out to sea to the east of Shanghai into a northwesterly direction and got on course for Omsk.

Several minutes later, the first group gathered their parachute gear and joined up reporting to Major Patterson. Everybody was okay, despite one slightly sprained ankle, and the second group headed by Captains Wong and Chong arrived several minutes later with no injuries to report.

Patterson’s men searched for, found, and unpacked the slightly banged up pallets of equipment. Their pallet was a hundred yards away and stuck inside a now roofless and broken chicken coop, and after a little trouble, two of the men handed out the arms and ammunition to the rest of their squad. They wrapped their 15 parachutes onto the now empty pallet with a timer and explosive device that would go off in three hours time, hopefully destroying all evidence, as well as a dozen or so unfortunate chickens, if they didn’t go out to peck around the field before the explosion went off. They then re-joined the other group and Major Patterson phoned General Allen, telling him that they were on the ground, and no injuries.

Already, and from this distance, they could see a dozen or more aircraft standing in a long line facing outwards away from the well-lit air terminal and facing the runway and outer fence that rested between them and the aircraft.

If all the aircraft had been parked head-in at the terminals with the walkways attached, it could have presented a problem. It would have been difficult to get them moved back from the gates and onto the runway for take-off. They couldn’t see all the aircraft, because a short snow squall blotted out the terminal halfway down, but that was fine—they had seen as much as they wanted.

The first terminal facing the west at Shanghai International was extremely long, and older satellite photos studied in the aircraft on the way over had shown that around 24 aircraft could be parked at the west-side gates.

A couple of men cut holes in the high fence surrounding the airport, noticing that several lights were on in and around the buildings, as well as the aircraft control tower. There were no guards to be seen. They certainly weren’t expecting any form of attack.

Once inside, they kept to the perimeter of the fence, carefully moving in the blackness around the south end of the runway. It took the group 20 minutes to get closer to the aircraft. By that time, the faint dawn light was beginning to show more and more of the airport stretching out in front of them.

Major Patterson and all the men were dressed in the same confiscated Chinese clothing from JFK. The team moved slowly and carefully toward the main apron of the airport. Once they arrived in the first lit up area, Major Patterson was ready for his mission and blatantly walked out to the middle of the lit apron with Captain Chong to make sure that they would be seen, and started looking at the first airplane.

Captain Wong ran to the tower and climbed the stairs as fast as he could with two shorter Marines as bodyguards, their faces totally hidden behind veils. He reached the airport’s command center or tower and found it unguarded with the door unlocked. He walked in and started shouting orders in Chinese, pointing down at the tiny figure of the Supreme Commander just barely visible checking aircraft.

“The Supreme Commander has arrived to do an inspection of the airfield,” ordered Captain Wong in Mandarin as the men sat straight up, suddenly at attention. While he shouted, he looked outside the tower and counted fifteen 747s facing outward toward the runway. Past the end of the line and in a half-closed aircraft repair hangar he could just make out the same transporter he had seen at JFK two days earlier. It must have refueled somewhere on its return journey because she certainly didn’t have the range to get from New York to Shanghai nonstop like the passenger version.

“The Supreme Commander has been given an army of elite troops from the government in Beijing as a gift, and needs 12 aircraft to collect them. Are those aircraft refueled and ready to fly? Where are the pilots?” he shouted at the man who looked to be most senior.

“The aircraft are fueled and ready to fly. I will wake the pilots immediately. They are in their quarters, Comrade,” the man replied, stammering nervously.

“General Wong to you! I am the Supreme Commander’s bodyguard commander. Is there an alarm to warn the soldiers about aircraft movements?” the captain demanded.

“The soldiers are controlled from the security detachment on the floor below. I can send a man to tell them that the Supreme Commander is giving orders to move aircraft,” the man replied, still standing at attention.

“Do that immediately!” ordered Captain Wong. “The aircraft will be flying into Beijing and will return in 12 hours. I need space and quarters for another 5,000 men. Tell the commander of the soldiers to find them space to sleep until we leave for America, understood?”

“Yes sir!” The man stuttered and shouted orders to one of the five men in the tower. The man bowed and ran off.

“Does the front line of aircraft have mobile stairs so that the Supreme Commander can inspect the aircraft?” was Captain’s Wong’s next question.

“We only have three flights of mobile stairs, and I can get them out there from below the tower, General,“ the nervous man answered. Captain Wong nodded, noticing that the American squad of men was in now formation behind the first aircraft. The man in charge of the tower immediately picked up a microphone and spoke to who Captain Wong assumed was the ground crew.

“The Supreme Commander doesn’t want any troops out there. He has his own elite troops under my command. The pilots have three minutes to get dressed. He wants 11 aircraft to transport the troops. Is the transporter loaded and ready to go?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “It is ready for its flight to America and fully loaded. It is being kept warm inside so that the parts do not freeze.”

“Good, because that is what the Supreme Commander is giving our Chinese government minions in Beijing for the men. We will need to get it reloaded once it returns in three days time,” added the Captain.

“But there are no more parts here at the airport,” replied the tower controller.

“We have a new load coming in from Nanjing,” replied Captain Wang in a sarcastic tone. He watched as three sets of stairs were being pushed hard and by hand out to the first three 747s, and he then noticed five Air Bus 380s connected to the terminal at specially built gates. “Are the European aircraft ready to go?” he asked.

“No sir, they are still having their seats removed and are not yet refueled.”

“The Supreme Commander wants that work completed by the time he gets back from Beijing, in case he must go back. Wake up your workforce and get all those aircraft ready. The aircraft we are taking tonight will be arriving back here and I’ll need a welcoming committee ready when the Commander returns from Beijing. I’m flying with him and so are my elite troops. I will go down and wait for the pilots. Understood?” the man nodded, and Captain Wong and his two heavily armed guards ran back down the stairs, making as much noise as possible. On the floor below was an Army colonel by the looks of him, and he saluted Captain Wong as the three men nodded at him and continued down the stairs. He looked rather confused.

Three of the first in line beautiful Air China Boeing 747-400ER’s forward doors were already open, and pilots could be seen through the cockpit windows going through pre-flight checks as the aircraft doors were already being closed.

The stairs were already on their way to the second group as the pilots—30 of them—ran out from the terminal, still dressing and trying to put their clothing together. Captain Wong issued orders as they arrived, getting a crew aboard each of the next three aircraft as the doors opened. He shouted at the pilots that the first three aircraft had pilots from the Supreme Commander’s own private group and they were to get into the fourth aircraft as spare teams.

The stairs were placed next to the next three aircraft, the forward doors opened, and three Chinese pilots entered each of the front doors with two of the Supreme Commander’s pilots and a Marine. The stairs were being pulled away as the first engines started up and the panting ground crew moved the stairs towards the next three in the row. Everybody was working as fast as they could, with Major Patterson, still in the middle of the apron, moving his arms around in gestures nobody could understand, but it sure looked good to Captain Wong, and hopefully the tower!

By the time the third set of large Boeing 747-400ER aircraft had their forward doors opened, the Chinese crews and American pilots with a Marine per aircraft were climbing the stairs.

Now there were six left—five normal 747s and the 747 transporter at the end of the line facing the other aircraft, the hangar doors were already open and a tractor was about to move the giant aircraft outside. The ground crew, now breathing hard, pushed the stairs to the next three aircraft. At this moment Major Patterson realized that he had run out of men to fly the machines.

The ‘Supreme Commander’ followed the ground crew that marched over to the transporter, looked up to the tower and waved at them, and entered the last aircraft which was outside and ready for boarding.

By this time, Chinese soldiers were appearing from areas behind the terminal and were forming up into squads. Captain Wong decided that it would take at least ten minutes to get the pre-flight checks done and the last aircraft’s engines started. The first three 747s were already on the move, the noise deafening and he shouted as hard as he could into the ‘Supreme Commander’s ear as they stood on top of the mobile stairs. He suggested the major waste some time by walking over to inspect the men before they had a war on their hands.

The two men returned down the stairs after watching a Marine knock four Chinese crew members out cold and allow the last American pilot to get into the co-pilot seat to begin start-up checks.

They moved directly towards the several hundred troops, now dangerous and ready for action at a moment’s notice. The Supreme Commander, his face still covered stopped several yards in front of the men and bowed to them.

“Our Supreme Commander is traveling to Beijing to pick up more great soldiers,” Captain Wong shouted at the top of his voice. “He will return in a few hours to give you a personnel speech on the success we are expecting in America. He has a surprise for all of you! For every man who does his job well in New York, he will receive a thousand acres of land and a large American house. He will explain the plan once we return from Beijing. He is proud of all of you and looks forward to giving you your own part of America when we have won the final battle.”

With that he bowed to the troops, then to his Supreme Commander, and then whispered to him to get back on the aircraft as the guard stood to attention and presented arms. They seemed excited at the news, many smiling and looking joyous.

As they got to the steps, the first three 747s were taxiing down to the southern end of the runway half a mile away, with the second group of three just leaving the apron in a line.

Wong and Patterson walked up the stairs. The ‘Supreme Commander’ reached the top step and as he had seen several presidents do, he waved to the whole airport in front of him. As the first engine of the transporter began its whine, the door was closed, and the ground crew quickly moved the stairs out of the way. They had now set the plan in motion and all they could do was hope that everybody believed them for a few minutes longer.

“You should get a bloody Oscar for your chit-chat out there, Wong,” praised Major Patterson, dialing the phone to call the general and give him an update. “What did you shout out to those guys?”

“I just gave away a thousand acres of farmland and a big house to each man when they get there,” Wong replied as he got into the left-hand cockpit seat and the co-pilot moved the four throttles forward slightly, the engines began to scream and the heavy transporter began to move.

Their aircraft was the last in the queue, as they trundled over the apron to follow the other 11 massive aircraft many yards apart.

“Comrade Chong, are you flying?” asked Wong in Chinese over the radio and taking control of the heavy transporter as it had been handled by the co-pilot in the right seat up to then.

“Affirmative, Comrade Wong. I’m in the aircraft two in front of you,” Captain Chong replied, making it sound like it was two Chinese pilots talking over the radio.

“Comrade Chong, cut out right and head over to the eastern side of the airport. Hopefully the guy in front of me will follow you. We can all get out of here quicker if we use the western runway as well. The Supreme Commander is in a hurry.”

“Roger, Comrade Wong. The feeder road is coming up, and I’m turning to the right.” As planned the two aircraft in front of Captain Wong both turned onto the feeder road 200 yards apart in front of him.

They were all taxiing at a rapid rate, but big jets like these had to wait at least two minutes before take-off between each aircraft to subdue the air turbulence from the one taking off in front. The last of the twelve aircraft moved rapidly towards the western side at a fast pace, turned left to taxi to the end of runway as they saw and heard the first 747’s engines pushing the aircraft down the eastern runway.

It took Captain Chong another four minutes to get to the runway end, turn, and begin his take-off. By that time, there were a lot of orders in Chinese being shouted over the radio.

“They have somehow found a hole in our plan major. Their troops are mobilizing,” shouted one of the pilots over the radio in English as the fourth aircraft on the eastern side began its long take-off. They were still taxiing in the opposite direction for take-off when Captain Wong turned the heavy transporter onto a second, smaller stretch of asphalt taxiway 50 feet before the main runway and told all the pilots in English to get out of there as fast as possible—the troops were coming.

Major Patterson immediately called Ghost Rider, who was still a few minutes out, and told him to come in hot and come in quickly—they needed covering fire. The second 747, the one in front of the transporter began its slow trundle down the runway a hundred yards behind and fifty feet to the left of Captain Wong’s waiting aircraft. Captain Chong’s aircraft was already climbing into the air a mile in front, but Captain Wong had to wait. He had to wait at least a minute or two, and it was the longest and slowest-moving time of his life. It was so long, that he only waited 50 seconds before he saw trucks moving out from the terminal and slowly pushed the four 747 throttles forward to maximum.

They couldn’t see what was happening on the eastern side any more, as the weather was coming in, but his job with the fully-loaded 747 transporter was to get it off the ground. Explosions started happening to his right as his jumbo jet, now on full power, began to gather speed and he could just see another 747– “the seventh,” he thought to himself—on the other side begin its slow climb into the sky and into the lowering cloud base at the end of the eastern runway, over a mile away.

Suddenly, there was a massive explosion by the terminal several hundred yards to his right as a massive fireball flew into the air. The explosion was so big that his jumbo vibrated as the shock of it hit the aircraft. He watched as Ghost Rider flew directly over him at a couple hundred feet, lines of tracers from the gunship firing into anything mobile around the terminal now to his east.

A truck exploded a couple hundred yards in front and to the right of the strip of tarmac on which he was taking off, halfway between the feeder runway he was on and the western side of the terminal. Then, the tower itself disappeared as a second massive explosion hit directly underneath it literally enveloped the tower and disintegrated it.

There was only one thing that was that powerful an explosion. An aftershock hit his aircraft hard again, and by his time he was accelerating through 95 knots and it vibrated the whole aircraft. The gunship was blowing up fully fueled 747s.

Another 747 climbed away on the other side of the airport as he came abreast of the burning truck and saw two jeeps trying to cut him off a couple of hundred yards ahead of him and speeding abreast of his piece of asphalt which was about to run out.

One suddenly exploded and the second one blew up less than a second later.

The transporter was now approaching take-off speed and needed another several seconds to get airborne. The engines were screaming, not used to taking off at absolute maximum power when he felt another massive explosion way behind him and some sort of rocket, or missile passed pretty close by, several feet above his aircraft. “Thank God it wasn’t a guided ground-to-air missile,” he thought as he gently pulled back on the controls, felt the front wheel lift, watched the computers aboard begin to work the heavy aircraft off the ground and saw less than a couple of hundred yards of tarmac in front of him.

He was still a knot or several under take-off speed as he pulled back harder on the stick, and he shouted to his co-pilots to switch controls to manual override and hauled back on the controls hard as he pulled the aircraft off the ground with only yards of taxiway left. The heavy and groaning transporter now climbed at an attitude that would have made any passengers sick if it was a passenger flight.

“We have nine in the air so far,” reported Major Patterson to Captain Wong as he wrestled with the aircraft for height. “We are number ten and I’ve lost visual. The 11th one was still halfway down the eastern side and the last one is a couple of hundred yards behind it– far too close for survival. He’s going to get into dangerous turbulence. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider is breaking up the airport buildings, and it looks like two or three 747s are burning fireballs down there.”

Captain Wong brought the aircraft engines down to normal take-off power, he pushed the controls forward to lower the nose and cleaned up the aircraft’s wings, bringing in the flaps. The aircraft slowed her high climb rate, and he watched the ten aircraft on the radar screen as the 11th one left the eastern runway behind him, immediately turned right and climbed hard to get out of the area. The airport was long out of visual range, and the 747s which had taken off before him began to form a line in front of his, climbing up to cruise altitude and slowly turning into the direction for the U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey. Captain Wong didn’t have orders, and he circled above Shanghai gaining height. He was expecting the general to send them somewhere else once he was done down below.

It took a couple of minutes before the general came back on the radio.

“How did you get that last aircraft got off the ground, pilot? I just don’t know, the turbulence must have been darn crazy!” everyone heard General Allen communicate with the last aircraft.

“I didn’t think we were going to get off the ground, so I let her run another 200 yards to the end of the runway and took her off underneath the dirty air of the aircraft in front and since she banked away to starboard, I stayed straight. She’s okay, sir—a little beaten up, and the galleys must be a mess, but we are joining the end of the line for our destination,” replied an Air Force pilot.

“Well done, pilot,” said General Allen. “I’ll buy you a drink when we get home. Guys, head to our designated destination. I’m heading on and will be several hours behind you. I’ll call you with more details on the phone. Our cover is blown and they are listening to us on this radio frequency. Radio silence from now on. Out.”

“Good job, Wong. Remind me to give you and Chong a promotion to Major. Tell Patterson if I get lost before this is all over. Wong, you alone will set a course for McGuire. You are on your own, I’m afraid,” the general continued, now using his secure satellite phone.

“Go the Bering Sea route. Refuel at Elmendorf and that will give you at least an hour of reserve fuel into McGuire. Well done, now hand me over to Patterson please.” The pilot handed the phone over. “Colonel Patterson. Your promotion is also secure. Just remind me when we get back to McGuire. I’ll relay your three promotions over to Andrews right now and call you back in a few minutes.”

Captain, soon-to-be Major, Wong had been given his orders and went to work setting a course, with the several new radio beacons at his disposal for a lengthy flight north over the Bering Sea.

“We have diluted their fleet by 12 aircraft and, unfortunately, I destroyed a couple beautiful birds down there. I counted 29 747s and five Airbus 380s before we helped ourselves, is that correct?” asked General Allen, calling the transporter back on the satellite phone.

“That’s what I counted,” replied the now Colonel Patterson. “I assume they had 30 passenger 747s, but we already have one and now they have only 15 or 16 of the passenger 747s left plus the five Airbuses. I know the Israelis filled one up with over a thousand passengers at one time, but they were women and children. I think that they could get at least 500 fully armed troops into each one and over 600 in the Airbuses. If they are going to send in troops to JFK, then now they can only fly in a maximum of 12,000 troops on any one flight instead of 20,000.”

“I hope they still come over,” replied the general. “I want the remainder of those aircraft. But I’ll call the president and let him know that we can start transferring a minimum of 6,000+ troops back to the States per day now, until we acquire some more aircraft.

At least we can get all our men back within eight months. Colonel Patterson, you and Majors Wong and Chong will now set up a trap at JFK and the other airports around New York after Major Chong flies you guys into McGuire in about 15 hours. You will have to refuel at Elmendorf in Alaska. I believe that we have 11 days left to set up a plan to capture their troops and get the rest of their aircraft. Remember guys, this is our whole American air transportation for many years to come and I felt really bad blowing up those aircraft. But, I needed to create a diversion and I just hope the fire did not spread to any of the other aircraft, but we will see in a few weeks. I’m off to Beijing and then Turkey and Iraq to work on getting our troops home. If anything happens to me, Patterson, I want to give you the rest of my battle plan and will do so on my flight into Beijing. I’m going in to Beijing in Ghost Rider alone. I have set the others on a course for Omsk and then Turkey, and I don’t want to take any other aircraft with me. For some reason, I have a weird feeling that there could be a something wrong in Beijing. If there isn’t, then I’ll see you in Turkey and I’m sure tired of travelling. I’ll call you in a few minutes, but need to chat with Carlos first. Out.”