Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (48 page)

Towards dusk they set up a night camp in the middle of open ground to make it look like to the aircraft that they were planning to stay overnight. It would take an hour to refuel and Manuel and his men had their first post-battle meeting.

“I hit the first tank a little low and it didn’t penetrate,” stated the first gunner to the brothers as they listened. “The left track peeled off and I think I damaged its wheels as it started going around in circles like a child’s toy. I hit the second armored vehicle directly and it blew up causing damage to the one behind it.”

“I hit the second tank in its sweet spot, Señor, and my round did penetrate, I saw a blast open up the top turret,” stated the second gunner. “I then hit an armored car but the round seemed to glance off the side and exploded on the one behind it. That one stopped with smoke pouring out of its front, Señor.”

“I hit my armored carrier, Señor Calderón, and one other armored car engine had smoke,” stated the third man.

“Good shooting, amigos, you halted their armored advance and the idea was to slow them down,” replied Manuel. His own gunners reported what they saw. He had seen the same hits and the final tally was two tanks, four of the six armored vehicles, and at least four trucks with tankers and a troop carrier. At least the same amount of troop carriers must have taken damage from the explosions.

They had only hit the vanguard of the massive army behind them, but it had given them a chance to outrun them. Unknown to Manuel, the Mexican forces were still plugging along and only an hour behind them. Another brigade was heading in from the west along the coast road, a hundred miles south of them in an attempt to cut them off.

As soon as it got dark, hoping that the small spotter plane was now blinded, they packed up the elaborate camp they had made so that the spotter plane would think that they were making a night’s stop and continued south quietly without lights at a reduced speed of twenty five miles an hour. They spanned out so that there was at least a hundred yards between vehicles and they stretched for over two miles, Alberto’s jeep was the last vehicle and Manuel’s the first.

The battle had gone well today. The Mexican army was hurt, but he hadn’t lost a man in the last fight, so he sat back in the cool night air and dozed.

Manuel headed due south and hit the coast and the small coastal town of Puerto Āngel by 3:00 am. The troops, pushing hard to cut them off, were now only a few miles west of the town. Manuel could see a line of headlights a couple of miles long to the west of the town as he came across the last rise and saw the coastline silhouetted through his jeep’s windshield.

They made it to the main coastal intersection with the road which would take them south several minutes later and with no lights turned eastwards again. He radioed to all the commanders that full speed was necessary and they were to close up and keep to within fifty feet of each other.

As Manuel’s jeep climbed a hill and rose out of the town, Alberto’s jeep radioed that they were turning and he could see the headlights of the lead Mexican vehicle only a mile to the west.

They hadn’t expected another force of soldiers and they had made it by a mile. Manuel saw the lights turn left and onto the road they had just traveled down. The false camp setup the night before must have worked.

By dawn Manuel had connected with the 190 highway again. Over the next few hours the road turned from northeast to southeast. They passed through the town of Arriaga by noon and headed on the next ten-hour stretch of road to Tapachula, the border town with Guatemala.

It took the spotter plane most of that day to find them and it flew over at three that afternoon. Luckily, the entire group was parked under trees and bushes and refueling for their last leg when the tired men heard the drone of the next Cessna. Tarps and blankets were pulled out and the aircraft, again at a high altitude, passed over them searching, but not seeing any movement. Manuel decided to stay under camouflage and give his men a six-hour break.

By midnight they passed through the last town. Dogs barking in the night heard them pass. They reached the border post, freshly manned by several dozen Mexican guards. The guards didn’t stand a chance and as the convoy sped past the newly built wooden building they had dozens of machine guns blazing.

The Mexican forces realized a day later that they had missed the banditos and were given orders to defend the area until further notice. Ten thousand troops camped and got ready for a long stay.

April Meeting in North Carolina

The meeting was over and the room emptied to rejoin the others. General Patterson asked everyone to head outside to see the new Wing of aircraft.

“General Patterson said that you are only a captain, not a general anymore?” smiled Sally, punching Carlos in the shoulder.

“I suppose I was never a really good general, and it’s time for me to accept it and slide down to your lowly rank, Captain Powers. But remember, I’m still your Flight Leader, so don’t push it, lady!” Carlos replied, trying to look serious.

Preston looked over to Clint who was being wheeled down the runway by the President himself with Martie, Maggie and Lee’s sister chatting to the First Lady. The President’s two daughters, the Smart kids and Little Beth were in a separate group, all talking over each other and playing around as kids do. Even Lu’s younger son was in the mix. They all were chatting like birds on a wire.

The older teenage girls were in another group. The three very pretty French girls were chatting with Lu’s daughter about things of interest to teenage girls, Preston supposed.

He looked back and could see the excitement and wonderment in Clint’s face, actually meeting the President himself. He smiled and continued with his friends.

The general and the two admirals were in conversation with the other tall French lady, Marie, who was walking next to Mo and Lee Wang and Beatrice as four F-4s and the three Mexican F-5s flew overhead and looked like they were preparing to land. Mo Wang was talking to Lee and it looked like they were becoming family again. Joe and David were with their girls, Pam and Jennifer. Buck was with Barbara, they were never apart, and Preston realized that with this lot, it wouldn’t take much time before growth in the American population would be kick-started again.

The Super Tweets had had a makeover and were painted with thin pink swirly stripes in between their upper body camouflage. A painting of
Tweety Bird
adorned the side of each cockpit with the pilot’s name. The first single-seat Super Tweet had “Captain Sally Powers” written on it. The second had Captain Jennifer’s name, and the third had “Captain Martie Roebels” written next to its
Tweety Bird
.

Preston noticed the lone twin-seat Super Tweet Sally had flown in from Colombia. It was placed in front of the six single-seat jets and still had the Colombian military paintwork, but the paintwork had been added to with blue swirly stripes and this time the dog
Hector
was in the place of
Tweety Bird
. “Captain Carlos Rodriquez” was the pilot’s name.

Air Force personnel helped the pilots into their new aircraft. Most of the girls still had hours of training to go, but that didn’t stop them wanting to sit in their cockpits. For once Preston was jealous. He had never flown jets in his life and apart from Buck, he would be now flying one of the slowest aircraft in his group of friends.

“At least I can still beat poor Buck in his DC-3,”
he thought to himself as the rest of the group stopped around a podium where General Patterson climbed up to say something. As he did, Preston saw the F-4s and 5s coming in to land a mile away at the end of the lengthy Andrews Air Force runway.

“With the approval of the President of the United States,” the general shouted for everyone to hear, “I now have the authority as Commander General of the United States Air Force to inaugurate this new aircraft Wing, “The Tweety Pie Wing,” part of the new United States Air Force. There was applause and the ceremony quickly ended as the first F-4 came onto the apron, making too much noise for any more speeches.

“You now have a much faster girl there!” shouted Carlos in Preston’s ear as the jets came in one by one. “There’s no way a propeller pilot can catch up and marry a jet girl!” he added laughing in Preston’s ear.

Everyone waited, covering their ears as the seven aircraft came onto the apron. Preston saw a second group of four F-4s fly low overhead and they turned in tightly for their final approach to the same runway. The aircraft lined up and personnel ran up with ladders as the aircraft parked.

This second apron was extremely large here at Andrews and as big as the first one which had all the civilian Boeing and Airbus aircraft being refueled.

The line grew as the eight F-4s were positioned in a line and the 3 F-5s in another. It took several minutes before the noise was reduced so that the general could continue.

“Mr. President and First Family, Members of the Armed Forces, civilians, I give you the jet-fighter aircraft strength of the new Air Force of the United States of America. We have taken over the F-5s from the Mexican Air Force who preferred three of the captured Chinese fighter aircraft from the destroyed Chinese Aircraft Carrier as a trade. They were not much good to us as our service section was not set up for their technical systems, while the Mexicans are better equipped for the Chinese aircraft. The other two Chinese fighters are being given to the Air Force of Colombia as a gift of friendship.”

Preston knew that there was a lot of politics at play here and he was sure Carlos was right in the middle of it.

“Refitting the AC-130 Gunships will be complete in a few weeks. There are over a thousand men working on the project. We will have in total six fully-operational AC-130 Gunships, seven C-130 tankers and 36 C-130 transport aircraft. That is enough aircraft to put 3,600 men on the ground, or on the end of a parachute anywhere on the North American continent within six hours, and protect them with gunship air support. We are arming and will have another seven modified C-130 Gunships ready for the Colombian Air Force in about three months and they are to be used as a backup-wing from our south if we ever need them. These aircraft are our main airborne protection until we get more modern equipment, which I‘ve been told could be decades away. Our other aircraft now number over 380 different aircraft of sorts, from Huey helicopters to civilian four and two-seaters. Another 400 aircraft have been found which will be operational in the future. Most need radio and radar equipment changes. We are bringing several older Boeing 707 tankers out of museums and might have them flyable by year-end. There are dozens of older military aircraft which many of our personnel have started to work on and over 500 more aircraft of all sorts, mostly Vietnam-era helicopters and fighters that will become operational over the next couple of years. Now, our Air Force fuel reserves: We have placed heavy guards around fuel storage facilities at 28 of our major Air Force bases around the country and millions of gallons of all types of aviation fuels and other oils are being commandeered from all areas of the country. I estimate this will supply our defense aircraft with fuel reserves for the next decade. We have engineers working on stabilizing the fuel reserves for long-term storage and we expect to have airborne protection long enough to get our country into a stable phase of new peaceful growth and advancement.”

There was applause and General Patterson then stated that an official party was to be held at Preston’s airfield in six hours and the ones who could make it, be there. This had been organized between Preston and General Patterson and to many the news was welcomed.

Lunch was served as a group of Air Force pilots climbed into the Super Tweets to fly them down to North Carolina. The F-4s and 5s were to be based on both sides of the country with needed C-130 tankers ready.

Preston left the tasks of setting up the necessary items for the party to the half dozen Air Force personnel stationed at the airfield. A Marine platoon of thirty men was arriving from Camp Lejeune to protect the President while he stayed at the farm and they were to be housed in one of the new hangars. Air Force enlisted men were already based in the new rooms in the other small hangar, where the Super Tweets were to be stationed once training was over.

After lunch a fleet of aircraft left for Preston’s farm. As usual
Baby Huey
was the President’s choice for the First Family, and Buck flew them down with Barbara as copilot.

There were more people than aircraft this time and a C-130 flew down with Lee, Mo and the rest of the newcomers. Of course Clint and Little Beth were with them, Clint sitting in the C-130’s copilot seat. There were few laws in this new country.

By three that afternoon Preston turned northwards for his approach for his new runway in the Pilatus. He was beginning to like Sally’s aircraft. The Pilatus, a single-engine turboprop was fast, powerful and very easy to fly. He noticed the six Super Tweets had already been parked outside their new hangars and a second C-130 was taking off to the north to return the pilots to Andrews.

Behind him came the C-130 and then the Beechcraft and an hour later “Buck One” landed on the original runway outside the new presidential retreat.

General Patterson was a pretty good-looking guy for forty-something, Preston realized as the general walked out of the C-130 with Marie. He was also one of the few men who were slightly taller than her. They had been together since Preston had arrived earlier at Andrews that morning and he realized that again something was going on. It seemed that everybody had now paired off, even the Chief of Staff.

Partying at the farm was becoming a normal occurrence. It was a retreat where everybody could get away from the daily problems facing them. Once the crowd was together rank disappeared, even for the President. He was one of the first to be seen with a cold Yuengling in his hand.

The tour began once everyone had landed and the President and First Family invited the civilians to look around their new house.