We gotta turn the roof edging lights back on,” Bill mumbled as he climbed out of the basement. “We gotta blind those guy’s night vision systems.”
He walked over and flipped on the dimmer switch to the tiny white “Christmas” lights mounted in out-facing trough-like reflectors under the eaves of the roof. This had been a beautiful accouterment during better times — outlining the roof edge and making the house and garden area look like part of Disneyland. Now it might save their lives.
The long strings of these lights would bloom any “starlight” type night vision system and yet send not one photon toward the inside of the house. And because they were hot filament bulbs they would bloom the FBI’s infrared systems as well.
Bill mounted the FBI’s AN/PVS-10 night vision system onto the Barrett. He had no way of knowing if the scope was zeroed — aimed where the rifle would shoot. He had to trust the killer instincts of the FBI’s “hostage rescue team” for that.
“I’m gonna go up stairs and try to convince those last HRT guys to die quietly.” Bill said with a great deal of stress in his voice.
Sally looked at him and commented: “I’ll keep tabs on their communications.”
She continued to type into the computer — creating the voices of six dead snipers.
He stripped the top round from the Barrett’s magazine and replaced it with one round from the wooden box. Then he paused. If he used that Saxitoxin round then the entire area would be dusted with death.
He looked hard at the round — just sitting there on the top of the magazine.
He slid the round out of the magazine and put it back in its nest in the wooden box.
“Later.” He thought.
He put the armor piercing round back in the magazine and went up the stairs.
Bill looked around the room and tried to figure out what might be set on fire by the gasses blasted from the Barrett’s muzzle brake. He finally decided that his best shooting position would be one with the muzzle of the Barrett right in the middle of the room. He moved furniture around so that he would have a comfortable shooting position. His best shooting position was on his knees with the Barrett’s legs on a small end-table.
He then went to the eastern window and slowly opened the right hand shutter. He could see nothing. It was as if God had never created light.
Bill ran back to the Barrett and squatted behind it. He turned on the night scope. Nothing but a dull green glow came out of the scope. He checked the front of the scope and found that he’d left the lens cap over the front lens.
He removed the lens cap and fiddled with the brightness control.
A bright green light came out of the eyepiece. He snapped his head forward and covered the glowing eyepiece with his eye. That’s all he needed — for those bastards to see his head lit up like some bubbling green Christmas tree ornament. He could now see the hillside and the distant sniper nest. There were three snipers in the nest with one looking back at him using some really large night vision device. Another one of the psychopaths was looking down at the ground and eating something. The third was behind the Barrett. Bill put the PVS-10’s green reticule on the sniper behind the Barrett and just pulled the trigger.
BLAAAAM!
With no ear protection all he could do was scream.
He suddenly realized that he was in terrible trouble and that this had been a very, very stupid thing to do. The Barrett must have lit up the inside of the room like it was a movie set! The images of him and everything in the room were now burned into the sniper’s eyeballs and would stay there for 20 seconds! The HRT could return fire instantly and just fill the room with death. All he could do now was slap the cross hairs onto the next target and fire — and then quickly move on to the next.
His first target was down for good — Bill could see that he’d been knocked far back into the nest. The spotter who had been using the night vision system had dropped it and was now trying to get into position behind the Barrett. The guy had lifted the gun into place with his arm out against the gun’s left side — and his left side was fully exposed.
Bill fired. He watched the bullet arc toward the target and then glance off the guy’s bullet proof vest — creating a twenty foot long trail of sparks up the hill. It was a bad shot but it looked like even a glancing blow with a .50 was enough to break the guy’s back. At least he didn’t get up.
The third guy looked like he was trying to grab the land-line handset.
Bill fired again — he hit low and a cloud of dirt obscured the target.
Out of the corner of the scope Bill saw somebody jump up and run down the hill toward the house. “Where’d you come from!”
He tried to follow the guy down the hill with the PVS-10 and nail him but the guy was too quick. “The bastard’s against front wall of the house!”
Bill picked up the Barrett and ran to the left side of the window. He slammed the rifle onto the window sill, dropped to his knees and scanned the bottom of the hillside — looking for more running targets. There were none. He thought he felt blood running from his ears.
He then leaned the gun to the left and looked back up the hill. “Who are these guys!”
A whole shit-load of people were moving around about two thirds of the way up the hill. More Mexicans!
Something snapped inside him. His muscles slackened.
An adumbration had come to him.
He looked out at the hillside and realized that the problem wasn’t just here. It wasn’t just his taxes. It wasn’t just drugs and rampant immigration of the worst possible forms of sub-humanity. It wasn’t that the country was run by philandering communist drug addicts of the “New World Order.” It was everything!
His country was being destroyed. Vermin were scurrying and crawling and wriggling into his land — sucking it dry. Sub-human insects were bleeding it from every pore. America was dying — politicians and the other vermin were killing it dead.
At a different time in history — in a different age — one lone White American would stand and sing a song that expressed how everyone felt.
Just the thought of the music made his chin quiver. It re-kindled a fire in his heart. He could hear the music. He could hear the woman singing. It was Kate Smith in 1942. He looked out at the vermin covering his hillside — glowing green in the scope. He began to hum the music as he laid the gun on target and began to squeeze the trigger. Tears came to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks and he quietly started to sing the words with her:
While the storm clouds gather, far across the sea
let us swear allegiance, to a land that’s free
let us all be grateful for a land so faire
as we raise our voices in a solemn prayer
He fired!
Again and again and again he fired!
God Bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
through the night with the light from above
from the mountains
to the prairies
to the oceans white with foam
God Bless America
my home sweet home
He was almost hysterical with hatred for what his country had become.
He had been raised to trust, to believe, to know that his country was the finest place on earth. And now it was being destroyed — corrupted from the inside — by these violent, hyper-breeding hordes. Somehow he would save his family and somehow he must help save his country.
The survival of all his freedoms was at stake. Everything he had been raised to honor in this country was being corrupted, defiled, lost.
Everything was up for grabs — Clinton and his gang would and did sell anything for votes. A night in the White House was $300,000. Medal of Honor plots in Arlington National Cemetery were $10 million. They even sold a cup of coffee in the White House for $10,000.
Everything that was familiar to him and every value that had been ingrained into him by his parents and their parents was being corrupted. It was his duty, his obligation as an American to somehow put an end to this travesty.
For God and Country! Those were words no longer uttered in this new America.
All he could do was put the sights on a target and fire, select a target and fire, select a target and fire. The gun’s recoil snapped his head rearward and knocked tears from his cheeks.
God bless America
land that I love
stand beside her and guide her
through the night with the light from above
from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam
Suddenly, the entire area started to glow green. The whole hillside seemed to be covered in a bright green fog. People were running around getting shot and every time a bullet hit somebody a bit of green fog would puff off their stubby little brown bodies.
“God damn! Those Cyalume booby-traps sure work good!”
He pulled his head away from the night sight, dropped low against the window sill and just watched the slaughter with his naked eyes.
He saw brilliant flashes coming from five or even ten different places on the hillside. At least one .50 caliber bullet slammed into the wall of the house. Others slammed into the roof. Those shits were shooting blind!
The vermin had to be stopped.
Bill dropped the magazine from the gun and slammed in a full one. He wrenched the Barrett around and centered the dot on a glowing green torso and fired. He did it again and again. The recoil was so violent that he bit his cheek and now blood was filling his mouth.
God bless America!
My Home Sweet Home
God Bless America
land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
through the night with the light from above
from the mountains
to the prairies
to the oceans white with foam
God Bless America
my home sweet home
From the mountains
to the prairies
to the oceans white with foam
God Bless America
my home sweet home
KLUNK!
Silence.
Bill dropped the rifle and ran down the stairs and grabbed two full ammo magazines.
“What were you mumbling?” Sally yelled at him as he went past.
He ignored her, ran back up the stairs and then scrambled underneath the gun. He was humming to himself — and blood was running in torrents from the edge of his mouth. He brought a fresh magazine up the magazine well on the gun.
BRRRAAAP!
Suddenly bullets and pieces of concrete rained down on him from the ceiling! The bullets seemed to be little sissy-ones — maybe 9 mm — and coming at about ten a second. The room was being hosed. Most of the bullets were bouncing off the ceiling and then thwapping into the furniture and carpet.
Bill dragged the Barrett out of the room and down the hall. He inserted a full magazine and cycled the bolt.
He wiped the tears from his cheeks and blood from his chin — and sucked snott back up his nose.
“That guy must be someplace right below this second floor window.” Bill whispered to himself as he grunted to the floor and ducked another burst of bullets and flying concrete.
Bill had only one good chance. That guy someplace below him could not keep this up forever. He had to reload.
After what seemed to be a ten second burst the shooting stopped. Bill ran to the window at a crouch, lifted the Barrett’s bipod onto the window sill and stood up — keeping his body clear of the opening.
The home’s walls were more than four feet thick. The window sill was four feet thick. Bill had to stand fully erect to even hope to see somebody closer than twenty feet from the house.
Bill slowly edged the right side of his head around the corner of the window and looked down at the ground — with just the pupil of his right eye exposed.
A black-suited shape ran out from the face of the wall and aimed up toward the window. The guy was looking up and was tilting his head back and forth — trying to see something to shoot at. Then he ran back to his hiding place against the wall.
Bill lifted the back end of the Barrett and pushed the gun toward the edge of the window on its muzzle — as if it was a plow. He climbed out onto the window sill. There wasn’t enough room in the open window to get the Barrett to his shoulder. All he could do was get ready to push the thing at a target and shoot.
Then he saw him. The top of a black balaklava was dancing back and forth below him. Bill scooted the barrel out the window, aimed at “center of mass” and jerked the trigger.
The Barrett’s massive recoil launched the gun rearwards and out of Bill’s hands. The gun bounced off the top of the window sill and then down onto its muzzle brake and then the whole thing clanked toward the edge of the window. All Bill could do was clumsily grab at it. He and the Barrett fell backwards into the room.
The round had hit the BATF sniper full in the chest. The bullet did more than penetrate the ceramic armor, it vaporized a saucer-sized chunk of it. A huge spear of copper, lead, tungsten and flame had driven itself into the guy’s sternum. His chest had become a dent and then a bowl. Then his blood and intestines blew out the sides of the vest. The black suited shape had been pounded right to the ground.
Bill got up on all fours and stuck his head above the sill — just enough to look out the window.
He could see flashes on the hillside — Cyalume-green shapes were running all around and he could hear several kinds of gunfire — and screams — but none of the action seemed to include anybody shooting at him.
Were those federal bastards actually fighting over who was gonna come down to the house and kill him and his family? Welcome to the New America!
Cristobal Allende had marched his human cargo north and over the U.S. / Mexican border. His tiny string of illegals followed the well worn path created by the thousands who passed this way before them. He really thought of himself as a professional — a real coyote. Soon he would have all the pollos’ cash and be able to buy himself a new truck.
The path showed the power human feet had over nature. Certainly, the trail would have begun as a string of random clearings along the rolling hills. The brush is so full of thorns and sharp dead limbs that it would been impenetrable to any direct human assault. Each clearing would simply have been narrowly linked to the next and to the next until a string of emerald-like clearings was created heading far to the north.
The slow and methodical tramping of tens of thousands of feet had crushed the gravel and loose sand into a heavy soft brown cushion. An illegal could sense himself leaving the trail even in total darkness by the difference in the feel of the earth beneath his feet.
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups were utterly silent about the catastrophic damage these illegals caused to the environment. The tens of thousands of acres of forest and vegetation burned simply to effect diversions — so illegals could escape Border Patrol agents — were ignored by these “caring environmentalists.” The tens of thousands of pounds of trash — food, cans, clothes, empty boxes, used toilet paper and beer bottles — were ignored by these “Mother Earth lovers.”
It had quickly become obvious to all but the totally deranged that these environmental groups were “watermelons” — green on the outside and red on the inside. They were simply tools of “The New World Order” — and when two major weapons in their war to destroy America were at cross purposes (in this case illegal immigration and irrational environmentalism) the more effective weapon was given approval to continue.
The coyote had his men bypass the first house — the one nearest the border and the one that would glow brilliantly on occasion — and he took them far up the trail. The trail narrowed — from a track wide enough for any four wheel drive vehicle to traverse — to a narrow path leading up along the eastern ridge line and climbing one hundred feet above the valley.
The men moved silently. There was no clanking of metal or slapping of bags or boxes. These men were so poor they actually did not even own belts with metal buckles.
The men walked as quietly as if they were but faint, flickering shadows threading their way through the tall chaparral.
They had climbed far up the hillside and were just below the ridge’s peak when the coyote softly clicked two small stones together and brought their line of advance to a halt.
For all of his sixty years the coyote still had a tremendous sense of smell. The warm sweet smoke from a Marlboro cigarette had drifted twenty or more yards up the hillside and into his nostrils.
He could see that here — not more than 300 yards beyond the first house — there were men hiding in the bushes. These bush-men were well below him and facing away from the trail. They seemed to be looking at the first house — the fancy house, the bright house near the border. Another of these men was now lighting a cigarette and Cristobal heard the distinct sound of the Zippo lighter “clink” open and then “cluck” as its cover was closed.
“La Migra” had laid a trap for any campesinos that may be lured to the fancy house. It seemed that there were enough La Migra hiding here in the bushes to capture even 150 of the coyote’s “Heroic Invaders.”
Suddenly, a massive gunshot erupted from the house. A huge ball of flame boiled out of a second story window and a man screamed and then more men screamed and then bullets were being poured all over the front of the house. The flashes came from what seemed like twenty guns — all firing at the house.
His brothers were not being arrested — they were being murdered! They seemed to be fighting bravely — then one of “Los verdes” scurried down to the house — below a window — and played Romeo and Juliet with a submachine gun!
This could only mean that “La Migra” had been lying in wait for the next group of campesinos coming up the valley — with the intent of killing them all.
These brothers in the common struggle for land and glory must be assisted!
Cristobal lined up his band of bedraggled Indian farmers and charged them down the hill into the Marlboro-men. Twenty short strong Mexicans were more than the first five slow, fat and distracted Americanos could repel.
The flurry of Mexicans thrashing down the hill made the “La Migra” jump from their holes in the ground and try to escape down the hill. Some of them stumbled — others tried to return to their nests. All of a sudden the entire area was immersed in a cloud — a mist — that glowed bright green. The entire hillside was suddenly coated with some kind of glowing oily film. The Mexicans — and the Gringos — were now coated with the stuff. Everyone on the hillside looked like some kind of Halloween puppet — leaping and hopping with arms waving in the air. Certainly, this was to make it easier for the Gringos to shoot Mexicans.
Cristobal screamed: “Caza bobos — booby traps!”
One Mexican was quickly shot dead and one was wounded — but the first five Norte Americanos had already been beaten to death with rocks and then killed again with their own weapons. Three other Norte Americanos — all in one little nest and far away from the five Marlboro men — were already dead or very soon would be.
All of these Norte Americanos were prepared! Each had two Glock .45’s plus an H&K MP-5K. One had a special long rifle and the rest had Colt M-16’s.
Three of the campesinos started robbing the dead of their pistol belts and vests and helmets. These men then edged away from the group and started moving down the path to return to the Republic of Mexico. It was easy to follow their progress — their clothing was coated in glowing green-ness.
Cristobal called to them: “Amigos! Help us! If we kill them all then you will not be pursued! If you run they will follow and kill you! Help us!”
As bullets flew in every direction the three campesinos discussed the merits of this argument. Bullets slapped into the living and the dead as they stood there. Finally they turned, dropped all of their booty except the pistols and trotted back to join the group.
Cristobal pointed to their assigned targets — the Gringos dug into the hill. Campesinos approached each nest and fired at close range — shooting at the Norte Americanos and being shot themselves.
Suddenly, fireballs again exploded from the house. The sound of huge bullets hitting human flesh was odd — something like a water balloon hitting a concrete wall.
Cristobal watched as his men were slaughtered by small bullets from men on the hill and from infrequent huge bullets from the house. He felt moist pieces of his men hit him in the face.
“Los verde” hiding against the house again ran out from the wall — a Carnale hiding at a second storey window blew him to bits with a huge cannon.
“Muerte a los Gringos!”
“Death to Gringos!” Cristobal raised his fist into the air.
Then he felt his legs go numb.
He had been hit in the lower back by an M -16 round. He pressed at his belt and his stomach was missing and instead he had a huge wet mass of warm, loose, wiggly, sausage.
He fell face forward and slid down the hill — his journey lubricated by his own intestines. A numbness moved up his body and then from his finger tips to his chest. There was a ringing in his ears… he started to dream about a woman he had seen walking down the street in Tijuana… and then he forgot what he was dreaming about… and then couldn’t seem to focus his thoughts on anything. And then he was dead.
Bill scanned the hillside with the Barrett’s night sight — all firing had stopped. He checked for movement. There was movement — but the movement came from people who were laying on the ground and moving just one limb at a time — randomly.
His shoulder hurt. His eyes burned — he probably hadn’t blinked them even once in the last five minutes. The night air was cool — and he could hear foxes barking in the distance.
Then he looked at the hillside. America The Beautiful. Our new Land of Freedom.
He just sat there in the dark. “What a mess. What are we gonna do now?”
Then he remembered the Phosgene.
He started for the stairs but then stopped, came back, closed the window and re-taped it. He then turned and dragged the Barrett and the bags down the stairs to the rec room.
“I’ll be right back!” he said on his way past Sally.
He got to the closet and opened the hatch and sniffed — nothing — no smell of cut grass or straw — or propane.
He knew that this was stupid. If he smelled phosgene then the one whiff he took into his lungs would probably be enough to kill him — so what was the difference.
He slid down the steel ladder and looked around. The torch was still burning. He checked his watch and noted that the thing had been running for nearly four hours!
He walked over and switched the gas to off. He then went over to the compressor and turned it off.
Silence.
Then he panicked — he ran over and flipped the gas back on and even opened the valve all the way.
As long as the valve was open and propane and even raw carbon tet was going out then no Phosgene could wash back down the pipe and into the basement. Sure, the world at the green box and beyond would fill with bubbling carbon tet and then propane gas — but so what?
With the compressor off he was able to hear the carbon tet hissing on the bottom of the hot steel tank. As the fluid continued to pour in, the tank started making bubbling sounds and then everything went quiet. The carbon tet had filled the tank and was now flooding the line toward the green box a mile away.
His world was safe — at least from Phosgene…
Getting high priority cargo to an aircraft carrier hundreds of miles from land is not easy. Certainly, there is always the option of a mid-ocean rendezvous with a supply ship, but people and high priority cargo can’t wait that long. The carrier on-board delivery or “COD” aircraft are the fleet’s salvation.
The COD — also called a C-2A Greyhound — is a boxy looking thing. It’s more bus or truck than aircraft. Its twin engines have less horsepower than any other aircraft of its size in the U.S. Navy’s inventory. The Greyhound evolved from the Navy’s E-2A Hawkeye radar plane — although it would take some imagination to see the similarity. When onboard an aircraft carrier, its wings can be folded to conserve space on the carrier’s deck. These aircraft are often flown by female pilots.
The C-2A sat there at NAS North Island waiting its turn to drive through the airplane washer. America is an amazing place. Everything is automated. Here at NAS North Island, aircraft land, move off the active runway and then taxi to the north end of the base and toward the helicopter repair shops near San Diego bay. As they taxi over a sensor they activate huge water spray systems built into the tarmac. The high pressure water spray will blast and then dissolve the salt crusted in, on, under and around the surfaces of the aircraft. This fresh water spray saves millions of dollars in salt corrosion repairs.
Normally a COD would make only one trip to an aircraft carrier a day. Today would be different.
Just as Lt. Nancy Jacobs cycled her plane’s throttles to edge out of the wash area a Hummer blocked her path. The wash area was one of the most secluded areas on the base — visible only from 76 south-facing hotel rooms of a Travelodge Hotel on Harbor Island more than two miles away.
A Navy Captain exited the Hummer and walked toward the COD. The aircraft crew chief opened the hatch and helped the Captain on board.
Lt. Jacobs was not happy about the interruption in her normal routine. She had a child at home and had planned to be home in 45 minutes. This was not to be.
The Captain took three steps to reach the raised cockpit and then flashed his credentials. His ID showed him to be from the White House National Security Council Staff.
“Lt. Jacobs, I’m terribly sorry but I don’t think we’re finished for the night. You’re gonna have to make one more trip out to the Kitty Hawk.”
The Captain allowed her a moment to tell him why she could not make this flight and how there were several other aircraft that could perform this shuttle duty. The Captain then asked the co-pilot to exit the aircraft so that he could talk to Lt. Jacobs alone.
He pulled a copy of her classified personnel records from his briefcase and noted — in a loud and clear command voice — the fact that she had had an illegitimate child by an enlisted man and that due to the stress of that “failed relationship” she had now switched to female lovers. That her present lesbian lover was of “African” descent. Also, that her use of recreational drugs was endangering her child and her lover’s use of injectable drugs had allowed her to become a “victim” of AIDS — and that she had not shared that bit of information with the Navy.
Not wasting any time, the Captain made it quite clear that she either agreed to this excursion right now or she could simply get out of the plane and walk off the base — never to return. Her career in the United States Navy would be over. He also made it quite clear that any possible “relationship” she might also be having with her squadron’s female commanding officer would have little positive impact on her future in the Navy or in civilian life — without his assistance.
There was no subtlety here. And while the information was all quite accurate the Captain wasn’t a Captain. This “Captain” was actually an agent of “The New World Order” — operating under cover of the National Security Agency — which had placed him on the National Security Council staff. Hell, almost the entire Clinton cabinet were members of “The New World Order.”
The Captain walked toward the rear of the aircraft and seated himself in a rear facing seat, fastened his shoulder and seat belts and stretched his feet .
“Good to go! Lt. Jacobs!”
Three hundred miles off the San Diego coast the aircraft carrier CV 63 — the Kitty Hawk — was receiving aircraft. The Kitty Hawk was an old ship. Its construction had begun on December 27th, 1956 but it had been in dry-dock from 1988 to 1992 to receive the latest weapons systems and now was the equal of nearly any carrier in the U.S. Navy.
Its eight Foster Wheeler boilers provided steam to four Westinghouse turbines — generating more than 280,000 shaft horsepower to drive the ship at more than 30 knots.
As each aircraft landed on the Kitty Hawk’s 1,000 foot angled deck the impact of 50,000 pounds of warplane could be felt throughout the ship.
Nothing had prepared the Captain for the noise of the COD. The aircraft rattled and roared. It was so loud that he actually could not hear himself think.
After a 90 minute flight the COD flew directly over the Kitty Hawk at right angles to its course. The Captain could see the billion dollar floating city awash in activity just a thousand feet below him.
The crew chief unbuckled himself and walked over to the Captain’s seat.
“Captain, please prepare for landing. Place your head against the seat back. When we catch the wire we will come to a full stop in less than three seconds.”
The COD lined up with the ball and set in a slight drift. The runway on the Kitty Hawk is not in line with the direction of the ship’s movement. The deck is angled and a pilot must constantly adjust the aircraft’s path to keep the plane lined up with the ever-moving runway.
There was no warning. One moment the COD was flying and the next moment it was lurching to a stop. As the plane slammed into the steel deck Lt. Jacobs pushed the throttles to full power — if the plane missed all three wires then she would have to attempt a go around. The already unbearable noise level reached a crescendo as the plane hit the deck. It sounded very much as if a hundred thousand empty aluminum cans were being dragged behind the aircraft.
The “Captain” was greeted on the Kitty Hawk with some trepidation. This was the last thing they needed now. Soon the ship would be launching a strike package against a simulated enemy target some hundreds of miles away. The package consisted of F/A-18 Hornets, F-14 Tomcats, an A-6E bomber, EA-6 electronic warfare aircraft and E-3A surveillance aircraft.
The package would launch out at 0300 hrs and be over their targets on a bombing range north of Fallon, Nevada by 0430.
The Captain walked along the passageways and down ladders — directly to the officer’s mess.
“Good evening Lieutenant, I’m Captain Jim Wilson, I’m looking for Lt. Commander Adams.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll go get him.”
Five decks below the hanger deck, crews were readying the bomb loads for the strike aircraft. Each bomb casing was brought from the magazine and placed on a gray steel carrier. This carrier had space for two bombs at a time. Each bomb rested on international orange colored plastic rollers about the size of skate board wheels — only twice as wide. This carrier was then mounted on a long steel rack that also was equipped with orange rollers. These rollers were the size of skate board wheels but about eight inches wide. The bombs were rolled from station to station as each casing was fitted with the needed accouterments.
The bombs came out of the magazine as simple gray sausages. Each bomb was then fitted with tail fins, fuses and guidance electronics. The final arming of the bomb would only be accomplished by the crew on the flight deck.
There was a discernible level of added attention to detail among the crew. These bombs did not have the usual double three inch wide yellow bands indicating practice munitions. These bombs had green bands — they were live.
“Good evening! It’s a pleasure to meet you Lt. Commander Adams.”
Again the “Captain” discussed how cooperation would be of tremendous benefit to the Lt. Commander. In the present case the benefits included accelerated promotional opportunities. What went unsaid during the meeting was the fact that cooperation meant slavery and being obstinate meant complete personal destruction.
Lt. Commander Adams piloted an A-6E. The A-6 had been phased out of service as a bomber and was only hanging on as an EW platform. Even the Marines had already phased out their A-6 bombers. The A-6E had a maximum speed of 1037km/hr (560 kt) and a cruise of 763 km/hr (412 kt). The plane could carry 18,000 pounds of bombs. This one A-6E remained in inventory as a sales tool to demonstrate the capabilites of the aircraft to various third world military chiefs. The U.S. had hundreds in storage and could offer them at very reasonable prices.
Certainly we must put this aircraft’s capabilities into perspective. The A-6E with a two man crew carries a bomb load equal to that of the largest British heavy bomber of World War Two. As old as it is an A-6E is certainly not to be trifled with.
Lt. Commander Adam’s plane had been selected for this mission — not the pilot. Planes do not just take off on a moments notice and go bomb something. Each move of a bomb-carrying aircraft is planned and scheduled well in advance. Usually this is accomplished with what is called an Air Tasking Order or ATO. This is a list of targets created by the Air Component Commander.
When the ATO is received, the Air Wing Commander passes the information to squadron commanders who sit with planners and decide which weapons would be best for each target. Then aircraft are assigned to these targets and scheduled to be loaded with these weapons.
Once this is accomplished the bomb order is placed with the carrier’s ordnance department. These weapons loads are strictly monitored, inventoried and controlled — thanks to the Navy’s vast secure communications network.
The disturbance near Campo, California — and the Johnson family — had reached the highest levels of the Clinton White House. “The New World Order” had decided the family’s fate. A real Holocaust was to fall upon this family and silence it forever.
America’s aircraft and aircraft carriers are not of the same navy. The ships can be thought of as a trucking service — carrying the aircraft to within striking distance of their targets. The ordnance department can be thought of as little more than the kitchen staff of a Denny’s. They simply cook up what is ordered off the menu and the flight deck crew serve this “meal” to the aircraft.
Lt. Commander Adams had been selected for this new mission simply because his plane’s weapons load included two AGM-65B Maverick television equipped missiles. These missiles were not standard faire for an A6 — especially in an electro-optical guidance model. Instead of a laser target designator these missiles would simply be locked onto a key feature of the target and they would then home in. The bomb load had been sceduled as part of the Foreign Military Sales demonstration and sales pitch.
The “Captain” presented the pilot with a brown folder containing satellite reconnaissance photos and optimum mission profiles. The “Captain” encouraged the pilot to launch with his strike package and then drift far to the east, make two quick passes over the target marked in the folder and then return to his original mission — dropping the rest of his ordnance as originally planned.
What went unsaid was the fascinating resemblance this mission had to that of a U.S. Air Force A-10 that had departed Davis — Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona, for a “bombing run” at a place called Gila Bend — a scant hundred miles away. The pilot departed from his planned mission only to have his aircraft disappear from radar after flying as far north as Wyoming — and deep into “Constitutional Extremist” country. Radar track files showed that he then turned south and minutes later crashed against a granite mountainside . The pilot was found dead in the wreckage. It should be interesting to note that there has never been mention of the whereabouts of any of the A-10’s bomb load. In fact, Brigadier General Donald Streater — who called off the bomb search after a politically correct 60 days — said “I’m not going to speculate as to where they are.”
It was now up to Lt. Commander Adams to brief his weapons officer and pass on the message about the carrot and the stick. Before the pilot and weapons officer would have a chance to discuss the mission the “Captain” would be off the Kitty Hawk and on his way back to NAS North Island — and back to his penthouse suite at the bay-side Hyatt Regency Hotel.