After the Day- Red Tide Read online

  Chapter 10: Midwest United States

  The men and women of Fort Custer lined up in the field standing at attention, the best they could. No rank, experience to speak of, a motley crew of people leftover from a modern era thrown together to form an army. The last count had them at just over a hundred, all ages, shapes and sizes. These days the requirement for being in any army was the ability and willingness to pull a trigger. There were no pilots, not that it mattered. The same EMP that wiped out the electrical grid also fried the computers that the jets and helicopters depended on.

  The men of Fort Custer hauled the crates of guns out and handed them out to the army. Everyone received a rifle and a sidearm. Ammo was given to people as they were able to carry it. Supply trunks were part of the convoy. Grenades and other explosives were added to the cargo. Some of the hummers were mounted with TOW missiles and the rest with fifty caliber machines guns. John wondered if this was how the Iraqi’s felt during the start of the war. The old LOR, one time use bazookas were also taken. Easy to use it was a feasible option for people that had never fired a shoulder rocket before.

  Everyone was given three days’ worth of food and it was explained how long the road trip could possibly be. The army loaded up into the vehicles and the Abrams tanks led the way, the front end mounted with a V shaped plow to remove any obstacles that could block the road.

  The convoy left the base, the families of the base men stayed behind to watch their home. Going out to fight was different for the men this time around in their life. They were not flying to a foreign land to fight somebody else’s war. This was their war, one that affected their families if they lost. This was a fight for home.

  The convoy turned onto I-94 and drove toward Detroit. The Abrams tank moved any item from the road pushing abandoned cars into the ditches and medians that were now overgrown with grass. Branches too small were turned to mulch under the tread and the large branches joined the cars. At some points the Abrams sped up to sixty, the turbine engines carrying the vehicle even faster to Detroit. John crossed his fingers then that their mission would not be in vain. He didn’t know how the relationship with Canada had held up after The Day.

  Watching his army in the rearview mirror he wondered if this was anything close to what Custer’s last march was like. A small group leading an attack against what is viewed as an inferior army. He thought about the men and women he met only for a few minutes today and how he had made a choice that in all probability would get them killed. He weighed the odds and told himself that if they didn’t die fighting the Chinese now they would die later when the Chinese came to their doorstep. This was not a peaceful humanitarian force, it was a takeover.

  John told himself he was doing the best he could with what he had. These people could be the last stand between a future United States and a future China. He hoped he could beat the Chinese at their own game.

  In the distance, the bridge to Canada stood, tall and white. He remembered seeing it lit up at night, a beacon for kids who wanted to drink at the age of 18 and people who wanted to shop over the border. He remembered 9-11 and how employees of the Detroit hospitals couldn’t get to work because most of them lived in Canada and the border was closed. He pondered what would happen at the bridge, would the Canadians be manning it like the Americans after 9-11? Were the roles reversed now?

  John signaled for the convoy to stop. The Abrams pushed one last car out of the way then stopped in the middle of the highway. John wanted everyone to wait behind while he went to the check point to find out what the status of the U.S. and Canadian relationship was. John had Private Brown drive the Hummer up and across the bridge. There were men standing at the post like he suspected. One man stood in front of the gate with his hand up. Brown stopped the Hummer and John stepped out. He approached the gate, unarmed.

  “Sir, you’re going to have to stop right there.” the guard said.

  John saw a second man in the guard shack picking up a phone. Communications in the north must be back to normal.

  “I’m Major John Adams with the United States Army.” John presented himself.

  “Major Adams, on behalf of the Royal Canadian Customs Agency you are to turn your vehicle around and go back to your country.” the guard said.

  “I had the understanding that our countries were allies.” John said.

  “We are still under orders of quarantine from the flu outbreak, sir.” the guard said.

  John picked up on the use of “sir” from the Canadian. He wondered how far his rank could take him.

  “The flu was five years ago. We are not coming to visit. Our mission is to get our convoy to New York as soon as possible. We received information of an invading force. If we don’t stop the Chinese do you think they will stop with the U.S?” John asked.

  “Who do you mean the Chinese?” the guard asked.

  “On the west coast you may know that a Chinese fleet is in the process of invading. We also found out a separate force is moving to secure the east coast for another landing party. We need to get their as soon as possible.” John explained further.

  The guard paused.

  “Hold on,”

  He walked to the shack and talked to the second guard. After a minute he picked up the phone and dialed a number. He was gone for a few minutes. Then made more calls. Finally, he received a call. After the last call he hung up and came back out of the shack.

  “I apologize for the wait. In accordance to our treaties, you will be escorted through Canada until you are back on U.S. soil. There will be no stops so make sure your vehicles are fueled up. And sir, good luck.” The guard turned around and went back to the shack.

  John sat back in the Hummer.

  “Well sir?” Private Brown asked.

  “We are getting an escort through the country.” John said.

  They drove back across the bridge and John made sure the word was given to fully fuel all vehicles. In a half an hour the vehicles were ready to go. John’s hummer led the way back over the bridge. The guard’s eyes lit up when they saw the tank. Although John said they were on their way to stop an invading force, neither of the guards had suspected a series of tanks and armed Hummers.

  Within an hour a group of Canadian Hummers drove up to the check point. John met with the commanding officer and insisted on leaving right away. Two of the Canadian vehicles led the way on the highway. John was amazed at the difference between the American roads and the Canadian roads. Canada, although it was only separated by an imaginary line, had stayed maintained and untouched compared to their neighbor of the south. The convoy cruised through Canada. While many of the men and woman were drooling at the sight of open restaurants and markets, they were under strict orders not to stop. As they reached the end of their journey the Canadians pulled their vehicles over to the side of the highway and the convoy drove past Niagara Falls.

  John wondered if Fatima had ever seen the falls. They didn’t talk much about before The Day, their minds stayed on the current life they had. Still, he filed the question in the back of his head and worked at remembering to ask her.

  The Canadian military men stood at the side of the road waving to the Americans as they drove past. Viewing the falls was a modest trade for not being able to stop for food. Some of the men pulled MREs out of their packs and started eating imagining they were the burgers and fries that they could have picked up from the highway they left behind.

  Ahead of them lay miles of highway, a long trip that was already exhausting. Even for the people who were sitting back waiting; the trip was a moving waiting room. John was able to use his time to sit in the back of the Hummer and read from the books he received from the librarian. He had stashed the copy of Guerilla Warfare by Che Guevara in his pack in case things went bad at any point in time. He studied the tactics of the French armies during the revolution since much of the war was fought by them and not the militia that get so much credit. John was an American, but a realist.

  When the convoy reach
ed the northern Appalachian Mountains, John’s ears started to pop, the build-up of pressure and the release of expanding gasses irritated him but he was able to get through it like a good soldier. The view was amazing. At one point the Hummer stopped and the Abrams was brought out to move the truck that was blocking the road. The closer they came to New York City, the more alert the convoy became. The fifty five miles per hour they traveled at slowed down and the experienced men looked for road side bombs and other traps. Still, there was nothing. Everyone knew the trip would be long. Nobody thought it would be easy.

  In the distance the skyline came into view. They hadn’t run into any Chinese. John wondered if the information was wrong. Maybe they were lured out of the base and sent on a wild goose chase? As they approached the city a sign was left for them about the intelligence they had received. Sitting in the middle of the highway laid a crushed car, impressions of tank tread flattening the middle of the car from trunk to front bumper. John felt relieved and anxious at the same time. There would be a battle, possibly several, people will die, and many would be his. It was a responsibility that he did not want. When he was in the military he often wondered why the people that didn’t want the job and would make better choices were never allowed to be in charge. Chris’s comment came to mind again, “I don’t take orders from stupid anymore.”

  John had the convoy stop and called together the highest ranking men in the militia. They looked over a map of New York concentrating around the harbor.

  “If I were trying to secure the harbor how would I fortify it?” he asked his men.

  Many looked at each other and didn’t speak, unfamiliar with speaking their opinion. Finally, one of them picked the streets he would place men and large weapons. Another man stepped in and pointed out the security needed for the shoreline. A veteran of Iraq was adamant about snipers on the rooftops. John took all of the ideas into consideration.

  “What do we have for night vision goggles?” John asked.

  “A few dozen. They are loaded in one of the trucks. Batteries were still good when we left.”

  “Everybody will rest here. Eat, sleep, do what you need to do. Tonight we roll in.” John said.

  Two of the men stayed and they worked out a plan for moving into the city. They agreed that snipers on the roofs were a good sign of men on the ground. John made four groups of four men who would go into the city at night to find snipers on the rooftops and take them out. The idea was to be quiet about it. Of course, the odds were it would fail and their surprise would be ruined.

  “Let’s make it a two part plan.” John said. “An insurance policy.”

  John planned to keep two of the tanks back for support with the morning assault and the rest would make their way across the bridge. On the opposite side of the river they would sit and wait for the attack order. They didn’t have artillery but they had the next best thing, plenty of force multipliers.

  Each four man team was assembled and the best marksman in each was handed a Remington 700 with a silencer, chambered in 300 Winchester Magnum it was the top of the line rifle for any branch of the military short of the .50 caliber rifles preferred by Delta Force and Seal team units. The majority of the convoy rested and stretched their legs while the four teams went over their routes and possible target areas.

  When the sun set the two groups started their drive to the city. The tanks took the farthest route away from the harbor to the bridge. The teams drove Hummers. The green tint of the city had the men forgetting it was nighttime. The Hummers had no problem moving through a city with no traffic and dead cars lining the city streets. The teams picked some of the tallest buildings in their area and used them for spotting snipers. They knew that snipers could possibly be on those roofs so they made sure to clear each building as if there were men inside.

  One of the teams parked outside an office building, brick with several large windows. They didn’t wait outside too long in case they were the target of a sniper. They rushed the doors and found the stairwell. In the goggles, the stairs were easy to climb without any light. They kept waiting to hear a pop, or see a flash as they climbed the stairs. Twenty flights up they stopped behind the door and caught their breaths for a second. Then they opened the door and rushed out. The roof was clear. Using a compass they figured out which way they needed to check. As soon as they started a beacon was shining for them. A block and a half down sat a man on a rooftop smoking a cigarette.

  “What a fucking amateur.” one of the men said. They all laughed to themselves. The spotter checked more rooftops for snipers and scouts. From their view it was clear.

  “You ready?” the spotter asked to the sharpshooter.

  “Yup,” the man with the Remington said flipping the bipod out and taking the caps off the scope.

  It was difficult trying to gauge the wind at night. It felt like a constant breeze moving out towards the ocean. The man with the cigarette was at least four hundred yards away. The shooter decided to wait for the next puff and fire. In the black of night the red cherry of the cigarette lit up, the inhale of the man feeding oxygen to the flame.

  The sharpshooter fired. The red dot disappeared.

  The spotter continued to watch. The sharpshooter pulled the bolt back on his rifle. He carefully pulled the spent round out and placed it in the pocket of his vest. Pushing the bolt back in he fed the next round in the chamber.

  “Hit.” the spotter said.

  The sniper sighed relief. The men waited for the sniper to pick up his belongings and then went to the stairwell. They would do this a few more times before sunrise. The hope would be to clear an area for the rest of the militia to move through to the docks. They wouldn’t be able to kill everyone but they could make things a little easier by morning.

  Driving the M1 Abrams through the city in the pitch black of night was not easy. The turbine engines of the tanks were loud, not as loud as the diesel motors preferred on the tanks of previous generations. The whining sound covered every other noise that could be around them. They would not know if they were moving into a trap. The men driving their tanks to the bridge crossed their fingers and hoped that they were far enough away from the docks to be noticed or heard. When they reached the on-ramp for the bridge they found a sea of cars waiting for them. Long time dead and unmoving they quickly noticed they had no other option but to drive over them.

  Some of the men cringed when the first tank started leveling a Toyota Corolla, plastic and cheap metal snapping and cracking under the tank treads. Fluid started spilling out onto the pavement and into the gutters. A few men watching it wished they had time to pull the fuel out of the vehicles that were sitting there before they were crushed. A very limited resource was becoming scarcer before their very eyes.

  A row of tanks continued in a single file over the bridge. A few miles to the other side, then the job of finding a place to set up for morning, when the guns would send their hellos over the river and into the Chinese welcoming party. A crew of .50 caliber shooters went along for the ride knowing it would be the only way for them to use their rifles. There was no use for such a gun under a few hundred yards.

  The rifle men sat on top of the tanks holding on to anything they could get their hands on. Most of the vehicles on the bridge were small cars but the engine blocks in the cars would still tilt the massive tanks from side to side once in a while. When they reached to opposite side of the bridge the cars were still thick and the tanks continued their journey in the same way they had, running over everything.

  They exited from the off-ramp and strolled through the city streets. Using a red tinted flash light the driver in the first tank looked over his map and found the road to the river front. The cars thinned out and they were able to move faster than before. Before they knew it the buildings disappeared and the river was to one side of them. Each tank had a spot designated for it and the lead tank moved to the farthest position.

  The .50 caliber snipers jumped off their tanks and walked to the tallest buil
ding they could see on the riverbank. The building was locked up, something they were not accustomed to seeing. The owner or the people in charge of the building could have been planning to come back. They considered kicking the door in but decided on going to a different building when they looked closer at the thick chain and the steel doors.

  The next building had a door that was left unlocked. They set up their positions on the roof and waited for the signal. It would still be hours before the first real shots were fired.

  The rays of the new rising sun came over the skyline painting a previous black canvas with colors of brick and mortar. Nature had not started to reclaim this city as fierce as it had in other places. Weeds and grass living in cracks and crevices not dilapidated but a little neglected. The tanks sat out in the open hidden in the shade of the building for the moment. The turret gunners watched the skyline across the river for their signal. Then, in the distance, a speck of light was in the sky, a flame flying up and slowly dropping back to the earth. One of the men slapped the steel plating and hollered into the tank. Targets had been picked hours before. With nothing more to wait for, they fired.

  The delay in the reaction to the massive concussion was unnerving. For a fraction of a second they watched and waited to see if they had hit their mark. Then they spotted fire and smoke. Small in the distance but a sure sign that something had been hit. In the excitement they loaded another round and fired again. In a matter of seconds all the tanks on the riverbank were unloading their payloads to the shore on the other side.

  On the rooftops the .50 caliber snipers looked through their scopes and took pop shots at the Chinese soldiers running around. One of the snipers had spotted two Chinese soldiers sitting at the end of the dock. One appeared to be fishing. A second came and sat down. They were small ants in the scope but he was sure the second was a female. At first he thought about the fisherman being his first attempt for a shot. Then, when he saw the two of them together, he changed his mind. After the first tank round blew out the dock, the sniper watched the two Chinese soldier’s running back to the warehouses. He rooted for them in his head. He waited to see if they made it out in one piece. The tanks were causing massive amounts of chaos on the opposite shore and yet he wanted to place a bet on the lives of these two ants in his scope. He spotted a group of soldiers running toward the shore and took his first shot. He watched one of the men fall a second later. He figured that was his shot. The two Chinese he was following were gone now. He couldn’t see them. From that moment on he fired on anyone holding a rifle. Their Chinese AK-47s wouldn’t be able to reach them from the shore. It was pointless for them to try but maybe they didn’t know any better. Soon, the snipers were shooting at the muzzle flashes until they stopped. The other side of the river was clouded over with smoke. It was the only thing moving into the expanding sky, a moving ghost traveling into the heavens. The snaps and cracks of gunfire slowly stopped. The tanks were silent. For them the battle was over.