“I’m thinking a little forward with this one and those Cessnas we commandeered from the Raleigh/Durham International airport, Mr. President,” Preston explained his idea. “I’m thinking about food distribution to the hungry in the area, and I know that the bases around here have well over five million meal rations in storage that were destined for our troops overseas. Since there is no way we can get them over there, I was hoping to use them to feed as many people on this side as we could.” The president was quiet when the mention of the overseas troops came up. He shook his head and looked down at the ground.
They completed the tour, and the last aircraft was the gunship, in which he had arrived in and was being refueled to take off and fly high for protection while the president was on the ground. The president was unfamiliar with the AC-130, and Preston asked the aircraft’s armaments officer to explain the weaponry pointing out of its left side.
“This is a 20mm Vulcan Cannon, sir—the same fitted to most Air Force aircraft since Vietnam, such as F-15s, F-4s, etc. It’s a Gatling gun that can fire up to 100 rounds a second and normally is used for the destruction of ground troops and small vehicles. We hold 3,000 rounds in Ghost Rider and normally use the cannon for short bursts of 300 to 400 rounds. The Bofors 40mm light anti-aircraft gun is for protection from the air. We carry 240 rounds and this baby saved Ghost Rider a couple times in Vietnam. The last gun, the big one, is the 105mm Howitzer. We carry 100 rounds for her, sir, and she is mainly used for larger ground vehicles like tanks or any buildings we need to flatten. We are currently carrying 60 rounds that can penetrate most armor on tanks and or many naval ships, as well as 40 rounds that are HE, or ‘high explosive.’ If anybody comes sniffing around tonight, we will see them miles away with our original and working infrared and heat scopes. We can see the movement of a mouse at 5,000 feet and she is one of two Air Force C-130s that were heavily modified during Vietnam. She, as well as all of these older C-130s we have flying, can be refueled in the air.”
Preston and the president thanked the man and walked back to the hangar. They entered the side door as the gunship began her whine, and Preston noticed the two armored cars disappearing down the driveway towards the gate. They entered the hangar and found that chairs of all sorts had been placed in rows for the meeting, the most comfortable ones in the front. Preston also noticed that three new rooms had appeared on the southern wall of the hangar with movable partitions, and he could see wooden army beds inside them. He figured there were about a dozen beds per room.
The general was waiting, and Preston was surprised to see Joe and David still in the room. They must have allowed the Air Force personnel to drive their valuable toys out to the ambush zone.
“Mr. President, you are seated next to the ambassador and Mr. Rodriquez. We need to get started,” instructed General Allen. “Preston, your seat is next to Martie, naturally.” Preston noticed that he was also sitting next to the president.
Everybody was in attendance. Next to Martie was Pam Wallace, the extremely pretty flight attendant, and next to her was Grandpa Roebels with Michael next to him. The second row was the ‘complete’ Smart family, Carlos, the three Colombian bodyguards, Sally, Buck, and Barbara. In the third row were Jennifer, David, Joe, and all his sons. The fourth row was the Air Force doctor, his chief nurse, First Sergeant Perry, and the technical sergeants, and the fifth and sixth rows were assorted Air Force personnel who were not currently on duty at the entrance or in the fire tower.
“Good evening, y’all,” the general smiled, using his best southern drawl. “We have two hours before Ghost Rider—the AC-130 gunship—is landing and the president leaves. Hopefully, we will not be attacked during our meeting, but I want Martie and her new friend to come up and tell us what they saw today and what we can expect. Martie, Pam, you have five minutes.” The two women got up and walked to the front of the room.
“This is Pam Wallace,” started Martie. “Pam is a senior flight attendant with Southwest Airlines, and was on a flight that took off from La Guardia four minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Her pilot, Captain Mike Mallory, managed to put his dysfunctional aircraft down in the water around New York with no loss of life. The captain, his crew, and many of his passengers drove south with a very interesting group of vehicles that I got a chance to see today, just north of the North Carolina state line.” Martie continued and gave her report on the Southwest crew and passengers she had met, as well as the convoy of ten vehicles she had seen from the air—mostly old Chevy Suburbans and Ford trucks a couple of miles behind the Southwest convoy on the southbound side of the highway.
“Hi everyone! It’s so nice to see civilization again,” Pam started as Martie gave her the floor. “The rest of our group will be arriving at RDU tomorrow, thanks to Martie. I know that our two pilots will be itching to help you guys, if you can loan them some wings. They are out of a job at the moment. I also am a private pilot and can help you as a spotter pilot, if you need me.”
Pam grinned at the murmur of laughter she heard. “On a more serious note, the other convoy coming south has roughly ten vehicles with what looks like three to six people per vehicle. We never really got close enough to see for sure, but they killed two innocent people for no reason. They passed us during our first night. We had driven down the northbound lane, only because it was the only lane we could get onto in New York and we never bothered to change. The other convoy was driving in the southbound lane so we do not think they ever knew we were in the vicinity. We tried to catch up with them at one point, until we came across the two freshly dead bodies. They had been shot several times and every vehicle in the convoy had run over the bodies, flattening them into the snow. This led us to believe that they were people to be avoided, and we transferred back to the other side of the highway and stayed away from them until we turned off for our second night’s stay at a small airport just north of the North Carolina state line.”
At this point, Pam paused as if she was trying to figure out how to word what she wanted to say. “There is something I think we need to deal with pretty quickly, and that is how to feed and provide good drinking water to the U.S. civilians. Mr. President, General Allen, Captain Mallory spoke about this at our last overnight stop, and I think our Southwest team would like to take it further. We had a long talk with some farmers up in Maryland, and the captain told them to start farming and breeding animals as soon as the weather allows, and asked them to spread the word across the country, telling people to hold on and start finding ways to become self-sufficient. The farmers must produce food for the hungry as quickly as possible, protect themselves from attackers, and help people coming south from colder areas.” She got resounding applause from the group, and the president gave her a nod of approval. “To conclude, our trip south on the highway was horrible. We must have seen thousands of people dead in their vehicles or around them. It’s very cold out there and there must be millions of people, dead or dying from being exposed to these horrible weather conditions. The snow on the highway south of New York was up to six inches deep and icy conditions just before New Year’s Eve must have been the cause of many of the accidents. Many of the big fatal accidents happened near tractor trailers going out of control, and the carnage—just on the piece of highway south of Newark—was terrible. Thank you.”
Martie stepped back in to continue. “I had my binoculars fixed on the other convoy while I was in the air, and it looked like the vehicles were full of people, as Pam said. If they are coming our way, they most likely turned off I-95 about an hour ago and should be on the outskirts of Raleigh by now. The dead vehicles on the incoming roadways will slow them down for the last 20 miles or so, but if they are coming here, they should be in our area within the next couple of hours.”