“So you all now know as much as I do. My next stop is to attack the Zedong headquarters. Hopefully my actions will turn off their lights, too. We don’t believe the Chinese or Russian governments are involved, since Beijing is as dark as the United States is, as well as all of Russia. I’m hoping to get to both capitals in the next 24 hours and let both governments know that it wasn’t us.

“To see for myself, we travelled as far west as we dared on the way down here from Misawa. There were lights visible on the coast of North Korea. We have seen them on our screens back in the United States. On the simple screens that we have gotten operational again, we have seen lights in Shanghai, Pakistan, north of Kabul, parts of North Africa, Syria and all of Iran. Everybody who we are in a conflict with has lights on, and we don’t. The engineers traveling with me are showing your techs how to set up satellite communications by bouncing off the same satellites the enemy is using. They don’t know we are doing it, however, and I’m just hoping that when I blow their headquarters into little pieces around midnight tonight that we all don’t lose communications.”

“Hal, since you are so close to the fighting, I will give you the cell phone I had reserved for Ramstein. I left the other one I had in Misawa, so you guys now have worldwide communications, even with the president who got one just like it several hours ago. Here is a list of numbers to call, and the list of numbers will be updated and phoned through to you every 12 hours as new phones are handed out. We have just short of 200 phones, and these are our entire world communications until further notice. Just remember, these might all become useless in a few hours when we hit their building in downtown Nanjing.”

General Whitelaw explained Osan’s current situation to him. Apart from several 105 mm howitzers, a hundred or so rocket launchers, a dozen machine guns, and 4,000 fully armed men, there was little they could do against a full-on attack on the base by North Korea. The enemy outgunned the base by far, if all their modern equipment was still working.

“My mission tonight, gentlemen,” continued General Allen, “is to take out their headquarters and show them that we, the United States of America are not defeated. I believe the whole Chinese Air Force could be grounded, just like ours. Maybe they are in control of sections of it, but I’m 100 percent sure that they do not expect a blue-water attack from us. I’m going in to flatten Zedong Electronics headquarters and then fly on to Beijing to try and land at the international airport there. ‘Easy Girl’ still has the old flare system we used in Vietnam, the one that lights up landing zones for the Hueys so they can take in troops. The other two don’t have the flare system, but have their infrared fire-control systems still operational so each gunship has a definite purpose in my operation. I believe that with the flares we can pinpoint Beijing International Airport and get in if there is not too much snow.”

“Since the weather report you gave me earlier said it has been sunny but cold since December 30th, the runway in Beijing should be clear enough for our 130s to get in. I will also communicate with the president as soon as we are over Chinese soil, and if I’m attacked and our aircraft are destroyed, three older but fully operational atomic missiles will be launched from our only working site in South Dakota. One is for the capital of North Korea, one for Shanghai, and one for Beijing. Three more are ready to defend the United States, or can be directed into Iran if need be. Pakistan, we believe can still retaliate, but we don’t expect trouble from their government.

An hour later, the meeting was done and it was time to leave. During the meeting, the loading of ammunition was underway with every available man filling the magazines of all three gunships. They had 400 rounds of 40mm for the three rapid-fire Bofors guns; their only protection from enemy aircraft.

Since Easy Girl had been in Asia for several years and mostly used as air cover for naval exercises, she had not received the 105mm howitzer modification. She did, however, have the older gunship gun installation—two sets of twin 20mm Gatling guns. These could put out heavy fire, and with the 105mm’s installed on Ghost Rider and Blue Moon, they had enough firepower to flatten a building, any building!

The Korean tally was 300 projectiles, which were loaded into the aircraft for the two howitzers—200 HE projectiles and 100 concrete piercing projectiles.

The gunships usually carried 100 105mm rounds each, but the grand total of 200 rounds per gunship, or 20 minutes of nonstop firing was a lot of explosive power for one building. It had to be enough, and General Allen chose the firing set-up command to be one concrete-piercing round and followed by two HE rounds, each filled with 5 pounds of TNT. His idea was to blow the building down from the roof, floor-by-floor, blowing holes through the concrete. The concrete piercing rounds would make craters through the floors of the buildings one-by-one and then they could send in the HE after that.

Twenty-thousand rounds for the four 20mm Gatling guns were loaded into Easy Girl—four times more than usual—as well as 100 rounds for her 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft cannon. Ten-thousand rounds were placed in the other two gunships, and 150 Bofors rounds were loaded into each for aircraft protection.

It had been dark for an hour when General Allen called Carlos. Carlos had just finished setting up the satellite equipment at McGuire. He had flown in and gotten four hours of sleep while Lee Wang got the equipment organized and started placing all the computers and the one satellite dish into their perfect configuration, which took a couple of hours. Lee then worked on connecting everything together and woke Carlos to continue. They were an hour from receiving their first new digital world photos when the general phoned.

“Carlos? Allen Key.”

“Hi, Pete,” replied Carlos. “We need another hour before I can get a picture. We have our picture of the United States on screen now, but I need time to set up the codes to reach into their satellite feed and receive their pictures. What is the weather like where you are?”

“Not good, Carlos. Light snow and it’s getting worse. Visibility is about 2,000 feet and closing in. I need to know if this storm is big enough to affect the area I need to get to, and from there I want to go north into their capital city, or with this storm will I have to return to Japan, or return to my last port of call? I’d hate to be lost up there without a place to go, but I must leave now and I want to attack as close to their midnight as possible. That will represent one week and 13 hours since their attack on us. I’m in trouble if this is a full-scale storm, but we have Mother Goose filled to the brim with fuel, and at worst she can give us 600 extra miles of flying time.

“Carlos, we have grown to three gunships so we now have four transponders. I have no option but to leave here ASAP and I want to try and get into the attack zone without transponders. We have Mrs. Wang, who has enjoyed her trip so far and I intend to get her back safely. I have a new phone number for you. The call sign is Whitelaw-base Osan-South Korea,” and the general gave the number to Carlos to redistribute.

“I’m leaving our meeting here and will call you again in 30 minutes once I get into Ghost Rider.” He did, and they talked again as the general got seated and checks were done, doors closed, and the four aircraft were made ready for flight again.

“Lee would like to say a few words with his wife. Is that possible?” asked Carlos when Pete called him back.

“As long as they speak in English so that I can understand, I’m happy to allow them to speak. Just explain to him that we need this to succeed as much as possible and all our safety depends on you guys getting us out of here. There were a lot of lights to our north as we came in earlier, and there are a lot of good soldiers being killed down there. We think that our men have about a week here before we will have to defend the base itself.”