It was worse than we could have imagined. You could see for miles standing on that roof. The Chinese were smart to have picked this place as a base of operations. It was ideal for not only it's natural defenses, like the layout of the land around it, but also for the simple fact that the place was built like a fort. You could leave a handful of snipers up top and defend the place for years if you had to. No one stood a chance of getting close.
Luckily they had not gotten that far. All hell had broken loose about the time we started fighting back inside. The military had not responded, but it looked like every cop in the precinct had.
The police officers were unprepared for what was waiting for them. The Chinese army had set up a solid perimeter, All access was blocked from one light to another and they had jeeps patrolling the outside walls. These corporate buffoons had created a nearly impenetrable base.
I sent the boys to scout around to see what we were up against, while I attempted to survey the damage in the outlying areas. The sun was beginning to set, the sky a blazing red. Smoke was billowing from the airport. It looked like they had crashed planes into the parking garage in order to block access to it from the road.
There were dozens of military vehicles with the People's Liberation Army symbol on them. That red and yellow star was unmistakeable. Meanwhile, three planes were circling waiting to land. The Chinese now controlled the airport. Seemingly normal civilian planes were offloading troops, tanks, and god knows what else. To think only a few hours had passed since the attack began.
I had given the boys strict orders not to fire, we were doing recon only at this point. Scouting every inch of a store this size was no small feat for six men.
I was so busy trying to get a picture of the size of this invasion, that I didn't even notice a teenage kid that had come running up to me.
"Sir, sir are you Jeffries sir?" he asked panting from the trip up.
"What the hell are you doing up here kid?" I asked puzzled.
"We've got a problem sir, there's a middle eastern guy in there and some of the older guys keep saying he's a Taliban or an Al Qaeda" Said the visibly shaken boy,
“Slow down,” I said, as he was spitting the words out. “What are they doing now?”
"They were gonna shoot him, but a little kid ran out and said it was his dad. The old army guy said he is gonna shoot the other guys if they don’t leave him alone"
"Ok, ill be right down" I said as I grabbed my sidearm.
"Hurry they said they ain’t gonna listen to nobody but you" said the kid as he ran ahead of me.
It took a good five minutes to make it back to the others. Tense situations generally don't alleviate when people are made to wait. When I arrived I found McDonnell engaged with an old red neck, standing there with guns pointed at each others heads.
"That is enough!" I yelled as I ran up, "You're scaring these kids, you dumb sack of shit, they've been through enough already."
"Please sir, we were shopping just like the rest of you", said the middle eastern man. "I've lived here for over twenty years, my children were all born here in Portland.
"Come here,” I said gesturing to him "Show this man your ID so he'll calm down, ok?"
"Yes, of course," the man said, his name was Omar. "You see, I live right down the street, these are my children and this is my wife" It seemed to ease the tension as the old redneck saw the pictures of Omar's family.
"Now I want you to listen to me," I said " All of you. If we can't trust each other, we are as good as dead, you got that? Our enemy is the Chinese army, this is not an isolated incident, the airport has been completely taken over. The good news is, they're stuck outside being distracted by the police for the time being."
As they mumbled agreement, I looked around at the people sitting there. There must have been fifty or sixty and they had carried over people who had been injured in the gunfire. A lot of people were probably going to die if they didn't get to a hospital soon.
"You, ma'am are you a doctor?" I said to a middle aged woman who was frantically tending to people.
"No, no I’m an EMT" she said without leaving the person she was tending to.
"Ma'am what do you need? I'll have some of these kids head over to the pharmacy area and see what they can find. You just tell them what to bring you"
"These people need a hospital", she said
"For the time being why don’t you have one of them grab some paper and make a list."
A teenage girl ran over, pulling a notepad from, her purse. The EMT began relaying the supplies to her, occasionally stopping to spell something out. I spotted a man in a lab coat, who turned out to be the pharmacist. He was pretty badly injured, but he gave Liz his keys to get in and find whatever medicine the EMT might need.
As I turned to leave, Liz pulled me to the side to find out exactly what I had seen. "It's bad Liz, it's really bad. This is an all out invasion, we're at war."
"Be careful, I love you" She said.
"I love you too hun, " I said, kissing her before adding "oh and see if you can get someone to find a radio and bring me a report of what's going on if you can"
Once I was back up top, the boys started relaying information to me. Most of it was what I had already seen, but one of the boys found out something crucial. He had been watching a fed ex truck out back, noticing the enemy had set guards around it. After a few minutes of watching, a high ranking man walked out. While the door was open he was able to get a look at the inside. It wasn't a delivery truck at all. This was their command center for the time being.
Chapter 3