Major Patterson and his crew were airlifted back to McGuire to rest, or so they thought. They had done their job well and fresh troops were airlifted into all four New York airports by helicopter, with the two large helicopters bringing in small bulldozers hanging from the strong underbelly-hooks. They were destined to clear the snow off the runways so that the aircraft could come in and deliver more troops.
Once the bulldozers were in, the area was checked for any vehicles in the many parking garages around the airports. Airport parking garages were usually full of motor vehicles and they searched for anything that would start. The ones that worked were driven out to the areas of the airport where engineers went about using all the power inverters they could find to turn the engines into mobile generators to light and heat critical areas. Over 70 vehicles were found in the JFK garages alone—mostly old American cars with large gas guzzling engines; perfect for generating electricity.
It took two car engines to power up the landing-light system on the already cleared runway. The system was fed from the motor vehicles into a large inverter they brought in from McGuire, which fed raw energy to the lights themselves and cut out all malfunctioning electronic-control systems. It took several hours of retrofitting the electronics, but the lights came on when someone started the cars stationed at each end of the long runway. Now equipment could be carried into JFK at night.
One large car engine could run several small electrical heating units, blowers, and electrical bar heaters found in stores. The Air Force flew these in by the hundreds. A second car engine could run the terminal lighting systems and any available propane tanks could get the stoves working in the terminal’s restaurants and feed the workers.
By the end of Z-Day Eight, JFK was lit and semi-heated so people could work and sleep. Military camp beds had been brought in and porta-potties dotted the outside areas next to the walls of the terminals, inconspicuous and hidden from anyone landing.
The aircraft themselves changed inside. Several teams pulled out the seats and made them into living quarters where less lighting and heating were needed to make them warm and comfortable. A beautifully painted Quantas 747 became a warm, cozy home with fully stocked kitchens and bars for 100 people, once the unnecessary seats had been placed in warehouses out of the view of anyone flying in unannounced.
The five bulldozers worked 24 hours a day. Snow hadn’t fallen for a day now, and JFK’s runways were still clear, but the other three airports could hardly be seen under the snowdrifts. Only white shapes in the snow, aircraft wrapped in heavy layers of frozen precipitation and the snow-bound terminals showed the outline where runways hid under feet of winter weather. The large lifting helicopters moved the bulldozers into La Guardia and soldiers began clearing its main runway.
Once the bulldozers had been moved, men again went in search of old vehicles in the parking garages, got inside, and hotwired them. They were driven outside the garage towers where the helicopters picked them up and carried them over snow drifts and placed them where the engineers needed them. It would take 24 hours to clean the runway and the same would be necessary for Teterboro Airport, which was next. Newark would be last. Teterboro would be the deployment airport for troops into the other three airports when needed, and all seven of the operational troop-carrying C-130s could ferry in 100 troops each at a time to wherever they were needed.
The third job of the always-working helicopters was then to bring in food and supplies for the troops and an ever-growing number of locals who had seen or heard the action. Once the runways were cleared, the C-130s flew in from Air Force bases that had warehouses full of stored meals for the overseas troops, and were flying in 5,000 meals at a time on pallets. There were only five C-130s available for this work since the other two were down in North Carolina doing the same thing, but they started hauling 25,000 meals per day into the four airports and the supplies were stored in the empty hangars.
By the third day of work, the bulldozers were working on Newark’s runway. With the increased activity at the airports, children began to venture out foraging for food and pushing their faces up to the high security fences to beg the armed soldiers stationed around the perimeter for anything edible. It would take an entire week to get the airports ready for the incoming attack, before they could even start on the harbor area. Between that work and distributing food, the troops were working 24-hour shifts.
*****
Carlos and Lee were exhausted. They had worked nearly 20 hours a day for several days in a row, and in a few days there would be renewed satellite phone communications around the world. The stolen 747 had flown into McGuire Air Force Base at 9:00 am that morning, as had all the important electrical equipment being airlifted in from JFK.
Once the small pallet of remaining new phones had been offloaded and opened, Carlos and Lee started a phone directory file on the computer, listing the numbers for distribution to all the phone users to ensure that nobody spoke to the enemy by mistake.
Both Carlos and Lee had an operational Commodore computer linked up to be able to log in all the numbers, and a really old black and white printer that could print copies, and they issued the first phone number list for transfer with the HC-130 tanker being refueled for its world trip. Each phone—all 25 of them that now had an international delivery destination, as well as another 50 for the Air Force bases around the country—were recorded on the list. Each phone was numbered, and its projected destination was typed onto the sheet. Another 20 phones were added as extras, and blanks were added where the new owners’ names could be written in. The list would be updated once the aircraft returned from deliveries.
Carlos had prepared ten phones for the 747’s first flight over to Europe. Six were for the Air Force bases in Europe. The first phone was for the commanders at Ramstein and Spangdahlem Air Force Bases in Germany, and a third for Aviano in Italy. The two Air Force bases in Britain, Mildenhall and Lakenheath, were to be issued one each, and the sixth one was for Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey. Another four were reserved for front-line battle commanders in Iraq.
The first HC-130 fuel tanker, the one General Allen had loaned to Preston, flew in from the North Carolina airfield and was being refueled to take a satellite phone over to the Air Force base in the Azores. From the Azores, and with its extended range, the plan was to fly her directly into Turkey or Baghdad and help ferry a platoon of troops at a time from the front lines into one of the safer bases.
Very few items were needed overseas, but several 5,000-watt military generators, a complete field hospital, and 1,000 gallons of gasoline in five gallon canisters was loaded aboard the 747, as well as blankets, beds, and anything else anybody thought might be needed over there. Carlos, studying the world’s weather two hours after receiving the phones, printed out three copies of the world’s weather on a flat printed map of the Earth—exactly what was being transmitted onto his simple screen—and then gathered the phones for the 747.
Each phone and a charger had already been packed up into a plastic zip-lock bag with the new owner’s name on it, and he headed out to the giant Air China 747 sitting on the runway and Carlos saw that the fuel tankers were already clearing themselves away from the aircraft. He climbed up the steel stairway to the front of the aircraft and went in.