The lead mortar operator looked at Lin for approval, which he gave in a nod. Then the first metallic scraping sound came as the round slid down the barrel, followed by a thunk from the first mortar. The second mortar fired in rapid succession.
The first mortar was being loaded again when the initial round ripped through its target, a US Air Force KC-135 refueling tanker. The quiet night turned into a deafening symphony of explosions, and the darkness gave way to inferno.
Some of the mortar rounds missed their mark, pummeling the concrete flight line. The explosions popped tires and punctured the surrounding aircraft with their metal fragments. Other rounds tore into the large aircraft. Every so often, one of the mortar rounds scored a direct hit on a filled fuel storage compartment, setting off a mushroom cloud explosion of fire that turned night into day.
Lin’s men worked fast, checking ranges and making adjustments to their fire. Their orders had specifically called for the refueling planes to be prioritized. KC-135s and KC-10s. If possible, take out the transports as well. The C-5s and C-17s.
Lin could see a fire vehicle and what looked like a base security vehicle racing towards one of the burning aircraft. By this time, ten of the enormous jets had been destroyed.
“Sir, a police vehicle is approaching us from the west.”
Lin looked to where his man was pointing and saw a sedan with flashing blue lights racing towards them.
“Wait until it gets close,” Lin said.
The police cruiser skidded to a halt about fifty feet from their three cars. The doors did not open. The vehicle’s occupant must have been trying to decide just what he was looking at.
Lin’s team had two pickup trucks and a minivan. The two pickup trucks were parked perpendicular to the road, blocking traffic and forming a barricade. The minivan was in the center. For a moment, the police vehicle remained unmoving, the Chinese special forces men staring back at him, their weapons trained.
Did the policeman yet know what was about to transpire? Did he see the threat?
A bright white searchlight from the driver’s side of the police vehicle illuminated the nearest pickup truck. Enough to unmask a large fifty-caliber machine gun on a tripod, which instantly began firing. Yellow tracer rounds shot into and around the police vehicle, destroying it and the lone police officer inside and extinguishing the lights. A small fire smoldered in the police car’s rear seat. Lin’s special forces men looked at the wreckage, and at each other.
“Keep firing our mortars,” Lin said, reminding his men to concentrate on the mission. “There are another six aircraft untouched on the tarmac. Hit them all, and we will depart.”
Lin knew that the success of their mission was more important than whether they survived the night. But if they lived, his team could be reused for more operations such as this in the coming days. Tomorrow would be chaos in the United States. The other teams like his would all executing similar orders throughout the country. Locating his team would not be easy in such confusion. And even if the US government managed to track them down, his men were exceptional fighters. America was not equipped to deal with men like them. That was what they had been told.
Ten minutes later, their mission complete, Lin signaled his team to saddle up and head out. Their caravan dispersed, each driver having familiarized himself with separate routes back to their safe house. None of them were stopped.
Not all of the Chinese special forces teams were so successful.
Outside Seymour Johnson Air Force base in North Carolina, the PLA special forces had just begun firing mortar rounds when the noise alerted patrons at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. The VFW members had gathered that night to celebrate the seventieth birthday of one of their own.
The new septuagenarian was a man by the name of Norman Francis. His friends called him “Bud.” Bud had enlisted in the US Army in 1969.
Bud was sitting at the bar, drinking a tonic water and lime (he had given up alcohol years earlier) and providing one of the new members — a young man in his thirties, who was a veteran of Afghanistan — a recap of his complete military history. The young man was a good southern boy and patriot and listened respectfully.
Bud said, “So let’s see — I went to basic training in Fort Jackson, Signal School at Fort Gordon, and Army Ranger school at Fort Benning. Then I arrived in South Vietnam in the February of 1970…”
Someone piped up from down the bar, “I thought you said it was ’71…”
Bud frowned. “Don’t know where you heard that. It was ’70. I think I would know my own history. So then where was I? The Army sent me to Quang Tri in Northern I Corps, where I was assigned to the 298th Signal Company of the First Brigade Fifth Infantry (Mechanized). But see, I’d been to Ranger School. I didn’t want to be part of some signal company, no offense. I was a Ranger. So I talked to my platoon sergeant and requested a transfer. Two days later I was the only passenger on a Huey headed to Hill 950—it overlooked the old Khe Sanh combat base. You know Khe Sanh? The Marines fought some awfully hard battles there in ’68. But that was before I got there. So I got to Hill 950. US Army Special Forces were there with about forty Nung mercenaries. The hill overlooked the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We’d watch daily airstrikes bomb the valley and surrounding mountains. But then I got transferred to P Company. Went on a lot of missions along the DMZ and Laos with P Company. Had to call in artillery several times and — say, you hear that? That booming noise? That kind of sounds a lot like artillery right there. Now what in the Sam Hill is that?”
Bud led his companions out to the parking lot to see what was making that loud booming noise. He was an avid hunter and gun collector and always kept his hunting rifle on the rack in his pickup truck. And he was still an expert marksman.
He reached for the rifle and looked through the scope, scanning the surrounding area.
He had seen the news over the past few weeks. Looking through the scope on his rifle, he identified the enemy group to his friends.
“The Chi-com bastards are coming to attack us.”
As one of the men in his party called the police, the birthday boy was already firing from three hundred yards out. Some of his companions were also hunters and gun enthusiasts. Rifles were removed from racks in their pickup trucks as well, and the battle began. Three of the old men were killed by return fire, but not before the new seventy-year-old was able to take out two of the Chinese soldiers. The rest of them were also killed, once the police got involved.
At another attack site outside McConnell Air Force base near Wichita, Kansas, the Chinese special forces troops made the unfortunate mistake of picking a position located less than a mile from where the Wichita SWAT team was coincidentally training that night. The SWAT team had recently purchased two used mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) from the US military. Half of the SWAT team members were military veterans and also recognized the sound of mortars firing in the quiet night air. Their response was swift and deadly. Wichita SWAT team 10, PLA special operators 0.
But many of the Chinese attacks on Air Force bases succeeded in their mission to radically reduce the number of US aerial refueling tankers in inventory. Within a matter of hours, the number of airworthy tankers in the US Air Force inventory went from over four hundred to under one hundred and fifty. Cheng Jinshan had succeeded. The Chinese had greatly diminished the American military’s ability to wage long-range aerial warfare.