INVASION USA (Book 2) - The Battle For New York by T I WADE

Nanjing thought 30 years ago would be his army of devastation—the American people themselves. A far bigger army that he could ever put together, well-armed and dedicated soldiers who would kill anybody for anything they had.
    It was time for Chairman Wang Chunqiao’s army to fight in earnest, and they started just before dark on the third day.
    *****
     
    Dawn was breaking when Captain Mallory woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. First, he thought the events of the past few days were only a dream and the world was back to normal, but after opening his eyes to the sight of one of his flight attendants standing in front of him with a steaming cup of fresh brew, he realized that it was not a dream.
    “We heard faint noises outside,” Pam Wallace told him. “We couldn’t see anything but I’m sure I heard a tractor or two moving around out there earlier. We let you sleep, Captain. You needed a good night’s rest.”
    “Thank you,” he replied, taking the coffee and sitting up. He had slept on the front seat of the SWAT truck, a few blankets had filled the hole between the seats and he had slept well, exhausted from the previous two days. The captain was still dressed, except for his thick winter coat, and he put that on and unlocked the main door to the hangar. He slid it open just enough to walk outside and was confronted by several men—three sitting on old farm tractors and the rest standing, all armed and interested to see who was in the private hangar owned by a doctor friend of theirs who had gone down to Key West for Christmas and was not yet expected back. Also, there were no wheel tracks of his aircraft landing on the runway.
    “I don’t believe you own this hangar,” stated one of the farmers sitting on his tractor.
    “Unfortunately, I don’t,” agreed the captain. “I’m Captain Mike Mallory, a pilot with Southwest Airlines. When the power went out over New York, I landed my aircraft in the water, managed to survive, rescue my passengers, and I am now taking my crew and what’s left of my passengers south to escape the cold. It is bitterly cold up there in New York and very dangerous.”
    “You mean that this power outage is bigger than just around here?” the same farmer asked.
    “I believe it’s countrywide,” replied the Captain. “There are fires in New York as big as some of the buildings. All of I-95 is clogged with dead cars and trucks. We must have seen at least a thousand dead bodies in the cars, frozen to death. We even saw a couple of lions that must have escaped from a local zoo eating a human body in New Jersey. It is pure carnage out there, and I think it’s getting even colder.”
    “You’re right,” replied the farmer. “Air smells like we going to get an arctic blast sometime today. Why are you here in our friend’s hangar? Do you know him?”
    “Unfortunately no, but I’ve flown into this airfield several times on recreational trips and fueled up from those fuel tanks over there. Mickey Mason was the guy who always refueled me when I landed here.”
    “We know Mickey! He also flew out of here just before Christmas, down to Macon, Georgia to visit his folks,” added the farmer. A fourth tractor appeared, driving into the airfield as fast as it could with a young boy on top. He pulled to a halt and was excited.
    “Pa, I saw a convoy of more old trucks driving south. There was at least nine or ten of them. I saw them through the binoculars. Fords and Dodges they were, and they went past the off-ramp and didn’t stop.”
    “I’m sure there will be thousands coming south to escape the cold up there,” continued Captain Mallory. “There must be thousands upon thousands of dead up there already and this cold blast is not going to help anybody stay alive.”
    John came out and introduced himself, still in his flight uniform, and so did a couple of the flight attendants.
    “We have cleaned up our mess, Captain. The trucks are packed and we are ready to go,”