The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath by T. I. Wade Read Free Book Online

leave the women alone.
    “Alberto, we must let them go. We can send them out in their underwear and boots and tell them they have 24 hours to get going. They should scamper north like cattle, and hopefully we never see them again.”
    “I think we should just shoot them all, or they will head to other bases and join forces,” replied Alberto.
    “Less than a thousand soldiers, already beaten in battle, will not be our problem in the future, Alberto,” added Manuel. “We have grown by thousands just in the last few days, and if we keep growing at this rate, we could have more men than the whole American army soon. That, my brother is not impossible! Where are their aircraft? Their fancy fighting Marines and Special Forces? Where are their parachutists? Everywhere in the world except where they need them: here. We saw more aircraft in Mexico, and shot all of them down! Alberto, just in case, we, the Calderón Cartel should not be accused of mass murder.”
    Slowly Alberto agreed. The prisoners had already been collected from the several bases where they had waved their white flags and were encamped at Lackland Air Force Base.
    Later that day and just before dusk, they stripped the soldiers of their uniforms and burned the lot. The prisoners, 848 men and the 69 women, who had suffered the brutality of the men, were driven out of the base like cattle, dressed in underwear, hats and boots, and told they would be hunted down, starting in 24 hours. The soldiers knew what that meant and, helping limping and injured soldiers, they hobbled off and scattered like leaves in the wind, much to the men’s laughter and merriment. He gave his men the rest of the day off and the next day to rest
    The next morning, May 14th, Manuel left San Antonio and headed towards Houston leaving 10,000 men with enough captured American MRE rations and food at Lackland to keep the base intact. The men had orders to empty the other bases of vital equipment and raze the bases to the ground. They had found a couple of dozen old military troop carriers, a dozen jeeps, and several artillery pieces which they took with them.
    Manuel also left his army with far more than they needed to defend themselves. He also had his men destroy the quantities of U.S. Air Force modern fighter jets, bombers, and dozens of useless modern attack helicopters on the airfields. Manuel’s men found a couple of 707 tankers at Randolph and blew them up. Fort Houston experienced the same treatment, except the weapons of destruction were furniture and gallons of aviation gasoline which was no good for Manuel’s transport, but excellent for setting the base on fire.
    Massive black clouds of smoke began erupting out of San Antonio, a couple of hours after they left the base. It would give notice to anybody who could see them that the invading army was not afraid of the Americans knowing that they were there.
    Radio communications between the Sanchez Cartel in Corpus Christi and Manuel was constantly relayed, and Manuel heard that they also had captured Corpus Christi. Carlos Sanchez had killed every one of the 300 American soldiers found there, loaded important food and gas supplies, and departed with part of the city burning.
    The Sanchez Cartel was to travel northeast and meet Manuel on I-10, halfway to Houston.
    * * *
     
    By this time General Patterson was landing at Edwards in California. It had taken him only six hours to get airborne out of Harbin, and over the aircraft’s radio he gave instructions to his men remaining in China. He had waited for the five C-130s to return; the 16 others were already loaded with the first rotor-less helicopters. The five C-130s from Misawa took less than two hours to load the last helicopter and 200 of the 600 cases of missiles in the other four aircraft.
    He refueled in Misawa, organized and checked on weather from Carlos’s satellite for the long and heavy flight into Elmendorf, and took off in a heavy rain storm from the south, knowing