Freedom Express (19 page)

Drews himself was at one of the SAM sites when the Phantoms turned and came back over the town. His men got off a solid first shot with their Stinger missile; it exploded just off the wing of the first high-speed, zigzagging jet, causing damage to its tail section.

Still, the F-4 pressed on, dumping two canisters of napalm on the small row of buildings next to the rail station. A sudden explosion of flame engulfed the structures with terrifying proficiency. Another F-4 roared in, two black teardrops of jellied gasoline falling from its wings. These hit the Town Hall and church, immediately enveloping them in a blossom of deadly orange fire.

A second pair of Phantoms appeared. Two SAMs were

immediately launched, both of which hit the lead F-4 head-on.

The instantly crippled airplane never wavered from its course however; it continued over the town, dropped its payload then smashed into a row of houses next to the tracks.

The destroyed F-4's wingman flew low over the fort itself, then dropped what appeared to be a large iron bomb on the tracks beyond it. The bomb exploded with such violence the entire town shuddered as if it had been hit by an earthquake. The UA soldiers watched in horror as a mini-mushroom cloud rose from the site-the trademark of an authentic, and very rare, blockbuster bomb.

At the same moment, the third pair of Phantoms streaked over, and they too unleashed heavy bombs, not on the town or the fort, but on the tracks to the east.

"Goddamn it"
Drews whispered as he tried to interpret the enemy pilot's odd strategy. "What the hell are they doing?"

Nearly half of Eagle Rock was burning when Hunter roared onto the scene.

Without a moment's hesitation, he sent a Sidewinder missile streaking into the ass end of a nearby Phantom, causing an explosion that destroyed both the enemy airplane as well as the one behind it. At the same moment, the troops on the ground downed an F-4 just as it was dropping its payload on the already devastated trackbed.

That left but two Phantoms, both of which had already

dropped their bombs. As one, they turned and started to flee, when suddenly six
more
Phantoms appeared just over the horizon.

Sensing them before seeing them, Hunter quickly vectored the Harrier into a sudden hover, turned a tight 360 degrees, then shot off in the direction of the approaching F-4's.

Hunter took on the first two enemy planes, firing Sidewinders at both with uncanny accuracy. He immediately broke left as the now-flaming Phantoms streaked by before plunging to earth.

Another Phantom had overshot the pair of doomed F-4's and was dropping its massive blockbuster bomb farther down the tracks. As the Phantom completed its bombing run and started to climb, Hunter's Harrier suddenly appeared in its path. A missile from the jumpjet ripped into the belly of the F-4, tearing the aircraft apart.

As Hunter started to turn the Harrier back toward the town, he spotted a pair of Phantoms maneuvering directly behind him.

Two solid streams of cannon fire passed over his head as he instantly applied his vector thrusts to braking. The lead F-4

flashed over him a second later, the look of astonishment on the pilot's face clearly evident as the plane streaked by. One of Hunter's Sidewinders followed close behind, smashing into the F-4's hot exhaust and obliterating the plane in midair.

Hunter then put the Harrier into a dive, pulling it out of the line of fire from the trailing Phantom. Suddenly, there was a huge flash, and this F-4 too disappeared. Hunter swung around to see a friendly trail of smoke coming from one of Drews' SAM

crews.

By now, the surviving enemy planes had dropped their bombs and had retreated to the south. A half dozen had been shot down, but at least six others had made it to their target.

Now, Hunter overflew the section of track just east of Eagle Rock where the enemy pilots had dropped the blockbuster bombs.

Where a half-mile-long stretch of perfectly straight track once lay, now were five enormous craters, some of them more than a football field in width. Not even a few strands of twisted metal remained; everything in and around the craters had turned to dust. The well-aimed blockbusters had destroyed the trackbed and the nearby turnarounds beyond any hope of repair.

As he turned back toward the train, Hunter quickly surmised the reason why the enemy pilots had bombed the tracks in
back
of the
Freedom Express
and not in front of it. "Those bastards don't want us to turn back," he whispered bitterly.

Hunter and the others spent the rest of the afternoon

helping the survivors of Eagle Rock bury their dead. The
Freedom
Express
was somberly backed up into the town where its troops were deployed in recovery and burial details. Even Chief Bad River and his warriors joined in the task that was so grim, some of the Football City Rangers had to forcibly restrain the grieving families from entering the devastated areas where their loved ones had been killed.

Hunter felt horrible about the tragedy that had befallen the small town-everyone on the train did. No amount of

rationalizing could erase the fact that Eagle Rock probably wouldn't have been caught up in the terror bombing had the
Freedom Express
not been close by.

A brief memorial service was held at sunset, with an

Airborne trooper tearfully blowing taps. Then, leaving behind an additional battalion of troops to re-enforce the mini-fort, the train painfully slipped away into the night.

Once it had reached its former position ten miles west of the town, Catfish ordered the
Freedom Express
to halt once again.

It took about an hour to secure the train, and as soon as this was done, a gloomy meeting began in the Control car.

"We're fucking trapped" was how Fitz so succinctly put it.

"We can never return the way we came now, and the only alternate track routes are hundreds of miles west of here."

No one argued his point; those were the facts. With one swift blow, Devillian had once again changed the equation. With their all-important route of escape now cut off, most around the table figured there were only two realistic options left: They could fight their way to a track turn-off located just inside of Arizona, then travel north to the border of Colorado and
then
retreat to the east. Or, they could abandon the train where it sat and hope Jones could muster up enough transport -preferably large troop-carrying helicopters - to lift out all of those on board.

Either way, it would be like admitting defeat.

Catfish left to radio Jones and brief him on their

situation. As he was going out, Chief Bad River was ushered in.

"We fight the common enemy," the Piute leader proclaimed.

"And my men are good warriors. Some of them will stay with you.

If you are attacked, they will fight to the death."

The weary United Americans were grateful for the help,

knowing however that it would do little in altering their grim predicament.

"And how about you, Bad River?" asked Crossbow. "Where will you be?" "I will take the rest of my men and ride into the mountains," the chief said. "You will not see us ... but we will be there if you need us. And we will let you know when danger is near."

Fitz gave Bad River a customized walkie-talkie that would allow the chief to communicate with the train. Then, leaving twenty-five of his braves behind, the chief took the rest of his men and disappeared into the nearby mountains.

At 0500 the next morning, Jones ordered that the
Freedom
Express
be abandoned. His message, sent via scrambled telex, didn't carry any weighty discussion as to why he'd decided as he did. After the massive attack on Eagle Rock, no lengthy explanation was needed.

It was Catfish who volunteered to deliver the bad news to Hunter. Although his friend wasn't due to report to duty until 0600, the train commander knew Hunter would want to hear of Jones' decision immediately.

Pausing outside Hunter's quarters, Catfish placed his ear against the cabin door. He figured the pilot was either asleep or possibly "involved" with Diamond. Either way, Catfish knew he'd probably be disturbing him.

So it was with mild surprise that he opened the cabin door to find Hunter lying awake on his bunk, his face clearly showing the past few days of worry. Catfish slowly entered the room, trying not to stare too long at the beautiful Diamond, who was still asleep and quite naked on the bunk next to the door.

"Sorry, Hawk, am I bugging you?" Catfish asked.

"No, Cat," Hunter said, looking up at him only for a moment.

"I'm just trying to think of something that can get us out of this mess - "

"Hawk," Catfish interrupted, "it's over."

"What do you mean?" Hunter asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

Catfish took a deep breath. "Jones just killed the operation," he said finally. "We're to abandon the train here and walk back to Eagle Rock. He's sending every available chopper unit to carry us out, figures it'll take about two, maybe three days."

Hunter stared up at Catfish, an extremely painful look in his eyes. "No," he said in an urgent whisper. "We can't turn back now."

"We have to," Catfish said. "Jones is sure that Devillian's troops are all over the hills of Arizona. Some of them are even as far east as the track turn-off. They're just waiting for us, Hawk. We'd be fools to walk into such a situation."

"But we can't let this bastard win," Hunter replied. "If we turn tail now, we might just as well hand him all of the Bads on a silver platter."

"He just about owns it anyway," Catfish said somberly.

"Look - you know if it were up to me, damn, I'd keep on going

'til we couldn't go anymore. That's how much I believe in this.

But Jones is looking at it from another perspective. Ultimately he's the guy responsible for every person on this train. He simply doesn't want to see us all get killed."

"But what about the train itself?" Hunter said, tossing away the notebook in which he'd been scribbling ideas. "We just can't leave it here, with all these weapons. Devillian will have it stripped down in a matter of days."

Catfish nodded somberly. "I know," he said. "And that's the most painful part of all."

That night, Hunter fell into a fitful, nightmare-ridden sleep.

His dreams were filled with the burning faces of the people of Eagle Rock being napalmed as their small brass band played on. Hundreds of the distinctive-colored Burning Cross F-4's filled the sky, and despite his best efforts, he could not shoot down a single one. Every time he fired a Sidewinder, it would dematerialize into vapor long before reaching its target.

Anytime he pulled the trigger for his Aden nose gun, streams of blood would come out instead of cannon shells. Even the Harrier was beyond his control in the nightmare. When he wanted to go forward, he would invariably wind up going backward. When he wanted to go up, he would go down and vice versa. Finally, he wound up completely upside down and streaking straight up, giving him a terrifying, diminishing view of the small town being eaten up by flames, all to the bleats of an out-of-tune tuba.

He shook himself out of the disturbing dream and got up to throw cold water on his face. Sleeping peacefully on a bunk in the opposite corner of his quarters was Diamond. He was tempted to crawl in bed with her; maybe that would ease the dread left over by the dream.

But in the next instant he knew it would only be a brief respite, and Band-Aid approaches would do him no good now.

Instead he lay on top of his bunk and simply tried to think

- about the
Freedom Express
and the current grave situation; about the fate of the country; about his own complicated life.

But try as he might, he could not prevent the other voice from creeping into his stream of thought. Once again, he did not recognize it; it was like someone trying to communicate with him from some great beyond, and the words were being broken up by some kind of cosmic interference.

At first he tried to fight off the strange sensation, but ultimately found it impossible. Finally, after all his fighting, he gave in. He cleared his mind of all its usual defenses and let the message come to him.

Difficult missions should be prepared for while they are
still easy; do great things while they are still small
.

Hunter felt a shudder run through him from head to toe. This time the voice sounded so close -so real -that he opened his eyes thinking someone had crept up beside him and had whispered in his ear. But no one was there.

Where the enemy is prepared, avoid him; strike at his
weakest point
.

Again, Hunter was chilled to the spine. He could hear the voice so clearly, he imagined he felt a hot breath beside his ear.

When appropriate, make them chase you; go slow when it
bothers them
.

Once again, Hunter began to question his sanity. For a third time he opened his eyes, convinced that he would find someone standing next to him.

But no one was there. The voice -so loud, so clear-had come from deep within.

The all-black Boeing 707 leveled off at forty thousand feet and turned due north, half of its dozen F-4 Phantom escorts leading the way, the other half trailing close behind.