Freedom Express (3 page)

"As the train goes across the country, we drop off one or two of these special cars at strategic locations. Each one would have a contingent of soldiers on board. We can create instant settlements mini-forts. By the time the train reaches the West Coast, we've left behind a trail of forts that can serve as the foundation for the eventual resettlement of the Badlands."

"
And
fight these guys who attacked the first train?" Jones asked.

"Sure," Hunter replied. "Why not? In fact, there's a good chance that when they see what we're doing, they might just think twice about getting buddy-buddy with their slimeball pals and disappear."

"This is quite the flamboyant plan, even for you, Hawker," said Fitzgerald in his thick Irish brogue. "But I like it. The only thing is that unlike many of our operations, don't you think it will be difficult to keep this one under wraps?"

"Why should we have to?" Toomey replied. "At some point, the publicity could actually help us. I'm sure the lawful people out there will appreciate our coming. God, it might give them a chance to feel like they're Americans again."

There was a chorus of agreement from those gathered.

"However, I think we should try like hell to keep it quiet at first," Hunter cautioned. "The fewer people who know we are putting this thing together, the better. We'd be dumb to let our enemies out there get ready for us. But it will be a hard story to keep quiet once we actually roll into the Bads. And at that point, I agree, the publicity will probably work in our favor." He turned to Jones. "Well, General? What do you think?"

Jones pondered it all for a few moments, then spoke. "It will take a lot of planning," he said. "A lot of coordination and a hell of a lot of money. But I like it, too. I think it's the right time.

Let's just hope we can pull it off."

Santa Fe, New Mexico Free Territory

At the same time the inner circle of the United Americans was gathering in Washington, another more sinister meeting was taking place halfway across the continent.

In a dingy bar on the outskirts of the city of Santa Fe, two men leaned over their mugs of beer. Sitting a discreet distance away were no less than thirty bodyguards - fifteen for each man-on hand to ward off the myriad of dangers floating around the lawless southwestern city these days.

Once a thriving tourist and cultural center, Santa Fe was now a hotbed of drug smugglers, gunrunners and illicit sex a suitable capital for the wild and wooly New Mexico Free Territory. Technically, the Free Territory was a protectorate of the Republic of Texas.

Realistically, it was the underbelly of the southwest Badlands. And just like their staunch United American allies, the government of Texas had its hands full just securing and patrolling its own borders; they had neither the manpower nor the logistics at present to stamp out moral crimes like drugs and prostitution in places like Santa Fe.

That would all come later.

But the two men sucking down the warm Texas beer weren't talking about cocaine or teenage hookers.

"Your guys really pulled it off," said a stocky, red-haired, cross-eyed Texan named Duke. "I'll have to admit, I didn't think you could do it."

The second man was lean, blond and spoke with a German accent.

"It was hardly a challenge," he replied arrogantly. "Those fools on the train had no idea what was happening until it was too late."

"What did you do with them?" the red-haired man asked. "Are there any bodies to be found?"

"What difference does that make?" the second man replied, a twisted smirk crossing his face. "The job has been done."

The Texan rolled his oddly-spaced eyes in glee. "I would have loved to have been in LA with my camera to see that empty train roll in," he said. "From what I hear, it barrelassed right through the fucking town." He laughed a little too wildly, and then suggested a toast. "Congratulations, my friend," Duke said to the blond man with the crooked smile. "You and your men will be a most welcome addition to our cause." Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of four teenage girls, all chained at the waist, who were brought through the cordon of bodyguards by a squad of black-uniformed soldiers.

"And what is this?" the German man asked.

"A thank-you present," Duke replied. "For a job well done." The German carefully inspected each of the quartet of manacled girls.

"Interested?" Duke asked him.

"Why not?" the man replied, breaking into another rare, if nervously twisted smile. "We can talk business another time. . . ."

Chapter 3
.

Two weeks later

The AV-8BE Harrier jet streaked across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, heading out over the gray Atlantic.

Hawk Hunter was bathed in the rush of exhilaration that always came over him whenever he was at the controls of an aircraft hurdling across the sky. During the last couple of weeks, as he and the United Americans' brain trust shaped their plans for the cross-country train mission, he had done just about everything else but fly, and he had missed it terribly, both physically and mentally. For Hunter, climbing back into a cockpit after even a brief absence was a lot like being reunited with a passionate lover. It was a stirring experience.

He rolled the AV-8BE northward and started up the coastline. He had always enjoyed flying Harriers. Of course, they didn't have the power and range of his usual craft, the F-16. Few airplanes did. But the Harrier had one distinct advantage over his beloved F-16, and that made it the perfect companion for his next mission.

The Harrier was a VTOL jumpjet-a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. It could take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, without the need for a runway. Not only that, but it could come to abrupt halts in flight at any altitude and at any speed and simply hover in midair. It could even move backward.

Its ability to come to sudden stops was certainly a major advantage during dogfights with faster, but less mobile, aircraft.

The attacker almost always became the attackee once the Harrier pilot

"slammed on the brakes." But it was the vertical takeoff and landing feature that caused Hunter to select the Harrier jet for his next mission.

Now dubbed "Project Freedom Express" by the United Americans'

inner circle, Hunter's assignment in the impending adventure was to act as the advance scout for the modern-day wagon train. Flying on ahead of the train's progress every day, he would check out the upcoming terrain, the condition of the track and whatever else might be lurking around the next bend.

His F-16 would still have fit the bill nicely except for two problems: There would be few landing strips along the Amtrak southern tier route that the train would follow, and even he would be hard-pressed to land an F-16 on top of a boxcar.

But a Harrier jet could practically set down on a dime.

Hunter had spent many hours during the past week designing and building a special flatbed "landing deck" railroad car. On the drawing board, its fold-down metal planks would provide more than twice the room required to land the Harrier. But the extra space would be needed.

Dropping a jet out of the sky to land on a moving train wouldn't be easy. Most times the train would have to be stopped or at least moving very slowly when he set down, and even that would take all of Hunter's skill.

Once the special landing car was completed, Hunter turned his attention to finding and customizing a Harrier to meet his requirements. He had faced one dilemma: He didn't want to give up the myriad of computerized controls and special features built into the cockpit of his F-16. Yet the
Freedom Express
mission cried for the VTOL craft.

His eventual solution was rather simple: He decided to transfer the entire cockpit from his F-16 to the Harrier jumpjet.

He knew right off that this would require a Harrier with an unusually large cockpit. Fortunately, Hunter recalled seeing such a plane at Andrews Air Force Base several months before. He contacted a drinking buddy at Andrews and learned that the airplane was still there.

It was an old U.S. Marine AV-8BE, a two-seat, trainer version of the Harrier. The extra room in the enlarged cockpit would give Hunter the needed space to transfer the F-16's avionics, flight controls, and highly advanced weapons system controls into the jumpjet.

With JT's help, Hunter dismantled the F-16 cockpit and

reassembled it, component by component, inside the extrawide, extra-long Harrier compartment. Working nights and early mornings, the highly complex operation took just six days.

Now he was flight testing the hybrid airplane for the first time, and everything was working beautifully.

He put the airplane through a demanding series of rolls, flips, mid-air stops and starts, dips and dives, performing them all via his transplanted F-16 controls. It didn't take long for him to be convinced that the aircraft would respond to whatever situation he could possibly encounter in the skies over the southwest Badlands.

In addition to the special flying features, the Harrier was loaded for bear with weapons, including a pair of powerful Aden cannon pods and a slew of Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. He had to admit that the finished product was quite a piece of work a flying arsenal capable of unlimited aerial acrobatics.

After three hours of flying, Hunter was more than satisfied with the Harrier's performance. Turning back toward Andrews, he knew he was ready to tackle the Bads.

One week later
.

It was close to midnight when Hunter and Fitzgerald arrived at the Amtrak station in Washington, DC.

Having completed the final test out of the AV-8BE Harrier, the Wingman had flown into National Airport an hour before, anxious to see the progress Fitz and the others were making on their end of Project Freedom Express.

Now walking through the old train yard, he was so astonished at what he saw, he almost found it hard to speak.

Before him were two hundred armor-plated, gleaming silver railroad cars that had become the
Freedom Express
. "

I think you've created a monster!" Hunter was finally able to exclaim.

"I can only agree." Fitz smiled.

Quite simply, the train was a two-mile collection of rolling military might.

Its components had come together so quickly, even Fitzgerald felt he'd outdone himself. Calling in favors and working his multitude of contacts across the eastern half of the country, as well as up in Free Canada, Fitz and his procurement agents had bought or bartered for just about everything contained on the wish list compiled by the United Americans' planning team. The result was an astonishing assembly of weapons carriages, gun platforms, track-mobile missile launchers, radar cars, antiaircraft cars, supply cars, sleeping cars, oil tankers and rolling storage beds.

Fitz explained that the train was divided into two sections. For the most part, the front section contained the majority of weapons cars, and the rear carried the sleeping compartments and mini-forts.

In all, it stretched on for more than the length of thirty-five football fields.

Hunter tapped the side of one of the train's armored cars. Its metal skin looked thin, yet strong.

"Nice work," he said. "Who did this for you?"

"A guy I know who used to work for the Navy in the old days,"

Fitz replied. "He did research on protection systems for battleships.

This stuff looks pretty lightweight, but it's bulletproof and pretty damn near missile-proof. Each car will be outfitted with it before we leave."

"But can we really expect to move all this?" Hunter asked over and over as they walked in and out of the cars.

Fitz chuckled mischievously and then led his friend into a tunnel which hid the very front part of the train. It was dark and musty inside the shaft, but when the Irishman dramatically threw the tunnel's light switch, Hunter saw for the first time the muscle behind the
Freedom
Express
.

"Here's all we need," Fitz said proudly.

Before them were twelve powerful Dash-8 diesel locomotives, their red and black paint job still gleaming wet.

Transferred down from the old city of Erie earlier that day, each of the huge locomotives was a 16-cylinder, 4,000 horsepower colossus, a top-of-the-line model built by General Electric Company just before World War III. Miraculously, these engines had survived the war and were discovered by Fitz's advance men sitting in a railroad yard near GE's locomotive plant in Erie, far removed from the fighting that had defaced so much of the nation.

Fitz explained that the Dash-8's were the epitome of high-tech railroading. The first locomotives to be built with on-board computers, all aspects of each engine's operation was controlled by a collection of self-contained microprocessors located in the engineer's cabin. Once all twelve of the locomotives' computer systems were linked together, they would function as a kind of huge, electronic brain for the
Freedom Express
. The computers would drive the train, set the correct speed and control the amount of fuel used.

Plus, their on-board diagnostic systems would be able to locate any problems anywhere on the train itself, report them promptly to the supervising engineers' video readout screen, or in some cases, even remedy the situation without any human involvement at all.

Hunter and Fitzgerald knew that all of the people on board the train would have plenty to do during the trip, without worrying about running the train itself. With the Dash-8's, that operation would be as automated as possible.