Freedom Express (44 page)

Jones tried to quiet the crowd, but each time he held up his hands, the tumult only grew louder. Finally, after twenty minutes of cheering, flag waving and bursts of band music, the din began to subside enough for the general to start speaking into the microphone set up on the platform.

"My fellow Americans," he began, "today we're honoring an amazing band of patriots."

With a sweep of his hand, he indicated Hunter and the other key figures in the
Freedom Express
adventure who were standing on the platform behind him.

"Because of their heroism," Jones continued, "their willingness to risk their lives for a cause they believe in, they have opened a path of freedom through the heartland of this country."

This brought more cheers.

"Don't get me wrong, ladies and gentlemen," Jones said when it was settled down enough for him to speak again. "We still have much work to be done before our country will be completely safe again. But these men have taken the first, giant step toward taming our new frontier. They have served notice to all of our enemies out there, in the Badlands and elsewhere, that the American continent no longer will be held captive by the forces of terror, racism and oppression. . . ."

Jones' words stirred the crowd into a new frenzy, and it was several minutes before he could make himself heard again.

Finally he shouted, "And now, I want you to meet someone who you've all heard about ... a man whose feats of bravery and skill have inspired all those who have served with him in countless battles over the past few years ... a man who stands for the very best in America's past, present and future. . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, Major Hawk Hunter!"

As Hunter reluctantly stepped forward to take Jones' place at the microphone, the entire city of Los Angeles seemed to explode with cheers. It was another ten minutes before this latest tribute died down and Hunter was able to address the crowd.

"I don't have that much to add to what General Jones already has said so eloquently," Hunter began. "Only that I was just one of many people who made this mission a success. And we just want you to know how much we appreciate this tremendous welcome today.

As the general indicated, our work is far from over. But with your support, we will continue the struggle to overcome the enemies of liberty . . . and one day, in the not too distant future, Americans once again will stand proudly as the greatest monument to the freedom of the human spirit this world has ever seen."

Just then a voice up close to the stage yelled, "Would you do it again?"

Hunter managed to force his face into a smile.

"Not in a million years," he replied.

Two days later, a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter set down briefly onto the virtually deserted mesa top that had been Duke Devillian's headquarters.

"Jesus Christ, will you guys listen to reason?" Studs Mallox pleaded with the members of the chopper crew and Michael Crossbow in particular. "If you leave me up here, I'll die.

There's no way for me to get off."

"Sorry, Studs," Crossbow told him as he literally kicked the man out of the chopper's cargo bay. "You're lucky you're still alive."

On this point, even the Skinhead knew Crossbow was right.

He had survived the Ten Miles of Hell ordeal, curled up in the fetal position inside of one of the Freedom Express's weapons cars, whimpering and crying as the battle raged all around him.

Wounds to both his knees -caused by severe cowering-were treated by a Coaster doctor upon the train's arrival in LA. But the injuries were bad enough to prevent Studs from walking without the aid of crutches. This meant any activity that needed the use of his legs -like rock climbing -was totally out of the question.

"But what about our deal, you bastards!?" Mallox screamed at Crossbow as the CH-53 began to pull up and away. "You gave me your word that you'd let me go if I called my guys off."

"Tough luck, Studs," Crossbow yelled back to him over the roar of the chopper's blades. "Guess we're just a bunch of Indian givers."

With that the huge helicopter pulled up and away from the mesa. It immediately turned northeast, bound for Oklahoma Territory where Crossbow would have a long-awaited reunion with his tribe.

Mallox began crying again as the copter disappeared. He shakily looked around the deserted mesa top. It seemed like years-and not days-since he'd been snatched from its summit.

Now, as he hobbled over toward a set of the barracks, he wondered how long he could hold out on the fortress top. There had already been a shortage of food and water when he was kidnapped; he couldn't imagine much of these necessities being left behind when the majority of the Burning Cross troops moved out for the disastrous battle in the Grand Canyon.

He heard the first voice just as he was about twenty-five feet away from the camouflaged barracks. At first, he was heartened at the sound; if there were still people on top of the mesa, then perhaps they would help him escape. But as he entered the barracks his last hope for life quickly evaporated.

There were five men gathered around a table at the far end of the small billet. The moment they looked up at him, he could tell they were all insane. Their eyes were glistening madly, but this was not what petrified him so. Nor was it the blood that covered their mouths and fingers. No -it was the quick glimpse of what lay on the table in front of the five crazed individuals that convinced Studs that he was going to the real hell by a particularly painful route.

The food must have run out damn quick
, was the Skinhead's last thought in life as the five men approached him, fully revealing the half-eaten human body on the table before them.

At about the same moment, one thousand miles to the east, a man named Frank Derrick looked up from tilling his small farm's tomato garden and spotted a strange speck of light in the sky that looked like it was heading right toward him.

Because Derrick lived in the rough and tumble woods of West Virginia, his rifle was always close by. Now, he instinctively reached for the carbine, still startled at the sight of the light that was rapidly descending toward his cornfield no more than fifty feet away.

"Ma! Get out here, quick!" he yelled to his wife. "And bring your gun, too!"

By the time the woman named Emerald Derrick appeared on the front porch of the farm house, the speck of light had come in close enough for her and her husband to see that it was a jet.

But not like one they'd ever seen before. This jet was

coming straight down, landing like a helicopter right next to their cornfield.

"What is it, Pa?" Emerald yelled, loading her own rifle.

But her husband could not answer; she saw that two streams of tears were pouring down his face.

"My God," the man was saying as he tentatively stepped toward the strange hovering jet fighter. "Could it be?"

His wife soon realized that he was looking at the person in the back seat of the plane's cockpit who was waving madly at the both of them.

Was it really her? Emerald dared to think.

Instantly, they both dropped their guns and were running toward the airplane just as it was setting down.

Through the wind and dust and exhaust the plane had kicked up, they could see that a miracle had just happened. Waving and crying from the airplane's back seat was their long lost daughter, Diamond, whom they had given up for dead after she'd been snatched by a band of raiding white slavers four years before.

The girl leapt out of the airplane, jumped down off the wing and was instantly crushed in the warm embrace of her parents.

"Oh, God," her mother was crying and laughing at the same time. "An angel has brought you back to us."

Even two hours later, after a quick meal of greens and

cornmeal, Diamond's parents couldn't believe that their daughter was home again safe, never mind that she had been delivered by none other than the famous Hawk Hunter.

Now, as Hunter and the young girl walked back out to his Harrier, it was her turn to cry.

"Please don't go . . ." she weeped softly, hanging on tight to Hunter's arm. "Can't you stay, just for a while?"

"No, I have to go," he replied sadly, placing his fingers gently on the girl's lips. "You've meant a lot to me, Diamond.

You helped me through the toughest time of my life. But my fight is just beginning again. I have to find my airplane, and then I have to find . . ."

He was surprised to hear his words trail off; he just

couldn't tell Diamond that he was dedicating as much time as it took to finding Dominique. He knew that this meant -in its own selfish way-that he cared very deeply for the young girl.

He opened his mouth to say something –anything but still, he could not speak. So he simply kissed her on the lips one last time, then climbed into the Harrier and took off without another word.

Rising above the small farm, he throttled the jumpjet

forward and roared off toward Washington, DC.

Sitting in her office on the banks of the Potomac River, Doctor Jocelyn Leylah was transfixed by what she was watching on her TV.

Footage of the Grand Canyon battle had just reached TV

stations on the East Coast, and now, like their fellow citizens on the West Coast, millions of people east of the Mississippi were reacting in patriotic awe as they watched the valiant
Freedom Express
battle its way through the Burning Cross's seemingly invincible Ten Miles of Hell.

The news was full of exploits of Hawk Hunter, and Leylah could hardly wait to see him again. The TV report said that the Wingman was heading for Washington to address the newly formed House of Representatives on the recent action against the Burning Cross, and she intended to get a hold of him as soon as he landed.

They had many things to talk about, not the least of which would be whether he had ever fulfilled her subliminal learning experiment or not. To find out she would have to put him in a trance, of course, and undo the hypnotic suggestion that would have prevented him from remembering anything about listening to the subliminal-learning tape cassette.

Still keeping an eye on the TV, she stood up, made a drink and then retrieved the burgeoning file on Hunter from her briefcase. She couldn't help but laugh when she re-read the last entry she had made on his dossier during their romantic weekend about a month before. It was at that time that she'd selected the especially appropriate tape recording that Hunter promised to listen to -and then forget-as part of the experiment. If her theory was correct, it would take only a few seconds to release Hunter from her hypnotic amnestic suggestion.

Then-and
only
then -should he begin to remember everything he'd learned from the tape recording of the famous book that had guided warriors for five centuries called
Goo Dai Ban Dzein
Dzuan
-or, in the Cantonese Chinese translation
The Ancient Book
of the Great Sword
.

When the huge Sky Crane helicopter finally set down in the midst of the Alberta wilderness, it was quickly surrounded by a small army of heavily armed, parka-clad women.

Juanita Juarez emerged from the aircraft first, her senses dulled from the long seven-day, stop-and-start journey north as well as from the biting cold.

Still, she was astonished at what she saw.

In a wide, open field nearby sat the partially wrecked hulk of a C-141 Starlifter, the cold Canadian winds just now peeling the name
Candlestick One
off the nose of its fuselage. Hidden throughout the woods nearby were lines of weapons-SAMs, artillery, howitzers, rocket-launchers-an arsenal that made Devillian's mesatop fortress defenses pale in comparison.

But the subject of her greatest fascination sat high on a mountaintop nearby. Through the fog and clouds she could just barely see the outline of what looked like a great castle, a few twinkling lights sparkling away like jewels orbiting the fairy-tale structure.

"So it is all true," Juanita whispered.

The pilot stepped out of the helicopter and was immediately led away by a squad of guards-all males, but acting under the orders of a female officer who was definitely in charge.

As this was happening, a snow tractor pulled up to the

chopper's doorway, and a woman in flowing white fur stepped out.

"And who are you?" the woman asked Juanita.

"A friend," the Mexican beauty responded. "I had heard only rumors about this place. I never really dreamed that it actually existed."

"It does," the attractive woman in the fur replied. "But we cannot allow just anyone to come here. Or to stay here."

Juanita had already made an intuitive connection with the woman in white; immediately she knew that she was being told that no interlopers would be allowed to leave this place alive.

"But I can help you," Juanita said, a tinge of desperation in her voice.

"The women who whispered to me about this place said that you and your sisters have vowed revenge on the men who run the United American Government. Is that true?"

The woman in white nodded slowly. "Partially . . ." she said.

"Then I
can
help you," Juanita quickly continued. "I know many things about them. Things that can help you."