Thunder in the East (3 page)

"Hurry it up," the major told him. "The colonel 30

has to be in the Viceroy's chamber in exactly one hour."

The pilot went into the control center and disappeared into the photo-developing darkroom. Meanwhile, the major climbed the stairs up to his colonel's office, gulping at the thought that he had to deliver more bad news.

The freelance photo-recon plane had just overflown the Western Forces positions that surrounded the city on three sides. In previous flights of this, the only recon airplane available to the Circle troops, its cameras had photographed as many as 10 divisions of enemy troops, apparently preparing for an all-out attack on the city.

"Almost two hundred thousand troops" the major grumbled to himself. "How the hell were they able to raise that many men?"

It was a question that had been nagging him-and everyone else near the top

.of the Circle command. It seemed that every time the RF-4 came back from a photo recon run, its film contained more and more evidence that the Western Forces were growing stronger by the day.

"More bad news, I'm afraid," the major told his superior-a colonel named Muss.

"The pilot said the Westerners have increased their troop strength."

"Jesus Christ!" Muss said, standing up to consult the map of Missouri which hung on his office wall. "Where the hell are they getting the men?"

"They've got to be hiring mercenaries?" the major offered.

"Mercenaries, be damned!" Muss shouted. "There isn't a division of honest mercenaries

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around these parts that they could recruit, never mind fifty thousand of them."

"Free Canadians, maybe," the major said.

"Maybe," Muss replied. "But the Canucks know full well what would happen to them if they intervened in large numbers. They know our Soviet allies would nuke their asses if they came down in a big way."

The major shrugged. "That's if the Russians have any workable ICBMs left," he said.

Muss gave the man a cold look. "I'd avoid that kind of talk, Major," he told him.

Muss was getting nervous himself though. The Westerners had been steadily backing the Circle into a corner while at the same time building up their strength. Every day it got worse. The problem was, it was up to Muss to tell all this to the Viceroy.

And he was not a man who liked to receive bad news. . .

Viceroy Richard St. Laurant was better known, though not to his face, as

"Viceroy Dick." He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Circle Troops in Football City and, in effect, governor of the city. He was of undetermined European origin, and installed by the Soviets just after the battle at the Platte River. Once again, the Soviets had picked an unusual puppet. The Viceroy was neurotic, quirky, possibly even psychotic. He had a propensity for cocaine, young girls and on-the-spot public executions of friends and foes alike. He carried on with such a regal life-that he had been known to ride the streets of Football City wearing a king's robe

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and a small gold crown and partake of the city's still burgeoning night life, followed around by an entourage of teenage girls and tough, South Afrikaner bodyguards.

Several minutes later the recon pilot came into the room, holding a half dozen still-wet photographs.

"Quick, let's see them," Muss said.

The pilot laid out the photos on the colonel's desk. Right away, Muss felt his mouth go dry.

"These vehicles you see here are elements of an armored division," the pilot said. "It moved in just overnight. I count forty-five tanks and APCs. About three dozen support trucks, and a lot of ground troops. I figure about seventy-five hundred guys in all."

"Damn . . ." Muss said under his breath.

"Saw a lot of antiaircraft capability in place too," the pilot went on, leafing through the photographs. "Look right here. They've moved in some SA-twos and some SA-sixes."

"They must have got them in the Badlands," the major said. "Left over from the Soviet Expeditionary Force."

The major was referring to the massive Soviet infiltration that had led up to The Circle War. Over the course of many months, the Russians had placed a wall of surface-to-air missile batteries along the western edge of the Badlands, effectively ending the cross-country airborne convoys which had been the only linking factor between the east

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and west coasts of the continent.

"If they got mobile SAM batteries, then they're really getting serious," Muss said. "They must know we've got all of eighteen airplanes here . . ."

"And I figure they've got at least ten squadrons in the immediate area," the RF-4 pilot said. "That's not counting what the Texas Air Force looks like these days."

Muss studied each photo once again. Each one of them was worse than the one before. Encampments of Western Forces infantrymen, Football City troops, Free Canadians, along with those of the Texas Army. Convoys of fuel and provision trucks. Ammo dumps. Helicopters. Surface-to-surface rockets. And now tanks and APCs . . .

"When will the movie film be ready?" Muss asked the pilot as he gathered up the still photos.

"Give it another hour," the pilot replied. "But 111 tell you, it ain't pretty."

"Just get it developed as soon as possible," Muss barked at him. "And get ready to go up again late this afternoon."

With that, Muss quickly put on his uniform jacket and cap and left.

The major waited until Muss was out of earshot before he asked the next question.

"Any sign of, you know, an F-16 out there?" the officer asked, nearly choking with anticipation.

"You mean The Wingman?" the pilot asked.

The major hastily shook his head. "Do you think he's out there somewhere?" he asked nervously.

The recon pilot laughed. "Let me tell you some-34

thing, Major," he said. "If he was out there, I wouldn't be here, talking to you. I'd be scattered on a hillside somewhere, pieces of a Sidewinder sticking out of my ass . . ."

A look of relief came over the major. At least they didn't have Hawk Hunter to worry about. Maybe the rumors that he had died over in the Middle East were true.

"But while we're on the subject, can we settle up now?" the pilot asked the major. "You guys owe me for three runs and with those SAMs showing up, it's going to be dangerous from now on."

The officer shook his head. "This afternoon," he said. "We'll pay you then."

The pilot shrugged, left the office and went back down to the photo darkroom.

After locking the door behind him, the pilot carefully took the room's wastebasket and poured a small amount of developing fluid into it. Then he took the four rolls of film he'd retrieved from his cameras that day, put them in the basket, and added another chemical, this one an industrial acid agent.

The developing fluid and the acid quickly ignited and, in a smokeless flash, destroyed the never-exposed film.

After he washed the very little residue left over down the sink, he opened his lead-lined box and took out the previously exposed rolls of film, the ones he had doctored weeks ago to make it look like a massive army was waiting just over the hill. The RF-4 pilot was one of the very few people in the city who knew that the Westerners' force was much smaller than what the Circle thought it was.

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It was a chess game, the pilot thought. The Westerners kept The Circle off-balance with the intentionally misleading recon photos, daily air strikes and soon, other diversions, while the Circle kept the Westerners at bay by threatening to massacre the POWs they were holding.

"No one has made a move in a while," the pilot, an undercover agent named Captain "Crunch" O'Malley, thought aloud. "That can only mean something will blow sky high soon . . ."

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Yaz wrapped himself up in his dirty blanket and tried to sleep.

It was cold, dark and damp in the vast underground cavern, The Circle guards having locked up the POWs for the night inside the dimly-lit chamber several hours before. Using the Hole as a prison was one of the few things that made some sense-by shutting the POWs up like animals, there was no need to waste Circle manpower watching over them at night.

Yaz had retreated to his own corner of cave, preferring to sleep alone, thereby assuring himself that he wouldn't wake up next to a corpse in the morning. But there were disturbing thoughts spinning around in his head that were preventing him from dropping off to sleep: The pilot named Elvis, the load of inner tubes and the big W in the dirt. What the hell was the connection?

Suddenly, someone kicked his feet. He opened his eyes but found it hard to adjust them in the dim light

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of the cave.

"Is your name 'Yaz?'" the person standing over him asked in an urgent whisper.

"Yeah," Yaz answered, trying to get a good look at the man. "Who wants to know?"

Just then, the man lit a cigarette lighter and only for a second. But it was long enough for Yaz to recognize the man's face.

It was the guy named Elvis . . .

It had never occurred to Yaz-or anyone else in his immediate chain gang-to actually go wandering around in the darkened Hole after it was sealed off.

Where would one go if they did? The large door at the cavern's entrance was the only means of getting in and out.

At least, Yaz had assumed it was the only way . . .

He was wrong. Ten minutes after being roused by Elvis, he was shimmying through a narrow pipe that had been dug into an isolated corner off to the side of the cavern. It led into an even larger underground chamber, that looked like it had once been used as a pumping station of some kind. It was lined with concrete and one wall was covered with dials and switches, that were pre-World War II. The other three walls were adorned with maps of the city when it was still called St. Louis.

A group of twelve men, rifles in plain sight, were off in one corner, going over some more maps. The room also contained several big boxes of ammunition, cans of food, bottled water and a radio. It was apparent that Elvis and the other men had been living in the chamber for at least several weeks.

"It's a good thing you didn't recognize me right away today," Elvis told him after they were both inside the chamber. "The other trusty is not in on ...

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all this." He spread his arms out to show the chamber.

"Well, the last time I saw you I was out on my feet with a stomach full of Suez Canal water." Yaz said, quickly telling him about his ill-fated flight from Casablanca, his capture by the Cubans and his subsequent sale to the slave market.

"Now, what the hell are you doing here?" Yaz asked him. "You're certainly not prisoners. Yet I saw you up top today ..."

"Well, I'm a prisoner of design only," Elvis told him. But there's a lot to explain. And frankly, I'm not the one who can do that. So let me make a phone

/ call..."

A phone call?

Elvis walked over to the chamber's control panel and sure enough produced an old rotary-style telephone from a desk drawer. He plugged it in and carefully dialed a seven-digit number.

He waited a few moments, then said: "Hello? Is he there?"

He motioned for Yaz to take the phone. He did, and then he heard the voice on the other end say: "Hey Yaz, this is Hawk."

Yaz had to take a few moments for it to sink in. "Hawk?" he finally said. "You got to be kidding me, how the hell are you?"

"Still seasick," came the reply. "Sorry to hear that you're toting the ball and chain . . . How'd it happen?"

For the second time in five minutes, Yaz told the story of how he came to be digging ditches underneath Football City. He wasn't totally surprised to be talking to the famous pilot-the letter that Elvis had scratched into the dirt earlier that day could only have meant one thing: W for Wingman.

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"I'm not surprised that you're mixed up in this," Yaz told him. "What happened to you after Suez? And where the hell are you anyway? This has got to be the only working telephone in the country . . ."

"It would take too long to go into the first question right now," Hunter answered. "And I can't tell you where I am right now. But I will explain the situation to you, and then I hope you'll be able to help us. Interested?"

"Of course I am," Yaz said. "Being a slave gets tiresome very quickly."

"OK," Hunter replied. "Here it is in a nutshell:

"We're working inside the city in preparation for an invasion by the good guys, the Western Forces."

Yaz felt a jolt of excitement run through him. "You mean we're busting out?"

he asked.

"Eventually," Hunter told him. "But we've got some problems. We have reason to believe that once the invasion begins, The Circle might decide to do something drastic to all the POWs."

"How drastic?" Yaz asked with a gulp.

"Well, let's put it this way," Hunter said. "We're working on a plan that will give everyone a chance to escape before our guys start the attack. And that means all of the POWs, including the wounded ones, and also the few hundred civilians that are left within the city."

Yaz knew right away that was an enormous task-even for someone like Hunter.

"How the hell are you going to do that?" Yaz asked him.

"I'll let Elvis explain the details and give you a tour," Hunter replied. "Let me just tell you that we've discovered a vast network of tunnels under the city. They are actually caves-catacombs-left over from 40

the booze-running days of the 1930s. The gangsters used to move a lot of gin through St. Louis. They did it underground. The catacombs are all over the place, and they all lead right down to the river. We're trying to find out which ones are near the POW camps so we can provide an escape route for everyone on the inside."

"Jesus, how did you guys even get down here?" Yaz asked.

"Again, it's a long story," Hunter replied. "But believe me, it wasn't easy.

By the time I got back on this side of the Atlantic, the Western Forces were /

already laying siege to the city. We knew there would be a heavy loss of life among the civvies but also among the POWs. So we used some radar imaging high flights over the city because we had heard rumors about the catacombs. Well, we found them. Then it was a question of getting our people into the city where they could pose as prisoners during the day..."