Thunder in the East (5 page)

"Not to me, sir," the major replied, reaching over to open the door to the Viceroy's quarters for him.

Before entering, Viceroy Dick whispered to the major: "Get a squad of your guys up here right now. If you hear any trouble, get your asses in there and protect me. Comprende?"

The major nodded. "Yes, sir," he said quietly, "May I suggest I order two squads . . ." He immediately turned to the phone in order to call up the first floor security office.

Viceroy Dick took a deep breath and strolled into his living quarters. Two Russian officers were waiting for him in the office section of the suite. Both were dressed in a Soviet style uniform that was not familiar to the Viceroy.

It was all black-leather, with red epaulets. Their two bodyguards, both lieutenants wearing similar outfits, waited off in a corner, then Uzis in plain sight.

"Gentlemen," Dick said, walking in and sitting down behind his desk. "It's an early hour for you to be calling."

"We have been here for three hours," one officer, 53

a completely bald man of 50 or so told him.

"I was taking care of business," Dick replied. "Down in my recreation room.

You two should have come down there, taken care of some business too . . ."

"Screwing little girls is not what we consider 'business,'" the other officer, a young, taller man with blond-red hair told him. Just like his companion, he spoke excellent English.

"OK, let's cut the bullshit," the Viceroy said. "What do you guys want?"

"Our superiors at the Ministry of State Security have asked us to travel here to review your defenses," the bald one said. "We understand that the enemy forces waiting nearby have increased their size substantially . . ."

"And they'll keep on waiting," the Viceroy said. "You guys must know the gig: I've got ten thousand of their prisoners and I have made it quite clear to them that those POWs will be history if they attack."

"And you view this as a successful strategy?" the younger man asked. "Even though the Westerners carry on at least two air strikes a day against you?"

The Viceroy shrugged and smiled. "It's called Tactical Defense. And it's working perfectly. I'm still here, aren't I? Football City is still under Circle control. They're harassing me, that's all. What's the beef?"

"The T>eef is that the Valuables' have not been moved as yet," the hairless one said. "This is correct, is it not?"

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"The bridges are still down," Dick said quickly. "We're working like crazy on them, and when they're ready to handle substantial loads, we move the stuff.

What's your hurry?"

Both Soviet officers were suddenly angry.

"You are talking about materials that the Ministry regards as critical to the continued success of our operations in America," the young officer said sternly. "A lot of tune and effort went into gathering these valuables and I suggest that you concern yourself more with their welfare. Should the Westerners attack, there'd be no way to move the materials in tune."

Viceroy Dick hated the Soviets, even though, technically, they were his bosses. But he wasn't going to let them push him around.

"Look, boys," he said. "The situation is under control here. I'm sitting on top of ten thousand of their guys and the Westerners know better than to try and pop me. Look at it this way: I'm tying up thousands of their guys, without firing a shot. We could hold this status quo for years."

"They are gathering their forces, waiting until they have the clear advantage, then they will surely attack you," the bald officer told him sternly.

"Well, that ain't going to happen anytime soon," Viceroy Dick shot right back.

"If you guys are so concerned, why don't you throw me a couple diversions? I'm short-handed as it is and you should be grateful I'm keeping these cowboys at bay."

The Soviet officers both looked stung, as if Viceroy Dick's mention of reinforcements had hit a raw nerve.

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"You know we are reorganizing," the bald one said finally. "No reinforcements can be spared for you."

Viceroy Dick just smiled. "Then why the hell are you here bothering me?" he asked. "The bridges are being built. Your precious stuff will be moved as soon as possible. What else do you want me to do?"

It was a rhetorical question to which he hadn't expected an answer. But he got one nevertheless . . .

"We want you to start executing the prisoners," the bald Soviet told him.

"Immediately . . ."

Viceroy Dick was taken aback. "Execute them?" he asked incredulously. "What the hell for? That would be giving up my advantage . . ."

"No!" the younger man shouted. "Because when you start killing them, you will send a message to the Westerners telling them the executions will continue unless they start to withdraw ..."

"Withdraw?" Dick said with angry astonishment. "They ain't going to withdraw"

"Ah, probably not. . ." Baldy said. "But when you start the executions, they definitely wont attack you either. This way, you turn your threat into action."

"That's nuts," Viceroy Dick said loudly. "I'm working with a fine balance here. If I start knocking off their POWs, they're going to come in here in a minute . . ."

"We don't think it will happen that way," the young officer said. "And besides, you don't have a choice in the matter."

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Both men stood up and came very close to the desk. At the same time, the two Soviet bodyguards walked five steps closer to them.

"Now start those executions immediately," the bald officer said. "And not in twos and threes. This is psych warfare-we want to send the enemy a message."

Viceroy Dick was disgusted. He didn't need this after such a long, draining night of partying.

"Just how big a message do you want to send them?" he asked, his voice laced with sarcasm.

'Tour hundred prisoners a night," the young officer said. "Every night ..."

"And, if you fail to make just one quota, we'll be back," the bald officer concluded. "And we'll do it ourselves."

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Another day had passed. Another day that Yaz busted his ass digging in The Hole.

But then that night, after the guards secured the large wooden door to the cave and left, Yaz waited until those around him were asleep. Then he crawled over to the spot where the shimmy pipe was hidden. Moving the clump of root camouflage, he crawled through, and was soon inside the pump house again.

Waiting for him on the other side were Elvis and a man named Ace. His talent was explosives.

Elvis pulled out a small map.

"Tonight starts another phase of the overall plan," he told Yaz. "We think it's time for The Circle to know they've got some infiltrators inside the city. Also Hawk is working a particularly delicate mission tonight. So we have to make some noise to cover him."

He indicated two stars on the map, one of them in the center of the city; the other down at the edge of the river, near the docks. Then he pointed at the four

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boxes lying at Ace's feet.

"These are radioactivated high explosives," Elvis explained. "For tonight, we'll call them HE-one, HE-two, HE-three and HE-four.

"The plan is to plant two bombs at each target. Set the first one off, wait for some Circle chumps to show up, then detonate the second bomb. We have uniforms waiting for us at the jump off point and a line on every manhole cover in the areas that we can use in case we have to get the hell away. OK?"

Yaz nodded as coolly as possible. He knew that Hunter's allies were as adroit in taking the battle to the enemy on the ground as they were in the seat of an airplane. But as for himself, he was just a Navy boy from the country. He wasn't sure how he'd measure up as an urban guerrilla.

Elvis sensed his apprehension right away. "Don't worry Yaz," he said.

"Tonight, just watch and take notes. We'll do the heavy lifting . . ."

With that, the three of them set out into the catacombs and toward a specified manhole cover near the center of the city.

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Hunter was sweating by the time he had climbed to the top of the Southwestern Bell building. His all-black, camouflage flight suit was made of wool, necessary for where he was going, but a hindrance before he got there.

The Southwestern Bell building was the tallest structure in all of Football City-41 floors and a flat roof, which was just what he needed. Best of all, because its main electrical system had been damaged in the war against the Family, it was unoccupied by Circle troops.

Just as he had done nearly every night for the past five weeks, he had walked up the 41 stories, negotiating the dark fire emergency stairways with a penlight taped to the rim of his baseball cap. Reaching the top and going out onto the flat roof, he took several welcome gulps of air, then looked out on the lights of Football City.

"There's nowhere like this in the world," he 60

thought.

St. Louis was transformed into Football City by a good friend of his, a man appropriately named, Louie St. Louie. Actually a Texan, St. Louie turned the postwar city into a midwest mega-Las Vegas. Just about every building in the downtown area was converted into either a casino, a nightclub or a whorehouse.

In the center of the city, St. Louie had built an enormous 500,000 seat football stadium, where two teams of 500 continually-substituted players would play in a 24-hour-a-day 365-days-a-year football match. Hence, the city's rechristened name/ People could bet on this marathon football match in any increment-by the quarter or up to the whole year.

It was a bold, crazy idea that was just what post-World War III America needed. Just because the Soviets had blasted the center section of the country with a fierce barrage of ICBMs and forced the US into a peace treaty that called for the breaking up of the states into a mish-mash of separate countries, kingdoms and Free Territories, didn't mean that money-or gambling-had gone out of fashion. Hundreds of millions of dollars of gold and silver ran through Football City in its heyday and it attracted both the rich and the poor from all over the continent and all over the world.

Unfortunately, the criminals in New Chicago tried to put the squeeze on St.

Louie, an action that led up to the devastating war against the Family. St.

Louie had hired Hunter to help protect the city, which he did, but only at the expense of directing a massive B-52 raid which decimated the Family Army but which also laid waste to a full third of St. Louie's dream in the process.

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That bombed out area, up near the Football City Stadium, was now a dark and eerie flatland. The center of activity in the city these days was across town, near the old Union Station area of the city. When St. Louie reclaimed his city from the Family, he had rebuilt about a third of the casinos, only to be forced out again by The Circle War. In the months that the city was in the hands of The Circle, its administrators had kept the hundred or so gambling houses open, along with a couple dozen nightclubs and the 10 or so whorehouses. Although at the dangerous edge of the Circle's unstable western border, the city was still a major R&R spot for Circle troops and their allies. It was not uncommon to see Soviet officers breezing through the casinos or walking into one of the cathouses. The same held true for Cubans, Sidra-Benghazi Libyans, South Afrikaners, Chileans, Vietnamese, North Koreans-all the flotsam of the New Order world. The Circle's version of Football City provided a whole new meaning for the word decadent.

But Hunter didn't climb to the top of the building just for the view.

It was actually a treacherous rendezvous spot, and his ultra-sensitive ears were just picking up the sound he had been waiting for.

Chopper blades. Coming from the west. Very high, but very quiet.

He strapped his M-16 crosswise around his shoulder and folded his cap into his back pocket. Off in the distance and way up high, he saw the faintest of lights. It was blinking one-two-one. That was the : signal-the chopper was ready for the pick-up.

j

It was a CH-53E Super Stallion which had had its turbojet engine muffled to the point of near silence.

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;

Still, the helicopter-known as the Mean Machine among the Western Forces-had to fly in such a way as to evade the Circle's rudimentary, but still potent early warning radar system. That's why the aircraft was bristling with radar-deflecting electronic gadgets and wearing three coats of radar-absorbing Stealth paint.

It also had a winch-driven hoist basket with no less than a mile of thin, light-weight but super-strength lift cord.

Hunter could now hear the muffled sounds of the chopper drawing closer. He squinted his eyes and* concentrated on the night sky to his west. Within a minute he saw the luminous orange spot, still a few miles away but drawing near. The orange dot was the bottom of the hoist basket.

"Bring it steady this time," Hunter whispered as if to send a message to the chopper pilot. The last two times he had done this, the basket was bobbing and weaving so much, it took several flybys before he actually had time to jump in.

The orange dot grew larger now, moving slow and steady. "OK," he thought.

"Looks good . . ."

He climbed up on the roofs thin 41-story high ledge and steadied himself against the IS knot wind. "Nice and slow..." he whispered. "Keep it steady. .

."

The orange dot was now only about a quarter mile away and heading right for him. A few seconds later he could see the basket itself.

"Right on the money, guys," he said. "Keep it on line."

The basket was looming up on him very quickly now, its line stretching a full mile practically straight up. He knew from experience that the trick of the 63

mile-long pickup was to leap right into the basket as it flew by.

He went into his crouch when the basket was just 100 feet away. It was moving a little faster than he'd like, but the angle was good. SO feet. 25. 20 ...

"I must be nuts doing this," he thought as the basket was suddenly right in front of him.

He took a deep breath and leaped . . .