Thunder in the East (7 page)

They reached the water's edge within an hour. Their second target was a major pier facility called the Mound City Boat Docks which was just north of two of the reconstructed bridge spans.

Using the darkness as cover, they stole along the river bank until they reached the southern end of the dockworks. There were no Circle guards in evidence. Ace quickly attached the first bomb to the underside of a pier which supported an oil holding tank, then the three scrambled away behind a river jetty.

"Blow it whenever you're ready," Elvis told Ace.

But just as the man was about to push the detonator button, they heard a noise coming from the bridge nearest to them. Yaz looked up to see first one, then two, then a half dozen Circle Army troop trucks pull to a stop right in the middle of the bridge.

"Christ, are those the same trucks we saw downtown?" Elvis asked, trying to focus on the trucks that had stopped beneath the dim lights of the bottom span of the bridge about a quarter mile away.

There were 16 of them, the same as the downtown convoy, and groups of men were riding in their open backs.

"It's them," Yaz said. "I'm sure of it . . ."

"But what the hell are they bring POWs up to that bridge in the middle of the night," Ace asked. "It's certainly not to work . . ."

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They watched as Circle troops herded the POWs out of the back of the first truck and up against the railing. Suddenly, one of the POWs fell-or was pushed-off the bridge, falling head first into the river. It was obvious the man's hands and feet were tied.

"What the fuck is going on?" Elvis said.

Then another prisoner fell. Then another and another.

"Jesus, they're killing them!" Yaz cried out.

"I can't believe it," Elvis said. Yet as they watched helplessly, the prisoners were being pushed off the bridge, one right after another. It was execution. Those men who somehow survived the long plunge would drown immediately.

"Goddamn, we've got to do something . . ." Yaz said.

Elvis spun around and started shaking Ace. "Blow that fucking thing . . .

now!"

Ace hit the detonator button-and immediately the pier went up in a loud, fiery roar.

The sudden explosion startled the Circle soldiers on the bridge and the executions were halted. Then Elvis retrieved his .45 automatic from the gunny sack and started firing away wildly in the general direction of the bridge.

The momentarily stunned Circle troops started returning the fire almost immediately.

"Look, they're backing the trucks off!" Yaz yelled out as they ducked away from the hail of bullets.

"The blast distracted them," Elvis said, pumping off another three shots. "And they'll be firing down here for a while. Maybe they'll call off the executions if they think some saboteurs are running around.

"The important thing is that we get back and tell Hunter about this ..."

Ace immediately ran to the pier next to the one

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already engulfed in flame, set up his second explosive device, then scrambled back to the jetty. Without hesitation, he detonated the second bomb, which blew a large section of the pier some 50 feet into the night sky.

The explosion intensified the Circle fusillade coming at them from the bridge.

"OK, let's get the hell out of here!" Elvis told them.

Yaz and Ace needed no prodding. They ran south, right under the bridge where the Circle soldiers were firing from.

Turning back once to look at the two major fires they had caused, Yaz saw by the fire's reflection on the water, about a dozen shapes floating down the river.

They were the prisoners, all bound hand and foot and all floating face down in the dirty water.

None of them were moving . . .

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The RF-4 Phantom roared off the bumpy runway and streaked into the early morning sky.

Captain "Crunch" O'Malley banked the jet to the west and climbed to a comfortable 12,500 feet. He passed over University City, over Olivette, then Maryland Heights. Ten minutes later he was no longer over Circle-held territory.

"This is Romeo-Diana-Zebra," O'Malley called into a preset UHF radio frequency. "Come in, Umpire . . ."

His radio crackled once, then he heard a familiar voice. "This is Umpire, Crunch," came the reply. "Had breakfast yet?"

"That's a negative, General," O'Malley called back. "I've got time for some flaps and a cup of joe . . ."

"See you in the mess tent in fifteen minutes . . ." the voice on the other end, that of General Dave Jones, told him.

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O'Malley put the RF-4 into a tight turn, overflying a line of SAMs and several troop bivouacs. He lowered his landing gear and came in for a smooth landing on a long stretch of highway just 30 miles outside of Football City.

A ground service crew appeared out of the woods nearby and quickly directed O'Malley into a camouflaged aircraft shelter.

Twelve minutes later, O'Malley was sitting in the camp's mess tent with General Jones.

"What's the news in Circle-land today?" Jones asked him.

"The base was buzzing about the explosions during the night," O'Malley told him. "All of our guys get out OK?"

"Yes, as far as we know," Jones said. "They got a private officers' club and two piers according to the preliminary report."

"Well, it really shook up the people downtown," O'Malley said. "Air raids they can deal with. But putting bombs under their barstools makes them nervous.

They're already spreading the word that the explosions were accidents . . ."

"That's the sure sign of success when they start covering up," Jones said.

"What other kinds of bullshit stories are they dishing out?"

O'Malley washed down a mouthful of pancakes with a gulp of coffee. "Well, the lead mechanic who services my rig says he heard that a cocaine processing lab was in the back of the private club and that a tank of ether blew up."

"A clever cover story," Jones said, shaking his head in admiration. "Very feasible . . ." "Well, he did say he heard rumors that saboteurs blew up the dock works," O'Malley added quickly. "Hard to cover up the fact that two major loading piers simply went blooey"

"Well, I hope he decides to spread that rumor," Jones said, taking a gulp of his own coffee.

"I'm sure our message was delivered," O'Malley said, lighting an after meal butt. "Between this and our recon misinformation campaign, the Circle will soon be getting very jittery."

"They're still buying our phony photos . . ." Jones shook his head in amazement. "I really thought they'd be smarter than that."

"Me, too," O'Malley confessed. "But for them, the proof is in those photos.

They are convinced we're sitting here with almost two hundred thousand troops and plenty of equipment. They have no choice but to believe it. They have no other means of surveillance. And God forbid that they should get an original idea and send out a long range patrol..."

"Like any other commander charged with defense of his city would do," Jones said. "They certainly aren't acting like an army that's preparing for an all-out attack."

"Their military guys are worried," O'Malley said. "But old Viceroy Dick acts like he's on vacation. He thinks that just as long as he's holding our POWs, he's sitting pretty."

Jones shook his head once again. "And you know something?" he said. "The bastard is right."

O'Malley finished his meal and he and Jones were met by one of the Western Forces' photo experts. The man handed the pilot two rolls of still picture film and two rolls of movie film.

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"What do we show them today?" O'Malley asked.

"More tanks, more SAMs," the photo man said. "We've got a bunch of old Sunoco trucks in there, too, to give the impression that we're bringing our fuel up to the front."

O'Malley had to smile at the simple brilliance of the deception. The Western Forces had a similar RF-4 Phantom recon jet-it, too, was converted for this operation from O'Malley's small Ace Wrecking Company fleet. The Westerners would load up their jet with film and fly it over any number of military staging sites-both active and abandoned-from Missouri back through the Badlands all the way back to the west coast. Whenever the topography was correct, they'd start the cameras whirring. This footage would then be mixed in with actual pictures of the Westerners' strength near Football City, thus creating an impression of a huge army, when less than two-thirds that number was actually in place.

"How much longer do you think they're going to fall for this?" Jones asked O'Malley. "I mean they're dumb, but we don't want to overplay our hand."

O'Malley thought for a moment. "I say give it one more session after this one," he said. "Then I'll just quit. I'll tell them I don't want to be around when the shooting starts."

Just then, Ben Wa and Toomey appeared. They'd been up almost all night flying the mapping mission with Hunter and were just now getting down to their morning chow.

"How's the boy doing?" O'Malley asked them.

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"Behaving himself?"

Both Wa and Toomey knew right away who O'Malley was talking about.

"Once again, the famous Wingman had us freezing our twinks off last night,"

Toomey said. "But he got what he wanted and even more."

"More of what?" Jones asked them.

"We got it in our written report, sir," Wa said. "But in a nutshell, we picked up a very weird image on the radar last night."

He went on to quickly explain to Jones and O'Malley about the underground storage facility containing what were apparently boxcars of some kind.

"It's down near the river," Toomey said. "Hawk" is going to try to get down there tonight to check it out."

Jones's face became creased with worry. "God, if it's ammunition, that means The Circle and their allies are stronger than -we thought."

O'Malley shook his head. "I'd be real surprised if it was an ammo dump," he said. "These guys are too nervous for someone sitting on top of all that firepower."

"Whatever it is, I hope our boy can get in there tonight," Jones said.

Wa and Toomey went on to chow. Jones and O'Malley walked back out to the RF-4.

O'Malley shook his head in admiration. "I really got to feel for Hunter," he said. "At least Elvis and the others are fairly secure underground in the catacombs. But Hawk . . ."

"He insisted that this was the way he wanted to play it," Jones said. "You know how he is. Some-83

times he works best when he's left alone. If he feels that he has to stay topside at all times to keep a constant track of the situation, then I'm not going to argue with him."

"I think he's just antsy," O'Malley said, retrieving his helmet and climbing back into his airplane's cockpit. He routinely checked the extra photo equipment which had been loaded in the now-empty rear seat of the RF-4.

"That's what happens when someone loses their rig . . ."

The pilot was referring to the fact that Hunter's beloved F-16-the only fighter of that type known to exist-had been all but destroyed in the hours following the great Suez battle. The remains of the airplane were eventually airlifted back to America and were presently at a former General Dynamics plant near Dallas in the Texas Republic. There, some GD engineers were trying to determine whether or not the famous airplane was a complete loss.

"You're probably right," Jones said. "He misses that airplane. He also misses his lady friend. He misses the way things used to be. Plus just about everyone on the continent thinks he's dead. You never think of a guy like that as being lonely or even bummed-out. But he's definitely in a funk. I think he still feels guilty for leaving us so long to go after Viktor."

"Well, I'd be surprised it was affecting his work habits," O'Malley said. "I know from experience that he can turn these things around. He works harder. .

."

"That's for sure," Jones confirmed. "Somehow he manages to keep in steady contact with us and

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with Elvis and the others, and he's single-handedly exploring every possible escape route for when D-Day comes, plus he's doing the laser-siting work, along with a whole bunch of other things.

"As to where he is living in that city, or how he is disguising himself-who knows?"

"He's probably holed up in some cellar somewhere, living with the rats,"

O'Malley said. "You know, doing penance for taking off on his Club Med adventure."

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Hunter woke up to the feeling of someone massaging his back.

"The shoulders, please," he said, still groggy.

The topless woman began concentrating her efforts on the bruised area near his upper left shoulder.

"How did that happen?" she asked, whispering in his ear.

He turned over and finally opened his eyes. She was beautiful . . .

"Occupational hazard," he told her.

Another very attractive woman, also topless, walked into the massive bedroom suite, carrying a tray of hot bread and coffee.

"You came in pretty late last night," the second woman told him. "Running with those bitches downtown again?"

Instantly the girl massaging his shoulder stopped. "Were you down in the cathouses again?" she asked him sternly.

Hunter pulled himself up, and fashioned a 86

backrest of a half dozen silk pillows. "C'mon now, ladies, be nice," he told them, smiling. "Why would I have to go to a cathouse, when I have you two lovely girls right here?"

"What a bullshit artist," the girl with the food said.

Their names were Kara (the massager) and Jackie (the cook). He had met them several weeks before at one of the Football City nightclubs where he had gone on a surveillance mission. They were out of Las Vegas, which was now practically abandoned, where they had been "working girls" before the Big War.

It was natural that they would wind up in Football City during its heyday.

Somehow they survived the war against the Family and the Circle Army occupation.

They had taken him in to their luxurious penthouse right on the edge of the downtown section, and into their bed, which they shared anyway. The reminded him of Uni and Aki, his two housemates back at his base in Oregon. Like those two girls, Kara and Jackie were smart, beautiful, warm, giving, into being erotic and, when the mood struck them, imaginatively bi-sexual.