Wingman (31 page)

Hunter spent the next two days at The Aerodrome going over the plan with the assault force and the next two nights, enjoying the erotic delights of Aki and Mio. They could feel a distance in him this time, though. His mind was a million miles away. Thinking about the mission. Fitzgerald noticed it too. The night before the assault team was to pull out, he split a bottle of bourbon with his friend.

"It's a dangerous one," the Irishman told him. "Are you sure about using minimum air support?"

Hunter nodded. "Can't muck it up with jets this time, Fitz. We got to go in, hit them, get what we went for and get the hell out of there. The Cobra Brothers will keep them busy while we're in and help us shoot our way out."

Hunter produced a map and read it over for the thousandth time. "The Cobra Brothers will take off tomorrow at dawn," he told Fitz, reviewing his scheme one last time.

"They'll arrange the refueling stop in Quebec. Then they'll meet us here." He pointed to a small speck of land off the, coast of what used to be the state of Maine.

"Then," he said, "We'll all head out for the final destination and hope we find a full house when we get there." Fitzgerald looked at the map and where Hunter's finger was pointing and then poured them both a drink.

"To success," Fitz said, lifting his glass to toast.

"I'll give your regards to the Mid-Aks," Hunter tapping the point on the map labeled: BOSTON.

"I'm lucky in two respects," he told Fitzgerald. "First of all, St. Louie has spies everywhere. Damn good ones too. Without good intelligence, we'd be flying by the seat of our pants.

"Second, I have one hell of a strike force. Jesus Christ, they're good, Mike!"

"Yer just lucky," Fitz said. "Makes me with I could go with you."

"You could do me a big favor by staying here," Hunter told him earnestly.

"Will it be good or bad for my business, now?"

"I won’t answer that," Hunter laughed. "What I need is someone to feed the intelligence I get from St. Louis to me while I'm out there. He has guys right in the city for Christ's sake, watching the 'Aks every move. I need that edge."

"Consider it done, Hawker," Fitz said. "I can still play 'neutral' and slip a radio message to you now and then."

"I knew I could count on you, buddy," Hunter said, draining his drink. "Well, time to go."

"Good luck, Hawker, my friend," Fitzgerald told him, clamping Hunter's hand with both of his.

"Thanks, Mike," Hunter said. "I'll see you when I get back."

Thirty-six hours later, Hunter was watching the sun rise out of the Atlantic Ocean, and start its climb across the sky. He looked around at the bivouac. It was a smoky collection of tents and sleeping bags, two campfires, a cauldron of hot, morning stew on one, a pot of boiling coffee on the other.

They were on an island just a stone's throw off the southern coast of the old state of Maine. Hunter knew the place from his childhood. It was well-forested and difficult to see from the air. There were fields large enough to handle the three choppers on the mission. It was barely more than an hour flying time to Boston. Here they would review the plan one last time. Here he would begin his war against the Mid-Aks in earnest.

Even though the Mid-Aks now controlled the Northeast Economic Zone, the invaders had been wise enough to leave the Down Mainers alone for the time being. The typical Mid-Ak arrogance didn't jell at all with the Mainers, who, on their best days were only downright ornery. The Mainers didn't blink when the coup went down in Boston. They just kept fishing and farming and cutting wood. The wood was turned into lumber and the lumber would be transported down to Boston in helicopters, and it would stay that way just as long as someone was on the other end to buy it. Boston politics was about the last thing to concern the people in Maine.

So he knew the assault force would be safe to hole up on the deserted island, and to use the place to launch the attack. There were 25 assault troops-each one part of Dozer's Battalion, all veterans of the New York City days and many battles since-the Cobra Brothers, the Stallion crew of six, Dozer and himself. He was proud of them; proud to be serving with them. In one short month, they had squeezed in more training than a Green Beret would get in a year. Good teamwork usually was the most important factor of any military operation, and this bunch, he had to admit, knew about teamwork.

He hadn't slept the night before. Didn't need it. He spent the night spelling the guards and rechecking the weapons systems in the Sea Stallion. The last intelligence report he had received, sent by St. Louie, coded and forwarded to the Quebec fueling system by the "neutral" Fitzgerald, said that the captured ZAP pilots were still being held in the Government Building. The report also confirmed the prisoners were jailed on the floors near the top of the building and that the security on the building's top-floor helipad, was light.

He called the whole team together and briefed them once again. The Stallion would lift off first, exactly at noon, and, disguised as a lumber chopper, would fly right into the heart of the city. There, feigning engine problems if need be, it would wait, with the Strike Force hidden inside, until sunset when the Cobra Brothers would arrive and start their diversionary tactics.

Hunter had confidence in his plan. Surprise would be his major advantage, but he also knew that the Mid-Aks had rudimentary radar around the city, at best. And bad radar meant bad SAM capability. He was sure the diversionary action would catch someone's attention. The plan called for one of the Cobras to sneak into the' harbor at wave-top height, and put two rockets into the side of a liquid natural gas holding tank near a docking facility that St. Louie's agents had pinpointed. The target was perfect.

Not only were there no civilians around for miles, but the Mid-Aks had foolishly set up an army ammunition dump close by. If the Cobra made it-and its trip required a rather perilous journey into the harbor and up the Mystic River, Boston's main water flow that emptied into the ocean-a third of the city along with the Mid-Ak ammo dump would go up in smoke.

Hunter ordered the Stallion loaded up and soon the big chopper was lifting off from the island base. The Cobra Brothers waved as it ascended and turned south, toward the occupied Mid-Ak capital. He checked each detail of the plan once again with Dozer and the assault force's five officers, only then was he completely satisfied everyone was ready.

It didn't take a long convoluted explanation to the Troopers as to why they were going to fight a thousand miles away from home. They knew what was at stake. Simply their way of life. Twenty-five had accompanied him on the rescue mission, but all 900

of Dozer's men had volunteered. When it came to fighting for freedom, one usually never had to look far for recruits.

The Stallion cruised down the rocky coast of the former state of Massachusetts, pasting over many abandoned cities along the way. The true sinister nature of the Mid-Aks hit home as Hunter looked out of the chopper's window at the near-desolate landscape of Boston's North Shore. Even after the war, the area had been alive, vital, working for the good of the Northeast Economic Zone. Now, it was practically deserted. The 'Aks had made good on their promise to evacuate the populace from all the coastal cities near Boston, except for those unlucky souls who were slave laborers. The invaders'

mentality dictated that all the coastal ports should be militarized to handle the seaborne trade. What they didn't count on-call it arrogance, call it stupidity-was that most civilized people were loathe to trade with the Middle Atlantic occupying force.

It was like dealing with the devil. The Northeast Economic Zone was now the Northeast Depression Zone. Business was bad for the Mid-Aks and it showed.

Hunter could feel the slow burn again rise up within him as he looked at the empty cities below. The Mid-Aks can't even make a dictatorship work! Their problem was that they weren't geared toward holding and occupying territory. Their threat was based on military strength, with little or no regard for consolidating their gains, or for taking advantage of the spoils of war, no matter how ill-gotten they were. Even Genghis Khan secured and kept alive the trade routes he conquered. The Mid-Aks didn't. They were in it simply for the blood-lust of war.

That's why Hunter planned to give them a dose of their own medicine . . .

The helicopter flew right by the once bustling, now almost abandoned Logan

Airport, without so much as a call from the field's control tower. The Mid-Aks' lack of security was laughable. They passed right over SAM sites which appeared not to even be manned. Several jet fighters sat sleeping on the runway. The wreckage of a crashed airliner decorated one end of a landing strip-wreckage no one had bothered to clear away.

They approached the skyline of downtown Boston, then made a turn to the north.

Below was a deserted shopping mall, its merchandise long ago stolen by the conquerors, its buildings reduced to burnt-out shells. Even its huge parking lot was cratered. But the Stallion pilots found a level space big enough to put the chopper down.

It was a clear late spring day, but no birds sang and the trees were blossoming only reluctantly. Even Nature hated the Mid-Aks, so it seemed. The once-colorful,
profitable
city was now covered in a dull, prevailing gray. It gave more than a few of the strike force the shivers, although it wasn't a cold day.

The Troopers sat quietly inside the helicopter, each man going over the part he'd play once the mission got underway. Hunter sat in the cockpit with the pilots, simultaneously checking the time, the weather and the area around the shopping mall.

As far as they could tell, there was no one around to see them land.

Suddenly, a Mid-Ak armored personnel carrier appeared in the little-used avenue next to the parking lot. It was speeding along as if on a routine patrol, when it slowed and then turned in their direction. There was a sharp, instantaneous crack as every trooper flicked the safeties off their guns all at once. No one spoke. Hunter used his hands to urge caution and calm, then pointed at two of the Troopers who were given extra duties just in case this eventually rose. The two Marines, named Russ and Stitch, were natives of Maine. They looked like it, acted like it and, most important of all, spoke like it. Hunter had arranged for these two only to be dressed in typical down Mainer fashion-lumberjack boots, heavy jeans, plaid hunting shirts, baseball caps. They would serve as the first dodge for getting rid of the Mid-Aks. Should they fail, the Stallion's three GE Gatling guns would be sighted on the APC, a split-second push of the button away from spitting out deadly shells at the rate of 600 per second. A two second blast would evaporate the Mid-Ak vehicle and crew, but would also cause ,a commotion. Hunter knew the best tactic would be to talk their way out of it.

Russ and Stitch climbed out of the chopper, tool cases in hand, and pretended to head for the craft's tail section. They faked surprise when the APC pulled up.

Six Mid-Aks leaped out of the back. Another, this one an officer, appeared in the access hatch of the tank-like vehicle.

"What's going down here?" the officer said, as the Ak troops unshouldered their rifles and aimed them at Russ and Stitch.

"Chopper broke down," Russ said in a flawless Down Mainer accent. "Got to fix it."

"Why are you here?" the officer asked. "This is a restricted zone. You hillbillies could have been shot down by one of our SAM crews."

That's a laugh, thought Hunter as he watched the scene from the corner of one of the Stallion's smoked windows.

"Chopper broke down," Stitch chimed in, mimicking to the letter Russ's accent.

"Didn't have no choice where to land her."

"Well, looking at that piece of shit, it's a wonder you made it down here at all,"

the officer said, eyeing the seemingly bruised and battered flying beast. "Do you have your ID papers?"

"Papers?" Russ said, innocently. "Ain't got no papers. Don't need 'em at home."

"You goddamn lumber jockeys," the officer laughed. "When you gonna get civilized?

Everyone needs ID papers to live in this region." He turned to his troops and said:

"Search the helicopter."

Hunter bristled. He put his hand up, indicating to the gunner sitting at the Gatling guns* computer controls to stand by. "Don't screw it up boys," he whispered.

"Suit yourself," Stitch said, calmly stepping aside. "Nothing inside . . ."

"We'll see about that," the officer said.

". . . Except the barrels of pig grease," Russ said finishing his companion's sentence.

"Pig grease?" the officer asked, momentarily stopping his climb out of the vehicle.

"Innards," Stitch said. "Traded our lumber for twelve barrels. Strong stuff.

Figure the smell might have clogged up the engine."

He and Russ broke into a perfectly spontaneous two second laugh, then returned the dour expressions to their faces. The officer turned slightly pale. These guys should get an Academy Award, Hunter thought.

The Mid-Aks troops looked to their leader for guidance. Search twelve barrels containing bloody pig muscle, marrow and intestines? Even the Mid-Ak officer couldn't order his men to do that.

"If there were some slaves around," the officer said, settling back down into his position, "I'd sure as shit have them search that craft."

He sniffed the air. "Christ! I can smell it already," he said, putting his hand up to his nose.