Lucifer Crusade

by Maloney, Mack;

  “Big, sir,” the Spaniard kept saying. “Big. What we need.”

  Hunter followed him into the hold of the ship and flicked on the lights.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, stunned.

  Inside the hold were at least a hundred crates marked “SIDEWINDERS.”

  Chapter 22

  THE F-4 CIRCLED THE Gibraltar air base five times before finally coming for a landing. Although the base’s landing lights, radar dishes, and other equipment were operating, Crunch had gotten no response to his repeated attempts to radio the control tower.

  “I got a very bad feeling about this,” the pilot said as he rolled the airplane up to a hardstand. No ground personnel appeared to greet them, as would normally be the case at any airfield. “Did everyone take the day off?” he wondered.

  “I can’t believe they all went off on this crusade,” Elvis said.

  “Well, if they did,” Crunch said, looking around, “they left a lot of equipment on.”

  Suddenly Elvis called out, “Christ! What the hell are those things?” Crunch turned to see Elvis pointing at something directly over them. The pilot looked up and saw a dozen or more huge birds lazily circling the base.

  “Are they what I think they are?” Elvis asked.

  “Jesus, I’m afraid so,” Crunch said, slowly. “Goddamned vultures.”

  He rolled the ship around to the back of the hangar, and it was there they made a gruesome discovery. Not only were there several dozen bodies scattered about, there were also five or six dead vultures lying nearby.

  At once Crunch and Elvis were both glad that they hadn’t popped the F-4’s canopy and removed their oxygen masks.

  “These guys were gassed,” Crunch said. “We could probably find a SCUD missile casing around here somewhere if we looked hard enough. Painted with a big red star on its side, no doubt.”

  “The gas killed the people, then the poison in the people’s blood killed the vultures,” Elvis said.

  “That’s it,” Crunch replied, looking back up at the buzzards circling overhead. “And those guys up there are still trying to figure it out.”

  Crunch rolled the F-4 closer to the bodies. They looked like base help as opposed to RAF personnel. He was sure that other groups of bodies in twos and threes could be found around the base. But then Elvis pointed out something.

  “Captain, look at the bodies closest to us,” the Weapons Officer said. “Their pockets have been pulled out. Like they were searched or something.”

  “Either that,” Crunch said, “or they got some pretty smart vultures in this part of the world.”

  “Who the hell would want to go through the pockets of a bunch of stiffs like these?” Elvis asked. “Looters of some kind?”

  “Either that or whoever greased this place was looking to kill one person in particular,” Crunch observed.

  They were quiet for a moment, then Elvis asked, “Do you … do you think they were aiming to kill Hawk?”

  Crunch had been thinking the exact same thing. “It would be difficult to say,” he answered. “But there is a possibility that’s exactly what happened.

  “Remember, our boy has a billion-dollar price tag on his head. And I believe the Russians would gladly supply some wacko everything he needed to bump off our good buddy. Even SCUD missiles.

  “Or they’d probably take on the job themselves. I don’t think the New Order boys would mind turning over a billion dollars to the gang in Moscow.”

  “It’s probably their money to begin with,” Elvis said.

  Crunch fired up the engine and rolled the F-4 toward the runway.

  “I’ve seen enough,” he said to Elvis. “I think it’s time to call home and tell them what’s going on over here. Between some nutty crusade and the fact that every other weirdo in Europe is looking to bump him off, I think Mr. Hunter is going to need a little more help than just you and I can provide.”

  Chapter 23

  THEY WERE AT SEA for only an hour before they were met by two of the Norwegian frigates sailing off the northern end of Sardinia. The ship’s chopper was instantly used to evacuate Sir Neil back to the Saratoga, where two Italian doctors—members of the communications group—could attend to his serious wounds. Although Hunter and the Spanish rocketeers had been able to stem the bleeding from the Englishman’s wounds, Hunter knew the swaggering Brit would never be the same again.

  The loss of Sir Neil was tempered somewhat by the discovery of the load of weapons in the hold of the small Sardinian ship. Back on the Saratoga once again, Hunter met with Heath and Yaz and discussed the mother lode he had found.

  “Either they were hiding their most valuable weapons in that ship or they were just about to make a huge arms deal and we happened to hijack the delivery truck,” Hunter said as he battled his way through yet another plate of ill-prepared food. “Not only are there Sidewinders, but also Shrike antiship missiles and dozens of other weapons.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say they were doing a deal,” Yaz said. “Most likely with one of Lucifer’s allies. Probably to be used against us.”

  “If that’s the case, we were more than dumb lucky jumping on that freighter,” Heath said.

  “Right,” agreed Hunter. “Not only did we get more Sidewinders than we need, we kept them out of some unfriendly hands.”

  The Saratoga once again starting sailing to the east in earnest. They entered the Strait of Sicily the following evening—a night during which Hunter closely examined the cornucopia of weapons they’d found aboard the Sardinian ship. Hunter counted more than 150 Sidewinders in the cache, which were moved to the ammunition magazine aboard the carrier. There were also a number of antipersonnel bombs, small napalm rockets, and a few dozen Shrike antiradar missiles, as well as more standard iron bombs and high-explosive devices.

  Hunter immediately wired up six Sidewinders to his F-16, and began configuring the Harrier jump-jets to do the same. Of all the jets on the carrier, the Harriers could most easily adapt to the fighter-interceptor role.

  Hunter later took an hour off to visit the ailing Sir Neil. The Englishman was confined in the carrier’s version of intensive care, the two Italian doctors hovering over him. He was heavily bandaged from his waist to his head. Still, the Brit was conscious and typically plucky.

  “Hunter, old bean,” the man said when the pilot entered the room. “I hear our mission was a success in the end.”

  “I would have given it all back if we could have avoided this,” Hunter told him, examining his wounds.

  “Rubbish, Hunter!” Sir Neil replied, his weakened voice rising a notch. “We needed the weapons, man! We couldn’t very well sail into the Gates of Hell with a popgun now could we? And an unloaded popgun at that.”

  “But we need you, sir,” Hunter said. “You were the brains of this outfit.”

  “And what the hell makes you think I still can’t be!” the wounded officer said, nearly ripping his head bandage. “What do you intend on doing? Casting me adrift in the Med and going on without me?”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, sir,” the pilot said with a grin. “You’ll have to stay here and eat this rotten food with the rest of us.”

  Sir Neil managed a smile, then motioned Hunter to come close. Speaking in a voice low enough that his doctors couldn’t hear, he said: “Aye, Hunter, when you get a chance, please slip me a bit of the grape, wot? Just a small bottle would do. Some of Giuseppe’s good stuff. Just to get the blood flowing in the right direction?”

  At that moment, Hunter was certain Sir Neil would survive his wounds.

  The sun was just starting to break the eastern Med horizon when one of Yaz’s men started pounding on Hunter’s cabin door. He was sound asleep at the time, wrapped very comfortably in young Emma’s arms. But he was up and at the door in a second. He sensed that something was up.

  “Sorry, major,” the young sailor said, catching a peek at Emma’s naked breasts out of the corner of his eye. “But CIC reports a large flotilla of ships
heading our way.”

  “Jeezus,” Hunter cursed pulling on his flight suit and boots. “What kind of boats, any idea?”

  “Well, the blips on surface radar indicate that they’re fairly small,” the sailor said. “But there’s more than a hundred of them.”

  Hunter was up on the flight deck in a matter of minutes, glad to see that Yaz’s guys had his F-16 fired up and ready for launch.

  He met Heath just as he was climbing up the 16’s access ladder. The BBC film crew was nearby, recording everything.

  “They’re about twenty-five miles to the northeast,” Heath told Hunter. “Definitely coming right for us.”

  “What kind of small boats are floating around here these days?” Hunter asked him as he put on his flight helmet. “Do they make PT boats anymore?”

  “Could be anything, Hunter,” Heath told him. “Armed trawlers perhaps. Maybe converted minesweepers.”

  “Can you get the Harriers warmed up?” Hunter asked just before he closed his canopy. “If there are more than a hundred of these guys, I’m gonna need help.”

  With that, the F-16 roared off the carrier in a burst of steam, climbed, and streaked off toward the northeast.

  Hunter clicked on his “look-down” radar and located the fleet of ships immediately. He checked his cannon ammunition indicator. It showed all six of his M-61 Vulcans were full. His computers indicated that no sophisticated weapons were aboard the boats—yet he knew torpedos wouldn’t necessarily trip the computer’s sensors.

  He took a deep gulp of oxygen and put the 16 into a dive.

  He broke through a light cloud cover at about 5000 feet and found himself right on top of the flotilla. The fleet was spread out for almost two miles. He wasn’t surprised that the boats were all different shapes and sizes—trawlers, pleasure yachts, ocean ferries, even a few armed tugboats similar to O’Brien’s.

  Hunter was surprised however when he saw that most of them were flying white flags.

  He dropped down to 500 feet and slowed the jet down to a crawl, certain that there were no antiaircraft missiles ready to fire at him. He tipped the 16 to its portside to get a better look at the boats. They appeared to be crowded with armed men—irregulars, he theorized. No specific uniforms. And, far from appearing hostile, they were all waving and cheering as he flew by.

  He buzzed the fleet a few more times, noticing several of the boats were carrying radio antennas on their masts. On a chance the boats were carrying modern communications equipment, he searched both his VHF and UHF bands to try to pick up any signal. At the end of the UHF band, he started to pick something up.

  “ … Liberte Marina calling,” the heavily Italian accented voice called out through a burst of static. “We are compadres. Please do not attack. We are the Liberte Marina … ”

  Liberte Marina? Did that translate into Freedom Navy? If so, what the hell was the Freedom Navy?

  Two Harriers arrived on the scene a few minutes later, and luckily one of the pilots was conversant in Italian. As Hunter orbited above monitoring the radio conversations, the two Harriers hovered over the now-stopped flotilla, the pilot speaking with the fleet’s leader.

  They were the Freedom Navy, a combination Sicilian-Italian force that had apparently heard all about the Saratoga’s mission to the Suez.

  But what did they want?

  “We are here to join you!” the fleet leader kept saying over and over in very broken English. “Compadres! We sail with you!”

  An hour later the Freedom Navy boats were floating beside the Saratoga fleet. Several Norwegian frigates repeatedly sailed through the Liberte boats keeping an eye on them. A half-dozen helicopters buzzing above them did the same. The BBC video crew was hanging off the side of the carrier deck, diligently capturing all the action on film.

  Hunter was back on board the Saratoga by the time the Navy’s leader had been airlifted aboard. He joined Heath, Yaz, and Captain Olson in the carrier’s stateroom, where they questioned him.

  His name was Commodore Antonio Vanaria. He was a short, stubby character complete with knee-high boots, a feathered Napoleon-style hat, a mean-looking double-barreled carbine strapped over his shoulder, and bandolier ammunition belts crossing his chest.

  He had come to offer help.

  “Everywhere people are talking about the Saratoga!” he said in broken English, gesturing expansively. “They say, ‘The men on the Saratoga will stop Lucifer in his tracks!’ The men on the Saratoga—they the bravest in the whole world!

  “We—my men of the Liberte Marina—want to join such brave men. We too will fight the devil, Lucifer!”

  “Commodore,” Heath calmly began, taking the place of Sir Neil. “We are on a very, very dangerous mission here. You can see the type of ships and weapons we had to hire for protection. I’m afraid your, well, boats, would be very vulnerable to weapons such as the Exocet, especially—”

  “We no care,” the Commodore broke in. “We want to fight. We want to fight with the brave men of the Saratoga!”

  With that, the strange little man walked to the stateroom’s typically round porthole window, opened it, and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Viva la Saratoga!”

  His cry was immediately received with a return chorus of “Viva! Viva la Saratoga!” Amazingly, it was coming through loud and clear from the men on his boats nearby.

  “It appears we have a fan club,” Yaz said in an aside to Hunter.

  “I guess so,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “And this was supposed to be a secret mission.”

  The Commodore returned from the porthole. “Me—my men—we have been waiting. Preparing. Training to sail with you. We know our stuff, signori. We are good fighters. Sea fighters.”

  “Sea fighters?” Heath asked.

  “I believe he means ‘pirates,’” Olson, the Norwegian commander, said.

  “Good pirates,” the Commodore quickly injected. “We no raid women and babies. We raid the Sardinians. We raid no-good Sidra-Benghazi. We raid Russians—”

  “What a minute.” Hunter stopped him. “You’ve seen Russian ships in these waters?”

  “Si, signor,” the man answered excitedly. “Reds. Armed trawlers. Destroyers. Even some submarines and cruisers.”

  “Heavy-duty stuff.” Yaz whistled.

  “Between them and whatever the hell Lucifer’s allies have floating around,” Hunter said, “we’re going to have our hands full.”

  “Si, si, signor!” the commodore said, bounding over to Hunter. “We help. We know the waters!”

  Hunter, Yaz, Heath, and Olson all looked at each other. The Commodore’s enthusiasm was contagious. And Hunter could just tell by the nature of the man that he was trustworthy.

  “But how could we feed them all?” Heath said. “You know what the food situation is on this ship.”

  “Yeah,” Yaz said. “The bad news is the food is terrible. The good news is that no one can cook it and there’s not much to go around.”

  The Commodore’s eyes lit up. “Food?” he said, a wide grin revealing a tooth-gaped smile. “We have plenty of food! Good food! And we can cook. My men and I are the best-fed sailors in the whole Mediterranean!”

  Whether the little man knew it or not, his value had just gone up a few notches.

  Once again the four principals exchanged looks and a round of “what the hell” shrugs.

  “We’ll have to blow it by Sir Neil,” Hunter said. “Though I know he could stand a few good meals—”

  “And he’s not averse to adding every fighting hand we can get,” Heath said.

  Hunter turned to Olson. Really the final decision would be his. “Captain, you would have to coordinate the Commodore’s boats with yours. Can it be done?”

  The craggy, proud-looking Olson rubbed his chin in a habit of thought. “They could provide a fine protection for our flanks and rear, of course.”

  “Of course!” the Commodore yelled in glee, waving his hands.

  “If it’s okay with Sir Neil,”
Olson said, “it’s okay with me.”

  A quick meeting was held in Sir Neil’s intensive care room. Heath slowly and deliberately whispered the situation into the British commander’s ear. Hunter could hear the key word “food” repeated several times. Finally they saw Sir Neil nodding his head, before falling back into semiconsciousness.

  “The Commodore can throw in with us,” Heath told Hunter, Yaz, and Olson afterwards. “If Captain Olson can shepherd them for a while—who knows, they might bring us some luck.”

  “Luck, hell,” Hunter said. “I’ll be glad to have one thousand sea pirates on my side any day.”

  “Plus they can cook,” Heath said, raffishly twirling his huge red mustache.

  The Commodore soon made good on his promise for edible food and decent cooking. That night he and 100 of his men fed the entire crew of the Saratoga a huge pasta meal. Similar feasts were prepared for the men on the other ships in the carrier’s entourage. But, privately, Hunter, Heath, and Olson agreed that the Norwegians would keep a close eye on the pirates—although, judging by the Commodore’s fervor, the likelihood of one of his men being a spy for Lucifer was remote.

  In the meantime, the Italian communications team continued monitoring long-range radio transmissions emanating from Lucifer’s Arabian Empire. Hunter was constantly kept informed on critical messages. Most of the radio intercepts had to do with movements of Lucifer’s Legions and coordinating their transfers to troop ships anchored near his base at Jidda on the Red Sea.

  But then, on the afternoon following the appearance of the Commodore’s fleet, Hunter and Heath were called up to the Saratoga’s CIC. The communications people had eavesdropped on a conversation between the pilot of Lucifer’s only airplane—a captured US-made P-3 Orion—and the captain a fleet of mercenary ships sailing in the Red Sea. The ships were discussing instructions to head toward the Suez Canal and “commence operations.”

  “What kind of operations?” Hunter asked Giuseppe, the leader of the Italian communications team.

  “It’s hard to say, major,” the man told him as he sat working over a sophisticated radio set. “But, judging by the strength of the mercenary’s radio signal, we can approximate the size and type of the ships they are using.”