Tomorrow War

by Maloney, Mack;

  Simple: inside the B-2000 itself.

  Once the swami had told them that the superbomber was right before their eyes, the Jones boys were able to cut through the thick grass and bush canopy that had grown over the massive aircraft, and this led them to one of the many entry hatches found along the fuselage of the flying behemoth.

  Once inside the airplane, they had looked for more clues as to why Hunter and his crew had set off on such an incomprehensible journey. But no leads were found. Walking around inside the darkened bomber was like walking around inside a cave. It was dark, with only flashlights to provide illumination. The fuselage was perforated with literally thousands of bullet and cannon holes, stark testament of the air battle the bomber had plowed through going in to its target over Japan and getting out once the superbomb had been dropped.

  The interior had been stripped not just of the defensive arms—some 162 machine guns, cannons, and small antiaircraft guns, plus dozens of antiaircraft air-to-air missiles from the wings—but also of all its computers, navigation gear, and communications suites. Its main and secondary onboard power-generating double-reaction engines were gone, as was the small operating room, all of the medical equipment, and all of the food and provisions on board for the crew.

  But what was not missing—and what Y found as soon as he entered the haunting fuselage—was a load of beer that had been carried into the air inside a cooler installed at the last minute on the B-2000 by one of its crew members, a guy named JT Toomey.

  Though little was known about him—as was the case with just about everyone else in Hunter’s crew—Toomey was somewhat legendary around Area 52’s Bride Lake, where the B-2000 had taken off on its one-way bombing mission. While it was widely believed that each member of the handpicked crew had come to the mission with a special, if innate, talent to help fulfill the bombing run, it was well known that Toomey’s main contribution was to install a beer cooler aboard the superbomber just prior to its takeoff.

  In this cooler, Toomey had stocked more than two hundred bottles of cheap beer—approximately three bottles for each man on the flight. Once Y got into this cooler, he discovered all of the bottles still within—there had been no celebration after the aircraft had dropped the ultrabomb and had survived the brutal air assault by defending Japanese airplanes.

  Again, why not?

  There was no answer—but this didn’t bother Y a bit. While the Jones boys and the other AirCats were examining the B-2000, Y had had Emma and her companions help him load the cache of beer onto the Z-16, and it was now stuffed into the bunk he’d used to sleep through the first three days of the mission.

  It was the stink of this beer that Zoltan now smelled wafting through the lower deck of the Z-16’s flight cabin. He sneezed once and looked over at Crabb. The big guy had just finished strapping the last “Brandy” in and was now locking himself into his jump seat.

  Meanwhile the Z-16’s massive engines were already screaming at full throat. The Jones boys had about 4,500 feet of rolling meadow from which to attempt the takeoff. The AirCat fighters, as well as the HellJet cargo plane, had already taken off, using their rocket assists to ascend eerily above the river plain. The Jones boys had told their pilots that should the Z-16 not be able to get off—or if it crashed shortly after the takeoff—then they should proceed with the mission. They were to follow the railroad tracks until they found any credible evidence of the B-2000 crew’s whereabouts. And once this was uncovered, they were to fly home and brief the appropriate OSS authorities in the U.S.

  Seth Jones called back one final warning for the Z-16’s passengers. Then there was a louder screech of engines, and the next thing Zoltan knew, they were moving very quickly.

  But quick did not equal smooth, and soon, due to the bumpy meadow ground, the Z-16 was bouncing all over the place. The first thing to go was about a third of Y’s newly acquired beer supply. The airplane hit a large hump in the ground about ten seconds into its takeoff run that was violent enough to throw the plane about twenty feet into the air and send it crashing back down to earth again. When this happened, more than fifty of Y’s beer bottles slid out of his berth and smashed to the cabin floor below.

  The Jones boys did not falter. They simply laid on more speed after the huge bounce and stoically continued the desperate takeoff run. The Z-16’s engines were positively screaming at this point Zoltan couldn’t believe there was any way they could generate enough power to give the plane enough speed to provide enough lift to get its big-winged ass off the ground.

  Is this how it will end? That was the morbid thought flashing through Zoltan’s mind as the airplane began shaking so much he thought he could see some rivets in the fuselage beginning to pop. A brilliant if shaky career cut short on a isolated river valley halfway around the world?

  As it turned out, the answer to that question was no—though it came close to becoming a reality.

  The Z-16 was shaking so much during its last few seconds on the ground that any thing not strapped down went flying through the cabin at very high speeds. Zoltan could barely keep his eyelids open. Somehow he managed, and this allowed him to watch the Jones boys as they calmly and coolly raced the big plane along the bumpy ground until it reached its minimum takeoff speed.

  Once achieved, they both yanked back on the steering columns and kicked in the double-reaction’s superflow. This felt like a foot in the stomach for Zoltan. The g forces were tremendous for an instant. But it was that kick in the ass that saved their lives as the big plane went up, faltered, and finally recovered just before it slammed into the wide railway span crossing the River Kwai.

  The plane went straight up as advertised, and Zoltan was suddenly looking up at blue sky and the puffiest clouds he could ever remember seeing.

  It took a long time before the plane leveled off and attained acceptable flight parameters. In those hairy seconds, whether they would stay airborne or not was still questionable, Zoltan was startled to see a vision.

  He’d closed his eyes just for a moment to help relieve the g pressure in his chest. And when he opened them again, there was a person standing in front of him: pretty, middle-aged, brown haired, and sparkling eyed.

  It was his late wife, Gwen! She was smiling at him in that very familiar way, where her eyes said it all: “Well, I pulled you out of another one!”

  Then she blew him a kiss and disappeared.

  The airplane leveled off for good a second later ….

  CHAPTER 27

  THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS inside the Z-16 were surreal.

  Shortly after takeoff, the six aircraft formed up high above the River Kwai and, as one, turned west.

  The railway ran a winding path for the next one hundred miles. It went through the heart of some very heavily forested jungle, passing little more than the occasional paddy or small lake. There was no sign of life below, no villages, no enemy guns. No hint of hostile forces anywhere.

  As it turned out, this relatively peaceful first hour gave the six airplanes time to get into a solid formation and work out the best procedure by which to follow the rail bed.

  After trying several different alignments, the Jones boys decided that a 1-3-2 formation was the best. This called for the HellJet cargo plane, now serving as the formation’s long-range eyes and ears, flying way up at twenty thousand feet. At about 7,500 feet the three AirCat fighters flew. This position gave them the ability to climb swiftly, should the HellJet need assistance; or dive, should they be needed down below.

  Flying at just five hundred feet were the Z-16 and the remaining AirCat fighter. This heart-stopping altitude was dangerous, but the Z-16 had a type of terrain guidance/avoidance system that kept it at exactly five hundred feet, no matter what. This device also allowed them to follow the track bed itself without the Jones boys having to steer every twist and turn of the meandering railway.

  The Z-16 featured a unique clear-glass belly canopy. Like a glass-bottom boat, this gave those on board an extraordinary clear view of t
he track bed.

  Zoltan, Crabb, the five girls, and a drowsy Y were now in place around this look-down observation bubble, scanning the jungle and the track below, seeing very little.

  But that changed as soon as they reached a village called U Thang.

  It was located in the far western corner of Thailand, and according to their previously stored recon photos, at one time this place was a bustling train depot, a place where fuel and water could be taken on.

  But the village of U Thang no longer existed. When the aerial formation arrived above the place, all they could see was devastation. The railroad yards were torn up almost beyond recognition, every building in the place was either leveled or still smoldering. Many dead bodies—and parts of bodies—could be seen scattered throughout the site. It was clear something terrible had happened at the village—and had happened fairly recently. Just what happened was a mystery. But one clue remained.

  The track beyond the destroyed city—the rail that was stretching farther west—was still intact.

  They continued following the tracks. About twenty miles west of U Thang, they came upon what they would learn was a military outpost manned by Khen’s soldiers.

  Again, there was nothing left.

  The ruins spoke of a substantial military fort, built of thick trees and cement, a five-sided heavily armored four-story structure that had featured at least thirty-six gun ports, which looked out over the valley of A Sang and boasted a wide field of fire. This was a place that must have had a garrison of at least one thousand men. Yet it was leveled and still smoldering, even though whatever went through there must have done so sometime ago.

  They flew on.

  The next site they reached was the ancient castle of Sing Sang, thirty-three miles down the track. This was a huge teak and stone structure that had been built twelve hundred years before and had been turned into various military outposts over the years. Sing Sang had a commanding view of two nearby valleys. One grew rice, the other boasted an ancient rubber-plant field. Both valleys were dotted with gun posts and observation towers; obviously, the people who ran Sing Sang had built these structures to maintain order over the slave laborers who worked these fields.

  Nothing remained of these gun emplacements now. Every one of them had been blown up—the bodies of their gunners still remained, skeletons whose bones had been picked clean. Like in the other sites, it looked like the devil himself had cleared a pathway through the countryside, destroying anything and everything in his path.

  It was at Sing Sang that the crew of the Z-16 first saw civilians. People were still working in the fields, but it was obvious they were no longer being used as slaves. It was also obvious that whatever had passed through their twin valleys had been a welcome sight.

  Many civilians waved at the Z-16 as it flashed by.

  It went on like this for a full day.

  They passed out of Thailand and into Burma, still staying true to the westbound railway.

  They flew over the city of Nsing by nightfall. It had been a major military garrison: There was evidence that many heavy weapons such as tanks and APCs had been kept here. But like in the previous sites in Siam, there was little left besides smoldering ruins and destroyed equipment.

  It was obvious to those inside the Z-16 that the armored train’s prime advantage was that it was arriving unannounced in these strongholds of Khen. Combining surprise and its huge parcel of weapons, Khen’s men had little time to mount a defense. That’s why the destruction of their strongholds was so complete.

  They flew over Mandalay just as the moon was rising over the eastern mountains. This once-bustling city, and obvious major strong point for Khen, was now a ghost town. The train had apparently gone through while a major shipment of ammunition was on hand because about a third of the city had been flattened, and the pattern of the craters indicated some kind of large ammo supply had been blown up.

  “One bullet in the right place might have been all they needed to get through here,” Crabb remarked as they flashed over the deserted, smoldering city.

  “Sometimes that’s all you need,” Y replied, chugging on his twelfth beer of the flight.

  They passed over into Bangladesh in the early-morning hours. This rich, prosperous country had featured just four of Khen’s railway military outposts, and like all those before, they had been utterly destroyed.

  Using his intuition and a calculator, Zoltan determined that the train was probably moving at close to seventy miles per hour when it came upon the hapless outpost. “If every gun on that train was firing as they roared through,” he offered, “and the train is several miles long as the swami said, that’s an incredible amount of firepower concentrated on a small target for a very short period of time.”

  “They are like an army of rolling shock troops,” Crabb commented, looking down on yet another devastated outpost. “A nightmare on wheels. Those guys down there never knew what hit them.”

  They passed through Bangladesh and into northern India. Approaching the city of Gorakhpur, they saw evidence for the first time that Khen’s men had made an effort to stop the hugely armored train.

  At several points along the tracks just outside the city, they saw huge logs had been cut and apparently set in place across the railway. But these logs now lay in fragments and splinters, tossed aside by the train’s mighty locomotives and a battering ram Swami had spoken of as being attached to the lead engine’s nose.

  Farther into the city, the Z-16 observers saw several antiaircraft-gun emplacements whose barrels had been lowered to the horizontal. Apparently, they had been altered to fire directly at the train as it passed through. But again, the sheer speed and the armored plating of the train had made it difficult to get off a good shot before the guns themselves were destroyed. As it was, these gun sites were all now just smudges of black and gray against the bright green of the surrounding fauna.

  In some places the jungle had already overgrown the cracked and broken gun barrels, reclaiming what it hadn’t held sway over for many years.

  Y crawled back up into his bunk around 0300 hours.

  He was tired and drunk and getting bored at observing the path of destruction left by the armored train.

  He drank three more bottles of Toomey’s beer and then passed out. Emma was beside him, keeping him warm and making sure he didn’t roll out of the berth. Feeling somewhat secure, Y lay back and dreamed.

  He was on a huge cruise liner, a luxurious ship that always seemed to be sailing in calm weather under the hot sun. And there were two women aboard this ship, and they just would not leave him alone! For whatever reason they were always bugging him to have sex with them. Both were beautiful, but he was always too drunk to perform.

  Pretty soon these two women started locking him up in chains in a small room and making him perform. It was a miserable experience and Y almost wound up peeing in his bed.

  But then the ship sank, and the two women became queens or something, and he was rustled awake by Emma moving.

  Then his head was filled with voices. Many voices. Then screams. Then the sound of the Z-16’s engines revving very high.

  The next thing he knew, Emma was shaking him awake. He slowly opened his eyes to see Zoltan pulling Emma out of the berth and jamming a crash helmet on her head. Zoltan grabbed Y and did the same thing; the OSS agent came out a lot less delicately than had Emma. He fell immediately to the floor and stumbled once the helmet was on his head.

  All the while the Z-16 was bouncing all over the sky. Y caught a glance of the Jones boys up on the flight deck, and they were battling viciously with the controls.

  “Jeesuzz!” Y finally cried out once his head had cleared a bit. “What the fuck is happening?”

  Crabb was suddenly in his face holding a huge two-barrel machine gun.

  “We are under attack,” he said starkly, handing him the gun. “We must get to our battle stations ….”

  “Battle stations?” Y said completely confused. “Who said
we had battle stations on here?”

  A second later, there was a huge explosion off the Z-16’s right wing. The concussion sent the airplane reeling to the left. This sent Y sprawling across the flight compartment and rolling head over heels up to the flight deck itself. Just by luck, for there was no coincidence in this world, he landed—hard—on the navigation table. It was here that he was somehow able to get a firm grip, his nose pressed up against the big TV display screen.

  He was able to hold on and actually read the navigational display, and that’s how he knew they were now over the country of Afghanistan.

  It was strange, for a moment it seemed like time stood still. And Y’s soaked brain became clear—again just for a moment.

  As it turned out, he knew a lot about Afghanistan. When he was a junior OSS agent he’d studied the place and had actually done a couple drops into the wilderness country as part of the fifty-five-year war effort against Germany.

  In this universe, Afghanistan was a very different place—for two reasons. Firstly, the Fifth Crusades had actually taken hold and had brought many European influences into the culture where they became firmly implanted.

  Secondly, when the British empire was taking hold, the British Royal Army set up major garrisons all over the country, and stayed. They were never thrown out. This made Afghanistan a very strange place, indeed, for it was like a small part of Europe transplanted into what was actually southwest Asia. While there were plenty of mosques and marketplaces and red-tiled mud houses sprinkled throughout the rough-and-tumble countryside, the cities themselves were distinctly European. They were made up of high walls, narrow streets, stonewashed houses, Christian churches, and government buildings, which had stood for hundreds of years and resembled nothing less than medieval castles.

  With his nose pressed by gravity against the navigational screen, Y was also able to see exactly where they were over Afghanistan. The Z-16 was thirty-five miles southeast of the city of Kabul Downs, not too far from the famous Khyber Pass. Y had been to Kabul Downs many times, both on duty and off.