Freedom Express

by Maloney, Mack;

  Although the B-57’s now lay burning on the trackbed about a mile in front of the train, the four surviving Phantoms clustered together and continued the attack. Hunter radioed back to Catfish with a warning, and the major assured him the train’s crew members were at their battle stations.

  The first two Phantoms came in low over the locomotives, raining cannon fire—but no missiles—onto the Dash-8’s as well as the lead cars. One of the locomotives took a direct hit, its turbo-engine exploding in a tremendous flash.

  A second later, the enemy Phantoms were greeted with a solid wall of firepower from the train’s anti-aircraft batteries. At the same time, Hunter, Crunch and Elvis attacked the Phantoms from above with deadly, coordinated dives as the enemy F-4’s were pulling up from their bomb runs. One enemy plane was instantly destroyed.

  But the battle had raged for barely a minute when, quite suddenly, the three surviving Phantoms turned and fled.

  Again, our attackers run, thought Hunter. It was a pattern that kept repeating with mysterious frequency.

  He resisted an urge to pursue the retreating Phantoms, deciding instead to turn back and check on the damage to the Freedom Express. The train had come to a complete halt by this time, and circling overhead, he could see at least one locomotive was badly crippled and that flames were shooting from several cars.

  Soldiers from the train were already fighting the fires and within minutes had the situation under control. Hunter quickly set the Harrier down on its landing car and joined Catfish and Fitzgerald, who were inspecting the damage. At the same time, the Wreckers headed for Dodge to refuel.

  “It’s bad, but I don’t think it will slow us down that much,” Fitzgerald told Hunter.

  “That locomotive is done for, though,” Catfish said, pointing to Engine Number 5. “Too bad it’s right in the middle of all the others. Well just have to drag it along with us for a while.”

  “At least the train is a little lighter than when we started,” Fitz noted, referring to the cars that had been dropped off in Topeka and Dodge City. “And after tonight, it’ll be more so—that is, if we make it to Cimarron.”

  At that point, the two Cobra Brothers pilots appeared. They had just checked out the wreckage of the F-4’s downed nearby.

  “Are you ready for this?” Crockett asked. “Those F-4’s were being driven by Skinheads.”

  “That’s all we need,” Fitz said. “First air pirates, and now leftover Nazis.”

  Hunter instantly felt his worries multiply by a factor of two. Running up against the brutal Skinheads was bad enough. But there was something else: He knew the crazy Nazi pilots had a reputation of never retreating. They would usually fight on until the last man was dead.

  So why did they give up and run? he wondered again.

  At the controls of one of the fleeing Phantoms was Studs Mallox, and he was feeling very pissed-off.

  It was the first time in his life that he and his gang had ever left a fight before it had been settled. Doing so was against their very nature.

  But Devillian had been adamant; so much so, Mallox could still hear the cross-eyed leader’s words in his ears: “Sting ’em, but that’s all.”

  Mallox hated taking orders from a weasel like Devillian. But they had agreed to play it his way—for the time being, at least.

  “Besides, it ain’t that bad,” Studs told himself, removing his oxygen mask and lighting up his crack pipe. “It’s not like we really lost.”

  Chapter 16

  THE SUN WAS JUST going down in a blaze of desert glory when Hunter lifted off in the Harrier and turned south.

  He had spent the rest of the daylight hours helping the repair crews fix the damage to the train. The tally for the strangely limited Skinhead air attack was the one locomotive and a few shot-up storage cars.

  However, they were all surprised to learn that the two B-57’s that had crashed on the tracks about a mile in front of the train had not only been radio-controlled, but they had also been carrying hundreds of small mines in their bomb bays, which had scattered in every direction at the time of impact.

  Now, what would have been a fairly routine track-clearing operation had turned into a delicate, hazardous and time-consuming task. Catfish had estimated the train would be dangerously stalled for at least two days.

  On first glance, it might have appeared to an outside observer that the attacks on the train had been random and sporadic—potentially serious, yet just the kind of opposition the United Americans had expected to encounter and overcome during the trip.

  But for Hunter, too many things just didn’t add up: The lightning quick destruction at Topeka was well executed, yet no victorious troops had taken possession of the prize. The unusually large concentration of Starfighters at Dodge could have seriously damaged the train had they chosen to attack, yet instead, they mysteriously deserted their airbase. The six Skinhead Phantoms could have easily been carrying bombs that would have severely damaged the train, yet they chose only to strafe it with cannon fire.

  Most important, the two remote-control B-57’s could have been laden with high explosives, enough to blow a quarter-mile-wide hole in the tracks. But their bomb bays were filled only with bothersome mines.

  He knew that no commander in his right mind would attempt to stop a train with mines. Nor was it wise to launch an attack as halfhearted as the one the night before—not unless the goal was something other than total destruction of the target.

  And strange as it seemed, that’s exactly what Hunter had come to suspect.

  He was airborne only twenty minutes when the lights of Santa Fe loomed on the horizon. Bright, garish with a sickly tone of pink to them, the lights seemed to perfectly fit the description of the city itself.

  Yet it was here he felt he had to go—not just to play a hunch, but to see if he could sniff out some solid evidence that would make his suspicions a little less fantastic. He knew that in many cases, truth was found only after searching through a pit of lies.

  And Santa Fe was a pit.

  He had no intention of landing the Harrier at the city’s airport and leaving it there, unguarded, while he prowled the untamed city in search of information. Instead, he had to find an area that was properly secluded, yet still offered enough open space to accommodate the jumpjet.

  Using a pair of NightVision infra-red goggles, he spotted an outcropping of large rocks about a mile north of the city. Putting the Harrier into its vertical descent mode, he eased it down into a small, flat area completely surrounded by the high boulders. Then he skillfully maneuvered the versatile aircraft even closer to the rocks, finally managing to get most of it underneath a huge, overhanging ledge.

  Satisfied that the plane was nearly impossible to spot—particularly since no one in his right mind would be looking for an airplane out here, anyway—Hunter set off on foot for the edge of town, his trusty M-16 slung over his shoulder.

  His adventure within an adventure had begun.

  He jogged the mile toward the lights and soon entered a particularly rough area known as West Santa Fe, which was actually on the outskirts of the main city itself.

  As he walked through the streets, he saw that some of the roadways were brightly lit, while others were dim. So, too, on some streets, most of the houses seemed deserted. On others, they were overcrowded with signs of humanity.

  At the end of a particularly gloomy street, Hunter turned the corner and almost ran into two men and a woman who were staggering along, trying to hold each other up.

  “Watch where the fuck you’re going,” slurred one of the men as the trio lurched past.

  When he looked up from the brief encounter, Hunter was astonished at what he saw. The street in front of him was absolutely filled with people—all of them dressed similar to him: shabby fatigues, longish hair, three-to-five-day growth of beard, some kind of weapon slung over the shoulder and a slightly bleary look to the eye.

  He knew right away that these people were all of one profession.


  “Jeesuz,” he whispered. “It looks like a mercenary convention.”

  He donned a pair of almost clear sunglasses, thereby cutting down on the chances that someone would recognize him. Then he made his way into the crowd.

  His first impression of a mercenary’s reunion wasn’t too far off. As he walked the crowded streets, he saw that dozens of storefront recruiting offices lined every block. Some had signs advertising work for trench troops, sappers, guards, recondos and rocketeers. Others wanted tank drivers, truck drivers, combat engineers, even cooks. He was simply amazed by it all. He had seen similar mercenary marketplaces in Algiers, but he never imagined such a thing was going on right in America.

  And this too made him suspicious. There was only one reason the mercs had flooded to West Santa Fe—the promise of a lot of work to be found.

  He turned onto a particularly loud and raunchy-looking boulevard, one that had many rag joints squeezed into both sides. Loud music spilled out of dozens of broken windows. Small groups of young women roamed the sidewalks, brazenly approaching men and even couples, trying to sell their rather obvious talents. It was the same scene up and down the street.

  “How much gold do you have on you?” one streetwalker asked Hunter, seductively grabbing his arm.

  He looked at the girl’s makeup-plastered face and guessed that a very pretty sixteen-year-old girl was underneath the hideous, bright violet eyeshadow and lipstick. He resisted the impulse to suggest that she should take a bath and try to salvage what was left of her youth.

  “I thought the first one was free?” he replied.

  The girl laughed at him. “You may be better looking than most of these bums,” she said, pointing to the streetful of mercs, “but a girl’s still got to make some money.”

  “So do I,” he said. “And quick.”

  He produced a single gold coin. “This is yours if you can tell me something all these other guys don’t know.”

  She understood right away.

  Taking the coin and putting it down the front of her ultra-tight halter top, the girl pointed toward a bar across the street.

  “Go over to that place, the Happy Apache, and ask the bartender there,” she suggested. “He knows everything that’s going down in this town.”

  Hunter thanked her and made his way across the crowded street, wondering if the world would ever again be a place where kids could grow up without losing their innocence by the time they hit the age of ten.

  He pushed through the swinging doors of the Happy Apache, and his nostrils were immediately invaded by a wave of stale beer and cheap perfume. Loud and very bad piano music came from one corner of the large, crowded barroom; a woman was playfully stripping off her clothes in another.

  “My kind of place,” he mused.

  To no surprise, he saw the saloon was lousy with mercenaries. A long bar filled one side of the room, and he made his way through the human traffic jam in that direction.

  The only empty stool was next to a man who had passed out, his head lying in a puddle of spilled beer on the bar. As Hunter was claiming the vacant seat, the bartender grabbed the drunk by his hair, yanked his head up and wiped up the beer with a filthy-looking rag. Then he let go, allowing the drunk’s head to fall back to the bar with a resounding crack!

  The barkeep—a short, fat man with a straggly yellow beard streaked with gray—then turned his attention to Hunter.

  “I don’t serve strangers,” he said, eyeing him suspiciously. “And I ain’t never seen you before.”

  “So?”

  “So get the fuck out of here.”

  Hunter dropped a handful of gold coins onto the damp bar.

  “Just cut the crap and give me a goddamn beer,” he said with intended harshness.

  The bartender looked at the coins and smiled; up until recently, real gold had been a rarity in these parts. He filled a cloudy, cracked glass with a weak-looking yellow liquid and plunked it down in front of Hunter.

  “That’ll be a half a bag of gold,” he said.

  Hunter laughed in his face. “Sure thing, skinny,” he replied with a smirk, tossing two coins toward the chunky man.

  “Hey, nobody says you have to drink here, wise ass,” the bartender rumbled, reluctantly picking up the sticky coins.

  Hunter took a swig of the so-called beer. It was about as tasty as week-old dish water.

  “I was told you’d know if there was any ‘special’ work available around here,” he said.

  The bartender seemed to laugh and scowl at the same time. “And who the fuck told you that?”

  “Your daughter,” Hunter shot back. “She just propositioned me outside.”

  The bartender’s face turned six shades of red.

  “You must be tired of living, pal,” he told Hunter, reaching for a Bowie knife in his belt buckle.

  A split-second later, the man was staring down the barrel of Hunter’s M-16.

  “So,” Hunter continued calmly, “should I assume you don’t know of any ‘good’ jobs?”

  “I didn’t say that,” the fat man replied nervously as the rifle touched his nose. “I … I just haven’t decided if it’s worth it to tell you.”

  Hunter lowered the gun and pushed three more coins across the sticky bar.

  The bartender quickly scooped them up. “OK, what kind of work you looking for?”

  “I’m a merc,” Hunter said. “And a guy told me there was big doin’s down this way.”

  Now the bartender really laughed. “Well, get in line, asshole,” he said. “That’s the same bullshit story I’ve heard from every one of these guys.”

  “Is that so?” Hunter asked. “Well, any of these popheads bragging about being able to drive a B-52?”

  “You’re a bomber pilot?”

  “I can be if the price is right,” Hunter told him.

  The man stared hard at Hunter for several seconds, and Hunter stared right back.

  “Wait right here,” the bartender finally said.

  Hunter unconsciously took another sip of the revolting beer and wound up spitting it out on the floor. Wiping his mouth, he scanned the barroom again. It was a marketplace of drugs and sex. Men huddled over tables, openly exchanging money and bags of white powder; scantily dressed women of all ages draped themselves over every merc who showed the slightest interest.

  A moment later, Hunter felt a tug on his trousers. He was surprised to see a midget had eased up beside him.

  “I hear you’re looking for action,” the little guy squeaked.

  “Not with your sister, I’m not,” Hunter replied.

  The midget smiled, as if it were a joke. “Is it true you can fly heavy stuff?” he asked, his thin voice turning serious.

  “Depends,” Hunter replied.

  The midget smiled again. “Good answer,” he said. “Come with me.”

  Instantly Hunter’s sixth sense started flashing. All of his instincts were telling him the dwarf would lead him to some valuable information. Knowing he had to start somewhere, Hunter followed the man—all three feet of him—through the crowd and out of the bar.

  “Many of these mercs are just bullsheet artists,” the midget said as they walked along. “But if you truly are a bomber pilot—or any kind of pilot—I know people who will want to talk to you.”

  “And supposing I’m not,” Hunter asked.

  “Then my brother will slit your throat for lying to me,” the midget replied nonchalantly.

  They went down the crowded street for about a hundred yards, then the midget suddenly turned into a dark alley. He pointed to a gray, two-story dilapidated house halfway down the court.

  “Go there,” he said in his crackling, squeaky voice. “Up the stairs. Say Carlo sent you.”

  The midget held out his hand expectantly. Hunter dropped two gold coins into it, and the little man vanished around the corner.

  Hunter approached the house cautiously, noting that the alley seemed to be the only quiet place for blocks around. T
he first floor of the gray house was dark, but there was a light in an upstairs window. He carefully eased open the front door with his gun barrel and found himself in a dark hallway. His keen eyesight picked out the shape of a staircase on the far wall.

  He mounted the stairs, each squeaking step signaling his ascent. The upstairs hallway was dimly lit, revealing several doors. One was open, and a huge silhouette was outlined there.

  “Who are you?” a voice called out.

  “Carlo sent me,” Hunter responded. “I’m a bomber pilot—looking for work.”

  Hunter’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when the man behind the voice stepped out into the hallway. He was at least seven feet tall and five hundred pounds or more—a certifiable giant.

  “My brother Carlo sent you?” the giant asked. “Then come here. And geeve me your gun.”

  “No chance, big boy,” Hunter replied smartly.

  The Mexican monster looked like he wanted to eat Hunter for a snack. He reached out to grab him, but Hunter was quicker. His trusty stiletto jackknife was suddenly poised at the giant’s ample throat.

  Just then a woman’s voice called out: “Bring him in here, Manuel.”

  The giant obediently led Hunter into the room. The only light was a small lamp on a table next to a sofa facing the door.

  From the shadows in one corner came the woman’s voice again.

  “Come over here,” she said.

  Hunter walked toward the voice, and the woman rose to meet him.

  She was wearing a black shirt with the top three buttons open to reveal several inches of very inviting cleavage. Her shapely hips and legs were packed into black jeans. Hunter’s eyes roamed appreciatively over her enticing form and came to rest on her enormous pearl-handled Colt .45s.

  “Nice guns,” he said suggestively.