After he washed the very little residue left over down the sink, he opened his lead-lined box and took out the previously exposed rolls of film, the ones he had doctored weeks ago to make it look like a massive army was waiting just over the hill. The RF-4 pilot was one of the very few people in the city who knew that the Westerners’ force was much smaller than what the Circle thought it was.
It was a chess game, the pilot thought. The Westerners kept The Circle off-balance with the intentionally misleading recon photos, daily air strikes and soon, other diversions, while the Circle kept the Westerners at bay by threatening to massacre the POWs they were holding.
“No one has made a move in a while,” the pilot, an undercover agent named Captain “Crunch” O’Malley, thought aloud. “That can only mean something will blow sky high soon …”
CHAPTER 5
YAZ WRAPPED HIMSELF UP in his dirty blanket and tried to sleep.
It was cold, dark and damp in the vast underground cavern, The Circle guards having locked up the POWs for the night inside the dimly-lit chamber several hours before. Using the Hole as a prison was one of the few things that made some sense—by shutting the POWs up like animals, there was no need to waste Circle manpower watching over them at night.
Yaz had retreated to his own corner of cave, preferring to sleep alone, thereby assuring himself that he wouldn’t wake up next to a corpse in the morning. But there were disturbing thoughts spinning around in his head that were preventing him from dropping off to sleep: The pilot named Elvis, the load of inner tubes and the big W in the dirt. What the hell was the connection?
Suddenly, someone kicked his feet. He opened his eyes but found it hard to adjust them in the dim light of the cave.
“Is your name ‘Yaz?’” the person standing over him asked in an urgent whisper.
“Yeah,” Yaz answered, trying to get a good look at the man. “Who wants to know?”
Just then, the man lit a cigarette lighter and only for a second. But it was long enough for Yaz to recognize the man’s face.
It was the guy named Elvis …
It had never occurred to Yaz—or anyone else in his immediate chain gang—to actually go wandering around in the darkened Hole after it was sealed off. Where would one go if they did? The large door at the cavern’s entrance was the only means of getting in and out.
At least, Yaz had assumed it was the only way …
He was wrong. Ten minutes after being roused by Elvis, he was shimmying through a narrow pipe that had been dug into an isolated corner off to the side of the cavern. It led into an even larger underground chamber, that looked like it had once been used as a pumping station of some kind. It was lined with concrete and one wall was covered with dials and switches, that were pre-World War II. The other three walls were adorned with maps of the city when it was still called St. Louis.
A group of twelve men, rifles in plain sight, were off in one corner, going over some more maps. The room also contained several big boxes of ammunition, cans of food, bottled water and a radio. It was apparent that Elvis and the other men had been living in the chamber for at least several weeks.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t recognize me right away today,” Elvis told him after they were both inside the chamber. “The other trusty is not in on … all this.” He spread his arms out to show the chamber.
“Well, the last time I saw you I was out on my feet with a stomach full of Suez Canal water.” Yaz said, quickly telling him about his ill-fated flight from Casablanca, his capture by the Cubans and his subsequent sale to the slave market.
“Now, what the hell are you doing here?” Yaz asked him. “You’re certainly not prisoners. Yet I saw you up top today …”
“Well, I’m a prisoner of design only,” Elvis told him. “But there’s a lot to explain. And frankly, I’m not the one who can do that. So let me make a phone call …”
A phone call?
Elvis walked over to the chamber’s control panel and sure enough produced an old rotary-style telephone from a desk drawer. He plugged it in and carefully dialed a seven-digit number.
He waited a few moments, then said: “Hello? Is he there?”
He motioned for Yaz to take the phone. He did, and then he heard the voice on the other end say: “Hey Yaz, this is Hawk.”
Yaz had to take a few moments for it to sink in. “Hawk?” he finally said. “You got to be kidding me, how the hell are you?”
“Still seasick,” came the reply. “Sorry to hear that you’re toting the ball and chain … How’d it happen?”
For the second time in five minutes, Yaz told the story of how he came to be digging ditches underneath Football City. He wasn’t totally surprised to be talking to the famous pilot—the letter that Elvis had scratched into the dirt earlier that day could only have meant one thing: W for Wingman.
“I’m not surprised that you’re mixed up in this,” Yaz told him. “What happened to you after Suez? And where the hell are you anyway? This has got to be the only working telephone in the country …”
“It would take too long to go into the first question right now,” Hunter answered. “And I can’t tell you where I am right now. But I will explain the situation to you, and then I hope you’ll be able to help us. Interested?”
“Of course I am,” Yaz said. “Being a slave gets tiresome very quickly.”
“OK,” Hunter replied. “Here it is in a nutshell:
“We’re working inside the city in preparation for an invasion by the good guys, the Western Forces.”
Yaz felt a jolt of excitement run through him. “You mean we’re busting out?” he asked.
“Eventually,” Hunter told him. “But we’ve got some problems. We have reason to believe that once the invasion begins, The Circle might decide to do something drastic to all the POWs.”
“How drastic?” Yaz asked with a gulp.
“Well, let’s put it this way,” Hunter said. “We’re working on a plan that will give everyone a chance to escape before our guys start the attack. And that means all of the POWs, including the wounded ones, and also the few hundred civilians that are left within the city.”
Yaz knew right away that was an enormous task—even for someone like Hunter.
“How the hell are you going to do that?” Yaz asked him.
“I’ll let Elvis explain the details and give you a tour,” Hunter replied. “Let me just tell you that we’ve discovered a vast network of tunnels under the city. They are actually caves—catacombs—left over from the booze-running days of the 1930s. The gangsters used to move a lot of gin through St. Louis. They did it underground. The catacombs are all over the place, and they all lead right down to the river. We’re trying to find out which ones are near the POW camps so we can provide an escape route for everyone on the inside.”
“Jesus, how did you guys even get down here?” Yaz asked.
“Again, it’s a long story,” Hunter replied. “But believe me, it wasn’t easy. By the time I got back on this side of the Atlantic, the Western Forces were already laying siege to the city. We knew there would be a heavy loss of life among the civvies but also among the POWs. So we used some radar imaging high flights over the city because we had heard rumors about the catacombs. Well, we found them. Then it was a question of getting our people into the city where they could pose as prisoners during the day …”
“So what you are saying,” Yaz said, “is that you broke into prison?”
“Yeah, we did,” Hunter told him. “But believe me, it’s a lot easier breaking out of prison than breaking in …
“But now there’s still a hundred things to do. The bottom line is that we have to get as many POWs out as possible. Every last one of them will be needed to continue the war.”
“What war?”
“The war to regain control of the whole country,” Hunter answered with no small amount of determination. “We’ve got a plan to knock The Circle right back into the Atlantic.”
Yaz
shook his head. “Jesus, Hawk, that will be a tall order. I hear The Circle has about fifty thousand men in this area alone. And more of them the further east you go.”
“We know all that,” Hunter said. “But we have no choice but to carry the battle to them. And do it now…”
“But why?” Yaz asked. “I can see trying take over this city, but why the whole eastern half? Wouldn’t it make more sense to do it a piece at a time?”
“Yes, it would,” Hunter answered. “But there’s a problem …” He then told Yaz about the Soviet-sponsored seaborne invasion force that was heading for the American east coast.
The Navy man listened with open-mouthed amazement. “So the plan is to recover the territory as quickly as possible and hope they don’t land?” he asked.
“Sort of,” Hunter replied. “Actually we’ve targeted some key areas that we’ll have to win back—important cities mostly—that will give the illusion that we’re in control. It’s our only hope of preventing that army from landing.”
“And I thought lugging an aircraft carrier across the Med was a chore!” Yaz said.
“That was a piece of cake, compared to this,” Hunter replied, his tone taking on a somber pitch.
They talked for ten more minutes, then Yaz bid him goodbye and hung up. He turned and said to Elvis: “Hawk says to give me the tour.”
Elvis nodded and told him to follow. The pilot walked over to the group of men studying the map, then led Yaz to a huge metal door on the far side of the pump chamber. This led to another pipe-tunnel, one large enough to walk upright in. Yaz stepped through this passageway, and less than a minute later, he was in the catacombs.
“Jesus, where are we?” he asked Elvis, looking at the moss-covered but somewhat elaborate walls and tunnels.
“We’re right below the center of the city,” the pilot replied. “You know the guy who’s in charge here? The Viceroy? We’re right under his headquarters right now.”
They walked even deeper into the catacombs, occasionally passing an armed guard or two.
Finally they reached a junction in the catacombs that opened up to a wide tunnel.
“Here’s where our plan will either go good or bust,” Elvis said. “When I saw you today, checking out the truck filled with inner tubes, I knew we’d have to get in touch with you before the breakout.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Yaz said. “But what’s with all these inner tubes. How do they fit in?”
“Sounds nuts,” Elvis said. “But that’s how we’re going to get a lot of the wounded guys out of the city.”
He pointed toward one end of the tunnel. “There’s a water lock up there about a quarter mile holding back a couple million gallons of Mississippi,” he said. “Once it’s opened, the water flows down here, around to selected tunnels and back out to the river. These tunnels will fill up to about the three foot level. That’s shallow enough for healthy people to move in, but too deep for wounded ones.
“So, with the help of some civvies who are in on all this—the Football City Underground—we’ve been gathering inner tubes from all over the city. When the time comes, we’re going to flood the right tunnels, inflate all the inner tubes, bring the wounded down here, and float ’em out to the river, where we hope to have barges waiting.”
“Wow …” was Yaz’s first reaction to the outlandish plan. “But what’s to prevent The Circle from waiting for the people at the end of the tunnel?”
“They should be busy,” Elvis replied. “As it stands now, the night we break out will be the same night that the Western Forces attack the city.”
CHAPTER 6
COLONEL MUSS WAS SHOWN into the Viceroy’s chambers, after waiting nearly ten hours in an adjacent office.
Muss had gotten used to putting up with lengthy delays in seeing the Viceroy, but never one that lasted from early afternoon until almost midnight. One would think the man who was in charge of the Circle’s last city on the western side of the Mississippi would be spending all that time trying to defend it.
But it soon became obvious that the Viceroy was more concerned about other things ….
Muss was led in and was instantly shocked by what he saw. The Viceroy—a young, thin man who had perfected a kind of Sir Walter Raleigh look—was stretched out on an aircraft carrier-sized, elevated water bed. The man was surrounded by a half dozen naked girls—none any older than sixteen. A brass bowl nearby was filled with a powdery substance that Muss knew was cocaine. More than a dozen straws were protruding from it. Loud, irritating music was blaring from four large quadrophonic speakers.
“Colonel Muss!” the Viceroy called out as the officer walked in. “You’re just in time for the oil wrestling.”
“We have some disturbing news, sir,” Muss said, holding up the photographs given to him by the RF-4 pilot. “Can I talk openly here?”
The Viceroy looked around at the bevy of young girls. “Why yes, Colonel,” he replied. “I doubt if there are any spies in amongst these rather edible wenches.”
Muss walked over to the side of the bed which was suspended about waist-high off the floor. He handed the photos to the Viceroy.
The man, clad only in a skimpy pair of designer underwear, sat up and studied the photos.
“Tanks,” he said calmly. “And SAMs … Where in hell are they getting all this equipment? They suffered just as we did during The Circle War. They have to deal with the same arms dealers that we do—and ours are better. Yet they seem to be building a land army twice the size of ours here in the city. This is all a mystery to me …”
As he was saying this, the Viceroy was nonchalantly fondling one girl’s breast with his toes.
“Their strength has been growing every day for the past two weeks,” Muss said, trying to avert his eyes. “The recon pilot has a movie film that shows these new additions. We estimate the Westerners now have nearly two hundred ten thousand men under arms. That’s four times more than we ever thought possible. And they’re no more than thirty miles from here.”
The Viceroy shook his head, routinely leaned over to the coke bowl and took a long, noisy sniff.
“Don’t sweat it, Muss,” he said. “Just continue the recon flights, and stay cool.”
Muss took note of the sketchy orders, shaking his head as he did so.
“Problems with that, Colonel?” the Viceroy asked.
Muss immediately straightened up. “No, sir … It’s just that it seems we should be doing more to counter the Westerners,” he told him. “They have us practically surrounded.”
The Viceroy retrieved a bottle of champagne from above his bed and quickly opened it.
“Colonel, I’m afraid to say, you are beginning to sound like the rest of my officers,” Viceroy Dick replied, taking a swig from the bottle and passing it to the young girl nearest to him. “What we are engaged in here is called ‘Tactical Defense.’ Those cowboys aren’t going to invade any time soon. Even if they do have us by four-to-one, they know we’ll kill their prisoners in a minute if they make a move. What do you think we have them digging those holes for? We’ve got plenty of time, Muss. And suffice to say that when the time comes, and the Westerners do try to attack in force, we’ll be ready.”
“If you say so, sir,” Muss mumbled.
The Viceroy reached over and snuggled the cute little blonde nearest him, his hand roughly fondling her budding breasts.
“But let me ask you an important question, Colonel,” he said as he continued to rub the young girl’s body. “When will your men be finished rebuilding the bridges?”
Muss closed his eyes in thought, then answered. “Two of the spans can carry traffic right now,” he said. “Three more will be open within the week. The further two, maybe two or three weeks from now.”
The Viceroy thought this over and took another long sniff of cocaine.
“All right, Colonel,” he said. “Here are some further orders:
“First, take all your workers on the sixth and seventh bridges and put t
hem to work on bridges three, four and five. By your calculations, will this mean those bridges will be open in a matter of days?”
“Possibly,” Muss answered.
“Very good,” the Viceroy said. “Remember, in a tactical defense, efficiency is the key …”
Muss shrugged. He even imagined that he was beginning to get the Viceroy’s drift …
“Now, Colonel,” he said as the bottle of champagne made its way back to him. “Sit down and relax and enjoy the oil wrestling.”
Muss did as he was told. Viceroy Dick clapped his hands once and instantly four more young girls were led in by a squad of tough-looking women guards.
“They’re all dykes,” the Viceroy leaned over and whispered to Muss, pointing to the women guards. “I find they prime the ladies for me …”
A bucket of oil—scented cooking oil—was brought in.
“Colonel, you can have the first honors,” the Viceroy said.
Muss wasn’t quite sure what the man wanted him to do.
“You’re supposed to rub the first one down, Colonel,” the Viceroy told him, realizing the man’s plight.
The bucket was brought up to Muss as was the first young girl. Like the other three girls, she was dressed in a tuxedo-negligee combination, all-black, wearing a low-cut silk blouse, with black stockings and short black boots. Muss noticed that each girl, like the naked ones frolicking on the Viceroy’s huge bed, was blond, either natural or dyed, and wearing her hair in the same long, shaggy cut.
The girl who stood before him was a beauty. Muss swallowed and hoped, for his own soul, that the girl was at least seventeen. But he knew that was unlikely …
“OK, Colonel,” Viceroy Dick said. “Take her clothes off.”
Muss hesitated at first. But unwilling to balk at the order, he started to undo the buttons on the girl’s tuxedo jacket.
“For Christ’s sake, Colonel,” the leader laughed as he saw the man’s timid approach. “We’ll be here all night …”
The Viceroy signaled for two of the women guards to step forward and help Muss, a duty which they gladly accepted. The women came up behind the girl and proceeded to rip the clothes from her back. The girl, who appeared to be heavily drugged, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she simply stood there while the older women stripped her, their hands roaming freely over her privates as they did so.
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