Certain they would kill him if he made a sound, the Circle colonel closed his eyes and pretended to be dead …
CHAPTER 24
A NORTH KOREAN REGIMENTAL commander heard the noise first.
Way off in the distance, a barely perceptible pop, followed closely by two more.
It was two in the morning, and up until this time, everything had been quiet in his sector. His troops, along with a mixture of Libyans and Cubans, had taken up positions in the Circle front line trenches shortly after noontime the day before. The Circle troops were marching back toward Football City just as his troops were marching forward. The commander would never forget the look in the eyes of the Circle soldiers as they viewed his troops.
One Circle trooper had even yelled it out: “Suckers!” he had said.
Now the North Korean watched as a thin yellow streak crossed the sky. It was high up when he focused his NightScope binoculars on it, the infra-red image revealing a large cylindrical object. As he watched, the tube deployed a parachute, and was now slowly dropping toward his lines.
He immediately barked out an order for all his men to hunker down in their trenches, and when he regained sight of the cylinder, it was only about 200 feet above the ground, about a quarter of a mile from his position.
Was it a camera of some kind? Or gas? Or perhaps a failed long-range rocket launch?
Just as the cylinder was 100 feet above the trenches it suddenly burst open with a deafening crack! and a flash of yellow fire …
With a strange jingling and hissing sound, the cylinder had exploded and shot out thousands of small sharp projectiles which ripped into the hapless North Korean troops in the trenches, exploding the minefields in front of them at the same time. Suddenly another parachute cylinder burst a half mile away. Then another even further away.
The North Korean commander felt a spray of tiny bullets rip his arm clean off his body. He was knocked backward just as another wave tore his left foot clean off. Lying in an instant pool of his own blood, the commander looked up at the night sky to see it was now criss-crossed with the yellow streaks and the hideous, slowly-descending cluster bombs …
One word came back to him as he slowly passed into Hell: “Suckers …”
The opening shots of yet another Battle for Football City had been fired …
Cluster bombs were falling all over the front as the Western Forces prepared to jump off in their invasion of Football City.
The efforts at deceiving the Circle with the phony recon photos were now paying off. The Westerners simply launched their attack from points where The Circle had thought they’d been the weakest, ignoring the Circle’s frontline concentrations that had been established across from where they had thought the Westerners were the strongest.
It was a total diversion. From the Free Canadians in the north, down through the combined Pacific American-Football City Army in the middle to the anxious Texans in the south, the democratic troops rolled through the areas obliterated by the cluster bombs, got behind the Circle-sponsored trench troops and began a series of wide encircling pincer movement.
Once the enemy’s sides were “rolled up,” the Westerners’ air corps went to work. Attack airplanes of all types—from PAAC A-7s and F-5s to Texan Phantoms and Free Canadian Skyhawks—bombarded the trapped enemy with barrages of anti-personnel bombs and napalm. There was no anti-aircraft opposition to speak of, and many of the trench troops—hired hands with little loyalty to The Circle—simply hid or fled after the initial air attacks.
From his mobile headquarters which was now following a column of Football City tanks into the outskirts of the city itself, General Jones was on the radio constantly, directing the overall battle. Beside him were Ben Wa and Twomey, who were overseeing the air operations, and “Bull” Dozer, who was coordinating the ground attack.
Within two hours they had breached the Circle lines in a half dozen places, and Western Forces troops were pouring through the gaps and heading for the heart of the city. Yet Jones and the others were far from complacent. Despite the initial successes, they knew the Circle trenches had been manned by the unreliable mercenaries and that was the reason the attack had started so well. Still ahead they knew they faced tough fighting against battle-hardened regulars of the Circle Army.
They had no idea what was happening within the city itself …
The Circle demolition squad arrived outside the POW compound and started flailing away at the large wooden door.
Confusion now reigned in the city—they could hear the booming of guns to their west and every man now knew the long-awaited attack on Football City had begun. Overhead, enemy jets streaked unimpeded, and it seemed like explosions were going off all over the city.
In the panic, the demolition team commander realized that no one had brought a key to unlock the massive wooden door. Now, as the troops took axes to the chains and padlock, the commander checked his watch. His orders—like those to the other demo teams now fanning out in the city—were crystal clear: kill all the POWs inside the chamber by detonating a half dozen concussion bombs just inside the entrance. Circle Army engineers had determined that the POWs deep inside the Holes would either die quickly from the concussion itself or from the cave-in which would surely follow. Either way, the commander knew he had to blow this cave and another one two miles away before he could join his main unit, which was already pulling out of the city.
It took five long minutes before his troopers had hacked and weakened the chains enough to finally break them with a fusillade of an AK-47.
“Quickly!” he yelled to his troops, as they pulled back the enormous doors. “First team, set the charges. Second team, go below and make sure none of those prisoners move a muscle …”
He watched a pair of F-5s roar overhead, their silhouettes taking on a ghostly glow in the near-dawn darkness. Where the hell were the Circle airplanes? Or the SAM battalions?
Another huge explosion went off just a block away, showering him and his team with pieces of hot rock and metal.
“Jesus Christ! Hurry!” he called out to his men who were setting up the concussion bombs as quickly as they could under the circumstances.
Two more Western Forces jets went over, each one firing a long stream of rockets at some target three blocks away. The commander knew the enemy airplanes were roaming freely, looking for targets of opportunity. Eventually one of them would spot them at the cave entrance …
“Bombs set!” his sergeant called out finally.
The commander heaved a sigh of relief and started hustling all of the non-essential troops out of the cave entrance.
Just then, two troopers who had gone down into the prisoners’ cavern came running back out.
“Sir?” one of the them said to him. “There’s no one down there …”
The commander shook his head once, as if to rid himself of the nonsensical statement. “What the hell do you mean, no one’s down there?” he shouted at the man. “There better well be twenty-five hundred of those bastards down there!”
The man just numbly shook his head. “There’s not …” he said. “They must have all escaped somehow …”
The commander repressed a desire to slap the man. Instead he grabbed the rest of his soldiers and with them, entered the cave himself.
It took a minute to run down into the huge cavern, but once he got there, he found out his trooper had been right. The cavern’s gas lanterns were still lit, casting a dim light around the Hole. And there was evidence of the POWs—clothing, broken bowls, a pile of dirty blankets. But not a single prisoner remained …
“Sir, over here!” one of his troopers called out. The commander ran to the spot and found a narrow metal pipe had been wedged into the side of the cavern. At the other end he could see a large room with concrete walls, pipes and various dials and switches.
He was about to send a man through the pipe when he heard a rumbling coming from the entrance way. Suddenly the whole cavern seemed to be shaking, clump
s of dirt started to fall. Then the gas-powered arc lights went out and the cavern was plunged into a frightening darkness.
“The bombs!” the commander screamed out. “Something set them off!”
Those were his last words. Three seconds later a massive concussion ripped into the Hole so powerful it violently threw several of the troopers against the cave wall. Others felt their heads split open. Moments later the cavern’s roof fell in, burying the commander and his remaining troopers alive …
Colonel Muss was still conscious an hour after the POW convoy had been attacked.
He had yet to feel any pain, a fact he attributed to his non-stop ingestion of the cocaine stash which had survived intact in his boot. But the cocaine could not stop the pandemonium that was going on all around him.
The sky was filled with enemy jets. He could hear and sometimes feel the explosions go off in the city a half mile away. The commandos who had attacked his convoy had left the area, moving off toward the river as had the freed POWs. But the sound of nearby gunfire was still very much in the air.
Muss knew he had to get to the river, too. He was covered in the blood from a hundred separate glass cuts and his arm and leg were numb. In his drug-induced state, he felt that if he could make it to the water’s edge and wash his wounds, they would heal and he wouldn’t feel any pain—ever.
Slowly, he set out. Using his good elbow and his good leg to propel him, he crawled across the rubble-strewn river park and down the embankment to the muddy water of the Mississippi.
A patch of river weeds provided him adequate cover. Once in the water he washed the dirt and caked blood from his eyes, allowing him to see more than 10 feet in front of him. His ears were stinging, so loud were the sounds of explosions and gunfire. Now, looking up from the weeds, he saw why the noise was so intense: he had crawled right into the middle of a battle …
No sooner had he poked his head up out of the weeds than he was pulling it back down again. The scene before him was so outlandish, so crazy, he was sure that all the cocaine was making him hallucinate.
First of all, he had a clear view of three of the bridges that spanned the river. The two farthest away from him were presently jammed on both levels with fleeing Circle Army vehicles. Even in his shocked state, he knew he was watching Viceroy Dick’s vaunted “Tactical Defense” in action. Back in the old days, it was simply called a “bug out.” The once great Circle Army was retreating once again, and right behind them was another army—these were the hustlers, the criminals, the human leeches and the leftover mercenaries who were also fleeing in the face of the oncoming Western Forces. Even from this distance, Muss could sense their panic …
On the bridge closest to him, there were no marching troops, no fleeing human wreckage. Instead it was filled with a strange conglomeration of tractor trailer trucks, all moving at full-speed, their cabs and trailers covered with Soviet soldiers, most hanging on for dear life. In the midst of this parade was an odd-looking white and gold tracked vehicle which bristled with radio antennae. It, too, was carrying a number of Soviet soldiers, all of them wearing uniforms made of black leather.
As this flight went on, advance elements of the Western Forces—soldiers of the Football City Army mostly—had taken possession of various points along the river’s edge and were firing nearly point blank at the bridges carrying the retreating Circle Army troops.
But the weirdest thing of all was what was happening underneath the bridges. It was so bizarre, Muss shook his head a few times, so sure was he that he was seeing a vision …
In the middle of all the confusion on the spans, the explosions coming from the city, the enemy jets streaking overhead in the pre-dawn sky and the gunfire rippling down the water’s edge, there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of people, floating down the river. On inner tubes.
CHAPTER 25
THE FIGHTING IN AND around Football City lasted most of the morning. But by noontime, the main elements of the advancing Western Forces troops found they had very few people to shoot at.
General Jones arrived in the city itself at two that afternoon. By that time, the invading troops were mopping up against ragtag stragglers and the few unlucky foreign hired-guns The Circle had double-crossed in their hasty, but nevertheless successful retreat.
Jones directed his driver to the enormous Football City stadium which was now serving as a rallying point for the commanders of all the invading units. He wasn’t there more than ten minutes when the large Sea Stallion helicopter appeared in the sky above the stadium and came in for a landing.
This time, Hunter was at the controls …
“It feels like I haven’t flown anything in months,” the fighter pilot told him as they met outside the big chopper’s access door. “J.T. and Ben let me hop over here in this.”
Jones shook his hand, long and hard. “Congratulations, Hawk,” he said sincerely. “We pulled it off and the lion’s share of the credit goes to you …”
Hunter immediately held up his hand. “Please, don’t heap the praise on me,” he said, rather glumly. “It was guys like Elvis and Ace and the rest of them that did the hump work …”
Hunter’s attitude disturbed Jones. Here they had just recaptured their first major objective and still the pilot was serious and unsmiling.
“I’m assuming that you’ve just returned from the river,” Jones said, as they walked toward his mobile command center, which was actually an armored Winnebago. “What’s the situation down there?”
“They’re still fishing some of the POWs out of the river,” Hunter told the senior officer. “But the break-out went like clockwork. We busted the water gate in the catacombs just after midnight, and by four this morning, every POW and friendly civvie was out.
“The inner tubes worked very well. Guys that would never have made it because of their wounds or whatever were coming but of that culvert like it was an amusement ride. Our barges got to most of them, and they picked up a lot of the healthy guys who were able to swim out to them. Meanwhile, the bridges are filled with Circle troops just bugging the hell out of the city. I’ll tell you, it was quite a scene …”
A smile spread across Jones’s face. “Our casualties were so low, it’s almost unbelievable. Those nickel-and-dime soldiers in the Circle trenches were a joke. Then all the way in, my line commanders kept radioing back that they were not encountering any opposition whatsoever. So, we just figured it was better to put the pedal to the metal and see how far we’d go. Never did I expect to take back the whole city with barely firing a shot.”
“They obviously fell for O’Malley’s fake recon pictures lock and stock,” Hunter said, as they sat down inside the command center. Jones had produced a no-name bottle of whiskey and was pouring out two drinks. “But they also took something very valuable with them.”
“What do you mean?” Jones asked, sipping the whiskey.
Hunter ran his hand through his long hair. “In the middle of the retreat, they moved those trailer trucks I told you about, plus that strange APC. We were shooting at them from the river’s edge, got some of the guards riding on top, but we didn’t have the firepower to get one of those big rigs.”
Jones shook his head. “What could be so valuable inside those trucks that they would bother to save it?” he asked.
“It’s a real mystery to me,” Hunter said, swigging his drink. “But to tell you the truth, I think whatever it was, it was more important to them than hanging on to this city.”
By nightfall, the stadium was mobbed with thousands of victorious Western Forces troops.
A bank of searchlights provided the illumination for the hastily-erected stage at the 50 yard line. Among the leaders on the platform were Jones, Hunter, O’Malley, Elvis, Yaz and Louie St. Louie, the founder of Football City. The ceremony, in which Jones officially turned the city back to St. Louie, was filled with emotion, especially for the tough Football City Army troops, who hadn’t seen the inside of their city in what must have seemed like ages.
Jones then made a stirring speech in which he outlined the plans for the battles ahead, a campaign which had been appropriately named: Operation Eastern Thunder. This war is just beginning, he told the assembled troops, warning them not to take the relatively easy task of regaining Football City as a false indication of the Circle Army’s unwillingness to fight.
Then the general put forth a proposal to those gathered:
“We are all Americans here—our Canadian friends included,” he said, his voice booming around the stadium via a loudspeaker system. “And this is a war of Liberation. From the tyranny of the Circle. From the tyranny of the New Order. From the tyranny of the Soviets. Right across that river, our fellow Americans are waiting for us. Waiting for the day when they hear us coming. We can’t let them down!
“So I think we should rename our combined army. Our goal is to reunite this country. So, I propose that we should be known from now on as The United American Army!”
The proposal was met with a thunderous ovation.
“I’d say the motion has passed,” Dozer leaned over and said to Jones.
The ceremony was a case of real-life deja vu for Hunter. In what seemed like ages ago to him, he recalled another celebration, held right in this very stadium on the occasion of defeating the Family Army from taking over the city. It was the first big battle between the democratic forces and those aligned with the Soviet-backed New Order.
But now, here he was again. The enemy called itself by a different name, yet the cause was the same. By force of habit, he reached to his breast pocket and felt the reassuring bulge of the small American flag he always kept there. This is what they were fighting for. America. To his dying breath—all for his country. Yes, he had been here before, but one thing was different: this time, the democratic forces—the men of the United American Army—were on the offensive …
Now if only the deep, empty ache inside his heart would stop …
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