Thunder in the East

by Maloney, Mack;

  “I’ll be talking to him tonight as a matter of fact,” Crabb said pocketing the gold like an expert.

  “Well, what a coincidence,” Hunter smiled. “Be sure to tell him we said hello …”

  CHAPTER 28

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT BEFORE Hunter climbed into his bunk in the nose of the C-5, determined to get some sleep.

  But it came hard to him these days. Hundreds of thought were ricocheting around his head like so many billiard balls. The sudden “victory” at Football City. The mysterious cargo in the trailer trucks. The calculated race to the East Coast, using a plan where the slightest glitch could ruin the chances for liberating the eastern half of the country. Also he hadn’t flown—really flown—in so long, his bones were starting to ache.

  But it was this goddamn ache in his heart that bothered him most …

  He reached inside his pocket and took out the small American flag. Carefully, he unfolded it, then took out the picture he always kept there. It was of his girlfriend, Dominique. This was the same picture The Circle had distributed to its drug-crazy troops during the Circle War when Dominique had been forced to be Viktor’s mistress. Hunter had rescued her then, and sent her to a safe haven in Free Canada. And although he knew she was in safe hands these days, it still did nothing to end his longing for her.

  He looked at the picture, now dog-eared and faded. She was posing in a black tuxedo jacket, low-cut silk blouse, black nylons and short black boots. Her Bardot-like face, that blond shagged hair. She looked like a queen and that was exactly what Viktor had told his troops. Through no fault of her own, men died for her image. And in his twisted perverted plan, Viktor had taken her, both physically and mentally. Now Viktor was dead, and all rational thought would suggest that Hunter should hate the photo, hate how she had been posed by the super-terrorist. But the truth of the matter was that he didn’t hate it. Quite the opposite. He felt an erotic charge run though him every time he looked at it. The best of both worlds is when your lady is also your fantasy. He shivered at the thought of it. There were other women, but nothing like Dominique. He loved her. He wanted to be with her. But when would he see her again? He couldn’t answer the question and that was partly what the ache inside him was about.

  It seemed like it had been this way forever. The two great loves of his life: his country and his girlfriend. He knew he had to fight to protect both—to the death, if necessary. But his country was at peril now, so he knew his place was here, fighting for it. But every minute he spent away from her, he felt that she was slipping that much farther away from him.

  He softly kissed the photo, did the same to the flag, then carefully placed them back inside his pocket. He knew he had to think of other things or he’d never get to sleep …

  CHAPTER 29

  THE A-37 DRAGONFLY STREAKED up the eastern edge of the Illinois River, no more than 50 feet above the ground. Ben Wa was at the controls of the small, yet rugged jet; Yaz was sitting in the right hand side copilot/gunner/navigator seat. Usually used as a COIN—for counter-insurgency—aircraft, this Dragonfly was on a different mission. Its two jet engines were quiet, its small size to its benefit, and still, it was able to carry a lot of gear.

  In other words, it was easily converted into an armed spy ship.

  Ben and Yaz were looking for the Circle’s convoy of trailer trucks. United American Army spies in the New Chicago area reported to them shortly after the retaking of Football City that although the bulk of the Circle Army was now camped just inside New Chicago’s secure defense perimeter, the mysterious convoy of trucks—and the elongated APC—were not with them. Therefore, they could only assume that for whatever reason, the big semis had fallen behind the main group shortly after passing into Illinois. Thus, the search for them had been launched.

  “Scope still clear,” Yaz said to Ben as the plane banked around a wide curve in the river. “I’ll pump it up to fifteen klick radius.”

  Yaz had been given a crash course in operating the navigation and search modes of the A-37’s newly installed APG-56 radar. The airplane was also carrying a LANTIRN pod, which allowed it to operate on the darkest of nights and in the worst kinds of weather. Shortly before he had left for New Chicago, Hunter had somehow jammed all the gear into the diminutive jet and showed Yaz the ins and outs of its operation.

  It was a far cry from working a nuclear sub, a duty that Yaz was more accustomed to.

  “OK, let’s swing in up here,” Ben said, noting they were just south of Peoria. “There’s a convergence of several major roads outside the city. Maybe we’ll get lucky …”

  He raised the jet up to 150 feet and turned hard to starboard. “Better arm the missiles,” he told Yaz. “Just in case …”

  They could see a few lights ahead in what was the mostly abandoned city of Peoria. This part of Illinois was a Free Territory these days—meaning there was no government, no police, no army and therefore, practically no people. Yaz knew any infra-red reading he got from the ground below would most likely be coming from weapons used by either one of the several notorious air pirate gangs known to operate in the area, or maybe Circle troops.

  “Got nothing …” he told Ben as they swept low over the deserted city. The only lights burning were in the top floors of the few skyscrapers.

  “How could they hide a hundred or more big semis?” Ben asked, for what had to be the hundredth time. “If the stuff inside was so valuable, why would they not keep up with the main Circle column? They would have had forty thousand bodyguards if they did.”

  They were both quiet for a while, streaking through the darkened, moonless night, skimming the treetops.

  Then an idea came to Yaz. “Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong place …” he said, thinking out loud.

  “Like how?” Ben asked.

  Yaz shifted in his seat and unloosened his oxygen mask a little. “Well, are we just assuming that the semis stuck with the main group?” Yaz asked rhetorically. “If they’re not outside of New Chicago, and not on the main roadways in between, maybe they didn’t head that way. Maybe they went south or straight east …”

  “Could be …” Ben said. “We’ve been at this for three nights now and all we’ve done is burn fuel …”

  They completed their pre-determined run right up to La Salle. Still finding nothing, Ben turned the jet around and they headed back for Football City.

  CHAPTER 30

  THE NEXT MORNING, HUNTER awoke to the sounds of machinery grinding away outside the C-5’s window.

  He looked toward the C-46 and saw an ancient garbage truck had pulled up to its rear hatchway. A crew of workers were lifting bodies out of the airplane and throwing them into the back of the garbage truck. “On their way to some cement plant, no doubt,” Hunter thought as he shook the sleep from his eyes.

  Getting the bodies had been the grisliest aspect of their plan, but one that was needed to lend the correct amount of authenticity. The bodies were actually those of Circle troops or mercenaries killed in the fighting at Football City. In anticipation of the foray to New Chicago, the corpses had been gathered up, frozen, then thawed shortly before the C-46 set down in New Chicago. J.T. drew the short straw and thus was stuck with splattering the twice-dead stiffs with chicken blood to complete the ruse.

  “How much for the cleaning crew?” Hunter asked Fitz as he walked up to the flight deck and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Five bags of silver, it was,” Fitzgerald answered. “Cheap for such a job. But I don’t feel for them at all—they’re former Chicago meat packers, used to the muscle and blood.”

  “Well, that’s breakfast,” Hunter said, feeling his stomach do a slight somersault. “What’s next?”

  “The goons were out here about fifteen minutes ago,” Fitz said. “We have a meeting with the mayor at noon. That is, if there isn’t a coup before then …”

  Hunter checked his watch. “Jesus, that’s four hours from now,” he said facetiously. “You think they can keep it together that l
ong?”

  They both shared a laugh. Nothing had changed much in Chicago politics—it was still as Byzantine as ever. The only real difference was that the pace by which the leaders of the Chicago Machine rose to power had quickened—as had the rate of their downfalls. In the past year the longest reign of any mayor had been three weeks. The average term in office was now just nine days. The average life expectancy of a deposed leader who wasn’t smart enough to get out when he could was considerably less.

  The process of selecting the mayor had also not changed much. Party bosses would select a candidate. The candidate would then go out and buy the votes of the people that would sell and shoot the ones who would not. The mayor would be sworn in, his tax collectors would immediately cover the city, and his defense force would get paid. But while all this was happening, other parties were selecting other candidates. Inevitably, someone would pay off the security force or a close associate of the mayor, there would be a coup d’etat, and the whole crazy cycle would start over again.

  Overseeing it all was the Family. No matter who got elected, The Family knew it would collect its pound of flesh, whether it be in gold, silver, guns, drugs or girls.

  “Who is the mayor this week?” Hunter asked.

  Fitz ruffled through some papers. “Some guy named Bruceland,” he said, locating the name of his landing document. “This Crabb fellow apparently knows him well. Says he’s a real ‘businessman.’”

  Hunter gave Fitz a stage wink. “Just what we need,” he said.

  The Chicago City Hall was a palace.

  “No wonder they kill each other to get in here,” Fitz said as he and Hunter got out of Crabb’s limousine which had pulled up to the front entrance of the place. Appropriately enough, the main entrance way was a revolving door.

  “Nice touch,” Hunter commented as Crab escorted them into the front lobby.

  The City Hall looked more like the Taj Mahal. Everything seemed to either shine gold or silver or sparkle with diamonds. The walls were done in velvet wallpaper, the floor was highly polished marble. No less than six crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and one entire wall of the huge lobby featured the longest, best stocked bar Hunter had ever seen.

  Everywhere they looked, there was an armed guard.

  Crabb led them upstairs and into the mayor’s chambers—an opulent room scarred only by a few bullet holes in the walls and in the stained glass windows. The three of them sat down and took a drink from a beautiful servant. Mayor Bruceland walked in two minutes later.

  “So these are the guys who shot up my airport,” he asked with a wide grin, shaking hands with Hunter and Fitz.

  “Just a misunderstanding,” Fitz told him. “All cleaned up as of this morning.”

  The mayor let out a hearty laugh. “OK, just as long as you’re clean about it,” he said. “The guy before me had a thing about shooting litterers …”

  Bruceland was about 50 years old, clad in a pre-war business suit, with an unmistakable bulge under his left lapel. Hunter determined the man was packing either an old Colt M1911A1 or a Beretta Model 92F Whatever it was, it qualified as a hand cannon.

  “I hear you guys are quite resourceful,” Bruceland said, settling in behind his desk.

  “We can be,” Hunter told him. “But we don’t come cheap.”

  “Who does these days?” Bruceland asked. “As it turns out, I’m looking for some help with a particularly irritating group of business associates. You guys interested?”

  “We’ll listen,” Fitz said, taking a sip of his drink.

  Bruceland lit up an enormous cigar. “As Colonel Crabb here probably told you, I’ve only been in office several days.

  “Now, my predecessor—wherever he is—had made arrangements with a rather large group of visitors concerning their use of quite a bit of our turf about thirty miles from here.

  “These people camped out and paid my predecessor the correct amount of … well, let’s call it ‘rent’ for use of the land. But since my predecessor moved on, shall we say, to parts unknown, these people have refused to pay me my rent.”

  “How can we help you?” Hunter asked, surreptitiously crossing his fingers for luck.

  Bruceland leaned back in his leather chair and blew a series of smoke rings. “These people need to be taught a lesson,” he said finally. “The problem is, there are a lot of them. And me and my boys just don’t do a lot of ‘group things,’ if you know what I mean …”

  “How much?” Fitz asked. “And we want only gold …”

  Bruceland shrugged. “Name your price,” he said. “After the job is done, that is …”

  “Got any reservations about how we handle it?” Hunter asked him.

  The mayor just laughed. “Just be neat …” he said.

  Both Hunter and Fitz rose and shook hands with him. “You got yourself a deal, Mr. Mayor,” Fitz said. “Now just point us in the right direction and tell us who the welchers are.”

  Bruceland did one better. He walked over to his wall and pulled down a map of New Chicago territory. To the south of the city they saw an area that had been shaded red.

  “They’re camped right here,” Bruceland said, pointing to the colored area. “They call themselves the Circle Army. You guys ever hear of them?”

  CHAPTER 31

  MAJOR TOMM, THE FORMER commander of the Circle Army’s anti-aircraft battalions, was awakened early the next morning by a strange, high-pitched whine.

  No one else in his tent was stirred by the noise, but he could hear it—way off, very high, possibly circling.

  He pulled on his boots and threw his uniform jacket around his shoulders. It was just a half hour before sunrise, but he still needed a flashlight to see his way out of the tent and around the darkened camp grounds. Stopping for a moment to concentrate on the sound, he headed out of the woods, down to the flat lands nearby where he could get a better view.

  Tomm had been demoted less than two days after being one of the last senior officers to make it out of Football City. He wasn’t on duty at the time of the Western Forces’ attack—he was in a cathouse called the Two-Ladies-Three. And he got word of the coming invasion only when he saw the lights blinking out downtown, and had called the front desk to see what was up.

  The next thing he knew, he was caught up in a maddening crush of gamblers, drug dealers, hookers, retreating soldiers and mercenaries—all of them intent on getting out of the city before the Westerner’s juggernaut arrived. It was like rats jumping ship—three hours of panic, confusion and hysteria.

  He caught a ride with some retreating Libyans and arrived at the Circle Army’s encampment outside of New Chicago a day and a half late. That’s when he learned that he was now second-in-command of the housekeeping unit—in charge of the cooking and the cleaning for the camp grounds. As far as he knew, the Circle Army command had yet to name his successor to the anti-aircraft unit.

  He walked out onto the plain and looked up into the slowly brightening sky. He could still hear the whining—now louder than ever. This concerned him. He knew it was an airplane. And he knew it certainly wasn’t one of theirs.

  Ten minutes went by and the sky was getting brighter. Things were starting to take shape in the plain. The square mile meadow was where the encampments’ SAM site was located. He walked among the rows of neatly-packed, canvas-covered SA-5s, and SA-2s, still searching the sky for the source of the sound. Suddenly Tomm caught a quick glimpse of black and silver, passing over the eastern horizon. It was a large aircraft, no markings, just circling at about 25,000 feet, leaving behind a corkscrew of vapor. He looked closer and soon enough realized that it was a C-5 Galaxy.

  “A cargo plane,” he said, with some relief. It was probably circling waiting for clearance to land at New Chicago only 30 miles away.

  He started to walk back up the hill to the tree grove where most of the Circle Army tents were pitched when he heard another noise—a different noise.

  He looked up at the C-5 and saw long puffs of s
moke shooting out of its belly. At the end of each smoke trail he saw a bright flash of fire, dropping slowly.

  “They’re dropping flares,” he said, at the same time wondering why the hell they would do that.

  Now his attention was glued to the airplane as it continued to circle and pump out flares. He had been a SAM officer for three years and he knew that the only reason why an airplane would drop so many flares at regular intervals was fear of getting shot down by a missile. The flares’ heat would fool the heat-seeking devices in most SAMs.

  But why would a cargo airplane have such concerns? Unless …

  The C-5 was getting lower, and not making any move toward New Chicago. It was circling directly over the sleeping Circle encampments and pumping out flares every five seconds.

  He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew something was very wrong with how the airplane was acting. He ran back up the hill, into the woods and up to the tent of the officer of the guard.

  “Call the commandant’s bivouac,” Tomm told the young captain, his voice shaky and out of breath. “There is a strange aircraft circling overhead, dispensing flares …”

  The officer looked at him like he was nuts.

  “Do what I say, man!” Tomm shouted at him. “Can’t you hear that airplane up there? Have you ever heard an airplane like that before?”

  The officer shook his head. “No way am I calling the commandant’s bivouac,” he said. “We’re right on the landing pattern of the Family’s airport, mac. Now go back to bed.”

  Tomm almost blew his stack.

  “I’m a major, captain,” he yelled at the man. “Make the call!”

  “I’m the officer in charge, Major,” the young man countered. “And I make the decision whether the commandant’s phone rings or not. And like I told you, it ain’t gonna ring this morning.”