Thunder in the East

by Maloney, Mack;

  The two thick vapor trails had now separated and they too disappeared from view, indicating the airplanes were dropping in altitude.

  At the campus encirclement, the Circle soldiers were forming up their lines, waiting patiently as the tanks were started up and loaded. The fire resulting from the Shrike missile strike was still crackling in the background, but the commanders had ordered the mobile SAMs to pack up and get in line directly behind the tanks.

  Suddenly the ethereal whining heard earlier returned. This time louder and stronger. Veterans of the New Chicago debacle now began to worry anew. With good reason …

  Then they saw them. Not one but two huge C-5s, starting a lazy circle around the university, like hands of a clock at opposite ends of the dial. Flying slightly above each of the gigantic airplanes were three smaller jet fighters.

  And in amongst all these was the strange, arrowhead-shaped red-white-and-blue jet fighter.

  The first C-5, the one with the name Nozo emblazoned on its tailfin, opened up without warning. The whining of the C-5’s big engines was suddenly drowned out by a sinister whirring noise. The airplane was down to about 450 feet and it looked like a solid sheet of flame was shooting out of its side. Suddenly the ground directly below it erupted into fire and a gas-like vapor. When this smoke cleared, the head of the tank column and several hundred soldiers huddled nearby were simply gone …

  Panic immediately ensued among the soldiers who had witnessed the action. Those who had been lined up at the head of the column were now falling back toward the buildings of the university. Soldiers at the end of the line had heard the racket but had no idea what had happened.

  They would soon find out …

  The second C-5, the one with the name Bozo painted on its rear, dipped to its port side toward a thick concentration of troops located near the school’s dome-covered sports stadium. At once, six Gatling guns, five Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers and two Rheinmetal 120-mm converted anti-aircraft guns opened fire. The massive aircraft shuddered from the recoil—a long thick stream of fire flashing to the ground. There was nowhere to run for the hapless Circle soldiers. More than 200 of them were massacred on the spot.

  Those lucky enough to escape the first fusillade ran in every direction. The guns on the airplane were silenced for a moment. Then the AP/AV 700 triple-barrel multi-grenade launcher opened up, followed by the 120-mm Soltan mobile field gun firing illuminated rounds. A second later, the pair of Royal Ordnance 105-mm field artillery pieces also started firing.

  Once again, it was a massacre—more than 700 soldiers fell to the awesome, terrible scythe of fire.

  Still the airplane continued on its lazy circle. It dipped toward an administration building where some of the fleeing troops had sought refuge. The latest weapons were silenced only to be followed by the incredible blast of the LARS II 110-mm multiple rocket launcher, its prominent backfire spouting straight down and out of the C-5’s tail. More than 500 rockets were fired in a ten-second span, reducing the building to its crumbling foundation.

  For the next ten awful minutes, the two aerial leviathans continued to circle the university, firing at ten second intervals. No missiles were shot at them, no one challenged them with an AA gun. There was no resistance—only the blood-curdling screams of those about to die. There was nowhere to hide, all of the buildings had been reduced to rubble. Those Circle soldiers not yet killed in the onslaught were reduced to non-functioning, instantaneous cases of shell shock.

  For many, it was as if the end of the world had finally arrived …

  CHAPTER 60

  BY CONTRAST, THINGS WERE quiet at the Aerodrome, the only disturbing noise being the screams of the Circle commanders coming through the radio speakers from the bloodbath at the university. Grim-faced officers listened helplessly as they heard their brothers in arms decimated by the UA flying battle forts.

  In amongst the officers sat Viceroy Dick, his head wounds still wrapped by healing, his bloodstream pounding with the force of the painkillers. He never imagined things would go so badly for the Circle, but the rout of their forces the day before probably had few parallels in military history.

  “Should have bought those nukes,” he whispered to himself.

  Just then the overall commander of the Circle forces at the Aerodrome called an emergency general staff meeting in the CIC. The officer, a Soviet five-star general named Chestopalov, told those assembled that he had received orders from his superiors that the Aerodrome had to be held at all costs. An audible groan went up from the officers; many wanted to bug out now, get beyond the perimeter of the air base and strike out for the swampy, and therefore hard-to-track terrain to their east. It wouldn’t be an orderly retreat—more like every man for himself.

  “We must stay!” Chestoplatov said sternly after detecting the officers’ negativity. “There is something bigger than our petty lives here at stake. Our comrades in Washington are counting on us …”

  “Fuck them!” someone yelled out.

  All eyes turned to Viceroy Dick. He sat with his mouth open and wearing an expression that said: Did I say that?

  “What was that comment?” Chestoplatov demanded of them.

  Suddenly Dick found himself standing up and beginning to speak. It was like someone else had taken over his body. He swore right there that he would stop taking all kinds of drugs.

  “I said fuck those guys in Washington!” he heard himself scream. “Our asses are on the line here—not theirs. We got a bunch of chicken-ass soldiers here, who will be lucky to get one shot off when the Americans roll in. And the pilots are even worse. They’re too chicken-shit to take off, for Christ’s sake, because they believe that ghost called The Wingman is up there flying around. Face it, the situation is hopeless. Dying just so they can have their party down in DC is ridiculous …”

  The Russian general’s face turned bright crimson. “This is out-and-out subversion!” he screamed in heavily-accented English.

  “Well, fuck you too then!” Dick screamed back at him. His mind was gone, he kept telling himself. He had finally cracked from using too many drugs. Someone else had taken over his body and that someone was about to get both of them shot.

  Suddenly his handgun was out of his holster and he was firing it at the general. Three bullets hit the man square on the forehead, pitching him back over his chair and slamming him against the wall. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  “OK, I’m in charge here now!” Viceroy Dick’s other being shouted. “Any problems with that?”

  One man started to raise his hand, so Dick shot him in the head too.

  Then Dick heard his strange voice call out: “Any other questions?”

  CHAPTER 61

  THE FIVE B-1S HAD taken off shortly after dawn and formed up out over Lake Erie.

  They positioned themselves into a diamond formation—Ghost Rider 1 rode out on the point, while Ghost Rider 2 and 3 took the sides and Ghost Rider 4 brought up the rear. In the middle of the formation was Ghost Rider 5.

  Once in place, the five airplanes climbed to 20,000 feet and turned as one toward the east …

  J.T. was in Ghost Rider 1, riding lead on the formation. Once he had leveled off, he, like the other pilots in 2, 3, and 4, began throwing a number of switches on a side control board in the cockpit. The signals were instantly transmitted to Ghost 5, the jet bomber that was carrying most of the electronic gear. Ben Wa sat behind the controls of this aircraft, splitting his time between flying the plane and making sure all the required signals were coming in from his four counterparts.

  The computer aboard Ghost 5 instantly began processing these signals, coughing out computations in airspeed, altitude, engine exhaust heat and fuel loads. Within two minutes every aspect of the five airplanes’ radar “signatures” was identified by Ghost 5’s super-computer. Then, one by one, those signatures were masked electronically.

  On the control board before J.T., there were five red lights. Suddenly one of them started to blin
k.

  “Ghost 1, on lock,” he radioed back to Ben Wa, tightening up the formation in order to give the electronics in Ghost 5 every advantage.

  Several moments later, another red light on the panel started blinking, followed by the call: “Ghost 2, locked on.” Ten seconds later a third red light popped on. “Ghost 3, locked on …” Then a fourth: “Ghost 4, locked on …”

  Thirty seconds later, the fifth and last red light started blinking. He heard Ben’s voice say: “Ghost 5 locked on. System locked on …”

  “Verify system lock, Ghost 5,” J.T. quickly called back to Ben.

  A few seconds passed, then came the reply: “System lock verified…. We are now ‘in system.’”

  J.T. clapped his hands once in triumph—the way-out hardware had worked again.

  The five B-1s were now “invisible.”

  Viceroy Dick was hustling from one command post to another, his entourage of bodyguards in tow, informing the officers on station that he was now running the show at the Aerodrome. No one argued with him, especially after he told them to get ready to break out of the perimeter.

  Some would be left behind however. The coordination needed to successfully move the remaining 11,000 men and their equipment would have to come from the all-important Command Center. Therefore, he ordered the operators to stay at their posts until they received further orders from him.

  He ordered all but the shoulder-launch SAM teams to stay behind also. Should an air raid come, the bigger the fight between his AA crews and the attacking American aircraft the better. All the more confusion that would help to cover his withdrawal.

  His final order was to the five remaining Circle-hired pilots. He told them not to take off until the first attacking jets were spotted on radar. Then he promised them no less than 200 bags of gold for every kill they could confirm. They responded anxiously and told him they would do their best. But both he and the pilots knew they were bullshitting each other. As soon as they could, Dick knew the pilots would take off and be gone. His reasoning was that they would shoot down a few UA jets just out of self-preservation. That would mean fewer UA jets harassing him during his bug-out.

  His troops formed up on the tarmac, nervously waiting in four-deep ranks. He intended on leading them eastward, through the Cicero Swamp, then up around Oneida Lake and finally into the wilderness of the former Adirondack Park. He planned to loot anything and everything in his path and once settled in the forests, lay low and figure out how best to use his 11,000-man army.

  He did one last quick check in the Command Center, totally ignoring the dirty looks from those who would be left behind. He counted on the radiomen to continue to update him on the advancing American columns, both the one that was approaching the air-base from the due north and the one that he was sure had already taken possession of the bloody grounds around the university. He also needed a constant reading on how many UA airplanes were in the area and exactly where they were, as his only air defense would be the squads of shoulder-launched SAMs.

  It seemed like everything was set. That’s when he heard a distant rumbling …

  He was about to order his troops to start marching when he looked skyward and saw five glinting shapes of white coming toward the base from the west.

  “Jesus Christ! UA bombers!” he screamed. “Why didn’t we pick them up on the radar …”

  He immediately ran down the steps to the Command Center, his nine-man bodyguard squad doing its best to keep up with him. Once there he was shocked to find his radar operators grudgingly staring at blank screens.

  “They are five bombers heading our way,” he shouted to the officer in charge. “Order the SAMs to start tracking them!”

  The officer looked at the “non-active” screen and then back at Viceroy Dick. “There are no read-outs on the scope, sir,” he said. “Perhaps you were mistaken …”

  Dick grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and with the help of his guards, hauled him up the three flights of stairs.

  By the time they reached the surface, the five specks were nearly over them.

  “Look up there, shithead!” Dick screamed at the man. “What do those look like to you?”

  The man never answered him. The first bomb landed just ten feet away …

  Dick felt the strangest sensation run through his body as he was blown up and away from the Command Center building. Even in his last conscious moment, he felt his nose was running …

  “Right on target!” J.T. heard his navigator call out.

  He took a glance at his ground radar TV screen and saw the video projection of the explosions that were rocking the central terminal of the Aerodrome.

  “One of those would have to have hit that Command Center,” he called back to Ben Wa in Ghost Rider 5.

  “I’m not worried about it,” Wa replied. “That whole terminal is ancient history already.”

  J.T. banked his B-1 to the left and caught a look at the results of the bombing himself. Ben was right, the main terminal building was consumed in one massive fiery cloud. He could see large secondary explosions going off within the larger plume, adding further to the destruction.

  Satisfied, he called back to Erie control tower. “Mission accomplished,” he reported. “There’s nothing left standing down there …”

  He turned the five radar-proof bombers back to the west and headed home.

  “Sorry, Fitz …” he added.

  CHAPTER 62

  HUNTER BROUGHT THE F-16XL down for a bumpy but successful landing at the Aerodrome.

  PAAC paratroopers were still floating down as he taxied his plane up to what was left of the main terminal building. He could see a pitched battle was raging out on the southside runways between the American Airborne soldiers and the remaining Circle troops. But he knew the enemy would soon be taken care of. Very few had survived the massive B-1 strike or the two hours of smaller fighter-bomber strikes that followed. Maybe 1500 or so had escaped, but no more.

  Nearby were the remains of an A-7, still burning after being shot down by a Circle SAM. Farther off was the charred wreckage of a Texan F-4, also a victim to a SAM. But aside from those two airplanes, there were no further losses to the United American air arm.

  He surveyed the whole base. Everywhere there seemed to be fires, wrecked equipment, broken glass and bodies. Mostly bodies. Some were twisted and gnarled and burnt to the bone. Others were lying peacefully, as if they were just sleeping.

  “What a waste,” he whispered to himself.

  A C-130 rumbled in right behind Hunter, it too finding the landing bumpy on the cratered, bomb-scarred runway. The big Hercules pulled up beside his airplane and Jones was the first to jump out. Behind him was a solemn-looking Mike Fitzgerald.

  “Well, we did it,” Jones said, looking around at the practically demolished Aerodrome. “Not a whole lot left to claim though, is there?”

  Hunter pointed toward the southside runway. “They’re still mopping up over there,” he said. “Any prisoners they can bring back, we should get them hoofing on burial details.”

  Dozer was already on the ground, having jumped in with the paratroopers. He soon appeared, escorting three young women who were obviously call girls.

  To Hunter’s dismay, they were also all wearing the fashionable Dominique-look “Queenie” outfits.

  “Found them in the rubble,” Dozer told Hunter and Jones. “They say that most of the civvies got out before the big battles began …”

  Jones thumbed them back to the C-130. “We’ll take care of them,” he said, turning back to Dozer. “What’s the latest from the university?”

  “Just clearing out a few last pockets of resistance,” Dozer replied. “Just got off the phone with them. There’s not much left over there either. They’re burning the bodies now.”

  Hunter excused himself and walked over to Fitz who was standing at the edge of the runway, looking out at his blasted, burning dream.

  “It’s all gone, Hawker, me friend,” he said
sadly. “Lot of work went into this. Lot of memories …”

  Hunter put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. It seems like everyone was losing something these days.

  “Mike, as soon as this is over,” he said. “I’ll be the first one back here with you. Just give me a shovel and a wheelbarrow …”

  Fitz’s eyes misted over. “We’ll see, Hawker,” he said, walking away. “We’ll see …”

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 63

  THE FREE CANADIAN SEA King helicopter touched down to a shaky landing on the rolling deck of the troop transport.

  The weather was terrible—the seas were nearly at 12 feet and it had been a bumpy journey out from Newfoundland. But as Major Frost alighted from the chopper, he knew the trip had to be made. It was, in fact, critical.

  Several unsmiling guards were waiting for him just off the helipad. They frisked him, then escorted him down to the captain’s quarters. Once there he met a man introduced to him only as Karl. They didn’t shake hands, he was offered no coffee or liquor. The man simply stared at him for a moment and said: “Talk …”

  Frost took a deep breath.

  “This attack on the American East Coast that you are planning is complete insanity,” he told him, his voice stern and strong. “You’ll be cut down on the beaches …”

  The man laughed. “Come now, Major Frost,” he said in an English that was tinged with some kind of Eastern European accent. “I didn’t agree to this meeting just to have you spout your friends’ propaganda at me.”

  “It’s not propaganda,” Frost shot back at’ him. “These are facts. You are a fool if you expect to link up with any allies—the Circle or anybody—once you land.”