by Mack Maloney
“Where have you been, Major? Hibernating?”
“Worse than that, sir,” Hunter replied, still standing ramrod straight at attention. “I’ve been contemplating my existence.”
“Obviously, you’re suffering from post-World War III syndrome,” the general said. “It’s been going around.”
Hunter continued. “Got a bunch of books, went up to a mountain and tried to find the meaning of life, sir.
“Jesus, not that!”
“’Fraid so, sir.”
“And what conclusions did you reach, Major?”
Hunter paused a moment for effect, then replied, “Well, sir, I discovered that every man has to believe in something.”
“And …?”
“And,” Hunter said, looking around the general’s empty office. “And, I believe I’ll have a drink, sir.”
“Scotch?”
“Neat, sir.”
With the wave of his hand, Jones dismissed the properly impressed, if slightly confused sentry. He walked around the desk and hugged Hunter.
“Good to see you, Hawk,” he said.
“Same here, sir.”
Jones locked the office door and broke out his emergency bottle.
“Had breakfast yet?” he asked.
Despite the early morning hour, they sat and ate stale doughnuts, while mixing the no-brand whiskey in with cups of steaming coffee. Then they talked.
“Well, Hawk,” Jones said, swigging his laced coffee. “What the hell happened to you after Rota?”
“You really want to know?”
“Sure as hell,” Jones said, smiling. “You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.”
Hunter took a deep breath. It seemed like so long ago. “Okay,” he said. “Hang onto your hat.”
Hunter began his story. After Jones had been led away, everyone took for granted he was heading for a firing squad. The members of the 16th scattered. But Hunter was determined to get back to America, or what was left of it. He knew there was an American sub base up in Loch Lomond, Scotland, and figured it was the only place where ships might be trying to get back home. So he walked. Right through Spain, through France and, after bribing a Frenchman to take him across the Channel, right up through England. It took him more than two months to reach Loch Lomond only to find the place filled with ex-GIs who had had the same idea as he. There were at least 10,000 men trying to get on no more than a half dozen Navy warships docked in the harbor. No one was in charge. The base was in a state of utter chaos.
Then he got lucky. At one corner of the sprawling base he found a battalion of Marines. They had set up an orderly camp on a hill inside the base and were grimly going about the task of staying civilized in the middle of all the disorder. Hunter fell in with them after pulling rank on a couple of the camp’s guards and demanding to be taken to their commanding officer. His name was Captain John “Bull” Dozer and after a brief talk, he offered Hunter some grub and a place to sleep.
Dozer’s outfit was going by the curious name of the 7th Cavalry—odd because the Marine Corps had no cavalry, per se. Over a pot of coffee, Dozer explained to Hunter that his unit had been fighting in Turkey when the last great battles of the war were raging. At one point they were surrounded by four Soviet army regiments near Ankara. Yet his Marines fought ferociously, and, unlike Custer’s 7th Cavalry, caused the enemy to back off the siege and rethink the situation. By the time Dozer got his troops to more defensible ground, the war in Europe had been won and the Russians had agreed to the ceasefire.
Dozer promised his men that if they stuck together, he would get them home. He commandeered two Turkish airliners at gunpoint and forced the pilots to fly his 900 soldiers to England. His goal too was Loch Lomond and they had arrived two weeks before. When Hunter told him America was his goal too, they shook hands and agreed to work toward it together.
By the second afternoon, the six ships in port were overflowing with the survivors. One by one, they disappeared over the horizon. Hunter knew their chances of making it to America were nil.
Two days later the enormous outline of an aircraft carrier appeared off to the south. It was the John F. Kennedy. The captain came ashore and word quickly spread through the 5,000 remaining ex-GIs that they could hitch a ride to America as long as it was an orderly evacuation. The 7th Cavalry saddled up, and with Hunter tagging along, were among the first group to be taken aboard the great ship.
The voyage west took ten days, and as the faint outline of Manhattan appeared on the horizon, questions ran through the minds of the men on board. What was the country like now? Was there any country left to come home to?
They got their answers soon enough. As the ship neared the harbor they could see that what looked to be a mist enveloped the city. The mist was actually smoke. The city was burning. A collective shudder went through the men on the ship when they got a look at the Statue of Liberty. It was headless. The top had been blown off by some unknown catastrophe. As the JFK neared a docking point just off the southern tip of Manhattan, sounds of gunfire could be heard coming from the city streets. Welcome to New Order America, was all that Hunter could think of.
The ship docked and the passengers began filing off. Some stayed in groups, others just disappeared into the streets alone. Not many of them had any destination planned. Hunter gladly joined the Marines as they smartly formed up and marched down the gangplank.
Dozer told him that the 7th had decided to stay together no matter what. Technically, they were no longer Marines and Dozer was no longer their commanding officer. But they agreed to stay with him and try to reach Fort Meade, Maryland. The Marine captain asked Hunter to go with them, but Hunter had made up his mind that if New York City was an indication of the state of the country—and he was certain it was—then he wanted no part of it. He had already set his sights on getting to the mountain in New Hampshire. Still he knew it would be wise to stay with the Marines until they were out of the horrible Beirut-like Manhattan.
Dozer formed his troops into one main column and gave them the order to march. Their destination was the George Washington Bridge. The sound of gunfire was everywhere. No one had a clue as to who was fighting whom, but most of the destroyed equipment they came across bore the markings of the National Guards of New York and New Jersey. Were the two states battling it out for possession of the island?
They were nearing Central Park East when they ran into trouble. Scouts stationed ahead of the column got word back to Dozer that a small group of armed men were holding two women at gunpoint three blocks away. Using hand signals, Dozer instructed his men to surround the gunmen. When one of the gang members raised his rifle the armed men were cut down in a volley of murderous gunfire.
And then a strange thing happened. One by one, civilians started to appear. They had been hiding in doorways, alleys and in buildings. Shyly, cautiously at first, they began to emerge from their hiding places. Soon, there were a couple of hundred of them—old men, women, children. Some of them were wounded; all of them were caught in the terrifying madness of the anarchy in New York City.
One man was particularly happy. He was running up and down the street, waving a small American flag and yelling “The Marines are here!” Just as he was running up to Hunter and Dozer, a shot rang out. The man’s chest exploded from the sniper’s bullet. He fell right into Hunter’s arms. He gasped and tried to speak, but all that came out was “… Why … shoot … me?”
Then he died.
Hunter laid the man’s body down on the street. He was about 65 years old, Hunter figured, just one of millions of New Yorkers. He located the man’s wallet and looked inside. His driver’s license said he was Saul Wackerman. A photo showed him, his white-haired wife and two daughters. Another photo showed his son—apparently an Israeli soldier—in full uniform.
Hunter looked back at the man. He was still gripping the American flag, so much so that Hunter had some difficulty prying it from his fingers. He folded the flag and put it in his own pocket
. The look on Saul Wackerman’s face would haunt the pilot for many years to come.
Then Dozer showed Hunter something which would also haunt him: one of the gunmen had been carrying a AK-47 Kalishnikov assault rifle. Obviously, there were plenty of guns in New York City these days. What was startling was the AK-47 was the standard issue rifle for the Soviet Army.
Several hours later they reached the George Washington Bridge. The Marines were heading south. Hunter was going north, determined to get to the mountain in New Hampshire before the whole world came crashing down. He thanked Dozer and bid him and his troops farewell, knowing he’d never see any of them again.
The general listened to it all, quietly sipping his morning brew and at one point, breaking out a box of Havana cigars.
Hunter reached into his pocket and produced a piece of cloth. He unfolded it. It was the flag he took from Saul Wackerman.
“We could both be shot just for your having that,” Jones said nonchalantly.
“So that’s what it’s come to,” Hunter said defiantly. He felt the flag for a moment, fingering the bloodstains that dotted one edge of it. He always carried it with him so he would never forget what it was like … before. He folded it carefully and returned it to his pocket. “They’ll have to pry it from my fingers, before they take it away from me.”
“They probably will,” Jones said smiling grimly.
There was silence between them for a few moments. Then Jones clapped his hands together and reached for the bottle.
“Well, shit, Hawk,” he said, freshening his coffee. “That’s one hell of a story. No wonder you headed for the hills.”
Hunter had to laugh. It must have sounded like an incredible adventure. And he didn’t even tell him the part about how he had met and bedded down with a beautiful girl along the way in France.
“So what happened to you?” he asked Jones, reaching for the whiskey bottle himself. “We thought we’d seen the last of you when the Finns drove you away.”
Jones let out a loud laugh and clapped his hands again. “I was in Paris, Hawk, old buddy. And did you miss some party, boy!”
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN THE NEW ORDER came down and the general was led away by the Finns, Hunter had assumed that the old man would be thrown in prison at best, or worse, executed. Actually, the officer had a free ride to the French capital where his handlers inexplicably set him free. Once there, he met many other ex-military officers who were of the same mind as he: We won the war and we still got screwed. With nothing else to do, they proceeded to drink the Paris nightclubs dry.
“It was great,” Jones testified. “More booze than I’ve ever seen.”
Paris was one of the major cities Hunter thought he was prudent in avoiding during his odyssey to Scotland. He had visions of deserted streets filled only with rotting corpses, its beautiful buildings in ruins, the curtains drawn on the proud French republic, finally defeated.
“You’d be surprised how good a shape the city was in,” Jones told him. “Of course, considering that the largest battle ever fought in the history of mankind took place about 30 clicks aways, and that half the people had either been gassed or had vamoosed before the first shot was even fired, the ones who stayed were great. Writers, politicians, musicians, artists, old bucks who had fought the Nazis. These people just kept on celebrating. They didn’t give a shit who won. They didn’t give a shit that the Russians—or what was left of them—were just over the next hill. They just wanted to get back to their food, booze and getting laid. Everything else was secondary to them.
“I was traveling around with a bunch of crazy Brits. RAF guys. We busted up the town pretty good. But after a few weeks, we realized that the city was getting real hot—real fast. We knew Ivan was just over the hill, licking his wounds and getting ready to play the conquering heroes.” He spat in disgust. “The filthy swine! We kicked their asses and they made like they just took over the world.”
“They did,” Hunter reminded him.
The general went on. A bunch of senators and government bozos were stuck in Paris after the armistice was signed. They had the Concorde—the famous SST—waiting at Orly Airport. Jones said a seat on that plane couldn’t have been bought for a million dollars. The politicos were getting itchy to get out of Europe before it went Red. Trouble was, the pilot never showed up. Now they needed someone to fly it. Somehow, they knew Jones was in town.
“They got word to me while I was shitfaced, sleeping under a table in a bar on the Left Bank. Or was it the Right Bank? Anyway, they sobered me up and fed me. Then, we loaded the sucker up with French wines and chow, and it was oeuvre!”
He clapped his hands in joy, just thinking about it. “You should have come to Paris, Hawk, my boy. We had a hell of the time there!”
He got up and started another pot of coffee brewing. Hunter was astounded at the general’s ability to land on his feet. There he was, crossing the Atlantic lashed to a bulkhead on the JFK in the middle of a hurricane, and Jones made the trip supersonically, in three hours, drinking the best wine and eating the best food in the process.
“It was the last congressional boondoggle flight in history,” the general continued. “We put down in Washington, because New York City looked too hot to handle. These guys didn’t want any part of it. Half of them were on their way to Weather Mountain. You know, that place near DC where they have a fully stocked city right inside the mountain and all the big shots are supposed to go when the bomb was dropped?”
Hunter had heard of the place.
“Well, I don’t know how many of them made it past the door, but they were telling me about the place. They had enough stuff hidden away to last them for years. The place is so big inside they even have a lake there. These guys claimed you could water ski on it. One senator said there was even a plan to round up all the best call girls in Washington right before the shit hit the fan and get them down there too. You know, just to give them all something to do while they waited for the dust to settle? Yeah, we had our share of great leaders, huh? They needed women to continue the human race with. Let their descendants crawl out of the cave and run things. You know, keep it in the family. But can you imagine what kind of a bastard is produced when a politician knocks up a hooker?”
The thought of it sent a shiver down Hunter’s spine. He took a slug of his whiskey-laced coffee.
Jones did the same, lit up a cigar and went on with his story. Once he touched down at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, the politicians bolted off the plane and were gone without so much as a thank you. Except for one of them.
“One guy did give me a bag of French francs,” Jones said, blowing smoke rings. “Big deal, I thought at the time. They were probably worth all of twenty-five bucks, and that was in France! He thought he was doing me this big favor and all he cared about was that his ass was home, so he was in a generous mood. Typical politician. Well, I hung onto them Frenchies, a wise move, I found out later.
“Andrews was pretty much abandoned. There were a few creeps around. Left behind GIs, MPs. These screwball National Guard guys. People like that. All of them were armed to the teeth and looking for trouble. I ignored them, but they had their eye on the plane. I saw a bunch of aircraft that had been blown up by some good little soldiers. Some assholes following the New Order to the letter, I suppose. Air Force One was there, or what was left of it. Lot of F-15s, gone. Pieces of them, scattered everywhere. It made me sick to look at them.”
Jones became quiet for a moment. Hunter knew the general was thinking of the wasted, destroyed jets.
“I was beat and I had nowhere to go, so I slept for about two days right in the Concorde. Finished off the food and booze, then I realized that I could be sleeping in a real bed somewhere. I found some LC’s office with a hideaway bed. I stayed there for two days, and you know, during the night some assholes sneaked down to the runway and blew up the SST? God, I’d heard of following orders, but some of these people carried it a bit too far.”
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br /> Hunter nodded. Another example of a waste of technology. When would anyone get around to building a supersonic airliner again?
“I bummed around DC for a while,” Jones said, stirring his coffee. “There were some people still left. All the restaurants were open. It was nearly business as usual, except they were practically giving the food away. Dollars were as valuable as used toilet paper, but I found out that people would take coins, including my francs. It didn’t matter that quarters, dimes and nickels were all clad coins with not enough silver to fill a tooth. These people treated them like they were pure through and through. There were even people running around with real silver and gold coins. So they loved to see me and my francs.”
Jones soon took residence in an abandoned swank Georgetown townhouse. It was his home for three months.
“It was party time there too,” he said. “All over DC. Food, booze and broads. I was out in a bar every night. It’s great when you don’t have to go to work. Met a lot of funny people. But unfortunately, I also met a lot of people carrying guns, and not just .32 caliber water pistols either. It started getting tense. Pretty soon there were shootouts every night. It was Dodge City. I figured it was just a matter of time before a stray bullet would catch my ass, so I started thinking about getting out.
“Then I heard some of these new little countries were starting navies, armies, militias, things like that and they needed military people to help. I talked to a guy, who knew another guy who had a friend who knew about this job. Commander of the Northwest Economic Zone’s Air Patrol—‘ZAP,’ for short. A little bulky, but it sounded good to me. They had a little money to spend and they were lucky. Most of their National Guard units were never turned on by the disarmament weirdos, so there were still a few guys around who knew how to take an order. I tell you, troops like that are a rare commodity these days.”
Jones had traveled to Boston and met with the leaders of the Northeast Economic Zone. They promised him almost complete freedom. Just as long as he paid lip service to the New Order rules.