by Mack Maloney
“Then what?” Jones asked.
Vogel continued: “I took Crazy Two and Crazy Four out with seventy five men. By the time we reached the outpost, there was no one left there either. It was burned to the ground. No one around except this one guy. He was beat up pretty bad, lost a lot of blood. The medics tried to fix him up, but he was fading fast. But he kept saying one thing, over and over …”
“And that was …?” Jones said.
Vogel paused, then said: “‘Horses,’ sir. That’s all he could say, was ‘Horses.’”
“‘Horses?’ What the hell does that mean?” Jones asked, looking at Hunter. All the pilot could do was shrug his shoulders.
“Then what happened, lieutenant?” Jones asked.
“Well, I set up a defense perimeter, sir,” the officer continued. “Then I took twenty five men with me in Crazy Two and flew out to Way Out.
“It was just as the guardsmen said. Bodies everywhere, horribly cut up. Some missing arms, legs, heads. They were in really bad shape. So bad even the timber wolves wouldn’t eat them. Just like the guardsmen, we couldn’t bury them, so we burned them instead.”
Vogel paused for a drink from his coffee cup.
“Then we flew back to the outpost,” he went on. “By that time, our guys had found the rest of the guardsmen. Or what was left of them. They were all thrown into a pile about a half mile from the place. They were also badly cut up—no arms, heads. Disembowelments.
“We burned them, too. Then it started snowing, so we had to pull out.”
Jones took a healthy swig from his whiskey-laced coffee.
“Any of your guys see any tracks out there, lieutenant, horses or otherwise?” the general asked.
“No sir,” Vogel answered. “But, like I said, it was starting to snow pretty hard. Anything would have been covered up.”
Jones thought for a moment, then turned to Hunter. “Raiders, Hawk?” he asked.
“Could be,” Hunter answered. “But I doubt it. Too messy. The ones we’ve dealt with like to come in quietly and fade away. The less commotion for them, the better.”
“Could be someone new to the neighborhood,” Dozer said, speaking for the first time.
“Anything is possible, I guess,” Hunter said, swigging his own laced coffee.
“Well this beats the shit out of me,” Jones said, refilling his cup with both java and booze. “Okay, Hawk, your turn.”
Hunter turned back to the frozen video frame.
“As you all know, this is the video I shot the other day,” he began. “For my own peace of mind, I’m glad to say that it does show something was out there.”
He pushed a button and the video started rolling. It began as Hunter’s U-2 descended through the storm clouds and into the blizzard-swept valley. The heat sources could clearly be seen at the end of the fuzzy outline of the gorge.
As the U-2 drew closer, the heat source started to become defined. Soon it was clear the heat was coming from many separate shapes. The two lines of fighters, plus the igloo building and the radar dish came into view. Then, two figures could be seen, the heat sensitive video giving them the look of garish red ghosts. Two more figures could be seen running out into the snow and aiming a SAM launcher at the jet.
Then, just as the camera passed over its closest to the jet fighters, Hunter hit the video’s SLO-MO button. He zoomed in on the image. Sure enough, everyone could see the side of a bluish jet, with the unmistakable red star with yellow boarder emblem of the Soviet Union.
“Now that’s the best image that we have so far,” Hunter told the group, freezing the frame on the video. “We have some guys at the photo recon lab working on it with computer enhancement. But it’s a slow process. So they tell me it will still be a few days before we can reach any conclusions on what type of Soviet jet we’re dealing with here.”
Jones looked at the screen and then spoke the words that were on everyone’s lips: “Amazing,” he said.
The meeting broke up after a short time later. Hunter and Dozer saw Jones back to his airplane. The General would return to his PAAC San Diego base and brief his top officers there. But before he left, both he and Hunter agreed that the incidents that were discussed at the meeting should all be considered top secret for the time being.
After Jones’s airplane took off, Hunter and Dozer retreated to the base bar for the first of several rounds of drinks.
“This is bugging me,” Hunter confided in the Marine captain. “Here I am, flying all over the Goddamn North Pole and the Russians somehow land 50 jet fighters right on top of us, then somehow get them to disappear. Some watchdog I was.”
“Hey, Hawk, knock it off,” Dozer told him. “You were doing your best. There’s a lot of weird shit happening these days. This is just another one of them.”
Hunter downed his drink and poured another.
Dozer continued. “Ghost, spooks. Mysterious explosions. Those swabbies vanishing like that. Someone icing those frontier guardsmen. I mean, those guardsmen ain’t just out there playing soldier. They’re tough guys.”
“I hear you,” Hunter agreed. “But these Russian jets are what really bothers me. We’re lucky they didn’t come down here and nail us. I mean, we would have shot them up pretty bad, but still, we would have been on our ass, too.”
“Well, I know we have plenty of eyes up there now,” Dozer said.
“True,” Hunter said. “I’ve got two-plane missions flying up there around the clock. Frost told his people, of course, and the Free Canadians are patrolling up there, looking for something—anything—that could give us a clue as to where those jets went.”
“Well, when you find them and the weather ain’t for flying,” Dozer said. “Me and my boys will go in and take them out on the ground.”
Hunter smiled. His “boys” were the 7th Cavalry—a battalion of Marines that fought for Dozer in the big war in Turkey. They won their name after being surrounded by an overwhelming force of Soviets only to survive and escape, thanks to Dozer’s leadership. When the war ended soon after, the Marines had no way to get home. Dozer rallied them, “hijacked” two airliners and flew the battalion to Scotland, (where they first met Hunter) and where they all caught a ride back to America aboard the aircraft carrier, JFK.
“We need intelligence,” Hunter said. “Not just here, but from back east too.”
“Heard from Fitz or St. Louie lately?” Dozer asked, referring to two close friends and allies of Hunter, both of whom operated back east.
“No,” Hunter answered. “But I think a meeting with them is long overdue. Besides, the photo lab guys tell me they are still two days away from a positive ID on those jets.”
He drained his drink, then stood up to go, saying to Dozer, “Ever been to Macintosh, Idaho?”
Chapter Three
THE FORMATION OF FIVE helicopters descended on the small, abandoned Idaho town.
The two Crazy Eight Chinooks went in first, landing beside a rusting grain elevator at the side of a railroad track. As soon as the first chopper touched down, the side doors were flung open and three squads of Dozer’s best Marines jumped out. They quickly formed up on the railroad tracks and marched into the town barely an eighth of a mile away.
Meanwhile the rest of the choppers had set down, one by one, on a moist field nearby. The second Crazy Eight was carrying a portable Roland SAM air defense system and radar set. As soon as the big chopper’s blades stopped turning, two more squads of 7th Cavalrymen emerged and went about setting up the small SAM launcher and radar warning system.
The third large helicopter was a converted U.S. Navy chopper called a Sea Stallion. Hunter and Dozer emerged from the machine and went over to talk to the pilots of the two helicopters known as the Cobra Brothers. The Brothers, flying the small but lethal, bug-like choppers, would provide air cover over the small town, just as the Marines would secure the town itself. The precautions were needed. The hills surrounding the place were undoubtedly filled with bandits, raiders, and
God-knows-what kind of New Order outlaws.
“Sir!” one of the Roland operators called out. “We’re picking up something.”
Hunter and Dozer walked back to the Roland set and watched over the man’s shoulder. Sure enough, five blips appeared on the SAM’s radar screen. “Looks like four Hueys and a Blackhawk,” the operator told them.
“That’ll be St. Louie’s guys,” Hunter said. He could feel the aircraft coming long before they appeared on the radar screen. The electronics just confirmed his sixth sense.
Five dots soon appeared over the eastern horizon, gradually getting bigger. Within two minutes, the formation set down directly on the railroad tracks, the Blackhawk first, then the four Hueys.
The doors to the Hueys burst open and soldiers of the elite Football City Special Forces leaped out. They were clearly recognizable in their futuristic one-piece combat outfits, complete with their Football City emblem patches.
The highly trained troops quickly dispersed through the field and took up positions along a tree line 100 yards away. As planned, these soldiers would be responsible for the perimeter defense while the conference was taking place in the town.
The doors of the Blackhawk opened and two familiar figures stepped out. The first one was a tall, distinguished looking man, clad in a three-piece, all-white suit. His clothes and his great shock of snow white hair gave him an evangelical look. This was Louie St. Louie, the creator, leader, and president of Football City. Formerly known as St. Louis, the city had become a “super-Las Vegas” after the New Order came in. St. Louie—who despite his name was really a true-blue Texan—hired Hunter to retrieve a valuable diamond shipment of his, and later convinced the pilot to raise an air force and help defend Football City against a takeover attempt by the criminals known as The Family. Football City was nearly devastated in the war that followed, but its rebuilding programs—including revival of the year-long, open betting football game from which it took its name—were well under way.
The second man was shorter, with a mass of brown hair, wearing brown combat fatigues and a green beret. This was Hunter’s old Thunderbirds’ buddy, Mike Fitzgerald. The perky Irishman was now the top man at the Syracuse Aerodrome, the well known and notorious airplane “truck-stop” located in upstate Free Territory of New York. Fitz, a fiercely independent businessman, had made a fortune servicing jets moving across the convoys routes between Free Canada and the West Coast. For this occasion, Fitzgerald was carrying two cases of scotch.
Hunter and Dozer walked over to greet their friends.
“Howdy, pardner,” Hunter said to St. Louie, shaking his hand.
“Good to see you, Hawk,” St. Louie said, a wide grin revealing a perfect set of white teeth. “Been too long, boy.”
St. Louie went to greet Dozer as Hunter approached Fitzgerald. “Hey, Fitz,” Hunter said, kidding the Irishman, “Only two cases of booze. Think it will be enough?”
“Now stop with ya joking and take one of these, will ye?” the man said in a brogue that couldn’t be cut with a buzzsaw. “Good scotch weighs a lot …”
Hunter took one of the cases from him. The airman had to laugh. Here were two of his closest friends, both, who despite the New Order chaos across the continent, had still not only managed to survive, but had made millions of dollars in the process. At least capitalism was not MIA in the post-World War III age.
“So, Fitz,” Hunter said as the four men walked toward the town “You have that hundred bucks you owe me?”
Fitzgerald, well known for his frugality, blanched. “I’m not here to talk over old debts, Hawker, me boy,” he said. “We have work to do.”
The old saloon was a mass of cracked veneer and plywood, dirt, dust, mud and broken windows. A smashed jukebox sat in one corner. Chintzy decorations hung ragged from the ceiling. The barroom’s booths had long ago succumbed to age. Yet the old place still had a quality of sleazy charm to it.
“Looks like it was a good place to get lost in, in its day,” Hunter said as the four men walked into the saloon in the middle of the small town.
Dozer and Hunter retrieved a semi-sturdy table as Fitzgerald opened a few bottles of his scotch. St. Louie was heating a bucket of his famous Texas stew over a dozen cans of Sterno. A set of semi-clean plates and glasses were found and once everything was ready, the four sat down to eat and talk.
Hunter filled in St. Louie and Fitzgerald on all the strange happenings PAAC had run up against in the past few weeks. Both men sat nearly open-mouthed as they listened to the stories.
“Dear mother of God,” Fitzgerald exclaimed. “I believe the whole damn continent is haunted …”
“You’ve been having odd things happen, too?” Hunter asked between mouthfuls.
“Aye, we have,” Fitzgerald said. “Lights. Strange flying lights. Over the Lakes. We were getting calls from people out there every night.”
“Flying lights?” Hunter asked. “Like in ‘UFOs?’”
“I guess,” Fitzgerald said, refilling his glass. “The people who see ’em, claim they are different colors. Floating. Way up in the sky. Hundreds of them. Coming in from the northeast and heading southwest. They make no noise.”
“Have you check them out?” Dozer asked.
“Sure have,” Fitzgerald said. “Scrambled jets eight nights in a row, we did. They found nothing. And believe me, it’s an expensive proposition, to fly four jets out to the Lakes and back for no good reason.”
“How about radar?” Hunter asked.
“We haven’t seen them,” Fitzgerald replied. “We sent a portable unit out there finally. Those guys sat on the edge of Lake Erie for three days and nights, freezing their asses off. No lights. No nothing. We finally called them back in and the very next night, we get two hundred reports that the sky is filled with them.”
“Whew, boy!” Dozer said. “This gets creepier by the minute.”
“Well boys,” St. Louie drawled. “You ain’t heard nothing yet. I got a story that will beat any of yours.”
The ruddy faced Texan pushed his empty plate aside and took a stiff belt from his whiskey glass. Then he began his story:
“A few weeks back, one of our long range patrols went out on an extended mission. These patrols are our eyes and ears on the western edge of our territory, which, as you know, borders the southern Badlands.
“These guys are the toughest, meanest bunch of troopers you’d ever want to meet. Well, forty-two guys went out. Only one came back. And he’ll be in the loony bin for the rest of his life.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hunter said. “What the hell happened?”
St. Louie paused, then said: “We don’t know exactly. We talked to the one survivor, but believe me, he’s gone around the deep end and he ain’t coming back.
“But this is what he said—or mumbled—about what happened:
“They were on the fourth night of a twenty-one-day mission. Now according to their orders, they could skirt the ’Bads, but if they actually went in, they had to maintain radio silence, as part of their training.
“Anyway, they did go into the Badlands. That much we know. Apparently on that fourth night, someone—or something—crawled into their camp and stole all their food and water.”
“Weren’t there any sentries?” Dozer asked.
“Oh yeah,” St. Louie answered. “They found them, six of them, cut up terrible. Butchered. Now remember, these recon guys are the highest trained force we have. But still someone greased six of them very quietly, then came in and stole the food.
“So now my guys are hopping mad. They start to track whatever it was. Soon they’re more than a hundred miles inside the ’Bads, which has got to be the furthest anyone civilized had gone in before.
“Well, they get in there—and the survivor said it was like being on another planet, no trees, nothing growing, poison everywhere. Fog covering everything. Very, very strange.
“And in the middle of all this, what the hell do they find? A nuke station! And the Goddamn thi
ng is working!”
“What?!” Hunter couldn’t believe it. “That’s got to be impossible …”
“That’s what I said,” St. Louie replied. “But, I’m telling you, this guy swears it’s true. They spot this place with three cooling towers. Steam coming out of them and lights blazing all over the plant.
“Anyway, at this point, it gets fuzzy. But, for whatever reason, they decide to head back home. They were three days into the return trip when they were walking in a ravine. It was around midnight, as by this time they were sleeping during the day and moving at night.
“So they were in this ravine, when all of a sudden, the guy said they heard this tremendous noise. Like thunder. They turned around and … and it gets really strange here, boys … they see thousands of guys coming at them. On horseback! Screaming, terrible. At full charge.
“They came up on my guys so fast, they couldn’t get to defensive positions. They must have formed up in tight groups, but it didn’t make any difference. These … horsemen ran them right over. Trampled almost all of them to death and kept right on going!”
Hunter shook his head as if the motion would drive away the very strange story. Dozer and Fitzgerald looked like they were in a state of shock.
“Only three guys lived through it,” St. Louie said slowly. It was evident the loss of the men had hit him pretty hard. “Two of them were really badly broken up. They died on the way back. This one guy stumbled across the border eight days later. We found him and got him on a medivac chopper but it was useless. He was out of it. Delirious. Still is. Whatever he saw out there—horses or whatever—his brain is gone.”
The four men were silent for a long time, absorbing the frightening tale. Fitz reached for another bottle, opened it and took a long healthy swig. Hunter could see the Irishman’s mind working. He knew his friend was seriously superstitious. And Hunter had to admit to himself, that right now, he was getting more than a little spooked too.