“I agree,” Fitz said. “And the more difficult the system, the more likely that only a few people—maybe even just one or two—would know just exactly how every single component ticks.”
Hunter pounded his fist on the desk for emphasis. “We’ve got to track down this project in its pre-war life,” he said. “It’s got to be a Navy system. I’ll bet it just wasn’t ready when the balloon went up in Europe.”
“But somehow, it got into the grubby little hands of the Canal Nazis…” Fitz said.
Hunter drained his glass. “Exactly,” he said, getting up to go. “And that’s why we’ve got to find out who invented this system in the first place.”
Chapter 23
KRUPP WAS THE FIRST one to spot the smoke.
“Look!” he had to yell to his driver over his truck’s noisy engine. “Over there, to the southwest. See it?”
The driver strained his eyes against the sun’s glare on the windshield. It took a few moments, but then he too saw the column of black smoke rising between two mountains.
“I see it, my colonel,” he said excitedly. “This means we have found it?”
Krupp had his map out and was checking the nearby terrain with lightning speed. “It just may be, sergeant,” he said. “We are behind schedule by a day, true. But we can make that all up now. Quickly, speed up.”
The sergeant obliged by flooring the gas pedal on the two-and-a-half ton command truck, waving his left arm out the window at the same time to signal the vehicles behind him that they too should increase their speed.
The convoy wound its way down a mountain pass and up another. All the while, Krupp kept his eyes on the rising plume of smoke up ahead. For the first time in weeks, he felt a burst of pride run through him. This feat he had accomplished had been not easy. Moving the convoy through uncharted territory on long-forgotten roads, with the threat of danger ever-present. It was a triumph of military planning. Such victories reinforced his belief that his cause—and the cause of The Twisted Cross—was correct and destined.
An hour went by during which Krupp heard a chorus of whoops and hollers coming from his troops behind him—thankful sounds that they had reached their next objective alive and well. They were the sounds of loyalty, Krupp told himself. A song of adventure, of pride, of near-invincibility.
Suddenly he thought of the beautiful woman, tied up in a truck in the middle of the convoy, her head covered with a hood.
Maybe tonight he would have her…
Forty-five minutes later the convoy stood at a strange crossroads.
Reaching a straightaway that ran between two mountains, they came upon the source of the smoke. It was a corridor, literally burned through the dense forest. This was Krupp’s passageway into the hidden valley known as Uxmaluna. Twelve kilometers blasted away by a squadron of F-4 Phantoms of The Twisted Cross.
“They have done a magnificent job!” one of his officers exclaimed as they stood at the entrance to the smoldering path. “Our pilots are very talented…”
“It was their bombs that get the credit,” Krupp said. He was an infantry officer by trade and therefore distrusted anyone who fought in an airplane.
He walked about 25 yards up the roadway, grudgingly admiring how expertly their passage had been cleared. He reached over and picked up several pieces of still-warm metal.
“See?” he said to the officer trailing close behind. “They used what the Americans called ‘blockbuster’ bombs. They are like little A-bombs. They carry tens of thousands of these sharp pellets inside their shell. When they explode, it creates a hurricane of shrapnel, but in a very defined area. You will notice that few things measuring more than a half inch square has survived. Everything—trees, branches, leaves, vines, even rocks have been cleared away for us. Only the twigs remain…”
“We will ride a road of twigs to our next triumph,” the officer said in a tone obviously intended to curry favor with Krupp.
“Very poetic, Captain,” Krupp said icily. “Now go get the woman. Bring her up here.”
The man saluted and quickly left Krupp alone. The officer scanned the pathway ahead of him with his powerful binoculars. He could see at least four miles of the blasted-out jungle corridor ahead before it dipped and went around the mountain and down into the valley itself.
“Amazing,” he whispered to himself. “What devious ingenuity…”
The woman was brought up to him, still bound in handcuffs, her head still covered with the dark hood.
“You’re dismissed,” Krupp told the officer. “Go back and tell the others to prepare themselves…”
The officer duly scurried off, leaving Krupp and the woman alone.
“We are close to our next objective,” he told her, untying the rope that held the hood together. “I want you to get a good look at what we can do when we put our minds to it.”
He removed her hood, feeling a jolt of excitement as he saw her lovely features once again.
She had her eyes shut tight, knowing by now that she must open them gradually so as not to damage them with a sudden barrage of light.
But this time her head overruled her captive sensibilities. She blinked her eyes barely a dozen times before they went wide with amazement, then absolute horror.
“My dear God, what have you done here?” she cried out. She couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her. It looked as if someone had driven a gigantic lawnmower right through the heart of the forest.
“This is the road we follow to Uxmaluna,” he said proudly.
Her jaw was wide open in amazement and she found it impossible to close. “You’ve destroyed this forest!” she cried out, not quite believing the extent of the devastation.
“We have dug a path to glory,” he corrected her. “Do you think mere forests can stop us on our mission?”
She looked him directly in the eyes. “I can’t believe the inhumanity of this…” she said, her voice trembling in anger. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage this will do? Everything in these forests is interdependent on each other. Trees shade other trees. They provide oxygen—they actually clean the air. They provide food and homes for animals. They keep the water from running off. They keep the soil intact and prevent erosion. Do you know how important that is in a rain forest such as this?”
“These things are of no concern of mine or my superiors,” he declared, peeved that the woman would dare lecture him. “Our mission is of the utmost importance. We have just simplified our means of access to the Uxmaluna site…”
“What you’ve done is rip the heart out of this place!” she screamed. “You are animals. No, worse… even the animals have an instinct not to ruin their environment…”
“Silence!” he screamed at her, raising his arm as if to strike her. “Do you really believe that we care about something so petty as your precious ‘environment?’ The future of the world is at stake!”
Chapter 24
HUNTER’S COCKPIT RADIO SUDDENLY crackled to life.
“I’m figuring we’re about fifteen minutes away, Hawker,” he heard Fitz’s voice say. “Twenty at the most…”
Hunter checked his position against the map taped to his knee and confirmed Fitzie’s estimation.
“You called it,” he radioed the Irishman. “I’m going to start getting ready now… I suggest we descend to twelve hundred and, once we’re close, look for someplace flat…”
“Roger,” came the reply.
With that, both he and Fitz put their AV-8B Harrier jumpjets into a shallow dive. Up ahead, Hunter could see the deserted city of El Paso.
It had been one hectic 36 hours. Between lengthy discussions on what to do about the situation in the Canal and tracking down the origin of the nuclear mine program, he had slept maybe a total of two hours. It didn’t bother him though. In times like these, he didn’t need sleep.
The United American Command Staff had come to the conclusion that the canal had to be taken away from the Nazis—by force. But they also agreed t
hat to do so would take a major effort—in time, resources, logistics and ultimately in the lives of their soldiers. Contingency planning had commenced immediately. The early thinking was that a combined air, sea and ground attack would be needed—no small undertaking for the still fledgling United American Army.
But before any attack could take place, a solution to the problem of the nuclear mines had to be found. The United Americans couldn’t very well strike at the Canal Nazis only to have the whole waterway, and a good size chunk of Central America, reduced to nothing more than a pile of radioactive mud and ash.
So even though Hunter had gone without much shuteye, he hardly noticed it. The gallons of adrenaline pumping through his body kept him up and alert with energy to spare. Besides, he and Fitz had had a lot of detective work to do. That their sleuthing had been ultimately successful was a reward in itself and brought him more peace than a few hours catching zzzs could ever do.
It was after endless hours of probing a mainframe computer once used by the US National Security Agency that they came across an intriguing piece of evidence: it was a memo, stored in the computer, addressed from one Pentagon paperpusher to another and sent just two months before World War III broke out. It was a complaint actually, one guy beefing to the other that the Navy was spending too much time and money on “Project Chesapeake Bay.” Specifically, the complainer noted the “huge amounts” of diesel fuel being burned by the half dozen minesweepers being used in the top secret project.
Both Hunter and Fitz knew immediately that they were on to something: the US Navy had very few minesweepers at the outbreak of the Big War. The ones they did have were old and creaky, their engines ancient. In truth, they were probably the most unseaworthy ships in the entire US fleet. So why would anyone use them in a top secret project?
With this clue, they accessed other computer files. Soon he and Fitz were under a mountain of top secret documents dealing with “Project Chesapeake Bay.” Sure enough, it involved initial testing of nuclear-tipped underwater mines. Where the Chesapeake Bay connection came in, they never found out. According to the documents, the testing of the first-design dummy warheads had taken place somewhere off the southern coast of Florida. The minesweepers, naturals for this kind of assignment, had been sailing out every day from facilities at the Key West Naval Air Station. And it was there—in underground lead-lined bunkers—that the live nuclear warheads had been stored.
Further investigation led them through a family tree of defense contractors who had been secretly manufacturing components for the nuclear mines, which were code named “Washbuckets.” This was where the hard work came in. They sifted through just about every letter written between the Navy and the various companies, looking for one single pattern. Then, late one night, after much cross-referencing and many hours of following false leads, they found the missing link: The majority of the secret-pouch letters concerning “Washbuckets” and “Project Chesapeake Bay” were either written to, about, or at the request of, one Doctor Troy Sandlake, a man who went by the nickname of Ken.
Still more electronic gumshoeing led them to a biography on Sandlake. A top engineer for an obscure but prestigious defense think-tank named the Erica Corporation, Sandlake did everything but make the coffee for Project Chesapeake Bay. He designed the “washbuckets,” and their complicated mini-nuke warheads. He single-handedly built the first twenty models, and even went down with the diving teams on the initial trials.
Then the war broke out…
It took Hunter and Fitz working on the FBI’s central computer to track down three locations where Sandlake might be, if indeed he was still alive. One was his birthplace near Albany, in the Free Territory of New York. Fitzie’s crack intelligence agents took only a few hours to confirm that Sandlake was not in the area. The second possibility was Boston, where Sandlake had worked for a time. But that part of the country was now uninhabited, the lasting results of the wars with the Middle Atlantic Conference States that occurred right after the New Order was clamped down.
The third possibility was a small town outside of El Paso where his daughter once lived. A quick check with the Republic of Texas Intelligence Agency confirmed that a man bearing Sandlake’s general description had been known to be living in the area.
The Texans even narrowed down the man’s whereabouts to an isolated ranch about 30 miles southeast of El Paso, near a town called Clint. But they also reported that the last time anyone had come close to the ranch house—in this case a drifter looking for a handout—they were fired upon by no less man an M60 machine gun. The RTIA had thereafter labeled the man “unsociable.”
With this in mind, Hunter and Fitz first located the ranch house from the air, then landed their jumpjets about a quarter mile away. Both men secured the VTOL airplanes, and carrying standard issue M-16s, cautiously set out toward the dwelling.
It was just dusk when they reached the ranch’s outer post fence. Using NightScope binoculars, Hunter could see only a single light burning in the sprawling, somewhat dilapidated ranch house. There was no evidence of heavy weapons anywhere outside the house, although he could see several spools of electrical wire scattered about the property.
“It doesn’t look like he’s expecting company,” Hunter said, taking note of the desolate location. “Of course, who the hell else would be way out here in Nowheresville?”
Fitz was about to say something when suddenly a burst of gunfire whizzed over their heads.
“Jesus Christ!” Fitz yelled out as they both dove into a nearby ditch. “He is unsociable!”
But Hunter knew immediately that the shots hadn’t come from the house.
“That was too close to come from his place,” he said, gingerly scanning all around them with the NightScope. “Someone’s out here with us…”
As if to emphasize the point, another burst of gunfire kicked up a small storm of sand and rocks no more than six feet from their position.
“At least two of them,” Hunter said, his ultra-sensitive ears keying in on the difference in sounds between the two bursts. “Came from over that-a-way…”
Just as he indicated a point north of them with the snout of his M-16, a third burst of gunfire went right over their heads, this one longer and more sustained.
“They must have NightScopes, too,” Hunter said, feeling somewhat miffed at himself for dropping in on his second “hot” landing zone in as many weeks. It was a habit he wished he could break.
“Well, they’re getting damn close,” Fitz said, checking the magazine in his gun. He was reassured to find it full.
“I know,” Hunter said, checking his own clip. “But who the hell are they?”
Fitz shook his head and added: “More important, Hawker, do they know who we are?”
“Only one way to find out,” Hunter said, tying his kerchief onto the muzzle of his M-16.
“Be careful,” Fitz warned him as he started waving the makeshift flag.
“We’re Americans!” Hunter shouted out in the loudest voice possible. “We’ve got no beef with you! We’re from the United American Army and…”
His next words were cut off by a long stream of bullets streaking overhead. He was back down in the ditch in a micro-second.
“I don’t think they like us,” he said with understatement.
“You certainly gave them a chance,” Fitz said, who like Hunter was certain that the people doing the shooting would kill them if given the chance. “Now how the hell do we get out of this one?”
“Okay,” Hunter said, improvising a bit. “How about you stay here and I’ll circle around them?”
“Don’t joke at a time like this, Hawker!” Fitz growled at him through clenched teeth.
“Okay, then, how about we split up, and hit them from two sides?” he asked.
“Yer going daft…” Fitz said anxiously reverting back to his thick brogue.
“Well, that doesn’t leave us with many other options,” Hunter said. “Except of course, the ‘big’ o
ption…”
“Yeah, well let’s give that one a try, if you don’t mind?” Fitz said.
Once again his words were nearly split in two with another barrage of gunfire. This was immediately followed by three mortar rounds landing in quick succession about 25 feet away.
“These guys are getting on my nerves,” Hunter said as he pulled an old silver quarter out of his pocket and gave it a flip.
“Heads!” he called just as he slapped the coin down on the back of his hand.
“Tails it is!” Fitz cried, seeing he had won.
“Jesus Christ, do you ever lose?” Hunter asked Fitz as the Irishman strapped his M-16 back on and prepared to move out of the ditch.
“You know better than to ask that,” he told Hunter. “Now how shall we work this?”
Hunter thought for a moment, then said: “Wait for the lightshow, I guess…” Once again he checked the clip in his M-16; as always it was filled with tracer rounds. “If they shoot back at you or me, then let ’em have it…”
“Okay” Fitz said, taking a deep breath. “Be back in a snap…”
With that, Fitzgerald scrambled out of the ditch and started making his way back to their airplanes.
Twenty minutes passed….
The last rays of the vivid southwestern sunset were just fading when Fitzie’s Harrier appeared high overhead, slowly circling the ranch. Hunter, still scrunched up in the ditch, had been ducking only occasional bursts of gunfire since Fitz had left, and these had been way off the mark. This told him that whoever was firing on him wasn’t exactly sure where he was.
But that was about to change…
Sensing that Fitz was ready, Hunter dramatically stood up and fired off a long burst of tracers in the general direction of the enemy fire. The early evening darkness was suddenly lit up with ghostly streaks of yellow-red as his phosphorus rounds bounced and ricocheted around the desert scrub brush and rocks.
A split second later Hunter was back in the ditch, hands over his head as the mysterious enemy again opened up on his position.
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