But as the weeks went on, he found himself getting restless. The situation in New Chicago, whatever it was, was probably building toward a climax. God only knew what the Mid-Aks were planning. And the Russian connection, though hard to prove, particularly bothered him. Besides, he did promise Jones that should anything ever go wrong, that he should report to the general’s twin brother out on the Coast.
But it was more than that. He was getting too comfortable. He was flying more and working on engines less. He had fine liquor, good food and beautiful women at his disposal. His jet’s repairs and overhaul was almost paid for and ready for air trials. He increasingly felt the urge to move on.
The F-16 he unveiled a few weeks later was a completely different airplane than the one he’d arrived in. He had modified the engines to carry even more weight, then attached a half dozen more ordnance points on the wings and belly. He installed five additional M61 cannons, the plane now boasted three to a side. He rigged a system whereby he could carry the extra cartridge belts needed to feed the jet’s six guns, and drop them once they were expended, just like a spare fuel drop tank. He disconnected his in-flight refueling capability—he doubted if he could find a KC-135 Air Force tanker flying around these days—and used the weight saved for more on-board fuel storage.
He personally went over the entire ship and tightened every bolt, nut and screw. He re-wired it and returned its avionics. He bought and repaired a discarded LANTIRN pod—the magic box of electronic wonder that gave any plane carrying it the ability to see, fly and fight on the darkest of nights or in the worst of weather.
He cleaned every nook and cranny on the plane, inside and out. He repainted it, keeping the old Thunderbird design, but adding a streaking white “W” on its tail section. He wanted everyone to know who he was. The Wingman. He carried with him a reputation—he couldn’t deny it. That reputation, while possibly enticing foolish bounty hunters or young, brash pilots looking for a part in New Order history, would save him fuel and ammo wherever he went. Not many would want to mix it up with him. They would see the near-extinct F-16 and the “W,” put two and two together and give him a wide berth. This way, he knew, his reputation was worth something and that he could use it to his advantage. He also knew it was something that needed protecting.
He rolled the plane out, to the oohs and ahhs of ground personnel and pilots alike. It looked sleeker, quicker, deadlier. He, too, had changed. He was heavier, more muscular, his hair once again had grown out long. His features had always been described, ironically, as handsomely hawk-like. Now he looked like an eagle.
He expressed his thoughts to Fitzgerald, who while saddened that his friend had decided to move on, was understanding as to his reasons why. They both knew he wouldn’t be leaving just yet, however. Because, although the F-16 was back and flying, he still needed money—a good sum of money—to make his way across the continent. Fuel and ammo were expensive these days. So were landing rights. He couldn’t go out wandering across the continent unarmed, whether it was in his gun barrels or his money bag.
He had asked Fitzie to look around for some more profitable jobs for him to do, and eventually, his friend got him working a few convoy missions. Hunter could make more in one day, riding shotgun on a convoy than he could working a week in the maintenance hangar. It also gave him a chance to put the F-16 through its air trials.
He flew five missions in all—each one escorting five-plane convoys up to the Canadian border, where they would rendezvous with fighters from the Free Canada Armed Forces. The Canadians would then escort the ships for the remainder of the journey to Toronto. In all each mission would take under an hour. They didn’t pay the big money that a cross-continent mission would, but he was happy just to be flying regularly again.
He had just returned from the fifth mission—which was, like the first four, pleasantly routine—when he got a message that Fitz wanted to meet him. He was curious about the site that Fitz selected, a little, dark hole of a barroom called The Broken Wing. Located out in a small hamlet on the very edge of The Aerodrome’s territory, The Broken Wing was a place you would go when you didn’t want to be seen or overheard.
A light, warm rain was falling when he arrived at the bar. It was in a fringe area, as out of the way as one could get from the bustling Aerodrome. It almost looked like an old western frontier town, and just as dangerous. He parked the jeep and walked across the street to the saloon. He could see a few figures hurry out of sight as he approached. Other eyes watched him from the shadows.
He walked in and found the place smoky but nearly empty. The bartender recognized him and pointed to a dark corner of the saloon. There, he found Fitz at a table sitting with a man he introduced only as Gus.
“It’s my pleasure, Major Hunter,” Gus said after shaking hands with him. “We … my employers … are great admirers of yours.”
“Gus has a job you might be interested in,” Fitz said, ordering a round of beer. Hunter detected a subtle nod from his friend, indicating that Gus could be trusted.
“Major Hunter, we have a shipment, an extremely valuable shipment, that has to be picked up and delivered here at The Aerodrome,” Gus said. “My employers, who are well aware of your talents, specifically requested that you be the man to do the job.”
“What’s the shipment?” Hunter asked, eyeing Fitzgerald. “Sidewinders? Real silver? Gold?”
Gus hesitated for a moment. He was a tall, thin, dark-skinned man, with quick darting eyes. He was the type of person who, possibly unwillingly, gave off a mysterious air. He looked at Fitz, who nodded again, then said, quietly: “Diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” Hunter asked. “How many diamonds.”
“A small bag, Major Hunter,” Gus answered, keeping his hushed tone. “A little under two pounds.”
“Two pounds is a lot of diamonds,” Hunter said sipping his beer. “What’s the shipment worth.”
Again, Gus was silent for a moment, as if he were adding numbers up in his head. “In pre-war terms, about twenty million,” he said, ratherly calmly.
“Twenty million?” Hunter asked, not hiding his surprise. “Twenty million dollars?”
The figure even made Fitzie let out a long, low whistle, and he was probably worth a couple of million himself.
“That’s right,” Gus answered.
“What’s that worth these days?” Hunter asked, taking a larger swig of his beer.
“That’s hard to say, Major,” Gus said, his calculator mind turned on once again. “Especially in these times of fluctuating currencies. But if I had to guess, I’d say upward of two-hundred million.”
Fitz and Hunter looked at each other in disbelief. Two hundred million dollars could buy half the countries on the continent, lock, stock and barrel.
The bartender wandered over and collected their empties, stopping the discussion momentarily. Fitz signalled him to bring another round. Once he was out of earshot, the hushed conversation continued.
“My employers are willing to pay you quite handsomely, Major, if you successfully retrieve the parcel,” Gus told him.
Hunter looked at Fitz. “How much?” he asked.
“One hundred thousand dollars in real silver,” Gus said, matter-of-factly.
A lot of money, Hunter thought. More than enough to get him where he was going and then some.
“Where’s the pick-up?” he asked, definitely interested.
For the first time, Gus looked nervous. He bit his lip, then said, slowly, “Pittsburgh.”
Hunter saw his vision of $100,000 take on a pair of wings and fly away.
“Pittsburgh?” He said. “You’re moving two hundred million dollars in diamonds through Pittsburgh?”
Gus nodded.
Pittsburgh was a tough enough place before the war—nowadays, it was worse. Most of the city had been evacuated, but, as in many cases, a community of sorts—bad sorts—had sprung up around the airport. The Pitts, as it was universally called now, was well-known as a haven for terro
rists, murderers, drug dealers, slave traders and other assorted scum of the earth. The place was also roundly considered as the unofficial home of the eastern air pirates, only because the airport controllers—shady characters themselves—allowed the airborne criminals to land and refuel there. Some claimed even men from the Badlands were sometimes spotted there.
“Why The Pitts?” Hunter asked.
“The diamonds are payment of a debt to my bosses,” Gus said. “The payer insists that it be done this way.”
“He’s probably setting you up,” Hunter said.
“Possibly,” Gus acknowledged. “But with that much money at stake, my employers feel they have to take the chance.”
“Then why don’t you just hire a squadron of fighters and some chopper troops and go down there and get it?” Hunter wanted to know.
“No,” Gus said, emphatically. “This has to be done quietly. As quietly as possible. That’s why we have contacted you, Major.”
Hunter thought for a moment. He was ready, anxious, almost itching, for a change. But flying into The Pitts might be a little more excitement than he needed.
Gus could tell he was tossing the job offer around in his mind.
“One hundred fifty thousand dollars, Major,” he said.
Hunter glanced at Fitz, who was nodding, urging him to take the offer.
“I just don’t know,” Hunter said. “Just who are your employers?”
“I can’t tell you that, Major,” Gus said. “Not until you return with the diamonds.”
“Well,” Hunter said. “Can you tell me who they aren’t? There are some people I just won’t work for.”
Gus nodded.
“Are they Mid-Aks?” Hunter asked.
“No.”
“The Family?”
“Certainly not,” Gus said, slightly upset.
Hunter thought for a moment. Who was left?
“The Russians?” he finally said.
For the first time, Gus stared him straight in the eye. He rolled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a familiar-looking tattoo.
“Major,” he began slowly, pointing to the eagle and globe drawing on his arm. “I was in the Marine Corps in the last war. I fought the Russians on the Yugoslav border. Two straight weeks of combat. Night and day. Hand-to-hand. I saw brave men die, fighting for their country. Fighting those godless bastards and winning. Only to be stabbed in the back. The Russians, you ask? I would never traffic with those war criminals.”
From then on, Hunter liked Gus.
“You’ve got yourself a pilot,” Hunter said. “Now, what’s the plan?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS LATER, Hunter was wrestling the controls of an ancient C-47 Spooky cargo plane. It was a moonless, clear night, and the plane was heading due south, in the direction of The Pitts.
With him were two ADF pilots—Al and Zal—serving as co-pilot and navigator.
The C-47 was a two-engined workhorse of a plane, built some twenty years before either of them were even born. It was like a bucking bronco to steer, and it was very noisy. But it was as inconspicuous as one could get. The plane, a puddle-jumper Fitzie used for short flights and training, had lost its in-flight radio intercom long ago. It was also unarmed.
“I was in The Pitts once,” Al, the tall, skinny redheaded co-pilot yelled to him, trying to be heard above the constant rumble of the engines. “I was coming back from a cross continent convoy job, flying one of the F-105s.
“I hit a bad storm and had to put down in The Pitts. Believe me, I would have rather ditched the Thunderchief and bailed out, but I knew Fitz would go nuts. So I put down there.”
Both Hunter and Zal had heard similar stories of pilots visiting The Pitts—all too unwillingly.
“What happened?” Hunter yelled back.
“Well, as soon as I set down,” Al continued. “I’m surrounded by a dozen goons with shotguns. It’s storming. Terrible, thick stuff. It’s the middle of the night. The place is dark, spooky. But here are these guys, pointing their guns at me.
“I had to pay a landing tax, a taxiing tax and a parking tax. All before I even got out of the goddamn plane. Luckily Fitz gives us extra money for stuff like that, because I didn’t have much money of my own.”
Hunter reassuringly patted the bags of silver he had in the pockets of his flight jacket.
“I pay these guys and they disappear,” Al said. “Of course, no monkeys are around, so I have to block off and shut down myself. I go into the terminal figuring I’d get a cup of joe and wait until the weather cleared. There’s only one place open. They got no coffee, no food. Just beer. So I order a beer.
“The place is filled with creeps and the bartender is mean and the size of a B-52. But it was warm, so I figure, what the hell. I order another beer and drink it and start to get another when the bartender says I have to pay for the first two. I ask how much. He says ten bucks. I say, ten bucks for two beers. He says no, ten bucks apiece for the two beers. Twenty bucks!
“I start to tell him to go fuck himself, when I see two bouncers start circling me. They got guns, and my .45 is back in the aircraft. I figure, screw it, I’ll pay it and get out. But I got my money in my sock. So I bend down, take off my boot, put it on the bar and get the coins out of my sock. When I come back up, my boot is gone. The bartender says ‘What boot?’ His six buddies at the bar say ‘What boot?’ The bouncers say ‘What boot?’
“Well, I know when I’m not wanted, so I just pay him the money and leave there, one boot and all. I swear, one of those guys must have eaten it. I figured I’ll just go back to the plane and sit in it until the weather got straight.
“I go back to the place where I parked the Thud. No plane. I stop a couple monkeys—scuzzy-looking guys—and they say, ‘What plane?’ I call the tower on the phone and they say, ‘What plane?’
“Well, I know that Fitz is going to go apeshit that I lost one of his Thunderchiefs. But I have to call him and tell him, so I do. He goes nuts, but then he calms down and says to just find the right person, bribe him and get the plane back.
“I say, great idea but I’m broke. He goes nuts again, but then says for me to sit tight, that he’ll send another Thud pilot down with some money to get me out. I call the tower and they say that if I pay a takeoff tax, they’ll try to find the plane. It’s a game. They know it. I know it. But what can you do?”
Hunter and Zal were enjoying Al’s story. Many a pilot had faced the same kind of thing in The Pitts.
“So,” Al continued. “Now I’ve got to wait for a couple hours for a Thud to fly down. So I go into the main terminal building to get some shut-eye. There’s more creeps there, sitting in the dark, playing with themselves. Terrible. But I stretch out and finally fall asleep.
“Next thing I know, the Thud pilot is shaking me awake. He’s got the money and the plane is back where it was. He says to me, ‘Where’s your shoes?’ I look at my feet and I can’t believe it. While I was asleep, sure as shit, someone stole my other boot!”
They all had a good laugh at Al’s tale, the last they’d have in a while. Up ahead, Hunter could see the faint outline of The Pitts’ landing lights. He nodded to Al.
“Pittsburgh,” Al said into the microphone. “C-47 Spooky requesting permission to land.”
There was a silence, then the radio crackled to life. “Whadda ya want?” came the reply.
Hunter and Al looked at each other and shrugged.
“Spooky requesting landing clearance,” Al said. “We are at ten miles out. One hundred thirty knots. From the north. Need your wind and weather.”
“Fuck your wind and weather,” the voice came back. “You got landing money?”
“Landing money, tower?” Al said, with a wink.
“Fuck you, asshole,” came the reply. “Half bag of silver when you touch down. Real stuff. If you ain’t got it, then get the fuck out of the airspace before we knock you out.”
“We got the money. Can we land?” Al asked.
<
br /> “Sure,” the voice said. “Give it a shot. And pay the man in the black hat when you get here.”
They landed without incident although barely half the lights on the airport’s only functioning runway were working. The sun was just coming up and in the early morning light they could see why every flyboy who could avoided The Pitts like the plague.
They had to wheel their way in and out of tons of junk that littered the airport’s taxiing apron. There were pieces of tail sections, wings, landing gears scattered everywhere. Tools lying rusted where they’d been dropped probably years before. Jet fighters set up on blocks just like a farmer’s old Chevy set on milk crates. Everywhere, the place looked like a slum; a slum in a perpetual state of chaos.
The main terminal building, which was designed like a saucer, with a half dozen spoke-like passageways coming out of it, was dingy and rundown. Where huge plate-glass windows once stood, now there were makeshift barriers of plywood. The control tower, off to the left of the main terminal, was also in a state of decay. It was unpainted and sported more than a few boarded up windows. Several machine guns protruded from the deck surrounding the tower, though they were unmanned at the moment.
On the side of the tower, where there was once a sign reading, “Welcome to Pittsburgh International Airport,” someone had appropriately scraped off most of the letters and now the sign just read: Pitts.”
They rolled up to a station beside the saucer-shaped terminal building and cut the engines. So far, so good, Hunter thought. The two propellers on the C-47 had barely stopped turning when a man in a black hat drove up in a jeep and rapped on the side of the plane.
All three of them made their way back to the rear of the plane and Hunter popped the cargo door and threw out the step. The man in the black hat came aboard. Once Hunter got a good look at him, he realized he was looking at one of the ugliest individuals in the world.
The right side of the man’s face looked as if someone had taken an acetylene torch to it. It was the color of boiling blood and it looked as if it was still cooking. His left side had seven long deep scars running from eye to chin. The latest one was still stitched up, but a green, pus-like substance was oozing from it. He had no teeth and what looked to be only patches of hair. The man smelled rancid and his clothes—the hat, a full-length black coat and black boots, even his black wraparound sunglasses—all looked as though they’d hadn’t been washed in years.
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