Mack maloney wingman 0.., p.10
Mack Maloney - Wingman 07, page 10
Hunter took a low, long deep breath.
“General, there’s no way I can make this easy,” he began, his voice absolutely sober, his mind trying to put into words all of the information he’d been able to coax out of Juanita Juarez. “But I’ve uncovered information that suggests that this entire venture-the train and our own lives -are in grave danger.”
“So what else is new?” JT wisecracked. “We’ve been fighting ever since we left Football City. But we’ve been kicking ass each time, and that’s what counts.”
“This is no time for jokes, JT,” Hunter said stonily. “These skirmishes we’ve already experienced are nothing compared to what is waiting down the tracks.”
“And that is?” Jones asked.
“More than ten divisions of enemy troops,” Hunter replied, his news dropping on the Control car like a bomb.
“What?” Fitz was the first to cry. “You’re talking about one hundred and fifty thousand troops.”
“It’s true,” Hunter continued. “I have evidence that an enemy alliance has recently formed right here in the southern Badlands itself. One man has rallied the remnants of the Twisted Cross, the Skinheads, and an assortment of air pirates, bandits, mercenaries and terrorists into a massive one-hundred-and-fifty thousand-man army.
“Even a battle-hard veteran like Jones was stunned.
“Do we know exactly who is behind this super army, Hawk?”
“A gunrunner by the name of Devillian,” Hunter replied.
“Duke Devillian.”
The name stung his tongue every time he said it. Immediately his mind flashed back to the last night they’d spent in Football City. Devillian was the man who had made Louie St. Louie so nervous.
“And along with his army,” Hunter went on, “this guy is stamping out an ideology to go with it.”
“Which is?” Wa asked.
“Pure racism,” the Wingman replied, spitting out the last word. “Devillian was a Klansman before the Big War, which explains his love affair with the surviving Canal Nazis. Now it appears that he’s built a kind of Super KKK. In fact, he’s calling his new organization the Knights of the Burning Cross.”
“That explains the flag of a cross in flames at the Topeka airport,” Catfish said grimly.
“It gets even worse,” Hunter went on. “This secret force may be equipped with weapons more sophisticated than anything we’ve faced since the Circle War.”
A series of low, troubled whistles echoed throughout the railway car.
“And we’re driving ourselves right into the thick of it?”
Ben Wa asked gloomily.
Hunter nodded grimly. “They not only know we’re here,” he confirmed. “They’re the ones who have been stinging us.”
At this point, everyone who was drinking refilled his
Scotch cup.
Although tempted, Hunter once again refused. He rubbed his tired eyes, pushed back his long hair and then continued.
“Those Starfighters at Dodge,” he said. “They didn’t run away. They were ordered to retreat. Same with those Skinheads.
These attacks were feints -diversions under the guise of isolated actions. They’ve been sucking us in. Trying to make us think they were just scattered elements and that we could just roll right through.”
“Incredible,” several people said at once.
“I hate to ask you this, Hawk,” Jones said, slowly. “But are you certain that all this information is accurate?”
Hunter looked up at him and solemnly nodded. “Solid,” he said, the look in his eyes alone confirming it for most people in the room.
“There’s more,” he went on. “It was part of this new super army that attacked the first train. We were only half right when we said that the first train was sent crashing into that station in LA to send us a message. Actually, these guys were laying out the bait.”
“And we fell for it like a bunch of Boy Scouts,” JT said disgustedly.
No one spoke for two long minutes. Finally Jones turned to Catfish. “Can we turn the train around, Major?” he asked.
Catfish sadly nodded. “There’s an old Conrail roundabout on the other side of Eagle Rock, sir. It would take us the better part of two days to do it, but it can be done.”
“Then, from what I’ve just heard,” Jones said, “I believe that as powerful and armored as this train may be, it seems suicidal to continue in the face of numbers and equipment this super army apparently has at its disposal.”
Everyone in the room was absolutely stunned at the
announcement.
“Wait a minute . . ” Hunter said. Just then, he felt an odd sensation run through him. Suddenly someone else’s words were on his lips, “It is best to confront an enemy directly” he heard himself say. “Then surprise will be an ally in victory.”
Everyone turned and looked at him strangely.
“What the hell did you say?” JT asked.
Even Hunter himself wasn’t sure.
“I mean … we’ve got to remember we’ve still got an important mission to perform,” he recovered, a little shakily.
“And if we let this new gang get to us now, it will only get harder to reclaim the territory when we try it the next time.”
Another absolute silence descended on the room.
“Are you actually advocating that we continue?” Jones asked him incredulously.
Even Hunter himself wasn’t too sure. The strange voice that had suddenly gurgled up from inside him had him briefly
questioning his own sanity.
Still, he pressed on: “Look, we’ve been in tough spots before. And we’ve always gotten out of them by thinking it through. By innovating. By using our strengths and shoring up our weaknesses. All our success has been based on that very principle. We can’t change it now.”
There was another minute of gruesome silence as everyone took a third drink from the rapidly dwindling bottle of Scotch.
Finally Jones broke the spell.
“Hawk, I’m prepared to order that we scrub this mission,”
he said. “So if you have any ideas, better spill them now.”
Hunter thought again about the strange words he’d just
unconsciously uttered.
“General, I think we all realize that mounting a good, standby defense for a constantly moving train is next to impossible,” he said. “At least against these kinds of odds and on such short notice.”
“So?” Jones asked. “So, as the old saying goes, the best defense is a good offense. If a moving train is difficult to defend, then I say we lay out a careful plan and then go on the attack instead.”
Everyone in the room once again turned toward Hunter,
astonishment on their faces.
“Good Lord, Hawker,” Fitz blurted out. “How? According to your information, this nut has got ten divisions hiding out there, waiting for us.”
“When they are unprepared, it is the time to attack,”
Hunter’s other voice proclaimed. ” Only when they don’t expect it should you make your move”
Hunter’s odd pronouncements were stunning everyone in the room -himself included. Only Ben Wa seemed to catch on.
“But how do we do that, Hawk?” Wa asked calmly. “Devillian’s guys could be spread out anywhere between here and LA. We’re talking about thousands of square miles, a lot of it pretty rough territory, easy to hide in.”
“Hell, you can’t hide an army forever,” Hunter replied.
“What we need is more solid intelligence.”
“I think what we also need is to keep this train moving,”
Tyler said. “Whether we are backing up or going forward, we’ve got to keep rolling, or we will be an even easier target.”
“You’re right,” Hunter said. “But we do have one element we can work in our favor. That is time.”
“How so?” Jones asked. “Because Devillian is playing a game here,” Hunter said. “These feints -by the Star fighters, by the Skinheads they’re part of some master plan he’s cooking up. They have to be, because, let’s face it, if he wanted to destroy us, he would have tried it by now. Or if he simply wanted to stop us, he would have at least blasted holes in the tracks in front of us. Instead, he dropped a bunch of mines.”
“Well, what’s he waiting for?” JT asked.
On this, Hunter wasn’t sure. The woman Juanita had been very vague on two points: Devillian’s timing and the location of his headquarters. He had tried in vain to get at least a hint of information on these subjects from her, but she had resisted.
“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “Maybe he doesn’t even know the answer himself at this point.”
“But there’s another big question remaining as well,” Fitz said. “That is, do they know we are on to them?”
Hunter shook his head. “As of now, they don’t,” he said with assurance. Just before releasing Juanita from her spell and putting her to sleep, Hunter had given her a strong hypnotic suggestion that would wipe out most of her memory of his visit.
“This means we have at least one more advantage on them, and some maneuvering room to figure out how we can get out of this.”
“But Hawk, you’re talking about a very, very long shot,”
Tyler said sympathetically.
“It’s better than turning the train around,” Hunter countered.
Once again, a nervous silence prevailed.
Finally Jones cleared his throat. In the end it was his
decision to make.
“Well, it’s against my better judgment,” he said. “But you make a good point about fighting this guy now and not later. And you’ve been right before though not this, well, eloquently. So, OK, proceed to Eagle Rock. Do your follow-up intelligence work and see what can be found out. But I’ve got to put a deadline on this. If nothing turns up by the time you reach Eagle Rock, then we’ve got to turn this train around and go back out the way we came. Understood?”
Hunter nodded, as did the others.
Jones then turned to Catfish. “How long do you need to clear the tracks up ahead, Major?” he asked.
“Another twenty-four hours maximum, sir,” the man answered.
“That’s all the time we’ll need,” Hunter said quickly.
Chapter 18
A chorus of coyote calls greeted the full moon as it rose big and orange over the New Mexico desert.
The campfire crackled and snapped, sending showers of
sparks up into the night sky, where they took their places among the stars. The sweet smell of mesquite smoke was everywhere.
“So that’s the story,” Hunter was saying, pouring himself another cup of coffee from the pot placed next to the roaring fire. “She was one fine lady, with a huge set of guns.”
The other men around the campfire-Fitzgerald, Cobra
Brothers Tyler and Crockett and Captain Crunch-laughed at the joke. It was a rare humorous moment in an otherwise humorless day.
He had finally told them about his unusual interrogation of Juanita-but only because it had to do with the urgent missions that now faced them. For although he had established that Devillian’s lieutenants - most notably Juanita were using West Santa Fe as a massive recruitment post, he still had no idea where the super terrorist’s headquarters was located.
This alone told him something: It was only under the fear of death that Juanita had held the secret location so tightly that it couldn’t be extracted under his all-persuasive spell.
And yet finding out where the viper Devillian lay was the key to planning any further action against the man.
Hunter took another sip of coffee.
“We’ve got two critical pieces of information missing,” he said, reviewing the very reason why they were sitting at the remote location. “The location of his HQ and the time frame in which he intends on attacking us for real.”
“We’re really walking a fine line here in deciding which is the more important, Hawker,” Fitz said.
“Well, look at it this way,” Hunter replied. “There ain’t much between here and LA except mountains and desert.”
“Well, if we let him, he’ll spring a trap on us somewhere,”
Crockett growled. “It all depends if we’re stupid enough to walk into it.”
Fitz let out a long sigh. “In the old days,” he said, “we’d hunt this bastard down and carpet bomb him.”
Hunter nodded glumly. “Things aren’t that simple anymore, Mike,” he said. “Right now, getting this train to LA is the most important thing in my mind, and even a squadron of B-52’s might not help at this point. Plus I’d like to believe that we’ve moved beyond the point of devastating whole sections of our own country.”
“We’ll be back to doing it if this guy isn’t stopped,” Fitz replied.
“Getting more information on him is the key,” Hunter said once again. “And that’s why we’re all here. Everyone know what they’re doing?”
He looked up at his friends and saw them all nodding.
The four other men had arrived at the desert meeting via the Cobra gunships, one of the choppers carrying a steamer trunk full of various uniforms and disguises. Now Fitz and Tyler would commandeer that Cobra and fly on to West Santa Fe, while Hunter tried to follow his instincts and search the nearby territory for any sign of the mysterious Burning Cross. Crockett and Crunch would stand by in case Fitz and Tyler needed help quick.
They discussed some last-minute aspects of the plan and
then broke camp.
“One last thing, Hawker,” Fitz said as they began to douse the fire. “We’ll need descriptions of the people you want us to interrogate in West Santa Fe.”
For only the second time that day, Hunter actually smiled.
“Believe me,” he said. “Recognizing these two guys will be easy.”
Chapter 19
Santa Fe
The next morning
The bartender’s arm was nearly breaking under the weight of the food tray.
He had just spent the last two hours frying what amounted to an entire side of beef, along with three gallons of chili, several pounds of grilled hot peppers and two spaghetti pots filled with refried beans on the side. And although he’d prepared this somewhat questionable feast every day, it never seemed to get any easier.
Grabbing a jug of tequila from under his bar, he finally made his way over to the saloon’s corner table, setting the huge tray down with a slam.
“Eets about time,” Manuel the Giant grunted, grabbing the first chunk of meat with his bare hands.
“Pay first,” the bartender bravely told him, daring to actually prevent the meat from being sucked into the man’s cavernous mouth.
Manuel literally threw a half bag of gold chips at the
bartender, who wisely retreated without another word. Within five minutes, half the huge meal-which was actually the giant’s breakfast -was already gone.
Not overly blessed with much peripheral vision, Manuel
wasn’t quite sure when the two men had sat down at the table next to him.
“Kinda hungry, aren’t you, big fella?” he heard a voice ask.
Looking up from a handful of red peppers, Manuel
comprehended the pair of men for the first time. They were dressed in a style of black military uniform he’d never seen before. Bored, he sent a long, low belch their way, and then continued eating.
“How would you like to make five bags of gold, big guy?”
one of the men asked him.
“Leave me alone,” Manuel replied, washing down a mouthful of beans with a long slug of the combustible tequila.
“OK, ten bags,” the smaller of the two men continued. “Gold coins, not chips.”
“Get out of here before I keel you both,” Manuel growled as he attacked his chili in earnest.
“Final offer, twenty bags,” the man persisted. “And all you have to do is get laid.”
Manuel looked up from his chili. “Get laid?” he asked, two rivers of red sauce pouring out from the corners of his mouth and onto his massive, unshaven chin.
“That’s right,” the smaller man said in a rapid-fire, slightly accented delivery. “You know, sink the putz? Hide the salami?”
“Fuck girl?” Manuel asked.
The two men at the table looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Yeah, and you can cook her and eat her afterward,” the taller of the pair said.
“What mean?” the giant demanded, now turning away from his food and toward the men.
They produced an elaborate-looking video camera. “We’re in the movie business,” the small man said. “The dirty movie business. We heard that there was a lot of it around in these parts; so we’re making a film right here in town, and we need a leading man, like you.”
