Skyfire (17 page)

"Clans? That's a new one," Jones said. "Are we to assume then that they have no central command?"

"Not one in the typical sense," Hunter spoke up.

Fitz then went on to explain that he had also asked each POW how old he was, where he had grown up, and what he knew about the state of the world in general. Most of them were between the ages of thirty and fifty-old for raiding work. And many were practically ignorant of world events, some of them to the point that they claimed they didn't know anything about World War III.

"For want of a better word, they all seem to be very naive," Fitz went on.

"The strange thing is that most of them are very talkative. Too talkative.

They'll go on forever about a house they built or a bear they killed or an axe handle they carved from scratch and talk to you about it like a little kid.

"Yet they've brutally murdered at least three hundred people so far. And kidnapped at least that many more."

"They're just like the original Vikings," Hunter spoke up again, retrieving information he'd read about Viking lore. "Lack of central authority, definitely clannish, talkative. Their clothes and beards, their simple tactics-damn, right down to sticking that serpent's head on the front of their submarine, these guys fit the description of the authentic Norsemen from a thousand years ago."

"Did any of them say what made all of these clans 150

get together and come here in the first place?" Jones asked.

"Only one guy talked about that," Fitz replied, searching through his notes.

"His name was ThurcL Of them all, he was probably the brightest, meaning he could probably tie his shoelaces by himself. He mentioned something about them returning to 'Vinland,' and claiming what was theirs to begin with."

"That's another interesting piece of information, General," Hunter jumped in.

" 'Vinland' was what the original Norsemen called the part of North America where they first came ashore-way before Columbus, I might add. It was thought to be up around Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, but maybe as far down as Cape Cod or even farther south than that."

"Well, that would fit in with their pattern so far," Jones replied. "They first showed up in Nova Scotia and have obviously been working their way south ever since."

"And that's one thing we have working in our favor," Hunter told him. "These guys have no finesse. They operate on brute force. They hit a target, rape, pillage, kill, and kidnap, then they retreat to their subs, submerge and surface somewhere farther down the coast.

"What we have to do is be waiting for them at the next likely spot."

There was a break in the conversation as a burst of static came and went.

"Did you get any information about these huge submarines?" Jones asked once the line was clear again.

"Nothing other than they were designed in Oslo by a guy named Svenson and that there are a lot of them," Fitz answered. "And only Thurd, the smart one, knew all that. From what I could understand, the vast majority of these guys were all recruited from the mountains way the hell up in Scandinavia-some of the most iso-151

lated parts of the world. You know, dark six months a year. They were trained, probably indoctrinated to a certain degree, and then put on these boats.

Apparently they've been raiding parts of Iceland and the British Isles for the past few months, getting their act together before sailing over here.

"However, I did get the impression that different subs have different specialties. One sub might carry just soldiers while another might carry just fuel or weapons."

There was a brief silence as all three men considered the information.

Finally Jones asked a very touchy question: "Did any of them say what they were doing with the people they kidnap?"

Right away, Fitz saw Hunter's face turn incredibly dour.

"No, sir," Fitz replied quickly. "None of them seemed to know anything about the people they kidnapped. They would just turn them over to another boat somewhere out to sea, get supplies in return, and then they'd be done with them. That's why I think they have different boats doing different jobs. The boat captured at Montauk Point was apparently a troop vessel, a Krig Bat, Thurd called it. 'War boat' in Norwegian. There weren't any accommodations for the kidnapped aboard."

The static returned now and stayed on the line for nearly a half minute. When Jones came back, it was apparent that he had heard enough for now.

"Get some rest, guys" he said, his voice fading. "We'll talk again in three hours about the next step."

With that, Jones hung up.

Hunter and Fitz each poured themselves another whiskey. Although they drank in silence, Fitz could see that Hunter's anger was building by the second.

"I'm convinced that these guys have a lot of slave 152

ships roaming around out there," Hunter said bitterly. "And when they're full, they bring all their victims to God-knows-where."

Fitz sadly nodded in agreement. "It's probably something along those lines,"

he said. "But with no central command point to speak of, it's going to be very difficult to find out exactly what they are up to and what boat is where at any given time. Especially since we've got very little in the way of naval vessels ourselves."

It was true: though the United Americans were strong in ground and air forces, their navy was little more than a few dozen coastal patrol craft and two creaking prewar submarines that would probably sink if they ever ventured out of their dry docks.

Hunter slammed his fist down on the desk. "But there has to be some kind of command structure," he said, his voice boiling with anger now. "These grunts wouldn't have to know anything about it. Most of them are as dumb as planks anyway. They're stooges. Thugs. Who else would get aboard those floating shitboxes?"

"Good point," Fitz said, lighting up a new cigar.

But Hunter was smoking now without the benefit of a stogie.

"And we've got hardware they've never even heard of," he fumed. "It's quality versus quantity again, Mike, and this time, I swear it, quality will win out.

They can throw as many of their goons onto the beaches as they want, and fuel shortage or no fuel shortage, we'll be able to plaster them."

"If only we could figure out where and when they were coming in a big way . .

." Fitz replied, nodding. "Then we could really put the hurt on them."

An angry silence descended on the room.

"Someone, somewhere, is coordinating all this. . ." Hunter began again, his voice even angrier than ever. "I can feel it. Even if these clans dont know what the hell

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is going on, someone directed all those refineries to be bombed and someone is at least pointing these sub commanders in the right direction, telling them where to be and what to do before every raid."

Fitz was nodding slowly in agreement. "And if that is all true . . ." he said,

"then someone is responsible for transporting the people they snatch."

Hunter's face turned as somber as stone. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the image of Dominique, beckoning to him.

"That's right," he said, his words dripping fire. "And that person is going to make a mistake eventually. And I'm going to be right on top of them when they do . . ."

154

T\vo days later

It was barely thirty minutes after midnight when the Norse raiding party made up of the Finnbogi clan came ashore along a stretch of deserted Delaware seafront ironically named Slaughter Beach.

Unlike the weather during their previous landings, tonight it was raining. The sea was choppy with a high spray, and this made it more difficult than usual for the raiders to land their dozens of large, see-through rubber boats. Once on shore, things didn't get much better. The invaders found the going slow and sluggish due to the high winds, chilly rain, and deep, wet sand.

Nevertheless, they pressed on. There were six hundred and fifty-three of them in all, fully two-thirds of the Finnbogis. Most were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, although a few were carrying old, Czech-made grenade launchers as well as napalm-fueled flamethrowers. Plus, each man was carrying his own intricately carved battleaxe.

Their target for the night was the small city of Milford, located about five miles inland from Slaughter Beach. In terms of likely targets, Milford offered the raiders many of the things they were looking for. First of all, it was the site of a medium-sized oil-processing facility, one which had contained in the past several million gallons of aviation fuel.

Plus, the city, with its population of about five thou-155

sand, was lightly defended-so said the clan's advanced scouts, dropped off on the beach two days before. And unlike many of the cities along the American eastern seaboard, Milford had not been abandoned, though the reasons for this were not exactly clear, according to the Norse spies.

Once they had moved off the beach, the clan split into two groups. One party, made up of three hundred raiders and about a dozen rocket launchers, would approach the refinery via Route 36, a seaside two-lane highway. The second group of three hundred fifty would make its way over the sand dunes and through the marshes beyond, putting them in a position to attack the outskirts of the city from the south. Three Norsemen would be left behind to watch the clan's three dozen rubber boats.

A man named Thugg Finnbogi was the commander of the group that would move up Route 36 and attack the oil refinery. A massive individual of rock features and bright red hair and beard, Thugg was hands down the toughest of all the Finnbogis. He had led the clan on the raid at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, as well as on several towns along Cape Cod, and it was he who had planned the details for this raid on Milford.

Proper dispersement of forces or such rudimentary things as front and rear defense of the unit were of little importance to Thugg, however. Instead of marching down Route 36 in two well-paced columns with scouts on either side watching the flanks, Thugg and his men simply walked down the middle of the rainy, windswept highway en masse, a disorganized mob with little regard for discipline or stealth.

In fact, Thugg considered his biggest concern to be preventing fights among his clan brethren; sharp, violent flareups were a daily, even hourly, occurrence among the Norsemen in general and the Finnbogis in 156

particular.

Thugg's group walked for three miles through the rain and wind before they saw the twinkling lights of the Milford oil refinery off in the distance. Many of the clan members immediately grunted with contentment when they saw their objective. Silhouetted as it was against the glow of Milford itself, they knew the brightly lit refinery would be an easy target for their rocket teams.

They walked another half mile before settling down in a shallow stream basin that was no more than three hundred yards from the perimeter of the refinery.

At this point, a number of flasks were broken out, and the clan shared a communal drinking of the hallucinogenic Norse liquor called myx. Within two minutes, the warriors were more boisterous than ever, laughing and shouting, their hands gripping tightly the guns and huge battleaxes they would soon bring into war.

Even Thugg was enjoying himself, a state of mind fueled by the mind-altering myx. He felt he had something to celebrate: he and his men had met absolutely no opposition so far, and to his untrained military mind, this did not seem unusual.

The second group of Finnbogis, the raiders who would attack and pillage the outskirts of Milford itself, was led by Thugg's cousin, a man named Svord.

Unlike Thugg, Svord was a man of small stature and one of the few raiders who did not sport a beard. Among the Finnbogis, Svord was known as Stikkende Smerte-roughly: Sharp Pain-and for good reason. Svord excelled at torture. An expert with both the battleaxe and the knife, he lived for the sheer viciousness of inflicting pain on others. And, unlike Thugg, no one had ever accused Svord of being bright. He was a bru-157

tal character in a world of brutal characters.

It was no surprise that Svord was even less sophisticated than Thugg at approaching his target. After a long, damp trek over the dunes and marshes, his clan brothers were seething by the time they saw the first row of houses that marked the outskirts of Milford, Delaware. Despite the late hour, several of these houses had lights on, indicating to Svord that they were full of unsuspecting victims prime for the hatchets and bullets of the marauding Finnbogis.

Svord immediately called his troop to be quiet, slapping several men close by who did not heed his order right away. Then he brought up his four flamethrower teams, and using hand signals, indicated that each team take one of the lighted houses each.

As these men moved into position, Svord called up the redsel soldats-the Finnbogis's "fright soldiers" -twenty men who, like him, reveled in dispensing pain. These men always stood at the vanguard of one of Svord's raids, usually being the first-and last-raiders their hapless victims saw. Svord barked a series of short orders to them, most to the effect that they should leave a few victims alive at first, to allow him the pleasure of torturing them himself.

Once these men began the crawl to the row of houses, Svord checked with the family leaders of the rest of the men. No less brutal than the redsel soldats, these raiders had simply not yet achieved a high enough status within the clan to spearhead an attack. Within the realm of all Norsemen, that kind of position only came with time and performance in battle.

Several minutes passed while the advanced units worked their way into position. All the while, Svord was nearly panting over the thoughts of the helpless

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men, women, and children he would soon be gutting with his axe. His only real task-besides spreading panic and fear among the North American skraelings-was to bring back at least two dozen women. Only then would the Finnbogis get the supplies that the clan would need to continue this campaign of terror.

At last, two distinctive hoots rose up out of the damp night air. These were the signals Svord was waiting for-his units were in position. One gruff word from Svord and the myx flasks were broken out and passed around. Another grunt and the group's buglers began wetting their lips. There was a series of clicks as the clan members checked their ammunition loads one more time. Thumbs were run along axe blades, making sure they were razor-sharp.