Skyfire (38 page)

The two men didn't talk. There was nothing left to say. The devastating air attacks all along the Florida coast had left them numb in body, mind, and soul. The uncertainty of what lay ahead for them and for their country was almost unbearable.

Suddenly the telex burst to life, its unexpected clacking startling both of the normally unperturbed men.

Fitzgerald nearly dropped his coffee at the sudden noise. Now he leaned over the machine and read aloud as the words printed one by one onto the faded yellow telex paper.

The message, in two parts, was being transmitted from Jones's office in Washington. Oddly, the preface indicated that the subject matter had nothing to do with the United American's sudden defeat in Florida.

Rather, the first communication was one relayed from the West Coast and sent originally by Captain Crunch O'Mal-ley.

It read simply: "Hunter's airplane secured."

But then the follow-up paragraph briefly detailed the story of Zim, the Hawaiian businessman, and the fact that Elvis had flown westward to investigate the man's claim that a huge mercenary force was gathering in the South Pacific for a strike against the American West Coast.

The message ended with the dire news that Elvis was long overdue in returning from this recon mission.

The telex fell silent for a full minute, and then began clacking again.

The second part of the transmission had to do with a request that Jones had made of his Washington office just hours before the Norse attacks began. It had to do with the somewhat mysterious man, Wolf, the captain of the USS

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New Jersey. The ever-cautious Jones had asked his intelligence operatives to run a quick check on the man's background, using what little resources they had at present in lawless, totally anarchic western Europe.

The first few sentences of the message confirmed that Wolf was everything Hunter had told them he was: a man who was pursuing his father and older brother in an effort to stop them from spreading death and destruction along the American East Coast.

But the next paragraph held a surprise. Wolf was not the anonymous if eccentric figure he had portrayed himself to be. Rather, he was very well known in some regions of the strife-torn Continent as a kind of postwar Robin Hood, a soldier of fortune who used his skills as a seagoing warrior to help and protect the millions of disenfranchised people eking out an existence in Europe's new Dark Age.

The message concluded with an apt if ironic description: "Wolf is to parts of Europe," Jones's intelligence officer had written, "what Hawk Hunter is to most of America."

Both Fitzgerald and Jones were surprised by the information, but in light of their present situation, it seemed of little consequence to them now. From all accounts, Wolf and his crew had performed extraordinarily well during the recent battle against the Norse. But even a weapon as mighty as a battleship would do little to alter the frightening new balance of power ushered in by the appearance of the mysterious enemy's one hundred high-tech naval aircraft.

The telex fell silent, and once again, so did Fitzgerald and Jones. It was nearly 3 A.M., and all the two men were doing was waiting for morning and wondering what new disasters it would bring.

Suddenly they heard a commotion at the front door of the bomb shelter. Someone was running. Running down the stone steps and down the long, narrow hallway.

A second later, the door to the room swung open and a somewhat disheveled figure bounded in.

It was Hunter.

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^

More than a hundred fifty miles to the south, a column of Norsemen lay hidden in a humid and insect-infested swamp marsh, keeping as low to the ground as possible.

They were survivors of the disastrous invasion attempt the night before, and every man was supremely humbled by how lucky he was to be alive. Their sub had been attacked by an A-4 Skyhawk off the coast of Cocoa Beach in the opening minutes of the battle. The jet had dropped two bombs: one had exploded on the sub's stern, damaging its propeller shafts, the other had slammed into the huge forward bulkhead where nearly a battalion of Norse troops was preparing to disembark from the ship and into the landing crafts.

Many soldiers were killed in the attack, including the sub's captain and all of his officer staff. Many more were trapped for a time in the forward part of the vessel. For most of the battle, the sub could not move due to the damage to its propellers. But the smoke and flames belching from its pair of wounds apparently convinced the pilots of the attacking UA jets that further punishment was not necessary.

One man had come to the fore once night had fallen. It was he who not only instructed the rescue crews in freeing those men trapped at the front of the sub but also led the workers who jimmy-rigged a temporary shaft to one of the boat's propellers.

Thus powered again, the sub slowly made its way for thirteen miles until it reached a large sandbar one mile

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north of Cocoa Beach. Here the sub was beached. When the tide went out, the one hundred seventy-five survivors were able to swim to shore.

Now the majority of these men lay hidden on the edge of the marsh waiting for a squad of scouts to return. The news these men carried with them would determine the fate of them all.

Two hours passed, and the night gradually gave way to the dawn.

Finally, the scouts came scrambling back to the main group-dirty and out of breath, but nevertheless carrying good news. There was a group of abandoned buildings nearby where the Norse survivors could take refuge. The structures were part of a large base of some kind, but the scouts weren't exactly sure of the facility's function. They told wild stories of a wide-open flat space built of concrete in the middle of the swamp and containing enormous towers and at least one huge, strange-looking aircraft.

The rest of the Norse had no time for their tales. They knew they had to get hidden under the roof quickly, before the sun came up. With little fanfare, the one hundred seventy-five men emerged from their hiding places and followed the scouts through the twisting rivulets of the marsh.

By the time the sun broke above the horizon, the one hundred seventy-five Norsemen were standing on the outskirts of the long-ago-abandoned Cape Canaveral.

The unofficial second in command of the group, a high member of the Gothwarb clan named Thunke, stared out at the deserted base and realized that the scouts had not been exaggerating. The place did contain many strange, tall buildings as well as mile upon mile of concrete spaces. There were so many buildings, in fact, that the survivors could lie hidden for days, weeks, even months before anyone could find them.

It was the perfect refuge for the Norsemen; all it would take was Thunke's asking for permission from the leader of

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the group to enter the facility for a closer inspection.

Making his way back through the column of anxious clan members, he reached the small tree where their new leader had taken refuge from the rising, increasingly hot sun. The man was not even a Norseman, but Thunke knew this didn't matter at the moment. The man had fixed the propellers on the sub and had led the rescue of the trapped Norse soldiers. For such bravery, he had attained instant clan leadership.

Now he was giving the orders.

But due to peculiar circumstances, that was not as easy as it sounded. In fact, the only reason that Thunke was suddenly Number Two among the Norsemen was that he was the only one who could speak the new Number One's language.

Now crawling up beside the skinny, beardless, pale-skinned man, Thunke retrieved a tin cup from his belt and a twig from the shading tree. Then, with precise, almost delicate movements, he began tapping on the tin cup.

Immediately getting the full gist of Thunke's message, via the language of Morse code, the partially deaf, mute, and handless Englishman known as Smiley nodded his approval.

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The hot sun rising over the shore at Jacksonville baked the thousands of creatures alternately pecking at the corpses of Norsemen and fighting amongst themselves.

In the midst of the gluttony stood the Harrier jumpjet, its landing gear and lower fuselage covered with caked sand.

Next to the jet was a large sled holding a trio of weapons: one five-hundred-pound general-purpose bomb, one canister of Ml 13 napalm, and a Harpoon antiship missile that contained only a third of the high explosive normally carried in its warhead. Another smaller sled nearby carried a drop tank half filled with aviation fuel and a roll of guide wire and a half dozen pulleys.

Hawk Hunter was working feverishly under the Harrier's wing, splicing the necessary wires and making the necessary connections which would allow him to attach the weapons and the fuel tank to the jumpjet. A red bandana covered his nose and mouth; a pair of industrial safety glasses covered his eyes.

But nothing could block out the incessant squawking and greedy hissing of the multitude of creatures as they continued their disgusting banquet.

If I get airborne within two hours, I might have a chance, Hunter kept telling himself over and over.

Standing up on the beach wall about fifty feet away was Jones and Fitzgerald.

They both knew what Hunter was

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planning to do. But they had also failed in trying to talk him out of it.

It was useless. Once Hunter had his mind made up to do something, no matter how dangerous, it was pretty near impossible to change it.

Besides, Fitzgerald and Jones had little left in the way of spirit reserves.

Their whole world had come crashing down on them less than twelve hours before. Trying to convince their friend that he was about to embark on a suicide mission seemed to be just too much for either one of them to contemplate.

Yet, as they watched their comrade hoist the weapons one by one up under the wing of the jumpjet by way of an ingenious series of wires and pulleys, they knew they had to try one more time to save his life.

Blocking out the rising stench on the beach with kerchiefs of their own, the two men tramped through the ghastly red sand and reached the Harrier just as Hunter was attaching the half-filled fuel tank.

"Save your breath, boys," he told them, not even looking at the pair.

"This is crazy, Hawker," Fitz told him nevertheless. "What good does it do anyone if you blow yourself to hell?"

"It's a mission," Hunter replied stoically. "Just another mission . . ."

"It's an impossible mission," Jones told him. "Even you won't stand a chance .

. ."

"It still has to be done-and quick," Hunter said gloomily as he attached the last of the holding wires to the fuel tank. "And I'm the only one within five hundred miles who still has an aircraft in flying condition."

Jones and Fitzgerald could only look at each other and shake their heads.

It all started after Hunter appeared at the destroyed naval air station earlier that morning. He said very little to Jones and Fitzgerald upon entering the bomb shelter. Instead, he drained two cups of coffee and then began a wild

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I

search of the still-smoldering base, looking for anything left that he might able to strap under the Harrier's wings.

He located the three disparate weapons in three different damaged buildings, and declining all offers of help from the surviving base personnel, loaded them on a bulky service truck, retrieved the tool sleds, the wire, the pulleys, and the half-filled fuel tank and headed back to his beached airplane.

Now it was almost noontime. He'd been working on the airplane since 7 A.M.

"Suppose I order you not to go?" Jones asked him wearily. "Suppose I ground you, here and now?"

Hunter stopped working for a moment and looked directly at Jones.

"Are you going to force me to disobey a direct order?" he asked his Commander in Chief.

Jones was suddenly speechless. Then he simply shook his head and walked away.

Fitzgerald decided to give it one last try.

Walking up under the shade of the wing, he watched Hunter secure the last guide wire under the fuel tank.

"Hawker, you don't even know what you're looking for," he said, the words not really coming out as he planned them.

"Like hell I don't," Hunter shot back. "There's only one way those navy airplanes could have hit us like that. They were launched from an aircraft carrier, a big one.

"Now it's out there, somewhere-and I'm going to find it."

"On a pint of fuel and carrying these three crummy weapons?" Fitzgerald replied somewhat angrily. "You know if it's a big carrier, then it will have SAM's, Phalanx guns, the works, plus airplanes that will come out to get you before you even spot the damn thing. You won't stand a chance."

"Maybe not," Hunter replied calmly. "But I still have to try. The alternative is that this country will lose control of its own skies. And you know, when that happens, it will

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really be over."

"But we'll still have those damn subs running around with their nukes," Fitz pleaded. "What about them?"

Hunter turned and looked directly into his friend's eyes. "I'll leave that problem to you, Mike," he said sadly.

With that, Hunter jumped up onto the Harrier's wing, climbed into the cockpit, and began pushing buttons in preparation for starting the airplane's unique engine.

As soon as Fitzgerald heard the low whine of the engine's prestarter, he knew he had only one last opportunity to talk to Hunter, maybe forever.

Running up beside the cockpit, he looked up at his friend and yelled: "What about Dominique?"

Hunter immediately froze, his face turning ashen white. Then he looked down at his friend of many years and said simply: "Good-bye Mike . . ."

The souped-up Harrier lifted off a minute later.

Kicking up a windstorm of sand and debris, the VTOL jet slowly rose above the hardened sand, the screaming of its engine scattering away any remaining sea gulls.

As Jones and Fitzgerald and a small contingent of Football City Rangers watched from the top of the breakwater, the jet hovered briefly over the beach and then rocketed away out to sea in a flash.