Battle for America

by Maloney, Mack;

  “Oh yes,” Zmeya said. “Moot point really. But, you know, all these fucking New Yorkers have caused me more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “So we should proceed, then? Process the entire lot?”

  “Yes, do it,” Zmeya said coldly. “Rome is burning, but it’s important to carry a message over to whatever’s next.”

  Borski never heard him. He was so excited that once again there was no parting salutation, no acknowledgment. Nothing. He was simply off the phone.

  “Idiot,” Zmeya said.

  Hunter had continued circling Tower Two, climbing as Dozer’s troops climbed floor by floor, firing the flare gun he’d borrowed from the Canadians and acting as an artillery spotter. And Johnson’s guys were always right on the money, now more than a hundred floors up. That was special forces.

  Hunter had heard the radio chatter coming from inside the building the whole time. When the Allies broke through on two fronts on the 105th floor, he knew the vertical war was almost over.

  But suddenly, his radio came alive with a message not from Dozer or Johnson, but from the lighthouse listening post back on Nantucket.

  The 7CAV comm tech asked him one question: “Do you know how to get to Yankee Stadium from there?”

  The lighthouse had been tracking fewer and fewer calls on Zmeya’s communications board as the battle raged, but one caller was persistent in trying to get through. They went back into the taped archives, listened to previous conversations between the caller and Zmeya, and this led them to the mass execution plot unfolding at Yankee Stadium.

  The battle for Tower Two was all but over, yet the NKVD was still going to kill two thousand helpless Americans?

  Hunter pushed the throttles past full power and headed north.

  The Wingman was needed elsewhere.

  Two long trenches had been dug in the weedy outfield of Yankee Stadium.

  Each was 180 feet long and 6 feet deep. The two thousand hostages—men, women, and children—having dug their own graves, had been kneeling next to them for hours, blindfolded and waiting for death, while Sublieutenant Boris Borski anxiously awaited Zmeya’s call to finally start the executions.

  Borski had one hundred Chekskis with him, members of the Chekski First Police Battalion that had stayed behind while the rest of the unit—nine hundred policemen—had deployed to the Pine Barrens for the guerrilla-clearing operation.

  But Borski was confident one hundred men would be enough to slit the throats of two thousand hostages. A little less than twenty hostages per man, as Borski intended to add his knife to the proceedings. In fact, he planned to kill all the children himself.

  Now that Zmeya had given him the go-ahead, he was immensely excited to proceed.

  Per the commissar’s orders, the executions were going to be filmed. This meant cameras, microphones, cables, electrical generators, and lights. Lots of lights.

  Borski ordered it all turned on.

  That’s how Hunter was able to find Yankee Stadium so quickly.

  There was a problem, though. Hunter was unarmed.

  His M-16 was empty, same for his .357 Magnum. He was the only friendly force to get to the Bronx with any speed, but all he had was his funny little plane and the flare gun he’d borrowed from the Canadians, one cartridge remaining.

  This was going to take some ingenuity.

  Just as the ballpark came into sight, the lighthouse radioed him to say they’d intercepted the live conversation in which Zmeya gave his okay for the executions at the stadium to begin.

  So, there could be no circling, no time for screwing around now. Hunter put the plane into a steep dive, got right down on the field like a crop duster, and headed for the first group of Chekski guards he saw. They began shooting at him, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  He unfastened his side window and then pulled up on his controls. The plane went into a stop and hovered not ten feet above the field. He stuck the flare gun out the window, fired it at the nearest guard, then slammed his plane back down and was gone in a flash. The fiery projectile caught the man square in the face, horribly imbedding itself in his cheek. When he fell over screaming, head aflame, some of the hostages used the ghastly distraction to attack the other guards.

  That’s all it took. There was a domino effect, and within seconds, a major brawl was under way on the baseball field. The hostages quickly got the upper hand.

  Hunter flew low one more time to see if there was anything else he could do, but it wasn’t necessary.

  By that time, the hostages were tearing the Chekski guards apart.

  Something strange was happening inside Tower Two’s penthouse.

  Still on the 109th floor, Dozer and his deep recon men could hear a lot of commotion above them. People shouting and breaking things. They all agreed it sounded like a fistfight.

  The Allies would have to take over the penthouse to complete the victory—and 7CAV was the unanimous selection to lead the final assault. But before charging up there, Dozer had to be sure of what awaited him and his troops.

  As the recon men set up some remote viewing gear, he was on his radiophone, checking the situation in the rest of the building. All resistance had ceased. Most of the NKVD fighters had been killed by Johnson’s artillery strikes, though many fell to the bullets and bare fists of the Allied assault team.

  The policemen who’d been shot and wounded during the Allies’ dash to the top were being dispatched by second wave merc groups. The goal had been to kill as many of the NKVD cops as possible, and no one said it was going to be pretty. Still, it was a grisly job.

  Suddenly, Dozer heard more noise overhead. It was the sound of a helicopter approaching.

  The recon men reported they were ready.

  “One more floor to go, boys,” Dozer told them.

  Zmeya’s suitcase communicator was really dead now.

  All incoming calls had ceased. Even Sublieutenant Borski had stopped calling him. That’s how dire the situation had become.

  The battle now lost, Zmeya had to get out, so he could go on to the next one. Or at least that was the plan.

  So where was his goddamn helicopter?

  “Are you ready to go?” he called over his shoulder to Dominique. “Just one small bag. We’re going to be overloaded as it is.”

  His tongue stumbled over those last few words. His last helicopter ride—out to the Isakov and back—had not been a pleasant experience.

  “Leave the lingerie,” he went on. “Cheap domestic crap. We’ll buy you the real stuff when we get to Paris.”

  He tried calling his helicopter team again. They should have been here at least ten minutes ago.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he continued. “The helicopter will land, the crew comes down and wheels out the big yellow box, we put it on board, and off we go. But I want you to get on the copter first, before we put the Magilla on, okay?” He was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a helicopter approaching. “Finally!”

  The racket of the copter was getting closer. Maybe thirty seconds away.

  “Okay—the aircraft is here,” he yelled to her again. “Stop packing and let’s—”

  He turned around just in time to see Dominique coming at him with a plastic bag. Before he could react, she jammed it over his head, pulled it down to his neck, yanked it tight, and held it there. Zmeya began flailing his arms, trying to grab her, but he was already gasping for air. She picked up the radiophone and hit him hard on the right temple, knocking him out of his chair. When he was sprawled on the floor, she kicked him twice in the stomach and then on his nose, shattering it.

  He tried curling up, at the same time desperate to get the bag off his head, but she would not relent. Another boot to the stomach, then a vodka bottle caught him on the left ear. The bag was starting to fill with blood; he couldn’t help but bre
athe it in only to spit it out again. One last kick to the groin and he began to lose consciousness.

  In his last vision of her, she was looking down at him, holding his desk calendar.

  Despite everything, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she wanted that for?

  Dozer and the four-deep recon men quietly made their way up the staircase to the fire door leading into the 110th floor penthouse.

  The recon guys had special fiber-optic camera equipment that allowed them to put a thin wire through a doorway and see what was happening in the next room via a small TV monitor.

  Dozer nudged the fire door open with his toe just enough for one of the recon guys to insert the clear plastic wire. They looked inside.

  The place was a mess. Furniture kicked over, liquor bottles smashed, blood on the carpet. A fistfight seemed like a good guess.

  The second thing they realized was that the doorway and the hallway leading into the penthouse were heavily booby-trapped. Had Dozer opened the door an inch or two more, the whole stairway would have blown up.

  This prevented them from doing a hot entry. Dozer called below for the JAWS guys to come up with their defusing equipment. Then he went back to watching the fiber-optic screen.

  That’s when he spotted Dominique. A helicopter had landed on the roof, and she was walking through the penthouse, carrying what looked like a desk calendar. A body was lying next to a business desk; it might have been Commissar Zmeya, and it looked like he’d gotten the worst of the fisticuffs.

  Dominique opened an access door to the roof, and the people from the helicopter came in. But they didn’t look like NKVD or Russians of any sort.

  They were US Army soldiers. Not militiamen or team fighters like 7CAV, but regular American combat troops that looked like they were still serving back in the Vietnam era. The jungle-green battle uniforms, the camo helmets, the high-tie combat boots. Everything screamed 1960s.

  “What the heck is going on here?” Dozer whispered.

  The soldiers wheeled a huge yellow container across the penthouse and carried it up to the roof. It was the same box Dozer, Hunter, and the others had seen the Russians take off the Isakov in the monstrous Mi-26 Halo helicopter. It would have been hard to mistake its bright yellow paint job.

  Lifting it out was not an easy job, but the soldiers somehow managed to get it up to the windy top of Tower Two, where their helicopter was waiting.

  The recon guys manipulated their fiber-optic cable so they could see the helicopter taking off through the penthouse window. The copter looked like it was from a different era, too. It was an old CH-21 “Flying Banana,” an early 1960s chopper with very few bells and whistles.

  It flew away as the sun came up.

  The last Dozer saw of it, Dominique was kneeling in the open hatchway, leaning on the yellow box, surrounded by soldiers from another time.

  Dozer was quickly on the radio to Hunter. He was just a mile away and heading back to Lower Manhattan.

  “I’m on the top floor, looking into the penthouse,” he explained to the pilot. “And you’re not going to believe what we just saw.”

  He filled him in on what had just happened inside Tower Two. And he was right; Hunter couldn’t believe it. The strangely dressed soldiers were puzzling enough. But Dozer had spotted the mysterious yellow box.

  “What the hell is inside that thing that everyone wants it so badly?” Hunter cried over the radio.

  “No idea,” Dozer replied. “But in just the last few moments, the commissar has come back to life and has climbed up to the roof. I think he’s screaming for Dominique to come back. It’s a little too late for that, though.”

  At that moment, a bright red light began blinking on Hunter’s control panel. This wasn’t a bingo light, saying he still had a half tank left. It was his fuel zero warning light. He was out of gas.

  There was only one place he could land. Tower Two was looming before him, and unlike the still-dark Tower One, it was lit up, allowing him to see that the way was mostly clear.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Hunter said aloud—and then he hung on.

  He hit the top of the building a second later, coming down at an almost perpendicular angle. The propeller took it the worst, grinding itself into the rubber rooftop.

  He was thrown violently forward, his battered helmet coming apart again, this time in at least a dozen pieces. He knew there’d be no more taping it back together.

  The cockpit quickly filled with smoke. He opened the canopy and fell out to see that his poor little plane was just a hair’s breadth away from being a total wreck.

  But it had gotten him down safely—again.

  He looked at the southwest corner of the roof—and that was when he saw Zmeya.

  A bloody plastic bag hung around his neck. His eyes were bruised, his nose was broken, and there was a long cut on his face. He was sitting precariously close to the edge of the roof, trying to stem his nose bleed. Hunched over like a gargoyle in his long black leather coat, he was looking out on the city.

  Hunter had but one weapon left: his Bowie knife. He took it from his boot and approached the man in black.

  “Dear God, is there no way I can get rid of you?” Zmeya yelled at Hunter, turning his back to him. “You’re a real pain in the ass.”

  Hunter said nothing; he simply took a few steps closer to Zmeya.

  “You must know that America isn’t the only place we’re intent on conquering,” the Russian went on wistfully. “We are on the offensive everywhere, all around the world—and winning, too. Until … well, now it’s like someone flipped a switch, and you people appeared and fucked up the whole thing. The MMZ, our aircraft carrier, and now this? You dirt soldiers? We got beat by you?”

  Hunter remained silent. Zmeya continued glaring out at the smoldering city.

  “You know what I think, Mr. Superhero?” he went on, “I think you’re more unbalanced than I am, if that’s possible. You firebombed New York City, for heaven’s sake. There’s no place like this anywhere on the planet, and you wanted to burn it down. I see a lot of anger under that rock-star haircut of yours. A lot of animosity. I’m just surprised, I guess, that you hate us so much.”

  Hunter took a few more steps closer to him.

  “What is it that you want, Mr. Wingman?” Zmeya asked wearily. “You’ve nearly destroyed the best city in history. You’ve ruined its ability to make money. You’ve driven everyone down here crazy with that goddamn clown plane of yours. You’ve got everything. You’ve won. Why not just kill me now and get it over with?”

  Hunter hesitated for a moment, but then said, “I do want something from you. I want to know what happened to her. Where is she?”

  Zmeya laughed so loud, it seemed to echo off nearby Tower One.

  “I’m the wrong person to ask,” he roared back. “As you can probably surmise, she tried to kill me before she left. Her way of saying good-bye, I guess. Some old American copter took her away, along with the most dangerous weapon on Earth—what more can I tell you? It doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you, I’m sure.”

  Hunter took two more steps closer, holding the knife tightly in his right hand.

  “The yellow box?” he asked Zmeya. “It’s a weapon?”

  “Good guess,” Zmeya said, wiping more blood from his nose. “And I don’t believe even she knows how powerful it is.”

  “Tell me, then,” Hunter urged him. “Someone besides you should know.”

  Zmeya just laughed again. “I might have a crack in my head, but it didn’t turn me stupid. But I must say, sitting here, thinking about it all, other pieces of the puzzle have fallen in place. The way she reacted when she saw you that first time when we were in the navy penthouse. You and that toy plane. She was, shall I say, just as ‘concerned’ as I was when she realized it was you, but for a different reason.
Let’s call it love. And you? You obviously had the firepower to attack 30 Rock directly a few nights later, but you thought she might still be there. So you didn’t. Shall we call that love, too? You’re a superhero, true. But so very sentimental.”

  Hunter took one more step, which brought him within an arm’s reach of Zmeya.

  “Well, good luck with her if you ever find her again,” Zmeya went on. “She really is something else, though I’m still not sure what. But she changed me. No doubt about it.”

  He got to his feet. He was standing just inches from the edge of the roof. The wind was howling madly.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Hunter asked.

  “You know, I’m bored,” Zmeya said. “Maybe the afterlife has something more to offer, who knows?”

  Now Hunter laughed. “You know you’re not going to bounce when you hit the bottom.”

  Zmeya’s long leather coat was whipping fiercely behind him.

  “And my alternative is what?” he asked Hunter. “To go with you? Be tried by a bunch of American hooligans and then lynched? I don’t think so. I’ve already disappointed my father enough without being captured by the likes of you. Besides, people like me enjoy being the bad guy just as much as people like you enjoy being the hero. Or should I say superhero? Either way, people also love to punish bad guys in all sorts of malevolent ways. … I know. I’m an expert at that. So, I’ll pass.”

  “Believe what you want,” Hunter said, lowering the knife. “But I’m no hero. I killed thirty thousand human beings yesterday with the push of a button. You think I’ll ever forget that?”

  Zmeya turned to face him for the first time. Tears were running down his face.

  “Probably not,” he said. “But at least you didn’t kill your own brother.”

  With that, Zmeya simply leaned back and fell off the side of the building.

  Hunter ran to the edge, nearly getting blown off the roof himself. He looked down to see Zmeya falling, falling … falling until he disappeared into the smoke below.

  Part Four