Tomorrow War

by Maloney, Mack;

  It was the nightmare that was making him uncomfortable, and he knew with a few deep breaths it would all go away again.

  He started sucking in some of the moist, hot air and felt it sting his lungs as it went in. The air was so humid it was making him perspire. So it was strange that Von Baron felt a chill go across the back of his neck. And when there was another huge explosion about ten miles away, the rumbling under his rear end startled him in a manner that he was not very accustomed to. He was actually getting a bit of the shakes—all because of that damn dream?

  Well, no, not exactly.

  Because not a second later Von Baron felt a different sort of chill. This one was on the front of his neck, right below his rather delicate Adam’s apple.

  This chill was from the steel of a cold, razor-sharp knife.

  “Get up,” the man told him. “Slowly …”

  Petrified, Von Baron did as told. He was convinced that the Black Army officers he’d just briefed had returned, crept up on him in an effort to double-double-cross him just as they were about to double-cross the blue bloods.

  But when the man told him to slowly turn around, which Von Baron did, he was astonished to see Hawk Hunter in a Red Army uniform.

  Von Baron nearly laughed. He didn’t think the Reds had it in them to capture someone as important as he was.

  But he was wrong ….

  Hunter looked him over with contempt. He’d been scouting this area since landing nearby earlier that morning. He’d watched the Black Army officers come and go, and his psychic compass had told him that the information he needed could be gotten from this man with the poster-boy looks and flattened nose.

  “Get those plans, roll ’em up,” Hunter ordered Sluggo. With shaking hands, Von Baron obeyed.

  “Look …,” he began with a shaky voice. “Can we maybe make a deal here? I’m very rich. I could make you rich, too.”

  Hunter laughed in his face.

  “You won’t know what I’m talking about,” he told Sluggo. “But I knew you in another world. And Back There, you were a pip-squeak. A real lowlife. And someone would have to look pretty deep into my stories just to find you. But now, here you are—you think you’re rich. You think you’re powerful. But you’re still a pip-squeak.”

  Hunter took the rolled-up plans from him and then motioned with his knife.

  “Start walking,” he said.

  Von Baron really started to worry now. This man had a very strange look about him. He just looked, well, different. And that scared Sluggo even more than the knife.

  So he started walking, off the porch and up the road to the very top of the hill. In a clearing, Sluggo saw a very unlikely airplane hidden. On first glance he had no idea how it had fit into such a small area.

  “What kind of machine is this?” he asked in his German-tinged accent. “Can I buy it from you after we have concluded our business?”

  Hunter laughed at him again.

  “Believe me,” he said, “once we’ve concluded ‘our business,’ the last thing you will want to do is buy this or anything else from me.”

  Fitz, JT, and Ben were waiting for Hunter when he returned to Red Base One.

  The VTOL plane roared over the airfield once, then went into a hover. He came down slowly, like a huge bird descending from the late-afternoon skies. The battle of Kabul Downs was still raging a mile away: artillery, tank fire, the occasional scream of a jet fighter passing by. These were the sounds that filled the air now.

  But all of this seemed secondary as the three men ran out to Hunter’s plane. The Wingman killed his engines and then leapt from his canopy. It was only then that his three friends noticed that he’d brought a strange piece of cargo back with him.

  Lashed underneath the VTOL was a man. He was held in place by several pieces of simple rope. He was shivering from cold and terror, his eyes twice as wide as normal, and his face nearly powder-white.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Fitz said. “What the hell you got there, Hunter, old boy?”

  Hunter began untying Von Baron from beneath the bottom of the hover jet.

  “What I’ve got,” Hunter answered, “is a pigeon that appears ready to spill all. Isn’t that right, Sluggo?”

  Von Baron could hardly move, he was so frozen with fear. The hour ride up from southern Pakistan had caused him to lose control of his bodily functions several times, even though Hunter had actually kept his speed down to a mere one hundred knots, and his altitude at a reasonable one thousand feet, all to make sure Von Baron was still alive once he got to Red Base One.

  And alive he was—but not yet thinking too clearly. As Fitz, Ben, and JT finally untied him from the last coil of rope, Von Baron fell hard to the runway and immediately curled up into the fetal position.

  “Don’t eat me,” he started babbling. “Please, just don’t eat me.”

  CHAPTER 38

  THE INTERROGATION OF SLUGGO Von Baron lasted throughout the night, and well into the next morning.

  Fitz was the lead inquisitor. Hunter, Kurjan, JT, and Ben were present, as well. They surrounded the flesh and arms trader with a tight ring of grim faces inside the Red Force intelligence hut.

  Through it all, Y was laid out in a nearby corner. Sleeping off yet another drunk, he would occasionally punctuate the proceedings with a cry of “Emma … no!” before slipping back into his self-induced stupor. It lent an unnerving edge to the already-somber night.

  The questioning lasted more than eight hours, but ironically, Von Baron could tell them only what they already suspected: The huge Black Army would be landing that morning, and if they moved swiftly, the lead elements would be close to Kabul Downs in less than two days.

  Once in position, the Black Army would attack the Red Army’s rear flank at first chance. By sheer numbers alone, they would most likely roll over the Reds in just a few days, especially if the Blue Forces launched an attack around the same time, still thinking that the Black Army was actually their ally.

  The sun finally came up and in the cold light of dawn, those inside the Red Force intelligence hut knew they were facing an unpleasant choice of doomsday scenarios. Either be annihilated by the Blue Army or the Blacks, all as a prelude to those two fighting each other.

  Even a full withdrawal was not an option. While Red Forces on the eastern and western flanks could theoretically leave their lines and move to the safety of western Afghanistan and Pakistan, those here on the southern front couldn’t possibly pick up and move at the same time without inviting a breakout by the Blue Forces.

  “We’re caught in a vise,” Fitz said at the conclusion of the interrogation. “And there ain’t nothing we can do about it.”

  No one could argue with that logic.

  Still, Hunter had a plan in mind—but the fact that the Black Army was coming on so strong made his desperate strategy even more so. Once the Blues knew their Black Army “allies” were heading north, they would have the ability to go on the offensive for the first time in the war. They would undoubtedly launch an all-out attack on the Reds, and the Reds on the southern flank would have nowhere to go with the Black Army coming right up their asses.

  There was no other way of looking at it: As far as the Reds were concerned, the battle for Kabul Downs was lost. They could not win. It was a grim fact that the Red Army high command had to face. But winning the war was not the primary concern anymore: the survival of nearly one hundred thousand Red Force troops was.

  Hunter felt most of that responsibility resting right on his shoulders.

  “Let’s all get some sleep,” he suggested once Von Baron was led away to a makeshift prison cell. “Maybe one of us will dream up a way to get out of this.”

  JT just snorted in response. “Good luck trying that,” he said.

  Hunter was only able to sleep for an hour and a half—longer than he’d rested since coming to this strange, little war, but still not as long as he’d wanted.

  He knew what desperate times lay ahead, and for once he would
have welcomed the onset of a dark slumber—just to get away from the inevitable calamity they were facing.

  But ninety minutes into Hawk’s restless sleep, Fitz ran into his billet and shook him awake.

  “Hawker, you have to see this to believe it,” the Irishman was telling him anxiously. “I don’t quite believe it myself.”

  Hunter quickly slid into his red camo battle fatigues and followed Fitz out the door. They ran to the center of Red Base One, where JT and Ben had a Bug copter waiting.

  “We’ve got to get up to the front immediately,” Ben was saying.

  No sooner were Hunter and Fitz on board when JT hit the power lever and off they went.

  The trip to the front took two minutes. They did not talk on the way—indeed, they could not talk because JT had the noisy little chopper’s engine revved so high, normal conversation was impossible.

  They landed at a battered outpost close by the bloody bridge. Hunter noticed right away that the front was absolutely quiet. No artillery going off, no gunfire at all. Eerie …

  They alighted from the Bug to find some of Kurjan’s staff standing next to a huge trench. This was ground zero in the war between the Blues and Reds—wreckage everywhere, pools of putrid water, bones and body parts. Kabul Downs, with many sections of it still smoking, stood a silent witness in the background.

  Hunter looked over the trench, only to get one of the great shocks of his life. On the other side a table had been set up and Kurjan and three other high-ranking Red Army officers were sitting at it. Facing them were four Blue Army officers.

  They were carrying a white flag.

  Hunter stopped in his tracks about ten feet from them.

  He grabbed one of Kurjan’s men, a guy named Al Nolan.

  “Don’t tell me they’re surrendering?” he said to Nolan.

  The guy nicknamed “Ironman” just shook his head no.

  “They’re not surrendering to us,” he said. “They want us to surrender to them.”

  It took a few minutes for Hunter to catch Kurjan’s eye. When he did, the Red Army intell man excused himself from the table and walked over to where Hunter, Fitz, JT, and Ben were waiting.

  “Nice little party you got going here,” Hunter told him.

  Kurjan was not in the mood for jokes.

  “They’ve got us by the balls and they know it,” he said. “They’re asking for a complete surrender of arms and an orderly transfer of all our troops to them as POWs—before the Black Army gets here.”

  Hunter felt his heart sink a mile in his chest. This wasn’t going to be an armistice or a cease-fire. It was a call for an out-and-out surrender.

  “Well, we can’t allow all your guys to fall into their hands,” Hunter told Kurjan in no uncertain terms. “Especially since we know what’s really going to happen once the Black Army arrives.”

  Kurjan just nodded grimly.

  “Well, that’s one little secret I have yet to tell them, simply because I know they won’t believe me when I do,” he said.

  This got Hunter thinking. Was there an advantage in letting the Blues know what Von Baron had told them?

  Possibly—if they could gauge the Blues’ reaction and then work around them.

  Hunter turned back to Kurjan.

  “Any of your superiors want another opinion on all this?” he asked the intell man, indicating the three grim-faced Red Army generals sitting at the table with the Blues.

  “At this point I think they’d love one,” Kurjan replied.

  Hunter turned back to JT and had a whispered conversation with him. There was an orgy of head nodding, and then the pilot sprinted back to the Bug and took off in a great whoosh.

  “The problem here is,” Hunter began telling Kurjan, “we’ve been playing by the rules. And apparently, we’re the only ones who have been. We’re really facing a shitty stick here, and I think we have to break a few nuts to get out of it.”

  Kurjan just wiped his tired brow.

  “Are you suggesting that we fight on?” he said.

  “Not exactly,” Hunter replied with only the slightest hint of a grin.

  Kurjan returned to the table while the others stood silently nearby. In less than five minutes JT returned in the Bug—with a passenger.

  It was Von Baron.

  They brought the prisoner up to where Hunter and the others were waiting. Kurjan once again excused himself and walked over.

  “Please tell me this is just one bit of a bigger plan, Hawk?” he said to Hunter.

  “That’s a correct assumption,” Hunter replied. “I hope …”

  They took Von Baron’s leg and hand irons off. Then Hunter grabbed him by the collar.

  “OK, listen, Sluggo,” he began, pronouncing the man’s unlikely nickname with no little contempt. “I want you to go over there and tell those assholes in blue everything you told us—including the plans for the Blacks to bum-fuck them as soon as they arrive on the scene. Capisce?”

  A look of terror came across Von Baron’s face.

  “Jeesuz, man, I-I can’t do that,” he stammered. “Telling you g-guys is one thing. Telling the Blues what the Blacks are going to do—they’ll cut my n-nuts off right here and now!”

  “Rather take another ride in my jet?” Hunter threatened him.

  Von Baron just stared back at him. Hunter’s grim expression left no doubt that if Von Baron went for another trip on the VTOL, it would be much longer and much higher and much colder than his initial journey.

  Sluggo gulped and said: “OK, I’ll tell them. But what becomes of me after that?”

  Hunter looked into Sluggo’s eyes and saw the lives of hundreds of innocent victims staring back at him.

  “We’ll let them decide that,” he replied simply.

  Von Baron gulped again and then was led to the table by Kurjan. A stiff wind blew across the trench line—hundreds of soldiers were standing all along the battered landscape watching these events unfold. It was like someone had pushed the pause button on the dirty, little war. No one doubted that it would continue again very soon, so the respite was not a very pleasant one.

  Hunter and the others were out of earshot from the table, but they did not need to hear what was going on. Von Baron was telling his story to the astonished Blue Army officers—and it was obvious they were not taking the story well. At one point Von Baron was seen pleading with them to believe him, but it was clear that they did not—at first anyway.

  Finally the Blue Army officers simply held up their hands and indicated they had had enough conversation. They packed their documents and their white flag and started walking back across the bridge toward their lines.

  That’s when one of them stopped, thought a moment, and then walked back to the table where the Red Army generals and Von Baron were still seated. Without a hint of warning, the Blue Army officer took out his pistol, put it against Von Baron’s ear, and pulled he trigger. Sluggo went over like he’d been hit by a two-ton weight. Head blown away, he was dead before he hit the ground.

  The Blue Army officer then holstered his weapon and walked back across the bridge.

  “Well, I guess they finally believed him,” Fitz observed dryly.

  “But what has any of this bought us?” Ben asked Hunter.

  Hunter scratched his own weary face.

  “It’s bought us the one thing we need now more than anything else,” he replied.

  “And that is?” Ben wanted to know.

  “Time,” Hunter replied quietly.

  CHAPTER 39

  HUNTER NEVER DID GET back to sleep.

  He returned to his billet, with a stack of maps under his arm, and spent the rest of the daylight hours studying them.

  Meanwhile, the artillery duels began anew less than thirty minutes after the abbreviated surrender talks concluded. Fighting broke out up and down the trench line once again. Fighter planes took off from both sides, and screaming dogfights were now under way just about everywhere over the front. It was business as usual i
n the fight for Kabul Downs. But Hunter knew these days of routine combat were quickly coming to an end.

  Things were changing very rapidly, and if he couldn’t cook up some logical plans, then the Red Army was going to be squeezed like a melon in a vise—and he and his friends would be squeezed right along with it.

  So he tried to block out the sounds of the combat while he studied the maps, but it was not working. Maybe his head was too full of things he was trying to keep down, because if anything the sounds of the fighting seemed louder this day than any other time he could recall.

  Why had he come here? It was the question that ate at him nonstop.

  He’d come on the advice of a ghost. But, really, that was not an answer. Was there a purpose to his being here, and to his dragging just about every friend he had in this new world to this place, possibly to die like dogs in these bloody trenches?

  The fighting seemed very loud as he considered the dangerous selfishness that had been running his life lately. And the questions just would not stop dogging him.

  Why was he here? To help the Reds fight for their way of life? No, that wasn’t it. To help them free some mysterious princess that few people had even seen? That sounded like a bad video game. What was it, then? Was he here because there were no other wars for him to fight? Was he here simply so he could play hero yet again?

  Those last two questions chilled him right to his bones. Maybe the whole ghostly encounter on the superbomber had been some kind of self-induced hallucination, a way for him to rationalize his thirst to be in combat, to play the hero, to always be seen as the savior of the day. If that was the case, then his selfishness ran miles deep and miles high. To endanger his comrades, half of whom came with him on the most dangerous mission ever planned, and the other half came looking for him after he essentially went AWOL—to endanger all of them and wreak havoc on their families, just for another shot of glory, there was no more selfish act in the world, if all that was true.

  But was it?

  Was that really why he’d been compelled to come to this place at this time?