And after all that, all his friends could do was joke that the scratches on his back looked more like the results of a night of passion, than a harrowing escape.
Once all the Witch Hazel was applied and his shirt was back on, Hunter good-naturedly let his friends’ jokes ride. Diamond was already proving very valuable to them. She hadn’t been aboard the train more than an hour when she had drawn in exacting detail the entire layout of Devillian’s mesa fortress. She had also told the United Americans something they’d suspected all along: While the mesa was the super terrorist’s main base, the majority of the Burning Cross troops—they being the collection of bandit gangs allied under Devillian’s banner—were scattered throughout the American Southwest, ready to move into battle positions at their leader’s first order.
This new information was being poured over even as Hunter, Fitz, Crossbow and Diamond were eating breakfast. A scrambled report was sent to Jones. The general’s confirmation message also contained an unexpected piece of information: The news of the Freedom Express’s cross-country journey was on the lips of every concerned American citizen from New England to LA. The publicity of the train’s mission—whipped up by the country’s rapidly reemerging electronic media—was so widespread that huge spontaneous demonstrations of public support had popped up in Washington, LA and even in the heart of heartless New York City.
With the news of the train’s widespread publicity came the additional pressure for it to succeed. The train trip had quickly turned into a crusade—a cause in which every freedom-loving person on the continent now had a stake.
For Hunter and his friends to fail now would mean disaster.
These were the thoughts the Wingman carried to bed with him shortly afterward.
He would have preferred to continue working in the Control car, but Catfish took one look at him and had literally ordered him to sleep, threatening to take it all the way to Jones if Hunter didn’t comply.
With only a token protest, Hunter retired to his quarters.
It took all of ten seconds for him to drift off, for a change the sleep he needed so desperately coming to him with relative ease. But about half an hour later, he became vaguely aware of something warm and soft next to him.
Diamond pressed her ripe body tightly against his and whispered into his ear: “Don’t move. I know you’re exhausted. Let me do the work.” And expertly, she began to caress him.
Still asleep, Hunter spoke a single word: “Dominique?”
Diamond stopped her gentle stroking. “Dominique?” she asked, her voice sounding softly distant. “Is that someone special in your life? If it is, then just pretend that’s who I am … I’m Dominique. It’s all right.”
Hunter was only half awake now. But he was able to look directly into Diamond’s beautiful, adoring eyes.
“Thank you,” he said gently.
Then he pulled her into his arms.
Chapter 27
La Casa de las Estrellas
DUKE DEVILLIAN WAS IN a rage.
He had been in a good mood when he landed back at his headquarters, having just returned from a successful recruiting trip to the old city of San Antonio. Two more bandit gangs had signed on with the Burning Cross, and negotiations were under way with a third.
Then, he found out his mesa fortress had been penetrated.
The news came in the form of a report concerning the two bodies found at the foot of the cliff. At first, his soldiers thought that the two dead sergeants had fallen to their deaths accidently or had even jumped. After all, six soldiers had already died in the past month, although never two in one night.
The unlikely double-suicide theory was ruled out when evidence of a small avalanche was discovered near the body of Sergeant Swek. From there, Devillian’s soldiers found several pieces of ripped clothing hanging from the jagged rocks leading up to the northern face of the mesa. When two series of footprints were discovered on the mesa’s top—one made by a person wearing flight boots, the other by someone wearing soleless leather shoes—Devillian’s men knew their perimeter had been compromised.
Devillian ordered the immediate execution of all twelve guards on duty that night, an exhibition that he made sure everyone on the mountaintop witnessed. He took care to film the entire proceeding himself, watching the carnage several times before being satisfied. Then he ordered an investigation as to how someone had been able to climb up the sheer rock face and what they had seen once they reached the top.
But for him, the worst news was yet to come.
When Devillian finally retired to his adobe mansion, he planned to relieve all of his anger and frustration by losing himself in a sex carnival with the girl named Diamond.
Uncharacteristically, he had found himself thinking about her while he’d been in San Antonio. Not that he was falling in love with her or anything; the Duke was absolutely devoid of any remotely human feelings such as love and affection. No—he had thought only about the ways he could use her sexually. He had more than sixty women at his disposal, ready to feed his every perverted whim. But Diamond was different. She was so young, so beautiful. He had bought her a trunk of clothes while in San Antonio—cheerleader outfits, high school clothes, bikinis, even a Sunday-School-type dress—and all the way back, he had fantasized how she would look wearing these clothes and how he would use her with other women to satisfy his twisted libido.
Unlocking the huge Play Pen, he had every intention of starting this sex party immediately. But when he called Diamond’s quarters, she didn’t respond. Mystified, he called the captain of his security patrol, a beast of a man named Bruno.
“She’s not in her room,” Devillian said as the huge, hairy man reported to him. “Find her and bring her to me. Now.”
Bruno departed and didn’t return for nearly an hour—sixty minutes during which Devillian became so furious, white foam actually started to form at the edges of his mouth.
When Bruno reappeared, he was out of breath and crestfallen.
“Well, where is the little slut?” Devillian demanded of him.
Although he was a full head taller than Devillian and outweighed him by seventy-five pounds, Bruno was intimidated by the smaller man’s savage temper.
So Bruno swallowed hard before answering. “We’ve looked everywhere, sir,” he stuttered. “I’m afraid … no one knows where she is.”
“What?” Devillian exploded. “Are you saying she jumped?”
“No, sir,” Bruno replied, gulping hard again. “We checked. There are no bodies below.”
“So?” Devillian asked, spitting the foam from between his teeth. “Where is she?”
“I believe she’s escaped, sir,” Bruno said, knowing he was speaking the last few words of his life.
Devillian’s face turned deep crimson.
“Escaped,” he said in a frightening whisper.
Bruno tried to say something, but couldn’t. All he could do was shrug and slowly nod his head.
“Do you want me to believe that you can’t even keep track of one little broad?” Devillian screamed, his crossed eyes rolling with rage.
Bruno unconsciously started backing toward the door.
“It must have something to do with what happened last night,” he croaked. “Whoever got in here and killed the guards must have taken the girl.”
“That’s obvious,” Devillian continued to whisper crazily. “And somebody’s going to pay.” Then an entirely new crazed look came into his hard, twisted eyes. “And I know who.”
Before Bruno could flee from the room, Devillian jerked his revolver from its holster and fired. The first bullet plowed into Bruno’s huge chest, and as he started to fall, the second bullet crashed into the middle of his skull. That shot slammed the man backward against the wall. As he slid slowly down the wall, leaving a broad trail of blood, Devillian fired three more times. Bruno slumped to the floor, the blood spurting from five holes in his body.
The shots brought two more guards running to the room. They stopped, gaping in
horror, when they saw the gory mess that had been Bruno, then looked up to see that Devillian was taking Polaroids of the body.
Chapter 28
Eagle Rock, New Mexico
THE FREEDOM EXPRESS ROLLED into the small town of Eagle Rock, New Mexico at dawn the next day.
The place was barely a pinpoint on the map; even before the Big War it was home to only fifteen hundred people. Here the tracks led from the desert terrain to the forested mountains of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. There was also a set of track turn-offs just outside of the town which could be used to switch the train’s locomotives from its front to its rear and thus enable the Freedom Express to reverse direction and retreat back to the East.
It would be up to Jones whether this would happen or not.
But Eagle Rock was special in another way—this one totally unexpected: It was the first town where citizens had actually come out to greet the arrival of the train.
It was the Cobra Brothers who first saw them. Scouting ahead of the train as usual, they had just overflown the small town when they spotted the first indications of a crowd forming in the town square shortly before dawn. Not surprisingly, the Cobra pilots first suspected the people below were getting ready to attack the train. In all of the towns the Express had passed through so far, not so much as a single person had been waiting when the train rolled in.
But after arming their weapons and making two intimidating low-altitude passes above the small settlement, the Cobra pilots were surprised to see the people below waving back at them enthusiastically. Instead of weapons, they were armed with signs containing messages for greeting the train. There was even a small brass band on hand.
So, an hour later, the train arrived at Eagle Rock to a small ceremony. The Cobras had landed beforehand and radioed back that the train could expect an entirely friendly stop. Thus informed, Catfish had his troops turn out in their best uniforms. A number of American flags and banners were broken out and displayed on the locomotives, the gun cars, the missile platforms and the troop cars.
The out-of-tune but lively brass band was playing when the train finally pulled into the town’s tiny station. A crowd of about one thousand people—men, women and children, all of them hearty stock—cheered and sang America the Beautiful as the official delegation of Catfish and Fitzgerald climbed down off the train and was greeted by the town’s mayor.
A brief ceremony followed during which the mayor gave a hand-sewn flag of Eagle Rock’s Town Seal to Catfish, who promised to display it on the Express’s lead locomotive. Then work began on detaching the three-car mini-fort to be left at the small town, Catfish diplomatically asking the mayor’s permission before giving the order to disconnect the trio of railway cars. While this went on, the citizens walked up and down the train, passing home-cooked cakes and pies to the soldiers on board.
The entire ceremony lifted the spirits of everyone on the train, bearing witness to Jones’ report that news of the train and its mission had spread throughout the entire country, and into the uncivilized Badlands as well.
Yet, the men on board were holding on to a dire secret: Eagle Rock could possibly be the end of the line for the Freedom Express.
Hawk Hunter watched the proceedings from behind the drawn curtains of the Control car.
He would have liked to take part in the celebration, but he knew it was much more important for him to write a lengthy report on his visit to Devillian’s headquarters.
It turned out to be a sobering task. Using Diamond’s descriptions as well as his own memory to sketch Devillian’s defensive lay-out, Hunter realized that any attack on the mesa fortress would be a costly proposition, in both lives and equipment. A land approach was, of course, impossible. A helicopter assault would be spotted from miles away, and even an air strike would run into the mesa’s incredible wall of SAMs and AA fire, not to mention thirty or so enemy jet fighters.
Even a long-range missile strike would be chancy. Devillian had so many radar dishes spinning on top of the mesa, Hunter was sure at least a few of them were dedicated to close-in defense. He also knew a weapon such as an anti-radiation missile would have a tough time penetrating the electronic counter-measures shield around the plateau. Plus, such sophisticated weapons were in short supply.
What was more, recent UA intelligence revealed that a squadron of Burning Cross aircraft had been deployed to the Santa Fe airport, and that many of its small tanker and cargo aircraft had moved there as well. Hunter was certain this was a direct result of his penetrating Devillian’s inner layer. With his headquarters compromised, Devillian was no doubt expecting some kind of an attack on the mesa. By deploying some of his fighters and cargo-carriers to Santa Fe, he was simply buying some insurance. First of all, his vital fuel and supplies would be safe. And second, if the mesa was hit, the planes at Santa Fe would be called on to attack the attackers.
Hunter was a ball of nerves by the time he finished the first draft of the report. All of their efforts in locating and reconning the goddamn mesa had been for the purpose of devising a plan on how to attack the place.
But now, that seemed like an impossible mission. No matter how he looked at it, it appeared as if Devillian was holding all the aces.
The Freedom Express moved out of Eagle Rock around noon, again to a big ceremony given by the residents.
It had been decided long before that the train would stay in the town only as long as it had to. This was necessary in case Devillian’s legions decided to attack the train while it was in station. The resulting battle from such an action would undoubtedly cause many civilian casualties and probably destroy the town in the process.
So as soon as the three-car mini-fort was disconnected, Catfish ordered the Express to move ten miles up the track.
The short trip west deposited the Freedom Express right at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Here they would again wait for a decision from Jones on whether to continue or not.
The Pentagon
It was getting to be late afternoon back in Washington.
General Jones sat alone in his office, drinking cold black coffee and trying to decide the fate of the Freedom Express.
He knew there were many reasons why he should not let the train continue. There were no illusions that no matter how heavily armed it was, the train could not defeat ten divisions of Devillian’s troops, not to mention his warplanes and helicopters. The report he’d just received from Hunter detailing the madman’s mesa-top headquarters only underscored this fact.
But he had a new twist to consider—a very troublesome one.
This complication was that so many citizens across the country were now rooting for the Freedom Express to succeed. With this glare of publicity the stakes had been raised. Jones was convinced that Devillian was very aware of the notoriety that the Freedom Express’s mission was getting. Thus the battlelines for another struggle—that for the hearts and minds of America’s citizens—were being drawn, and again, it seemed like the United Americans were playing right into the hands of the super terrorist. For just as they had undertaken the mission to bring law and order to the southern Badlands and therefore cement the legitimacy of their democratic government for the entire country, Jones knew that Devillian wanted the mission to fail and thus ruin those very chances.
This meant that whatever the outcome was, it would have to be high-profile and unambiguous. And this was what weighed on Jones’ mind as he wrestled with his decision. To turn back would undoubtedly save many lives, but also it meant backing down to Devillian. To continue was to invite a back-breaking, morale-busting defeat, one that could quite possibly lead to a wholesale slaughter, and maybe the collapse of the entire United American government.
Jones took a long, sad gulp of his ice-cold coffee in an effort to wash down the gloomy prospects. But it was no use: He knew that as a Commander-in-Chief, he should have ordered the train to return to Football City at the first discovery of Devillian’s massive hidden power structure. The real
reason he hadn’t was Hunter’s appeal for time.
But now the general felt that time was close to running out.
Chapter 29
THE TRAIN HAD JUST shut down at its new location ten miles outside of Eagle Rock when Catfish ran into the Control car.
“You guys have got to see this” was all he said to Hunter and Fitz before beckoning them to follow him.
They ran out of the car and up to the front of the train. Once there, they were astonished to see that several hundred bronze-skinned horsemen were blocking the tracks ahead of them.
“Now, who the hell is this?” Fitz cried.
“I’m not sure,” Catfish replied. “Indians of some kind, I would guess.”
Hunter had to agree. The band of horsemen looked like something right out of a western movie. They were dressed in authentic Indian garb, and their faces were smeared with war paint. The only difference between them and their ancestors was that many of these warriors were armed with high-powered rifles and automatic weapons as well as bows and arrows.
Quickly the call went back for Michael Crossbow, and a strange stand-off ensued which amounted to a staring contest between the Indians on one side and Catfish, Hunter, Fitz and about fifty Football City Rangers on the other. However, unbeknownst to the mounted Indians, several squads of Catfish’s elite Airborne troops were making their way through the forests on both sides of the track, a maneuver which would quietly encircle the newcomers.
The strange, silent impasse continued for a few more minutes until Michael Crossbow came running up the tracks.
Quickly reading the situation, he stared at the colors being worn by the horsemen. At this point Hunter saw a very worried look come over his friend.
“Anyone say anything yet?” Crossbow asked.
“Nope,” Fitz replied, never once breaking his gaze. “We’ve just been staring at these guys, and they’re staring back.”
Hunter turned to Crossbow. “Recognize them?” he inquired.
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