by Mack Maloney
“So, have a good time now. There are plenty of bars here at The Aerodrome. Eat up. Drink up,” he paused and smiled toward Fitzgerald, “… and tell them to put it all on Fitzie’s tab.”
A look of mock horror came across the Irishman’s face as the assembled men laughed and applauded.
“Now,” Hunter said to Fitzgerald and Dozer, his speech over, “I have to go grow a beard.”
With that, the airman drained his glass and disappeared from the hall.
“What the hell does he mean by that?” Fitzgerald asked the bewildered Marine captain.
No one saw Hunter for the next four days. He was holed up in the cheap hotel room located above the Broken Wing bar, on the periphery of The Aerodrome’s territory. He left orders that no one—not even Fitzgerald, or Dozer or Aki and Mio—should disturb him. He asked only that any reports from St. Louie should be delivered immediately to him care of the bartender downstairs.
Those messages started coming in at a rate of one every two hours. Fitzgerald promptly summoned one of his most trusted officers who shuttled the messages back and forth, leaving them with the seedy-looking barkeep at the saloon beneath Hunter’s room.
The dispatches told a story of a deteriorating situation for Football City. War with New Chicago was now inevitable. St. Louie’s agents reported the Family was completely mobilized and had begun stationing its troops near the city’s extensive railroad yards. The Family leaders, headquartered in the ultra skyscraper once known as the Sears Building, had been making huge purchases of oil lately. They were stocking up to feed an army that would move south to Football City by rail, river and road.
The MIG-21s had attacked the city twice more since the raid that destroyed a third of Football City’s airfield. St. Louie was trying to purchase as much SAM equipment as possible, but he was certain that the Family was intimidating most of the war suppliers. His attempts to get free-lance fighter pilots was going no better. Convoy duty was paying even better than ever. No pilot wanted to lose his plane—or his life—in a war between two cities that in the grand scheme of things, apparently meant nothing.
Football City itself was all but closed down. The party-party atmosphere was put on hold as the army prepared the city for war. Most of the population left after the first attack on the Grand Stadium and never returned. Defensive emplacements were being erected along the western shore of the Mississippi River, the natural barrier between Football City and the invaders from the north.
One of the last reports sent to Hunter gave the Football City intelligence corps’ estimate that the Family would attack across the Mississippi within the next three weeks.
Thus was the situation when Hunter emerged from his self-imposed exile …
On the fifth day, Fitzgerald and Dozer got a message to meet Hunter in the Broken Wing. The Irishman and the Marine immediately drove to the bar, taking the necessary precaution to go well-armed, and found Hunter sitting at the same table Fitz had used to discuss the mission to The Pitts. The rest of the bar was empty.
They were shocked at Hunter’s appearance. He had shaved his head and was sporting a five-day-old scruffy beard. An earring dangled from his left lobe. His fingers were covered with gaudy rings. He was dressed completely in leather and wearing dark glasses.
They were at first almost reluctant to approach their friend. Hunter’s boyishly handsome looks were long gone. The man who sat staring at him from the table looked cruel, mean, ruthless.
Of course, that was the whole idea.
“What’s the matter, boys,” Hunter said, the old smile returning instantly. “Too good to drink with me?”
“Hawker,” Fitzgerald cried, pulling up a chair. “What have you done to yourself?”
“All part of the plan, Fitz.” Hunter said, motioning the bartender to bring them a bottle. “What’s the latest from St. Louie?”
“Nothing,” Dozer told him. “Not a word since last night.”
Hunter looked plainly worried. “Things are getting worse, fast. We’re going to have to move quickly.”
Fitzgerald almost looked embarrassed. “You know I’ll help as much as I can,” he said. “But I have to at least do it behind the scenes. I can maybe lend you a few ground troops. But I can’t send my Thuds to Football City as much as I’d like to.”
“I understand, Fitz,” Hunter said sincerely. “If capitalism doesn’t survive, what good is it if anything else does?”
“Aye,” Fitzgerald said, a little sadly.
“I would ask you to do me a couple of favors though.”
“Ask away.”
“Well, I’ll need an old plane and a good pilot, one of your guys, to come with me tomorrow night,” Hunter explained.
“You got it.”
“Then, I’d like you to hire out a couple of good fighter-bombers. Free-lancers. Someone who specializes in ground support. Someone we can trust.”
“Got just the team,” Fitz said, smacking his lips. “The Ace Wrecking Company. Two F-4 Phantoms out of Buffalo. Flyboy that goes by the name of Captain Crunch runs them. They’ve helped me out in the past. He won’t chicken out like these other free-lancers.”
“Trustworthy?” Dozer asked.
“Very,” Fitz answered. “Crunch’s real name is O’Malley. His mother and papa are from the Old Sod. He’s a good egg and his guys are top-notch.”
“Okay,” Hunter agreed. “Contract him. Tell him he’s working for me, with the promise of a lot of business down the road.”
“You got it,” Fitz said.
“What else?” Dozer asked.
“I’ll need the strike force primed and ready to go in two days’ time,” Hunter said.
“They’re already ready,” the Marine said. “They’ve been itching for action for three days. Waiting on you, I might add.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Hunter said. “Tell them to get the Stallion warmed up. Also Fritz, think a few of your boys might want to make some overtime?”
“I’ll make sure they do. How many do you need?”
“Two dozen,” Hunter replied. “Plus a couple of choppers, Hueys if you can spare them.”
“Again, you got it,” Fitz said, calling for more drinks.
Dozer smiled. “Now Hawk, are you going to let us in on your plan or not?”
Hunter smiled and put his glasses back on. “You guys got about a couple of hours to kill?”
The next night, Hunter and a pilot named Clyde were landing an old C-119 Flying Boxcar on an abandoned stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. From there, they had a two hour walk to the nearest town, appropriately called Ruff Creek. Sitting on a bend in the Ohio River, Ruff Creek was the point of civilization nearest to the Stukas’ hidden pirate base. It was little more than a collection of food stores, a handful of crowded homes and one saloon. The town would be the first stop in Hunter’s outlandish plan to get St. Louie his air force.
Clyde was a good guy and an able pilot. He fit the bill, appearance-wise. Hunter knew they couldn’t walk into a place like Ruff Creek, looking or acting normal. Thus his exile to not only change over his appearance, but also his karma. He had to think like a pirate, or someone of their ilk, to pull this off. Clyde already looked that way. He was rotund for a stick jockey, too big to make the grade if he were in the old time military. But those kind of things were long forgotten these days. He too, was bald, although quite naturally. A short, black goatee gave him a sinister look—just the effect Hunter wanted.
They reached the edge of Ruff Creek just after dawn. There hidden in the trees, they waited, slapping bugs, as the sun climbed the sky. Sure enough, around noon, a half track roared across the small bridge leading into the tiny town and parked outside the only barroom. A half dozen Stukas climbed out and stormed inside the place.
“Here to drink their noontime meal,” Hunter said to Clyde. “Just like I thought they would.”
They waited another two hours. More people drifted in and out of the bar, but the pirates remained. When Hunter
figured the bandits were well on their way to being greased, he and Clyde made their move.
Some of the biggest events in history were started in motion by the slightest of moves. A word dropped here, a shot fired there. Hunter, himself a creature of history, planned to set an event in motion that he hoped would roll all the way from Ruff Creek to Football City and beyond.
He and Clyde walked out of the woods, across the bridge and into the saloon. Clyde was packing a sawed-off shotgun slung casually over his shoulder, and Hunter displayed a borrowed Uzi. No one even turned to give them a second look as they ambled to a table and motioned the waitress. The six pirates sat at the bar, drinking up a storm and grunting to each other in typically angry tones. There were several other patrons in the place, each one giving the bandits a wide berth.
“What’ll it be?” the sulking waitress asked.
“The day’s stew and a bottle,” Hunter said.
“New in town?” she asked.
“You might say that,” Hunter answered. “Any more like you around?”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“Looking for trouble?” she asked.
“Not trouble. Action,” Hunter said with emphasis. “We’ll pay for it, too.”
She looked at both of them. “I’ll bring your stew,” she said then retreated into a room in back of the bar that served as a kitchen.
She reappeared after a while and gave them a bottle of cheap whiskey, two bowls and a pot of stew. Hunter threw two silver coins on the table as pay. The food was the standard fare in this part of the country, Hunter surmised after one bite. A few pieces of meat swimming around a heavy gravy with chunks of vegetables. Both he and Clyde were legitimately hungry, so they ate heartily. Two glasses of whiskey apiece put a glow into the otherwise dreary saloon.
Meanwhile the pirates continued drinking, barely speaking to each other by the time darkness fell. A few more people entered the bar—shady characters every one of them—and moved to its darkened corners. Dim red and yellow lights were switched on, flickering occasionally as the generator out back struggled to produce the needed electricity.
Finally, several women appeared from the kitchen, looking not in the world like waitresses. They were wearing hiked-up skirts and low-cut blouses. Their faces were painted with rouge and their hair dyed almost impossible colors.
“World’s oldest profession,” Hunter leaned over and said to Clyde.
“Amen, brother,” Clyde replied.
Two of the women immediately homed in on the pirates, but two more broke off and approached Hunter and Clyde. One, a blonde, was extremely attractive, in a slutty kind of way. She spoke to Hunter.
“I hear you boys are new in town,” she cooed. “Can we sit down?”
“Sure!” Clyde nearly burst out. He had his eye on her companion, a tall redhead.
“I’m Carla,” the blonde said as the women joined them. “And this is Kitty.”
“Ladies,” Hunter said with a nod.
“Are you guys pilots?” Carla asked. Her hand was already resting on Hunter’s knee.
“Up from Florida,” he told her. “Had some engine trouble.”
“Oh,” Carla purred. “That’s too bad. Staying a while?”
Hunter took this cue to pull out a thick bag of coins.
“Maybe,” he said, looking into her green eyes. She was pretty. Her blond hair looked natural, her teeth crooked but not unattractively so. She had a fabulous if skinny shape and a lovingly wide mouth.
Her hand was slowly moving up to his crotch. “Can I have a drink?” she asked.
“Be my guest,” he said.
A waitress cruised by with two extra glasses. Hunter noticed that one of the pirates was watching them out of the corner of his eye.
A few drinks and some small talk later, Carla’s hand finally made it to between Hunter’s legs.
He leaned over and whispered to her. “How much and where?”
“Five real silver pieces,” she smiled. “Seven for the bigboy. We got a place upstairs. Interested?”
He was, and in more ways than one.
The room was small and cheap. Just outside the window, the dim neon sign for the bar was flashing on and off. They’d been horizontal for an hour. She was gasping with delight. “You’ve got great hands, fly-boy.”
“Need them in my profession.”
A look of interest flashed across her face. “What do you do, honey? What are you flying up from Florida?”
He looked at her in the dim, flickering light. She was too pretty for this line of work.
“You into blow-zeen?” he asked. “Like in cocaine?”
She stopped stroking his bald head. “You’ve got some?” she asked excitedly.
“Have I?” he laughed. “Got a whole plane filled with it!”
“You do?” she asked, eyes wide, licking her lips. “We can only get it around here when those asses Stukas decide to get laid for real. That’s how they pay us.”
Interesting, Hunter thought.
She snuggled closer to him. “I’m real good on coke,” she whispered.
“Sorry,” he said, “Coke’s for my boss. I just got to figure a way to get it to him.”
“I thought you said you were flying it up from Florida, honey.”
“I was, until the radiator went on the old crate we were using,” he said with conviction. “Now we can’t fly it more than five miles before we have to take it down again and fill the water tanks. That’s why we’re sitting in a shitty burg like this. We’re following the river as far as we can to New Chicago.”
“You working for the Family?” she asked, a trace of amazement in her voice.
“You know too much already, babe.”
She tried again to snuggle close. “Come on,” she breathed in his ear. “Give Carla some coke and she’ll send you to heaven.”
An odd choice of words, he thought.
“Sorry. No way,” he said, getting up and putting his shirt on. He took out a handful of coins and put them on the bed.
“See ya around,” he said, walking out the door. “C’mon Clyde. Time to go.”
He could hear Clyde huffing and puffing in the next room. The sound was followed by a few curses then the unmistakable sound of a belt buckle being done up.
“Pay her and let’s split,” he called.
Clyde opened the door and joined him in the hall. Hunter gave him the thumbs-up sign. Clyde winked and nodded.
“Mission accomplished,” he said.
They were quickly down the back stairs of the building, across the bridge and into the woods. At just about the same time, Carla was whispering the word “Coke,” into the ear of one of the Stukas sitting at the bar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE ENGINES ON THE old C-119 spit once, coughed a cloud of black smoke then kicked to life. Clyde brought the engines to trim and wiggled his flaps. They groaned in response. Hunter couldn’t have found a better crate to pass off as a drug-carrying flying shitbox, he thought.
It was the day after Hunter and Clyde had set the table at the saloon in Ruff Creek. Now, next to the Flying Boxcar sat the Sea Stallion, brought in under the cover of darkness to the stretch of Pennsylvania highway that was 20 miles south of Ruff Creek and now glistening in the pre-dawn light. The 7th Cavalry strike force, their breaths like smoke in the cool, spring morning air were dressed in clean, black fatigues. They sat around the big chopper cleaning their weapons and applying charcoal to their faces. To a man they were in high spirits, if anxious ones. Most of them wanted to get this phase of their mission over with so they could return to Football City, where many had families and loved ones, and fight a more tangible enemy. They had come a long way since riding the JFK over from Europe.
Two jet black Hueys waited next to the Sea Stallion. Two squads of Fitzgerald’s best troops—Territorial Guardsmen—complemented by the original ZAP MPs, waited inside. The Guardsmen were dressed in their standard World War II-style uniforms, complete from their
tin pot hats to their GI boots. Volunteers all, Fitzgerald promised his men an extra full month’s pay and a bottle of Scotch for going on the mission. The MPs, just lately sprung from prison, were ready for anything. Hovering overhead nearby were the Cobra Brothers, on the lookout for any unwanted guest to the early morning confab.
Parked further down the long straight of highway were two identical-looking jet fighters. They were the F-4 Phantoms known as The Ace Wrecking Company. Commanded by Captain Crunch O’Malley, the two fighter-bombers and the four-man crew, had hired out for special missions—ground support, air superiority, convoy duty—almost since the dawning of the New Order. Both planes were decorated in lettering reminiscent of an oldtime circus train. “No Job’s Too Small, We Bomb Them All,” was the motto painted on the side of each, an impressive “1” and “2” designating the jets’ tail fins.
Parked at the very end of the highway-turned-runway was Hunter’s F-16. Red, white, blue and waiting, it was bombed up and ready to go. One of the Crunch pilots had flown it down for him, a favor he greatly appreciated. It was like seeing an old friend again—a friend that had been neglected for too long. He was soon to change that …
Hunter conferred with Captain Crunch, and, their plan straight, gave the signal for the strike force to get ready. He climbed into the C-119 beside Clyde and started to taxi. The F-4s followed close behind. The assault troopers gave him the thumbs-up sign as he passed the Stallion and started his take-off roll. Phase Two was well underway.
“The Stukas will probably need more than a hooker’s word that a snowbird is coming through,” he told Clyde once the Flying Boxcar was airborne. “That means it’s up to us to convince them. Once we do, they’ll be licking their noses trying to get us.”
He checked behind him just in time to see the Crunch jets take off. They would immediately climb to 50,000 feet, high above the pirates’ rinky-dink radar, and orbit there, providing air cover just in case a stray bandit jet detected the C-119—that was, before Hunter wanted them to.
