Twisted Cross

by Maloney, Mack;

He climbed into an F-20 around dusk and joined Fitzgerald’s Wild Weasel F-105X Super Thunderchiefs in another SAM suppressing mission over Panama City. This action in turn cleared the way for a second massive B-52 strike on the center of the city which all but eliminated the last Nazi stronghold on the Pacific side of the Canal.

  Midnight found him driving a Huey MedicVac chopper back and forth from the Panama City airport to the rented Big Banana air base. At 3 AM the next day, he was in the seat of a CA-10 Thunderbolt, flying alongside Major Frost on a nighttime mop up sweep of the Canal.

  At dawn he was back in the swamp with his beloved airplane, supervising as one of the CATS mighty Sky Cranes lifted the damaged fighter out of the muck and onto one of the container ships offshore.

  At noon, he was washed and dressed in a new flight suit and standing beside Jones during a brief ceremony at the Panama City Airport, during which Jones accepted the unconditional surrender of The Twisted Cross from a lowly officer in the Nazis’ logistics section. As it turned out, he was the highest ranking officer left in the immediate area.

  Everyone else, including the High Commander, had fled Panama City for parts unknown soon after the first bombs started falling on the capital city.

  Epilogue

  HUNTER HAD JUST APPLIED another coat of sun tan lotion to his face when he looked up and saw a young girl standing over him, handing him a package.

  He stretched, flipped up his sunglasses and took the package from the kid.

  “What’s that?” Janine asked. She was lying on the beach beside him, soaking up the bright rays.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, wishing he had some money to tip the delivery girl.

  “Go see Brother David,” he said to the girl. “Tell him Hunter said to give you a gold piece.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide with joy as she ran off the beach and back toward the huge pyramid-shaped Cancun resort hotel-turned-mission.

  Lori, sunbathing topless on his other side, turned over and handed him a cold beer. Nearby, J.T., Ben Wa and Fitz were playing poker with three of the other women “entertainers” who had taken sanctuary with the Fighting Brothers. Still further on, the commodore, Dantini, Burke and the entire four-man complement of the Cobra Brothers were setting up a large steel-grates-over-barrels barbecue stove in preparation for the shrimp and fish fry that was scheduled for noon.

  Hunter popped his beer can—courtesy of Masoni and O’Gregg—and opened the package.

  It was from Jones, a summary report of the war against The Twisted Cross which came to its successful conclusion exactly two weeks before that day.

  He quickly glanced over the casualty reports. All things considered, they weren’t too high—a total of 741 men killed, 3083 wounded. Estimates of Nazi dead were put at 6200, with twice as many wounded. A total of 23 UA aircraft were lost, including two F-20s and one C-141. Sixteen helicopters had been shot down or damaged beyond repair.

  On the other hand, only seven Nazi F-4s had survived the battle. They had been dispatched to Texas where they would be broken down and used for parts.

  The next page of the summary told the strange tale of what had happened at Uxmaluna.

  The Nazis’ gold recovery mission had proceeded for two days after the murder of Udet and the flight of Krupp. Not wanting to start a major action against the Nazis while they were still near the ancient site, Jones had decided to keep an aircap on the area to prevent anyone from escaping by chopper. Elements of the Football City Rangers dropped in and surrounded the site, ready to attack the Nazis as soon as they decided to make a break for it via the blasted-away jungle road.

  But after two days on the ground, scouts for the Rangers reported that activity at the site had stopped—completely. Not only that, but it appeared that the site was completely deserted.

  The Ranger officers in charge sent in two more advance parties who confirmed the report. The place was empty.

  The Rangers moved in in force and their final report gave everyone who read it an advanced case of the creeps. All of the gold was still in the caves or in the tunnels. All of the Nazis’ trucks were there, as were a few helicopters. There was even food on the tables of the mess areas, some of it still hot in the bowl.

  But there weren’t any Nazis, anywhere. A week of confounding land and air recon missions confirmed it. Just like the Mayans before them, all 280 Nazis of the Recovery Mission had simply disappeared.

  Hunter fought off a shiver and took a long swig of his beer.

  The rest of the report detailed the long range planning for occupation of the Canal. Major Dantini and his guys didn’t know it yet, but they were about to be offered the job of administering protection over the waterway, using United American funds to hire local, trustworthy mercenaries. A large UA air base would also be established at Panama City, and UA naval units would regularly patrol both entrances to the Canal from now on.

  As for the gold recovered by the Nazis from the other Maya sites, Jones and Brother David had held a meeting at Cancun a week before to discuss returning the bullion to the native tribes living near the sites, and basically letting them decide what to do with it. This meant that the enormous gold find at Uxmaluna—still a fairly well-kept secret—would now come under the control of the Tulum Indians.

  The gold down under the Nazca Plain, now buried under tons of rubble, would stay right where it was for the time being.

  The report finished up with a request from Jones that Hunter meet him in Dallas in two weeks time. Once there they would be able to pore over the large amount of Nazi documents captured when UA forces broke into the Twisted Cross HQ skyscraper. Dallas was selected as the meeting location because that’s where Hunter’s F-16XL was undergoing extensive damage repairs, the second time it had been in the GD shop in less than a year.

  Hunter finished his beer and quickly opened another one. Also inside the package was a letter from Major Frost, postmarked Montreal. Hunter’s fingers were trembling slightly as he ripped open the envelope and read the short note. It simply said that Frost had determined that Dominique was now part of an organization called Inner Light, a group which specialized in meditation, “openness” and “channeling.” Frost promised to get an exact location of their retreat in the Canadian Rockies and send it to Hunter as soon as possible.

  He also reported that Hunter’s letter to Dominique which he left in the care of mutual friends in Montreal had been hand-carried out to the Inner Light retreat. So for better or worse, Hunter had to assume she had received it.

  He was making a mental note to buy Frost a case of Scotch when he noticed the package contained a third envelope, this one unmarked other than his name written across it.

  He opened it and to his surprise, he found it contained a photograph of Elizabeth, with a note attached by tape. The note, which covered up all but her pretty face in the photo, simply said: “Surprise me as soon as you can. Love, Elizabeth.”

  He was anxious to look at the rest of the picture, but it took him a full minute to peel off the tape holding the note on. But when he did, he felt his jaw drop to his chin.

  The photo showed her lying across a huge bed, absolutely naked…

  As luck would have it. J.T. was walking by from getting a beer and caught a glimpse of the photo.

  “All right, Hawker, my man!” he said after letting out a long wolf whistle. “Looks like your trip in that flying bucket of bolts wasn’t a waste of time after all.”

  Hunter looked at the photo and then laid back down on the sand and covered his eyes.

  “I’m not so sure,” he said.

  THE END

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Wingman Series

  Part I The Raid

  Chapter 1

  THE STRANGE-LOOKING AIRCRAFT skimmed over the steel-blue surface of the Atlantic Ocean, intently hurtling toward its destination.

  The craft was a curious hybrid—part helicopter and part fixed-wing cargo plane. Its stubby fuselage hung under a wing section that, thoug
h thin, supported two huge turbine engines. Like a conventional airplane, these engines drove massive propellers that sped the craft through the air at a respectable speed.

  But this airplane had a hidden talent….

  Its engines, encased in bulbous nacelles on each wingtip, could be rotated a full ninety degrees. Once done, this action would almost magically transform the oversize propellers into overhead rotors. Thus, the airplane was able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter.

  It was officially known as the MV-22 Osprey. The amazing tilt-rotor aircraft had been designed to be the close air support mainstay for US Marine Corps amphibious assault operations. Like the seagoing bird of prey it was named after, the Osprey was built to skim the waves and strike swiftly, delivering Marines and material to the battle. At one time, before World War II, hundreds of them had seen service around the globe.

  Now there was only one….

  Major Hawk Hunter, the man behind the airplane’s controls, was concentrating on keeping the green-and-gray camouflaged plane as close as possible to the tops of the ocean swells. Adjusting the control surfaces with the barest flick of a wrist or the slightest pressure on a rudder pedal, he found himself continually compensating for unseen turbulence in the heavy, pre-dawn salt air. Every few seconds his eyes darted about the airplane’s cockpit console, quickly monitoring its gauges. Then he would look up and, by adjusting his helmet’s infra-red sighting goggles, scan the thin line of the horizon, searching for the point of land in the distance that was his destination.

  Hunter had flown hundreds of combat missions in every type of aircraft, in every corner of the globe—his virtually undisputed reputation as the best fighter pilot who had ever lived led to his being known as The Wingman.

  But this mission was like no other….

  In the Osprey’s squat fuselage behind Hunter there were twenty-four commandos, all of them tensely gripping their weapons as they sat facing each other in the cramped cargo cabin. Rocking with the aircraft’s motion, the soldiers—members of the elite Football City Special Forces Rangers—stared down at the floor, or up at the overhead compartments, or simply sat with their eyes closed. For them, the time before combat was always reserved for private thoughts. It would be no different on this day.

  For Hunter, too, it was a time for reflection. Even as he was manipulating the controls and reviewing the mission plan, another part of him was reliving a bad-dream memory that was still as painful as if it had happened the day before.

  Actually it might as well have been a lifetime ago….

  The nightmare started with the outbreak of World War III. Lulled by several years of glasnost-era peace, the world exploded in war after a massive Soviet attack—launched in complete surprise on Christmas Eve—killed millions of West Europeans, not by nuclear holocaust, but by nerve gas. A massive Soviet invasion of Western Europe followed. Eventually, China was nuked and suddenly, any country who had a dispute with its neighbor decided to have it out.

  The Free World struck back. After much suffering and misery, the US and NATO forces had cleverly won the final battle of the war, soundly defeating an overwhelming Soviet war machine—and all without using nuclear weapons. Moscow pleaded for an armistice. Magnanimously, the West agreed. But then, just as it seemed that peace was at hand, the Soviets launched another devastating attack—this one a nuclear strike at the heart of the American continent. All of the country’s ICBMs were destroyed in their silos, and its remaining nuclear arsenal rendered useless. Now the nation’s heartland was a desolate wasteland—an ugly, festering scar that stretched from the Dakotas down to the northern border of Texas.

  Now, the once-fertile fields of America’s breadbasket were a nightmarish radioactive moonscape called the Badlands.

  Only later was it learned that the Soviets had been aided by a traitorous “mole” in the US Government. Someone, who, as part of a sinister plot, arranged to have the US President, his family and his cabinet assassinated just after the armistice was declared.

  Suddenly shattered and leaderless, the US had little choice but to accept the harsh terms of the Soviet “victors,” a mockery of justice known as the New Order. Under this decree, the United States of America ceased to exist. Instead, the nation was carved up into a patchwork of territories, free states, and independent republics, most led by criminal puppets of the Soviets. No sooner had the New Order been declared when these mini-countries began fighting each other, further increasing the instability of the American continent.

  But the darkness of these times had not totally consumed Hunter. In the handful of years that followed, and through several full-scale wars and dozens of major battles, he and his allies—known collectively as the United American Army—had fought back to reclaim their country and secure its borders.

  Months before, these democratic forces had soundly defeated the Soviet-sponsored Circle Army in a battle for control of lands east of the Mississippi. More recently, another major engagement had wrested control of the Panama Canal from a group of fanatical, nuclear-armed neo-Nazis.

  Yet despite these successes, Hunter knew the battle was far from over. In fact, he believed the most difficult tasks lay ahead.

  But the United Americans had gained the momentum. At the present time they controlled most of the continent’s major cities, and for the first time since the Big War, its borders were relatively well-guarded.

  And as such, they knew now was the time to go after the traitor.

  “There it is, Hawk, dead ahead….”

  The words from his co-pilot—and close friend—JT Toomey shook him out of his trance.

  Toomey was pointing directly to a small speck of green up ahead that was just barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. Hunter’s infra-red enhanced eyes darted to the island on the horizon, then to the instrument console and then to his watch.

  They were still on schedule.

  He flicked the intercom switch on his cockpit control panel.

  “Bermuda now in sight,” he called back to the assault team in the cabin. “Time to put the rosaries away….”

  The island—their target—had served as headquarters for the notoriously corrupt “New Order” gang since the end of World War III.

  Nominally headed by the traitor himself, the group of international criminals had used the lush resort as a stronghold from which to enforce the harsh tenets of the New Order. At the time of its imposition, these rules restricted virtually all forms of open communications and personal freedoms. They also forbade the display of any symbol of US patriotism—such as the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance—and even outlawed the mention of the term “United States of America.”

  And for anyone foolhardy enough to display the red, white and blue banner that had been the nation’s flag, the penalty was death.

  Hunter had made up his mind very soon after learning of the New Order’s rules that he would never submit to them. Instead he vowed that he would fight back whenever and wherever he could, until he had defeated the tyranny or it defeated him. He had kept that vow throughout the darkest days of the terrible struggle, in dozens of battles on a hundred shores.

  Never was the dream of America far from his thoughts.

  And now he was on the verge of striking at the very heart of the beast that had terrorized his nation for so long. He felt gallons of adrenaline pumping through him at the mere thought of it. How sweet is thy nectar, the wine of revenge!

  “I read ten minutes before we enter their airspace, Hawk,” JT said, once again piercing his thoughts.

  “Roger, ten minutes,” Hunter acknowledged. “Better start cranking the ECM.”

  As he heard the reassuring whir of the Osprey’s electronic counter-measures package begin transmitting, his thoughts narrowed to the mission ahead.

  Even the Soviets did not evoke the same contempt Hunter had for this ex-American traitor and his thugs. During World War III and since, the Soviets had been the major enemy—he had fought them as a soldie
r, giving no mercy and expecting none. But the treachery and deceit of the turncoat had summoned a fury in him that had been boiling for years. He knew it would not subside until the betrayer was brought to justice.

  And that was the object of this mission.

  The real planning had started shortly after they found the Osprey.

  When the United American Army reclaimed the southeastern coastal states from the hands of The Circle, they discovered most of the former US military installations in the area had been looted or destroyed. The military hardware was long gone—most of it sold on a thriving New Order American black market. There, anything capable of being fired was quickly snapped up by the members of the many free-lance armies that served the two dozen or so nation-states now residing on the North American continent.

  But near the former US Marine base at Cherry Point, North Carolina, the Circle had overlooked a creaking container ship that had been beached on the sandy banks of the Pamlico Sound. Whether it was a supply ship on its way to the European battlefront that never left port, or a luckless privateer washed ashore as he tried to run the Circle blockade was never known. But inside its rusty hold lay the sixty-foot tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft, still packed in its factory grease.

  The United Americans quickly assembled the Osprey and Hunter had flight-tested it himself shortly after returning from the campaign against the Canal Nazis down in Panama. For most pilots, it would have taken hundreds of flight hours to learn the secrets of tricky vertical takeoffs and landings, rotating engines, and combined complexities of helicopter and fixed-wing flight.

  Hunter had it mastered in an afternoon.

  Once their transportation had been secured, the meticulous planning for the raid on Bermuda began in earnest. Primary and secondary means of ingress and egress were evaluated. Maps were drawn up. Intangibles like weather and tides were checked. Most important, several teams of United American undercover agents were dropped on the island, spies specially trained to mix in with the Bermudan population.