He bolted from behind his battered, teetering desk and heartily shook Hunter’s hand. He was a massive man, with rock-hard Dutch features. In his enthusiasm, he nearly crushed Hunter’s right hand.
“We have mutual friends!” he boomed. “Sir Neil Asten is a close friend of mine. He’d spoke of you often, and your adventures together.”
Hunter retrieved his hand and gave the officer a salute. Sir Neil was the man who’d commanded the towing operation to bring the USS Saratoga across the Mediterranean to thwart Viktor’s invasion attempt. He was one of the bravest, smartest, toughest guys Hunter had ever run into.
“Please give him my regards when you see him next,” Hunter said, casually ending his salute. He then introduced Chloe and Baldi.
Van Dam sat down behind his desk and lit up a massive pipe.
“So what brings the famous Wingman to this horrible place?” he asked.
Hunter took the next ten minutes filling in Van Dam on the expedient points of his latest mission. The Dutch colonel’s eyes grew wider with each sentence. He was especially amazed at the description of the events leading up to their bombing of the airstrip near Uruk.
“When we arrived over Karachi and saw the conditions here, we felt compelled to come down and check it out,” Hunter concluded. “From what I’ve seen, I think you are all in very grave danger. You, your troops and the people living here.”
Van Dam laughed. “We’re shoehorned into an area little bigger than a few soccer fields. There’s a huge gun somewhere up in the hills that has kept us trapped here for months. We are all hungry, sick, thirsty, dirty, and tired. I really don’t know how it could get much worse.”
Hunter just shook his head slowly. “I know this character Viktor,” he began. “Or at least, I think I do. Believe me, sir, he will stop at nothing to clear this runway if he has to. Regardless of that gun up there and whoever is firing it at you. He’ll send forces against the people hiding here. I believe he’ll do anything short of nuking this place if he feels he has to use it to get back down—or more accurately, he’ll hire someone to clear it for him.”
“Poison gas. Nerve agents. Strafing attacks,” Baldi chimed in. “He could move a large force in here in hours and just mow everyone down—and probably take out that big gun, too. Or at least shut it down for a while.”
Van Dam’s face dropped with each syllable. He’d already had his hands full; this latest information was especially troubling.
He quietly laid his pipe aside and ran his hands over his dirty, tired head.
“My God,” he whispered. “What can we possibly do?”
Hunter, too, rubbed his tired brow.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” he said, his voice gaining in strength with each word.
Now everyone in the HQ was looking at him. Suddenly there was a huge explosion outside, the ground rumbled for ten full seconds. Another massive shell had fallen just outside the camp limits.
“And what is that?” Van Dam asked hopefully.
Hunter cocked his head in the direction of the latest explosion.
“We’ve got to take out that gun ourselves,” he said finally.
Twenty-two
TWO HOURS LATER, HUNTER was back at Karachi Airport, his head buried in yet another aircraft engine.
The abandoned airport was not without its airplanes. There were actually a couple dozen airliners, cargo planes and even some small private craft stuffed away in the various hangars. Trapped there by the conditions surrounding the city, there was simply a lack of fuel and knowledgeable people to fly them out.
All of these planes were also woefully unmaintained, and none of them were airworthy. But this didn’t bother Hunter. The plan formulating in his head didn’t call for an airplane that was safe to fly. In fact, it called for one that had no engine, no propeller, no way at all to stay airborne on its own.
The plane he’d selected for this odd flight was, by a rather spooky coincidence, a biplane, a reconditioned duffer known as a Gloucester Gnatsnapper. Originally built as one of the first planes to operate from aircraft carriers, this particular model had apparently been part of an aerobatic team in better days. It was covered with Arabic writing, the rough translation of which Hunter believed indicated a Yemeni dialect. The plane was nearly seventy years old, yet its fuselage and wings were still in remarkably good shape.
The fact that it was almost identical to the biplanes of his dream had ceased to amaze him more than an hour ago. He was used to strange things like this happening in his life. Signs and omens popping up and then disappearing only to reappear again at a crucial time—these things were run of the mill to him now. What part of his unconscious, yet highly perceptive mind had foreseen his coming upon this particular airplane and thus transplanted it into his dream? He didn’t know—and really didn’t want to dwell on it. But his dream—at least this part of it—had indeed come true.
He was in the process of taking the biplane’s engine out completely; its small size and relatively light weight made this a fairly easy job. With Baldi’s help, they had unlocked the engine mounts and allowed the seized motor to fall to the floor of the work hangar. The propeller, landing carriage and all internal instruments came out next. Hunter even went so far as to yank the control sticks and the seats out of the airplane.
None of this stuff would be of any use to it anymore—not where it was going.
The Gnatsnapper was stripped and unladened by 3:30 P.M. Now came the next part—packing it up again.
Once more with Baldi’s help, and that of several Dutch soldiers put at his disposal, Hunter pushed the lightened airplane on a dolly a quarter mile across the empty airport to where the Bear bomber was waiting. Another squad of Dutch peacekeepers had already removed what was left of the bomber’s weapons load: two five hundred-pound bombs and a single fifteen hundred-gram package filled with incendiaries. Once Hunter and the others had moved the Gnatsnapper into position under the Bear’s right wing, the combined group began carefully loading this ordnance into the cored-out biplane.
Once it was all packed in and taped, Hunter positioned the biplane under the Bear’s right wing. Here, between the plane’s interior and outboard engines, was a hard-point where huge antiship or cruise missiles could be attached. Now the group grunted and groaned and sweated and spit and gradually lifted the bomb-laden biplane up to this hardpoint. It took some doing, but finally they managed to get the thing mated and wired up. Incredibly, the snout and top wing of the Gloucester just cleared the twin-propeller sweep of the Bear’s two huge right-side engines.
Though it wasn’t all that apparent to the Dutch soldiers at the moment, what Hunter had created was a flying bomb—a crude glider carrying a one thousand-pound plus warhead. Placing a contact fuse on this strange aircraft would be no problem; the parts from any kind of battery-operated device would do. And there was no doubt in Hunter’s mind that the glide-bomb packed enough punch to knock out the monster gun, or at least damage it—if it was hit in the right place, that is.
That would be the hard part.
By 4 P.M. Hunter had the wiring for the bomb-laden biplane completed.
He’d set up a crude electrical fusing device plus a way to disengage the glider from the wing of the Bear at just the right moment. All this was hooked up to one of the plane’s internal auxiliary batteries. When Hunter ran a series of quick checks, everything worked perfectly.
By 5 P.M. the Bear was fueled up with the last of the gas available at Karachi airport. There were about two more hours of daylight left. Hunter wanted to take advantage of every minute of it. But there was another problem they’d yet to tackle. They knew the general direction of the big gun, but they didn’t know which mountain, or even which mountain range, it was hiding in.
Searching for it would take valuable time and fuel—and might end up without result. Hunter asked Van Dam to canvass the huge population of refugees and find out if anyone had any idea where the gun was located.
As if o
n cue, Van Dam and & security attachment arrived just as Hunter was completing the last of his tests on the glide-bomb. With them was an old Pakistani man named Koki. He knew exactly where the big gun was located—or so he claimed.
“It is inside the mountain forty kilometers northeast of here,” the man told them excitedly. “It’s huge and very ominous looking.”
Hunter greeted the man’s information politely, but with some dark humor. “I flew over these mountains,” he told Van Dam. “They all look huge and ominous.”
But now Koki was grabbing his sleeve lightly. “But this one,” he was saying. “This one will be easy to find.”
Hunter just shrugged. “How?”
Koki tugged him a little closer. “Because it is a mountain that looks like no other. It is a mountain that is shaped like a monster!”
Hunter did laugh a little now. The old man was trying to be helpful. But…
“A monster?” he asked him. “What kind of monster?”
Koki threw his arms dramatically into the air.
“Like a dinosaur!” he roared. “It looks just like a Tyrannosaurus Rex!”
Hunter stared back at the man for a long moment; suddenly more waves from his dream came back to him. Then he laughed again.
“The mountain is shaped like a dinosaur?” he asked Koki to the amusement of the others.
“It is, sir,” Koki replied.
Hunter put on his helmet and started strapping up his flight suit.
“Somehow, I’m not surprised…” he said finally.
The late afternoon sun was just waning as the final preparations for the Bear were completed. To save fuel, Van Dam’s men were making arrangements to have the big bomber towed to the end of the airport’s north-south runway. They’d hooked the front of the Tu-95’s nosegear to a tandem of two small tanks and began pulling. It took a full minute for the plane to even budge. But finally it began rolling, and slowly, but surely, commenced moving out and towards the runway.
Hunter was inside the airport’s long-ago abandoned operations room while all this was going on. He was looking for a map, a chart, anything that would help him navigate once they got airborne. The ops room files were a mess; some were so old they’d actually turned yellow and were near-impossible to read. Though there were some computers on hand, there was no way to switch them on. The wire from their electrical connections had all been chewed away some time ago by rodents.
At the end of fifteen minutes of searching, the only thing Hunter could find was an ancient weather map which showed in rather unsophisticated relief the mountainous areas north of the city. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. He quickly committed the map to memory, folded it up and put it inside his boot pocket. Then he went back outside.
But right away, he knew something was wrong.
The Bear was about halfway out to the runway; it appeared to be moving fine. The weather was clearing up a bit; this, too, was helpful.
But something was buzzing in his ears, something that indicated big trouble.
Hunter did a long look around and then it hit him: Chloe was nowhere to be seen.
An instant later, he was running. Out to the taxiway, where Van Dam and his men were standing.
“Where is she?” he asked the Dutch colonel anxiously. “Where’s Chloe?”
Van Dam was instantly confused. “She’s not with you?” he replied, astonished.
A second later, Hunter was jumping into the stolen taxi, revving its engine and jamming it into gear. Baldi was just barely able to jump in with him.
Chloe was not at the airport anymore—Hunter could feel it. So with a screech of tires and a shower of dirt, he tore off towards the only other place she could be: the crowded air base.
If anything, the place looked more crowded once night had fallen.
The smoke from tens of thousands of fires rose above the overcrowded camp, making it look like a dreary brown blanket was hovering a hundred feet overhead. The wildest of thoughts were streaking through Hunter’s mind. Who knows what Chloe was up to now, he thought. He could feel his chest tighten up. He’d been so proud of her in the past few hours, slaving under the illusion that he had opened her eyes a bit to what the real world was like. Now, all he could wonder was which group of Dutch soldiers was she servicing? The guys at the entrance to the horrid camp? Or those guarding the headquarters?
Hunter peeled onto the base, scattering those few individuals who had the strength to move. As before, the crowd of starving people parted slowly, weakly, as the taxi passed through. Hunter was trying to look in all directions at once. Maybe Chloe was doing some of the people right here in the camp. Maybe she’d found a young husky buck in the swampy pool of a million people who could muster up enough strength to give it to her good, one last time.
It took them ten long minutes to drive the length of the runway; there had been no sign of Chloe. They reached Van Dam’s headquarters, and found a squad of a dozen soldiers standing guard outside. Hunter eyed them angrily; they returned his glare with looks of confusion. Why was he mad at them?
Hunter jumped out of the jeep even before it stopped moving—Baldi had to jam the thing back into the parking gear and engage the brake. By this time, Hunter had dashed past the amazed soldiers and into the HQ itself.
He was expecting to see anything: twelve guys lined up, waiting to take their turn on Chloe. Or maybe she was doing all of them at once. But the place was practically empty. A few hungry soldiers manning the small radio sets, another couple guarding the meager Dutch arsenal.
No orgy. No Chloe.
He went back outside; Baldi was questioning the soldiers standing guard. Not one of them had seen her—or so they claimed.
Hunter was back into the jeep in a second. Once again, Baldi had to make a mighty leap to get onboard before he roared away. Now they were traveling through the crowd again. Hunter’s anxiety level was rising like never before. He had to sort through nearly one million people to find her—all while time was running out on his mission schedule. Had it been just about anyone else, he would have probably left her behind.
But she was hardly just anyone else.
He was now heading for a small outpost of Dutch peacekeepers located on the northern end of the runway, close to where the big gun’s shells were able to come crashing down. Almost on cue, there was a screech above the refugee camp. Instinctively everyone who was able to move fell to the ground and covered their heads. The shell hit three seconds later. It shook the earth violently for the next half minute. The tremor was so deep, it caused many of the fires to collapse and go out. The weak cries of the refugees rose and mixed with the pall of smoke permanently in place overhead.
But none of this stopped Hunter, even for a moment. He kept driving, slowly but steadily, even as the thousands of people were dropping to the ground all around him. The jeep had kicked once as the shock ran through the moist, disgusting terrain; but Hunter simply downshifted and kept going.
They reached the small outpost—it was two tanks hidden beneath a forest of cut-down trees. There were ten Dutch soldiers on hand, and unlike the others at the HQ, they weren’t all that surprised to see Hunter drive up.
Once again he was out of the jeep in a shot. He ran up to the sergeant of the guard, an enormous Nordic type with a face full of scars. Just her type, Hunter thought.
The man couldn’t speak English, and Hunter was too agitated to start spewing Dutch. So he stood there and pantomimed Chloe’s shape, her hair and her pretty face.
The sergeant got it right away. He smiled, displaying a mouth full of bright white teeth. Yes, one of his men had given her a ride to the camp about an hour ago. Hunter was furious. Where is she? he growled at the man. The sergeant shrugged and then pointed in the general direction of the mob. Hunter just shook his head sadly—his first intuition had been right. Chloe was screwing the natives.
He plunged into the crowd, firmly but humanely making his way through the pathetic multitude. The people look
ed at him like he was from another world. A tall pale stranger dressed all in black, wearing a strange white bowl on his head adorned with yellow thunderbolts. He was suddenly aware of many babies crying at once. Mothers screaming, men weeping. Why all this commotion? Did Chloe have an audience?
He finally moved towards a particularly tight knot of people—this was where all the noise was coming from. In the middle of it, he thought he heard Chloe’s distinctly melodic voice.
He was less polite this time as he forced about a dozen of the toothpick people aside and broke inside the circle.
That’s when he found her.
She was in the middle of the crowd of people. But she had all her clothes on, her hands were dirty and her hair was actually out of place in spots. She had a small bundle in her arms; she was hugging it tightly. Hunter had to take a closer look before he realized that it was a baby, just born apparently, it was that small.
And then Hunter saw that many of the people around Chloe were crying. He took an even closer look. The baby was not breaming.
He stood there, almost paralyzed, as a man appeared and quickly dug a shallow hole in the debris-strewn ground. With great care, Chloe laid the dead infant into the grave and helped push the dirt back on top.
Then she stood up, hugged the grieving mother and father and turned away. That’s when she saw Hunter. Their eyes met. His were downcast with pure, unadulterated shame. Hers were filled with tears. All of a sudden, he felt a million miles away from the frozen dreamland of St. Moritz.
She quickly ran to him, embraced him tightly and cried on his shoulder for two minutes, nonstop.
Then, finally, he led her out of the crowd.
Twenty-three
THE BEAR FINALLY TOOK off at eighteen hundred hours—6 P.M. exactly.
The sun was just going down behind the mountains to the west, casting a giant shadow over all of Karachi and the overcrowded air base nearby. But there was still light, way above the tops of the peaks, and this is where Hunter headed as soon as the big bomber’s wheels left the ground.
Target: Point Zero Page 22
