“In other words, Major, you’re going to be a modern-day Ulysses. You’ll be the hero of our story. And when it’s over, you’ll be even more famous than you are now.”
Hunter shook his head and rubbed his jaw again. Somehow that prospect didn’t appeal to him.
Chapter 4
THE BARTENDER POURED OUT another bourbon and Hunter drained it immediately.
“Why does it seem like a million years since I’ve had a drink?” he asked Toomey, who along with their friend Ben Wa, had been holding down the far end of the Washington DC bar with him for the past three hours.
“It’s the hypnotic session,” JT answered, lighting a cigar. “I was under for three hours, but it felt more like three weeks. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to go under for twelve hours. It’s got to do a job on your Ids-ville.”
“Twelve frigging hours,” Hunter said, shaking his head and motioning the bartender for another shot. “Goddamn, I know a lot of stuff came up that I was sure would stay hidden inside me forever.”
It was the day after Hunter’s marathon session with the pretty woman psychologist. He had spent most of the daylight hours sleeping, yet still he felt mentally exhausted.
“That was the whole idea, Hawk,” Ben said. He had struggled through a four-hour session of his own. “It’s just kind of strange how they’re planning to program the computer to mix it all together like that. Like it was a novel or something.”
At that point, three ladies of somewhat-questionable repute walked into the smoky, dimly lit bar. To no one’s surprise, JT knew all three.
Thankful for the diversion, Hunter was about to order a round of drinks for the females, when another woman caught his eye.
She was sitting at the opposite end, of the bar, in a very darkened corner, talking to three other women. It was only that she had lit a cigarette and the match illuminated her face that Hunter saw her at all. And while JT’s friends may or may not have been “working girls,” there was no doubt that the four women at the table in question were hookers.
Is that really her? he thought.
Hunter hastily excused himself and slowly made his way, down the crowded bar, attempting to get a closer look at the woman. When one of her companions lit a cigarette of her own, he was able to glimpse the mystery woman once again.
Despite the pound and a half of make-up, he could see she was very pretty, with beautiful long brown hair and what looked to be a lovely figure.
Could it really be her?
He inched his way farther through the crowd until he arrived at the very end of the bar and staked out a position just ten feet from where the four hookers were sitting.
Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Interested in the merchandise, pal?”
He turned, slowly and faced a small, bejeweled, white-suited man.
“You talking to me?” he asked, instinctively reaching for the butt of his shouldered M-16.
“Yeah,” the small man replied, his voice betraying some kind of foreign accent Hunter couldn’t quite place. “I saw you eye-balling the produce. You want to buy or what?”
Once again, a cigarette was lit at the table, this one fully illuminating the face of the woman in question.
Goddamn, Hunter thought, it is her.
“How much?” he asked the pimp, never taking his eyes off the woman.
“One bag of gold for one,” the slimy little individual answered. “Three bags for all four.”
Hunter couldn’t help but laugh in his face. “Sure, pal,” he said retrieving a single bag of silver from his flight suit and passing it to the man. “This is for the pretty brunette. You can keep the change.”
The man grudgingly took the silver. “I got rooms, too,” he said. “Nearby. Only two bags of silver …”
Hunter pushed the man away from him and was already walking over to the table. “I won’t need a room,” he told him.
A few seconds later, Hunter was standing over the table, the woman looking up at him through a haze of mascara and eye liner.
Even though she recognized him right away, she showed absolutely no surprise. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke up into his face.
He reached down and gave her arm a slight, yet forceful tug.
“Come on,” he said somewhat harshly. “I just bought you.”
“My dream has come true,” she said, gathering her things together. She crushed out her cigarette and stood up, straightening out her black negligee-style mini-dress in the process. “See you later, girls,” she said, winking at her companions.
At the other end of the bar, JT had been following Hunter’s actions with almost painful curiosity. Now, as he watched Hunter lead the hooker back through the crowd and toward the front door, he turned to Ben and said: “Since when did he start paying for it?”
Ben turned and was about to say something when he got his first good look at the painted lady.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “That can’t be who I think it is.”
Just before he reached the door, Hunter glanced back over his shoulder at his two friends, a very strange expression on his face.
It was Elizabeth.
She was the same woman who, not a month before, Hunter had tramped all over Central and South America trying to locate. She and her father had been major players in the plan the United Americans had used to prevent the fascist organization, The Twisted Cross, from destroying the Panama Canal. In fact, her father was the man responsible for building a crucial piece of equipment that helped Hunter deactivate the 52 nuclear-tipped underwater mines the Cross had placed in the Panama Canal.
During the time her father was building the deactivator and the United Americans were preparing to invade the canal, Hunter had volunteered to rescue Elizabeth from the same Canal Nazis who had kidnapped her with the intention of having her lead them to a vast fortune in hidden Mayan gold.
But even though the whole affair eventually had a successful outcome—the Nazis were soundly beaten, the mines rendered inoperable and the canal saved—the adventure had left Hunter unsettled. He was the first to admit to himself that he had become enamored with the whole idea of his playing the hero, rescuing the fair maiden from the clutches of the dastardly Nazis. And during his search for her, he had become infatuated with her—sight unseen except for a grainy photo her father had provided. This romanticizing reached the point where Hunter actually fantasized—not entirely subconsciously—that when he rescued her, they might actually … well, walk off into the sunset together.
But that storybook ending was a far cry from what actually happened.
She didn’t melt into his arms when he first found her, despite the fact that he plucked her just in time from a band of extra-vicious Canal Nazi Skinheads. And the tearful reunion he imagined would take place when she saw her father again in actuality resulted in little more than her giving him a peck on the cheek before noisily demanding to be fed.
And the fairy tale ending he had conjured up about them actually being bonded together in eternal bliss was deflated when she sent him a rather crude, pornographic photo of herself along with a cryptic message stating that he should “surprise” her sometime. Then she had disappeared.
Until now …
He put her into the car he had been using to tool around Washington—an all-white, souped-up 1983 Pontiac Firebird. Climbing in behind the steering wheel, he turned to her and said: “What the hell are you doing?”
She laughed—that laugh—and lit a cigarette.
“I’m just trying to earn a living,” she said, blowing a stream of smoke into his face.
Hunter couldn’t remember feeling so befuddled.
“Not a month ago you were on the verge of being killed by Nazis and I fly all over half of Central America to save you,” he said sternly. “And now you’re running around Washington dressed like a cheap hooker …”
“That’s because I am a cheap hoo
ker,” she replied. “You just bought me, remember? And for what? Two bags of silver?”
“One bag,” he said, shaking his head.
She laughed again—the laugh that was tinged with no small amount of madness. “All right!” she exclaimed. “So that’s what I’m worth. The cheaper the better.”
With that she shifted in the car’s bucket seat, intentionally letting her skirt hike up around her upper thighs. For the quickest of moments, Hunter’s eyes zeroed in on the lovely form of her legs, wrapped as they were in alluring dark nylon stockings.
“For Christ’s sake, you’re a scientist,” he said, frustration and anger rising equally in his voice. “You’re probably the foremost archaeologist left in this country. Probably in the entire world.”
She crushed out her cigarette and immediately lit another one. “Is this your car?” she asked.
Hunter was reaching his boiling point. He had barely settled down from the mind-blowing hypnotic tell-all testimony session. And now, in the one night he thought he could actually cool out, he runs into this.
“Look, forget about the Goddamn car,” he said. “Just tell me what the hell is going on …”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a bright crimson lip print.
“You’re always so full of questions,” she said. “Let me ask one: after this, are we going to go somewhere and screw our brains out?”
Hunter was so stunned by the question, he was speechless.
“That’s what you bought me for, isn’t it?” she asked, moving her hand to his upper thigh.
He took a deep breath and looked around. The sidewalks were crowded with the usual cast of armed soldiers and beautiful women. The street itself was busy—military vehicles from jeeps to M-1 tanks rumbled by, occasionally followed by a civilian-type car. All in all, it was a fairly normal scene for post-World War III America.
The insanity was inside the car …
“I’ll ask you one more time,” he said, reaching his limit. “What are you doing, working for a scumbag like that guy in there? Selling yourself? You don’t need to do this for money. Your father is well off now. And you should be, too.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and began to reapply her heavy lipstick with the aid of a compact mirror.
“You really want to know what I’m doing?” she asked, smacking her lips to even out the bright red color. “OK, I’ll tell you: I’m working undercover.”
“Undercover?” he said. “An undercover what?”
“I’m a secret agent,” she continued, still dabbing on the lipstick. “I’m gathering information for a group of people who will eventually take over this entire country.”
Hunter rubbed his eyes hard. Could this conversation get any more insane?
“We’ve still got some work to do,” she rambled on. “But eventually, we’ll have everything lined up. Then, well, we’ll just move in and take control.”
Hunter closed his eyes and shook his head. “You are crazy,” he said, finally submitting to the situation.
Suddenly, she turned toward him. Her eyes had become black as coal, her mouth tight and quaking, her entire face drawn in. In an instant she looked like another person entirely.
“You bet I’m crazy,” she hissed at him with a voice that sounded as if it belonged in a cheap horror movie. “And don’t you ever forget it …”
With that, she yanked up on the door handle, dashed from the car and ran down the street.
She had disappeared into the shadows before Hunter could make up his mind whether to follow her or not …
Chapter 5
Six days later
THE FLAG.
Hunter stared at it through the mist of the early upstate New York sunrise, unfurling into the morning sky, proudly hailing the beginning of a new day.
“Present arms!” The Marine officer’s crisp command echoed across the parade field.
Hunter snapped to attention.
A full company of Marines, their dress blue uniforms razor-creased from white hats down to gleaming patent-leather shoes, clicked as one to rigid attention, then began marching past the reviewing stand where Hunter and the others stood.
A cold wind blew across the open parade field. For some reason Hunter thought that it would be warmer than this.
They were in Syracuse. It would be here, in the city’s giant domed stadium, that the ex-VP’s trial would be held.
Despite the chill, Hunter knew that all things being considered, the site was a natural place for the historic event. Before the war, the huge domed stadium had been the football and basketball arena for the famous Syracuse University. Like the other major cities in the eastern United States, Syracuse had been evacuated during the chaos following the Big War. Most of the residents had either fled to Free Canada or scattered to seek the comparative safety of the small towns in rural New York.
Shortly after the war ended, a new city had sprung up around Syracuse’s airport, it being a strategically-located point sitting on the crossroads of the air convoy routes for most of the Northeast corridor. Under the guidance of his friend, the enterprising Irishman Mike Fitzgerald, the Syracuse Aerodrome had become famous as a waystation and watering hole for aircraft and their pilots, dispensing cargo, fuel, and repairs to any and all paying customers.
And even though nearly two-thirds of the base had been destroyed in the second and final war against The Circle, the Aerodrome had recently gone back into operation, although on a limited basis.
But in all that time, the 50,000-seat indoor athletic stadium downtown had lain abandoned for lack of any practical uses. It too had been damaged during the Circle’s brief occupation of the city. But even before that, the powerful ceiling fans used to inflate the synthetic-fabric dome had been shut off, allowing the roof to sag to within forty feet of the playing surface. The place became a dark haven for some of the shadowy figures who, for whatever reason, had chosen to stay in the old city since the war.
But when the New United States Provisional Government realized that by opening the ex-VP’s trial to the public, the public might come in droves, they selected the Dome as the venue. The dome was reinflated, the insides cleaned up and prepared for the crowds to come. It was also re-lit and wired for a phalanx of TV cameras, which would be able to broadcast the trial to those areas of the country able to receive TV.
That morning Hunter, Toomey and Ben flew the fighter escort for the KC-135 aircraft carrying the traitor and his lawyers to the trial. Even as they passed over the city before the sun was completely up, they saw that The Dome was thronged with people—ordinary citizens—pouring in through its concrete passageways.
As it would turn out, although more than 50,000 people were able to get in, more than twice that number camped outside, content, it would seen, to follow the progress of the trial via the large loudspeakers erected outside the Dome.
“Command, attention!” the Marine commander shouted out, bringing Hunter’s thoughts back to the flag-raising ceremony before him.
As the last of the Marines marched off the parade field, all eyes on the reviewing stand turned toward the low rumble that was building in the eastern sky. Squinting into the rising sun, Hunter could make out the swift-moving shapes, racing ahead of the sounds from their engines. The four F-4 Phantom jets streaked across the sky in a tight diamond shape and seemed to join as one to disappear into the hazy western horizon. Only the scream of their engines told those on the ground that they were making a wide turn to pass by again.
This time the Phantoms came in lower and slower, forming up in a tight chevron pattern, their leader in the center, two planes wingtip-to-wingtip, slightly behind on his right and left, and one tucked in behind him, offset just high enough to avoid his exhaust trail. As they neared the parade field, the Phantom in the number-two slot to the leader’s left eased back on his stick to bring the plane out of formation, its vapor trail describing a gentle swooping arc to the heavens as he climbed out of sight.
> The remaining F-4s, now with the vacant position in their tight pattern, flew on over the reviewing stand.
The Missing Man Formation. A tribute by flying men to their companions, lost in battles fought and wars won but never forgotten. Every man assembled on the stand saluted and then bowed his head, each remembering fallen comrades who had paid the ultimate price for the victory that had cost them all so dearly.
Hunter watched as the Phantoms sped away to land at the nearby Syracuse Aerodrome. As the reviewing stand emptied out, he lingered for a time to watch the flag the color guard had raised as it lofted with each burst of wind, high atop the shining flagstaff at the head of the parade field.
Almost instinctively he reached into his left breast pocket and pulled out a small, frayed cloth. Carefully folded into a tight triangular shape, it revealed only a faded blue background arrayed with pale stars. Unrolling it to its full length, he stared at the red and white stripes creased and marked from being folded too long, and fingered its tattered edges.
It was a small American flag, the same one he had taken from the body of a man he saw brutally murdered in New York City way back when Hunter first returned to America after the war. He always considered the man, his name was Saul Wackerman, as the ultimate patriot; someone who was shot simply because he was carrying the American flag.
Hunter had carried it with him ever since, an act that for the past few years under the New Order, was punishable by death. This had never deterred him though, and it had come to be an authentic good luck piece for him.
Not so the photograph he always kept wrapped inside the flag. This was the well-worn picture of his estranged girlfriend, Dominique.
As it was, he hadn’t been able to look at it in two months …
“These proceedings will come to order!”
A hush fell over the jam-packed Dome stadium as the Chief Justice of the American Provisional Government, using an elaborate public address system, gaveled the trial open.
Final Storm Page 4
