The dark stain flowed faster with each explosion, driving farther and farther into the heartland of the nation. As more territory was consumed, new explosions erupted and added to the smoke and noise swirling across the continent.
Hunter was shocked and amazed; even in his dream state he tried to avert his eyes from the terrible scene. But strangely he was unable to do so. He watched with trancelike fixation as the explosions finally subsided. From the badlands of the Dakotas, down to the northern rim of Texas, the ground had turned inky black, punctuated only by a series of eerie, glowing pinspots that shimmered luminescently against the darkness.
Then something even more horrifying occurred.
Just as the shock waves subsided, the turbulent air was blasted by another huge explosion. This one was different from the rest, as if it were a volcanic force welling up from the earth’s core itself, rumbling to a deafening crescendo that threatened to split Hunter’s eardrums.
Suddenly, huge fissures gaped open in the boiling surface below, as if a cataclysmic earthquake were ripping chunks from the very continent itself and sending them sliding away.
He couldn’t bear to watch, but still he wasn’t able to turn away, being horrified and mesmerized at the same time. The explosions continued, opening still more wedges of darkness in the land. A huge piece of New England was split off from the continent, and began drifting out to sea. More explosions sent Texas plunging southward. The Southeast, from Maryland to Florida, had entirely separated from the larger land mass, propelled by the mighty convulsions of the earth.
There was fire and smoke everywhere. The earth-rending explosions sent powerful shock waves up to smash against Hunter, who struggled against them like a man being swamped by a series of successive tidal waves. Their crushing force pressed against his chest like a massive weight, sucking the breath out of him, forcing him downward.
More explosions. Closer this time. The downward pull became a free-fall as the powerful waves hit him again and again. He was plunging downward faster and faster toward the fragmenting continent, his arms punching uselessly against the onrushing air that stole the breath from his lungs. Another explosion shook him violently. Now he was falling faster, screaming against the sound that seemed to draw him downward.
He was falling, hurtling down at almost terminal velocity, when …
Hunter’s body struck the floor heavily, causing him to exhale involuntarily and then gasp for breath with heaving lungs.
It took several seconds for him to look up at the hospital bed, and the sterile white walls to realize that he had been dreaming. But everything—the sensation of falling, the noise of the explosions, the continent breaking up—had been so vivid …
So real …
Boom!
He instinctively dove under the metal frame of the hospital bed as the shock wave hit the sturdy little building, washing over and around it with the sound of the explosion. Hunter looked around as dust filtered down from a hundred crevices in the room. Whatever else it was, he thought, this wasn’t just a nightmare.
Another explosion shook the building.
The base must be under attack! he thought, his mind racing.
Another blast, this one closer, more powerful.
He had to get up, his brain told him. He had to fight back!
His groggy mind attempted to cut through the last traces of the drug’s fog as he forced unwilling limbs to respond with urgency. He clumsily stepped into his flightsuit, washed and neatly pressed and folded on the edge of his bed. His boots half-on, he stumbled heavily to the door, banging his shin painfully on the frame, and staggered quickly down the hall to the exit that led to the flightline.
Another explosion rocked him just as he reached the building’s main door. His eyes finally cleared and saw that the puff of smoke and the spit of flame out on the runway was real enough.
That’s when he stopped in his tracks, and literally pinched himself hoping now that he was asleep and the horror before him was just another dream.
But it wasn’t …
Out on the flightline were ten smoldering wrecks. He squinted and realized that he was looking at ten smoking and burning air frames—the remains of ten F-16s.
Someone—or something—had blown them up.
The smoking hulks lay heavily on their smashed airframes, landing gear crumpled beneath them, their backs broken in a hideous posture of death. The shattered air intakes pointed skyward at crazy angles, their now-jagged metal mouths were frozen in silent death cries.
He turned back toward the hospital, one more time convincing himself that he was actually up and out of the building, and not still experiencing the sedative hallucination.
But it was all too real.
He turned back to the almost surrealistic scene. A pair of jeeps were parked in front of the now-destroyed aircraft on the tarmac, and several soldiers wearing uniforms Hunter didn’t recognize were unloading what looked like another batch of high explosives. They called out in a strange language to each other, methodically preparing another charge and detonator for the next aircraft in line.
Hunter froze again.
He stared hard at the small blue flags perched on the jeeps’ front fenders, and the light blue armbands worn by the sappers. They bore the blue field and white globe symbol of the United Nations.
What the hell was the UN doing here at Rota, demolishing their airplanes? And why were the US personnel at the base—Jones, Ben, Toomey, Blue, and the others—allowing it to go on?
Then he noticed the small cluster of Air Force personnel standing woodenly behind a hastily erected barricade of saw horses and bright yellow plastic tape. Seemingly impervious to the smoldering glares of raw hatred from the confined men, two of the foreign soldiers stood impassively in front of the group, watching them closely, with their AK-47 assault rifles at the ready.
Puzzled for a moment, Hunter looked both at the demolition team, then at the improvised holding pen. Then he lowered his head and began charging toward the last two F-16s.
A warning cry went up from one of the guards around the airmen; another raised his rifle to sight in the running pilot. Suddenly one of the confined men—it was Blue—leaped forward and struck the guard’s gun just as the trigger was pulled, causing the bullet to ricochet off the ground.
For his trouble, the mechanic was leveled with a chop of the second guard’s rifle butt.
But Hunter kept running, oblivious to the commotion over at the holding pen. He was on top of the startled demolition team before they knew what was happening. The two unarmed soldiers carrying the plastic explosives were quickly dispatched by Hunter’s powerful punches, and they hit the tarmac heavily as their dangerous baggage was thrown to the ground in the fight.
Hunter barely had time to turn his head back toward the holding area before the savage thrust of an AK-47 rifle stock to the back of his neck crumpled him to his knees beside one of the wrecked planes.
Blue’s face loomed large above him as his eyes gradually focused again. Hunter rubbed the back of his head where a painful lump was forming. He looked up at the lanky crew chief, whose face was twisted in a tight mask of barely controlled fury.
Suddenly, the mechanic was hustled away by two UN guards, dragged over to a wall nearby and instantly shot in the head.
Now an officer wearing a blue patch leaned over Hunter, a .45 automatic in his hand. The dazed pilot heard the pistol’s hammer click open.
At that moment, Jones came up beside the officer, and started pleading with him. The UN officer was staring at Jones, a rock hard expression on his face. Finally, the officer nodded harshly and stormed away.
Next thing he knew, Hunter was hauled to his feet by the two UN soldiers.
All the while he was yelling out: “What the hell is going on? Who are these guys? Why are they pranging all the goddamn planes?”
“They’re Finnish soldiers,” Jones told him warily once he was thrown inside the pen by the soldiers. “They’re the enfor
cers of the cease-fire, under the guidance of the United Nations.”
Hunter was confused. He sat down and took a series of deep breaths, trying like hell to clear his head. “Finns? … UN? … why are they blowing up our airplanes?”
Jones looked him straight in the eye.
“Buck up,” the senior officer said through clenched teeth, his tone more serious than at any other time Hunter could remember. “A lot happened while you were knocked out. Now these guys are not going to let me stay around here much longer, so I’m going to tell it all to you once and straight from the hip. Save the questions—it ain’t going to do you any good to know the answers. Got it?”
Hunter nodded. “Yes, sir …”
“OK, here’s the situation in a nutshell. The Soviets nuked the US. Started two nights ago, ended this morning.”
“What?”
“It was a bolt-from-the-blue sneak attack. Everything from North Dakota down to Texas is gone. Wiped out. All our underground ICBMs are gone.”
“I cant believe this …”
“Believe it, Major. There’s more: The President is dead—assassinated. Along with his Cabinet, his family, his kids, everyone. We’re not sure but we think the Vice President is running things. But someone in Washington has already tossed in the towel. That means the war is really over now—and we lost.”
“But, the ceasefire,” Hunter said, never more feeling like he was living a nightmare as at that moment. “The Soviets gave up … I remember that.”
“It was bullshit, Hawk,” Jones said, his teeth still clenched in silent rage. “The President got it less than an hour after the Sovs cried uncle. Two hours later, the missiles began to fall.”
“Did we retaliate?”
“No,” Jones answered. “Not one of our missiles got off the ground.”
“But the Navy subs …”
“The Navy’s sub launch systems were sabotaged,” Jones said harshly. “I told you, not one of our missiles were launched. Someone high up in the US government called off all our defensive systems. Someone up there must have been a first-class Soviet mole …”
Hunter could not stop shaking his head. He felt like his brain fibers were going to burst.
Jones drew even closer to him, eyeing one of the guards who had moved closer to them. “Now there’s something you are going to have to understand, right now,” he said in a harsh near whisper. “There is no more United States of America. Get that? It’s gone. And these boys here will shoot you, right now, if you even say those words, United States of America.”
“What the hell are you talking about, sir?” Hunter said. This, of all the news, shook him the deepest.
“It’s called ‘The New Order,’ Hawk,” Jones said quickly as two more guards moved up beside him. “It’s the terms that the U … I mean, that our former country agreed to as part of the armistice … That’s why they’re blowing up our airplanes. Part of the ‘peace agreement.’ We have agreed to be disarmed. Both here and back home … These ‘neutral’ bastards have agreed to help things along …”
At that point, the two guards grabbed Jones and began hauling him away. Inexplicably, a new Mercedes-Benz pulled up, and the guards began leading Jones toward it.
“Remember, Hawk,” he yelled as he was being put in the car. “It’s no more. The country is gone. Don’t talk about it … to anyone …”
Jones was then literally thrown into the car. Five guards climbed in with him and with a screech of tires, the car drove away, down the flightline and out of the base.
At that point, one more deafening explosion thundered across the landing strip. The last F-16 reared up off its landing gear, propelled by an orange fireball that encircled the plane’s nose and wings, setting off a series of secondary explosions inside the jet’s fuselage.
The interceptor’s nose reared up almost vertically in an anguished breach to the cold Spanish sun. Then the crippled jet came down hard, smashing the thin struts of its main landing gear and nosewheel as the heavy fuselage slammed the ground. Sparks of flaming fuel and oil streamed from the airplane as if it were bleeding to death in the flames.
It was his all-white airplane.
Hunter felt sick as he watched the F-16 convulse in its death agony. How could this be happening? How many millions of dollars were being systematically destroyed? How could they ever be replaced?
His mind was now racing in afterburner. Had they really fought and won against impossible odds at the fighting front, only to be stabbed in the back? Had America been the victim of a deliberate, well-rehearsed plan?
It would be later before he learned all the details of the New Order: No more NATO. No more armies. No more weapons. No more flag.
No more America.
He knew in his consciousness that his country had been betrayed. Done in by an inside job. Someone up top. Hunter felt sick again, sick to his stomach that an American, one who undoubtedly held a position of trust, had been so callous—so ruthless as to sell out his own people. How many had died during the last few terrible days, just to prevent this type of tyranny? And how many innocents had died in the deadly Soviet nuclear strike?
He knew there was blood on somebody’s hands.
A secondary explosion ripped through his fighter and Hunter felt a sharp pain in his heart. It was as if he was experiencing the mortal agony of the dying F-16. In a real sense, he was dying. Along with his airplane. Along with his country.
But even in the depths of that terrible despair; even from the dark hole of a grave that Hunter found himself hurtling through; even though he was physically and mentally beaten, the pain stopped. Suddenly, he felt something was still beating deep inside him. Something down in the unfathomed reaches of his innermost soul was stirring. Lights flashed across his psyche. He knew his dreams during the drug-induced state were no mere coincidence. And now, he knew more about this seeping horror than Jones or the other pilots, or the Finns or the Soviets. He had lived side by side with this evil, thrashing it out in his dreams even as the dreams were becoming reality.
There was a new, terrible, powerful anger boiling within him now.
Somehow, he vowed silently—some way, some day—he would pay back those who had taken this from him.
Part III
The Final Storm
Chapter 35
IT TOOK THREE DAYS to present the entire book of testimony to the court.
As Dr. Leylah read every word aloud with conviction and feeling, the trial’s justices, the witnesses, the thousands of spectators, and even the defendant himself followed along, at times fascinated, at times angry.
Hunter’s own emotions swung from intense pride to acute embarrassment as he heard the re-telling of his exploits and those of his colleagues during the nightmarish days of the war.
But it was actually another thought that burned in his mind during the three days. It was the comment that Fitzie had made to him just before the second day of the trial—that America was in more danger now than ever before.
Throughout the trial, Hunter had kept an eye on the Irishman as he squirmed in his chair just behind the prosecution table, his ruddy face showing the signs of strain of someone who knew a terrible secret and could not unload it on anybody.
But it was a secret he wouldn’t have to keep much longer …
The fifth day of the trial dawned cold and rainy over Syracuse.
Once more the throngs crowded into the Dome; once more all the principals took their appointed seats. Now that the prosecution’s opening statement was finished, it was the defense team’s turn.
Just about everyone assumed that one of the Finnish lawyers would take the stand and, through an agonizing translation process, would read a rebuttal as lengthy as the one prepared by the prosecution.
So it was to just about everyone’s shock when the traitor himself rose to take the stand.
The Chief Justice was the first to recover his composure, slamming his gavel down three times to silence the huge crowd. With admirab
le aplomb, the judge led the ex-VP through the swearing-in process, emphasizing the words “… so help you God.”
Once done, the traitor took his seat, adjusted his microphone, looked out first on the crowd and then directly at Hunter and said:
“I hereby demand that this trial be stopped and that I be released immediately. If this is not done, then at noontime tomorrow, a Soviet ICBM will be launched and its nuclear-armed warhead will detonate at a height of twenty thousand feet directly above this dome.”
An absolute blanket of silence fell onto the crowd. Had they heard correctly? Had the traitor really threatened to nuke Syracuse?
Once again, the Chief Justice was the first person to come to his senses. He asked the ex-VP to repeat his statement, and the traitor, reciting the sentences like a child does his school lesson, respoke the dire threat, word for word.
That’s when all hell broke loose in the Dome. Some of the spectators attempted to charge the cordoned off trial area, only to be restrained by the strong arms of the Marine security forces. Others, obviously taking the traitor’s threat seriously, tried to flee the place. Once again, it took a strong action by the inside security forces to push back those panic-stricken spectators, thus preventing a disastrous stampede.
All the while the Chief Justice was smashing his gavel on the table, its pounding reverberating throughout the Dome via the sophisticated public address system.
“Order!” the judge screamed. “Order in this court!”
It took five full minutes before some semblance of calm returned to the Dome. All the while the traitor sat in the dock, a maddening smirk on his face.
Once the place had quieted down, the Chief Justice, angry beyond words, turned to the head of the defense team and demanded an explanation.
The Finnish lawyer obediently stood up and carried a document to the Justices’ bench, handing it to the lead judge. A quick, hushed conversation ensued, then an uneasy silence fell on the place as the Chief Justice read the document.
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