Final Storm (35 page)

“In other words, they have control of the ultimate ‘smart bombs,’” Hunter said. “Smart ICBMs, almost …”

“Yes,” Fitz answered. “The satellites not only can keep an eye on all of us, day or night, in all kinds of weather, they can also steer a nuke to land on a dime.”

Another damning silence fell.

“And because there are no ASAT weapons around anywhere,” Jones said in a near whisper, “there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”

“
Yes, there is
,” Hunter said quickly, firmly. “We can go in and take out that radar station.”

“In Central Asia?” someone asked. “How? If we can’t make a move without those bastards tracking every one of us?”

Hunter’s eyes suddenly began to glow. “There’s one place those satellites can’t see,” he said.

Early the next morning, the UA Command Staff flew out of Syracuse, convinced that the city had been completely evacuated. The ex-VP, under heavy guard, had been moved back to Washington earlier.

At exactly 12:01 PM, a five-kiloton-yield Soviet-launched nuclear warhead detonated twenty thousand feet above the city.

T
HREE WEEKS LATER, HUNTER
was standing on the weather-beaten docks of an abandoned shipyard on the Virginia coast, remembering a dream he once had. A dream about submarines. And a port with many military ships, most long ago abandoned to the salt and rust. And talking to people he didn’t recognize.

“Welcome to Newport News, Major,” the man in the United American Navy uniform told him. “Such as it is …”

The scene at the port was right out of his dream. There was a line of former US Navy ships now rusted and scavenged for parts. Most of the shipyard and its facilities had fallen into disrepair. And he had never met the man who was now shaking his hand.

“I’m Admiral Cousins,” he said. “Commander of the United American Navy.”

Hunter knew the UAN was little more than a collection of armed merchant ships and some semi-reliable destroyers and corvettes. While in the post-Big War years the United Americans had, by necessity, built up their ground forces as well as their air strength, the maritime contingent had been left behind.

Once a bustling port and shipbuilding center, Newport News had been an early victim of the New Order’s disarmament program. Hunter’s eyes scanned the rusting hulks of Navy warships that had been sabotaged by the treacherous New Order goons, or deliberately scuttled by their crews to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Mid-Aks.

Now, more than forty once-proud ships of the line lay in ruins or on the muddy bottom of the crowded harbor, their skeleton-like superstructures protruding above the surface like tombstones. Hunter recognized the huge forward compartment of a Ticonderoga-class
AEGIS
cruiser, peppered with ugly wounds of festering rust and scale. Further on were two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, both sunk deep in the silty muck. The closer of the two had rolled over on its side during a recent storm, exposing its gray belly to the harsh sun and rusting waves. Now a flock of hungry seagulls walked its barnacle-encrusted keel, just as sailors had once patrolled her narrow decks.

And somewhere below the gray waters that lapped at the dead ships and the leaning piers, Hunter knew there were submarines. Like dying sharks, the giant prowlers of the deep sea had plunged to the sea floor to meet their end. Some had been the victims of the Mid-Ak’s mindless destruction after the war—torpedoes had been detonated inside the forward and rear tubes, tearing the bows and sterns open like huge firecrackers in oversized tin cans. In mortal agony, the stricken ships had turned out their innards to the sea and been lost forever.

The waters must have foamed and churned with the carnage of dying ships, Hunter thought. Oil slicks must have covered the beaches for miles. But now the water was clean—the sea had stripped the wrecks of their polluting fluids and they became like natural reefs. The waves that washed up onto the beach around the docks were white with the natural crisp foam of seawater, almost completely uncontaminated by the telltale rainbow-like pattern of oil and gasoline that used to cover the harbor’s surface like a dirty blanket.

Except Hunter’s sharp eyes detected a single iridescent trail of wavy color floating on the gentle waves in the harbor. It led a meandering path from the storm-battered dock out into the harbor until it disappeared under the locked door of the huge covered berth along the ruins of the gigantic shipyard complex. The nondescript building blended in with the other hulks of the harbor, its rusting sides and rippling roof giving the appearance of a long-abandoned railroad car.

But Hunter knew the building was not abandoned. He watched a thin trail of gray smoke curl upward from the smokestack near the shore side of the enormous structure. The muffled sounds of workers inside—hammers, torches, cranes and lifts—were magnified by the steel walls and roof, echoing out over the harbor like the voices of the ghost ships that rested here.

Inside the covered berth, Hunter knew, was the first part of a bold scheme to strike back at the Soviets—the first direct retaliation against the Russian soil since World War Three.

Entering the massive building past the heavily armed Marine guards, Hunter’s ears were assaulted by the crashing din of hammers on steel, the staccato pounding of high-powered rivet guns, and the sizzle of acetylene torches cutting through hardened metal. Sparks flew everywhere in the dark cavern, from pounding sledges and arc welders, and from the brilliant flares of the metal-cutting torches.

It took Hunter’s eyes several seconds to adjust to the relative darkness inside, until he oriented himself and made his way across the cluttered floor.

He approached a small but powerfully built man in sweat-stained Navy denims, carefully welding a massive steel hatch cover in place. A full face shield covered the man’s head, its tiny slit of smoked glass reflecting the dazzling shower of sparks cascading from the welder’s tip.

Satisfied at last with the weld, the man cut off the torch and turned to face Hunter. He tilted the heavy mask back to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Hey, Hawk, old buddy,” the man said furiously pumping Hunter’s outstretched hand. “How you doing, pal?”

The man was Navy Lieutenant Stan Yastrewski, better known as “Yaz.” Hunter had first met the Navy officer during the Lucifer Crusade, as the desperate struggle in the Mediterranean against the renegade fanatic “Viktor,” had come to be called.

During the Big War, Yaz and his crew had survived the wreck of their nuclear sub, the USS Albany, off the coast of Ireland. Settling first in England, then eventually moving to Algiers, Yaz and his men became a free-lance team of military technicians and were hired out to consult on high-tech weapons being used in the madness of the New Order world. Hunter, along with a team of British mercenaries, had hired Yaz and his boys to help them tow an abandoned aircraft carrier—the USS
Saratoga—
across the Med to engage the hordes of Lucifer’s armies at the Suez.

After that battle, an extraordinary series of events took place that brought Yaz back to the States, this time as a prisoner of the dreaded Circle Army. Hunter and the United American Army liberated Football City, where Yaz was being held, and ever since, the Navy man had worked closely with the United American Command.

“Good to see you, Yaz,” Hunter shouted above the noise inside the building. “How’s it going? We gonna be ready in time?”

“I hope so, Hawk,” the sweat-streaked Navy man answered. “It may look like a Chinese fire drill in here, but believe it or not, we’ve been working round the clock for twenty days now. But I think we’re going to get these old girls back together again.”

Hunter nodded, and both men turned toward the immense steel and concrete trough cut into the floor of the massive building. Nestled inside the cradle, surrounded by hundreds of workers, were two enormous, but somewhat battered US Navy Trident submarines.

“I’ve been involved in crazy plans before,” Hunter yelled to Yaz. “But this has got to be the craziest….”

Yaz’s team of ex-submariners had been hard at work ever since they received word from Jones that the two oddly configured subs had to be refurbished and modified—damn quickly.

The subs, the USS
Theodore Roosevelt
and the USS
Ohio
, had both been in dry dock when the New Order came down. When Newport News was overrun by the Mid-Aks, the two boats had had the guts of their missile launching systems stripped out by reason of some unknown, hare-brained Mid-Ak directive. All that remained of the boats when democratic forces retook the area were the two hollow shells. But fortunately, their propulsion systems had been left intact.

The fledgling United American Navy took command of the boats and had actually put them through sea trials, although with no weapons aboard, the maneuvers were purely for training, and, truth be known, somewhat recreational.

But as it turned out, the massive hollow subs were just what the United Americans needed to carry out their bold plan. The huge empty missile bay behind the conning tower on each ship was now being converted into an equally huge cargo hold. Even now, as Hunter and Yaz talked, Yaz’s shipfitters were fashioning hatch covers for the compartments, all the work being done hidden in the massive shelter, away from the ever-prying eyes of the Soviet-controlled geo-synchronic satellites.

Yaz led Hunter to his makeshift office in a quieter corner of the facility and produced two cups and a steaming pot of coffee.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard about what happened up in Syracuse,” Yaz said, handing a cup of joe to Hunter. “Is everything really gone?”

Hunter nodded grimly. “Just about,” he said. “The warhead itself wasn’t very large. But it was the airburst detonation that really did all the damage.”

“Those bastards,” Yaz said through gritted teeth. Then he added: “But I have to give everyone involved in that trial some credit. At least we didn’t give in to their blackmail.”

Hunter took a gulp of his coffee. “I agree,” he said. “Mr. Benedict Arnold is locked up so tight Houdini couldn’t get him out. But, to tell you the truth, I’m not so sure that history will think losing an entire city in return was such a noble gesture.”

“Do they expect any more launchings?” Yaz asked nervously. “I mean, if they ever knew what we were up to here …”

Hunter slowly shook his head, and for the first time in a while, he actually allowed himself a grin. “No, we don’t think anything will come over,” he said, adding, “not any time soon, anyway …”

Yaz’s eyes brightened somewhat. “You seem pretty sure about that,” he said.

Hunter took another swig of coffee. “It’s just about the only damn thing I
am
sure of these days,” he replied.

“Well, fill me in,” Yaz prodded him.

Hunter shrugged. “It’s simple, really,” he said. “One of our decontamination teams went into Syracuse seven days after the blast, took a bunch of readings, even recovered small parts of the ICBM re-entry booster.

“We ran some tests and found out that not only was it a liquid fueled booster that delivered the warhead, but that the fuel used was a mixture. Some old stale stuff, with a little bit of new stuff …”

Yaz knew enough about ICBM boosters to get Hunter’s meaning.

“So they’re mixing their fuels,” he said. “Dangerous business. Very tricky …”

“And very experimental,” Hunter said. “You know it takes weeks to mix old stuff with new stuff. Just about a drop at a time, as I understand it. You never know how much or how little and the only way to test it is to fire it.”

“So,” Yaz said, pulling his chin in thought. “We’ve got to figure that although they hit upon a working formula, it will take them some time to mix another batch.”

“That’s right,” Hunter said, draining his coffee. “Minimum four weeks, with a few days for refueling. Now we’ve got to assume that they’ve been working on it now for three weeks.”

“So we’ve got just a little over a week to do something about all this,” Yaz concluded.

“Bingo,” Hunter said. “It’s going right to the wire. And I cant imagine them
not
hitting Washington with their second strike.”

“Those sons-of-bitches,” Yaz said, turning to refill his coffee cup. Then he pointed to the two subs.

“Well, if everything goes right,” Yaz told him, “we’ll be ready to launch in forty-eight hours.”

“I’m really glad to hear you say that,” Hunter said, pouring himself another half cup. “You know we could never have even considered this mission if it weren’t for you and your guys.”

“Are you kidding?” Yaz said. “We’re just glad we could help. I mean, if you can’t chip in when the alternative is Soviet missiles raining down on you, well …”

Yaz’s voice trailed off for a moment.

“But let me ask you a question, Hawk,” he continued. “I’m sure well have the delivery wagons in shape. How about the cargo?”

Hunter instinctively lowered his voice.

“It’s on the way,” he said. “All in pieces. Some being carried by truck. Others by railcar. They’re all taking different routes, nothing that can be tracked directly to this place.”

Yaz nodded, at once comprehending the enormity of their task, as well as the danger.

“It’s going to be one hell of a tight fit,” he said, leaning back toward the work area. “For
both
subs. Well be lucky if we can find an extra place to put a blanket down and go to sleep.”

“I know what you mean,” Hunter said. “But the way things are going, I don’t feel much like sleeping anyway.”

E
IGHT HOURS LATER, HUNTER
and Yaz were standing back in the same spot, once again drinking thick, black coffee.

The pilot had just put in an overtime shift, helping Yaz and his guys weld the last components of the
Ohio’s
cargo hold in place. Now, they watched as a huge crane mounted on the dock next to the sub’s cradle swung into action.

“The moment of truth,” Yaz said anxiously. “I just hope my calculations weren’t off.”

The big mechanical arm reached over to what seemed like a disorderly jumble of green metal, or more accurately, pieces of a huge model airplane. Like a robot arm grasping pieces of a child’s toy, the huge claw picked up a tapered wing and delicately lowered it into the yawning cargo hold of the
Ohio
, where it was carefully secured by a crew of stevedores, and padded to receive the next piece.