Skyfire (20 page)

Despite the heat and the smell and Smiley's incessant tapping, Yaz finally managed to put the sub's transmission gear and pump back together about an hour later.

He sent a message to the captain, who arrived inside the stuffy power chamber several minutes later to watch the tryout of the repair job himself. Taking full note of the officer's long, razor-sharp knife, Yaz took one deep breath and switched on the sub's power-transfer electric generator, the piece of equipment which actually ran the clutch assembly.

To his enormous relief, the clutch moved and the transmission went back to working perfectly right away.

The captain immediately put a bear hug on Yaz that near suffocated him. The officer even tapped Smiley on the head after Yaz mentioned the man had helped greatly in the repair.

The captain then told Yaz that a man with his knowledge of sub workings was valuable to them all. Thus, his talents were needed elsewhere.

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With that, he was led away from the cramped, stifling room, leaving Smiley only enough time to tap out a hasty good-bye.

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It didn't take Hunter more than a few minutes to get a visual sighting on the RPV.

After launching from the dunes behind Slaughter Beach, he simply followed the thin trail of dirty brown exhaust the small drone had left behind. Moving at a speed of 240 mph, he quickly spotted the craft skimming along the waves heading dead east. Within another twenty seconds he was practically right above it. Then, throttling back to 100 mph, he was able to match its speed.

Taking up a position slightly above and behind the RPV, Hunter knew the easy part was over. Now a bigger mystery remained: Who was controlling the RPV?

The question itself was fraught with implications which, in turn, led to other questions. The RPV was obviously linked with the massive bombardment that had simply obliterated the force of Norsemen trapped on Slaughter Beach. Were the three projectiles which caused the blast actually shot at the Norsemen? Or had they been fired in their support and simply fell short of hitting the American troops on the dunes beyond? Had the same thing happened back at Nauset: when a similar explosion-it, too coming on the heels of a RPV flyover-destroyed a smaller force of raiders?

More important, who had the ability these days to deliver so much firepower?

Short of seeing a nuclear device itself being detonated, the massive explosions were by far the most violent Hunter had ever witnessed.

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As always, his head was filled with theories, but intuition and experience told Hunter that he'd be wise not to jump to conclusions. War was seldom a clear-cut division of right and wrong.

He did know that the RPV was a classic battlefield drone ship, with a TV

camera in its nose that was capable of either sending back live pictures of a battle in progress or performing poststrike recon by videotaping the battlefield for viewing once the drone was recaptured.

More importantly, he also knew that the range of small aircraft was not much more than a hundred miles, which meant that its mother ship could be no more than fifty miles off the coast.

Keeping one eye on the RPV, Hunter slowly raised the Harrier up to ten thousand feet and scanned the eastern horizon. All he could see was a single fishing boat making its way in a northerly direction approximately thirty miles from his position.

At that moment his radio crackled to life.

It was Fitz, calling him from the Football City Ranger outpost back in Milford. The Irishman reported that while none of the Norsemen survived the enormous blast, it had caused only minor injuries-blown-out eardrums mostly-to the Football City troops and the Delaware militiamen.

Hunter then briefed Fitz on his intent to track the RPV to its source.

"I've got it in sight and tracking due east," he told the Irishman. "It's got to land somewhere, sometime soon. I'm going to be there when it does."

"Then let me pass on a word of caution," Fitz replied through the occasional bursts of static. "We were lucky here in Delaware that no damage was done by these bastards. . ."

"But?" Hunter asked Fitz warily.

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"But other locations along the coast weren't so lucky," Fitz said grimly.

Fitzgerald went on to report the disturbing news that other targets along the East Coast had been attacked by the raiders the previous night: the cities of Hampton, Williamsburg, Norfolk, and Portsmouth in Old Virginia; an air base on Cape Hatteras, and the city of Wilmington in North Carolina Free State; Myrtle Beach, Charlestown, and Cape Remain in South Carolina. Nine targets in all.

Some were defended by militia and regular UA troops, others were not.

Casualties were very high in some remote areas, and in a few places, many hostages were taken. And from all reports, very few of the raiders were killed or captured.

Hunter was so instantly enraged he couldn't speak for a few moments. The sheer audacity of the Norsemen was overwhelming, their brazenness extreme to the point of folly. No matter that they had been handed a defeat at Montauk and one of their subs was captured. No matter that that had failed miserably in the Milford raid. They still appeared intent on raping the American coastline with these hit-and-run battles, all while the entire country was caught up in a state of media-whipped panic and in the midst of a devastating fuel crisis.

And worst of all, for Hunter, the bastards still had Dominique and one of his best friends.

But the news of the increased attacks also told Hunter something about the enemy.

"The scope of their attacks is getting bigger every time," he radioed Fitzgerald. "I think it means that they're gearing up for a major strike, somewhere farther down the coast."

"Could be," Fitz replied. "Though that would still leave the question as to how these guys can all get together and act in unison when they claim there's no central command point."

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"Well, that's exactly how the old Vikings used to operate," Hunter told him.

"Very little guidance from the top. Back then, the clan elders just used to get their guys pointed in the right direction and then let 'em go."

"It's a fascinating way to fight a war, isn't it?" Fitz came back. "It almost put us heroes at a disadvantage. We can't cut the head off the snake if the snake has no head."

"There's something there," Hunter radioed back, his voice almost raspy with anger. "We've just got to know where to look."

A burst of static interrupted the transmission for a few seconds.

"Keep me updated, Mike," Hunter told Fitz after the line had cleared. "I'll contact you when I know more out here."

Fitz added a word of luck and then signed off.

Coincidentally, at that moment, Hunter saw the RPV take a turn to the north and then settle into a flight path that would take it right in line with the seemingly innocent-looking fishing boat.

Hunter was expecting the vehicle's mother ship to be something a little more elaborate, but already he could see the crew raising its fishing net and positioning it as retrieval barrier.

Ritually tapping his flight suit's breast pocket-the place where he kept a small tattered American flag wrapped around photo of Dominique-he felt a surge of adrenaline roar through him. Instantly, he hit his throttles and put the jumpjet into a screeching climb.

Time to get some answers he thought grimly.

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Elizabeth Sandlake rolled over and briefly admired the naked body of the beautiful Spanish woman lying next to her.

The woman's name was Juanita Juarez and she belonged to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth ran her hand up the lovely dark skin of the woman's thighs, over her tight stomach and around her full breasts. Her fingers lightly touched the dark beauty's face and caressed her hair.

What woman would not want to sleep with such a beautiful creature? Elizabeth thought.

She's the next best thing . . . Elizabeth found herself thinking.

But in the next moment, she felt all traces of pleasantness wash out of her.

Her head hurt and her stomach was growling. She could feel another brutal hangover coming on. Her own long hair was a jumble of tangles and one touch of her face proved her carefully applied makeup was now smeared and runny.

Looking around in the dim light of the sub's perfume-drenched cabin, she saw that the place was in an outrageous state of disarray. Beside the bed she shared with the sleeping woman were three empty myx bottles. A fourth had been spilled sometime during the night

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and had soaked a large part of the cabin floor. Lying right next to this pool of red liquor was the discarded fighter pilot's flight suit; it too was covered with myx stains.

The pilot's helmet and a ceremonial male organ modality were also lying nearby.

The night before had been wild-too wild.

The hallucinogenic liquor had flowed more freely than at any other time since she'd been aboard the sleek submarine, known as Fire Bats Nord, or Four Boats-North. Her fragile memory told her that no less than seven women had romped in the bed with her and Juanita the night before, taking turns wearing both the pilot's suit and the dildo. At the time, it had been pure unadulterated erotic pleasure. Now, with the onslaught of the morning after, Elizabeth was beginning to regret it all.

This can't go on much longer, she thought as she rolled over and begged her head to stop aching.

Elizabeth was quite insane-but her madness was of a most peculiar nature.

True, it was a debilitating, self-destructive psychosis. But she nevertheless willingly gave herself to it. Messianic and nymphomanic, obsessive and schizophrenic, megalomanic and paranoid, Elizabeth had enough loose ends to stock an entire ward of lunatics. But she was not at the mercy of this multilevel complex-she reveled in it.

That was, after all, the best part of the insanity.

She was an educated woman-she held a Ph.D. in the esoteric study of Deep Zone Archeology. But she also had minored in psychology, so she had long ago recognized exactly what was wrong with her and how she had come by the affliction. It was the result her being held in total isolation in deep caves in the Yucatan by the gold-hungry Canal Nazis of the Twisted Cross. It was a simple snap she had felt in her brain

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that fateful night while locked in the deepest depths of a cavern beneath an ancient Mayan pyramid. After that, her entire life changed. Now, she wanted nothing less than to rule the world.

Several minutes went by, during which Elizabeth's headache throbbed to new heights of agony.

She turned once again toward the naked Juanita, who was just coming out of her myx-induced slumber. A warm caress of the Spanish woman's lovely body eased Elizabeth's pain a bit, a respite she eagerly prayed would continue.

Despite the perpetual red haze of her days and nights, Elizabeth did not consider her attraction to Juanita to be part of her madness. As it was, the Spanish beauty had come to her at precisely the right time in her life, the moment when her brief reign of power at the Canadian fortress was at its peak.

It was no exaggeration to say that Elizabeth had been an actual queen there-her subjects being a volatile mix of escaped supercriminals, Amazonian women fighters, and the hired guns of the Guardians. And although the Americans and Canadians had brought the regime to a quick and bitter end, it was not totally unexpected. Ever prepared, Elizabeth, Juanita, and two bodyguards were miles away from the place five minutes after the first shots were fired.

So it was with fondness and memories that she gazed upon the nude form of Juanita. The woman had been involved in the notorious Knights of the Burning Cross fiasco before finding her way to the secret Canadian fortress. Upon arriving, Elizabeth had quickly laid claim to her, especially after hearing that Juanita had been erotically involved with Hawk Hunter prior to her fleeing the American Southwest for the wilds of Al-185

that fateful night while locked in the deepest depths of a cavern beneath an ancient Mayan pyramid. After that, her entire life changed. Now, she wanted nothing less than to rule the world.

Several minutes went by, during which Elizabeth's headache throbbed to new heights of agony.

She turned once again toward the naked Juanita, who was just coming out of her myx-induced slumber. A warm caress of the Spanish woman's lovely body eased Elizabeth's pain a bit, a respite she eagerly prayed would continue.

Despite the perpetual red haze of her days and nights, Elizabeth did not consider her attraction to Juanita to be part of her madness. As it was, the Spanish beauty had come to her at precisely the right time in her life, the moment when her brief reign of power at the Canadian fortress was at its peak.

It was no exaggeration to say that Elizabeth had been an actual queen there-her subjects being a volatile mix of escaped sup&rcriminals, Amazonian women fighters, and the hired guns of the Guardians. And although the Americans and Canadians had brought the regime to a quick ind bitter end, it was not totally unexpected. EverAprepared, Elizabeth, Juanita, and two bodyguards wenj miles away from the place five minutes after the firt'i shots were fired.

/So it was with fondness and memories that she gazed u.pon the nude form of Juanita. The woman had been involved in the notorious Knights of the Burning Cross fiasco before finding her way to the secret Canadian fortress. Upon arriving, Elizabeth had quickly laid claim to her, especially after hearing that Juanita had been erotically involved with Hawk Hunter prior to her fleeing the American Southwest for the wilds of Al-185

berta.

This had made a very important connection in Elizabeth's mind; Hunter was a big part of her distorted world, too. After all, it was he who had bravely rescued her from the Canal Nazis. (As a reward she had offered herself to him in many different ways, but, though tempted, he never took her up on any of them.) Then, when she attempted to assassinate the traitorous ex-vice president of the United States as part of her plan to take over America, it had been Hunter who grabbed her gun and saved her from being shot by security forces.