Skyfire (29 page)

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"Refill our cups," Hunter told him, "and give me an extra splash of your secret ingredient. Then fasten your seat belts, gentlemen. I've got a hell of a story to tell you."

Hunter told Jones and Fitzgerald what Wolf had told him.

The masked captain of the battleship was the youngest son of the man who served as the top leader of the Norsemen. Born in a small village in the northernmost part of Norway, Wolf had left home at an early age, traveling extensively throughout the world in the deceptively peaceful years before the Big War.

His father and older brother ran a successful fishing and canning operation and at one time owned as many as a hundred vessels, some of them the size of factory ships. Joint fishing operations with the prewar Russians, Finns, and Germans made the father and son very wealthy-so much so that they were able to wield considerable influence within the Norwegian government. Plus many people in that country knew of them as Norway's version of media celebrities.

"They were moguls," was how Hunter described them. "Fish moguls."

Though there was a ton of money floating around, Wolf, the youngest son, never wanted any part of the business. A free spirit, he was happier living day to day, exploring the world. He was also turned off by his father's rather odd spiritual beliefs. For years the old man had boasted that their family was directly descended from the old Vikings -a claim that would have been near impossible to definitely substantiate.

But oddly, as the family's wealth grew, so did this belief, up to the point that each one of the fishing vessels was christened with a Viking-style name, and each captain given a Viking alias, based on the names of the old Norse heroes.

Soon thereafter, the father took on the name Verden and 256

his oldest son became Thorgils, which was the name of Leif Erikson's son. At that point, the younger son began going by the name of Wolf, simply to preserve his family's original name.

When the Big War hit, there were few places in Europe -alas, few places in the world-that were not affected. However the northernmost part of Norway was one of them. The shockingly brief war passed far to the south, and when it was over, life went on almost undisturbed up in this arcticlike region.

There was a power vacuum in Norway, as well as the rest of Scandinavia, when the war broke out as the democratic governments collapsed. All around the globe, power-brokers, dictators, and opportunists scrambled to redefine national boundaries. Never one to miss which way the wind was blowing, Wolfs father-the Verden-declared within weeks of the armistice that a large section of northern Norway and Sweden was now his Hvit Kongedomme, or "White Kingdom."

With the help of Thorgils, he recruited first hundreds, then thousands, of seamen, mostly from his fishing fleet. He fed them, paid them, and then quite thoroughly indoctrinated them, convincing them, as he had convinced himself, that they were modern-day Vikings.

"At some point, about a half year ago, Verden met up with a rather mysterious group of Americans," Hunter told Fitz and Jones. "Criminals of some kind.

Eventually an alliance was formed. This group of Americans paid to have the raiders' submarines built, and in no time, the Norsemen began retracing the footsteps of their ancestors.

"Now somewhere in there, they all started drinking this highly addicting kind of booze called tnyx. According to Wolf, this stuff will do everything for you except zip up your pants and light a cigarette when you're done. Sounds weird, but the Norse can't get enough of the stuff. So they trade in their slaves and booty and get paid in food and fuel, but mostly in this myx. They've been raiding northern Europe for months, and now they're over here."

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"Raping, pillaging, murdering, kidnapping . . ." Fitz said with a mouthful of disgust. "And now addiction. That's quite a tradition to carry on."

"From the bartering side of things, it's the kidnapping that's most important to them," Hunter told his friends somberly. "Their whole campaign turns on how many eligible women they can abduct. These women are then transported back to Europe on their supply subs, where they are bought and sold like sacks of wheat."

Both Fitzgerald and Jones noticed a hard, cold anger come across Hunter as he spoke these words. It was painfully obvious that the fact that Dominique had been kidnapped by the raiders was never far from his mind.

"But what do these American criminals get out of it?" Jones asked, delicately trying to turn the conversation slightly.

Hunter took an extra long swig of his laced coffee and once again ran his hand through his hair.

"That's the scary part," he replied.

He then went on to explain to them what he knew about the Fire Bats, the Red Star ICBM warheads, and the plan to hold up the country to nuclear blackmail.

Both men were astonished to hear that Red Star had launched ICBMs at America.

But the danger that someone would actually get their hands on those same warheads was even more frightening.

"Then we are fighting more than just a large hit-and-run raiding force," Jones said in a grim whisper.

"Much more," Hunter replied soberly.

"Well, somehow we've got to track down these Fire Bats," Fitz said. "That's where the greatest danger lies."

"I agree," Hunter said. "But first we have to deal with the Norsemen themselves."

Jones looked around the crowded mess hall and then back at Hunter.

"Well, we're able to get three squadrons in," he explained. "Anything that was available on the QT and halfwise good at ground attack, we brought 'em down."

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Fitz pulled out a notebook from his coat pocket.

"To be precise," he said in his thick Irish brogue. "We've got twenty-five A-7

Strikefighters; twenty A-10D Thunderbolts, and a squadron of twelve A-4D

Skyhawks. Plus a few F-4s."

"Just what the doctor ordered," Hunter replied.

By bringing in ground attack planes-as opposed to highspeed jet fighters and interceptors-they were arming themselves with the best aircraft to counter the imminent Norse invasion. Although attack planes like the A-7's and A-10's were slower than most high-performance jet fighters, they could carry enormous amounts of ordnance, from big iron bombs to missiles to antipersonnel dispensers. No planes were better suited to stop slow-moving enemy ground troops.

"What kind of stuff will they be carrying?" Hunter asked.

Fitz and Jones finished their coffees at almost the same moment.

"Want to see for yourself?" Fitz suggested.

Ten minutes later, the three men were walking toward one of the base's largest hangars.

Now, with the sun fully set, Hunter was amazed how deserted the large Naval Air Station looked. He could see no lights burning, or hear any engines running. Nor were there any personnel walking about. Even his Harrier jet had been spirited away, towed into a nearby auxiliary hangar shortly after he had landed.

"We just have to assume they have spies everywhere," Jones told him. "Any major activity at this base, or the smaller ones we've set up down the coast, would tip them that we know they're coming soon. So everything, everywhere is under a blackout."

"Plus we've got the Football City Rangers out on perimeter patrol," Fitz added. "If there is anyone out there, they'll take them out, quickly and quietly."

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They reached the hangar and slipped inside. The place was illuminated only by dim red-tinted bulbs, ones that cast no shadows.

Hunter instantly took note of the dozen A-10's stored inside the aircraft barn. The squat but powerful Thunderbolts were painted in the light gray-and-blue camouflage scheme more appropriate in the overcast skies of Europe than sun-drenched Florida.

Beyond the line of A-10's there was a row of A-4 Skyhawks, the well-respected, tough little fighter bomber of the Vietnam era. Farther down the line were a half dozen A-7 Strikefighters, another rugged attack aircraft of Navy origin. There were also three F4 Phantoms sitting in the rear of the hangar.

"We've been able to muster three squadrons in all," Jones told Hunter.

"Fifty-four aircraft, total. Most are scattered down the coast. These airplanes here will be responsible for our northern flank up here in the Jacksonville area."

Walking beyond the line of attack planes, Hunter noticed more than a dozen large stacks covered in black canvas tarp.

"Here's a good example of what we'll be dropping on our friends," Fitz said.

He removed the first tarp to reveal a neatly stacked pile of Mk-20 Rockeye cluster bombs.

Hunter felt an involuntary shiver run through him; he knew what a cluster bomb could do. When a cluster bomb-known as a CBU-exploded it sent out dozens of fiaming pieces of highspeed shrapnel in every direction.

"The whole idea will be to hit these guys as soon as they come ashore," Jones explained. "Now from what we know about them, the Norsemen tend to stay together in clumps as they move toward their target. Drop one of these in the middle of one of their gangs and you'll shred the whole lot of them."

"And we've rigged up a system in which each airplane, whether its a Bolt, an A-7, or an A-4 can carry twelve CBU's apiece," Fitz added.

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They moved to the next stack. Fitz removed its covering to reveal several dozen Ml 16 AZ firebombs.

"Obviously napalm is tailor-made for this operation," Jones explained.

Hunter nodded grimly. The Ml 16 was the granddaddy of all napalm bombs. It was 137 inches long and about 18 inches in diameter. Inside it contained no less than 110 gallons of the deadly gelatin gasoline. On impact, the fiery Jell-O

would splash over three hundred feet or more, sticking to and burning anything it touched, from wood to metal to skin.

"We'll put these on the F-4's," Fitz said. "They're the best platform for the job."

Once uncovered, Hunter saw the third stack was made up of a grab-bag of weapons, including everything from AGM-65 Mavericks to Mk-82 general-purpose bombs.

"We'll hit them with this stuff once everything else is gone," Jones explained. 'That is, if we need to . . ."

Farther down toward the end of the hangar, a crew of gun mechanics were preparing ammunition belts for the attack planes. The A-7 Strikefighters were fitted with M61 20mm cannon, as were the F-4's and the A-4's. It was the A-10

that carried the biggest gun in town, though. The 'Bolts lugged around the enormous GAU-8/A GE Gatling gun, by far the largest weapon of its type ever installed in an airplane of its type. It was the ammunition for this monster that the gun crews were preparing.

"We're loading them up with HE and incendiary mix shells," Fitz explained, picking up one of the GAU gun shells and handing it to Hunter. The cannon round was more than eleven inches long and weighed a hefty two pounds. Each A-10 would carry 1,350 of these rounds into the battle, each one fitted with an M505A3 impact fuse. The punch supplied by these rounds was more suited to ripping open tanks and armored vehicles. On the human body, they would be simply devastating.

Hunter shook his head soberly.

"It's going to be a wholesale slaughter," Fitz said, almost 261

to himself. "God, I thought we'd be beyond all this by now."

Jones nodded grimly. "I know these are horrible weapons," he said. "Especially against such an undisciplined opponent. But, let's face it, we can't get sentimental at this point. These guys have to be stopped -cold."

Hunter suddenly flashed on a mental image of Dominique's lovely face and felt a familiar pang of dogged rage thump in his chest.

"My thoughts exactly," he replied quickly.

The three men then left the hangar, and Hunter was shown to his overnight quarters. With the crunch of activity aboard the New Jersey-especially the twenty-four hour period that he and Wolf did nothing but listen in on the Norsemen's preattack radio broadcasts-he hadn't slept a wink in the past three days. Though that was not unusual for him-he could stay up for many days on end once his adrenaline got pumping-Hunter knew that he had to get sleep eventually so he'd be on top of things once the bullets started flying.

But although the small overnight room located in the base's sick bay featured a comfortable bunk and a large fan to ward off the Florida heat, he couldn't go to sleep.

His head was filled with too many thoughts of the past few days. From the attack on Cape Cod, to the action off Montauk, to the battle on Slaughter Beach, to his contact with the USS New Jersey. All of it seemed so compressed in time and space it was almost like a dream.

Then he closed his eyes and once again saw the face of Dominique. With that pleasant antidote to soothe him, he quickly dropped off into a restful slumber.

It would be his last for a long time to come.

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Dominique was still groggy when the handmaidens awakened her.

Her throat was parched, her vision slightly blurry, and there was a low ringing in her ears-all side effects, she knew, of ingesting a large quantity of the myx. But there was also a pleasantly warm sensation still lingering between her upper thighs as well as around her nipples, and when she closed her eyes, it felt like her whole body was tingling with the last strains of excitement.

Grudgingly, she concluded that a hangover caused by the Norsemen's hallucinogenic liquor was not the worst thing to wake up to.

Although the female attendants could barely speak English, they made it quite plain that they intended on bathing and dressing Dominique very quickly. She was led to the already-filled tub in the room next to her palatial cabin, washed, dried, and anointed with perfumes, all in a matter of five minutes.

Dressing in a functional, all-white jumpsuit took only another minute, as did the lacing up of what could only be described as designer combat boats.

Within fifteen minutes of waking, Dominique was standing in the Great Ship's control room, watching as Verden and his son Thorgils completed their morning prayer ritual.

"She is here," Thorgils whispered to his father, as the old man finished his meditation with a low, moaning wail.