The Circle War (15 page)

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eastern Missouri, apparently moving toward Football City. Their lead element ran into a company of Football City's famous recon troops and a sharp fire fight ensued.

By noon that day, the first shots of the Second American Civil War had been fired.

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The F-16 had spent the past hour lazily circling th Hawaiian island of Oahu at 50,000 feet. Hunter wa surveying the ground below using his topographica contour radar. The device allowed him to spy on th island below him, charting where any weapons -including interceptors, antiaircraft guns or SAN sites

—might be located.

He found none, which didn't surprise him. Al though contact between the Hawaiian Islands am PAAC on the mainland was nearly non-existent, th Pacific Americans knew that the New Order frenz; of disarmament had been nearly complete through out the 50th state and that a kind of modern royal tribal rule had returned to the islands.

He located an airstrip on the northeastern end o the island and swept the area with his scope. Ther> wasn't a weapon nor a breathing human around. H quickly set the F-16 down and hid it in a forest o coconut trees located at the end of the runway. Th< landing strip appeared to be an abandoned Coas Guard air station. He found a paved road nearb;

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which would carry him south and he began to walk. The sun was just coming up out of the sea on the eastern horizon. The sky was red —as red as the Aurora Borealis he had encounterd at 90,000 feet several weeks before. He knew a red sky in the morning was a powerful omen for bad things to come. - But to Hunter, the crimson sunrise meant another thing: the fighting had started to the east. Although he was thousands of miles' to the west, he could smell war in the air. His mission just became more crucial, possibly more desperate. He quickened his step. He had to make the 25 miles to Honolulu by nightfall.

Hunter had been to Hawaii several times while he was touring with the Thunderbirds. The Honolulu he'd remembered was a nice, clean if overcrowded city. Now he was sure that had changed. According to the reports PAAC did get from Honolulu, the city was now a sprawl of honky-tonks, drugs, hedonism and crime. Gambling, never considered a vice in the old days, had been raised to the level of science on the islands these days. Yet there was no police force or government. Hunter was glad he'd made the trip packing both an Uzi and his trusty M-16. He also carried a small backpack that was filled with some of his best tricks of the trade.

He met his first Hawaiians about five miles into his trip. They were all wearing typical Hawaiian shirts and calmly manning a roadblock set up in the middle of the highway. It was the marking of the 154

edge of their tribe's territory. He knew from here on in, he'd have to deal with these gunmen. The one regret Hunter had was that Ben Wa, he of the island of Maui to the south, wasn't able to accompany him on this trip. They would have made a great team, but a pilot of Wa's caliber was much too valuable at the front.

Of the 10 men guarding the outpost, six were asleep. They were quickly roused when their partners first spotted Hunter, clad in a green, unmarked flight, suit, baseball cap on his head, his flight helmed dangling from his belt, walking down the middle of the unused highway.

The pilot carried his firearms in full view as he approached the men. He heard the safeties click off their firearms —a variety of hunting rifles, M-16s and shotguns. Hunter walked right up to their railroad crossing-style barrier and asked the first man he came to: "Which way to Honolulu?"

The gunmen laughed at him. A man who appeared to be their leader emerged from a small hut and walked up to Hunter. He was a small, dark, obviously Hawaiian man of middle age. Tough and wiry, he carried a .357 Magnum on one hip, an extra-large machete on the other.

To this man, Hunter repeated his questions: "Is this the road to Honolulu?"

"Could be," the man said in broken English.

Hunter got right to the point. "How much to pass through?"

"How much you got?" the man said.

"I'll give you a thousand in real gold now," Hunter 155

said calmly. "Two thousand on the way out."

The man grinned. "Lot of money. Why don't we just shoot you now and get all three thousand?" A few of his men laughed in agreement.

"Ain't got it all now," Hunter said. "Gotta do my business in Honolulu first."

"What kind of business?" the man asked.

"Drug kind of business," Hunter answered. "As in blow. Coke. You guys get that stuff up here?"

The leader laughed again. "How much you got?"

"It ain't how much I got," Hunter said. "It's what kind I got." With that he reached into his backpack and produced a brick-sized piece of compacted brownish leaves.

"Jesus Christ, man," the leader exclaimed. "You got a brick of. . ."

"Raw coca," Hunter said, finishing the man's sentence for him. "Now unless you guys got some processing works around here, you'd better let me through, so I can sell this shit."

The leader knew Hunter was right. The chemicals needed to break down the raw coca were in short supply —ether especially. Handling a brick of raw coca would be useless —but breaking it down into pure cocaine could net them anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 in real gold, and that was only if they were stupid enough to sell it pure. And they weren't that stupid.

Neither was Hunter. The leader thought for a moment, then said. "You go, two of my guys go with you."

"Bodyguards?" Hunter said. "That's great, my 156

man. You just got yourself an extra thousand."

"At least," the man said, grinning.

Twenty minutes later, Hunter was sitting in th back of the gunmen's speeding jeep, enjoying th scenery. Not only had he parlayed himself a ride fo the final 20 miles into Honolulu, he also had a wa to pass through the seven further checkpoints be tween him and the city. At each stop, the gunmen -known as the Tan Fin —were routinely wavei through. A peaceful, if shaky, coexistence was ii force among the tribal gangs, or at least the one who controlled this roadway. Between roadblocks his escorts remained silent, which was fine witl Hunter. He sat back and let the warm late sprin; sunshine soak through him.

They reached the outskirts of Honolulu about ai hour later. From the top of a hill, Hunter could se the island that used to be the Pearl Harbor nava station. He was too far away to see if there was an; military activity at the base. His earlier radar sweej revealed nothing heavy, but he hadn't yet discounte< the possibility of some kind of presence at the base He had to reach the USS Arizona Memorial, bu first he had to rid himself of his chauffeurs. Hi didn't feel that he was justified in shooting them although they had foolishly left him alone in thi backseat of the open vehicle with his M-16 and Uzi both fully-loaded. Instead, he would put the two t< sleep.

"Stop!" he yelled in the driver's ear as they drov< into the very outskirts of the city.

The passenger gunmen turned around quickly, hii

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sawed-off shotgun at the ready.

"What?" he yelled over the sound of the motor.

"Stop," Hunter yelled again. He had reached into his backpack and produced a small plastic bag of white powder. He waved it in front of the passenger-side gunman.

The man smiled broadly. "Coke? We do a line?" he asked as his partner slowed the jeep.

"We do many lines," Hunter said, producing a mirror and a razor blade.

The jeep had slowed down and stopped by this time. The gunmen smacked their lips as they watched Hunter expertly pour a small pile of the powder onto the mirror and start chopping away with the razor blade.

He fashioned the resulting fine powder into six long, thick lines. A straw was produced. Hunter handed the mirror to the passenger-side gunman who took a long, noisy sniff, pulling the entire stretch of white stuff up his nose in one swipe. "Ahhhhh!" he said with evident satisfaction.

His partner grabbed the mirror and repeated the process. His reaction was also one of delight. "Goooood stuff,"' he said, snorting the stuff back into his nostrils.

In two seconds, both he and his partner were knocked out cold.

"You mean 'Goooood night,' " Hunter said, jumping out of the jeep and hauling the two limp bodies out of the vehicle. Thorazine pentathol, Hunter's own concoction of sleeping powder, looked, cut and tasted like cocaine. The gunmen would sleep for

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almost 24 hours, he figured. That's what they get for being so greedy with their lines.

"See ya, chumps," Hunter said as he disarmed the men, got behind the wheel of the jeep and roared off toward Honolulu.

He was across a makeshift bridge and at the fence of the old Pearl Harbor base less than an hour later.

Passing through the city of Honolulu had been an. experience in itself. The place had so many gambling casinos even Louie St. Louie would have blushed.

There were people in the streets although it was still barely 9 AM. Every one of the men were armed and it seemed every one of the women were topless. Ben Wa would have been proud.

He had found the road to Pearl with no problem. Driving slowly long the perimeter fence, he saw little evidence of military activity inside the base.

There were a few military vehicles such as APCs, halftracks and even an old M-60 tank. But he saw very few people walking inside the base.

He reached the main gate and found it manned by a lone sailor. With his white uniform, complete from upturned hat to black boot leggings, the man looked like something out of World War II. He was also sound asleep.

Hunter climbed out of the jeep and approached him. He was precariously balanced on an old chair leaning against a small guardhouse.

"Excuse me, sailor," Hunter said in a voice that was half a shout.

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The man didn't stir.

"Hey, Navy!" Hunter said, a little louder.

Still asleep, the man brushed an imaginary bug from his nose.

Hunter leaned down, cupped his hands and yelled into the sailor's ear. "Hey!

Swabbie!"

The man went over like a capsized ship. He was quickly to his feet, his hand wrestling with the .45 automatic he wore on his belt. When retrieving it failed, he foolishly took a swing at Hunter. The punch wasn't even close.

Hunter's Uzi was out and against the man's nose in a split second. "Take it easy, Popeye," Hunter said, his other hand seizing the sailor's .45.

"Who the fuck are you!" the man screamed.

Hunter looked at him. He was unkempt, unshaven and, judging from the downwind, unbathed. The sailor was a disgrace to his uniform.

"Where's your CO?" Hunter asked sternly.

"Where he always is," the sailor said, trying to upright his fallen chair.

"Shitfaced."

"Where?"

The sailor pointed over his shoulder to a white two-story structure. "Up in his office," he said. "Over there."

Hunter snapped out the .45s magazine. It was empty. He shook his head and returned the useless gun to the sailor.

"You know something, I always bet on you guys in the Army-Navy game," Hunter said angrily. "No wonder 1 always lost."

For the first time the man looked embarrassed.

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"Hey, listen flyboy, it ain't always been like this." It didn't matter what he said; Hunter was already hurrying toward the dirty white building.

He entered the unguarded structure and double-timed it up the stairs. He found an entire row of offices unoccupied. Then he came to a corner room and saw a man sitting with his back to him. He was turned around in a chair behind a desk, reading what looked to be a skin magazine. As far as Hunter could tell, the man was the only person in the building. He walked in. "I'm Major Hunter, Pacific American Armed Forces. From back on the mainland." Startled, the man took one look at Hunter and instantly sprang to his feet.

"Commander . . . Josh . . . McDermott," he said, his voice trembling as if from lack of use. "United Sta ... I mean, United Hawaiian . . . National . . .

Royal Naval Defense . . . ah, Forces." The man's hand was shaking as he tried a salute. While the sleepy guard was a wise-ass slob, this man was pitiful wreck. He wasn't old. Hunter figured 43, maybe 45. Yet his face, his skin and his white hair were those of a man twenty years his age.

"Good to meet you, Commander," Hunter said, reaching over the desk and surprising the man with a handshake.

The man calmed down a little. He was dressed in a tattered U.S. Naval dress white uniform that looked like he had worn it, unpressed, every day for the past five years. The office itself was shabby. Files long gathering dust cluttered the place. Paperwork lay discarded on the floor. The windows were so dirty, it

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was hard to see the water of Pearl Harbor that lay just a short distance from the building. Through the grime, Hunter spotted the white shape of the USS

Arizona Memorial.

"What brings you our way, Major?"

"I'm looking for something, Commander," Hunter said, reaching into his pocket for a photo of the Ghost Rider black box. "This box is very important to me,"

he said, handing the picture to the man. "It's hidden on the Arizona."

"The Arizona!" the threadbare officer asked as he took the photo and studied it. "What is it, Major? A guidance system or something?"

Hunter looked at the man. He could tell that at one time, the guy must have been a savvy officer.

Hunter shook his head. He couldn't hold it back any longer. "What's happened here, Commander?" he asked looking around the disheveled office, a trace of sadness in his voice. "This is Pearl Harbor, for God's sake . . ."

The man turned away and shook his head. A whiskey bottle stood on a windowsill nearby. He reached over and grabbed it, scooping up two glasses in the process. When he turned around the pitiful look had added the new dimension of apathy.

"Have a drink, Major?"

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Hunter declined.

The man poured himself a healthy one anyway.

"We were left behind, Major," he said, bitterness evident in his voice. "Left behind after the armistice with no ship big enough to get back to the main-162