The Lucifer Crusade (3 page)

Hunter closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. He realized that he hadn't been giving Viktor enough credit. He had sown his seeds of fear and hysteria in Europe and the Mediterranean just as effectively as he had in America.

"Who knows where he really is?" Hunter asked.

El-Fauzi laughed again. "One man, in town," he said. "The Lord. He'll tell you. He knows where everyone is. Come. I'll take you to him."

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A half-hour later they were in a jeep bouncing over a cratered highway, approaching the city of Casablanca. Or at least Hunter assumed it was Casablanca.

The city before him was brilliantly lit up, like a neon oasis in the middle of the desert. In fact Hunter felt it was too bright. A dozen multicolored searchlights dashed across the night sky. From this distance, every building seemed to have all its lights on at once. Everywhere was blazing electricity.

No wonder the light of the city could be seen from seventy miles out.

But, as a city, it also looked, well . . . too small to Hunter.

El-Fauzi, behind the wheel for the breakneck trip, roared into the city.

Almost immediately the jeep was forced to slow down to a crawl, so crowded was the street. Everywhere were shops, eating places, gambling dens, rug stores, whorehouses, and cafes. And despite the late hour, the streets were filled with people, some dressed in authentic-looking Moroccan clothes, others wearing strange, 1940ish styles.

And everything was so goddamn bright!

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Hunter had to shield his eyes to look at some of the streetlights. Finally he saw one that was broken and he realized it was a Kleig light, an ultra-powerful piece of illuminating equipment used for filming movies.

Then he noticed the buildings were very authentic. Too authentic. Nothing seemed out of place. That was the problem. From the stucco-type construction to the grand Arabic and English lettering, the "perfect" buildings looked more like movie props.

El-Fauzi knew what he was thinking. "It is a movie set," he explained. "Years ago, right before the war broke out, a Hollywood movie company came here, built this place. The real Casablanca was destroyed in the war. It's over the next hill -or what's left of it."

"Are you telling me that all these people are living on a movie set?" Hunter asked.

"That's right," el-Fauzi said. "Oh, they've added to it. And it's barely one-tenth the size of the real city, and that's only counting downtown. But when the war cooled down, there were a lot of people passing through this part of the world. We had a fairly serviceable airport, and we knew if it were operational, we could make money and survive. And why build another city?

Hollywood built this one for us!"

"God, this place is wired," Hunter said, seeing mules of thick electrical cables stretched everywhere. "How can you afford to burn this much juice?"

" 'Juice' is one thing we have a lot of, major," el-Fauzi said, turning a corner and heading for the center of the small prop city. "Natural gas. It's everywhere. Under the ground. We've got gas turbines. A bunch of them. They drink the stuff. It's pure and they love it. They run like charms. So we 25

got more electricity than we need."

It was all starting to make sense to Hunter. The crazy kind of sense that served as normalcy in the New Order world.

The jeep screeched to a stop in front of a well-lit cafe. Crowds of people were streaming in and out. Many of them were beautiful women. A piano tinkled inside. A bright neon sign above the place featured a flashing palm tree and the establishment's name: "Rick's American Cafe."

"I think I've seen this movie," Hunter told el-Fauzi.

"We all have." El-Fauzi laughed, jumping out of the open jeep. "That's why they built this place. They were going to film it again!"

They went into the cafe and el-Fauzi hugged the maitre d'. They were soon escorted to the best table. A bottle of champagne appeared out of nowhere.

Normally, Hunter would have felt silly. Most of the women present were wearing evening gowns; many of the men were in tuxedos. He was dressed in his flight suit, baseball cap on his head, flight boots on his feet, his helmet dangling from his belt, and the M-16 on his shoulder. Yet no one seemed to notice he wasn't exactly formal.

There were many soldiers there too. Officers mostly, wearing a wide range of dress uniforms, most with flashes of medals on their chests. Each officer appeared to be holding his own personal court with two, three, or four women.

Those fancy uniforms did it every time. Most of the officers appeared to be unarmed. But Hunter could see their bodyguards lurking in the shadows, drinking at tables on the periphery of the action.

The air was thick with the smell of incense, hashish, cooking food, and sweet liquor. A beautiful

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young woman was singing on a stage nearby. A courtly black gentleman played a flawlessly moody piano. Again, everything was script-perfect.

El-Fauzi knew half the people who walked by the table, rising and kissing most of them once on each cheek. A waiter appeared, said nothing, and snapped his fingers. A searing rack of lamb materialized an instant later.

Hunter was legitimately hungry, and apparently so was el-Fauzi. The man attacked the piece of smoking meat with vigor. That's all Hunter needed. He started carving off pieces of the lamb for himself.

They sat and ate and drank two bottles of champagne. The band played, people danced. Hunter spent half the time eyeing the many, many beautiful women in the place -the other half wolfing down his meal.

They finished off the lamb in about twenty minutes. The meal cleared away, they sat sipping after-dinner drinks. Suddenly el-Fauzi said, "That's him."

Hunter turned to see a large man, wearing a white suit and a fez, stroll into the cafe and head for a dinner booth near the wall. Within seconds, other dark figures moved toward the booth. Some stopped briefly to whisper something to the large man, then hurried on their way. It was obvious he was some kind of top dog.

"That's the Lord," el-Fauzi told Hunter. "Lord Lard. Very rich. Very powerful.

He's big in arms sales. He can get fighters, tanks, SAMs, ammo. He has connections. No one is sure just where. Italy, some say. Some say Sicily or even Sardinia. But he sells to anyone, any side, any leader, any flag. Deals only in gold, no silver."

"And this is the guy who's going to tell me where I can find Viktor?" Hunter asked.

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"If anyone knows, Lard does," el-Fauzi said. El-Fauzi rose and walked over to the man. A second later, he was motioning Hunter to join them.

Hunter squeezed into the man's booth and found a martini sitting in front of him. El-Fauzi whispered something to Lard, then turned to Hunter. "You'll excuse me," he said, with a wink. "There's an old friend of mine-a stewardess-whom I must absolutely buy a drink for. We'll talk later."

El-Fauzi's quick exit seemed designed to leave Hunter and Lard alone.

"So you're the famous criminal, Hawk Hunter," Lard said, a smile wrinkling his plump face. His accent was vaguely British. "What's the asking price for your head these days, major?"

"I understand it keeps going up all the time," Hunter replied.

"Not many criminals will The New Order pay a billion dollars for, Hunter,"

Lard said, swigging his martini. "A man could buy a country and rent an army with that kind of money."

"Spoken like a true businessman," Hunter told him.

Laud laughed. "But I understand you are not here to fight, Hunter. This surprises me. There are probably more mercenaries per square mile between here and Algeria than anywhere, ever, in history."

"Well, there's never been a shortage of mercenaries," Hunter said. "The world can get along without another one."

"Oh, major, this is no time to stick to your lofty ideals," Lard said. "Do you realize that when this war starts up again, half the troops on both sides will be paid mercenaries? Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, millions of dollars.

You, Hunter, alone could make millions, probably hundreds of millions.

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If you're worth a billion dollars to The New Order, you're worth at least half that to whoever wants to win the most when the war kicks back up."

Hunter reached inside his flight suit and pulled out the picture of Viktor. He passed it to Lard.

"Who is this guy?" he asked.

Lard produced a monocle and examined the photo. "Ah, Hunter," he said, handing it back to him. "Don't tell me you've got yourself tangled up with the almighty 'Lucifer'?"

"Forget this 'Lucifer' bullshit," Hunter told him. "I know this man as Viktor Robotov. I'm damn sure he's a Russian agent. He was recently in America engineering a war that set us back four to five years. He's a master terrorist."

"Terrorist? Oh, but he is also a 'god,' this Lucifer," Lard said mockingly.

Hunter was getting aggravated. "Look, I know he's a manipulator and a genius for brainwashing the masses. But pumping this guy up like he's a god - it's a joke. Who the hell can believe it?"

Lard laughed again, and gulped down the rest of the martini. "Major Hunter, get with it. This is The New Order. Look at yourself. You're sitting in a movie set that people have turned into a real thing. They believe it. So it's real. They'll believe anything. People want to follow gods, major. 'Lucifer'

makes sense to half of them. And he's paying the other half."

Hunter didn't want to waste any more time. "Where is he?" he said. "Where's his HQ?"

Lard opened his mouth as if to s,ay something, but only one word came out. It sounded like "Algiers." Then a bloody foam flowed up from his throat and out his mouth. His eyes turned up and his head slammed down on the table in front of him with a

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loud "wham!"

Lard was dead. Poisoned. Probably by the martini. Luckily Hunter had never cared for the petrol-tasting gin bombs, and he had left his untouched.

The sound of Lard's head cracking on the table had been loud enough to stop the singer singing and the piano-player playing. Two soldiers - undoubtably Lard's hired security people -appeared and helplessly shook the body. They knew they'd fucked up. Someone should have been testing the drinks.

More soldiers appeared. Guns were being drawn. All of a sudden it seemed as if everyone in the place was carrying a piece. Hunter turned around and tried to catch sight of el-Fauzi, but the man was long gone. He immediately had the sinking feeling that either he or the big fat slob on the table in front of him had been set up.

Hunter knew it was time to leave. A dangerous tension ripped through the cafe.

Suddenly the lights went out, and that's when the lead started flying. Women screamed, men yelled as there was a mad dash for the darkened door. Guns were going off all around him, though he never figured out who was shooting at whom, or why. He had dropped down to the floor at the sound of the first gunshot, glad he was carrying his flight helmet. He quickly put it on and checked the clip in his M-16. As usual it was filled with tracer rounds.

He made his way along the line of tables, feeling in front of him with the snout of the M-16. The only light around him was coming from the many gun flashes erupting all over the club. Soon the place was thick with the smell of spent gunpowder.

He spied the front door and noticed that most of the crowd had made good their escape. However, an unhealthy barrage of pistol fire was coming from 30

very close to the exit. It was concentrating on some unseen enemy located at the back of the room. Bullets were pinging and ricocheting around the darkened cafe, sometimes accompanied by a groan or a scream when one of them found flesh. This was no place to be, he thought. Still, he couldn't help thinking that this sort of thing must apparently happen quite often at the cafe.

He decided to create a distraction, something that would cause everyone to take cover and give him the precious four or five seconds he would need to make a break for the front door.

He raised the M-16's nose until it was pointing at the ceiling, then ripped off a long burst of tracers. The bright trails of white-hot phosphorous illuminators lit up the interior of the cafe brilliantly. The bullets scraped the plastered ceiling, causing a rain of cracked and sparkling material to fall. The chatter of the automatic weapon filled the walls with a loud, echoing, dangerous sound. Immediately all the gunmen dove for cover.

Hunter was out the door in three seconds . . .

He found the jeep unattended outside the cafe. El-Fauzi was nowhere to be seen. Despite the gunplay in the club, the people in the streets of the movie set town seemed unaffected. Hunter started the jeep and headed back for the airport, glad to be out of the strange place.

The airport was even more crowded, more confused, more desperate than before.

The F-16 was sitting untouched. He resisted the temptation to go looking for el-Fauzi; whatever the man's motives had been, Hunter was sure he would be impossible to find. Besides, with the situation at the airport deteri-31

orating rapidly, he wanted to get off as quickly as possible. His search for clues to Viktor's whereabouts would have to continue in some other place.

He climbed aboard the F-16 and started to warm up the avionics. A wave of a bag of silver was all that was needed to flag down a passing fuel truck, and soon his tanks were full. Without bothering to contact the control tower, he taxied out onto the runway and took off on the tail of a battered Brazilian 707.

Minutes later, he turned northeast. Lard's last word had been "Algiers," and Hunter figured that was as good a place as any to resume his search for Viktor.

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Hunter was glad to get away from Casablanca. The place was just too weird for him. Movie-set towns. The airborne evacuation. El-Fauzi. Lard. The gun battle at the cafe. All the talk of war and armies of mercenaries waiting to go at it was particularly disturbing. So was the billion-dollar bounty on his head.

He'd have to be extra careful about watching his tail. That poisoned drink could very well have been meant for him instead of Lard. And he was sure that word would spread quickly that he was in the area. It all had such an unreal atmosphere about it.