Authors: Mack Maloney
Hunter hung his head. He was faced with two stark options: either get into Area 51 by himself and probably get killed, or start a war with an opponent ten times the size of any armed force he could ever hope to muster … and get a lot of his friends killed.
He thought for a long time and finally said, “Well, we can’t make a decision until we get some eyes on the place. I don’t suppose we have any recon photos of Groom Lake?”
Ben and JT shook their heads no.
“We barely have a working recon camera around here,” JT said.
“How about a plane that can fly more than two hundred miles in any direction?” Hunter asked.
“You’d have better luck finding a recon camera,” Ben replied.
Hunter drained his drink. “I’d still like a close look at exactly what St. Louis has for airplanes, though—besides the Sabres, I mean.”
“It’s mostly rust and dust,” Ben warned him.
“You never know what might be helpful,” Hunter said. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” JT asked, surprised. “Go where?”
“To the air base,” Hunter replied. “Maybe we’ll find a jewel in the rough.”
Once again they looked out the bar’s front window and saw the crowd outside had actually swelled in the last ten minutes.
“How can we go anywhere?” JT asked him. “You’ll be mobbed.”
Hunter just smiled. “That’s what back doors are for.”
Five days later
T
HERE’S A TYPE OF
coyote that lives in the central part of Nevada called the Ghost Dog. While some insist this animal can appear and disappear at will, its name comes not from any supernatural talent, but from its distinctive howl.
It was that howl, high-pitched and echoing, that Hunter thought he heard in his headphones, even though he was thirteen miles above Earth.
He was behind the controls of a B-57 Canberra, an airplane nearly as old as the Sabre jet he’d used his first night back in Football City.
Originally a British design, the US Air Force built the B-57 in the mid-1950s as a medium bomber. But the plane also had another purpose. With the right modifications, the dual-engine jet could fly both long and high—two capabilities needed for a good reconnaissance plane.
Hunter had been pleasantly surprised to find the B-57 amid the “rust and dust” of Football City’s Air Force. It was just what he needed. He’d tinkered with it for a few days, enjoying getting his hands dirty again. Normally the longest range for a B-57 was about twenty-eight hundred miles. Round trip from Football City to Nevada was more like thirty-two hundred. So the lighter Hunter could make the aircraft, the better.
He removed any unnecessary weight and replaced it with extra fuel. This meant all the weaponry had to go—the bomb racks, the backup hydraulic systems, even the second cockpit, where a navigator would normally sit.
For this trip, Hunter would follow the stars.
He also reinforced the new one-man cockpit, bulked up the heater, and made adjustments to the plane’s twin engines’ fuel-intake valves. With these few tweaks, he managed to increase the plane’s maximum altitude to seventy thousand feet, far beyond what he hoped AMC’s radar net was set to catch.
With St. Louis’s blessing, and with JT and Ben looking on, albeit a bit uneasily, he left Football City in the late afternoon and headed west. Immediately climbing to 70-Angels, he stayed at just under three hundred miles per hour to save precious fuel.
The sixteen-hundred-mile flight out had been adventure free. The winds had been favorable, and he’d used only half his gas.
Best of all, he arrived just before midnight, the perfect time for this one-man spy mission.
Coming over the Snake Mountains, then the Egan Range, the vast, empty Nevada desert finally stretched before him.
The landscape was mostly unbroken. The only deviations were the occasional mountain range or gully, both of which could run for miles.
But there were no lights anywhere on the ground. Nor was there a moon out. The only illumination Hunter could see, other than his cockpit’s old LEDs, was coming from the billions of stars overhead.
He tested the plane’s jimmy-rigged recon camera, which had been the only one left in Football City. Attached to the bottom of the B-57’s nose, it was old but functional. It included an infrared-zoom lens that he could access from the cockpit, allowing him to focus in on objects on the ground while taking pictures of them.
He knew he was approaching Groom Lake when he saw the barest glow of lights on the horizon. A minute later, he was just a few miles away from the air base.
Activating the camera’s zoom function, he got ready to study what was below. Groom Lake had one of the longest runways in the world, so he expected to find rows of AMC fighter planes stretched from one end to the other.
But he was surprised to see from one mile out that the base appeared devoid of any military equipment. There were no airplanes on the long runway, no fuel trucks, no weapons, no personnel. Nor were there any signs of life around the three dozen or so buildings that made up the secret base. Hunter couldn’t believe it. He’d just assumed the AMC would be firmly established here.
Except for a few dim lights, Area 51 looked deserted.
But suddenly, as if a lightning bolt had hit him, his whole body shook from head to toe. It was not “the feeling”—the sensation he experienced when airplanes were approaching.
This was different.
This felt more like an ocean wave, washing over him, overwhelming him.
He closed his eyes for a moment—and the memories flooded in …
Friends … Names … Faces …
General Seth Jones … at one time, he’d been like a father to Hunter. General Dave Jones … Seth’s twin brother, just as brave, just as heroic. Mike Fitzgerald … his old drinking buddy and the soul of the United Americans. Yaz … his close pal. Donn Jurjan … the spy whose code name was “Lazarus.” Geraci. Frost. Cook. Miller. The Cobra Brothers. Captain Crunch. Elvis …
Then came the places, so sharp and clear … Cumulous clouds over Cape Cod. An aircraft carrier being pulled by tugboats across the Mediterranean. A long train ride across America. Flying like a madman across the Pacific. The heat of the jungles in Vietnam. Lolita Island …
Then more names and faces … His enemies …Viceroy Dick, Duke Devillian, Studs, Colonel Krupp, Hashi Pushi—and, of course, Viktor, the Devil himself.
Thankfully, those distorted images gave way to other faces, soft and beautiful. Emma. Diamond. The devastatingly erotic Elizabeth Sandlake. Chloe …
Something went flying by his mind’s eye at such great speed that it was just a blur. Then that image faded and another took its place: a foggy airfield at night. Across the runway, a blonde, almost angelic-looking woman was beckoning to him.
Her knew her. Knew her well …
That blonde angel …
What was her name?
But then it was like someone threw a switch. As soon as he asked
that
question, the memory stream just stopped.
He tried desperately to get it back—but it was no use. The strange sensation had come and gone in a flash and now he was back in the cockpit of the B-57 again, looking down at Area 51 from thirteen miles up.
But one thought stayed with him.
“There’s something down there …” he heard himself whisper, eyes glued on the secret base. “Something down there just caused that.”
Then he shook himself back to reality and forced himself to focus.
That had all been very strange.
But he had a job to do.
He managed to turn south, and a few minutes later, he was approaching the green-and-gold glow of Las Vegas.
He was over it in an instant—but that was enough for him. Las Vegas looked like it was mainlining amphetamines. A multitude of heat signatures were coming up at him, from the dozens of casinos, from hundreds of vehicles in the streets, and from thousands of people, too.
Nothing had changed at the famous gambling mecca. Just as Ben and JT had said, Hunter could almost smell the money at seventy thousand feet.
He turned west and in a few seconds was over his third recon target: the enormous facility once known as Nellis Air Force Base, which was about seventy-five miles away from Groom Lake.
This place had been extremely important to the American military before the Big War. In Hunter’s early years, when he was flying with the Thunderbirds, he’d spent a lot of time there.
But looking down on it now, he realized it was the opposite of what he’d just seen at Groom Lake. There were dozens of AMC aircraft below, including many foreign-made, high-tech jet fighters. There was also a huge fuel dump, a massive communications tower, forests of small antennae indicating some kind of an air defense system, and what looked like the opening to a huge underground cavern on the west side of the base.
He could also see lots of lights and lots of body heat throughout the installation. It was obvious Nellis was a very important place for the AMC.
Suddenly his bingo light clicked on. He now had just enough fuel to get back to Football City.
He finally turned east.
His immediate conclusions were unexpected. While Nellis was extremely active—no surprise—and Las Vegas was as brassy as advertised—apart from whatever had caused his strange sensations and flood of memories—Groom Lake appeared dead, deserted, abandoned. Based on what he’d seen, getting into Area 51 might be less complicated than he’d previously thought.
Yes, going in alone was probably as impractical as Ben and JT had warned. But maybe he wouldn’t need an entire army either.
Maybe all he’d need was a few versatile airplanes and a few brave souls.
He checked his flight watch and nudged his throttles ahead slightly.
He didn’t want to be late for his next appointment with the shrink.
T
HE DARKEST BACK ALLEYS
in Football City were on the east side, right along the river.
Lined with shuttered storefronts and rundown apartment buildings, these alleys were havens for all kinds of illicit activity.
Dressed in dark hoodies and camo fatigues, Hunter, Ben, and JT were walking the alleys, looking for a notorious east-side address.
Getting there had involved yet another small military operation. Ben and JT, in their trusty Huey, had flown Hunter off the roof of the military building around noon, while St. Louis, wearing Hunter’s helmet and bomber jacket, stood at the window in Hunter’s quarters and waved to the crowds below, distracting them.
Landing next to the Mississippi after a two-minute flight, the trio had pulled their hoodies up tight around their faces and started walking. Hunter had briefly told his friends about his flash of memories the night before, but as the psychiatrist had advised Ben, his friends didn’t push the subject. Soon enough they were swallowed up by crowds of similarly dressed people who were going about the business of doing illegal things.
They found the address they were looking for halfway down a particularly shabby alley. It was a basement flat guarded by two surly gunmen. They snapped to attention, though, when Hunter pulled back his hoodie and showed them his face.
Everyone in Football City knew the Wingman—and everyone had heard about his miraculous return.
“He’s expecting us,” Hunter told the goons.
The gunmen stepped aside.
He, Ben, and JT went down the stairs and entered a dimly lit room. More hired guns were sitting around a table playing cards. Dealing out the next hand was an elderly man with a shaved head and a long, stringy beard, who was dressed in an ancient disco-era jumpsuit.
Hunter knew him right away.
His name was Roy from Troy.
Hunter had first met Roy in upstate New York a few months after World War III ended. Roy was the biggest arms dealer around at the time, and Hunter was looking for weapons to start the United American armed forces. Roy always came through for Hunter, on time, with good merchandise, and for the right price.
But that had been an eternity ago. Hunter guessed Roy was at least one hundred years old by now.
He walked over and shook the old man’s hand. Roy gave Hunter a fatherly pat on the chest.
“I’ve seen a lot of things in my day,” Roy said, his voice a wheeze. “But I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Same here, Roy,” Hunter replied.
Roy studied him for a moment. “I see you’re back in form with the ladies? You have that look about you.”
Hunter became flustered, but Roy was right. He’d seen his shrink just two hours before.
“Doctor’s orders,” was all he could say.
Roy signaled they should sit down. Another wave of his hand brought a round of whiskey.
“So, Hawker, what do you need this time?” Roy asked with a thin smile.
Hunter tasted his whiskey. “We’re looking for armed transport to fly to a location about fifteen hundred miles away,” he said. “We have to land with a few squads of operators, stay on the ground for a couple hours, and then bug out.”
Roy thought a moment. “Level of opposition?”
Hunter shrugged. “Moderate to possibly none.”
Roy opened a huge binder in front of him. He went through it slowly, finally stopping at a well-worn page.
“It’s a small market,” he said. “But maybe something like this?”
He turned the book around so his visitors could see. The page held several photos showing a squadron of two-engine, prop-driven airplanes.
“B-25 Mitchells?” Hunter asked.
Roy nodded. “They’re small, versatile. They can carry more than a pilot and crew a fairly long distance, and they’re not bad on fuel. Plus they have firepower, if needed. Refit one to haul nothing but gas, and you’d get there and back no problem.”
Hunter studied the photos. The Mitchell
was
a great airplane—elderly but great. They were used in World War II for everything from medium bombers to naval attack craft. But with the right modifications, more than a dozen people could ride in one.
And while the B-25 was older than the F-86 Sabre, the line of Mitchells in Roy’s photos had obviously been reconditioned. They looked like new airplanes.