Their new forward base was located in the old city of Erie, Pennsylvania.
The site suited the United American Forces well. There was a workable airfield in the mostly-abandoned city, and with its access to Lake Erie-and therefore Lake Michigan-the bulk of their equipment and troops could be moved over water from New Chicago and Milwaukee, both of which were now in friendly Free Canadian hands.
Erie also put them within 220 miles of the Syracuse Aerodrome, an acceptable distance for most of the American Forces aircraft, even without their substantial mid-air refueling capabilities. And, by using the Niagara River, they could move large forces of men from Lake Erie up into Lake Ontario and float them over to Oswego, which was only 40 miles north of Syracuse. The roads leading from Erie to the Syracuse area were fairly passable, and most important, the civilians between Erie and the Aerodrome were, to a man, loyal to the United American cause.
The United American convoy-including the trailers used by Jones and Hunter-arrived at the former Erie International Airport just after midnight.
Looking out on the tarmac, Hunter could see that most of their fighter aircraft had already arrived, as well as the C-5 called Nozo.
No sooner had he arrived than Hunter was driving a jeep up and down the flight line. As commander of the UA air corps, it was his duty to make a status check on the airplanes at hand. But even Jones had told him it could wait until morning.
Trouble was, Hunter was in no mood to wait for anything . . .
The Football City Air Force was already deployed to Erie-14 rare, high-tech F-20 Tigersharks, among the hottest fighters on the continent. Hunter felt a personal affinity for the aircraft (which were actually souped up F-5Es) because he had engineered their confiscation from a band of air pirates just before the first Battle of Football City.
Next to the Football City contingent were two squadrons from his own unit-the Pacific American Air Corps. Of these 32 PAAC airplanes, 24 were dedicated to ground support. Specifically 14 A-7E Strikefighters and eight A-10
Thunderbolts, the squat, rugged airplane known to its enemies as "The Tankbuster," because of the powerful Avenger cannon it carried in its snout.
Two A-4E Skyhawks-the same ones that had performed so well over Football City-rounded out the air attack arm.
The remaining ten PAAC aircraft were fighters-five F-5E Tigers, two aging F-106 Delta Darts, two F-101 Voodoos and a single F-104 Starfighter.
Next to the PAAC deployment area were the 12 F-4E Phantoms of the Texas Air Force. The Texans were incredible pilots, with a seeming disregard for life or limb. They flew the elderly Phantoms as if they were just pups, something helped along by a radical re-engining of the Vietnam-era warplanes.
Also attached to the Texans, not just for convenience but for camaraderie, were the two F-4X "Super Phantoms" flown by Captain "Crunch" O'Malley's famed Ace Wrecking Company. These F-260
4s had a longer range, and could carry more bombs and ammo than the Texan F-4s.
Hunter went way back with O'Malley-he and Elvis (who was now running the military side of things back in Football City) were the pilots dispatched by Jones to track Hunter to the Middle East on his search for Viktor. The Aces and their support had arrived just in time during the Battle for the Suez Canal, and saved a lot of good guys from dying in the process.
Using the same facilities of the F-4s were Mike Fitzgerald's Shamrock Squadron of F-105X Thunderchiefs. These 18 re-engineered fighter-bombers were originally based at the Syracuse Aerodrome when Fitz ran the place, but they had been orphans ever since The Circle conquered the eastern half of the country. Officially "neutral" in the war against the first Battle for Football City, the "Potato Heads" served with distinction during The Circle War.
Operating out of secret bases just over the line in Free Canada, the F-105s continually bombed and harassed the Circle northern forces, causing them to finally stall, and thereby not play a major role in the ultimate battle at the Platte River.
Hunter moved down the line, passed the four PAAC C-130 gunships and the berth where Nozo was being serviced. A squadron of PAAC Huey attack helicopters were just coming in, having leapfrogged over from Toledo. With them were the Cobra Brothers, the four-man, two-chopper attack team that had also served bravely in New Order America's all-too-frequent wars. Also on hand was the big CH-53
Sea Stallion chopper known as The Mean Machine, which usually served as the lift for the United American Strike Teams.
At the end of the flight line was the real Bastard 261
Squadron, a mix and match dozen of airplanes that PAAC and the Texans had picked up along the way. One of these was the valuable A-37 Dragonfly. There were also two ancient F-94, 1950s-era fighters, a creaking F-100 Super Sabre, three T-38 Talons, which were actually trainers converted for attack duty, two F-8 Crusaders, originally a Navy interceptor, and the granddaddy of them all, an A-1E prop-driven Skyraider.
Hunter had been taking notes as he drove along and now, his inspection tour complete, he returned to his trailer to spend the time until sunrise filling out the status report.
Two hours went by. Hunter had just lit a stick of incense when he felt an almost imperceptible vibration run through him.
He looked up from his paperwork and focused on the sensation.
Far off. Getting closer . . .
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Coming from the west. Up high now, but starting to descend . . .
He stood up and let it all come to him clearer.
There's a lot of them . . .
Five out front, maybe eight or nine more close behind. In the center, a really big one . . .
"There's something inside the big one," he said out loud.
For every loss, there is a gain . . .
His breathing became rapid, his pulse began to race. Suddenly electricity was running through him from head to feet and back again. It had been so long, he thought he'd never experience it again.
It was the feeling ...
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There was no way to describe it. It was one thing and it was a million things.
It was ESP and it was deja vu. It was pure intuition. It was synergy. It was the feeling that came to him when aircraft were approaching, although they were still too far away to be seen on any radar screen. It was the feeling that he got when he took off in an aircraft and not so much flew it as became part of it. It was the feeling that let him know that all things ethereal could be real. All things were not causal. Synchronicity was a fact.
/
It was the feeling that made him the best fighter pilot that had ever lived .
. .
For every loss, there is a gain . . .
He ran outside, jumped into the jeep and drove like hell to the end of the runway. The sunrise was still a half hour away and a slight fog was hanging low over the airfield. The synchronized landing lights gave the place the eerie look of a gigantic video game. There was no wind, no noise . . .
He waited . . .
Twenty minutes went by before he saw the first lights. Two reds and a white, blinking out of sync. He heard them next-first a whine coming from way off, but now getting louder by the second. Then he saw more lights and the whine turned into a dull roar. The lights were circling, high up, slowly descending
. . .
Here they come, he thought.
The first of the 12 B-52 Stratofortresses came in low and smooth, its tail-chute deployed, its engines spewing clouds of brown smoke. Right down over him, down the center of the beckoning landing lights, its eight jet engines screaming now in unabashed power. It was a sight that never failed to move him. Wings, fuselage, bombs and jet engines-the Tort was one tough motherfucker . . .
A second one appeared in the ever-brightening sky, then a third and a fourth.
One by one, the twelve of them landed, not a rough touchdown in the bunch.
But he knew the show was just beginning . . .
Once the B-52s were in, he turned to see a white airplane making its approach.
Smaller but sleeker than the Torts, this first airplane-like the four behind it-was a B-1B, swing-wing intercontinental bomber. But these five airplanes were not ordinary B-ls, if there was such an animal.
These were the Ghost Riders . . .
Five intricately interconnected B-ls that, when working together, the Ghost Rider pilots could simply wipe their radar signature off any screen. By using a combination of five ECM-crammed black boxes-one in each airplane-the Ghost Riders could make themselves invisible on radar and therefore invulnerable to the enemy's radar-guided SAMs and AA fire. The five B-ls had turned the tide in the last battle of The Circle War, demolishing a miles-long Soviet-led column before it even reached the Democratic Forces' front lines.
The Ghost Riders came in as smoothly as the old B-52s, their newer, high-tech engines emitting little smoke and even less noise.
But as impressed as he was about the arrival of the 16 heavy bombers, it was the last aircraft in line-the huge C-5 they called Bozo-which was the major cause of the vibrations that were sweeping through his body.
There's something inside. For every loss, there is a gain . . .
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The C-5 roared in right over him and touched down to a screeching, smoky landing. He was back in the jeep and racing down the access road as it taxied toward its parking area. The sun was now up-a very important day had begun.
Hunter pulled up to the front of Bozo just as the pilots began shutting down its massive engines. He felt an authentic spiritual sensation wash over him as the front of the Galaxy lifted up, almost magically, like a whale ready to swallow a present-day Jonah. The insides of the monstrous cargo hold were dark for the moment, but Hunter needed no illumination at this point. His heart was beating faster than he could ever remember. His feet felt like they were floating-unwilling to touch the ground.
Suddenly the bright cargo hold lights switched on and he was staring inside the belly of the airplane. One great wave of electricity washed over him as he focused his eyes on the object inside the jet.
For every loss, there is a gain . . .
Inside the hold of the C-5 was his refurbished, his reconditioned, his reborn, F-16 . . .
265
Yaz's eyes were stinging from the camouflage grease paint he had just smeared all over his face.
His uniform felt like it weighed a ton, due to the forest of bushes and twigs he had attached to his arms, legs and chest. Somewhere on his back, covered with realistic moss netting, was the small high-frequency radio set that had become his constant companion since the United American campaign began.
He was sitting in a large clump of bushes alongside Otsego Lake, smack-dab in the middle of Circle-held territory in central Free State of New York. Not 50
feet from his concealed position, two dozen Spetsnaz were eating their noontime meal. Another two dozen were scattered about at various positions in the immediate area. And hidden amongst the bulrushes and scrub along the lake were 35 of Major Shane's Football City Special Forces, most of them veterans of the abbreviated raid on the first
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mystery truck camp and the more successful truck hijacking on the Indiana freeway.
The bizarreness of the notion that for whatever reason the Spetsnaz were hauling books in their tractor-trailers had started to fade by now. The mission had switched from "what" to "why." Shane's Rangers-as they had come to be known-had been put on the case, and Yaz had been "recruited" once again to be their air support controller.
After the Indiana highway battle and hijacking, the Rangers had picked up the trail of the five other mystery trucks just outside of Cleveland. The city was practically deserted by the time the Spetsnaz came through, its few citizens had fled in order to avoid the retreating Circle Armies. The Rangers had kept a safe distance, using the A-37 to spot the trucks, then landing the chopper a mile or so away and hoofing it to a better vantage point from which to observe the Soviet Special Troops.
It was in Cleveland that the .Rangers started noting another strange pattern of behavior being displayed by the Spets. Just as in Indianapolis, the Soviets had camped out near a sports stadium-in this case the ancient ballpark known as Municipal Stadium, home of the Cleveland Indians baseball team as well as the Cleveland Browns football club.
The Rangers, with Yaz in tow, had managed to hide out at the edge of a rail yard located near the stadium and watch the Russians through Nights-copes as they hauled a couple dozen boxes out of the ballpark and loaded them into one of their trucks just before departing. No one in the Rangers' team-nor back at United American headquarters-even had a guess as to what was in the boxes.
But from that point on, it was clear that the Soviets-or least some of them-were hauling more than books
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in the back of the Mystery Trucks.
The Rangers stayed close to the Spets convoy as it rumbled out of Cleveland.
The smart money figured the convoy would head southeast to the safety to the main Circle lines which at the time were collapsing back through Pennsylvania and for a while this prediction looked good. The Rangers were waiting for them when they pulled into The Pitt, just two days after a large contingent of Circle troops pulled out.
Once again, the Spetsnaz made camp near a ballfield-in this case Three Rivers Stadium-and once again, they were seen carrying boxes out of the facility and loading them onto the trucks.
But then the plot thickened when the convoy took a sharp left and headed north, then east, skirting Erie, and apparently heading for the massive Circle enclave at Syracuse. Then the Soviets pulled another surprise: instead of taking refuge within the occupied territory of the Aerodrome, they diverted south again, past Syracuse, stopping only when they reached the shore of Lake Otsego, the waters of which were now soaking through Yaz's boots.
A contingent of Circle troops were waiting for them when they arrived. The Soviets immediately dismissed their allies and took over guarding a small building near the edge of the lake. And there they now sat, eating beets and casually sunning themselves, completely unaware that the Rangers were part of the scrub brush nearby.