Target: Point Zero (10 page)

No sooner had these two Stormers cleared the scene when a second pair of Fokkers arrived. Perfectly mimicking their predecessors, these two also sent a storm of bomblets into the opening, pulling up, tails straight, at the very last instant. Another wave of explosions engulfed the cave’s opening. Once again, Hunter was astonished at the Stormers’ violent but highly successful maneuvering.

Now the trailing pair of Fokkers appeared. Each one was lugging a five hundred-pound bomb. They roared in, one behind the other, their engines screaming like banshees. The first triplane unleashed its bomb high—it slammed into the mountain fifty feet above the cave opening. A grand miss! Or so it seemed.

The second Fokker went in and delivered its bomb in the exact same place. Suddenly it seemed as if the whole mountain was moving. An instant later, a huge flood of snow, ice, rocks and dirt dislodged itself from the peak and came crashing down the side of the alp. Even above his airplane’s noisy engine, Hunter could hear the frightening rumble as the avalanche slammed into the cave opening—and kept right on going. Gathering snow, debris, bodies and pieces of wreckage from inside the gun emplacement with it, the landslide left a trail of smoke and snow so thick, it totally obscured the mountain for ten long seconds.

When this cloud finally cleared, the western side of the southern peak had redefined itself. It was now steeper, cleaner, whiter. Hunter turned his Sopwith over and flew close to where the cave had once been. The area was now as smooth and pristine as a ski trail—all evidence that the huge gun emplacement that had once marred its face was gone. He shivered at the horror of those entombed inside. Cold, dark and airless—it was an awful way to die.

Without missing a beat, the Stormers formed up into a V high above the twin mountains. As one, they banked hard to the right and were suddenly diving on the Works trenchline, cannons opened up on full. Chaos broke out inside the invaders’ ditch. This was the first true air attack on their positions, and it was evident they were woefully unprepared for it. As with Hunter’s dry run the day before, many of the hapless Works soldiers jumped out of the trenches and began running away—a foolish thing to do. The lead Russians bore down on these fleeing troops first, perforating them with dizzyingly accurate gunfire.

Though the enemy line was nearly two miles long, the Stormers went to work on tearing up its entire length. Flying little more than fifty feet off the snowy top, their blazing guns found dozens of targets, both human and mechanical. They seemed to be causing an explosion every few feet or so as their rounds not only ate through human flesh, but ammunition stores and fuel tanks as well. Trailing behind the action, Hunter could see the snow on the eastern edge of the mountain actually turning red with blood.

At the end of the trench, the six Fokkers and two Spads pulled up, looped and then swooped in for a second strafing run. This time the Spads concentrated solely on the fleeing, terrified soldiers, while the Fokkers continued attacking the trenches themselves. Even though return fire was now rising up from the Works position, it didn’t affect the Russians one bit. They stayed steady, straight and true, mercilessly gunning down enemy soldiers and destroying any weapons they found along the two-mile fortifications.

Hunter turned the Sopwith over again and found himself riding two hundred fifty feet above the Clocks positions. The friendly soldiers in the eastern trenches were hunkered down and holding on for dear life as the enemy soldiers they’d been trying to kill, one at a time for the past three months, were being slaughtered by the
Sturmoviks
just a few feet away.

It went on for ten full minutes—wave after wave after wave of Stormers swooping down, their Merlins smoking mightily in the frigid air, their cannons strafing the Works trenches mercilessly from one end to the other. Hunter went in on the tail end of one strafing pass made by the three Fokkers and was astounded at the number of casualties lying in the snow. The sun was rising now and its first rays clearly revealed the destruction the Stormers were wreaking. There were thousands of dead and dying Works soldiers staining the icy landscape, froths of blood all around them. Any major weapons systems the invading army had employed—from heavy mortars to rocket launchers—also lay in smoldering ruins. Smoke and huge fires were flaring up everywhere.

Never before had the Wingman seen such quick and complete destruction.

After a while it seemed as if there were no more targets for the
Sturmoviks
to shoot at. Still they formed up once again and as one pounced on the enemy trenches.

The Clocks Air Force had no radios; there was no way at all to communicate between pilots. Had there been, Hunter would have called off the air assault at this point. Destroying an enemy’s war-making capability was one thing—firing on helpless, wounded and obviously defeated soldiers was another.

But now, all he could do was watch with growing repulsion as the Stormers once more opened up on the men fleeing the Works trenches. Hunter realized just what a shitty business he was in. Superheroics aside, he was, in the end, a practitioner in the art of making war, and war only led to suffering, misery and death. Had he the ability at that moment to throw a switch and turn it all off, he would have done so gladly. What he was witnessing wasn’t really a battle now—it was one-sided butchery. He was almost beginning to feel pity for the routed Works soldiers.

Still, the
Sturmoviks
continued attacking. They were concentrating on troops in the rear areas of the Works positions now, gunning down unarmed supply troops and civilian support people. Soon the entire eastern side of the enormous mountain was running red with blood, giving the whole thing a distinctly surreal edge. Just when would the Stormers run out of ammunition? Or fuel? Or targets to shoot at?

Finally it got to the point where Hunter knew he had to call a halt to the action, in whatever way possible. He flipped the Sopwith over and made a beeline for the far end of the Works trenches. Two Fokkers were just completing yet another strafing run. As they flashed by, Hunter began giving them the cut signal, emphatically drawing his finger across his throat. But whether the Russian fliers saw him or not, he couldn’t tell. The Fokkers pulled straight up and began climbing madly, a maneuver Hunter took to be the prelude to a loop and yet another attack.

Two more triplanes came off the shooting gallery—Hunter gave them the kill sign, too. But just like the first pair, they either didn’t see him or they chose to ignore him. They, too, put their triplanes on their tails and began climbing straight up. The last two Fokkers arrived next, but they pulled tails-up even before Hunter could attempt to signal them. The trailing pair of Spads did the same thing. Before he knew it, all of the Russians were heading straight up, climbing so high, they quickly passed out of sight.

What is going on here?
Hunter thought madly.

At that moment, he felt a mighty pounding on his left shoulder. He turned to see Orr grabbing him, a look of absolute horror etched across his face. He’d long ago dropped his cameras and was pointing straight up with his free hand. Oddly, Hunter could even see some of the Clocks soldiers glaring up into the early morning sky. Even some of the surviving enemy troops on the Works side were gazing heavenward.

Finally Hunter looked up, curious to know what the hell everyone was looking at. An instant later, his jaw dropped open as well.

There was a huge shadow passing over them—it was so big, it blocked out all light from the rising sun. All Hunter could see at first was black—squares of it, they seemed scorched and burned. Then he saw the huge wing, then the gigantic nose, then the trio of monstrous tailpipes and finally the massive tail itself. The sound of a woman screaming filled his ears again. It quickly turned into a screech.

Only then did he see it full view.

Flying right over them, slower than possible and coming in for a landing, was the Zon space shuttle.

Hunter could not believe it. The thing looked like an enormous flying battleship, filling up the sky. His blood began to boil. His muscles tensed to the point of bursting his flight suit. So this was how it was going to be? The mountain was coming to Mohammed? Well, okay, that was fine with him. He had no idea why the Zon was coming down here, at Clocks, but it didn’t make much difference, did it?

In fact, the cosmos had just made his job a lot easier.

A second later he, too, was flying straight up, at the same moment, screaming back at Orr to get the Sopwith’s machine gun ready. The
Sturmoviks
were already firing on the great spaceship, their guns blazing as they flew rings around its nose and tail. Two Stormers were pouring fire into the Zon’s cockpit windows, two more were firing directly into its exposed underbelly. The other four were strafing it up and down and every which way. They were showing even less mercy with the spacecraft than they had with the enemy troops below.

Soon enough, streams of flame and smoke were breaking out all over the shuttle. Still the huge spaceship continued floating towards the ground, its nose pointing towards the insanely short runway just outside Clocks.

Hunter madly was pouring on the rpms now, seeking with all his might to climb and join the strange battle. But it seemed the faster he went, the more distance he found between himself and the smoking, flaming Zon. What was this? Were the instruments in his open cockpit reading wrong? Were the winds screaming between the twin peaks counteracting his attempts to close in on the shuttle? Or was it something else?

He pushed his throttle forward all the way and then some. Still, it seemed like he could not quite catch up with the falling spaceship. He turned back towards Orr, who was now incomprehensibly wearing a swami’s turban and playing a long ebony flute. Hunter turned back to see the Zon was suddenly below him, the
Sturmoviks
still buzzing around it, firing their massive cannons and pouring fire into dozens of already smoking wounds.

It was time for a change of tactics.

Hunter laid on the throttle as heavy as possible and soon the Sopwith was plummeting back to earth. Down the side of the mountain they went, quickly gaining speed and getting below the floating shuttle once again. In seconds, he was able to bring the biplane in for a short, quick, almost violent landing. He didn’t even bother to kill the engine—once it had stopped, he simply jumped out and ran, full tilt, towards the end of the small runway.

The Zon was just coming in, trailing hundreds of streams of smoke and fire behind it. The
Sturmoviks
kept firing on the shuttle even as it touched down with a cloud of dust, smoke and snow. It roared by Hunter, its rear chutes deploying and somehow slowing it down in an amazingly short amount of distance. The massive shuttle came to a halt in a mere five seconds.

Suddenly the tiny airfield seemed very crowded. It was as if the entire population of Clocks had turned out for this strange arrival, soldiers and civilians alike. An oom-pah band—a real one—was lined up near the nose of the smoking spacecraft, belting out its lustiest tune. Soldiers were firing their guns into the air—Hunter couldn’t tell whether it was in anger or celebration. He ran up to the front of the shuttle, his M-16F2 gun suddenly appearing in his hands. A ramp was lowered from the front door of the spacecraft and Hunter bounded up its steps, taking three at a time. Then the door to the shuttle itself began to open, very slowly. Hunter reached the top and put his M-16 on full auto—he was intent on killing the first person to come out of the Zon and everyone behind them as well.

Finally the hatch was swung back all the way. Hunter raised his weapon, took a bead on a dark figure emerging from within the shuttle. His fingers began to squeeze the trigger just as this person walked out into the suddenly brilliant sunshine. It was a man, tall, wearing enormous sunglasses, with long hair, sideburns, a dark collarless suit, tight pants and high-heeled black boots. He was carrying a banjo with him and was plucking a tune on its strings.

Hunter’s next breath caught in his throat—
Jessuz,
was it really…

“Who are you?” he asked incredulously.

The man looked back at him, lowered his sunglasses, and laughed.

“C’mon boy…” he said, through a curled upper lip. “Don’t you recognize the
King?
”

Hunter stared back at him
“Elvis?”

A moment later, he sat straight up—and smashed his head on the steering wheel of the tanker truck. His legs were instantly entangled; his hands, feet and fingers were numb. He closed his eyes, counted to three and then opened them again.

And that’s when it began to sink in. He was still inside the cab of the cold Benz trailer truck, parked along the side of the road leading up to the twin mountains.

He had fallen asleep.

Fifteen minutes later, Hunter was driving up to the base of the twin peaks.

There was a city nestled in here all right—large, cluttered and charmingly Alpine. But it was dead and empty, just like all the other cities he’d seen in his trip across the barren continent. Its streets were bare, its houses either boarded-up, flattened or slowly surrendering to the mercy of the elements. No one had lived here in many years, he knew. No light had burned, no fire had been struck in a very long time.

He pulled the big rig onto the mountain road and began the long slippery climb up. It was no different than a dozen other mountain roads he’d traveled in the past two days; if anything, it was maddeningly familiar. He reached the summit after a while and stared off to the west to find more mountains, with more barren, slippery roads in between.

He stopped the truck at the peak and stared back down at the deserted city for a moment. Though fully awake now, it was still hard for him to believe. There was no Clocks, no Orr, no
Volkspolizi,
no
Rootentootzen,
Badtown, biplanes or
Sturmoviks. How strange it was.
Frozen wars, UFOs, Nazis and free men, pyramids, space shuttles, dinosaurs, Emma and Elvis—these were the things the Wingman dreamed of.