Tomorrow War (18 page)

But it was odd that he would be dreaming of railroads when, on the surface anyway, he had been unaware of the secret of the Z-16’s flight pattern in the past three days.

“We came upon a hill,” Y spoke again. “And on top of it, was an airplane. It was just sitting there. And there was snow around it. But wait a moment. We didn’t actually see this. We were talking to a very young girl—and she was painting it! Yes, I remember now. She was shy, a bit frightened, but she had painted this strange picture of an airplane, sitting on this peak, it was red, white, and blue—and in the background, there was a city in flames and …”

Y stopped talking for a moment. Everyone on the flight deck was staring back at him like he was insane—Zoltan included.

But then the OSS agent pointed at the main communications console and said: “Answer that call. It’s from AirCat Three …”

Two seconds later, the communications console lit up. One of the escorting airplanes was calling. It was AirCat #3.

“Sir,” the pilot reported. “We’ve just spotted something pretty strange down below ….”

The fact that it was, ironically, one of the escorting AirCats and not the Z-16 recon plane that had spotted the object below was lost in the moment following the discovery.

What had riveted everyone’s attention was that the object spotted below was an aircraft.

But it was not just any airplane. It was a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Bantam. The same type that had been known to have been hanging off the wing of the B-2000 superbomber when it went on its transpolar bombing mission.

And it was not like the airplane was just sitting on the ground—or had landed on a flat stretch of this strange region. No, it was sitting on top of the highest hill for miles around. It had not crashed there—indeed the airplane looked fairly intact. Nor had it landed there—the hill’s peak was much too sharp for that. Rather, it was quite clear the airplane had been
placed
there. For someone to find.

Just like in Y’s dream ….

Near the River Kwai

H
IS NAME WAS SWAMI
Bawn Rashi Bawn Shee.

He was not a native of Thailand. Rather, he was from the country now known as Tibet.

He was a Buddhist monk, a man of God. Wrapped in orange saffron, with a crew cut, thick glasses, and leather sandals on his feet, he had sat on top of the hill with the airplane for the past month. He ate little but grass and drank only the rainwater that came down for a few minutes every afternoon at three o’clock precisely when the fast-moving monsoon passed over.

Swami had already lived a strange life—this was just another chapter. Or at least that’s what he had kept telling himself in the past month or so.

He’d been born on one of the highest mountains in the Himalayas and had spent his first ten years living near its peak. He had been trained in all the ways of Buddha and believed to his last breath that the path to salvation was refusal of self and dedication to helping others.

But at just about the age of twenty, something changed inside him. It came in a dream—one that would last more than two decades. Every night, when he fell asleep, he would dream of the most incredible female he could imagine God ever creating.

She was young, blonde, had huge eyes and white golden skin. Her mouth was small, slightly pouty, but angelic when she smiled. Her shoulders, her arms, her legs, her fingers … hell, every part of her was wondrous.

And in his dreams he’d seen it all. Many times. Many, many times.

Over and over …

Sitting on the hill now, he had to shake these impure thoughts away, at least for the time being. These dreams—these very erotic dances in the night—were the reason he was here in Thailand and not back in his home in Tibet.

These dreams had been scandalous from the first night. After ten years he knew that God or the Devil or someone was trying to tell him something. So he asked for permission from his superiors to leave his mountain home and go on a quest, to find the root of his dreams.

That quest, which began just three months before, somehow brought him here. To this hill. To sit with this airplane.

To sit, and dream.

Why here? He had no idea … only that it was here on this hill that he had stopped in his journey and dreamed the dream of this lovely creature and finally learned her name from it.

The name someone had called her in the dream was Chloe. That experience had been so powerful, he decided to stay here until the next domino dropped, which it did, soon afterward.

And now, watching as the six aircraft began landing on the plain below him, he knew yet another chapter in his bizarre quest was about to begin.

It took about a half hour for all the airplanes to get down and their crews to disembark.

Swami watched with great interest as the airplanes landed almost as if they were helicopters, using powerful rockets under their wings to cushion the blow and reduce the distance needed to set down on the grassy rolling plain below the hill.

Swami became fascinated with the airplane’s crewmen as they alighted from their airplanes and set up a small circle of weapons posts around them. Then, leaving some behind, about a dozen men started climbing the hill where he and the airplane sat.

They arrived out of breath and sweaty ten minutes later. He greeted them with a deep bow and a blessing.

“May the green grass of earth, the blue of the sky, and the light from the stars give you peace, nature, and wisdom all of your days ….”

That’s when one of the airmen broke to the front of the crowd. Swami could smell liquor on his breath.

“Who the fuck are you?” this man asked. He was obviously very drunk.

“I am Rashi,” the swami replied. “And I can see you will need more than one blessing to see peace on this earth.”

Two men came forward and yanked the drunken man back into the crowd. Swami looked at these two and felt a jolt go through him. They were twins—a very mystical sign for him.

“Excuse us … and our friend’s behavior,” one began. “We were just wondering if we could ask you a few questions ….”

The swami bowed deeply.

“I have been awaiting you,” he said.

The Jones boys gave a wave to the rest of the group. The AirCat crewmen walked Y halfway down the hill. Zoltan and Crabb joined the two pilots in sitting at Swami’s feet.

“Can you enlighten us?” Zoltan asked the monk.

“I can try,” the monk replied.

One of the Jones boys gestured toward the airplane.

“How did that get up here?” he asked.

Swami laughed a bit. “Oh, you want me to start in the middle?”

“Start wherever you like,” Zoltan told him.

The Swami looked over at the Bantam fighter plane.

“That air vessel was moved up here by the strength of eighty men,” he began. “They came here in an airplane much much bigger than yours. They told me they were compelled to come to this place, as was I ….”

“But why did they bring it up here?” Crabb asked. “A lot of work—”

“They did it to bring you gentlemen here I assume,” the swami said. “They left it as a sign ….”

Everyone started shaking their heads. “Maybe we better start at the beginning,” Seth Jones said.

Swami took a deep breath.

“I was here, a full moon-cycle ago,” he began, a faraway look coming over his eyes. “One moment, the night was still, calm as this day. The next, it grew darker than I have ever seen. I did not know what was happening. I thought it was the end of the world. But then I looked up and saw this enormous aircraft. It was huge! I thought it was a spaceship. An alien ship of some kind—even though I do not believe in such things.

“This airplane was so big it blotted out the stars and the moon. It took me awhile to realize that it was coming down, descending like a mad angel from the night sky. Then I realized it was trying to land here—in this valley, which until that day I called my own.

“I couldn’t believe such a big thing could land here, but it did. It came in over those mountaintops and somehow it just seemed to stop in midair and then it came down.
Bam!
It shook the entire planet. I am sure of this because the birds did not sing for three whole days afterward.

“These men came from the airplane. They were so exhausted they just fell about the ground, and many slept right where they fell. They had no idea I was even here. So, I don’t know for what reason, but I stayed hidden up here and watched them for three days.

“They slept for almost twenty-four hours. I felt like they did not have a care in the world. But I also felt that they—like me—had been compelled to come to this place. Then on the second day many of them left. They went out to the railroad tracks and marched someplace off to the north.

“Another day passed. And then another. And then the most remarkable thing happened. They all returned … and they had a train with them. A very long, empty train.”

At this point Y broke free of his handlers and crawled up the hill.

“A train?” he asked excitedly.

Swami smiled sympathetically at Y.

“Yes, a train,” he replied.

Y turned to the Jones boys. “You must let me listen to this,” he begged them.

“OK,” Seth Jones replied. “Just be polite.”

“Please continue,” Zoltan urged the monk.

“I watched them for the next six days,” he went on, the distant look returning to his eyes. “They did a magnificent job. They took all the weapons I could see from this massive airplane and put them on the train.

“Huge cannons and automatic guns and things that shot rockets. They had many rockets hanging from their wings. They test-fired some of them, and the birds did not sing for another three days.

“It was really amazing how quickly they worked and how efficient they were. It was as if they had been planning to do this thing for years.

“Wherever they got the train from, I don’t know. Or the tools to put all their weapons onto it, I couldn’t say.

“But when they were done, what they had created was awesome. Even for a man of peace like me, it was truly a magnificent sight.”

Swami took a deep breath. The men before him were simply mesmerized by his story.

“Then one day as I was sleeping something woke me up. It was one of them, he had climbed the hill and found me. He was an odd-looking person. He looked …
well, different,
though I don’t know why.

“He asked me if I lived here and whether I’d been here for long, and I was truthful and told him that I’d seen everything they had done from the landing to the building of the armored train. And he went back down the hill after thanking me and soon came back with a lot of great food and sparkling water. I was so hungry I ate it all in front of him!

“Then he asked me to do a favor. A simple one. He asked that I stay here, and that anyone who landed and knew who he was, that I should tell them this story.”

He turned and looked at the airplane.

“They dragged this up here. They said that the people looking for them would see it and know enough to land.”

Y was simply astonished.

“It’s just like my dream,” he said over and over again.

“Sort of,” Zoltan qualified.

There was a long silence. Finally Dave Jones spoke up.

“Did they say what they wanted the train for?” he asked.

The monk just shook his head no.

“Well, where did they go with this train?” he asked the monk. “Did they say that at least?”

The monk just shook his head and pointed to the west.

“All I can tell you,” he said, “is that they went that way … into what people around here call
‘Vdam Net.’”

“And what does that mean?” Seth Jones asked.

“Loosely translated, it means ‘Badlands,’” Swami said. “But that’s an understatement.”

“What do you mean?” Dave Jones asked.

Swami wet his lips, then looked to the west. “The territory over the next mountain has become hostile beyond belief. It is controlled by Rotkiv Khen—or Khen The Great, as I have heard he prefers to be called.”

The Jones boys looked at each other. The name was not unfamiliar to them.

“Wasn’t he that asshole who was going back door on the Japanese in Manchuria while they were getting their kicks in South America?” Seth asked his brother.

“Yes, I think so,” Dave replied. “They said he had the largest standing army in Asia next to the Nips. But I thought they crushed him right after they solidified South America.”

Zoltan’s hand was to his forehead—a sure sign a pronouncement was coming.

“The Japanese let him go,” the psychic said, either tapping into the ethers or recalling some news report he’d heard or read. “They made a deal with him and he withdrew his army from Manchuria and headed south.”

“Your bearded friend is correct,” Swami said. “Khen’s troops started arriving in this area about two months ago. When the Japanese suddenly disappeared from the map, Khen’s forces were in place to fill the vacuum. He swept across Burma and the subcontinent in a matter of days—and never stopped. He is a modern-day version of Attila—I’m sure you educated men are familiar with Attila. In just a matter of a few weeks, Khen’s empire stretched nearly as far as Attila’s once did. They say you can travel for seven days and seven nights, either by boat, train, or airplane, and still you will always see the sun set on some part of Khen’s Empire.”

The Americans were all doing some quick calculations. “If that’s true,” Dave Jones said, “this Khen guy’s influence might have stretched as far as the Middle East by now.”

“He’s at least that far now,” Swami said. “You see, the Japanese had secretly made a pact with the Germans about one year ago. They agreed to link up when the Germans finally won World War Two, and Japan finally took over South America. Now we all know that their timing was a bit off—but the Japanese did secretly build a number of military forts stretching all the way from here to the fringe of southwest Asia, in anticipation of this great alliance. It is these forts that Khen has been able to take over and use to his great advantage. That is probably the reason he moved south after making a deal with Tokyo. He may have known the Japanese were not long for this world, and he knew that being in another part of the planet would be very advantageous. He was correct, as it turned out.”