Tomorrow War (30 page)

The reason for this environmentally putrid idea was to create a huge bay leading into the upper Indus, allowing large ships to reach a point some 150 miles inland from the Arabian Sea. These ships, of course, would be carrying mercenaries. By widening and joining these two waterways—killing or displacing nearly one million people in the process—the mercenaries would cut three days off of a tough march through hilly, thickly covered lower Pakistan. For want of seventy-two extra hours, a significant part of the earth’s face was being transformed without its permission.

For all this, Sluggo Von Baron would later suffer the pains of Hell.

But now, looking down on his massive project, he felt an almost sexual excitement running through him. This was money staring him back in the face. More money than he’d ever imagined—and he’d been born rich. It was a simple plan really: get as many merc ships as possible to travel up his newly opened passage, and charge them an enormous fee, which they wouldn’t mind paying if it meant their men could get to the big fight up north for Kabul Downs fresh and quickly. So far, this had all worked out better than he’d dreamed.

The blue bloods had contracted for twenty divisions of forced mercs—soldiers that would be fighting against their will—as well as four professional divisions to intervene in the Kabul Downs fight. Close to a quarter of a million men would invade Afghanistan from the south, attacking the Red Army at its rear, and finally ending the fight in favor of the royals. Or so the Blues intended.

But what Sluggo knew, and very few others besides him, was that the people who were bringing all these mercenaries to this war, had no intention of stopping once they’d rolled over the Red Army. Even though the blue bloods were paying the bill, secret plans spelled out an operation in which the oncoming “Black Army” would simply keep going after they defeated the Reds, eliminating the Blues, and taking over the strategically important Kabul Downs for themselves. At that point it would be sold—the entire city and whatever was left of the population—to the highest bidder. Sluggo Von Baron would double his already substantial wealth, just like that.

He’d just completed a briefing for some members of the Black Army high command not thirty minutes before. The secret plans for this double cross were still laid out on the table next to him, flapping gently in the breeze, as he watched the massive dredging operation continue unabated a half mile down the hill from him.

He was almost completely happy at this point. He was certainly moving and shaking—tons of dirt were dredged up every minute, widening and emptying holes left over from the five massive DG-55 bomb blasts that had started this huge project in the first place. But now, as he watched a small fleet of support boats scurrying up and around the artificial bays created by the enormous blasts, he felt something eating at his craw. What could it be? All seemed right with his world. He’d had an excellent briefing with the Black Army advance men. The double-cross plan was simple and ready to be put into effect. So what was bugging him couldn’t be business-related.

Physically, his body felt good, too. He would soon retire to the small town a mile away, partake in some fine food he’d flown in and drink some great brandy. Then it would be on to the well-stocked cathouse, where he would choose from a bevy of young girls who had also been brought along on this adventure for his bodily gratification.

So what was bothering him? He really couldn’t tell. But despite all this evidence that the world was spinning his way, he could not identify the slight twitch of foreboding in the pit of his stomach.

He thought about this for a few minutes until it finally hit him. It was the dream he’d had the night before causing his discomfort. It had been mildly terrifying. He was on this very porch, at this very time of day, drinking this very drink, when suddenly a huge bird had come out of the sky, swooped down, impaled him on its talons, and then flew away to a huge nest where he had been provided as a meal for the bird’s equally huge, equally horrible chicks.

It was the nightmare that was making him uncomfortable, and he knew with a few deep breaths it would all go away again.

He started sucking in some of the moist, hot air and felt it sting his lungs as it went in. The air was so humid it was making him perspire. So it was strange that Von Baron felt a chill go across the back of his neck. And when there was another huge explosion about ten miles away, the rumbling under his rear end startled him in a manner that he was not very accustomed to. He was actually getting a bit of the shakes—all because of that
damn dream?

Well, no, not exactly.

Because not a second later Von Baron felt a different sort of chill. This one was on the front of his neck, right below his rather delicate Adam’s apple.

This chill was from the steel of a cold, razor-sharp knife.

“Get up,” the man told him. “Slowly …”

Petrified, Von Baron did as told. He was convinced that the Black Army officers he’d just briefed had returned, crept up on him in an effort to double-double-cross him just as they were about to double-cross the blue bloods.

But when the man told him to slowly turn around, which Von Baron did, he was astonished to see Hawk Hunter in a Red Army uniform.

Von Baron nearly laughed. He didn’t think the Reds had it in them to capture someone as important as he was.

But he was wrong ….

Hunter looked him over with contempt. He’d been scouting this area since landing nearby earlier that morning. He’d watched the Black Army officers come and go, and his psychic compass had told him that the information he needed could be gotten from this man with the poster-boy looks and flattened nose.

“Get those plans, roll ’em up,” Hunter ordered Sluggo. With shaking hands, Von Baron obeyed.

“Look …,” he began with a shaky voice. “Can we maybe make a deal here? I’m very rich. I could make you rich, too.”

Hunter laughed in his face.

“You won’t know what I’m talking about,” he told Sluggo. “But I knew you in another world. And Back There, you were a pip-squeak. A real lowlife. And someone would have to look pretty deep into my stories just to find you. But now, here you are—you think you’re rich. You think you’re powerful. But you’re still a pip-squeak.”

Hunter took the rolled-up plans from him and then motioned with his knife.

“Start walking,” he said.

Von Baron really started to worry now. This man had a very strange look about him. He just looked, well,
different.
And that scared Sluggo even more than the knife.

So he started walking, off the porch and up the road to the very top of the hill. In a clearing, Sluggo saw a very unlikely airplane hidden. On first glance he had no idea how it had fit into such a small area.

“What kind of machine is this?” he asked in his German-tinged accent. “Can I buy it from you after we have concluded our business?”

Hunter laughed at him again.

“Believe me,” he said, “once we’ve concluded ‘our business,’ the last thing you will want to do is buy this or anything else from me.”

Fitz, JT, and Ben were waiting for Hunter when he returned to Red Base One.

The VTOL plane roared over the airfield once, then went into a hover. He came down slowly, like a huge bird descending from the late-afternoon skies. The battle of Kabul Downs was still raging a mile away: artillery, tank fire, the occasional scream of a jet fighter passing by. These were the sounds that filled the air now.

But all of this seemed secondary as the three men ran out to Hunter’s plane. The Wingman killed his engines and then leapt from his canopy. It was only then that his three friends noticed that he’d brought a strange piece of cargo back with him.

Lashed underneath the VTOL was a man. He was held in place by several pieces of simple rope. He was shivering from cold and terror, his eyes twice as wide as normal, and his face nearly powder-white.

“Well, I’ll be,” Fitz said. “What the hell you got there, Hunter, old boy?”

Hunter began untying Von Baron from beneath the bottom of the hover jet.

“What I’ve got,” Hunter answered, “is a pigeon that appears ready to spill all. Isn’t that right, Sluggo?”

Von Baron could hardly move, he was so frozen with fear. The hour ride up from southern Pakistan had caused him to lose control of his bodily functions several times, even though Hunter had actually kept his speed down to a mere one hundred knots, and his altitude at a reasonable one thousand feet, all to make sure Von Baron was still alive once he got to Red Base One.

And alive he was—but not yet thinking too clearly. As Fitz, Ben, and JT finally untied him from the last coil of rope, Von Baron fell hard to the runway and immediately curled up into the fetal position.

“Don’t eat me,” he started babbling. “Please, just don’t eat me.”

T
HE INTERROGATION OF SLUGGO
Von Baron lasted throughout the night, and well into the next morning.

Fitz was the lead inquisitor. Hunter, Kurjan, JT, and Ben were present, as well. They surrounded the flesh and arms trader with a tight ring of grim faces inside the Red Force intelligence hut.

Through it all, Y was laid out in a nearby corner. Sleeping off yet another drunk, he would occasionally punctuate the proceedings with a cry of “Emma … no!” before slipping back into his self-induced stupor. It lent an unnerving edge to the already-somber night.

The questioning lasted more than eight hours, but ironically, Von Baron could tell them only what they already suspected: The huge Black Army would be landing that morning, and if they moved swiftly, the lead elements would be close to Kabul Downs in less than two days.

Once in position, the Black Army would attack the Red Army’s rear flank at first chance. By sheer numbers alone, they would most likely roll over the Reds in just a few days, especially if the Blue Forces launched an attack around the same time, still thinking that the Black Army was actually their ally.

The sun finally came up and in the cold light of dawn, those inside the Red Force intelligence hut knew they were facing an unpleasant choice of doomsday scenarios. Either be annihilated by the Blue Army or the Blacks, all as a prelude to those two fighting each other.

Even a full withdrawal was not an option. While Red Forces on the eastern and western flanks could theoretically leave their lines and move to the safety of western Afghanistan and Pakistan, those here on the southern front couldn’t possibly pick up and move at the same time without inviting a breakout by the Blue Forces.

“We’re caught in a vise,” Fitz said at the conclusion of the interrogation. “And there ain’t nothing we can do about it.”

No one could argue with that logic.

Still, Hunter had a plan in mind—but the fact that the Black Army was coming on so strong made his desperate strategy even more so. Once the Blues knew their Black Army “allies” were heading north, they would have the ability to go on the offensive for the first time in the war. They would undoubtedly launch an all-out attack on the Reds, and the Reds on the southern flank would have nowhere to go with the Black Army coming right up their asses.

There was no other way of looking at it: As far as the Reds were concerned, the battle for Kabul Downs was lost. They could not win. It was a grim fact that the Red Army high command had to face. But winning the war was not the primary concern anymore: the survival of nearly one hundred thousand Red Force troops was.

Hunter felt most of that responsibility resting right on his shoulders.

“Let’s all get some sleep,” he suggested once Von Baron was led away to a makeshift prison cell. “Maybe one of us will dream up a way to get out of this.”

JT just snorted in response. “Good luck trying that,” he said.

Hunter was only able to sleep for an hour and a half—longer than he’d rested since coming to this strange, little war, but still not as long as he’d wanted.

He knew what desperate times lay ahead, and for once he would have welcomed the onset of a dark slumber—just to get away from the inevitable calamity they were facing.

But ninety minutes into Hawk’s restless sleep, Fitz ran into his billet and shook him awake.

“Hawker, you have to see this to believe it,” the Irishman was telling him anxiously. “I don’t quite believe it myself.”

Hunter quickly slid into his red camo battle fatigues and followed Fitz out the door. They ran to the center of Red Base One, where JT and Ben had a Bug copter waiting.

“We’ve got to get up to the front immediately,” Ben was saying.

No sooner were Hunter and Fitz on board when JT hit the power lever and off they went.

The trip to the front took two minutes. They did not talk on the way—indeed, they could not talk because JT had the noisy little chopper’s engine revved so high, normal conversation was impossible.

They landed at a battered outpost close by the bloody bridge. Hunter noticed right away that the front was absolutely quiet. No artillery going off, no gunfire at all.
Eerie …

They alighted from the Bug to find some of Kurjan’s staff standing next to a huge trench. This was ground zero in the war between the Blues and Reds—wreckage everywhere, pools of putrid water, bones and body parts. Kabul Downs, with many sections of it still smoking, stood a silent witness in the background.

Hunter looked over the trench, only to get one of the great shocks of his life. On the other side a table had been set up and Kurjan and three other high-ranking Red Army officers were sitting at it. Facing them were four Blue Army officers.

They were carrying a white flag.

Hunter stopped in his tracks about ten feet from them.

He grabbed one of Kurjan’s men, a guy named Al Nolan.

“Don’t tell me they’re surrendering?” he said to Nolan.

The guy nicknamed “Ironman” just shook his head no.

“They’re not surrendering to us,” he said. “They want us to surrender to them.”

It took a few minutes for Hunter to catch Kurjan’s eye. When he did, the Red Army intell man excused himself from the table and walked over to where Hunter, Fitz, JT, and Ben were waiting.