Deadly Wands (37 page)

The applause rose to the heavens. Jack could
see that the damn kid beat him again. Billy suddenly started
laughing too hard to continue. He tried to drink some wine, but
coughed in that, too.

"The problem, of course, with Mongol cash is
only Mongols accept it, and only the government or government
contractors accept it in large quantities. Because Mongolian law
requires them to.

"You all know those child-size gunpowder
bombs that Genghis used to such great effect bombarding walled
cities two centuries before Europeans woke up to their potential?
Yeah, funny story.

“Anyways, we found the main logistical
officer at their headquarters who buys them for the High Command
and, instead of dying, decided to retire rich. It turns out that
Jebe ordered several million bombs, so I left Blade to help the
logistical officer send them to private warehouses across Eurasia.
Private third-party contractors are transporting them to where my
raiders in Central Asia can access them. And skeptics say Mongol
currency is worthless!”

Billy paused to imagine Jebe’s reaction when
he discovers the enemy bought the munitions he planned on dropping
on them.

"Now, I've always said the best time to kill
quads is in their sleep. Preferably drunk. But we cannot kill them
at all without knowing who they are. The High Command is making our
task easier by sending them to the Alps. So I say, let’s use Jebe
to bleed Europe of Mongol strength.

"I sent the 3
^rd
Battalion to dig
bunkers on the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western
Europe. At four thousand eight hundred meters, it stands nearly one
and a half kilometers higher than the tallest peak on the Pyrenees.
The Mongols put their training camp at three thousand meters, which
may be enough for the Pyrenees, but fighting at five thousand
meters will leave them literally breathless, while American
University trained our guys at great heights. So, of our twenty
thousand American marathoners, I’m asking for the two thousand with
the highest ceiling to alternate weeks on the mountain.

“It’s almost winter, Mont Blanc is the
coldest place in Europe, and I bought two thousand sets of
cold-weather clothes from England. We’ll go prepared for winter
warfare, while Jebe will take them with what they’re wearing. The
mountain will cause more casualties than our wands. By spring,
we’ll own another mountain chain and take the Italian peninsula
from the enemy, which gives us most of the Mediterranean. Since
they’re leaving Europe defenseless, the rest of you should raid
their banks and businesses. And don’t forget to spread a video of
me urging Europeans to kill every Mongol on sight.”

Through the thunderous applause, Jack felt
the weight of responsibility for the global war finally slip off
his shoulders. Over the centuries, many rebel leaders briefly
eclipsed him, but none survived long. So it always came back to him
to do the heavy lifting.

The problem with leading century-old veterans
is that they suffer from so many scars. The physical scars that
predict cold weather are bad enough, but the psychic ones are
worse. It made being with them a living hell. War is endless tedium
interrupted by unexpected terror endured under constant hardship,
little sleep, and unbearable stress. So it’s bad enough when the
girl back home replaces you, or your current lover finds someone
better. After enough cold, rainy nights without a tent, one
innocent remark could spark a deadly fight. Jealously, envy, and
boredom wound more soldiers than the enemy. Yet Jack asked them to
follow him into battle, so they were his responsibility.

Until now.

He looked at the Red Baron in wonder. After
believing for so long that his original family died, the rebellion
finds the leader it needs in his last legitimate descendent, of all
people. And just a boy, at that.

Jack examined the faces of the embittered
veterans who had fought for centuries and saw hope in their eyes.
Even Grandma believed the boy could beat Genghis freaking Khan, and
she never let anyone get her hopes up. Not after what her father
did to her.

As he watched the teenager absorb their
applause, Jack discovered that he, too, believed the Red Baron
would prevail. He couldn’t imagine how, but something deep inside
told him the boy would win. Despite all the odds. That damn kid
turned the world’s oldest skeptic into a believer.

Unbelievable.

CHAPTER 47

Red’s growing super-quad force and Jack’s ten
thousand Africans left to destroy Mongol units along the northern
African coastline because Billy saw an opportunity to take the
entire Mediterranean from the Mongols. The Africans would
eventually station themselves in Egypt to block Mongols from
entering or leaving the continent, thus denying African wealth to
the Empire.

To minimize cold-related illness, Billy
alternated his two battalions weekly. On their week off the
mountaintop, the battalion would deliver food, supplies, and bombs.
Rotating companies attacked the enemy every three hours. Most of
Jebe’s quads could only fly a few hundred kilometers before
resting. Which is why Billy located his closest base five hundred
kilometers away on Mont Blanc.

General Jebe re-organized his quads so that
those who could fly farthest or highest flew together, but those
units suffered the first and largest casualties. The rest of the
Mongols were more targets than threats. The more Billy killed, the
more quads that Jebe demanded from the High Command.

Jebe, naturally, attacked Team Red on Mont
Blanc, but they had to rest halfway there. Billy kept companies in
hidden bunkers to ambush units when they rested. Jebe eventually
took those bunkers, but Billy had planted explosives to blow them
up when the Mongols slept inside.

Jebe now had to establish less protected
camps close to Mont Blanc. Ger huts were portable, but not bomb or
fire proof. Billy didn't mind because it meant fighting on the
highest possible point in Western Europe. The Mongols looked almost
comical, dropping out of the sky when the intensity of fighting
required more oxygen than they received. In contrast, the Americans
sang nursery rhymes to slow their breathing when going into
battle.

Every time Billy’s battalions switched, they
interviewed the Red Baron and pooled those videos to distribute to
news agencies. The extreme cold deepened Billy’s voice and made it
raspier. Ironically, Billy had to impersonate Jim impersonating
William, who periodically released threatening videos. Soon all of
Europe waited impatiently for the weekly updates, which pitted the
Red Baron against the Empire’s best general. Everyone understood
that all of Europe was at stake. Rumor even had it that the Great
Khan himself was their most dedicated viewer.

Jebe initially had to house eighty thousand
troops while Billy only needed bunkers for a thousand, with a few
hidden alternate camps farther away for when Jebe destroyed the
main camp. Billy had a thousand marathoners to supply his camp,
while Jebe needed thirty thousand for his dwindling armada. When he
needed supplies, Billy sent his off-mountain battalion to ambush
the Mongol logistical camp, forcing Jebe to move it ever farther
away and assign more warriors to guard it. The Americans thought it
funny that Jebe brought them free supplies and gave them
opportunities to kill air mules.

Billy knew the Khan could not afford to let
this narrative continue. He lost Spain and could lose Africa and
western Europe. Hell, news reports suggested that the Free Europe
air forces now fielded more foreign quads than the Mongols.
Meaning, they were winning the so-called Battle of the
Mercenaries.

All thanks to the Red Baron’s victories. But
his death could reverse this. Already, rumors grew that the Great
Khan was raising an unstoppable force to end the Red Baron, once
and for all.

In his weekly interviews, the Baron
progressively grew crazier, emphasizing the cold misery of living
in a frozen hole and defiantly defending his latest defeats. He
acted suicidal, paranoid, and delusional, claiming his quads would
fight to the last man, despite the horrific losses. He complained
bitterly of American Jack and the super-quads abandoning him, of
sell-outs and mass desertions. He ranted and raved and cursed his
former comrades.

He clearly had a death wish. Everyone knew
the Red Baron was gonna die, and everyone wanted to see it. The
lucky bastard who recorded the Baron’s last fight could sell it for
a fortune.

CHAPTER 48

American Jack cautiously crawled deeper into
the freezing underground bunker on the Alps, searching for the most
dangerous man alive. He could barely breathe and had never known
such cold. He saw Red under several blankets, talking to himself,
and searched his face for signs of a suicidal lunatic.

"Jack, you're suppose to be in Africa.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“I started a video diary when I was three. My
dad thought it’d be good for me to see how I changed over the
years.”

"Your interviews are pretty convincing. I had
to look around me to make sure I wasn't living in luxury in Africa.
Even our own guys are worried you have a death wish. You said some
pretty nasty things about us greedy sell-outs. Some wonder if you
forgot that you sent them to Africa to clear the northern
coastline.”

“Grandpa, did you come all this way just to
make sure I’m not as crazy as I seem in the videos? You, of all
people, should know not to believe my propaganda. Although this
cold makes me feel every injury I’ve ever had, which would drive
anyone insane.”

"You've aged, boy."

"Look who's talking, old man," Billy shot
back, a bit prickly after two months of sub-zero temperatures.

“Not losing your nerve, are you, boy?" Jack
needled him. He needed to know how close Red was to the edge.

"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you,
grandpa? Ever been on the receiving end of those big bombs before?
It's pretty unnerving. At least our bunker was covered with several
meters of frozen earth. The damn things still bounced me a meter in
the air. When they finally collapse the roof -- boy, I thought I’d
never dig myself out. Those Mongols must have balls the size of
bulls to sleep in felt huts.”

Jack pretended to be sympathetic. “You’re
killing them as fast as Jebe gets reinforcements. The Americans
have decimated their air force. Prince and Mali have basically
killed all Mongols still dueling in Europe. News reports said
you’ve killed sixty thousand on the mountain, and almost as many
quads off the mountain.”

The thought animated the boy. “I had someone
design heat-resistance clothing for me, not knowing that it
insulated even better against the cold. So we made gloves, socks,
and jackets out of it. The Mongols actually fight over our corpses
for our clothing. I hired experts to train us to prevent frostbite,
while cold-related illnesses have shattered Jebe’s combat
readiness.”

Jack didn’t care about that. “How’d you deal
with the marathon division that Genghis lent Jebe?”

“We never knew about them until they showed
up. I nearly shat myself, seeing ten thousand quads carrying those
big munitions. I thought I bought them all up. We didn’t see them
because they came from the opposite direction. They nearly buried
me when they destroyed our primary base. While one company
exhausted them, I sent the other nine companies to ambush them on
their way to Jebe’s base camp.”

“But you got the bastards,” Jack wanted to
know.

“Oh, yeah. The nine companies jumped them
right before they reached Jebe’s camp, when they were most tired.
They thought they were home free! Celebrating, their wands singing
in unison, already collecting their bonuses in their minds. Those
nine companies got half of them before Jebe drove them off.

“Then, the next time we swapped battalions, a
terrible snowstorm was coming. I took the hundred with the highest
ceiling and lured a few thousand enemy marathoners right into its
path. We simply flew above it, although the strong winds exhausted
us. But the rest of our battalion brought us tents, food, and hot
soup as soon as the worst winds passed. We killed a few thousand
precious Mongol marathoners without firing a shot. We suffered more
casualties from frostbite, digging for their super-wands, than
killing them.”

“What happened to your first alternate base?”
Jack wondered.

“Well, they eventually found it. I expected
them to. Jebe sent twenty thousand conventional troops. His
original quads screened the bombers as far as they could, then
landed to screen their return so we couldn’t harass them all the
way back to base.

“But they never suspected that I had another
battalion because I never attacked with more than a thousand
fliers. My other guys found literally thousands of exhausted
Mongols, panting like dogs in the snow, unable to fly another
meter. Their dark uniforms against the white snow made it easier
than shooting fat fish in a shallow stream.

“Then, right before the bastards arrived at
our alternate camp, my other battalion hit them from above and just
tore them up. Remember, those new bombs weigh fifty kilos, so those
long-distance quads were in no shape to dogfight. A thousand broke
off to drive us off while the rest absorbed losses until they could
bomb our camp, which they assumed would drive us off the
mountaintop. They destroy our bunkers, but we harassed them all the
way home.

“Since then, from our last alternate camp six
hundred kilometers away, rotating companies raid their base every
hour. I don’t know how they can sleep through hourly raid
alarms.”

Jack felt so relieved that Red could speak
rationally. His weekly ravings to the news agencies scared the hell
out of him. Ever week the Baron seemed loonier. Everyone fighting
the Mongol Empire now appreciated how much they depended on this
faceless hero to win the war. Which led him to the next topic: