Freedom Express (22 page)

In the pre-war years, the harbor was known as a major shrimp fishing center. Since the war, the boats tying up there had tended to carry more lethal loads: drugs and guns, as well as fuel, food and basic supplies. Most of this larder came from the fairly prosperous countries and kingdoms of South America.

Despite this change in imports -or actually, because of it-the small seaport did well in the post-war world. Its location close to the border of America helped-it was only one hundred miles south of the Arizona border-as did its less than honest harbormasters, who controlled every pound of cargo that went in and out, skimming a profit from each one.

Still, the attitude in the city had always been seriously laid back. No one had to work very hard to get fed, clothed, and to put some gold in his pocket. Plus the typical post-war vices

-drugs, hookers and guns -were always in ready supply. The city leaders never had to worry about such things as security, because no one had any reason to attack them. In fact, the local bandit gangs actually served as the police force for the port city, and they had ruthlessly pursued their assignment to keep the place free of anyone who would attempt to screw up a good thing.

All of this changed in one day.

A man named Duke Devillian visited the small port city one morning. Arriving completely unannounced, he and his entourage met with the harbormasters, seeking to lease the city's entire waterfront. The harbormasters initially agreed, but when a dispute arose concerning their skim-off percentage in the deal, Devillian pulled out an Uzi submachine gun and shot them all.

From that point on, the people in the port of Desemboque worked exclusively for the Burning Cross.

Little changed in the ensuing months. Few people worked very hard, the bandits were still the police force, and if anything, the flow of cargo -from guns to food -had picked up.

The only real difference was that every pound that came into the port was earmarked for Devillian, specifically for his Burning Cross headquarters. Thus, the route plied by Devillian's helicopters between Desemboque and the Ring of Fire area was the major lifeline for the isolated mesa fortress.

Desemboque was
so
relaxed that the city's only SAM

installation hadn't been serviced in two years.

Its owners felt there was no need. But now, on this fateful day, just six hours after the devastating attack on Santa Fe Airport, they would discover how mistaken they had been.

They heard the jets before they saw them. There were six in all: Two A-7E Strikefighters had roared in from the east and linked up with four bomb-laden A-10 Thunderbolts that had appeared out of the northwest. The half dozen jets buzzed the port for five minutes, flying low and loud, their engines emitting screeches terrifying enough to drive everyone away from the docks.

The port facilities thus cleared, the jets went to work.

The four Thunderbolts lined up in a single file and one by one screamed down and methodically unloaded their ordnance -

cluster bombs, mostly-on both the dockworks and the dozens of storage facilities lining the harbor. Once each A-10 had dumped its bomb load, it returned to strafe any target of opportunity with its enormous GAU 8/A Avenger 30mm cannon. All the while, the two Strikefighters circled overhead, ready to deal with any return fire.

There was none.

When the six attackers finally regrouped and roared off to the north ten minutes later, more than three-quarters of the port of Desemboque was in flames.

Duke Devillian couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so good.

He was sitting in the middle of the Play Pen, perched on a high-backed director's chair. An enormous bowl of crack cocaine sat on the table in front of him; a case of chilled champagne was to his left. Juanita Juarez was there, gulping the bubbly as usual and rummaging through Devillian's videotape collection. Four young girls were there too, and at the moment, Devillian was directing them in a scene.

One of his Roman visitors was manning the video camera; another was handling the lights. Two of the girls in front of him were playing out a seduction scene Devillian had scripted just minutes before.

"Have you ever been with another girl?" the older of the two "actresses," she being dressed like a schoolteacher, asked the other right on cue.

"No," the other one answered, her outfit being the Catholic school uniform left over from Devillian's airborne orgy two days before. "I've always been afraid."

"Don't worry," the schoolteacher said, slowing moving her hand down the younger girl's blouse and caressing one of her small, sweet breasts. "Take these pills, and then the lesson will begin."

Suddenly there was a commotion at the front door of the Play Pen.

"Cut!" Devillian screamed.

He turned to the two men who had just barged in. They were officers of his communications squad.

"Are you crazy?"
Devillian shrieked at them. "I'm going to have you both cut up into bacon!"

Both men gulped simultaneously.

"We are extremely sorry, sir," one of them stuttered. "But we've been getting some pretty way-out messages that you should know about."

Juanita stopped perusing the videotape file. "What kinds of messages?" she asked.

"Bad news," the other communications officer croaked.

"From all over."

Devillian clapped his hands once, and everyone but Juanita and the two communications men fled from the room.

The cross-eyed terrorist leader hastily sucked on a bowl of crack and chugged half a bottle of champagne at the same time.

His incredibly good mood -most of it the result of Juanita accepting his invitation to watch him direct the two girls in action-was now completely dissipated. He felt that such a rare excitement would never return to him, and this made him especially furious.

Finally he gave the signal for the two communications

officers to go ahead.

"First of all," one began, reading from a telex sheet, "the Skull and Crossbone battalion has been nearly wiped out."

Devillian's face drained of color. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"We just got a message from Major Heck," the man continued.

"He was hurt real bad, and it took him almost a half day to get through to us on the radio. It seems that train was

booby-trapped. When he and his guys moved up to take possession, half of it just blew up on them. He says that more than eighty percent of the unit was killed."

Devillian took a long, desperate draw on his crack pipe.

"Damn, did they get pictures?" he wanted to know.

The communications officers looked at him strangely for just a moment, then one of them hastily replied: "He didn't say, boss."

"Go on," Devillian ordered them.

"Well, after the half of the train blew up, the other half took off."

Devillian nearly spit out his mouthful of champagne.

"What do you mean it took off?" he demanded. "That train was abandoned two days ago."

"Apparently not, sir," one of the men replied. "The first half-the one carrying all of the weapons cars pulled out right after the Skull and Crossbones guys got blasted."

"Those
fucking
comic book heroes!" Devillian sputtered.

"Those goddamn flag-waving sons-of-bitches."

"They tricked you," Juanita said with a cruel smile.

Devillian fought the temptation to shoot her on the spot.

Not now, he thought. Maybe later.

"Major Heck is being airlifted back in a medivac chopper,"

one of the officers said. "He'll be here within the hour."

"I don't give a fuck about him," Devillian seethed. "Is that it?"

"No, boss," one of the officers replied. "There's more. A lot more. ...

"The men took the next five minutes detailing the

devastating sneak attack on Santa Fe Airport. The more they talked, the harder Devillian sucked on his crack pipe.

"It's just a big hole in the ground" was how they ended the report. "Nothing left at all. The 707 is gone, as well as a lot of our supply planes and some fighters."

"Christ, did someone nuke the place?" Devillian asked angrily.

"Not quite," replied one of the officers. "The only thing we can figure is that the United Americans somehow found out where we were storing the blockbusters and they hit it with a guided munitions missile."

The other communications man took a deep breath. "One of our guys who survived said he saw a jumpjet launch a missile just before the place went up."

Devillian was beyond words by this time. He nearly passed out from rage when the two men told him about the similarly devastating strike on Port Desemboque just an hour before.

"These United Americans do not give up so easily," Juanita said to the terrorist leader.

The man did not answer her. Instead he just closed his eyes and lowered his head.

"It appears as if they fooled you completely," Juanita pressed on, enjoying herself. "The abandonment of the train was obviously a ruse. And now these attacks on our major

installations. When the people of America get wind of all this, it will be us that look like the fools, not them."

Again, Devillian could not answer. He just slumped over in his chair, spilling a bottle of champagne in the process.

"I think . . . you all better leave . . . now," he said in a voice so weak, Juanita and the two communications officers barely heard it. "Please. . . ."

They slowly backed out of the room, Juanita not quite

knowing what to do. Devillian looked absolutely pathetic, so much so, she heard herself whispering: "This is the end of him."

She was sure her intuition was correct as she closed the huge doors of the Play Pen behind her.

In her last glimpse of Devillian, she saw that he had picked up a revolver next to his chair, unloaded five of its six bullets and then put the gun to his head.

Now, with her ear pressed up close to the door, she could hear only the man's labored breathing and a faint, disturbing click!

Catfish Johnson pulled another burr out of his backside and cursed.

"Goddamn things will cut you up like a knife," he muttered, flicking the sharp piece of grass away from him. "Between these frigging things and the smell of all this horseshit, I'm losing my enthusiasm."

He was sitting next to a small campfire, hidden underneath an outcrop of rock in a blind canyon about twenty-five miles west of Dodge City. Twelve of his 1st Airborne troopers were lounging next to the fire, which was doing only an adequate job of warding off the night chill. A larger fire would have helped-but they couldn't risk attracting any more undue attention. As it was, there were more than one hundred paltry campfires such as this one within a five-mile radius.

Just then, twelve more of his troopers walked into the small camp. None of the men were wearing their standard Airborne uniforms; instead they were dressed as cowboys. Slowly, they climbed out of these outfits and, in a ritual that Catfish had seen many times already, exchanged them with another dozen troopers.

Within five minutes, the squad of twelve new cowboys was marching out of the camp, with the men who'd given them the clothes getting into their usual uniforms and taking their places around the fire.

"How are the horses doing?" Catfish asked Captain Drews-the same officer who had briefly commanded the mini-fort at Eagle Rock before it was abandoned as he settled down next to the fire.

"Everything's fine," Drews answered, warming his hands.

"The count is right: nine hundred and seventy-four. The hay is holding up OK, and I doubt if that watering hole is going to run dry anytime soon."

"How about the fence?"

"Also, OK," Drews answered. "We strapped up a piece near the south gate. It was just old, falling apart. The boys fixed it up real good though."

Catfish caught himself unconsciously taking a deep breath of night air. As usual, it practically caught in his throat.

"Goddamn, I knew horses smelled bad," he said, "but not
this
bad."

"Some people like that smell, Major," Drews kidded him.

"Some people like stepping in the horseshit, too. They say it's good for you."

"I'm sure they do," Catfish replied. "But not me I'm a city person."

Drews poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned back to relax.

"Look at it this way, sir," he said. "We're babysitting the smallest herd. Imagine the guys up near Abilene. They're sitting on top of
three thousand
of these gigsters. Can you imagine how that must smell?"

"Can't be any worse than this," Catfish replied.

The night passed, and Catfish spent the time going over his duties for the following day. They were expecting two air drops.

One was a shipment of saddles which were being parachuted in by the Free Canadian Air Force just before dawn. The other was their daily food drop, also courtesy of the Canadians.

Catfish had to shake his head at the enormity of this new, rather bizarre mission he and the 1st Airborne had taken on. Just the logistics alone of keeping nearly ten thousand men-the better part of a whole division -fed and hidden in the wilds of Kansas were staggering. Flying all the stuff in from Free Canada only made the whole thing even more complicated.