The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (43 page)

The Zero continued to climb toward him. A lousy sparrow trying his wings against an Eagle. He saw the twinkling of the Zeke’s guns. I’m out of range you idiot, he thought. Then his Lightning shuddered as he triggered his own guns. The Zeke tried to break off, but it was too late. With a slight nudge to the nose of the Lightning, Jason followed the Zero as it made its move. A storm of lead hit the cowling and ripped back through the cockpit and along the fuselage. Fragments of the plane sprayed into space as it disintegrated. The pilot dissolved in a bloody mist. No one would bail out of that one.

Jason twitched the nose of the Lightning in an attempt to get a shot at the FW-190, but he was too late. He whipped on around and bore down on the bomber.

The Focke-Wulf was behind him now, turning and diving. But Jason knew it couldn’t catch him in time.

The bomber was over Springville, dumping its bombs. The tail gunner and top gunner were firing up at Jason, but he was closing so fast now they couldn’t track him. The Lightning’s guns roared. The plexiglass dome of the top gunner shattered. Blood sprayed out and streaked the side of the bomber. The B-17 staggered as Jason’s slugs tore across the fuselage and through both of the starboard engines.

Jason’s P-38 slashed downward past the Fortress. The side and belly gunners blazed away, but he was too fast. The torque of the Lightning’s one remaining engine naturally made the plane try to roll left and now Jason applied full back stick and kicked the rudder to accelerate that roll. The quickness of the maneuver fooled the pilot of the Focke-Wulf who flashed past as the Lightning pulled out of the dive and used the speed so gained to climb rapidly toward the B-17, which was banking around to head for home.

The Lightning’s guns fired again. The B-17’s tailgunner died in a hail of lead and shattered glass. The P-38’s guns continued to roar. Half the B-17’s tail section vanished under the onslaught as the Lightning zoomed past. The Fortress was wobbling as the pilot tried desperately to keep her in the air.

Jason caught a glimpse of the FW-190 out of the corner of his eye. Its pilot had managed a tighter turn below and now, with its superior rate of climb, was rapidly gaining on the P-38.

Jason winged over to his left and dove on the startled pilot. He pulled the trigger an instant before the FW-190’s pilot. A stream of lead reached for the Focke-Wulf, whose pilot veered even as he returned fire, in a movement too swift for Jason to follow. He felt the Lightning shudder and shake as the Focke-Wulf looped around onto his tail and hammered lead into the sturdy plane. But Jason didn’t care because now he was lined up on the Fortress. His guns thundered and a trail of devastation marched along the bomber’s fuselage and through the cockpit.

Jason tried to veer to his left, out of the Focke-Wulf’s line of fire but he’d turned that direction too many times to fool the enemy pilot again. Jason had no choice really. Any attempt to roll right would have been too slow and awkward, fighting as it did, the natural tendency of the plane. The Focke-Wulf’s slugs ripped along the Lightning’s starboard fuselage and into its sole remaining engine. Oil streamed back along the fuselage as the engine struggled to keep running. It stalled and the P-38 began to fall.

Streaks of flame shot out of the damaged engine and caught on the oil. Instantly, half of the fuselage and most of the starboard wing was on fire. Flames licked at the cockpit as Jason stared in horror. With the cast on his leg, he hadn’t been able to wear a parachute and still fit in the cockpit. He looked out at the ground so far below. The glance confirmed his greatest fear. He was still high enough to burn to death before he hit the ground.

He picked up his microphone.

“Jase to base, I’m hit and going down. Just look up in the sky. That overgrown candle you see is me.”

“Bail out, Jase! Do you hear me? Get the fuck out of there!”

“That’s a good idea, base. Wish I’d thought of that.”

Jason’s sense of humor died hard. Why the hell not, he thought, as he struggled to open the cockpit. It’s better than burning. Considering the life he’d lived, he figured he might get his fill of that soon enough anyhow. ‘Specially if any of them fundamentalist preachers knew shit from shinola.

Flames singed his hair as he rolled the canopy back. He propped himself up and prepared to jump. Intense heat blistered his face, forcing him to look away. That’s when he noticed that the Focke-Wulf was following him down. He pulled his pistol and emptied it at the enemy plane, then threw the gun at it and leapt from the cockpit. He flung both arms wide, the middle finger of each hand extended in a universally recognized message to his enemy.

He soared like an eagle directing his fall toward the King’s breakthrough in hopes he could splatter one last enemy soldier. But mostly he watched the stricken B-17 as it plummeted into the earth and thought about the fragility of life.

*

On the ground below, men from both sides had been watching the duel in the air. Allied soldiers despaired as Jason’s plane burned. They watched in horror as he leaped to his death. On the King’s side of the line, men cheered.

Private George Greyson, who had been in the King’s army less than a year, had good enough eyes to actually see Jason’s awkward one-legged jump from the burning Lightning.

“Hey Sarge,” he called to Sergeant Donovan, his platoon leader in amazement, “The son of a bitch jumped and I don’t think he has a parachute.”

Sergeant Donovan, who’d had it up to here with trying to whip the bunch of piss-ant pussies he’d been given into first class troops, just growled. Look at the stupid fuckers. Standing around staring into the air. Shit! They’d even stopped shooting. Hopeless!

“Hey, Sarge?” Greyson called again.

At least Greyson usually had better sense than to piss him off. He wished he could say the same for the rest of those dumbasses. What he wouldn’t give for some of the crack troops in Franklin’s or Appleton’s companies. Christ! What did he ever do to deserve this? Well, if he was honest with himself, he could think of one or two things.

“Sarge!”

The urgency in Greyson’s voice finally penetrated Donovan’s self-pitying funk.

He spun toward the man and saw him pointing upward, a stricken expression on his face.

Sergeant Donovan, ex-cross burner extraordinaire of the Fresno, California chapter of the KKK, lifted his gaze and froze. Hurtling down at him was a vision from Donovan’s own personal hell. An angel of death. Ohmygod! A black angel of death. His mind took a freeze-frame photograph and though he didn’t have time to get out of the way, he had plenty of time to notice all the details: the burned hair; the blistered, lashless, smiling face; the alert, intelligent eyes; the black hands that formed themselves into claws as they reached for him.

He screamed as the Eagle landed.

*

“Jesus!” Greyson shuddered as he wiped gore from his uniform. “Th...th...that guy was smiling as he hit.” His voice was an octave higher than normal and quivered like a tuning fork.

He bent over and lost his lunch on the stones at his feet, neither noticing nor caring when his puke splashed onto his boots. He turned to the man beside him.

“What the hell kind of people are we fighting here?” It was a rhetorical question. “They...” his voice broke.

He started shaking so badly he had to sit down.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, laying his rifle down. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He turned and began walking toward the rear. The shell-shocked look on his face, his wide-eyed vacant stare and his dead-white pallor kept anyone from trying to stop him.

Chapter 42: The Fight on Edge Mountain

Prince John smiled, momentarily forgetting to hide his teeth, as he scanned his situation map. The beachhead at Springville was widening. His men and what little remained of his armor were pouring into the gap. His dive-bombers were pounding the shit out of the defenders, who were fighting fiercely as they retreated. His missing parts had arrived and the rest of his Air Force would be airborne by mid-afternoon. If everything kept going at this pace he’d be in Provo by nightfall.

This was by far the stiffest resistance the King’s Army of Peace had met in the years since the Day of Revelation. Who would have thought these savages could organize such an effective and well-led defense? Of course, he’d been astounded by their ferocity when he led the raid on the Freeholds. But the classic, defend-in-depth tactics employed by the Allies here in Utah were an even greater surprise. Their leader, Adam Young, was almost too competent. But then, taken as a whole, these people were a tenacious lot. They would never make decent slaves. He shook his head. He could almost respect them for that.

He had honestly expected his massed armor to roll right over them on the first day of the battle like it had everywhere else he’d used it, but his artillery barrage hadn’t been properly targeted. He’d skin Martin Dinelli alive for that mistake. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the defenders had sent out suicide squads armed with LAWS rockets and recoilless rifles. Those bastards had taken a terrible toll on his tanks and APC’s. Then earlier this morning, that cockamamie ultralight air force of theirs had silenced his M107’s. The preliminary report by his artillery commander said only one of them was salvageable. That left him with a few beat-up old M102’s.

It was that goddamned Whitebear again, according to his radio intercepts. At least his men shot the son-of-a-bitch down. Over the protests of his General Staff, who claimed they needed the men for the fight at the front, he’d sent the better part of a full battalion up Edge Mountain to capture the bastard, with orders to take him alive at any cost. He wanted to personally deal with the man who’d killed his brother. Or maybe he would save him for his father, a fate infinitely worse.

His father, the King, might not appreciate how dearly delaying the attack on these Mormons had cost him, but Prince John was seeing the results of that error clearly. He only hoped his father wouldn’t blame him for the high cost of this victory. He still shuddered when he recalled how his father had forced both he and Anthony to watch while he punished their mother for some real or imagined betrayal, pulling her arms off as casually as another man might pull the wings off a fly. How she’d screamed!

John was incredibly strong, but his father was so much stronger it made John feel like a little boy. He decided he really should save at least part of that Whitebear bastard for his father, to redirect any ire the King might feel.

He shook his head. What was he worried about? His father would be delighted at the latest conquest. And as for the losses, well, pawns were easily replaced. By putting the captured women into the breeding farms... Hell, the soldiers he got out of them would be tougher than anything the King had now. No, losing men didn’t concern him. Men were replaceable. His father had even relented enough and here he had to give credit to Jamal, to send another 15,000 troops. They had arrived this very morning.

It was losing machinery that hurt. Equipment such as tanks and planes were not so easily replaced. God knows the King and Anthony had tried to set up armaments factories, but there were so few survivors with the knowledge to build and run such manufacturing centers that they gave up the task. Instead, they concentrated on the repair and maintenance of antique war machines that hadn’t deteriorated since The Dying Time, which limited them to the less sophisticated machines in use before everything was computerized.

What they really needed, he reminded himself, was a weapon that never broke down, or if it did, was capable of repairing itself. They needed something that could strike anywhere without warning and that couldn’t be attacked in return. They needed The Weapon.

He’d breathed a sigh of relief when word came through that Merriman had captured Sara Garcia. She was the key. Even if the Royal Inquisitor failed to get the location and codes from her, so long as she was alive he could use her to get to her grandfather. Soon she would arrive and that was cause for celebration. Doctor Merriman had sent word he should be in Nephi with his captive either late today or early tomorrow.

Still, even with the battle and everything else progressing so nicely, John was glad he’d sent that flanking force around to the north. They should be in position by tomorrow morning. Once there he could hit the enemy from the rear, bottling them up inside Provo.

He was no longer concerned about the Allies having a surprise in store for him up Provo Canyon. His pilots had seen nothing more to worry about than a few hastily erected fortifications. The enemy was obviously planning a fighting retreat up the canyon, but if things continued to go well Carswell’s force might even prevent that retreat.

He rubbed his hands together in front of him like a small boy anticipating candy. Tomorrow, he would end this charade. Tomorrow, they would feel the full fury of his wrath. He gazed out the stained glass windows of the church he’d taken for his headquarters in Spanish Fork. Tomorrow...

*

Jacques Lachelle stepped off the gangplank of the boat from California and onto the docks that had been erected at the site of the old county fairgrounds on the west side of Nephi. The place was buzzing like a beehive somebody had kicked over. Vehicles and men were streaming out of town toward the north. He hoped to God he wasn’t too late. He made his excuses to Jamal and left to find Denise.

She was finishing up a rehearsal with the band and after a few quick hugs and kisses they brought each other up to date. He told her the names of the spies and she told him she’d just found out that Prince John was having his navy ferry troops up the Fault above the Allies to hit them from behind.

Without further ado, the Lachelles made their way to K.I.N.G radio, where Jacques used his authority as a Minister in the King’s government to take command of the station and send a coded message to the Allies, naming the spies and warning that enemy troops were going to hit them from the rear.

*

Michael Whitebear lay perfectly still in a dense stand of spruce. Only his eyes moved as he watched the men looking for him stalk through the forest. The Hornet’s ballistic parachute had worked perfectly, floating him and the plane gently to the ground in a clearing at least two miles away from his present position. He’d taken time to bury the chute and cover the plane with brush before he faded into the trees. He’d also rigged a grenade to destroy the plane in case anyone found it. He hoped to retrieve it someday, but wouldn’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.

Thirty minutes later, he spotted the first of the searchers. There were no roads left on Edge Mountain. They’d been rendered impassible by downed trees and erosion, so the troops looking for him were forced to walk up the mountain from the bottom. Michael had heard them cursing long before they came within sight. He had half expected some soldiers to be sent after him, but was shocked at the sheer numbers. They must want me bad, he thought. Either that or the enemy commander just happens to have four or five hundred men to waste on a day he’s launching a major attack.

Michael’s first thoughts had been of evasion and escape, but now he was beginning to reconsider. It might be a greater service to the Allies if he kept these soldiers tied up chasing him all over the mountain. A slight frown appeared on his face as he considered it would mean a lot of killing. People are naturally inclined to take pleasure in their skills and he worried he was beginning to like it. God, he hoped not. Trouble was, he knew anyone so good at killing was only a step away from enjoying it.

He told himself to save the self-doubt for later. Duty called and right now his duty was to make some soldiers sorry they ever left California. His lips curved into a slight smile as he shifted into warrior mode. The men searching for him ceased to be individuals, becoming ragheads, gooks, targets, any faceless name would do. Gold fire burned in his eyes and suddenly he looked less like a hunted man and more like a mountain lion stalking its prey.

Michael was in his element. Edge Mountain was over eight miles long and almost three miles wide. It went from 5000 feet to over 6900 feet in less than a mile and a half. It was steep, rugged, covered with blow-downs, dense stands of timber, deep, narrow, ravines and sharp, sudden, bluffs and cliffs. Only near the top, where Michael had come down did it level off at all. There were literally thousands of hiding places and ambush sites.

Being alone had its advantages. He could shoot at anything that moved; knowing any man he saw would be an enemy. They, on the other hand, would have to be sure of their target. As he watched, the line of soldiers moved up the mountain and out of sight.

Michael checked his weapons. He’d cached the M60 and a couple of boxes of ammunition from his plane a mile back. He might make use of them later. His satchel of hand grenades was too bulky to carry around with him so he took four grenades from the pouch then stashed it in the pile of spruce needles and leaf mold that surrounded the base of the trees in which he was lurking. He’d been planning on using them from the air against ammo dumps, vehicles and troops, but no opportunity had arisen before he was shot down. He’d left his Uzi with Arnold Begay for repairs and had only a couple of speed-loads for his .357, but then he hadn’t set out to fight a ground war. His combat knives were secure in his boots. A spool of monofilament fishing line, some matches and a full water bottle completed his gear. He decided to acquire some better weapons.

He had an added advantage he didn’t even know about. Michael didn’t know the enemy soldiers had been ordered to take him alive at any cost.

He cocked his head toward a sound that caught his attention. Another skirmish line was making its way up the mountain. Michael stepped from concealment and began easing uphill also. He decided to stay between the two lines for the time being, until he had a better feel for the strategy of the searchers. Then he’d start picking off stragglers and see what happened.

Like a ghost, he drifted from tree to tree, rock to rock, making his way upward and along the side of the hill, seeking the last man in the line. They would assume he’d head north, so he headed south. Before long, he was close enough to their first line to overhear a radio conversation. Now he knew that there were four groups of searchers sweeping this section of the mountain. Each line was roughly 150 yards behind the next.

Stupid! Visibility varied from five feet to fifty or sixty yards. That meant there was a space at least thirty yards wide between each rank of searchers where he could move without fear of discovery. He’d been on more than one of these sweeps in the last war. Men tended to bunch up after a while, even in daytime. They also didn’t spend much time looking behind themselves. After all, they’d already searched there and their buddies were coming up that way. He continued to edge along behind the first line.

Soon he was behind the last man.

Soft light filtered through the trees. A moderate breeze had come up. There were no wildlife noises. Even squirrels had enough sense not to chatter at a time like this. A deadly aura permeated the woods, silencing the animals and birds.

The man Michael was following had been edging along beside a deep, dark ravine. As they neared the back of the canyon, Michael rigged a pair of trip-wire grenades. Swiftly and silently he closed on the unsuspecting man until he was within reach. The brush was so thick the next man in line was often out of sight.

Like lightning, Michael’s left hand clamped over the man’s mouth while his right slid the thin-bladed combat knife into the victim’s back, slicing the man’s kidney and renal artery. Instantly, a vicious pain spiked through the man. He couldn’t even scream. He stiffened, literally bowing himself around the knife, standing on his tiptoes for an instant before he collapsed into Michael’s arms. Michael laid the body down with seeming gentleness, though it wasn’t out of concern for the dead. He simply didn’t want to alert the next man in line. He stripped off the man’s helmet and canteen, then took his M16 and bandolier of clips. He pulled two grenades from the man’s chest pocket. He laid his booty in a pile beside the body, then placed the helmet on his own head, took up the M16 and started toward the next man.

Hopefully, the familiar helmet and rifle would confuse the man if he happened to notice Michael’s approach. He didn’t. This time, the knife slipped upwards into the man’s brain at the base of his skull, where a quick lateral twist bisected both brain and spinal cord, killing the man instantly.

Jackpot! This one was armed with an M79 grenade launcher and a full bandolier of 40 mm grenades. Michael had noted the prized weapon as he scouted the men earlier. He’d wanted that launcher, but knew he must take out the man on the end of the line first. Learning to be patient had been good for him. Michael relieved the corpse of its weapons and faded back through the trees toward the first body.

The next man in line had a radio, but as badly as Michael wanted one, he knew he didn’t have enough time to “acquire” it. The end of the line he was attacking would soon enter the clearing Michael had crossed as he fled from his downed plane. The men he’d killed would be missed and the hunt would be on. He cradled the loaded M79 and grinned like a tiger--the hunt was already on. He gathered up his pile of weapons, moved to the very back of the ravine and settled down to wait.