Hunter immediately became frozen to the spot.
"My airplane?" he asked, dumbfounded. "Here?"
The F-16XL. It seemed like an eternity since Hunter had climbed into that familiar cockpit, savored the reassuring touch of those customized controls, felt the surge of excitement as his skill and energy blended with the raw power and unmatched aerodynamic technology of the remarkable aircraft. They said that in his hands, the XL was the greatest jet fighter in the history of aerial combat.
And in a flash, he remembered the sickening feeling, like a vicious kick in the gut, that struck him when he first learned the XL had been stolen. It was before his trek with the Freedom Express-a mission that required the capability of the Harrier to land on a flatcar-that he had stored the one-of-a-kind F-16 at Andrews Air Force Base. Yet, despite the heavy guard, the airplane vanished, spirited away by a faceless enemy.
He had vowed to search to the far ends of the earth, if necessary, to find that legendary airplane and reclaim it. And now, it was here, within his grasp once again.
"Now listen to me, Hawk," Frost told him grimly, 31
knowing full well the implications of what he was about to tell his friend.
"Say the word and you, me, and ten of my guys will go and get it. It's not in the plan and it will take time. But we'd have to do it right now."
In the infinitesimal time frame of a nano-second, Hunter realized the horrible irony of the moment. Down one hallway he would find his treasured airplane; up another, the only woman he had ever really loved. If he went after one, the other would surely be lost again-most likely forever.
And there was no way to rescue both.
Oddly, the gist of an old saying came into his head. "I found two roads . . .
and it was the road not taken that made all the difference."
But as it turned out, Hunter didn't hesitate more than a a heartbeat.
"We've got to stick to the plan" he told Frost.
Then without another moment's loss, he jumped up and ran into the passageway that would lead him to Dominique.
32
With the sounds of gunfire and flash explosions echoing off the thick marble walls, Hunter raced down the dark passageway until he came to a door that he hoped led into the base of the fortress tower.
The smell of SX-555 was so thick inside this part of the passageway, Hunter quickly lowered his gas mask again. Then, shoving a fresh clip of ammo into his M-16, he opened the door. There was a set of narrow stone steps on the other side that spiraled upward. Moving quickly but quietly, Hunter started taking the stairs two at a time. As he climbed, a hauntingly familiar feeling seized him. It had happened a number of times in the past few years-that powerful sense of destiny . . . as if he were being propelled by unseen forces along a preordained path. But where was that path ultimately leading? What about the road not taken?
Despite his almost mystical powers of intuition, that answer remained tantalizingly beyond Hunter's grasp.
And now, fate had intervened again. All the twisted threads of his life over the past few months suddenly had come together on this desolate mountainside in the midst of the Canadian wilderness ... his missing F-16, the demented Duke Devillian, the gorgeous but deadly Elizabeth Sandlake .. . and his beloved Dominique. All here, witnesses to-or victims of-a thoroughly wwdivine day of judgment.
After the first few dozen steps, the twisted stairway grew even narrower, until it was barely wide enough for
33
two people to pass each other. Like a bad dream, the gloom of the tower deepened into total darkness, and Hunter was forced to start feeling his way by running his hands over the rough stone walls on either side.
He had climbed about two hundred steps when suddenly he halted. His famous built-in "radar system"-actually his keenly developed ESP powers -warned him that something was waiting around the next bend in the stairway. Slowly, he eased his way forward in the darkness, and sensed rather than saw the person standing in front of him. He lunged, and the two bodies collided and began tumbling down the steps, locked in a deadly struggle.
Despite the near-total darkness, Hunter managed to reach up and jerk off his opponent's gas mask. Then, holding the struggling soldier in a viselike grip, he waited for the SX-555 knockout gas that was blowing through the tower stairway to take effect. It took thirty long seconds, but eventually the thrashing subsided, and the body went limp. Pulling out his penlight, Hunter shined its narrow beam into his opponent's face and realized for the first time that he had been wrestling with a woman.
Stepping over his fallen foe, the Wingman resumed his climb. He judged that he was at least halfway up the tower by now.
Halfway to his Dominique.
She had watched, first with fear and then with growing hope, as the battle swirled above and around the castle.
From the narrow window at the top of the tower, she couldn't identify the attacking forces, although she caught a glimpse of a couple of airplanes that somehow looked familiar. She almost let herself believe that the invaders were coming to rescue her, that the W she had seen in the sky really was proof of Hunter's presence and not just a trick of her tormented mind.
But then, just as her hopes were rising higher than ever before, her cell door crashed open, and a gang of six fash-34
ionably dressed female guards burst in, rifles raised.
One of the women, her voice sounding both drugged and desperate, hissed at Dominique: "Don't think your friends will save you, my lovely little thing.
They're not going to get here in time."
Another of the Amazonlike women then stepped forward and grabbed Dominique by the hair.
"In fact," she told her harshly, "we're here to waste you. But not before we get a little of this . . ."
The guard suddenly ripped the front of Dominique's gown down to her waist and began crudely squeezing her lovely, heaving breasts. Exhausted and depleted beyond words, Dominique nevertheless attempted to fight back. But two more of the women grabbed her and then two more. It was hopeless. On the verge of unconsciousness, she collapsed, unable to prevent the gang of women from savagely fondling her private parts.
In the meantime, a strange odor began to leak into the tiny room. Despite her condition, Dominique sniffed it and felt her panic rise up yet another dizzying notch. Was this poisonous gas? But in another instant she knew it made little difference. She might as well die now, she thought, rather than endure the rape and then get shot.
But her assailants smelled the gas, too. They immediately stopped ravaging her body and quickly covered their noses and mouth with kerchiefs, hoping the cloth would keep out the mysterious gas.
"Enough of this stuff," one of the women shouted through her improvised mask.
"We've got to finish this and get out of here . . ."
Her companions quickly agreed. The leader then picked up her AK-47 assault rifle, cocked it, and pointed it straight at Dominique's heart.
Dominique braced herself for the bullet, in the instant between life and death regretting that she never would see Hunter again. Not in this life anyway.
But the shot never came.
Instead there was a loud commotion near the cell's en-35
trance and a sudden burst of white smoke. Instantly everything went fuzzy in front of Dominique's eyes, but she was vaguely aware of the woman with the gun suddenly slumping to the cell floor, the rifle making a loud rattle as it struck the hard surface. Behind her, the other guards also fell like dominoes, their limp bodies forming a twisted line back to the massive cell doors.
Standing in that doorway was a tall, broad-shouldered figure surrounded by the fog of white gas and with a head that looked like it belonged to a grotesque, giant insect.
Immediately Dominique thought she was hallucinating. She struggled to remain conscious, struggled to remain sane-but it was no use. She was fading fast, and had no strength to resist when the creature walked over, bent down, and picked her up.
The last thing she remembered was how gentle this monster seemed to be.
Ten minutes passed before Dominique opened her eyes again.
She gradually came to realize that she was being carried to some unknown destination, the change in light telling her that she was outside the castle.
She could also still hear the fighting in the background and armed creatures-all them with the same kind of grostesque head as the one carrying her-seemed to be everywhere. She was also vaguely aware of what looked like hundreds of airships streaking overhead, filling the sky with cannon fire and missiles.
Finally, the giant insect man lifted her into a small cabin of some kind . . .
No, it was the cockpit of an airplane. Her head was starting to clear now. She blinked back the dirt and tears and gas, and begged her eyes to focus properly. When they did, she suddenly realized that the grotesque head on the person who had carried out of the castle and put her into the airplane really was just a gas mask. And now the man was removing it.
36
With a sudden rush of unbearable joy an instant later, Dominique found herself staring into the face of Hawk Hunter.
"Hi, honey." he said to her, almost sheepishly. "Are you OK?"
37
Washington, DC
Hunter poured a glass of beer for himself and one for the man across the table from him, General Dave Jones, Commander in Chief of the United American Armed Forces.
The two old friends were sitting in a bar located in the Washington, DC, suburb of Georgetown, not too far from Jones's headquarters. It was three days after the titanic battle at the Alberta fortress.
The general spoke first.
"Well, Hawk, what's on your mind?"
Hunter took a swallow of beer and then passed a hefty-sized document to Jones.
"First of all, sir, these are the follow-up battle assessments from the operation . . ."
Jones lit a cigar, and took a swig of beer between the opening puffs. He perused the first few pages of the document and said: "I suppose I'll have to read all this eventually. But can you give me the bottom line?"
Hunter refilled both their beer glasses. He could have recited the seventy seven-page battle assessment report word for word if Jones had wanted him to.
It was all in there: the sound defeat of the castle security forces at the hands of the United Americans and their Free Canadian allies; the capture of hundreds of various criminals and terrorists including the unbalanced Nazi leader, Duke Deviliian.
Also included were Deviilian's subsequent confessions, 38
as well as the locations of the last of his fascist organization weapons caches-undefended supply dumps and storage facilities that were being hit by United American fighter bombers at that very moment. The report ended by detailing the astonishingly low casualty figures for the friendly forces.
"Officially, the operation was a success," Hunter said.
"And unofficially?"
Hunter frowned slightly and took another sip of beer.
"Unofficially, I'd have to rate it about sixty to sixty-five percent successful. . ." he replied.
Jones relit his cigar, and waved his way through the resulting cloud of smoke.
"But why?" the senior officer asked. "We wiped out most of the forces holding that castle. We captured Deviliian and we've been launching air strikes on the last of his empire ever since . . ."
Jones paused for a puff on his stogie and a swig of beer.
"And you got Dominique back," he said, his voice lower in volume a notch. "And that certainly was a critical thing."
"So what's the bad news?"
Hunter took several seconds before replying.
"Well, as you know, Elizabeth Sandlake got away," he said. "And Fitz's intelligence boys think Juanita Juarez did, too."
Jones Shrugged; he knew all about both women. Elizabeth Sandlake, the brilliant but unbalanced woman, was the mastermind behind the castle's operations. And Juanita Juarez, the incredibly beautiful but murderous ally of Duke Deviliian, had somehow become Sandlake's second in command.
"There's no doubt that both escaped?" he asked.
"None whatsoever," Hunter said. "Fitz and his guys checked and double-checked all the prisoners and all the enemy KIA's. No one fits their descriptions."
"Damn . . ." Jones whispered. "Those are two ladies I'd 39
rather not have running around loose."
Hunter nodded grimly. "And then, there's my airplane . . ."
Jones searched his friend's eyes and thought he detected the slightest hint of their moistening. He knew that next to Dominique, Hunter's F-16XL was the most valuable thing in the world to him.
"Do we have any idea how or where they took it?" Jones asked, knowing the question was pointless.
Hunter shook his head no and leaned back in his seat. He quickly drained his glass of beer and poured another.
"Don't worry," Jones told him. "Well get it back. It may take a while-but we'll do it."
Hunter just shrugged and unconsciously sank lower in his seat. Once again, Jones watched his friend's face carefully for several moments as they drank in silence. Finally, he spoke again.
"But I must say, I'm a little puzzled by your reaction, Hawk," the senior officer said. "Frankly, I thought you'd go storming out of here, hot on the trail of both Miss Sandlake and your airplane . . ."
Hunter smiled wanly and stared across the barroom for a long tune before responding.
Finally he said: "I guess that's what most people would expect. And believe me, there's a part of me that wants to do exactly that."
"But?"
"But not this time," Hunter said, turning back to the general.
The Wingman took a deep breath and washed it down with a long swig of beer.
"General, we've been through a lot together in these past few years." he continued. "You know me as well as any man alive. You know how I feel about this country. You know I'd never stand by and let anyone trample on what it stands for."