He was just getting ready to leave when he heard a long, low rumble, somewhere off in the distance. Thunder? He looked to the north and saw rising above the road a distinctive puff of dust being kicked up by a vehicle.
He grabbed his binoculars and focused. Goddamn! Not just one vehicle — there were many. Too many.
Bursting through the cloud of dust came distinct gray shapes moving down the road at a fast clip. They weren't cars; they were too big for trucks. Tanks, maybe? Closer they came. He shielded the spyglasses from the bright, hazy sun. The shapes started taking a definite form…
"Jesus H. Christ," he whispered, not quite believing what he saw. "They're SAMs. On wheels."
SAMs. Surface-to-air missile batteries. First, he could see ten, then 20, then 50, then more than 100 of the mobile air batteries. The vehicles carrying them looked like dump-trucks. The missiles on their backs were Soviet SA-3s, NATO nickname: "Goa." There were four of them per launcher. Hunter took a deep breath of the clammy air. This was bad news. The SA-3 was a very dangerous missile. It could hit a target 55,000 feet high and 18 miles away and travel at Mach 2 to do it.
He took out his notebook and started taking an accurate count. It took a full 10 minutes for the deadly parade to pass him, and when it was over, he had noted 306 launch vehicles. More than 1200 missiles. That was enough to end all the speculation as whether something fishy was going on in the Badlands or not. The question now was: Where were the SAMs going?
He trailed the column for the next four hours, staying a good 4000 feet above the absolutely flat land, firing the engine only when needed. He could do little more than follow as the convoy of SAMs continued southward along the perfectly straight, seemingly endless highway. He knew that no one below could spot him as the Badlands haze proved to be an adequate shield and the plastic construction of the mini-jet made it all but radar-proof.
Finally, the column reached a crossroads in south-central Kansas where it found five tanker trucks waiting. As he circled high above, he saw each vehicle get a quick fill up, then head east. It was getting dark by this time.
If he got lucky, the column would reach its destination just before nightfall.
Another hour passed and the trucks showed no signs of slowing down. He figured he was somewhere just west of where Wichita used to be. This was close to the area where St. Louie's recon troops ran into trouble. Off in the distance, a new moon was rising. It was full and orange and spooky. He shook off a chill and did a weapons check.
Then he saw it. Off on the eastern horizon. At first it appeared as a single, greenish light, reflecting off the perpetual Badlands haze. As he drew closer, he saw the green hue was the reflection of many, many lights. Still closer, he found the lights were coming from a settlement of some sort.
The closer he got the more ominous the place looked. It was completely surrounded by an elaborate yet medieval-looking stone wall. It was high and thick like parapets of old; yet it was complete with many turrets and towers each which held some definitely wrt-medieval looking gun batteries. Inside, he saw more SAMs than he'd ever thought was possible. But not just SAMs. There were also trucks with guns riding on the back, some personnel carriers, even a few pre-World War Ill-vintage American tanks. And everywhere, he could see soldiers.
It didn't take him long to figure out that he had discovered the main base for the "hidden army."
He climbed to 8000 feet. From there he wasn't surprised to see three cooling towers belching steam about 20 miles from the base. Another piece of the puzzle fit. It was the nuclear plant the recon trooper had reported. A castle-like Soviet military base being powered by a nuke plant in the middle of the Badlands. Only in The New Order.
He started to head back down to a lower altitude. The SAM column had come to a halt outside the base where its drivers appeared to be parking their trucks and setting up for the night.
The darker it got, the better Hunter liked it. He circled the Soviet castle, gradually reducing his altitude. The thermal updrafts over the city allowed him to almost hover at times, letting him work both his surveillance cameras and his eavesdropping device at will. The Soviet castle was a strange place.
He felt as if he was dropping in on another planet. Many of the buildings inside the walls were topped off by spires and minarets. Every structure was painted a different garish color, and was flying one of hundreds of flags that flapped in the thick night air.
But, right in the middle of the place was the biggest flag at all. It was a huge, blood-red, hammer and sickle design. The flag of the Soviet Union, fluttering in the Kansas breeze.
Chapter Ten
The radio aboard the C-130 gunship crackled to life with a burst of static.
"Alpha Diana Romeo," the distant, but familiar voice began. "Repeat. Alpha Diana Romeo."
The aircraft's radio operator immediately acknowledged the password and called back to PAAC-Oregon's communications center to alert Dozer that a message from Hunter was coming through. Once he had Dozer on the line, he patched the radio transmission from deep in the Badlands to the PAAC line, ran it through a scramble device so the two men were able to talk openly to each other.
"Hawk, what's going on out there?" Dozer asked.
Hunter replied slowly and in careful measures. "Our thinking was on track, Bull. We have trouble out here. Russians. Russian equipment. I spotted them about noon today. Been with them ever since. And they're carrying more than just popguns."
For the next ten minutes, Dozer listened incredulously as Hunter told him he'd spotted the SAM column and how it eventually led him to the Soviet's castle-like main base. When the sun was down completely, he had brazenly flown low over the city, sometimes as low as the gun turrets. No one had spotted him. He had taken a lot of photos over the walled city and especially over the multitude of military equipment located around its perimeter.
He told Dozer he spotted a few tanks and personnel carriers. But it was the SAMs that were most in evidence. The Soviet castle was ringed with them, all of them mobile like the SA-3s. Inside the walls of the base, Hunter saw many people wearing Soviet uniforms. His eavesdropping device had also picked up a number of Russian conversations as well.
"How about aircraft, Hawk?" Dozer asked over the increasingly annoying" static.
Hunter's reply was distant. "I found the Yak jump jets. Ten of them, anyway.
Parked just outside of the city. They've got a working airfield out there. A few Hind gunships."
"Christ, Hawk," Dozer said. "How could they have brought all this stuff into the country right under our noses?"
Hunter's reply came back even fainter. "From what I've seen — to get this much stuff in — they must have started sneaking it in at least two years ago."
Dozer tried to save the dying signaclass="underline" "You mean while we were so busy screwing around with the 'Aks and The Family, the Sovs were backdooring us all along?"
He was answered by a loud burst of static, then silence.
"… Hawk?"
The Marine never got his reply. The signal had faded away for good.
The next day, Hunter struck out to the north. He was back to flying high and quiet enough so that anyone chancing to spot him in the Badlands haze would think they were looking at a bird — perhaps an eagle or more likely, a buzzard.
Hunter was astounded. Not a mile went by when he didn't see some kind of evidence of the Soviet hidden army. He spotted 15 more Yaks at an airfield about 150 miles north of the Soviet castle on the old Kansas-Nebraska line.