Chapter Thirteen

May 6

It was completely dark. No moon. No clouds. No wind.

No noise.

Until 2330 hours exactly. That’s when the camouflage netting over 7CAV’s hidden base slowly opened up.

Then came the growl of airplane engines. Nine in all, coughing to life, the smallest much louder than the rest. Their combined roar washed through the Pine Barrens, shaking the trees and scaring the ghosts.

Inside of a minute, the 7CAV’s four Sherpa airplanes were lined up on the runway, awaiting the order to take off.

It had been a long, intense day for Hunter, Dozer, and the men of the 7CAV.

They’d spent most of it on the quartet of homely Sherpa cargo planes. The freight humpers had undergone a startling transformation in the past twelve hours. Each plane now had six machine-gun positions: one in the nose, two on each side, and one in the back next to the access ramp, doubling the crew on each. The planes’ old gray dispersion paint scheme had been replaced with jet-black camouflage, nose to tail. An enormous American flag had been painted on both sides of their fuselages just behind the wing.

But the biggest alteration to the Sherpas had taken place inside their cargo bays. All nonessential equipment had been stripped out and large improvised bomb racks had been put in. Then each plane was loaded with a dozen extremely unusual bombs.

By sunset, the venerable Seventh Cavalry had been turned on its head. It still consisted of the same men under the same commander and possessed the same patriotic thirst to hit back against the Russian invaders … but technically the 7CAV was no longer a ground attack unit. It was now in the air-assault business.

At 2335 hours, the Sherpas got the go-code to launch.

One after another, they took off, their propellers aided by homemade JATO bottles under their wings. These temporary rocket boosters provided the extra lift needed for the overloaded planes to rise into the night.

Only the noisy fifth plane was left on the runway. Hunter’s clown car with wings. Taped and glued and wired back together, it looked stranger than ever.

Dozer was having a shouted conversation with Hunter while the Wingman was doing one last check of his control surfaces. The marine wasn’t exactly in a good place, though. He was trying to reason with Hunter.

“You’ve taken people up in this thing before,” he was shouting in Hunter’s ear. “There must be room in there for me. I’ll be able to help you.”

But Hunter wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m not taking you,” he said, loading some rope and a hastily made three-prong grappling hook into his cockpit. They’d been through it all day. “Like I said, if we both buy the farm, who’s going to run your outfit? Too many people count on you—and when that happens, then you truly are the commanding officer. And that’s when the book says you don’t go on combat missions.”

Dozer had reached his frustration level. “So how about the people who count on you?” he retorted sharply.

Hunter just shrugged. “I was already dead, remember? People stopped counting on me a long time ago.”

Dozer threw his cigar on the ground and started to walk away. Hunter felt terrible, but he just had to do this mission alone. Still, there was something he’d wanted to tell his old friend since coming here—and now might be the last time he’d be able to do it.

“Hey, Bull,” Hunter yelled.

Dozer walked the few steps back over to the cockpit.

“Listen,” Hunter began, “I’m pretty sure I’m not in the exact same place I’d been when I left in the shuttle. It’s real close, but a few things are different.”

Hunter looked at his old friend now. He’d been trying to hone his memory, and he was certain now that before he’d gone on that last shuttle mission, Dozer had been killed fighting Viceroy Dick’s army in the Battle of Indianapolis. That’s why, the night before, he’d had such a hard time believing he was really seeing and talking to his old friend. He was going to tell Dozer this because he felt it was something the marine officer should know.

But at the last instant, he stopped himself. Why mention it at all? Bull was here, alive. Other things—and other people—might be different, but in this case, it was actually like a small miracle. Who gets to meet a good friend, living and breathing again, after that friend has passed on?

At that moment, Hunter knew for sure all bets were off. If Dozer was here in this place, but was dead in the time and place Hunter had been in before, then there was a chance that Dominique was not the same woman he’d once loved. Or maybe, even worse, she had simply changed and traded in her beautiful heart for a dark one. He had to find out. That’s why this mission was so important.

Switching gears smoothly, he hoped, he said to his old friend, “I just wanted to say you haven’t changed a bit, buddy. And take it from me, you’re a good guy in at least two universes.”

Dozer put a new cigar between his teeth and lit it. Then he grinned widely.

“Good to know,” he said.

Then he tapped Hunter twice on the shoulder and was gone.

Hunter did one last check of his flight panel, closed his canopy, and pulled away. The little aircraft rolled down the runway for barely five feet before its engine let out a scream and its nose lifted dramatically.

At full throttle, its wings slotted back, the clown plane ascended straight up, through the hole in the roof, and into the night.

All this activity was a result of the deal Hunter and Dozer had made earlier.

Their objective was to bring the fight to the Russians, giving the 7CAV a chance to make them hurt somewhere while providing Hunter with the cover he needed to carry out his second, more personal mission.

While nothing they did this night could adequately address the mammoth problem of dislodging sixty-five thousand enemy troops from New York City, at least it would give the invaders and their masters in Moscow something to think about.

This is why no one had worked harder that day than Hunter himself. He knew the men aboard the newly lethal Sherpas would be risking their lives, not just to make a statement to the world about the Russian occupation of New York City, but also to allow him to do his thing. He had to make sure that before they left the ground, he had given them every possible advantage to survive the mission.

In addition to designing and helping install the planes’ new gun stations, he’d written a complete flight plan for the Sherpas to follow. Not only did it include an exact release point for the “barrel bombs,” which would allow them to hit most effectively, he also built in a huge safety factor for the plane crews.

They immediately dubbed it the Goldilocks Zone. It was a combat altitude of exactly three thousand feet that would give them the best chance to get to the target unscathed and escape the same way. Why three thousand? Because Hunter knew the truck-borne machine guns that had fired at him earlier could only reach two thousand feet with any effectiveness. And a giant SA-4 SAM couldn’t hit anything below four thousand feet without blowing up first. If the Sherpa pilots stayed at three thousand feet while over the city, then two of the Russians’ most deadly weapons couldn’t touch them.

Not too hot, not too cold. Just right—the Goldilocks Zone.

Once airborne, the four Sherpas quickly formed a chevron over the base. Taking up position at the nose of the V was the little plane with the big wheels.

Then the five planes turned northeast.

Just beyond the horizon, the crews could already see the crimson glow of Russkiy-NYC.