"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 04 - Thunder in the East UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

PROLOGUE

Three years had passed since the United States lost World War III ...

Although the Americans were the victors in the great battles of the War, they ended up the losers with the deception that followed the cease-fire. After arranging for the assassination of the President and his Cabinet, the traitorous US vice president allowed the country's defenses to drop long enough to permit flood of Soviet missiles to obliterate the America ICBM force while it was still in the ground. The sneak attack left the center of the country-from to Dakotas down to Oklahoma-completely devastated Now a nightmare swath of neutron radiation, the Badlands effectively cut the once-great country in two.

The "peace" that followed was dictated from Moscow. Called "The New Order," it mandated that America be divided into dozens of small countries and free territories. All references to the "old days were prohibited. Now it was against the law to carry an American flag or even utter the words "Unite States of America."

Still reeling from their battlefield defeats during the war, the Soviets had a great interest in keeping this New Order America fractionalized and unstable. Through their agents and terrorist allies-and sometimes by direct intervention-their devious plans guaranteed that America would be constantly at war with itself. Early conflicts involved the leaders of the murderous Mid-Atlantic States-the hated Mid-Aks-trying to wrest control of the entire East Coast. Later battles involved the criminal elements now operating in New Chicago in an attempt to take over the free-wheeling but democratic independent state of Football City, formerly known as St. Louis.

In both cases, Hawk Hunter, the fighter pilot hero know as The Wingman, rallied the democratic forces and directed the defeat of the Soviet-sponsored aggressors.

But these victories for the forces of Freedom only led to an even greater conflict, known as The Circle War. A deranged Soviet KGB agent named Viktor Robotov managed to invade America from within- arming himself with thousands of Russian surface-to-air missiles. Only through much cunning and bloodletting did Hunter and the democratic forces defeat Viktor's Soviet-led Circle Army at the Battle of Platte River.

When Viktor escaped to the Middle East, Hunter followed, determined to bring him back to America to stand trial for his crimes. Yet soon after arriving in the Mediterranean, Hunter found that another war- actually a continuation of World War III-was about to erupt in the area, ignited by a lunatic named Lucifer. As it turned out, Viktor and Lucifer were one and the same. Hunter helped a valiant group of British RAF pilots and mercenaries salvage the abandoned nuclear aircraft carrier the USS Saratoga, tow it

through the Med and preempt the war by stopping Lucifer's Soviet-controlled force at the Suez Canal This adventure, known to all as The Lucifer Crusade, ended with a confrontation in the Arabian desert between Hunter and Lucifer/Viktor. Squared off as this man-to-man battle between Good and Evil, an assassin's bullet, fired by a mysterious character dressed in Nazi garb, took Viktor's life and robbed Hunter of the chance of bringing the madman back to pay for his crimes.

But while Hunter was pursuing Viktor across the Mideast, and in the months that followed, another great war was brewing in America ...

CHAPTER 1

"They say the perfect football game is when neither team moves from the fifty-yard line," General Dave Jones, commander of the Western Forces, told the room full of military officers. "The offense perfectly offsets the defense and vice versa.

"That's the position we are still in today . . ."

A winter had passed since .the Western Forces defeated the Soviet-backed Circle Army at the battle of the Platte River. The battered enemy had withdrawn back across the radioactive no man's land called the Badlands and into the only city they controlled on the western side of the Mississippi. This was Football City, formerly known as St. Louis.

Now the Western Forces-an alliance of democratic armies and militias joined together to rid the American continent of the Circle Army-were preparing to take the offensive.

Jones walked to the front of the Planning Room and unveiled a huge map. At its center was Football City. Blue flags to the north, west and south indicated

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the positions of Western Forces deployed around the Circle stronghold.

"I'm happy to report that we've solidified our positions to the north," Jones said. "We're now anchored here at Spanish Lake, thanks to the arrival three days ago of the Free Canadian volunteers.

"Now to the south, the Fourth Texas Armored Brigade has dug in here at Tesson Ferry. And of course, our major deployment-the Pacific Americans and the Football City Army-hold the strong line between them in the west.

"So you can see, we've got them sewn in on three sides, with our line roughly paralleling the old Route Two-seventy . . ."

"So when do we attack?" one of the newly-arrived Republic of Texas Army officers asked.

"Not any time soon," Jones answered.

"But why not?" the Texan followed up. "We've got them outnumbered at least two-to-one in manpower-and a lot of their guys are just hired hands, mercenaries or whatever. We've got more airlift than they have. Also we have four squadrons of fighters to their one and a half."

Jones shook his head. The Texan's unit had just arrived and the man wasn't totally up to date on the situation within Football City.