"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 05 - The Twisted Cross UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

"Well, I'll be damned . . ." the military man said. "We're finally going to get to meet him in person . . ."

"Meet who?" the pilot said, his voice tinged with exasperation.

"Meet your guardian angel," the doctor told him. "You guys just got your asses saved by the guy they call Wingman . . ."

Chapter 2

The military commander in charge of security of New Orleans International Airport was a Cajun named Hugo St. Germain. A former officer of the Texas Republican Army, The Saint served as governor, protector, confessor and all-around fix-it man for the parishes surrounding the city they still called The Big Easy.

Huey was also a friend of General Dave Jones, the commander of the United American Army, whose forces had two months before finally destroyed the hated Circle Army and its Soviet backers in a series of climactic battles that stretched from the Mississippi River to Washington, DC. The Saint was the only person at the New Orleans airport who knew that Jones's right hand man, Major Hawk Hunter -the famous Wingman himself-was flying in. He was not surprised when he learned that Hunter had saved the 727 airliner from the bushwhacking F-4s.

Now Hunter sat before him in Huey's executive airport offices, diving into a big bowl of gumbo.

"Who were they, Hawk?" Huey asked, digging into his own bowl of gumbo. "Organized air pirates? Or just freelance troublemakers?"

Hunter wiped his mouth with a large cloth napkin and took a swig of his beer.

"Hard to say," he answered, his mouth still half full. "There was something strange about them. You don't see many pirate gangs flying something as sophisticated as Phantoms. Yet, these days, who knows?"

He took another mouthful of the stew and added: "Also there were actually four of them."

"Four?" Huey asked. "Really?"

Hunter nodded. "One of them stayed way out of the fight, twenty-five miles away," he said. "I'm sure he was off the airliner's radar screen. After I took care of first three, I lit out after him, but he was gone in a shot. A good flyer, too. He went down to the hard deck, real quick - treetop level. Then, by the time I picked him up on my long-range APG radar, he was climbing at a 45-degree clip, heading south.

"I was low on gas and figured I'd best keep that airliner in front of me, just in case . . ."

"Well, we sure appreciate the help," Huey said. "We're lucky you came along when you did. Any idea who was riding in that 727?"

Hunter shook his head between swigs of beer. He hadn't thought about it before. He had just assumed the airliner was on a routine civilian hop.

"It was our Goddamn football squad," Huey said, his voice a mixture of anxiety and relief. "They were coming back from a try-out at Football City. Christ, if they had gone down, this city would have been throwing funerals for a month . . ."

Another wipe of his mouth and Hunter asked: "What were they doing flying without an escort?"

Huey shook his head. "Beats me," he said. "We sponsored the team's flight up there and back. And I personally gave the pilot enough cash to buy protection round-trip . . ."

Hunter shrugged. "He probably lost it all in the casinos," he said. "Or at the cathouses . . ."

Football City, formerly St. Louis, was now the continent's gambling mecca. It got its name from the fact that just after World War III, an enterprising Texan named Louie St. Louie, had an enormous 500,000 seat stadium built and instituted a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year football match to be played between two 500-member, free-substituting teams. Bets could be made on any increment of the game -from the quarters up to the entire year's match -and the resulting revenues proved incredible.

Trouble was, many of the criminal elements around the continent -all of them Soviet-backed - became envious of the good thing St. Louie had going. Thus Football City had already been the scene of several full-scale battles and one authentic war, all in its short four-year history. But now with the United Americans in control, however tenuous, of both the eastern and western portions of the continent, things were beginning to return to normal in Football City.

"The good news is that the team did really well up there," Huey said, scooping up the last few spoonfuls of his stew. "Played their asses off . . ."

Hunter drained his beer. "I heard they were going to start/ exhibition games up there," he said. "Glad to hear your boys did well."

Just then a thought came to The Saint. "Hey, Hawk," he said cautiously. "You don't think those F-4s were sent after my guys as part of some, you know, gambling scam, do you?"