"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 06 - The Final Storm UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

present time they controlled most of the continent's major cities, and for the first time since the Big War, its borders were relatively well-guarded.

And as such, they knew now was the time to go after the traitor.

"There it is, Hawk, dead ahead. . . ."

The words from his co-pilot-and close friend-JT Tbomey shook him out of his trance.

Toomey was pointing directly to a small speck of green up ahead that was just barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. Hunter's infra-red enhanced eyes darted to the island on the horizon, then to the instrument console and then to his watch.

They were still on schedule.

He flicked the intercom switch on his cockpit control panel.

"Bermuda now in sight," he called back to the assault team in the cabin. "Time to put the rosaries away. . . ."

The island-their target-had served as headquarters for the notoriously corrupt "New Order" gang since the end of World War III.

Nominally headed by the traitor himself, the group of international criminals had used the lush resort as a stronghold from which to enforce the harsh tenets of the New Order. At the time of its imposition, these rules restricted virtually all forms of open communications and personal freedoms. They also forbade the display of any symbol of US patriotism-such as the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance-and even outlawed the mention of the term "United States of America."

And for anyone foolhardy enough to display the red, white and blue banner that had been the nation's flag, the penalty was death.

Hunter had made up his mind very soon after learning of the New Order's rules that he would never submit to them. Instead he vowed that he would fight back whenever and wherever he could, until he had defeated the tyranny or it defeated him. He had kept that vow throughout the darkest days of the terrible struggle, in dozens of battles on a hundred shores.

Never was the dream of America far from his thoughts.

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And now he was on the verge of striking at the very heart of the beast that had terrorized his nation for so long. He felt gallons of adrenaline pumping through him at the mere thought of it. How sweet is thy nectar, the wine of revenge!

"I read ten minutes before we enter their airspace, Hawk," JT said, once again piercing his thoughts.

"Roger, ten minutes," Hunter acknowledged. "Better start cranking the ECM."

As he heard the reassuring whir of the Osprey's electronic counter-measures package begin transmitting, his thoughts narrowed to the mission ahead.

Even the Soviets did not evoke the same contempt Hunter had for this ex-American traitor and his thugs. During World War III and since, the Soviets had been the major enemy-he had fought them as a soldier, giving no mercy and expecting none. But the treachery and deceit of the turncoat had summoned a fury in him that had been boiling for years. He knew it would not subside until the betrayer was brought to justice.

And that was the object of this mission.

The real planning had started shortly after they found the Osprey.

When the United American Army reclaimed the southeastern coastal states from the hands of The Circle, they discovered most of the former US military installations hi the area had been looted or destroyed. The military hardware was long gone-most of it sold on a thriving New Order American black market. There, anything capable of being fired was quickly snapped up by the members of the many free-lance armies that served the two dozen or so nation-states now residing on the North American continent.

But near the former US Marine base at Cherry Point, North Carolina, the Circle had overlooked a creaking container ship that had been beached on the sandy banks of the Pamlico Sound. Whether it was a supply ship on its way to the European battlefront that never left port, or a luckless privateer washed ashore as he tried to run the Circle blockade was never known. But inside its rusty hold lay the sixty-foot tilt-rotor Osprey

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aircraft, still packed in its factory grease.