"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 07 - Skyfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

So it was no exaggeration to say that millions of men loved her. Dreamed of her. Prayed to her.

But there was only one man in her thoughts, prayers, and dreams: Major Hawk Hunter, the man the world knew as the Wingman.

Often, to escape for a least a few moments from the crushing reality of her damp confinement, she would let her mind wander back to those times . . . those few precious, incredibly exciting times that she had spent with Hunter.

It seemed like an eternity had passed since they had first met in that abandoned farmhouse on the French coast in those turbulent days following the Big War in Europe. The attraction between them had been immediate, intense, and by all means, predestined.

But in the years since, fate had been cruel, allowing them only a few, isolated liaisons, then tearing them apart again.

Dominique wiped the stream of tears from her face and took a long, deep breath. She was in love with him and she was sure he loved her. She also knew that there was more to it than fate. That was the problem. Hunter could not escape his destiny because it was intertwined with the destiny of his country. More than any man alive, it was

Hunter who had been responsible for rekindling the spirit and the courage of the once-proud United States, and this was no light cross to bear.

In fact, it had been a monumental task, one that seemed to battle against the entire cosmos itself.

Freedom had been very unlucky in the past five and a half years. America and her NATO allies had been on the brink of winning the savage, conventionally fought World War III when at the very last minute, a fanatical anti-glasnost clique within the Soviet Union, aided by the traitorous U.S. vice president, unleashed a sneak nuclear attack that devastated the center of the American continent. With much of the country in shambles, a repressive regime known as the New Order took over and chopped the United States into dozens of strife-torn independently run yet virtually lawless states, countries, and "free" territories.

It took two years, but out of the resulting chaos emerged the New Democratic freedom fighters, led by Hunter and his allies. Determined to regain control of and reunite the American continent, these democratic forces assembled small but well-equipped armies and took on the New Order. After a series of hard-fought and bloody wars, democracy prevailed. America finally was reunited.

Yet no sooner had this been done when another threat arose.

Taking advantage of the instability that still gripped the Western Hemisphere as well as the rest of the world, a group of neo-Nazis appropriately known as the Twisted Cross seized control of the Panama Canal. Another bloody confrontation followed in which the Americans invaded Panama for at least the second time in history. It was a hard-fought battle: but eventually the newly united Americans emerged triumphant.

With the Twisted Cross defeated, the Americans turned their attention toward rebuilding their shattered continent, not just physically, but spiritually as well. The first act was played out when the traitorous vice president was

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brought back to America to stand trial for his crimes. He was eventually convicted of high treason and, after surviving a bizarre assassination attempt, was imprisoned for life.

In the meantime, the major cities on both American coasts began working together to resurrect the war-ravaged east and midsections of the country. By year five, life was actually beginning to take on a semblance of pre-World War HI normalcy.

Then another threat arose to challenge to the United American cause.

A huge army of outlaws, mercenaries, and Nazi Twisted Cross survivors banded together under the guiding hand of a racist white supremacist drug addict named Duke Devillian and attempted to establish control over the devastated southwest heartland of the nation. Hunter and his allies met this challenge, too-unexpectedly, as it turned out-while driving a twelve-locomotive, heavily armed, miles-long rolling fortress called the Freedom Express through the disputed section of the country via the last remaining rail from the old AMTRAK days.

Though heavily outgunned and facing odds of more than a hundred to one, the United Americans used cunning and even a dose of mysticism to crush Devillian's forces in a climactic battle in the Grand Canyon. Though Devillian himself escaped, the Freedom Express rolled triumphantly into Los Angeles, a dramatic symbol of the reunification of the nation.

But vital as they were, these victories over the enemies of his country had taken a tremendous personal toll on Hunter. Not in his flying skills-which were still un-equaled-nor in his ability to use his incredibly advanced personalized form of ESP. No-the toll had been one of the heart and soul. Fighting the battles of his country had kept him from Dominique, by his own admission, the only woman he had ever truly loved.

But the long years of war for him were ones of waiting and wondering and worrying for her. Finally, they had

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taken their toll on her, too-as a human being and as a woman.

The last time they'd seen each other was on a fog-shrouded airfield somewhere near the border of Free Canada and the Free Territory of New York. It was in the midst of the second Circle War, and the meeting was painfully and uncomfortably brief. Although she ached to hold him again, to tell him that she was willing to continue her vigil while he continued the swashbuckling struggle to restore the freedom and dignity of his country, the words never came out. She turned away from him instead, her pride blinding her, her broken heart making her mute.

After leaving him standing alone at that gloomy airfield, her life had become a blur. Unbeknownst to her, someone started spiking her food with a very low-impact but highly addictive drug called Percodex. At some point-she really couldn't remember exactly when, due to the insidious drugging scheme-she had been spirited away again, this time by an organization secretly led by the beautiful but evil Elizabeth Sandlake, the same person who tried to kill the traitorous ex-vice president.