The highly trained troops quickly dispersed through the field and took up positions along a tree line 100 yards away. As planned, these soldiers would be responsible for the perimeter defense while the conference was taking place in the town.
The doors of the Blackhawk opened and two familiar figures stepped out. The first one was a tall, distinguished looking man-, clad in a three-piece, all-white suit. His clothes and his great shock of snow white hair gave him an evangelical look. This was Louie St. Louie, the creator, leader, and president of Football City. Formerly known as St. Louis, the city had become a "super-Las Vegas" after the New Order came in. St. Louie — who despite his name was really a true-blue Texan — hired Hunter to retrieve a valuable diamond shipment of his, and later convinced the pilot to raise an air force and help defend Football City against a takeover attempt by the criminals known as The Family. Football City was nearly devastated in the war that followed, but its rebuilding programs — including revival of the year-long, open betting football game from which it took its name — were well under way.
The second man was shorter, with a mass of brown hair, wearing brown combat fatigues and a green beret. This was Hunter's old Thunderbirds' buddy, Mike Fitzgerald. The perky Irishman was now the top man at the Syracuse Aerodrome, the well known and notorious airplane "truck-stop" located in upstate Free Territory of New York. Fitz, a fiercely independent businessman, had made a fortune servicing jets moving across the convoys routes between Free Canada and the West Coast. For this occasion, Fitzgerald was carrying two cases of scotch.
Hunter and Dozer walked over to greet their friends.
"Howdy, pardner," Hunter said to St. Louie, shaking his hand.
"Good to see you, Hawk," St. Louie said, a wide grin revealing a perfect set of white teeth. "Been too long, boy."
St. Louie went- to greet Dozer as Hunter approached Fitzgerald. "Hey, Fitz,"
Hunter said, kidding the Irishman, "Only two cases of booze. Think it will be enough?"
"Now stop with ya joking and take one of these, will ye?" the man said in a brogue that couldn't be cut with a buzzsaw. "Good scotch weighs a lot…"
Hunter took one of the cases from him. The airman had to laugh. Here were two of his closest friends, both, who despite the New Order chaos across the continent, had still not only managed to survive, but had made millions of dollars in the process. At least capitalism was not MIA in the post-World War III age.
"So, Fitz," Hunter said as the four men walked toward the town "You have that hundred bucks you owe me?"
Fitzgerald, well known for his frugality, blanched. "I'm not here to talk over old debts, Hawker, me boy," he said. "We have work to do."
The old saloon was a mass of cracked veneer and plywood, dirt, dust, mud and broken windows. A smashed jukebox sat in one corner. Chintzy decorations hung ragged from the ceiling. The barroom's booths had long ago succumbed to age.
Yet the old place still had a quality of sleazy charm to it.
"Looks like it was a good place to get lost in, in its day," Hunter said as the four men walked into the saloon in the middle of the small town.
Dozer and Hunter retrieved a semi-sturdy table as Fitzgerald opened a few bottles of his scotch. St. Louie was heating a bucket of his famous Texas stew over a dozen cans of Sterno. A set of semi-clean plates and glasses were found and once everything was ready, the four sat down to eat and talk.
Hunter filled in St. Louie and Fitzgerald on all the strange happenings PAAC had run up against in the past few weeks. Both men sat nearly open-mouthed as they listened to the stories.
"Dear mother of God," Fitzgerald exclaimed. "1 believe the whole damn continent is haunted…"
"You've been having odd things happen, too?" Hunter asked between mouthfuls.
"Aye, we have," Fitzgerald said. "Lights. Strange flying lights. Over the Lakes. We were getting calls from people out there every night."
"Flying lights?" Hunter asked. "Like in 'UFOs?' "
"I guess," Fitzgerald said, refilling his glass. "The people who see 'em, claim they are different colors. Floating. Way up in the sky. Hundreds of them. Coming in from the northeast and heading southwest. They make no noise."
"Have you check them out?" Dozer asked.
"Sure have," Fitzgerald said. "Scrambled jets eight nights in a row, we did.
They fourid nothing. And believe me, it's an expensive proposition, to fly four jets out to the Lakes and back for no good reason."
"How about radar?" Hunter asked.
"We haven't seen them," Fitzgerald replied. "We sent a portable unit out there finally. Those guys sat on the edge of Lake Erie for three days and nights, freezing their asses off. No lights. No nothing. We finally called them back in and the very next night, we get two hundred reports that the sky is filled with them."
"Whew, boy!" Dozer said. "This gets creepier by the minute."
"Well boys," St. Louie drawled. "You ain't heard nothing yet. I got a story that will beat any of yours."
The ruddy faced Texan pushed his empty plate aside and took a stiff belt from his whiskey glass. Then he began his story:
"A few weeks back, one of our long range patrols went out on an extended mission. These patrols are our eyes and ears on the western edge of our territory, which, as you know, borders the southern Badlands.
"These guys are the toughest, meanest bunch of troopers you'd ever want to meet. Well, forty-two guys went out. Only one came back. And he'll be in the loony bin for the rest of his life."
"Jesus Christ," Hunter said. "What the hell happened?"
St. Louie paused, then said: "We don't know exactly. We talked to the one survivor, but believe me, he's gone around the deep end and he ain't coming back.
"But this is what he said — or mumbled — about what happened:
"They were on the fourth night of a twenty-one-day mission. Now according to their orders, they could skirt the 'Bads, but if they actually went in, they had to maintain radio silence, as part of their training.
"Anyway, they did go into the Badlands. That 36 much we know. Apparently on that fourth night, someone — or something — crawled into their camp and stole all their food and water."
"Weren't there any sentries?" Dozer asked.
"Oh yeah," St. Louie answered. "They found them, six of them, cut up terrible.
Butchered. Now remember, these recon guys are the highest trained force we have. But still someone greased six of them very quietly, then came in and stole the food.
"So now my guys are hopping mad. They start to track whatever it was. Soon they're more than a hundred miles inside the 'Bads, which has got to be the furthest anyone civilized had gone in before.
"Well, they get in there — and the survivor said it was like being on another planet, no trees, nothing growing, poison everywhere. Fog covering everything.
Very, very strange.
"And in the middle of all this, what the hell do they find? A nuke station!
And the Goddamn thing is working!"
"What?!" Hunter couldn't believe it. "That's got to be impossible…"
"That's what I said," St. Louie replied. "But, I'm telling you, this guy swears it's true. They spot this place with three cooling towers. Steam coming out of them and lights blazing all over the plant.
"Anyway, at this point, it gets fuzzy. But, for whatever reason, they decide to head back home. They were three days into the return trip when they were walking in a ravine. It was around midnight, as by this time they were sleeping during the day and moving at night.
"So they were in this ravine, when all of a sudden, the guy said they heard this tremendous noise. Like thunder. They turned around and… and it gets really strange here, boys… they see thousands of guys coming at them. On horseback! Screaming, terrible. At full charge.