“Well, Hunter,” the man sneered at him. “We meet. Again.”
“Yes, Viktor … ” Hunter felt almost tongue-tied talking to the super-criminal. It started with two military forces heading for a collision in the Suez Canal, and now it came down to this. Just Hunter and Viktor.
“I have to admire your pluck, Hunter,” Viktor said in his singsongy whine. “I’ve been watching you ever since you crossed the Atlantic. There was no shortage of assassins willing to get rid of you. You dodged our missiles. You didn’t blink when we sent those robot Ilyushin-28s after you, or when the Panatella air force took you on. And you were very clever figuring out my hundred-arms-of-Briareus idea. And even ghosts don’t scare you.”
Hunter was silent.
“So what do we do now, Mr. Wingman?” Viktor continued. “Take ten paces and draw? I’m sure you are better at such things than I. You should just shoot me now.”
“No, Viktor,” Hunter said, barely containing his temper. He hated this man, hated him for everything he stood for. “Shooting you would just inflame all those drooling idiots you’ve brainwashed into joining your sick, perverted cause. Death is too good for you. What you need is a slap of justice.”
“How noble, Hunter,” the man said. Hunter heard him try to pull the trigger of the AK-47 he was holding. But it had hit the sand many times in the climb up the dune and now it was hopelessly jammed.
“Nice try, Viktor,” Hunter said. “But I’m not about to kill you. What I am going to do is march you out of this desert and all the way back to America.”
The man seemed genuinely surprised. “America?” he asked. “What in Hell’s name for?”
“To stand trial,” Hunter said, the anger rising up in his voice. “For war crimes committed against the people of the United States of America.”
For the first time, the black-robed man lost his sneering grin. He actually looked worried. “You’re mad,” he said. “What makes you think you can get me all the way back to America?”
“What made us think we could stop your fleet?” Hunter shot back. “You destroyed a good part of my country, Viktor. And I’m going to see that you pay for it.”
“You foolish, idealistic patriot,” the man said, his sneer returning. “You have no country! When are you and your super-hero friends going to realize that? You lost the war, Hunter. There is no United States.”
Never before had Hunter been so tempted to shoot a man in cold blood. He would be doing the world a favor.
“You’re wrong, Viktor,” Hunter replied, calmly. “As long as one person can say it, believe it, be willing to die for it, there will always be a United States of America. What you and your kind just can’t get through your bullet heads is that men were born to be free. Many brave men died today fighting for that idea, Viktor. Many men died when you unleashed The Circle War. And many men died when the Big War was started, I have no doubt, by your countrymen. Or is it ‘former’ countrymen, Viktor?”
“Don’t stand and preach to me, you flag-waving son of a bitch,” Viktor just about screamed at him, a slight hint of a Russian accent creeping into his voice. “What the hell do you have to be so proud about? Your leaders weren’t the most honorable men who have walked the earth—”
“Screw ’em,” Hunter said. “The difference is that in the USA, when we catch the crooks, they go to jail. In your country, the crooks stay in power and the innocent people go to jail.”
Viktor shook his head. “Hunter,” he said slowly. “It’s the question of power you don’t understand. Who else can project their face across hundreds of miles? Defeat entire armies without firing a shot? Who else on earth could have turned that babbling idiot Peter into something from your worst nightmare? Don’t you realize the control I have over men’s souls?”
“Don’t even try to bullshit me, Viktor,” Hunter said sharply, cutting him off. “You’re dead wrong. You might be able to control men’s minds—with trickery, hypnotism, and laser beams. But you cannot control their souls. All those brave soldiers who died today, fighting to stop your evil — you may have tried to spook them, but they carried on, didn’t they? They may have been scared, but in their souls they recognized you for what you are: a bloodthirsty terrorist. Nothing more.”
Viktor shook his head, troubled that he was losing the debate. “Ah, Hunter,” he said, stroking his devilish beard. “You are just untemptable. It’s just too bad we don’t think alike. Together we could—”
Hunter held up his hand, raising the M-16 with the other. “Don’t even say it. I’d rather be brain-dead than think like you. Anyone who would kill, maim, and uproot as many people as you have doesn’t even deserve the justice you’ll get back in America.”
Viktor laughed again. “But, Hunter,” he began, “as a military man you should know that I was just following orders—”
Suddenly, a shot rang out. Viktor’s throat exploded in a burst of blood and bones. He was stunned. He held up his hands to his throat and looked at his own blood. Then another shot hit him, right in the center of the back, exiting through his breast bone. He looked at Hunter, shook his head feebly, then fell face down in the sand at Hunter’s feet. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Hunter immediately hit the dirt. Someone had shot Viktor from the back. He looked out over the dune and saw a vehicle parked about a half-mile away, with two uniformed men standing near it. One was holding what appeared to be a rifle with a long telescopic lens.
Hunter reached down into his flight-suit pants leg pocket and pulled out the small pair of binoculars he always kept there. He put them to his eyes and focused just as the two men were climbing into the truck.
They were wearing brown uniform shirts and dark brown pants with desert boots and chaps. Each man was wearing some kind of military-issue pith helmet. Hunter strained to take in more about the men.
Then he saw it …
It was an emblem, displayed on an armband both men wore. A red circle, with a particularly twisted design inside. Despite the raging heat, Hunter felt an ice-cold chill run through him. That emblem …
“It’s a goddamn swastika … ” he whispered, not wanting to believe it.
As he watched, the two men drove off in the opposite direction. He followed the truck through the binoculars until it disappeared over the eastern horizon.
“Nazis?” he asked himself. Then he looked at Viktor. The dead man’s body was exuding blood that was quickly soaking the loose sand beneath it.
“Were they gunning for him?” Hunter asked himself, looking at the body. “Or me?”
He trudged back to the crippled F-16, and was surprised to hear the radio crackling. It was just about the only thing that still worked in the plane’s cockpit, and that was only because it powered directly off the 16’s batteries.
“Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, F-16, come in … ”
He recognized the voice. It was Crunch. Hunter reached into the shattered cockpit and retrieved his flight microphone. “Hunter here … ” he said, wearily. “Go ahead, Crunch … ”
“Hawk, Jeezuz, where the hell are you, buddy?”
Hunter looked around. “Beats me,” he said. “Out in the middle of the desert somewhere.”
“Are you okay? Did you catch Public Enemy Number One?”
“Viktor’s dead … ” Hunter replied, not quite believing his own words.
The radio crackled. “Dead?” Crunch too was surprised. “Sounds like a long story.”
“It is … ” Hunter answered, the image of the swastika emblazoned in his mind.
“I can’t wait to hear all about it,” Crunch went on. “But first, we’ve got to come and get you.”