Mack Maloney - Wingman 02 by The Circle War

Author:The Circle War [War, The Circle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-26T03:06:31+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Time was running out ...

General Dave Jones sat alone at the enormous lighted table in the War Room at PAAC-Oregon. Before him were stacks of intelligence reports and more than five hundred recon photos including all of the pictures Hunter had taken of the Badlands SAM sites. Other photos were high altitude jobs, shot at great risk by the Texans, on the very edges of the Badlands where the perpetual haze that hung over the placed thinned out enough to take an occasional photo.

The officer had spent most of the past day and night correlating the information with previous intelligence reports —all of which were indicated on a lighted map of the continent that stood in the center of the room. Green cubes represented the Circle Forces, red blocks represented the Russians. The Pacific American armies —the newly dubbed Western Forces — were coded blue with their various volunteer allies colored white. At the moment, the green and red blocks outnumbered the blue and white by a 2-to-1 margin. The wizened officer looked at the photos

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on the table, then at the map stretched out before him and felt a chill go up his spine.

War was fast approaching. He knew it. True soldiers sensed when the real thing was coming, and Jones' body hadn't stopped buzzing since Hunter returned from his one-man mission into the Bads. Now the combatants were making their final preparations. Two great armies —one marching east and the other marching west, were getting ready to collide head on. Soon enough, the land would be covered with the blood of its own. It seemed like such a waste . . .

Just about all the intelligence reports he had were bad news. The Circle armies had solidified their occupation of The Aerodrome and Football City and in doing so, now controlled all the free territories east of the Badlands. The Texans were really feeling the heat. There had been no less than a dozen raids along their border the night before. Once again the Mongols selected isolated townships as their targets, overwhelming their defenders at first, then counting on the air cover by their Russian cohorts for the second fist of a one-two punch. This time the Texas Air Force tangled briefly with the Soviet Yaks over the Red River before driving them away. But 12 more Texas towns lay in ruins, causing the Texans to speed up their full-scale evacuation of their border area.

The Western Forces were desperately trying to mobilize. Those already in the service were being sent east to the Denver forward base by any means possible.

Some were riding in converted tractor trailer trucks, others on the one rail link still operating over

the Rockies. Still others were flying. In all, Jones knew he had to move close to 45,000 men as quickly as possible.

Jones was also arming and equipping thousands of the volunteers who were flooding into Oregon and San Diego bases. Many of them were good fighters—

militia men and free-lance border guard troops—and some of them were just able-bodied men who wanted to fight for the cause.

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