Robert Ferrigno - Heart of the Assassin

The two of them walked past clumps of sleek fighters, their canopies cracked from the sun, tires rotted off. A gigantic C-57 cargo plane lay crumpled in the grass, one wing torn off, the fuselage still blackened from the crash landing forty years ago. One of the control towers had collapsed into a pile of concrete blocks. Another had been obliterated by a light bomber that overshot the runway.

"The Colonel's worried about you," said Rakkim.

"You saw him?"

"Woke him up in the middle of the night-"

"You love doing that, don't you? Shaking people out of a sweet dream."

"You know me, John, I'm a man of simple pleasures." Rakkim could see Moseby remembering his own wakeup seventeen years ago, Rakkim's blade against his throat. Sent to kill him for going rogue, Rakkim had seen Moseby's pregnant wife beside him and backed off, disappeared into the night.

"How's Sarah and the boy?" said Moseby.

"They're fine. I can hardly keep up with either of them. How is your family?"

"Annabelle's concerned. Leanne?" Moseby sighed. "All she thinks about is that boy."

"Leo's a good kid."

"Then let your daughter marry him."

"I don't have a daughter."

"Exactly," said Moseby.

Rakkim smiled. "He hasn't got sense to come in out of the rain, but Leo's smart. So smart even Spider doesn't understand half of what the kid's talking about."

"Just what I need, a son-in-law who's smarter than God and useless as tits on a bull."

Rakkim stopped under the protection of the twisted tail section of a crashed jet. "These people of yours bringing the vehicle…you trust them?"

"Corbett's a percentage player." Moseby patted the flechette auto-pistol on his hip. A high-body-count weapon. "I trust this to keep him honest."

Rakkim pulled the starlight scope out of his denim jacket, handed it over. "Give him this then. Wouldn't want him to think he has a hidden advantage."

Moseby hefted the German-made scope. "Where did you get it?"

"Guy in a crashed F-77 interceptor had it attached to a sniper rifle. Must have been out squirrel hunting. I had to explain to him that you can't hunt varmints with a night scope. Not sporting."

Moseby tucked away the starlight scope. "You kill him?"

"Just revoked his hunting license. He's sleeping off the shame of it. Heck of a nice rifle."

"I'm slipping." Moseby turned, looked toward the far hill. "They're coming."

Rakkim had already heard the engines. They had time. He lightly touched the undamaged section of the jet-the USAF insignia looked new. "Must have been quite a sight in the old days seeing these things in formation over the cities. Sky pilots, I think they called them." He ran his fingertips over the insignia. Gave him chills. Just like Sarah said, there was magic in the idea of that nation, the greatest power on earth for a while. Who didn't wonder what it would be like for those days to come again? Reunification…

"They relied too much on airpower," said Moseby. "All the countries did. Now that nuclear weapons are outlawed, wars are won in the dirt."

"Now they are."

After the satellite surge destroyed the air forces of both the Republic and the Belt, other nations redesigned their own systems, spending billions to buffer their avionics from electromagnetic discharges. It had worked until the Chechen Alliance attacked Russia, hacking into the Russian military command center. In ten minutes the Russian air force was destroyed by the Chechen abort virus-those planes in the air fell to earth like dead sparrows, and those on the ground were locked down and useless. The virus spread rapidly from the Russian command center to every nation with which it had reciprocal relations. The Chechens didn't care, they had no air force to speak of, but within an hour, airpower had ceased to be the dominant military strategy.

It took years for the major nations to rebuild their fleets, yet again. Since modern aircraft were utterly dependent on their computer systems, the choice was made to delink their air wings from command and control centers. While this squadron-based structure was inefficient, it prevented the whole air defense system from being destroyed by an enemy virus. Like Moseby said, wars were won in the dirt. Until a year ago.

Last year, the Nigerians had developed a supposedly unhackable command and control center, the Kabilla-9, which allowed the tactical coordination of all air units. Frightfully expensive, its purchase considered a provocative act, the Kabilla-9 had so far only been bought by the expansionist regimes of Ukraine, Brazil and the Aztlan Empire.

"They're getting closer." Moseby took a deep breath. "You have the credit chip?"

Rakkim handed the chip over. He could see sweat beaded across Moseby's forehead.

Moseby looked west, saw headlights coming through the trees. "Do you want to…?" Rakkim was gone. Moseby stepped out onto the tarmac, waited for Corbett. He didn't have to wait long.

The two vehicles burst out from the trees, the one in the lead a large van with traction tires, riding low on its shocks, the other an old Cadillac limo with the roof sawed off. Corbett waved from the passenger seat of the limo.

Moseby unslung the flechette auto-pistol, his finger on the trigger.

The two vehicles skidded to a stop, sent up a cloud of dust that billowed across Moseby. "Sorry about that." Corbett swatted the driver. "Big Mike likes to make a big entrance."

"No problem," said Moseby, caught in the glare of the headlights.

Corbett jumped out, a short, skinny cracker with thinning hair, one cheek puffed out with chaw. He stalked toward Moseby, bib overalls barely reaching the tops of his cowboy boots.

Big Mike stayed behind the wheel, engine running. He fired up a cigar, peering at Moseby through a blue haze.

Corbett shook hands with him. "You got the funds?"

"Let me see the war wagon," said Moseby.

Corbett led him over to the van, banged on the hood. Both front doors opened, and two men stepped out. They leaned against the front wheel wells, arms crossed. "Four-wheel drive, of course. Armored all over, including the floorboards. Puncture-proof tires. Lead-foil paneling and leaded glass all around, cuts down radiation by ninety percent. You want to have kids someday, you should still wear a rad-suit, which I can supply."

"I've got my own," said Moseby, peering inside the van.

Corbett spit tobacco juice. "Good for you." He pointed at the large air compressor on the roof. "My own design, and proud of it too. Close to a sealed system, but even if there's a leak, you're going to have a constant one hundred and ten percent air pressure inside, so nothing out is coming in. You're going to appreciate that when you get to D.C., 'cause there's some nasty shit there you don't want to breathe." He turned up the interior lights. "You sure you want to go into the city by yourself? It's no pleasure cruise, I'll tell you that."

"I don't like company."

"Yeah, I had a cousin like that," said Corbett. "Regular hermit, he was, although you ask me, he just didn't trust his fellow man."

"What else this thing have?"

"All business, okay, that's fine with me," said Corbett. "Got roentgen counters inside and out, so you know when you're approaching a hot spot. D.C.'s not the same all over. That rad counter starts pinging faster than a twenty-dollar mouth whore, you scoot. " He grinned at Moseby. "I want you back as a repeat customer."

"You said there was a decontamination area," said Moseby.

"In the back," said Corbett, beckoning.

Moseby whipped around as one of the men stepped away from the wheel well. "Tell these two to stay where they are."

"Easy now," Corbett said to Moseby. "We're all friends here." He spit again. "Boys, you stay put. Don't want Mr. Moseby to get his bowels in an uproar and shoot one of you." He looked at Moseby. "Happy now?"