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  Stone slammed the controls for the video camera to do a 360 and quickly saw that his men seemed to have the situation at least relatively under control. Dead bodies lay around the other tanks, both of which had stopped in their tracks, and it was his men who were standing atop them, victorious. The first battle had gone well—better than he could have hoped. But as the camera reached the end of its sweep—back to the field and the side gate—Stone saw a whole slew of the bikers, who hadn’t been able to keep up with the Bradley’s, walking slowly toward them. Unaware that anything untoward had happened, they wanted to witness the rest of the fun. Wanted to see the little twerp with the death wish who had insulted them. Wanted to see him die.

  Stone reached for the cannon controls and swiveled the turret all the way around. Through the periscope-type, laser-sighted viewfinder that lowered automatically in front of his eyes, he sighted up the approaching crowd of leather-jacketed scum of the earth. He waited until the three red lines crisscrossed over one another—he had the face of the lead biker dead in his sights. Then he fired. The cannon pulled back on his treads, as if about to take a great jump forward, and the barrel spat out a shell the size of a man’s leg. There was a tremendous roar, even louder against the relative silence of what had just been a killing ground, and the projectile whistled into the bikers like a bowling ball of death looking for some human pins to take down.

  Stone couldn’t even really see just what happened. There was a cloud of dirt and blood and arms and unrecognizable things, and that was that. About ten bodies lay in various states of disintegration for a circle of thirty feet around the blast crater. The rest of the bikers ran backward, slowly, confused at first. And then, as they saw the cannon start swiveling again, tracking them, they tore ass. For a bunch of three-hundred-pounders they moved surprisingly fast as they disappeared out of the fortress walls and back into the woods with the other animals.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  RANDOLPH WAS dead. Stone hadn’t exchanged two words with the guy. And now, lying as he was, his chest all opened up from a shotgun blast from a biker before he, in turn, was blasted to bits, Randolph didn’t look like he had much to say. The rest of the men seemed both proud that they had actually been able to carry out Stone’s plan and a little pale around the gills that one of their own had bought it so quickly. But if any of them was having second thoughts, they kept it to themselves.

  “You did good,” Stone said, addressing them as they stood in a ragged line in front of him. “Real good. You should all be proud of yourselves. Those bastards”—he glanced at the corpses of the bikers, which lay all over the place like bloody mannequins that had been tossed from a department store that was going out of business—“were tough. Real tough. I’ve faced them before. So whatever doubts you had about your own abilities to carry out this mission—well, you just proved ’em wrong.”

  Stone turned around and faced the grave that had been so hastily dug. The torn body of the dead recruit lay wrapped in an American flag that someone had grabbed down from a pole. Stone knew that rituals mattered when it came to fighting—and dying. At least the men under him would know that if they went out, they’d the like men, would be buried under the dirt rather than just lying out there to be consumed by beasts and maggots. It wasn’t much—and yet he knew that for them it mattered. Anthropologists defined the transition from barbarism to civilization by, among other things, the moment when man had started burying his dead. Started wrapping them in shawls, putting strange relics on their faces and bodies—an evolution that showed that man was different from the animals. That he had a soul.

  “Dear Lord, or whoever’s up there,” Stone said, his head bowed as the other men stood behind him, looking solemn. “Take this poor son of a bitch up there into your clouds. I don’t know what this man did in the past, probably some good and some bad things. But I know that today he gave his life fighting for the light, fighting against the darkness that threatens to take our whole land down into hell. Whatever else was inside of him—in his final moments—there was bravery and a willingness to make the final sacrifice on the side of life.” Stone coughed, not quite knowing how to end the makeshift paean to the beyond. “Uh, thanks,” he said, and then lifted his head to signal that the ceremony was over.

  The body was lowered into the ground, and dirt quickly shoveled over it. In seconds it had returned to that from which it had sprung. Stone looked around at the other men, who seemed moved by his words. At least they weren’t laughing.

  “All right, we got work to do,” he said brusquely, suddenly embarrassed by his chaplain duties. “Hartstein, Simpson, and you, Bull,” he said, looking around the group, which stared back with curious eyes, wondering just what the hell the man they had entrusted with their lives had in store for them next. But there was respect in their eyes now, where before there had just been fear and hostility. He had led them into the face of death, and they were still farting and burping. So far, so good. Stone led the three of them off to one of the three tanks that stood in the center of the ruins of Fort Bradley as the other men got their gear back on and sat around throwing sticks, which Excaliber, glad for a little sport, fetched and brought back.

  Inside the Bradley III, Stone sat at the controls of the battle wagon and put on the headset.

  “All right, I picked you three, because frankly you’re the smartest of the lot as far as I can see. Now, what I’m going to do is teach you to run this motherfucker—in one easy lesson. All right?” He didn’t wait for an answer and didn’t see the expressions of sheer incredulity as the three of them looked quickly around at the array of flashing lights and readout panels, at the seemingly countless buttons and dials that filled the control panel in front of Stone.

  “Now, it’s just like driving a car, right? You’ve all driven cars before, I pray,” Stone asked rhetorically, not even waiting for the answers. “You just flip this little switch here, then turn this systems-on lever here, then you…” Slowly he went through all the guidance mechanisms of the Bradley, praying that he even remembered it all correctly himself. He had only driven the tank two times, and then only for a few hours each time. But everything basically seemed to work, and the damned thing at least didn’t blow up in their faces. When he had finished and turned around and saw the looks of utter consternation on their faces, Stone went through it all again. After the second time they at least looked like they knew how to press a button, and he threw the tank into gear and took off down the center of the still smoking fort.

  Stone put the war wagon through its paces. He wanted them not to just know how to operate the thing but also to understand its myriad capabilities. He went slow, he went fast, taking the tank up to its top speed of forty-plus miles per hour. He brought the Bradley to a screeching stop and then turned on a dime, showing them how to operate the treads on one side only, giving the Bradley enormous maneuverability.

  Then he let them try it. To say the least, each was hesitant to actually drive the thing, and they kept looking around at Stone with apprehensive expressions. But after they had had their shot for about half an hour each, Stone took the controls and brought the Bradley back to where the rest of the attack force was waiting.

  “Well,” he said when they all had climbed out and were staring up at the huge death machine, somewhat amazed that they had just been operating it, “what do you think? Can you drive the fucking thing?” None of them said no, though he could see in their inability to look him right in the eyes that they had their doubts. But all he wanted was for them to be able to get the things going. They could learn the finer points on the road. Next Stone had three more of the men accompany him, telling them also that they were the three cleverest fellows of the lot and that he had chosen them to be the gunners. In fact, one of the main features of the Bradley III was its central control operation. The driver of the tank could also fire every one of its weapons systems. But it would take weeks for them to have even minimal abilities at running the whole show. Besid
es, with one man driving and one on cannon, there was less opportunity for betrayal. For Stone, though he was trying to act like they were all just one big happy fighting unit, still didn’t trust them. And he could hardly blame them for not trusting him.

  Half an hour later three tanks lumbered out of the fort, three men to a tank. Stone had Bo and Simpson with him, the two men he trusted the most. At least he wouldn’t have to keep wondering if one of them was about to pull a gun behind him and blast his brains out. He figured if worse came to worst and he saw one of the turrets swinging toward him, he’d be faster. It was great working with guys you liked. Stone was in constant communication with the other drivers, talking to them, reassuring them, giving them instructions over the built-in headset. The tanks followed the main road and then just went up and over the piles of debris at the edge of the fort. Stone had had some of the men help him hoist the Harley up onto the back of one of the Brad-leys, raising and locking it back with a built-in pulley system.

  Excaliber was at first skittish about being in the tank. He didn’t seem to take kindly to the lights flashing, the smell of plastic from the panel. And for the first half hour or so he emitted a constant low growl, which got on everyone’s nerves. But at last he found a nice warm spot at the back above the engine and curled up in a corner and went right to sleep, with a final jaw-cracking yawn and a little bark for Stone, to say: Wake me when the shooting starts.

  Stone went slowly at first, hardly getting above fifteen miles per hour. He knew he was pushing it to the limit by even hoping Hartstein and Bull could handle the things. Stone kept the viewing system in full 360-degree perspective. The screen above him split automatically into four parts, giving him vision of all four quadrants of the terrain around him and the two tanks following behind. The heavily armed battle machines seemed to dance all over the place behind him, turning, slowing down, speeding up, skidding sideways from time to time. But somehow they kept going.

  The first sign of trouble was when Stone suddenly heard a yell over the earphone on his head, a sound of such volume that his face turned white. He slammed his hand down on the cannon controls, ready to aim the big gun and take out whoever was about to spring some trick. But as his eyes focused on the monitor above him, Stone saw with horror that one of the tanks had run right off an embankment and was lodged against some boulders at almost a ninety-degree angle.

  “Halt, halt,” he yelled over the radio, and the tank that was following came to an abrupt, gear-grinding stop. Stone wheeled his Bradley around and shot over to where the battle wagon had tumbled. He pulled to a stop, threw the whole thing into neutral, and dashed up the ladder for a close-up view. It was both better and worse than he had feared. The crew was still alive and the tank still seemed structurally whole, but the damned thing was balanced on a few rocks that didn’t look all that big. And below them was a hundred-foot drop onto solid granite. He could hear the men inside yelling bloody murder and could see by the way the Bradley III was shifting around that they were desperately trying to climb out.

  “Don’t move!” Stone screamed out at the top of his lungs. “You hear me, you bastards in there? Don’t move a fucking inch! You’re on the edge of a cliff—you hear me? Every step is bringing you closer to going over—to being dead men.” If his words didn’t do it, a sudden shift in the position of the tank did. One of the rocks holding the thing up had fallen free, and the whole tank shuddered and moved six inches farther down. The movement inside the tank stopped, and Stone leaned down over the very edge and yelled down to the men.

  “Look, I promise I’ll get you out of there—just stay loose. Play cards, jerk off, but don’t try to get out of there —you understand?”

  “Understand,” a voice yelled back. “Just get us the fuck off this cliff.” Stone jumped up and tore back to his tank, shooting down the ladder and back to the controls. He brought the tank up until it was just a yard or so from the precipice and gave orders for the other to follow suit—very, very slowly. But Bull, who was driving, seemed to have a knack for the vehicle and pulled up right alongside Stone, just a few yards away. Thick cables were quickly pulled out of storage and attached to the front steel posts of the two tanks. Stone, not wanting to be responsible for any more deaths, took the other ends of the two steel cables over the side himself, with a rope around his waist and held by three of the men. It took about twenty minutes, but at last he surveyed the arrangement, decided he couldn’t do anything more, and got back in the tank.

  “Okay, real slow, you got me?” Stone said to Bull over the radio. “We got to move together or we’re going to tilt the thing off-balance. Set her for minimum speed, use the gearshift on your left—you see it, marked ‘Low Drive 5’?”

  “Copy,” Bull said back. Stone was getting to like the bastard he trusted least. At least the guy seemed to know what the hell he was doing.

  “Let’s do it,” he said. Slowly, moving an inch at a time, the treads of the two tanks edged slowly backward. There was a loud groaning sound as the cables stretched so taut, Stone was afraid they would pop. But although it almost seemed that the fallen Bradley III didn’t really want to come back up, hardly budging at first, as the cable reached its tension limit, the tank started crawling backward up the almost sheer face of the drop. Stone could feel the engine of his war wagon screaming out in protest, but it kept pumping out the power. And at last, after five heart-stopping minutes, the fallen tank reached its balance point on the edge of the ravine and suddenly slammed down onto the dirt with a thunderous crash.

  The men inside came flying out the hatch, as if it were on fire inside, and jumped out onto the earth. One of the men, Farber got down on his hands and knees and kissed sweet terra firma. They came over and slapped Stone and Bull on the backs over and over, their faces wide with the smiles that those who had just escaped imminent death wear. And though it took nearly half an hour to convince them to get back inside, at last the whole show was on the road again. Hartstein promised to drive more carefully. And Stone, only half in jest, told him he was going to take the son of a bitch’s driver’s license away “if there are any more moving violations.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  SOON THE three-tank convoy was moving again, Stone driving very slowly in the lead, hardly rising above fifteen miles per hour for the first hour or so. He had been pushing them all too fast. Both Hartstein and Bull kept asking Stone questions over the headset. “What does this do?” “What does that do?” Stone had decided not to show them how to work the missile system. Each Bradley III had six ground-to-ground, or ground-to-air, heat-seeking missiles—with ninety-five percent kill performance. But Stone, following the Major’s advice—”Always have a trick up your sleeve”—wanted to keep the operation of the mini-max missile system to himself.

  The tanks left the semi-mountainous area where Fort Bradley had been built and headed out onto a more prairie-like terrain. Here, at lower altitude, the snow had left only a fine coating, and the tanks spat up huge funnels of dust that joined above them, forming a cloud that followed behind for miles. Cacti grew everywhere, rising up like spiked fingers pointing to the sky, to God, or whatever lay hidden up there. Fields of them, green and black, towering above the tanks on all sides. They came to an incline from which Stone could see for miles in each direction over the flat terrain, and he called for the attack convoy to come to a stop.

  “It’s target-practice time, gentlemen,” Stone said. “Now, Zzychinski and Phillips, you’re both the gunnery men. Switch on the speak switch on your headsets so you can ask me questions. I’ve shown you basically how to operate the 120-mm cannon system and the 50-cal twin machine guns. But now I want to give you a little hands-on practice. We’ll do static firing first, then mobile. Hartstein, come up alongside me on the far side, Bull on the near, and face the direction my tank is pointing.” They followed his command, and after about thirty seconds the three tanks stood side by side, their cannons all facing forward over miles of cacti and anthills.


  “Now, whatever you do, do it slow and careful. ’Cause we’re working with live ammo—heavy-duty ammo, at that. The shells that these Bradleys fire are superconcentrated high explosive—probably the most punch per square inch of anything short of field nukes. Now, using your laser range-finding system, look into the sighting mechanisms until you have those three tall cacti standing almost right next to each other. About a mile off. See them?”

  “Yeah,” they both replied.

  “Okay. Sight up. When you have the three red lines pinpointing it, fire.” Suddenly the tank to the left roared and emitted a screaming projectile. The shell came down just short of the cactus trio and sent up a little tornado of dirt. Then Bull’s tank rocked back on its treads, and the 120-mm burped out a mouthful of death. The shell slammed right into the top of the cactus, but for some reason it didn’t detonate. Instead it sliced right through one of them like a scythe, about five feet from the top, and then flew on past, exploding a good two miles off. The severed head of cactus slowly leaned over and then tumbled down where it crashed into pulpy pieces on the ground.

  They both fired again, having shifted the long cannon barrels. This time both shells slammed dead center of the growth near the base. All three cacti just seemed to disintegrate in the air as if bursting from the insides out, as pieces of them spun off in every direction. When the noise and dust settled, there wasn’t a thing above the base, above a few feet off the ground.

  “Not bad,” Stone said over the radio, swiveling the video around in search of some other targets. “There,” he said suddenly. “Swing turrets around to the left, say about twenty degrees. See that anthill? Son of a bitch must be twenty-five feet tall, over there about a mile and a half.” They both muttered assent, and again Stone had them open up. This time Zzychinski found target acquisition the first time, with Phillips’s shell coming in right behind his, creating a second explosion within the already boiling air of sand and scorched ants and forming a halo of particles a good hundred feet around. Stone had them take out a few more structures of nature. He didn’t feel overjoyed about just randomly taking out all this stuff. But there was more where that came from. If a ten-meg, or a few of them, went off in Colorado, there wouldn’t be shit. He had to teach these guys to actually be able to use the tanks. They would be facing elite troops, elite armored units. In tank battle the first shot was often the last.