Sky Ghost Read online

  “Roger that,” replied his wingman.

  The crew of the Hughes SuperSea bomber witnessed the strafing attack and radioed down to the American destroyer that their pilots were returning safely.

  But the enemy cruiser was still coming on—and now it was launching a recovery boat, too. This one was literally shot off the deck and was heading at very high speed toward the remaining floaters.

  Watching all this on his TV screen, the bomber’s COA told his machine gun crews to stand by. Then he sent another radio message down to the Louis St. Louis. There was something he wanted to ask the captain of the destroyer.

  At the same moment, Wolf was talking to the Sea Marines in the American recovery boat. They had the one floater aboard and were coming back. Wolf called down to the propulsion room and ordered more gas be put on the destroyer’s double-reaction plant. Then he told his crew to strap in for a quick getaway.

  Meanwhile the enemy’s high-speed boat had slowed down and was hauling the second floater out of the water. This man appeared to be alive too, but barely. The third floater had drifted far away by this time.

  That’s when Wolf’s air-sea radio began blinking again. It was the SuperSea’s COA with his question: Should his gunners strafe the enemy’s recovery boat?

  Wolf had to think about this for a moment. It was a legitimate question. The enemy recovery boat was a vessel of war, and thus a fair target. But it did have at least one of the mysterious floaters on board. And the chances were good the enemy cruiser would disengage once it saw the Louis St. Louis accelerate and the SuperSea depart the area. So what was the point of shooting at the rescue boat?

  Finally Wolf keyed his mike.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he told the airplane.

  The Louis St. Louis was 35 miles away from the area just 20 minutes later.

  Captain Wolf was in his stateroom, writing up a report on the incident. Behind him, another large computer was whirring softly. He found it a comforting sound. There was a knock at the door. The ship’s Executive Officer, the man named Zal, came in.

  He handed his own preliminary combat report to Wolf.

  “We never got to use our targeting lamp,” he said. “We were never in range. Our hull temperature did achieve thirty-four degrees though—pretty good, considering.”

  “They still would have nailed us with a radi-seeker after a third disruption barrage,” Wolf said. “But tell the crew they did well nevertheless. At this point, what difference does it make?”

  “Will do, skipper,” Zal replied.

  Wolf fed Zal’s report into the huge whirring computer and pushed a button labeled PROCESS.

  “I was surprised to see such a large enemy ship in these parts,” Zal told Wolf. “I didn’t think they could muster enough men or fuel these days to get one out this far.”

  “A last-gasp patrol,” Wolf said with a shrug. “They’ll be lucky if they make it back to port. Without their cloaking stuff, they’ll be a big fat target for anyone with an air torpedo.”

  Wolf then looked up at Zal.

  “So, where is he?” he asked the XO.

  “The man we brought aboard?”

  “Yes. Is he still alive?”

  “He is—and he’s actually in pretty good shape,” Zal said. “Probably hasn’t had a meal in a while. But other than that, he looks like he just went for a dip in the pool. He should be on the way up from sick bay about now.”

  Wolf signaled that Zal should close the stateroom door. Then he lowered his voice.

  “OK, then—who the hell is he?” he asked the XO.

  Zal just shrugged.

  “Damned if I know, skipper,” he replied. “I don’t think he knows himself. He’s rather confused at the moment.”

  Zal took something from his pocket and laid it on Wolf’s desk.

  “This is all they found on him,” he said.

  Wolf picked up the rolled piece of cloth and unraveled it. It was a small, tattered American flag. Wrapped inside was a faded picture of a young blond woman.

  Wolf let out a whistle.

  “Wow, nice babe,” he said.

  “Look at that flag, skipper,” Zal said. “It has fifty stars.”

  Wolf quickly counted the white stars in the blue field. “Yeah, fifty. What the hell is that about?”

  “Last time I checked, the American flag had forty-nine,” Zal said.

  At that moment there was a knock at the door. Wolf folded the picture back up into the flag and put it in his drawer. Then he signaled Zal to open the door.

  Two corpsmen walked in. Between them was the man taken from the sea.

  Wolf took one look at him and then did a double take. The man was tall, thin, muscular, probably somewhere in his mid twenties. His hair was very long, his face bearded, but handsome in features. He was obviously Anglo-Saxon. But he looked—different. Wolf even removed his thick sunglasses to get a better look at him.

  “Well, who the hell are you?” he asked the man bluntly. “An angel who fell out of the sky?”

  The man said nothing.

  He was wearing sailor scrubs, but this guy was not an ordinary seaman. At least that was obvious. One of the corpsmen handed the man’s clothes to Wolf, then he and his partner quickly departed. Zal closed the door behind them.

  Wolf examined the set of combat fatigues.

  “Well, this is obviously a uniform,” Wolf said. “But for what army?”

  The man just shrugged.

  “I…can’t say,” he mumbled.

  “‘Can’t say’ or ‘don’t know?’”

  “Both, I guess…”

  The man looked around the stateroom.

  “This ship,” he asked. “Who does it belong to?”

  Wolf put his glasses back on and leaned back in his seat.

  “Let us ask the questions first, OK?” he told the man. “Have a seat.”

  Zal guided the man to a chair opposite Wolf, then he took a seat himself on the couch nearby.

  “Do you have any idea how you got to be out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?” Wolf asked the man.

  The man just shook his head. “No idea.”

  “Were you part of a ship’s crew? An officer maybe?”

  The man shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

  “Were you in an airplane? Are you an aviator?”

  “Could be one of those top-secret flyboys, skipper,” Zal interjected. “You know, the Air Corps Commandos.”

  Wolf thought about this and nodded slowly.

  “How about it, sport?” he asked. “You a secret Air Corps guy? Under orders not to speak?”

  “He could have been flying one of the new doodlebugs,” Zal added. “Those guys ain’t supposed to talk to nobody.”

  “Any of this ringing a bell, pal?” Wolf pressed.

  But the man just shook his head again.

  “None of it,” he replied.

  Wolf stared back at him. Even his voice sounded weird. Yet, just like the man’s overall appearance, he wasn’t exactly sure what was different about it.

  The man was studying some of the papers on Wolf’s desk. “Can I ask a question now?” he wanted to know.

  “OK, sure, ask away,” Wolf told him.

  “What year is this?”

  Wolf and Zal just looked at each other.

  “Well, it’s 1997, sport,” Wolf replied.

  A look of surprise registered on the man’s face—but it disappeared just as quickly.

  “And you are at war, correct?” he asked Wolf.

  “You saw that firsthand, didn’t you?” Wolf replied.

  “But who are you fighting exactly?”

  Wolf and Zal looked at each other again. It was a strange question to ask. Maybe it was best to ignore it, they thought.

  “Hey, what’s with your hair, man?” Wolf asked him instead. “What army or navy would let you have hair like that?”

  The man just stared at the floor. He was confused.

  Wolf l
ooked over at Zal.

  “Well, this is going well,” he said sarcastically.

  The XO came over and sat on the desk in front of the man. He lowered his voice slightly.

  “Look, you ain’t a German, are ya, pal?” he asked him.

  The man shook his head no.

  “Well, now we’re getting somewhere!” Zal exclaimed.

  Wolf leaned forward in his seat a little. “Are you an American?” he asked.

  The man thought a moment and then replied. “Yes.”

  “Are you a member of the armed forces of the United States of America?”

  The man thought another few moments. “No, I am not,” he finally replied.

  This sent Zal scratching his head.

  “So you’re a member of the armed services,” he said. “And you are an American. But you are not a soldier of the United States?”

  The man just nodded. “That’s right—I think.”

  Zal kept on scratching. “Well, now I’m confused,” he said.

  “Me too,” Wolf added.

  He turned around in his chair to his computer. He popped the keyboard out, typed in a few quick notes on the interview and then pushed a button that would convert his words into an alpha-numeric language only the computer could understand. Basically he was asking the machine what he should do next.

  The computer whirred and blinked and burped and blinked some more. Finally the answer came out on a long piece of ticker tape.

  “Terminate interrogation,” it read. “Return to port immediately.”

  Wolf showed the message to Zal, who nodded.

  “Listen pal, we’ve got to stop this right here,” Wolf said. “We’ll be bringing you back with us. I have a feeling someone higher up the ladder will be very interested in you.”

  The man just shrugged. “Do what you’ve got to do.”

  Wolf nodded to Zal. “OK, get him fed. And keep him away from the crew. It will take us about four hours to get back into port.”

  Zal tapped the stranger on the shoulder.

  “Let’s go, pal,” he said.

  The man stood up. He really was a strange-looking cat.

  “Just one more question,” Wolf said. “How about your name? Do you remember that?”

  The man thought for a moment, then he finally replied:

  “Yes, I do. My name is Hawk Hunter.”

  Wolf looked at Zal, who just shrugged.

  “Never heard of you,” Wolf said.

  Out at sea, on the edge of the Demon Zone, one man was still floating.

  Up until a little while ago, two other people had been in the water with him. But one had been picked up by an ultraspeedy warship; the other by a floating iron castle.

  The gray, speedy vessel looked like a destroyer—but it was sleeker than any destroyer he’d ever seen. And the iron castle looked too big, too cumbersome to even stay afloat.

  But the airplane that had circled above him the whole time was the strangest thing of all. It was the biggest, slowest, oddest-looking airplane he’d ever seen.

  But they were all gone now. The destroyer had left the area at incredible speed carrying away one guy, and the black floating castle had departed in slower fashion towards the south carrying another. And then the gigantic airplane had simply flown away, leaving him here, all alone.

  He had a huge bump on his head and a long scrape on his left arm. He’d been bobbing in the water for more than an hour now, and he was getting damned cold. He wasn’t sure how he got here; his memory was very foggy. In fact, he couldn’t even remember his name.

  But he was coherent enough to know he was in very dire circumstances. He looked in all directions and saw nothing but water. He could tell by the cloud formations there wasn’t any land mass for hundreds of miles. But what could he do?

  He couldn’t last much longer like this. He had to do something.

  So he looked up at the sun and determined which way was west.

  And then he started swimming.

  Chapter 2

  IT WAS NOW LATE afternoon.

  Hawk Hunter was standing on the foredeck of the Louis St. Louis, taking in many deep breaths and slowly letting them out again. Two armed sailors were watching over him from nearby. He was sure to them he looked like someone who needed some fresh air. And a lot of it.

  He didn’t know who he was. Or where he came from. Or how he got here. His name was Hawk Hunter, that was the only thing he was sure of. After that, it was all a jumble.

  And he had no idea where he was. Sure, he was on a destroyer and he’d been picked up some 350 miles out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And the people on the ship were Americans and they seemed to be fighting a war against the Germans. And the captain of the destroyer had said it was 1997.

  But this ship—it was so strange! And the German ship; it had been even more outlandish. And the airplane which had circled above him while he was in the water: it seemed too enormous to fly. But how would he know these things? How could he know something was strange, if he couldn’t remember anything to compare it to?

  That was just it. His mind was not a total blank. Some things were coming naturally to him. He knew how to walk and talk and breathe. He knew he was American. He knew who the Germans were, what a destroyer should look like, and that the bigger the airplane, the harder it is to fly.

  But what he was doing an hour before he found himself in the water? He didn’t know…

  When the destroyer’s captain asked him if he fell right out of the sky, Hunter’s brain processed the question as if, yes, that’s exactly what had happened. He had fallen out of the sky and into the ocean. Not out of an airplane—just out of the clear blue sky. But how could that happen?

  Again, he didn’t know.

  He took another deep breath. His head felt full of stuff. Familiar things. People. Incidents. But for some reason he just couldn’t access these memories. He sniffed the sea air and prayed it would uncloud that part of his brain that was hiding all these things and the circumstances by which he found himself here, in this strange, but not-so-strange place.

  Another deep breath. More questions. Who were those other two guys in the water with him? And exactly what kind of uniform was he wearing when he was picked up? And what about…

  Stop!

  Stop. Hunter took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Too many questions were flowing into his head and if his brain got overloaded, then he would blow a neuron fuse for sure. So take another breath, he told himself. Calm down. Be cool. This will all get figured out, somehow.

  Maybe.

  The ship’s captain had said they would make port in four hours; more than three and a half had passed by now.

  It was getting dark. The little warship was whipping along the waves like it was a racing boat, so Hunter assumed they must be nearing the vessel’s home. But where was it? They were sailing northwest, at least by the moon and the stars. But Hunter couldn’t see land anywhere out on the horizon.

  Finally, though, he sensed the engines begin to slow. In seconds they were going at two-thirds speed, as if they were approaching land. But again, where the hell was it? They seemed still to be out in the middle of the ocean.

  But then his ears began to pick up things his eyes couldn’t. Noises. Motors running. Neon burning. People talking, yelling. Music playing. A big band sound—but louder. With echo. And reverb. Was that Tommy Dorsey? Through reverb? Really?

  What happened next was simply astonishing to him. One moment they were moving in complete and utter darkness, the next they were sailing off a very bright, very noisy coastline.

  What happened?

  Hunter looked behind him and realized that the destroyer had just passed through a huge almost-invisible screen. It was at least a half mile high and was being held up by an endless series of slender poles set into pilings about a mile offshore. It was as if someone had put a big curtain along the entire coastline.

  “You really are from another place, aren’t you?”


  Hunter turned around. It was Commander Zal, the XO. He’d been watching him.

  “I can tell just by the way you looked at the Big Screen,” Zal went on. “You’ve never seen anything like it before, have you?”

  Hunter just shook his head.

  “Nope. Never,” he said.

  “It’s called an LSD,” Zal told him. “Stands for Light and Sound Dampener. It keeps all light, all radio signals, all TV signals from going out, but still lets everything in. Like a two-way mirror. This way the coastline doesn’t have to black out every time it gets dark. Everyone knows about them—they’ve been around for years. Look at this one. It stretches all the way up to Canada. And it’s getting very ratty. But it’s still holding up.”

  “It’s amazing,” Hunter said. “Sort of…”

  Now he saw plenty of lights. And heard plenty of noise. He could smell life, lots of it, on the shoreline not too far away. This place—it actually looked familiar to him. Tall buildings. Lots of bridges. A city screaming at the top of its lungs.

  Then it hit him—they were right off the coast of New York City!

  But wait a moment. This wasn’t exactly how he remembered it. The Manhattan skyline was still there—but the buildings were twice as tall and there were twice as many as he recalled. And the Empire State Building was still the tallest one around—and it was at least three times as high as he remembered it.

  “They added to it in 1968 and then again in 1979, after the big air raid that year,” Zal told him. “You didn’t know that either, did you?”

  Hunter just shook his head no.

  Zal reached into his pocket and came out with a pack of Lucky Strikes. But these Luckies were laid out in a cardboard gold box—like fancy English cigarettes used to be. He lit a butt and then offered one to Hunter, who declined.

  “You know what, pal?” Zal said. “Maybe you are an angel. Maybe you really did fall out of the sky.”

  But Hunter did not really hear him. He was too busy looking at a heavily bomb-damaged Statue of Liberty.

  “Great Air Raid of 1989,” the XO explained. “They ain’t going to fix it until the war’s all over. Which should be any day now. It’s been more of a resistance symbol these past few years—wrecked the way it is. Lots of people have painted it. Photographed it.”