CHAPTER 48
American Jack cautiously crawled deeper into the freezing underground bunker on the Alps, searching for the most dangerous man alive. He could barely breathe and had never known such cold. He saw Red under several blankets, talking to himself, and searched his face for signs of a suicidal lunatic.
"Jack, you're suppose to be in Africa.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“I started a video diary when I was three. My dad thought it’d be good for me to see how I changed over the years.”
"Your interviews are pretty convincing. I had to look around me to make sure I wasn't living in luxury in Africa. Even our own guys are worried you have a death wish. You said some pretty nasty things about us greedy sell-outs. Some wonder if you forgot that you sent them to Africa to clear the northern coastline.”
“Grandpa, did you come all this way just to make sure I’m not as crazy as I seem in the videos? You, of all people, should know not to believe my propaganda. Although this cold makes me feel every injury I’ve ever had, which would drive anyone insane.”
"You've aged, boy."
"Look who's talking, old man," Billy shot back, a bit prickly after two months of sub-zero temperatures.
“Not losing your nerve, are you, boy?" Jack needled him. He needed to know how close Red was to the edge.
"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you, grandpa? Ever been on the receiving end of those big bombs before? It's pretty unnerving. At least our bunker was covered with several meters of frozen earth. The damn things still bounced me a meter in the air. When they finally collapse the roof -- boy, I thought I’d never dig myself out. Those Mongols must have balls the size of bulls to sleep in felt huts.”
Jack pretended to be sympathetic. “You’re killing them as fast as Jebe gets reinforcements. The Americans have decimated their air force. Prince and Mali have basically killed all Mongols still dueling in Europe. News reports said you’ve killed sixty thousand on the mountain, and almost as many quads off the mountain.”
The thought animated the boy. “I had someone design heat-resistance clothing for me, not knowing that it insulated even better against the cold. So we made gloves, socks, and jackets out of it. The Mongols actually fight over our corpses for our clothing. I hired experts to train us to prevent frostbite, while cold-related illnesses have shattered Jebe’s combat readiness.”
Jack didn’t care about that. “How’d you deal with the marathon division that Genghis lent Jebe?”
“We never knew about them until they showed up. I nearly shat myself, seeing ten thousand quads carrying those big munitions. I thought I bought them all up. We didn’t see them because they came from the opposite direction. They nearly buried me when they destroyed our primary base. While one company exhausted them, I sent the other nine companies to ambush them on their way to Jebe’s base camp.”
“But you got the bastards,” Jack wanted to know.
“Oh, yeah. The nine companies jumped them right before they reached Jebe’s camp, when they were most tired. They thought they were home free! Celebrating, their wands singing in unison, already collecting their bonuses in their minds. Those nine companies got half of them before Jebe drove them off.
“Then, the next time we swapped battalions, a terrible snowstorm was coming. I took the hundred with the highest ceiling and lured a few thousand enemy marathoners right into its path. We simply flew above it, although the strong winds exhausted us. But the rest of our battalion brought us tents, food, and hot soup as soon as the worst winds passed. We killed a few thousand precious Mongol marathoners without firing a shot. We suffered more casualties from frostbite, digging for their super-wands, than killing them.”
“What happened to your first alternate base?” Jack wondered.
“Well, they eventually found it. I expected them to. Jebe sent twenty thousand conventional troops. His original quads screened the bombers as far as they could, then landed to screen their return so we couldn’t harass them all the way back to base.
“But they never suspected that I had another battalion because I never attacked with more than a thousand fliers. My other guys found literally thousands of exhausted Mongols, panting like dogs in the snow, unable to fly another meter. Their dark uniforms against the white snow made it easier than shooting fat fish in a shallow stream.
“Then, right before the bastards arrived at our alternate camp, my other battalion hit them from above and just tore them up. Remember, those new bombs weigh fifty kilos, so those long-distance quads were in no shape to dogfight. A thousand broke off to drive us off while the rest absorbed losses until they could bomb our camp, which they assumed would drive us off the mountaintop. They destroy our bunkers, but we harassed them all the way home.
“Since then, from our last alternate camp six hundred kilometers away, rotating companies raid their base every hour. I don’t know how they can sleep through hourly raid alarms.”
Jack felt so relieved that Red could speak rationally. His weekly ravings to the news agencies scared the hell out of him. Ever week the Baron seemed loonier. Everyone fighting the Mongol Empire now appreciated how much they depended on this faceless hero to win the war. Which led him to the next topic:
“Apparently, the Khan was not getting the quantity and quality of troops he expected, so he raised the reward for your head.”
“So that’s how Genghis convinced ten thousand marathoners to take me on,” Billy said, almost to himself. “Given my lunatic rantings, I must have seemed suicidal. How much am I now worth?”
“One thousand gold tons,” Jack answered, hating how much he enjoyed taking this cocky punk down a peg.
Given the knife suddenly twisting in his stomach, Billy couldn’t keep his expression neutral. If alone, he’d have rolled over and cried himself to sleep. “I suppose I should feel flattered.”
“What’s with all the Mongol uniforms?” Jack asked, pointing to a pile of them in another room.
“Since we have to search their corpses for valuables, we may as well take their uniforms. We send them weekly to this ingenious Italian matron who has some special laundry soap for removing blood stains. They even smell good. We have to go a week without bathing, so the base stinks pretty bad.”
Jack wondered how many days he could stay in this tiny hole before he blasted his own head off. “I bring good news. Free Europe has pushed the Mongols out of France. Since we won Spain, thousands of Europe’s best quads have signed up. Apparently, everyone wants to fight alongside you. They want to see the master at work. The Spanish and French governments are freaking out, over losing their best guys, but they can’t blame you because you’re almost single-handedly beating Jebe’s armada in the coldest place in Europe.
“The Europeans adore you. I’ve never seen anything like it. Apparently millions are thanking you when they go to bed. When someone arrives to distribute your latest weekly rantings, the hysterical crowd mobs the poor guy. If you have any idea how Paris or Madrid feels about you -- most of Europe now feels the same. Since people think you’re gonna die on the Alps, every quad is being pressured to come to your rescue. I’ve seen videos of crowds literally tearing apart quads who treat your death disrespectfully. Entire schools are invading dueling arenas to beg the quads to help you. You know, before it’s too late.
“Anyways, we’re being flooded. We’re organizing them as fast as we can. Those Indian cousins returned with a thousand super-quads and we took the best Americans and put them into their own super-quad battalion. We normally assume we must replace 10% of the marathoners every year, but they suffered so few casualties that we found ourselves with too many.
“So we have two American marathon divisions, five European marathon battalions, five super-quad battalions, and thirty thousand conventional quads.”
Billy pointed to a backpack full of death sticks. “Those are the best wands we’ve taken from their marathoner
s. Give them to whoever is closest to reliably flying a thousand clicks. I need as many long distance quads as possible. I’d also like to borrow those African marathoners. After all, I’m paying their salaries.”
“I wish I had more of them myself -- in Egypt. They’re facing more enemy units on both sides and must still fly down those running our blockade. By cutting off Africa, that division is bankrupting the Empire.”
Displeased, Billy sipped his hot soup. He lost a lot of weight because the cold sapped his appetite. Maybe it was the thin air, but he could no longer taste anything. Worse yet, he had trouble sleeping. He sometimes trembled uncontrollably for hours, reliving himself crawling through frozen earth to un-bury himself. It’s hard to sleep underground when dreaming of being buried alive. Yet he did it without ever taking a day off.
“Invent a crisis to justify sending the American and European marathoners to Grandma in Africa. Have her fly here as soon as possible. Then lead your conventional quads here slowly to rescue me. While the Mongols focus on you, I’ll smash Jebe with Team Red before you even get here.”
Billy leaned forward and gently patted his ancestor on the shoulder. “Now tell me why you’re really here. What could possibly scare you so bad?”
Jack leaned back, annoyed Billy could read him so well. “Genghis has called up all veterans who retired less than thirty years ago. That must be a few million quads. He’s raising a huge new force in Kiev and another at his flight school in Mongolia.”
“Kiev? Why not train them somewhere warmer?”
Jack shrugged. “Kiev is the Empire’s breadbasket. The Russians have been restless, they just had a huge grain harvest, it sits on many trade routes, and the Dnieper River is the fourth largest in Europe, which makes supplying the armada easier. The Scandinavians assume they’ll be attacked first.”
Billy agreed: “They’ll overwhelm Scandinavia once it gets warm enough, then sweep south to wipe the continent clean. How many total graduates will American University have by spring?”
“At least a quarter-million half-marathoners and one hundred fifty near-marathoners. The next marathon division is another year off.”
“Have the Americans wait for me in Alaska, and have them stop any non-Americans crossing the Bering Strait. I don’t want the Mongols to know the force next year will be so much bigger. How large a force is the Khan raising in Kiev?”
Jack felt his sphincter tighten. “A million quads, with even more two-wanders to carry supplies. I’ve sent Prince to find out what he can and to get the Scandinavian and Russian marathon divisions ready.”
Billy leaned back against the wall, smiling, not knowing he looked like a deranged madman.
“A million enemies makes you happy?” Jack sneered.
“The Khan is making victory easier by separating those willing to shoot us. Genghis likes to brag that he has millions of veterans. Like Pompey, he says he can call them up just by stomping his boot. And that’s how we identify who we must kill. We don’t have to kill those who don’t join him. To win this war, we only need to eliminate those willing to kill us. Anyone we can persuade to not fight against us is someone we don’t have to kill. And we should let them know that. Let’s call for a general amnesty to encourage pro-Mongolian quads to stay out of the war, and see what that does to the Khan’s recruitment. They don’t have to fight for us, just not against us.”
This damn kid is brilliant, Jack thought, without saying so. “Foreigners make up most of the Mongol Air Force. We could cut the Khan’s reserves in half! An amnesty may save us from having to kill a million or more quads.”
They quickly did a video together promising a general amnesty to anyone who stopped fighting them, but warning that anyone in Mongolia, Manchuria, the Stans, and Siberia would be shot on sight. Jack never doubted that governments would honor it because the Red Baron was now the face and voice of the resistance.
“Jack,” Billy said before his ancestor left. “I need to give you something.” The boy tapped wands to transfer something. “I just gave you authorization for an account with over one thousand tons of gold in Global Bank in Paris.”
Jack’s face went slack with fear that the Baron thought he’d soon die. “Why give me so much money?”
“If we destroy Jebe and the armada in Kiev, all of Europe will declare independence. But they’ll fight each other rather than settle their affairs. I want you to spend that money to unite them against the Mongol threat. Tell them Genghis Khan is coming. Bribe them into signing mutual defense treaties, non-aggressive packs, and free trade agreements. Make them settle borders around distinct peoples with common language, history, and culture. Fund massive infrastructure projects to those kingdoms that will loan you their battalions because Genghis Khan will be in a killer mood when he gets to Europe. He’ll burn all of Europe if he can. I need you to field a huge force to deter him.”
“Me? Where the hell will you be when Genghis Khan invades Europe?”
Maybe it was just the freezing weather, but Billy flashed him a cold-as-ice smile that chilled Jack to the bone.