Sky Ghost by Mack Maloney Read Free Book Online

claims that he is from America, and that he is a soldier of the American armed forces. But not the U.S. Army or Air Corps.”
    “Well, we knew that,” Pegg told him.
    “Yes, but he says he’s part of something called the United American Armed Forces. And that America has been fighting a series of little wars for about five years, after the world went through a catastrophic war he called World War III. He says the Americans won that war, but were screwed in the peace talks.”
    “Screwed? How?” Pegg wanted to know for some reason.
    Zoltan took another long drag from his cigarette and checked his notes.
    “He says that the bad guys sent a bunch of missiles over the North Pole that obliterated the middle of the country. Killed a lot of people, drove a lot more a little crazy. Destroyed the fabric of the government. There was a period of anarchy. A lot of people escaped to Canada.”
    “Who were these bad guys? The Germans?” Pegg asked.
    “I’m not sure,” Zoltan said, checking his notes again. “He mentioned so many enemies. Some were called the Mid-Aks. The Family. The Soviets…”
    “You mean the Russians?” one of the looies asked.
    “We’re not fighting them,” the other old looie said. “Are we?”
    “No,” Captain Pegg corrected them. “No one is fighting the Russians. There are no Russians. Germany owns Russia.”
    “No, these were different Russians,” Zoltan insisted. “Some are good. Some are bad.”
    He took another massive puff of his cigarette.
    “But then he says after a lot of fighting, America made a comeback. Not as the United States, but as a bunch of little countries and territories and such. It was broken up that way. And they began their own armies and navies and things. And then they began fighting each other. Or was it the other way around? I’m not sure. Anyway, then the Second Civil War happened, and then the Russians were finally thrown out. And then the Germans invaded and they were beaten. And then the Vikings invaded…”
    “The Vikings?” Pegg laughed.
    “Yes, he swears it,” Zoltan went on. “They had invisible boats and strange weapons and drank some weird drink and…Jessuzz, I don’t know if the Vikings invaded first or the Germans. Or maybe they came over at the same time. In any case, they were all beaten and thrown out—and then these United Americans battled the Japanese. Or people who were like Japanese.”
    “The Japanese?” Lieutenant Jeff wheezed, “Why, there’s no more peaceful, gentle people in the world…”
    “I know,” Zoltan went on. “But he says they fought them and beat them. Then he fought in a place he called Viet Nam.”
    “Viet Nam?” Pegg asked. “Where the hell is that?”
    Zoltan just shrugged.
    “Beats me,” he said. “In fact, I don’t know half of the places this guy says he’s been. But he and his men went down to this Viet Nam place and fought a war there—or maybe two wars, I’m not sure. And well, I just had to stop at that point. I felt like I was going crazy…”
    Zoltan drew heavily on his cigarette and let out a long, troubled plume of smoke. The room grew silent. Outside, the first rays of dawn were beginning to peek through the window blinds. They’d been at this all night.
    “Strange tale,” one of the lieutenants said finally.
    “Little too late in the war to be bucking for a Section Eight, isn’t it?” the other looie said.
    “But I don’t think he’s crazy,” Zoltan said, the words leaving his lips just a bit sooner than he wished. “Not completely, anyway.”
    “Well, how can you say that?” Pegg asked.
    Even the stenographer looked up at him.
    “Yes, how can you say that?” one of the men behind the two-way mirror asked.
    It was X, usually the most cynical of the three. Now even Z sat up and began taking notice again.
    Zoltan grew jittery. His psychic radar was flashing warning signals all over the screen. He really didn’t want to open up this can of worms. He knew that, just like