taped to the rim of his baseball cap. Reaching the top and going out onto the flat roof, he took several welcome gulps of air, then looked out on the lights of Football City.
"There's nowhere like this in the world," he 60
thought.
St. Louis was transformed into Football City by a good friend of his, a man appropriately named, Louie St. Louie. Actually a Texan, St. Louie turned the postwar city into a midwest mega-Las Vegas. Just about every building in the downtown area was converted into either a casino, a nightclub or a whorehouse.
In the center of the city, St. Louie had built an enormous 500,000 seat football stadium, where two teams of 500 continually-substituted players would play in a 24-hour-a-day 365-days-a-year football match. Hence, the city's rechristened name/ People could bet on this marathon football match in any increment-by the quarter or up to the whole year.
It was a bold, crazy idea that was just what post-World War III America needed. Just because the Soviets had blasted the center section of the country with a fierce barrage of ICBMs and forced the US into a peace treaty that called for the breaking up of the states into a mish-mash of separate countries, kingdoms and Free Territories, didn't mean that money-or gambling-had gone out of fashion. Hundreds of millions of dollars of gold and silver ran through Football City in its heyday and it attracted both the rich and the poor from all over the continent and all over the world.
Unfortunately, the criminals in New Chicago tried to put the squeeze on St.
Louie, an action that led up to the devastating war against the Family. St.
Louie had hired Hunter to help protect the city, which he did, but only at the expense of directing a massive B-52 raid which decimated the Family Army but which also laid waste to a full third of St. Louie's dream in the process.
61
That bombed out area, up near the Football City Stadium, was now a dark and eerie flatland. The center of activity in the city these days was across town, near the old Union Station area of the city. When St. Louie reclaimed his city from the Family, he had rebuilt about a third of the casinos, only to be forced out again by The Circle War. In the months that the city was in the hands of The Circle, its administrators had kept the hundred or so gambling houses open, along with a couple dozen nightclubs and the 10 or so whorehouses. Although at the dangerous edge of the Circle's unstable western border, the city was still a major R&R spot for Circle troops and their allies. It was not uncommon to see Soviet officers breezing through the casinos or walking into one of the cathouses. The same held true for Cubans, Sidra-Benghazi Libyans, South Afrikaners, Chileans, Vietnamese, North Koreans-all the flotsam of the New Order world. The Circle's version of Football City provided a whole new meaning for the word decadent.
But Hunter didn't climb to the top of the building just for the view.
It was actually a treacherous rendezvous spot, and his ultra-sensitive ears were just picking up the sound he had been waiting for.
Chopper blades. Coming from the west. Very high, but very quiet.
He strapped his M-16 crosswise around his shoulder and folded his cap into his back pocket. Off in the distance and way up high, he saw the faintest of lights. It was blinking one-two-one. That was the : signal-the chopper was ready for the pick-up.
j
It was a CH-53E Super Stallion which had had its turbojet engine muffled to the point of near silence.
62
;
Still, the helicopter-known as the Mean Machine among the Western Forces-had to fly in such a way as to evade the Circle's rudimentary, but still potent early warning radar system. That's why the aircraft was bristling with radar-deflecting electronic gadgets and wearing three coats of radar-absorbing Stealth paint.
It also had a winch-driven hoist basket with no less than a mile of thin, light-weight but super-strength lift cord.
Hunter could now hear the
"There's nowhere like this in the world," he 60
thought.
St. Louis was transformed into Football City by a good friend of his, a man appropriately named, Louie St. Louie. Actually a Texan, St. Louie turned the postwar city into a midwest mega-Las Vegas. Just about every building in the downtown area was converted into either a casino, a nightclub or a whorehouse.
In the center of the city, St. Louie had built an enormous 500,000 seat football stadium, where two teams of 500 continually-substituted players would play in a 24-hour-a-day 365-days-a-year football match. Hence, the city's rechristened name/ People could bet on this marathon football match in any increment-by the quarter or up to the whole year.
It was a bold, crazy idea that was just what post-World War III America needed. Just because the Soviets had blasted the center section of the country with a fierce barrage of ICBMs and forced the US into a peace treaty that called for the breaking up of the states into a mish-mash of separate countries, kingdoms and Free Territories, didn't mean that money-or gambling-had gone out of fashion. Hundreds of millions of dollars of gold and silver ran through Football City in its heyday and it attracted both the rich and the poor from all over the continent and all over the world.
Unfortunately, the criminals in New Chicago tried to put the squeeze on St.
Louie, an action that led up to the devastating war against the Family. St.
Louie had hired Hunter to help protect the city, which he did, but only at the expense of directing a massive B-52 raid which decimated the Family Army but which also laid waste to a full third of St. Louie's dream in the process.
61
That bombed out area, up near the Football City Stadium, was now a dark and eerie flatland. The center of activity in the city these days was across town, near the old Union Station area of the city. When St. Louie reclaimed his city from the Family, he had rebuilt about a third of the casinos, only to be forced out again by The Circle War. In the months that the city was in the hands of The Circle, its administrators had kept the hundred or so gambling houses open, along with a couple dozen nightclubs and the 10 or so whorehouses. Although at the dangerous edge of the Circle's unstable western border, the city was still a major R&R spot for Circle troops and their allies. It was not uncommon to see Soviet officers breezing through the casinos or walking into one of the cathouses. The same held true for Cubans, Sidra-Benghazi Libyans, South Afrikaners, Chileans, Vietnamese, North Koreans-all the flotsam of the New Order world. The Circle's version of Football City provided a whole new meaning for the word decadent.
But Hunter didn't climb to the top of the building just for the view.
It was actually a treacherous rendezvous spot, and his ultra-sensitive ears were just picking up the sound he had been waiting for.
Chopper blades. Coming from the west. Very high, but very quiet.
He strapped his M-16 crosswise around his shoulder and folded his cap into his back pocket. Off in the distance and way up high, he saw the faintest of lights. It was blinking one-two-one. That was the : signal-the chopper was ready for the pick-up.
j
It was a CH-53E Super Stallion which had had its turbojet engine muffled to the point of near silence.
62
;
Still, the helicopter-known as the Mean Machine among the Western Forces-had to fly in such a way as to evade the Circle's rudimentary, but still potent early warning radar system. That's why the aircraft was bristling with radar-deflecting electronic gadgets and wearing three coats of radar-absorbing Stealth paint.
It also had a winch-driven hoist basket with no less than a mile of thin, light-weight but super-strength lift cord.
Hunter could now hear the
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