correctly when the water lock was opened at H-Hour.
All of the major POW holding points had been located from below, and guerrillas within their ranks were ready to direct prisoners to their escape hatch when the time came.
The same held true for the 500 or so citizens remaining in Football City. Just about everyone of them knew that nearly every restaurant, nightclub and bar in the downtown area had a hatch leading to the catacombs, courtesy of the St.
Louis 1930's gangsters. Many of these had been sealed up by the police in the 1940's, but the Football City underground had been working for the past few weeks unsealing the ones that remained, about 100 in all. Those civilians who could be trusted were being told to go out for a drink around midnight-and be prepared to get wet when they did so.
It was three in the afternoon when Yaz finally inflated his 1500th inner tube.
Throughout the day, guerrillas and members of the underground had been carrying the tubes away at regular intervals. Now that they'd all been dispersed, Hunter
120
himself climbed into the pump chamber.
"What's next, Hawk?" Yaz asked him.
"Believe it or not," Hunter told him. "Eat, then sleep."
He had a gunny sack with him, which turned out to be holding several loaves of bread and some warm milk.
"God only knows when we'll get our next meal," he said to Yaz.
121
CHAPTER 23
Colonel Muss had never felt better . . .
He hadn't slept in nearly 24 hours, his throat was dry, and his stomach empty.
His nose was also running. But none of this bothered him-just 30 minutes before, he had done four long lines of Viceroy Dick's best cocaine and now he was feeling like he was on top of the world. And the plastic bag of the stuff he had hidden in his shoe insured him that the feeling would continue, at least through the night, possibly even into the next day.
He was riding in the lead car of a long column of troop trucks, 22 vehicles in all that was heading for the river's edge on the eastern fringe of Football City. They were slowly making their way down the crumbling road known as Route 70, and would soon turn off to 1st Street, which would bring them down to the river. Then it would be a right turn onto the entrance ramp to one of the 122
recently-reopened bridges.
Loaded in the back of the troop trucks were 500 more prisoners, selected at random from one of the POW camps inside the city. Just as the night before, they were to be lined up on the bridge railing, 25 at a time, blindfolded and legs and arms tied. Then -and this was the part that Muss promised himself he would not watch -their throats would be slashed and their bodies thrown into the Mississippi. It had gone off like clockwork the night before, due in no small part to the presence of five Soviet Spetsnaz troopers, who not only oversaw the whole operation, but wielded the knives when the time came to slit the prisoners' throats.
Muss reached down to his stash of cocaine just as the convoy turned off Route 70 and onto 1st Street. He hadn't seen Viceroy Dick in nearly two days-and didn't even know whether the man was alive or not. He didn't really care. A Spetsnaz officer was giving the orders in Football City now. One of his first acts was to make Muss the coordinator of the executions. In return, the Soviets had given Muss the run of Viceroy Dick's former digs, including the drug-stocked "recreation" chamber. This is where Muss had found and used the cocaine and this is where Muss had made arrangements to have four teen age girls waiting for him after the executions were carried out.
The convoy moved along the darkened river road, the lights of the bridge just visible ahead of them. Muss had just snorted two more loads of coke, when he looked up and saw a man standing in the middle of the roadway.
123
"Who the fuck is that?" he asked his driver as the man slowed the car down, caused the convoy trucks behind him to squeal their brakes.
The man was dressed in what looked like a black
All of the major POW holding points had been located from below, and guerrillas within their ranks were ready to direct prisoners to their escape hatch when the time came.
The same held true for the 500 or so citizens remaining in Football City. Just about everyone of them knew that nearly every restaurant, nightclub and bar in the downtown area had a hatch leading to the catacombs, courtesy of the St.
Louis 1930's gangsters. Many of these had been sealed up by the police in the 1940's, but the Football City underground had been working for the past few weeks unsealing the ones that remained, about 100 in all. Those civilians who could be trusted were being told to go out for a drink around midnight-and be prepared to get wet when they did so.
It was three in the afternoon when Yaz finally inflated his 1500th inner tube.
Throughout the day, guerrillas and members of the underground had been carrying the tubes away at regular intervals. Now that they'd all been dispersed, Hunter
120
himself climbed into the pump chamber.
"What's next, Hawk?" Yaz asked him.
"Believe it or not," Hunter told him. "Eat, then sleep."
He had a gunny sack with him, which turned out to be holding several loaves of bread and some warm milk.
"God only knows when we'll get our next meal," he said to Yaz.
121
CHAPTER 23
Colonel Muss had never felt better . . .
He hadn't slept in nearly 24 hours, his throat was dry, and his stomach empty.
His nose was also running. But none of this bothered him-just 30 minutes before, he had done four long lines of Viceroy Dick's best cocaine and now he was feeling like he was on top of the world. And the plastic bag of the stuff he had hidden in his shoe insured him that the feeling would continue, at least through the night, possibly even into the next day.
He was riding in the lead car of a long column of troop trucks, 22 vehicles in all that was heading for the river's edge on the eastern fringe of Football City. They were slowly making their way down the crumbling road known as Route 70, and would soon turn off to 1st Street, which would bring them down to the river. Then it would be a right turn onto the entrance ramp to one of the 122
recently-reopened bridges.
Loaded in the back of the troop trucks were 500 more prisoners, selected at random from one of the POW camps inside the city. Just as the night before, they were to be lined up on the bridge railing, 25 at a time, blindfolded and legs and arms tied. Then -and this was the part that Muss promised himself he would not watch -their throats would be slashed and their bodies thrown into the Mississippi. It had gone off like clockwork the night before, due in no small part to the presence of five Soviet Spetsnaz troopers, who not only oversaw the whole operation, but wielded the knives when the time came to slit the prisoners' throats.
Muss reached down to his stash of cocaine just as the convoy turned off Route 70 and onto 1st Street. He hadn't seen Viceroy Dick in nearly two days-and didn't even know whether the man was alive or not. He didn't really care. A Spetsnaz officer was giving the orders in Football City now. One of his first acts was to make Muss the coordinator of the executions. In return, the Soviets had given Muss the run of Viceroy Dick's former digs, including the drug-stocked "recreation" chamber. This is where Muss had found and used the cocaine and this is where Muss had made arrangements to have four teen age girls waiting for him after the executions were carried out.
The convoy moved along the darkened river road, the lights of the bridge just visible ahead of them. Muss had just snorted two more loads of coke, when he looked up and saw a man standing in the middle of the roadway.
123
"Who the fuck is that?" he asked his driver as the man slowed the car down, caused the convoy trucks behind him to squeal their brakes.
The man was dressed in what looked like a black
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