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happening over there?”
    He turned to tell his second-in-command to quickly inform the ministers that something was amiss at the airport. Instead his attention was momentarily distracted by five of the skyscraper’s six elevators all arriving at the top floor simultaneously.
    The next thing he knew, the penthouse reception area was awash in deadly, yet strangely muffled gunfire. Armed men in long white robes and hoods were pouring out of the elevators and shooting everything in sight. The New Order officer was immediately shot square in his left shoulder and, a moment later, in his right knee. He crumpled to the ground, instantly in shock, and watched as the intruders methodically blasted away the men in his squad.
    In his last conscious moment, he saw two men, apparently gunmen’s leaders, sprint across the foyer. They pressed themselves up against the far wall, quickly consulted a small map, then dashed off down the hall toward the First Minister’s private office.
    “Christ,” the officer said as darkness clouded in on him. “They’ll fire me for this …”
    Hunter was the first one to reach the predesignated door, leaping into it with his full weight, nearly bursting the heavy slab of wood from its hinges.
    Rolling up in a tuck, he sprang up with his M-16 at the ready, sighting it down an absurdly long conference table at the three nattily dressed men seated on the other end. The startled trio was silent as Hunter, Humdingo and twelve of the Rangers filled the plush conference room to surround them, whipping off their hooded masks to reveal their faces for the first time.
    At last Hunter was face-to-face with the traitor himself.
    As he stared into the man’s piercing eyes, The Wingman felt his finger tighten on the M-16’s trigger. The gun was on full automatic, and a three-second burst would surely be enough to dispatch the man to Hell.
    But frontier execution was not his mission.
    Before him was the ultimate saboteur, the man who a handful of years before had knowingly crippled America’s defenses and allowed the devastating Soviet missile strike to smash America’s ICBMs in their silos. Twenty million casualties and a nuclear nightmare known as the Badlands had been the result.
    Before him was the man who had murdered the President, his family and his cabinet. The cold-blooded but hands-off assassin whose henchmen had done the dirty work, while he jetted to Moscow and into the arms of the war-mongering Soviet military clique.
    Before him was the architect of the most vile form of tyranny imaginable—the oppressive New Order that had been imposed on a dazed nation against her will. Designed to keep America disjointed and fragmented, its creators had tried to choke the very thought of freedom from ever stirring in the nation’s conscience again.
    But in Hunter’s opinion, the worst of all the traitor’s crimes was that he betrayed the nation that had given him life, wealth, and power, even while serving as the country’s second-highest official. Yes, before him, like a modern-day Benedict Arnold, was the man whose kiss of death had sealed the fate of the nation.
    Before him was none other than the ex-Vice-President of the United States.
    A long moment of silence passed before the traitor spoke.
    “Who … who are you?” he asked, his face absolutely white with fear. “Those robes. We weren’t expecting you today.”
    Hunter didn’t recognize the other two men sitting at the table. But from the papers scattered across the top of the table and the clatter of a nearby telex, it was apparent that the three were in the midst of some kind of review meeting when the attack came.
    “What do you want?” the traitor asked nervously. “ Money? ”
    Hunter almost had to suppress a laugh. As if something as petty as gold or silver served to fuel his passions.
    Hunter cleared his throat and began a speech he’d been waiting to deliver for years.
    “ We are Americans ,” he said in a strong, clear voice.