Previously on Jake Hammer: After gunning down the Blue Wolf in a titanic air battle, Jake saw where the enemy forces were massing their reserves for a final attack.  Jake landed his airplane and made his way to the Field Headquarters of the American General in Command.  At Headquarters, Jake met up with Penny who insisted that she could help, despite Jake’s objections.  In a turnabout, Penny used a clever ruse to obtain the secret orders for a crucial American unit and rode off to deliver them amid enemy rifle fire.  Now,

 

     The pounding of Racer’s hooves had no sooner died away when a radio operator ran up to Jake and General Clement bearing a decrypted message.

     “General Clement, we just took this reception from Sergeant Bello at the front.  It’s marked Urgent.”  The General quickly scanned the contents and handed the message to Jake.  Bello was pulling his unit back to regroup; a counterattack had been ordered, and now Bello was requesting Jake specifically to spot for the hurricane barrage that would precede it.  Jake saluted the General and asked for permission to leave, which the still-stupefied commander numbly gave.  Jake sprinted back to Special Agent Compton’s sedan.

     “Where to?” was all Compton said.

     “Back to the front Tom, 7th Armored Cavalry’s sector.  And we have to get there right now.”  Compton flicked his cigarette away, and jumped into his vehicle.  Jake barely had a second to climb in before Compton revved the motor, let the clutch fly out, and raced off.  They arrived at the threatened sector in just minutes.  Jake leaped out of the car and ran to the front lines, where he immediately spotted Gunnery Sergeant Bello in his Marine uniform. 

     “Captain Hammer!  You’re just in time, sir!”

     “Glad I made it.  Leave the radio behind, I’ll spot the barrage for you.”

     “It’s going to be dangerous here, sir.”

     Jake merely looked at him. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll be all right.”

     “We’re pulling back, but just to consolidate for our counterattack.”  With a wave of his arm he rounded up the vehicles of his section and jumped aboard an armored car as it slowed to pick him up.

     On the enemy side of the battlefield, Oberst Englemann had also just received a message—this one telling him that the Blue Wolf had been shot down by the same American plane that had destroyed his armor unit.  He cursed the American flyer before turning to his adjutant who waited by his side for orders, which Englemann barked out decisively:  “Gather the panzergrenadier platoons on my mark; we’ll punch through with them.”  It had been a rough morning for Oberst Englemann; he was not the kind of man who tolerated anyone or anything thwarting his plans.  Presently the lead personnel carrier of the panzergrenadiers heaved into view.  Englemann quickly disappeared through a flung-open hatch and the heavy armored vehicle lumbered off, backfiring and belching black smoke.

     Back on the American front lines, Jake waited behind a fold in the ground.  In front of him, the earth rose up in a long, shoulder-high, berm that would offer him some limited shelter from the friendly barrage and from the enemy’s sight.  The terrain here was fairly rough; strewn around him were boulders offering concealment, and the earth was torn up with shell-holes of various sizes.  Amidst all the mortar- and small-arms fire, Jake did not hear the personnel carrier come over the berm 100 yards behind him.  Amid the smoke, haze, and pock-marked ground, they had not spotted him either.  Now the armored vehicle stopped, like an enraged bull momentarily resting on its haunches before continuing its angry goring.  The hatch opened again, disgorging Oberst Englemann and his adjutant who had the temerity to clutch his commander’s sleeve.

     “Herr Oberst, you mustn’t leave the vehicle.  The bullets are flying everywhere!”

     “Shut up you fool.  They occupied this line and I need to see if they left any intelligence behind that might help us.  I’ll hitch a ride with the follow-on forces.  Now drive like hell to engage them!  Off with you!”  With wide and fearful eyes, the adjutant climbed back in, the hatch closed once more, and the ponderous vehicle disappeared into the smoke and dust.  Oberst Englemann now began to prowl, using his years of experience to detect any sign of a document or artifact that could give away the enemy’s intentions.  Sure enough, Englemann came upon the corpse of a fallen American officer.  Rifling through his pack, Englemann discovered a set of orders telling of the imminent counterattack.  His panzergrenadiers were headed into a trap!  He would have to get back to his own lines and recall the unit.  He started to look for another armored personnel carrier, but something stopped him.  His combat sense was alert; and now he could feel the presence of the enemy even though he saw no one.  He advanced warily. Then, suddenly, Englemann spied Jake from behind.  With catlike stealth for a big man, he picked his way forward among the boulders, and taking out his service pistol, commanded Jake to drop his weapon, stand up, and raise his hands.  Jake turned his head slightly for a glance behind him, then complied, dropping his snub-nosed .38 Special.

     Englemann began his interrogation in perfect, unaccented English.  “Turn around.  Slowly. Why are wearing a flying suit instead of combat gear?”

     “Jacob Hammer, Captain, United States Air Reserve Guard, Serial number 4-4-6—“

     “Shut up!  You’re not a prisoner, you’re about to become a casualty.  And you will become one even sooner if you don’t answer my questions.  For the last time, why the flying suit?”

     “I was aloft earlier at the controls of my aircraft in which I defeated a hostile airplane in an engagement over enemy lines.”

     “You!  The devil who got away from the ship!  The one who blew up all my tanks!  The swine who shot down that fool Dietrich!  I knew I would find you somehow!  It will be a pleasure to kill you.  But it will be even more of a pleasure to hurt you first.”  Englemann lowered his pistol slightly and fired a single shot that glanced off Jake’s ankle, taking a piece of bone with it, and knocking Jake to the ground.  With Jake immobilized, Englemann holstered his Luger P08.  Then, while Jake watched through a haze of mounting incredible pain, Englemann reached into his pocket and removed a wicked set of weighted brass knuckles.  Putting them on, he flexed his fingers menacingly.

     “You, flyboy, you don’t know what it’s like to fight in the trenches do you?  But now you will find out.  Get up!”  The Colonel roughly pulled Jake into a standing position.  Jake’s ankle had already ballooned to twice its size, bleeding profusely.  Jake was hardly able to stand. The pain was excruciating.  But then the German officer pummeled Jake with a hail of punches, including a particularly vicious one to his solar plexus that doubled him over in unbelievable agony, every nerve roaring.  Next Englemann grabbed Jake with his right hand and battered him with a left cross to the face which immediately opened a long cut above his eye.  But Englemann let his guard down for just a split-second too long as Jake realized through the fog of his pain that his only chance was to fight his way out.  With his left he sent a powerful uppercut into the German’s jaw which snapped his head back audibly and followed it up with a roundhouse right that landed with a palpable heavy thud on Englemann’s temple.  The German officer backpedaled, raising his guard back up and fending off Jake’s follow-up punches.

     “Ah very good!  It’s good to see that you still have a little fight left in you.”  Then Englemann waded in again.  Jake, who could hardly bear weight on his injured ankle, had to ward off the German officer’s heavy punches with his brass-knuckled right hand.  In an eyeblink, the German backed up to get out of Jake’s range and then shifted rapidly to his right, firing a punch to Jake’s jaw which loosened several teeth and sent him sprawling to the ground below the top of the berm.  Now Jake’s vision was blurry.  All he could taste was the saltiness of all the blood in his mouth; his tongue was thick and immobile.

     “Yes, I think it’s time,” Englemann declared.  His cruel, thin lips were twisted into a mocking smile.  “Get ready to join the Blue Wolf in whatever Hell it is that you flyers occupy.”  And with that, he unholstered his Luger and aimed it squarely at Jake’s head from point-blank range.  Jake closed his eyes for a second, expecting the next sound to be the last one he ever heard.  But instead of the crack of a pistol shot, he heard only a rustling sound of something whistling quickly through the air, followed by a solid thwack, and a deep liquid gurgling.  He opened his eyes to see a bloody arrowhead protruding from Englemann’s throat, and the German officer grabbing at it and contorting himself crazily to try to remove it.  In his pain, with his vision blurry and swirling, Jake could hardly believe what he saw next.

     It was the Tongva girl, Rising Moon!  She ran to where Engleman was still writhing, keeping herself low to the ground and out of his sight behind him.  As soon she reached him, she dealt him a stunning blow to the skull with the blunt side of her hatchet.  Jake heard the hatchet bite into the bone of Englemann’s skull as he went down.  Then, straddling him and pinning him with her legs while he was still grappling with the arrow or flailing his arms, Jake saw her push the hatchet handle through her belt, only to remove a long blade from its sheath that glinted as the sun began to peek through the clouds.  Now she made an incision across the top of his forehead, drawing a pencil line of blood which soon ran into the now agonized German’s eyes.  Gathering and twisting his hair into a single strand with her free hand, she suddenly yanked back with surprising force, removing the German’s scalp with a ripping, popping, sound as the skin separated from the skull.  She put the scalp into a leather bag slung across her shoulder.  Still keeping herself low, she crept over to Jake and looked him plainly in the face.

     “We must leave here quickly; enemy soldiers will be among us soon.  I will help you up.”  And she stood to her full height, exposing her head and chest above the berm.  As soon as he realized what she was about to do, Jake tried to pull her back down.  But it was not in time.  He heard the crack and echo of a single rifle shot that caught Rising Moon squarely in the chest.  The force of the bullet lifted her compact, muscular body and flung it backwards through the air, her arms, legs, and black hair extended in front of her.  Ignoring his pain, Jake picked up his .38 Special and stood up against the berm.  Aiming his pistol with both hands, he unloaded every chamber into the body of the solitary enemy soldier who had stood up from his hiding place after firing a single shot.  Even at a distance, Jake could see each bullet raise a cloud of dust on the soldier’s uniform as the blood immediately began to gush from each wound, with each spasm the soldier twisting into a series of unreal contortions before he finally fell forward.

     As quickly as he could, Jake hobbled back to the spot where Rising Moon was lying on her back.  He knelt on his good leg and gently lifted her, propping her body on his raised knee.  He carefully undid the lacing on her leather jerkin and began to examine her.  The bullet had smashed its way past her beaded breastplate, entering her chest squarely between her breasts.  The entry wound was small, the diameter of a dime.  But Jake remembered the grievous wounds he had seen on the Western Front, and as he extended his hand around to Rising Moon’s back, he feared what he might discover.  As he expected, Jake found the exit wound was bigger than the palm of his hand.  The slug had come from an assault weapon, and it was designed to tumble on entry, ripping the internal organs of anybody it struck.  As he knew would happen, the wound now began to make a softly sucking sound corresponding to Rising Moon’s shallow breathing.  And Jake knew there was not a thing he could do for her.

And now she began to speak in a low but resolute voice.

     “Tell my grandfather I have fulfilled the mission he assigned me.  I have followed you and protected you since you left our encampment.  My work is now done.”  Her eyelids fluttered just once.  She closed them as she stopped breathing.  Her body relaxed.  She was dead.  Jake Hammer bowed his head and held Rising Moon’s body close to his own as the fearsome barrage now engulfed them.  And that was how the medics found him an hour later, covered in blood and dust, when they swept the battlefield looking for casualties after the hurricane barrage had lifted and moved on.