War Weapons Read Free

shots were fired—and had chosen what appeared to be a perfect foxhole. Only the hole was over
     six feet deep and the animal couldn’t get out. It stared up at Stone with total and complete mortification on its face, its
     “kick ass” rep—at least in the pitbull’s easily embarrassed psyche—on the line. Stone didn’t let himself laugh. He wanted
     to, but the fixed stare the creature gave him dissuaded him from any such notion. Besides, Stone had no reason to rub it in.
     He’d been down in that hole too.
    “Come on, pal,” he said softly to the violently trembling fighting dog, which had calmed down enough to stop its wailings
     and just let out a few pissed-off grunts. “Grab hold.” Stone lowered one end of the NAA utility belt he had grabbed off some
     dead bastard in the bloody dawn battle. The pitbull snapped its jaw shut hard on the end of the belt and held onto it with
     all 2400 pounds per square inch that its jaw muscles could exert—the strongest of any canine in the world. Stone braced his
     legs against a rock a foot away from the edge of the still crumbling hole and pulled up hand over hand. Like a snapping turtle
     hanging on to a fish meal that’s been hooked by someone else, the pitbull emerged from the hole at the end of the belt fishing
     line, and Stone twisted his body around and deposited his catch on the ground. The dog gave him a twisted little look of thanks
     and then trotted quickly on, not wanting to discuss the subject any fucking further.
    He moved cautiously as he hit the main thoroughfare, now blocked with numerous burning and overturned vehicles, bodies hanging
     out of them and covering the road, few of them moving. A shell suddenly whistled overhead from far outside the perimeter of
     the fort, and Stone instinctively dived to the ground, this time grabbing the dog and pulling him down, somewhat unwillingly,
     to the snow-covered ground. But the shell came down some hundred yards or so past them, falling into a pile of rubble that
     had already been destroyed once and couldn’t get much more atomized. Still, the shell went off with a roar and did its best
     to grind up the splinters a little more, send a few more particles of the leftovers of war up into the atmosphere.
    The attacking forces would probably be leaving now, having laid waste to the place, having taken what still functioning weapons
     they could haul off. But they wouldn’t even be able to use most of them. That was the advantage to having used such a criminal
     force to attack. For Stone knew that their very anarchistic natures would prohibit them from really being able to put the
     heavy-duty firepower to any large-scale use, whereas General Patton would have had the ability to conquer the entire country.
     Unquestionably. The man was a brilliant general, both militarily, in deploying his forces, and in carrying out supply lines.
     That was why Stone had to stop him. Had to pick the lesser of two evils for the moment. The Fourth Reich could not be allowed
     to manifest itself.
    What was it Patton had said that night they were half drunk together on expensive cognac? “It is my destiny to rule over a
     perfect order—rid the world of the scum and vermin that make it impossible to progress—and build a society of perfect order.
     A society modeled on the ants, the bees, those creatures who in their God-given wisdom know that social harmony is more important
     than the individual.” Or some such words. Stone couldn’t really remember all that General Patton had said. He had said so
     much that night. He had taken to Stone, after all, like the son he’d never had. And, with brandy in hand, had told him all
     of his plans. That was why the betrayal would make him find Stone—and kill him. Unless Stone took out the granite-jawed bastard
     first.
    He made his way along the edges of things, sides of cars, corners of buildings, always on the alert. The pitbull followed
     at his heels, body spread out and low