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silver bullet plane that would carry the 100-man-strong 104th Battalion of the New Jersey National Guard—the best combat engineers who ever built or blew up a bridge. And the gear that was being assembled attested to that fact.
    As Jones and Hunter walked past, they saluted lieutenant Colonel Frank Geraci, the 104th’s commanding officer. Another veteran of the recent Pacific campaign, Geraci was supervising the on-loading of bulldozers, pontoon bridge sections, and small cranes, as well as the tools of destruction—cases of TNT and SEMTEX, light and heavy machine guns, mortars, TOWS, and hundreds of small arms. Both Jones and Hunter appreciated the efficiency with which the engineers’ huge plane was being loaded; there was literally no room to spare.
    Hunter then brought Jones by the C-5 that belonged to the Football City Special Forces Rangers, now led by Major Donn Kurjan. Known to all by his code name “Lazarus,” Kurjan had been jumped in rank from lieutenant because of the heroic role he played in ending the Fourth Reich’s occupation of America about a year before.
    Parked along side the red-and-blue-striped-C-5—which was christened “Football One”—were more than twenty trucks and several already overworked crews handling case after case of weapons. Heavy machine guns, mortars, howitzers, shoulder-launched Stingers, Blowpipes, Javelins, cases of grenades, hundreds of M-16s, and thousands of 5.56-mm rounds were slowly filling up the belly of the huge transport. The men of Football City Special Forces were experts with all of these weapons. Serving primarily as a SWAT-type Rapid Deployment Force, these professionals were trained to go anywhere, at anytime, to get the job done fast and then fight their way out. Their black combat fatigues and black helmeted visors gave them the appearance of space aliens. For many of their enemies, it was the last image they ever saw.
    They continued their walk down the flight line.
    “Do these look familiar, sir?” Hunter asked Jones.
    Before Jones were parked two C-5s with the unlikely names of Bozo and Nozo. These two customized Galaxys were the result of the unconventional imagination of their close friend, the late, great Mike Fitzgerald, many years before.
    The idea was based on something called Puff, the Magic Dragon. During the Vietnam conflict, the U.S. Air Force had mounted Gatling guns, capable of firing 4000 rounds per minute, on the left side windows of C-47 cargo planes, creating a totally new kind of aerial gunship. These cargo-to-combat hybrids were highly successful, especially for long-time loitering over combat sites. Their characteristic long streams of tracer fire made them look like flying, fire-breathing dragons.
    What Fitzgerald did was take the “Puff” idea one giant step further. He had armed the C-5.
    Nozo had a complement of no less than twenty-one GE GAU-8/A 30-mm Avenger cannons sticking out of twenty-one hatches located on the left side of the C-5. Each Avenger was capable of firing 4000 rounds per minute, using cannon shells made of depleted uranium, a projectile which spontaneously ignited upon striking its target. And while the outside of the C-5 named Nozo bristled with cannon barrels, the inside contained a highly automated, totally computer-driven firing system as well as a remarkable track-feeding system that housed literally miles of belted ammunition.
    After seeing the critics put to shame after his idea worked, Fitzgerald pushed it to the max with a second huge gunship, the aptly named “Bozo.” He started with six GE Gatling guns. Then he had mounted five MK-19 automatic grenade launchers, complemented by a single Italian-made AP/AV 700, three-barrel multiple-grenade launcher. After that, he got serious—and a little crazy. First, there was the Soltam 120-mra mobile field gun, which fired IMI illuminating rounds, as well as rocket-assisted charges. Then he added two Royal Ordnance 105 mm field artillery pieces and three