Amerika (51 page)

I unfastened my seatbelt and stretched. ‘Time for Captain Courageous to make his rounds. You okay up here?’

Ava patted the autopilot. ‘Mr. Sperry and I are doing just fine. Go look after your boys. Who’s first?’

‘Mason.’

I swung open the crew hatch, climbed down the spiral staircase to the dimly-lit deck and then forward to the mooring compartment. Mason had switched over to red lights to preserve his night vision, so the effect was eerie. He knelt over the Norden bombsight, fiddling with the knobs like some ancient priest performing a mysterious ritual. The combination of stabilizing gyroscopes, motors, gears and bearings inside the compact device reminded me of a mechanical brain humming with perfection but missing its body. An eerie green glow came from the sighting eyepiece and spilled onto Mason’s red-lit face.

I spoke quietly, so as not to startle him. ‘Greetings from the flight deck.’

He spun around, the whites of his eyes and his smiling teeth blood-red. Reminded me of a vampire, and I wondered if Ava was right. Maybe he was the spy-guy who ripped out the cables.

‘How’s it going?’ I said.

He patted the bombsight. ‘Open for business. You?’

‘The same.’

We talked for a while, mostly generalities about what had happened so far, how he was feeling, the normal kind of temperature-taking a captain needs to do. And when I felt things were on an even keel, I slipped the problem onto the table to see how he’d react.

‘Look, we’re forecasting clear weather,’ I began. ‘But seeing as how the target’s on the Columbia River there may be a chance of ground fog. From what you told me, the Norden needs a strong visual to work properly.’

He shrugged. ‘Unless they’ve torn down the boiler plant’s smokestack - which I doubt - I’ve got a two hundred foot-high aiming point, complete with anti-collision lights. It’ll look like a flashing red pencil sticking out of a foggy sea, and that’s all this baby needs.’

He patted the bombsight like a trick pony, and I decided Ava was wrong. It couldn’t be him, I just knew it. It had to have been somebody back at Sentinel Island. But then again, what did I know about this guy, other than he had red hair, freckles and seemed like an all-American boy - which would be the perfect cover if - wait a minute, was it a coincidence that he was the
only
crew member to escape the Couba Island attack, or something carefully arranged? I had to step on the brakes of my suspicions, otherwise I’d head off the cliff.

‘Is the parachute hard to attach?’ I managed to say.

‘Less than a minute if you know what you’re doing.’

‘Something the professor could do?’

Mason smiled. ‘He’s a nuclear physicist, what do you think?’

‘Right.’

I decided that if we ran into fog, Orlando would help him out. I didn’t want to abandon our engineering station in the middle of a bomb run, but I had to play with the cards I was dealt, and at this point I was barely holding two pair.

I got on the intercom and told Orlando to meet me at the bomb bay to practice installing the parachute. I hoped Ava was wrong about the ground fog, but something told me she could be right. The weather patterns on the eastern slope of the Cascades were generally on the dry side. But if the ground temperature got close enough to the dew point, fog would roll in like a grey blanket.

I passed from one dimly-lit compartment to the next, each stripped of its long-ago, luxurious fittings. Missing too, were the wealthy, spoiled, overwrought, anxious, demanding, and often imperious passengers who occupied these berths. In their place was a haunted, three-engine, flying machine, leaking gas, and filled with a handful of frightened but determined people,  led  by  an  equally  frightened  and  determined  captain  who  was 99.999% sure everybody on board was on the up and up.

I stopped midway and peered out the starboard window to examine the trailing edge of the starboard sponson. My flashlight beam played over the duralumin trailing edge. Impossible to see the steadily escaping fuel.

Orlando’s voice startled me. ‘Don’t worry, Sam, we got enough to make it.’

‘To the target, maybe, but we’ve still have to cross the Cascades and make it to the ocean.’

‘You’re really going to scuttle her?’

‘Got another way to hide the murder weapon?’

He shook his head. ‘Lots of moving pieces in this puzzle, that’s for sure.’

‘Too many.’

‘Not for a Master of Flying Boats like you.’

I laughed at the thought. ‘Wearing cowboy boots.’

Moments later, we came upon the professor, as occupied with his bomb as Mason had been with his bombsight. A small, flat red leather roll- out tool kit filled with hex wrenches was spread out beside him. An oscilloscope and some other kind of strange electrical measuring device rested on a small shelf built into the fuselage wall. A bundled cable snaked out from the instruments to a point midpoint on the bomb where it was plugged in. A continuously moving line squiggled across the oscilloscope’s single green eye, accompanied by a small beeping sound, almost like a heartbeat.

Beads of sweat covered the professor’s bald head, but his hands moved with calm deliberation as he continued attaching the bomb’s nose housing. He glanced up briefly, noted our presence with a tight nod, and then returned to his labors.

Nothing I had to say at the moment could match the importance of what he was doing, so I kept my big mouth shut and let him finish the job in silence. The roar of the engines seemed louder back here, when the opposite should have been true, seeing as how we were in the next to the last compartment of the plane. It may have been because the bomb bay doors were not a perfect fit.

The professor finished tightening the last screw, stood up, checked the monitoring instruments one last time, and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants.

‘It is ready to deploy.’

I waited until he disconnected the monitoring cable before introducing the idea of the parachute delivery option. His eyes glazed over early on at the specifics, so I kept it short and sweet.

‘If we need to do it, Orlando will install it. Won’t take but a minute or so, right?’

‘Easy as pie.’

The professor nodded. ‘I will need to re-calibrate the device.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘It’s merely a matter of changing the impact data and re-loading it into the device with this.’ He lifted the monitoring cable like a rattlesnake.  I was about to say something positive to promote crew solidarity when the small loudspeaker on the bulkhead came to life.

‘Sam, get back here right now.’ Ava’s voice sounded calm, collected, but ominous, too.

I keyed the talk switch. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Bring everybody. Hurry.’

‘Everybody?’

‘You heard me.’

As the three of us hurried back through the plane, my mind tried to land on a specific problem so as to deal with it in advance: engine trouble? No, they sounded fine. Control problem? No, flying straight and level. Why’d she say ‘all’ of us? I took the crew stairs two at a time, Orlando pounding right behind me. Around and up and through the already opened hatch, and I instinctively turned toward the cockpit and saw Ava’s angry face staring not at me but at something behind me.

Orlando and the professor obscured my vision for a brief moment, but when they moved, there sat a wide-eyed Mason at his Engineer station, Ziggy next to him, equally wide-eyed, and two other men standing on either side of the opened rear bulkhead door.

I recognized Bauer, wearing his long, grey leather jacket. The other I didn’t know by name, but had seen trained apes like him wearing the black
Kampfschwimmer
uniforms the night they attacked Couba Island.

‘Inspector,’ I said. ‘Of all places.’

He nodded slightly and smiled. ‘Nicely put, captain.’

‘Who’s your goon friend?’

The soldier swung around his sub-machine gun and aimed it at my chest. ‘You will be silent.’

I took a step forward. ‘Like hell I will. I’m the captain of this aircraft. Put that gun down now, that’s an order!’

Bauer shook his fat little head. ‘
Hauptman
Eiger and I do not contest your leadership position. In fact, we commend you on how masterfully you have performed your duties thus far.’

‘What the hell are you doing on my aircraft?’ I finally managed to get out. ‘And how did you get here?’

Silence.  Just  the  muted  roar  of  the  engines  and  the  hiss  of  the slipstream outside the navigation window.

Bauer finally spoke.  ‘We are here to recover stolen property that rightfully belongs to the Third Reich. And to apprehend the man who perpetrated the theft; namely
Herr Doktor Professor
Friedman.’ He clicked his heels slightly and said,’
Gruss Gott, Herr Doktor.’

Friedman took a step backwards, Orlando half-hid him with his bulk.

‘It’s a pity we didn’t succeed in Lisbon,’ Bauer continued. ‘You could have been spared...’ he waved a pudgy hand around the flight deck. ‘All this adventuresome effort.’

I said, ‘Where the hell were you hiding?’

‘Thanks to Mr. Ziegler, we have been enjoying excellent accommodations in your crew relief quarters ever since you left Couba Island.’

‘Ziggy!’ Ava shouted.

The little weasel, his face a mixture of defiance and fear took a half-step towards Bauer.

‘I had to.’

‘You slimy bastard.’ Her voice broke slightly. ‘You’ve been in on this all along?’

He hunched his shoulders as if struck. ‘I’m sorry. I really I am.’

Bauer intervened.  ‘He’s telling the truth, Miss James. We have benefitted from Mr. Ziegler’s information ever since Key West. Or course, I had already met Captain Carter earlier in Washington D.C. and learned of the Sons of Liberty’s interest in retaining his services for this mission of yours, ill-starred as it now has become. In fact…’

Without warning, Mason lunged toward the German commando, hands clawing for his machine gun.

Orlando moved almost as quickly, but Bauer beat them both to the punch with a swift parrying move and a sharp, vicious karate chop on Mason’s neck. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

The
Kampfschwimmer
buried the gun barrel into Orlando’s chest. ‘Move and die,’ he said
,
his eyes coal-black and empty.

‘Trust me, you will indeed,’ Bauer said, unperturbed and calm, as if nothing had happened. ‘As I was saying before your crewmember’s heroic gesture - oh don’t worry, he’ll wake up with a sore neck, but not much else - anyhow, let me come directly to the point, Captain Carter.’

He drew himself up to seem more officious than he already was. ‘As a sworn agent of the Third Reich, I hereby order you to fly this plane to the designated target area and thereupon land on the Columbia River. We will take
Doktor
Friedman and his bomb into custody, and then the rest of you are free to go.’

I considered his statement. ‘And if I refuse?’

‘You have no choice in this matter.’

‘The hell I don’t. This is my airplane, and I’m the captain.’

‘I’m not debating that, I’m simply telling you your new orders. Now get on with them.’

Ava’s voice was sad. ‘Why’d you do it, Ziggy?’

He looked down, unable to speak. At least the little shit had the common decency to be ashamed. Then he said softly, ‘They know all about me.’

‘You mean…’

He nodded. ‘And if I didn’t tell them what they wanted, they’d tell the world about...about...’ he faltered.

Bauer slid in smoothly. ‘As you well know, Miss James, but I assure you

Hollywood does not - as yet, Mr. Ziegler is a bona fide, full time, practicing homosexual. Should your town of tinsel find out that dark little fact, his job prospects would be ruined. Am I correct, Mr. Ziegler?’

Ziggy barely nodded.

‘I believe the expression is, ‘You’ll never work in this town again,’ correct?’

Ziggy glanced at me, then away.

Bauer wouldn’t let up. ‘Of course, if he had this same ‘condition’ in Germany, the consequences would be far more dire.
Der Führer
frowns on those who do not fit his Aryan ideal. So, all in all, consider yourself lucky,
Herr
Ziegler. Because of your loyal service to the Third Reich, your deep dark secret remains safe with us, and with your friends here, too, of course.’

Ava said coldly. ‘You sold us out to keep your damn JOB?’

Ziggy shook his head. ‘My grandparents. Trying to get out of Germany. They said they’d throw them in the concentration camps if I didn’t cooperate.’

Bauer looked oddly pleased at this revelation. ‘To use one of your flying expressions, captain, this was our ‘alternate runway.’  Had
Herr
Ziegler decided not to cooperate with us, I assured him that his grandparents would die in the camps. But if he did assist us, Berlin would issue them exit visas. I don’t want to boast, but I think the double threat worked out quite well. So much so that I have already processed the paperwork for their visas. I should think they will be arriving safe and sound in American in two weeks’ time to reunite with their loving grandson.’

I said to Ziggy, ‘When you two were together in Horta. You were in on it then, right?’

Ziggy nodded.

I turned to Bauer. ‘I assume your people at Hanford know we’re coming.’

He smiled. ‘Of course they do. While
Herr
Ziegler was on watch last night on Lake Mead,
Hauptman
Eiger used your radio to send the alert before he ripped out the cables - with his bare hands incidentally. Quite a feat.’

I  said,  ‘You  know,  for  a  fat,  dumpy,  harmless-looking  Gestapo detective, you are one hardworking, heartless son-of-a-bitch.’

‘Only when on duty, when I’m chopping heroes like Lieutenant Mason on their necks or threatening little queers like Mr. Ziegler. Off duty, I am a family man, much like you.’

I had already made up my mind what I wanted to say, but somehow what he just said was the icing on a cake that I wanted to throw in his face.

‘Mister, you can stuff this whole game of yours up your ass with peanuts on it.’

Bauer’s ever-placid face twitched slightly. ‘By that you mean…’