Return From the Inferno (31 page)

The night before the Signit units reported a stinging radio exchange between the leader of the UA occupying forces and the commander of the Free Canadian border units which had flown into the small city shortly after the Americans'

airborne assault. The argument was over money. The Free Canadian commander complained that he had not been paid in advance for the services of his troops. The Americans countered that the FC troops had yet to see action, therefore no payment was yet required.

In a stunning blow to the UA cause, four C-5s had set down at the Aerodrome earlier that day and had apparently withdrawn to Canadians. (Intelligence officers, attached to the New Chicago NS divisions holding the ground north of the city, confirmed seeing the C-5 cargo planes pass overhead.) It was this last piece of information which had gathered much anticipation of success in the hearts and minds of the NS High Command.

With the troublesome Free Canadians out of the way, the 258

quick, clean, efficient destruction of the UA occupying forces was now assured.

It was now noontime.

The plan called for the opening shots of the campaign to be fired by the Schrecklichkeit Kanone at Indianapolis. The target was centered on the western outskirts of the Bundeswehr Four capital, an area that was known to house many civilians, yet was far enough away from any quality NS military installations that could be reoccupied once the UA force was wiped out.

After a barrage from the "Frightfulness Cannon," the Bundeswehr Four Home Garrison would move in, the Aerodrome being their first objective. Any path of retreat by the UA forces would be cut off by one of the surrounding NS

divisions. Though, according to the captured UA plans, the struggle for this

"New America" was to continue to the last man.

Once the fighting had ceased, however, any surviving UA troops would be massed at the airport, along with any civilians who might have collaborated with them. A mass execution would then ensue. The whole operation would be videotaped by special communications units for viewing by the Fourth Reich high command and later for editing into a propaganda film.

In all, the retaking of the Bundeswehr Four capital was expected to take ten hours at the most.

The five-minute barrage from the Indianapolis Schrecklichkeit Kanone began precisely at 12:05. Even though they were a full fifteen miles from the impact points, many troopers in the Home Garrison suffered bleeding ears during the twenty-shot fusillade, such was the power and the concussion from the large Frightfulness Cannon's shells. Once the barrage was lifted, advanced units of the Home Garrison moved out, cutting off feeder roads from Victory Road and heading hellbent for the Aerodrome.

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The retaking of Bummer Four had begun.

Oberlieutenant Karl Fuchs was in the lead VBL scout car of the first unit to reach the perimeter of the Bundeswehr Four Aerodrome.

In the vehicle with him was his driver, a gunner, a radioman and a video camera operator whose equipment was attached to the car's turret. Scanning the airfield through high-powered field glasses, Fuchs was not surprised to see a lack of enemy activity. He was certain that the Americans knew the NS was coming now, especially after the massive artillery barrage. Before jump-off his commanders had predicted that the Americans would probably hunker down inside the airfield's many hangars, put up initial stiff resistance, and then fight their way back into the city itself once the shooting began in earnest.

It was however to the NS's advantage that the fighting be confined to the open spaces of the airport, thus preventing collateral damage to their many facilities inside the city itself. Therefore it was up to advance units like Fuchs's to engage the Americans quickly, pinning them down and then gradually overwhelming them with superior numbers.

"Is the camera rolling?" he asked the communications officer.

The man replied in the affirmative.

Fuchs instructed his radioman to call back to command and inform them that they were moving on the Aerodrome's main hangar area. Then with his unit of twenty-two patrol cars and APCs checked and ready, Fuchs gave the order to prepare to move out.

The plan called for a quick dash across the open tarmac to the massive repair barn which sat on the far eastern edge of the airfield. Should Fuchs's men be able to make the cover of this hangar, then the first and most crucial step in reclaiming the Aerodrome would be accomplished.

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On his call, and with his VBL in the lead, Fuchs's unit began their mad rush across the two thousand feet of open tarmac. Pistol up, his face pulled back into a mad Grim Reaper grin, Fuchs was gurgling with the nervous excitement which always arose in the opening moments of battle. He knew that the first shots from any enemy were rarely accurate, and this increased his chances of surviving the mini blitzkrieg. All the while he promised himself that he would shoot dead the first enemy soldier of the assault, thus insuring himself a commendation from his superiors and possibly a meeting with the Amerikafuhrer himself. It was for this reason that Fuchs made sure that some part of him was always within range of the video camera's lens.

The VBL reached the halfway point in the charge and still a shot had not been fired.

"They are hiding already!" Fuchs screamed wildly into the wind as his VBLs and APCs fanned out on the open concrete space.

Seven hundred feet to their objective, and still there were no shots.

"They are paralyzed!" Fuchs screamed, making sure his words and actions were being picked up by the turret-mounted video camera.

Five hundred feet to that hangar and still no shooting.

"They have no ammunition to spare!" Fuchs yelled, with just a smidgen less enthusiasm. "Perhaps they will use it on themselves!"

Two hundred feet to go and still nothing. Fuchs found himself at a loss for words so he simply screamed: "Amerikafuhrer siegreich.'-the Amerikafuhrer victorious!" All the while he was waiting for the first bullet to hit him square in the eyes.

But it was not to be.

The hellbent charge petered out at the entrance to the hangar. It was quickly apparent that it was empty, as was the one next to it and the one beyond that.

More NS units entered the Aerodrome's vast space and found all of the buildings unoccupied. It took less than twenty minutes for the lead NS units to determine that although there were fifty idle Chinook helicopters scattered out on the tarmac, and that many of the base's fighter aircraft had been destroyed, the Aerodrome was absolutely deserted.

Within a half hour, the city itself was searched with the same results. The Fourth Reich units could find nothing. No enemy soldiers, no civilians, no NS

POWs.

The only clue came when NS troops stormed the Reich Pa-last, the seat of the Bundeswehr Four military government.

Set up inside the building's elaborate communications center were six interconnected reel-to-tape recorders. By using a sun-pie looping mechanism, these recorders were blaring false radio messages into four open microphones.

Checking the footage counters on these tape recorders the Fourth Reich Signals Intelligence men made a startling but no longer surprising discovery. Bummer Four had been empty for at least twenty-four hours.

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Their crews were shackled Native Americans working under the gun of low-level NS officers. This was just one of many trips they'd made in the past several weeks, voyages so fraught with unsafe working conditions that it wasn't unusual for one or two men to be lost to accidents or a drowning somewhere along the way.

The procedure was to reach a spot about twenty-two miles out of New Orleans and one by one dump the contents of each barge. Two hours' worth of slavish clean-down followed, then the tiring task of erecting each barge's protective canvas canopy. Then came the return trip back through New Orleans harbor, up the Mississippi to wherever the huge dredging boats were working. At this point, the barges would be reloaded and the whole process would start all over again.

It was midnight when the dumping spot was reached. A bleat of the klaxon from the huge tug pushing the eleven barges signaled that the dumping procedure was to commence. The tug killed its mighty engines and soon the line of barges slowed to a stop.

The first barge was disconnected and its pair of piston-driven blades were activated. These huge slow-moving metal plows shoveled most of the sludge out of the barge's lowered front end, an operation which took about five minutes to accomplish. Following behind the sweeps, six chained Native 263

Americans used brooms, sticks and bare hands to dislodge the remainder of the putrid muck.

Once the first barge was emptied, it was steered around to the end of the line, using a thick wire and winch system. But when it reached its new positioning point, the NS tug master was startled to find that the barge's crew of six were nowhere to be seen.

By this time the second barge had been emptied, and when it was pulled around in line, he found its crew was gone too. The NS officer in charge of the operation immediately stopped the third barge from off-loading and sent his four armed guards leap-frogging up to it. They radioed back that there was no crew on either barge three or four.

The NS tug commander was absolutely baffled. They were out in the middle of nowhere-the nearest dry land was twenty miles to the north. Where the hell could twenty-four shackled crewmen go? Had they all fallen over the side? Had they jumped?

Had they ...

Suddenly the tug commander heard gunshots. He reached for his own sidearm, but as he did, he felt a warm, stinging sensation in his rib cage. He looked down and was astonished to see a bright red stain quickly spreading on the front of his shirt.

"Have ... I been . . . shot?" he gasped.

A barrage of tracer fire slammed into the wheelhouse an instant later, shattering the tug's windshield and demolishing its radio. The NS officer staggered back against the wheelhouse wall and tried to catch his breath. But it was impossible. Looking out on the barges, he saw that streams of tracers were now lighting up the dark night. In their illumination he could see his broad, flat-bottomed boats were swarming with armed men, some in black uniforms, others in skindiving suits. Among these men, he saw the missing Native American crew members. All were unchained.

As a kind of red mist began to cloud his eyes, one last 264

question came to his mind: Why would anyone want to take over a bunch of barges?

Roy From Troy loved boats.

He'd always loved them. They were predictable, yet at the mercy of the elements. He'd spent much time in all kinds of boats as a young man. That was why, despite his trade of buying and selling aircraft, he never really understood pilots. If he'd had his choice, he would have been sailing on the ocean, not flying forty thousand feet above it.

But at that moment, he'd wished he'd never mentioned to Hunter his love for all things nautical, during their time together doing the big Chinook deal.

And he agreed that these were strange tunes.

So strange that he was now the captain of a huge tugboat pushing eleven captured barges.

The takeover of the scows had gone off like clockwork. No casualties on their side, no survivors on the other. Plus, he was certain that the NS men didn't have time to get off an SOS. That, too, was crucial to the overall plan.

Now, as Roy consulted with his navigator, a Football City Ranger who'd run a fishing boat in more peaceful times, he was certain he was on the right course. In front of him, no less than fifty United American specialists were furiously working over the barges, cleaning them, oiling them, laying down protective matting, installing portable electrical generators and setting up separate radio linkups. The newly liberated Native Americans were working to erect the crucial canvas tops which capped the barges whenever they weren't full.

"The weather looks good for the next twelve hours, General," the navigator told him. "After that, it could get a little windy."

Roy could only shrug once and shake his head. "If we don't have this show on the road within twelve hours, it won't make any difference how windy it gets."

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At that moment, the portable radio inside the wheelhouse crackled to life.

"We've got contact," was the staticky message from the radar team located on the first barge. "Twenty-eight miles from our position. Correct number of blips. Correct heading."

Roy nervously bit his lip. A belt of scotch would go good right now.

"If those blips aren't who we are expecting, this could be a very brief party," he said to the navigator.

"It will certainly be a wet one," the navigator replied.

Twenty minutes later, a small motorboat pulled up alongside the tug.

Under the watchful eyes of the fifty heavily armed UA troops, two men climbed out of the boat and up to the deck of the tug. Roy met them with a curt nod and nothing else. He was embarrassed at times that his business dealings years before had put him in the same league as these men. Now he couldn't bear to shake hands with them.

"Glad you made it," he said, keeping his tone all business. "We're running very tight on time here."

The two BBI men in long Bedoiun gowns bowed deeply, their heavily greased beards nearly touching the deck of the huge tug.

"Our aim is to please you," they said in unison.

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It was a clean-shaven, walking, talking, seeing, hearing Captain Pegg who found himself standing atop the stone wall which at one time formed part of the defense works of the old Civil War fort, a camera he had no idea how to operate dangling around his neck.

By no longer feigning handicap status, he had in fact created a new disguise from himself: that of a somewhat respectable-looking, elderly gentleman who happened to be a photographer who happened to specialize in big events, like pre-war football games, political rallies, Hollywood extravaganzas. He couldn't really say that he liked his "new look"-he'd been "grizzled" for so long, imagining life being any other way was almost impossible. Plus he knew next to nothing about taking pictures.