Amerika (20 page)

‘Figure of speech, kid. What’s more important, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder that’s going to keep you going when everybody else bails out, gets cold feet or runs screaming because they can’t stand it anymore. You’ll be there, kid, to even the score for Estelle and Baby Eddie.’

We  climbed  the  stairs  to  the  second  floor  and  halfway  down  the hallway to another set of doors, guarded by two grim-looking soldiers. Fatt waved his ID and the doors swung open to a darkened room that had what looked like an illegal poker game going on. About fifteen people stood at a large round table lit by a single overhead light.

Fatt announced loudly for all to hear, ‘The Prodigal Son returneth. At gunpoint, but hey, who cares, right?’

The gathered group turned as one to regard us as we entered, including Ava, Ziggy, General Patton and, to my stunned surprise, a determined- looking Orlando. Patton greeted us with a terse nod.

Fatt said, ‘Captain Carter has kindly agreed to be our first officer, welcome aboard, captain.’

All heads swiveled to me, and to my surprise I nodded in agreement. Silence was the better part of valor right about now. Besides, I needed all my energy to keep from falling into the chasm I felt opening up beneath my feet, caused by voices shouting at me somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. One was saying, ‘Caution, danger ahead.’ But the other one bellowed.

‘Don’t get mad, get even.’

I balanced myself between the two and listened to Fatt as he introduced me to the strangers in the group, including a group of men who I thought at first were a Pan Am flight crew, but upon closer inspection of their dark blue uniforms, gold stripes on their sleeves and distinctive gold wings, I realized they were U.S. Navy pilots.

Fatt must have seen the confusion on my face and said, ‘Like you said, I had the cream of the crop to pick from. I figured navy guys can fly rings around us civilian fellas, can’t you, boys?’

They smiled good-naturedly, but you could see they believed every word of it.

‘Why not use a Pan Am crew?’ I said.

Patton took over and snapped, ‘Because this is a military mission, that’s why.’

‘Wearing navy uniforms?’

‘Negative. You’ll be wearing in Pan Am blue. And here’s where you’re heading.’

The general slapped his swagger stick on a large Mercator map spread out on the table and traced its tip along a red line as it left Baltimore and dropped two thousand miles southeast to a tiny dot representing the Portuguese island in the Azores named Horta, Pan Am’s standard refueling stop. From there the line angled upwards northeast to Lisbon, Portugal. From there it went northwest via land-based planes to Marseilles, France. The three red lines on the map represented what used to be Pan Am’s southern Atlantic route and now was Lufthansa’s. A simple, clear route, but like all maps, not the full truth.

‘We’re flying the
Dixie Clipper
?’ I said.

‘Negative,’ Patton said, ‘She stays put for now. You’ll be flying the
Yankee Clipper
. He swung his swagger stick to Fatt, who stepped closer to the map and said, ‘Okay, boys and girls listen up. Here’s what’s going to happen.’

Ava’s face was a study in complete absorption. She must have sensed my stare because she looked up, gave me a sly wink and a tiny smile.

Fatt borrowed Patton’s swagger stick and used it as a pointer. ‘Thanks to Adolf and company blowing Manhattan to smithereens, Pan Am’s New York terminal is out of the picture. Instead, Lufthansa’s using our Baltimore one for their ops and maintenance. The Yankee Clipper’s there in turnaround at the moment, so we’ve got twenty-four hours...’

He checked his watch.

‘…and twenty-two minutes before we lift off for Lisbon. We’ll head out of Couba at dawn, be in Baltimore in time for the systems test flight, then board passengers and be off the water right on schedule.’

Patton said, ‘Do you have the manifest yet?’

‘Mr. Trippe will have it before we leave.’

‘We need their names.’

‘You’ll have them, sir.’

I said, ‘What’s this guy’s name?’

‘
Herr Professor Doktor
Gunter Friedman.’

Fatt chuckled.  ‘Jerries sure love their titles.’

‘Traveling alone?’ I said.

Patton said, ‘Married to his work. Makes it easier for us. Families tend to make things messy.’ He glanced at me, then rolled onward like one of his tanks. ‘Ava, you set with your stuff?’

‘Yes, sir.’

She saw my look of surprise and said, ‘Ziggy and I are the secret weapon, aren’t we, partner?’

Her agent managed a weak smile and nodded, clearly wishing to be somewhere else instead of a smoke-filled room with soldiers and airmen hunkered over a map, planning a dangerous mission.

Ava continued. ‘Thanks to Wally Westmore’s makeup team, Ziggy and I are going to disguise the professor so that not even his mother would recognize him.’

She plopped a small case on the table and opened it. Bottles, brushes, pancake makeup, fake eyebrows, moustaches, beards, latex noses, and a host of unrecognizable objects filled every inch. She snapped it shut. ‘That’s our job.’

I said, ‘What’s your cover story?’

She  swept  her  hand  across  her  forehead  in  a  theatrical,  swooning gesture. ‘I’ve just been offered the lead in Republic Picture’s Lisbon Liaison. Haven’t you heard the news?’

‘No.’

‘That’s because Ziggy and I made it up.’

Ziggy raised his hand like a kid in a classroom, ‘I’m there to seal the deal with the producers, providing Miss James agrees to the contract terms, of course.’

‘Which I won’t, of course’ she said. ‘And in flurry of anger and outrage,

I’ll walk out on the deal and leave on the clipper for America.’

‘Along with the professor,’ Ziggy said.

‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Where’s he staying?’

‘The Aviz hotel. He and his scientist friends are having a conference there.’

I turned to Fatt. ‘Pan Am still uses that place for crew overnights?’

Fatt smiled. ‘Every last one of us, including Diaz here.’

‘Doing what?’

Orlando started to answer but Trippe cut him off as he emerged from the shadows.  Mr. Diaz will be our Chief of Engine Services, Atlantic Division on a maintenance inspection tour of our bases. Which came as no surprise to Mr. Diaz, considering he was doing essentially the same thing for our South American Division, before leaving us for opportunities...’ he hesitated a beat. ‘...elsewhere.’

Orlando beamed, ‘Don’t worry, Sam, I’m still with Carter Aviation.

This is just my cover story, right, Mr. Trippe?’

‘Correct.’

‘A nice one, too. Atlantic Division is a sweet place to be.’

Trippe raised a warning finger. ‘Don’t let Mr. Mulroney find out. He’s the real Chief of Engine Services there.’

‘From your mouth to God’s ear, sir.’

I said to Orlando, ‘You bought into all this?’

His smile vanished. ‘The world’s turned upside down. I’m doing my part to get it right side up again.’

I turned to Patton. ‘How’s this Kraut professor going to change the course of history?’

‘Get him over here and you’ll find out.’

‘Why can’t you tell me now?’

His patience was growing thin, but to his credit he said calmly, ‘You’ve seen this base, you’ve seen how many people are involved in this operation. I can guarantee you only a handful know the score completely. I’m one of them.’

‘And I’m not.’

‘Affirmative.  The walls have ears, captain.  The more we limit knowledge, the better chance we’ve got of pulling this thing off.’

‘And if we don’t?’

In the ensuing silence, a night creature let out a shriek. Sounded like it was dying, or doing the killing.

‘Ever read Machiavelli?’ Patton said finally.

‘No.’

‘Fourteenth century fellow. Wrote a hell of book called
The Prince
. Filled with all sorts of good advice on how to rule a country without mercy and get away with it.’

‘Hitler read it, I’m sure.’

‘Probably did, the son of a bitch. But my point is this: Machiavelli warns his boss, a di Medici prince, never EVER let an outside nation inside his borders. Because no matter how peaceful they are when they first walk in, they’ll eventually be up to no good.’

He tapped the map where Washington D.C. used to be.

‘All those so-called Nazi ‘compliance officers’ they’ve got planted in our factories and military bases? It’s only a matter of time before they get assistants, and more assistants, until we’ve got platoons of the bastards sticking their fingers into every pie America ever baked or will bake. All the time waving the atomic bomb over our heads, all the time warning us that we’d better toe the line and clean up our act and get rid of our Jews and Negroes and homosexuals and anybody else in our mixing pot that doesn’t fit into their tight little Aryan skillet.’

‘We’re bugs in a bottle.’

‘You got it.’

‘The president knows about all this, right?’

‘She does, but we’ve got an election in two months. She’s running a distant third to the other two bastards who want that office. Who the hell are they, Juan?’

Trippe said. ‘Senator Crawford from Pennsylvania.’

‘Pacifist jerk.’

‘And William Stanford from Nevada.’

‘One of your businessman pals, right?’

Trippe shook his head. ‘Not one of mine. But his many companies stand to benefit tremendously if we maintain our neutrality.’

‘Got enough money to win the election?’

‘He does. And as president, he’ll guarantee we’ll maintain the status quo.’

Patton’s laugh came out as a snort. ‘Status quo, my ass. I’m telling you, unless we turn things around, there’s not going to be a United States five years from now. We’ll be a world of little Machiavellian city-states, with governors banding together with some, warring against others, all because we let the Nazi bastards slip inside our doors when we weren’t looking.’

‘They didn’t slip inside,’ I said. ‘They broke in with atomic bombs.’

‘Figure of speech.’

He aimed his swagger stick at me. ‘You get
Herr
Professor Doktor Gunter Freidman’s sorry ass back here to Couba Island and I personally guarantee you the Sons of Liberty will turn this world right side up again.’

To be honest, I don’t know what made me decide to stay instead of heading home to Key West where Abby and Rosie were waiting. Maybe what General Patton said about the states descending into warring principalities, or my surprise at Juan Trippe turning out to be a patriot instead of a traitor.

All I remember is that the moment I said ‘yes,’ the cold knot of bitterness and self-reproach I’d been carrying around in my gut since December 8, 1941, slowly began to loosen. Only a little, mind you, but when a prisoner feels the slightest weakness in his chains he feels the first stirrings of hope. I decided I go forward into the unknown in hopes those chains would loosen even more.

At dawn the following day, an ancient Ford Tri-motor transport, its engines turning over, sat on the makeshift runway the soldiers had carved out of the marsh.

As I started to board with the group, Trippe held me back for a moment.

‘Glad you’re with us,’ he said simply.

‘Abby’s all I’ve got left. If something should happen to me...’ I trailed off and then added, ‘You’ll make sure my message gets to Rosie?’

‘I promise.’

‘Just got my company up and running, and now I’m running away.’

‘Your message said you were on a special charter.’

‘Some charter.’

Tripped smiled. ‘Look, I know a thing or two about the airline business. Allow me to take care of the details of Carter Aviation in your absence. I promise it will survive.’

‘You won’t absorb it?’

He laughed. ‘That sorry little S-38 piece of shit?’

‘You and Lindy loved it.’

‘That was in the beginning.’

‘Back when Pan Am took risks, you mean?’

He nodded soberly. ‘Preister over-trained our crews, made them too obedient, like cattle, which is fine in peacetime, but in wartime we need bulls.’

‘I’m a pretty damn skinny bull.’

It’s not how big you are it’s how sharp your horns are. You and Captain Fatt were always my biggest risk takers.’

‘This is a hell of a risk, snatching a guy from beneath Hitler’s funny little moustache.’

‘It’s only the beginning. There’s much more to this than meets the eye. Here, you’ll be needing these.’

He held out my Pan Am wings. I stiffened. Too many bad memories.

‘I told you I’m my own man now.’

‘But you’ll be wearing a Pan American Airways uniform.’

‘So will the Navy guys.’

‘But they haven’t earned these. You did.’

I took the wings. ‘Consider it a loan.’

Tripped nodded.

‘Then it’s back to Abby and Key West and my charter jobs.’

‘Really?’ He looked at me for a long moment. ‘What kind of world do you want your daughter to live in?’

‘Not the one she’s living in now, that’s for sure.’

‘Then stick around and help us change it for the better.’