Amerika (44 page)

‘Got it?’ I called out to Ava, who gave me a thumbs-up as she dialed it into the auto pilot.

I patted the receiver. ‘May the good Lord carry us home,’ I said. Ziggy didn’t look very happy. ‘Give me Tommy Dorsey any day.’ Orlando said, ‘Give the Lord a listen, brother. Couldn’t harm you.’

‘I’m Jewish, remember?’

‘But we both believe in the same God.’

Back at the Master’s station, Professor Friedman glanced up from his notebook and smiled. ‘But not his son, I might add.’

Ziggy balled up his fists and punched the air playfully around Orlando’s chin. ‘Hear that, Reverend? The professor and me don’t like being shoved around, you hear?’

Orlando raised his hands in silent surrender.

I said, ‘That makes two of us,’ and hit the speaker switch, cutting the preacher off in mid-scripture.

Professor Friedman held up his hand. ‘When you have a moment, captain.’

When I sat down he said, ‘Mr. Mason and I have concluded our examinations of both the arming mechanisms and the release device and we are confident that despite our unorthodox mission, with amateurs such as myself involved, the device will indeed operate as originally designed.’

‘By ‘device’ you mean the bomb.’

‘A euphemism. Yes, the bomb.’

‘The atomic bomb to be more precise.’

He glanced at his neatly-drawn calculations. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

‘What was it like?’ I said.

He glanced up at me curiously.

‘You saw one of these go off, right?’

‘Never an operational weapon. Just the proof-of-concept ones. But they are remarkably the same. One is simply larger than the other.’ He hesitated. ‘Considerably larger.’

‘So, what was it like?’

‘It depends on where you are in relation to it.’

‘How about ground zero.’

He looked shocked. ‘You would see nothing but the face of God, or at least I would hope so.’

‘Further back?’

‘A towering cloud of destruction unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Primeval in its power. Sacrilegious in a certain way.’

‘Explain.’

‘Splitting atoms, breaking apart what was brought together by God or nature or whatever higher power you believe in, is blasphemy of sorts.’

‘But you loved every minute of it.’

He deliberated. ‘The thinking part, yes. The end result, no.’

‘Try telling that to the people who died because of your ‘love of thinking.’’

He blinked slowly behind his glasses but said nothing. Then finally, ‘I regret we cannot put the Genie back in the bottle.’

‘He’s escaped for good.’

‘But  perhaps  we  can  at  least  restrict  his  activities  long  enough  to harness his powers in a more peaceful way.’

‘Providing we get to the target in a plane that’s becoming a rattling bucket of bolts.’

‘At least we are still flying. You did a masterful job of solving an insoluble engine problem.’

‘Thank Captain Ross, not me.’

After I recounted the story, Friedman said, ‘We stand on the shoulders of giants.’

‘Let’s pray we don’t fall off.’

I don’t like to brag so I won’t. But in honor of the late Captain Fatt, let me just say that I kissed the
Dixie Clipper
down onto the pitch-black waters of  Lake  Mead  without  a  single  ground  reference. 

Nobody on board including me quite believed we had touched down, so smooth had been our descent and final landing. But the answering rumble from the hull as we began skipping across the water and then finally settled in convinced everyone that after eighteen hours after taking off from Louisiana under hostile fire, we had safely arrived in Nevada.

Not ever having been here before, I was prepared for most anything.

But not the sight of a 1800s-era Mississippi-style side-wheel paddleboat sailing out to meet us, lit up like a Christmas tree to show off her snow- white superstructure trimmed in red, gold and shiny black. A shower of sparks flew from her twin black stacks.

‘Those McGraw boys sure can put on a show,’ Ava said.

The slap of the paddle wheels sounded sharp and crisp in the cool night air.  And  whichever  brother  was  at  the  wheel  knew his  business  as he brought the steamer smartly around in a tight arc and hove to, forty yards away. Seconds later a small launch lowered away and made its way toward us.

‘Ziggy, you can handle the mooring station?’

He hitched up his pants and gave me a crisp salute. ‘Just you watch.’

A minute later the launch bobbed alongside my open cockpit window. A tall, Stetson-wearing, six-gun toting figure stood motionless in the stern like George Washington crossing the Delaware.

He cupped his hands and shouted, ‘Ahoy,
Dixie Clipper.’

I leaned out the cockpit window. ‘Captain Carter and crew reporting. Jacob or Esau?’

‘Esau.’ A long pause. ‘A little early ain’t you? And where’s Captain Fatt?’

I had to say it. ‘Killed in action. Nazi’s attacked Couba Island. We got shot up on takeoff, started leaking fuel over Oklahoma and lost an engine somewhere over New Mexico.’

A long pause. ‘You mean you haven’t…’

‘Affirmative. We haven’t flown the mission yet.’

He rubbed his long jaw as he digested this. I pressed on with more important matters. ‘Got any shoes? Lost mine during the attack. Been flying barefoot.’

‘What size?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Got a pair of boots if you’d like.’

‘Much obliged, and we’d also like two thousand gallons of one-hundred octane. Can you handle that, too?’

He looked insulted. ‘Got a whole barge of it back at the base, just like the general ordered.’ He looked up sharply. ‘What about him? Is he okay?’

‘Don’t know. Most likely though.’

Another long pause. ‘A tough nut. Served with him in the Great War. Just a young captain back then, but even so I knew he was bound for general’s stars one day.’

‘What do you say we help him win a few more?’

One of the first rules of airline command is to have confidence in yourself and your ability to succeed no matter the challenge. Like a stone thrown into a still pond, this feeling ripples out, touches your crew, and gives them confidence too. But it’s a hard rule to follow when you only have three engines. The fact of which Orlando quietly reminded me as he and Ava and I observed McGraw’s crew pulling camouflage netting over the
Dixie Clipper
, now tied up at the refueling barge.

From the air, Sentinel Island seemed desolate and deserted; just one more lonely mountain top surrounded by a man-made lake. With clever use of camouflage nets and painted paneling, the McGraw brothers made the fuel barge and the
Dixie Clipper
vanish into the pale brown and ochre landscape, devoid of greenery of any sort, leaving only the Desert Queen to rest majestically at her mooring, her lights blazing as she exercised her rightful claim as queen of Lake Mead.

I countered Orlando’s caution with airline captain-like confidence. ‘We can do it with three engines. We’re not that heavily loaded.’

‘We will be with full tanks.’

‘Look, we’ve got miles and miles of takeoff space. This lake goes on forever.’

Orlando shook his head. ‘Didn’t you notice? We’re surrounded by mountains on all sides. You may get off the water, but by the time you get positive rate of climb, you’ll plow into a rock wall, guaranteed.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that.’

Ava cleared her throat, but didn’t say anything. I bristled a bit, thinking she was criticizing my piloting skills.

‘Any bright ideas, Miss James?’

‘A few.’

‘Such as?’

‘Take off with half the fuel. Find a place like Creeley’s, land, take on more fuel, and keep on going, like we’ve been doing so far.’

‘We’re already a flying circus. If we do that everybody and their brother will know we’re here, and sooner or later, so will the Nazis.’

A  heavy-set  man  lumbered  down  the  dock  towards  us,  all  smiles, dressed in the dark blue uniform of an ocean liner captain, complete with four gold stripes on his cuffs, polished brass buttons and a master’s cap sitting smartly on his big fat head.

‘Captain Carter?’ he said in a high tenor voice. ‘Captain Jacob McGraw. Welcome to Sentinel Island.’

I took his surprisingly firm handshake and then made introductions all around. He saluted Ava and Orlando as fellow officers.

Ava said, ‘I heard you and your brother were twins.’

‘Indeed we are. Fraternal.’

Orlando said, ‘Are you on better terms with Esau than your Bible namesake?’

His eyes disappeared in a smile. ‘Not when we were growing up. But a different story now. Esau manages the passenger side of the business, I handle the
Desert Queen
- now then, captain….’ His jovial attitude vanished as though he’d thrown a switch somewhere inside that huge head of his. ‘I understand you’ve haven’t completed your mission yet. What are your plans and how can we help?’

As I laid out my somewhat sketchy plan of refueling and taking off after a long run across the lake, my mouth got drier and drier, because I realized that Orlando was right, we couldn’t clear those damned mountains with  only  three  engines,  so  I  said,  ‘You  know  what?  My idea stinks. Anybody got any ideas?’

The four of us stood in uneasy silence for a long while.

Captain McGraw finally said, ‘Considering you do manage to take off successfully, what’s time to target?’

I did some quick figuring. ‘Six hours or so, depending on the winds.’ I turned to Ava. ‘What do you think?’

‘The winds would have to be pretty damn good.’

‘We’ve been lucky so far.’

She nodded in affirmation. ‘Six it is, then.’

McGraw said, ‘Time over target?’

‘Three a.m. Minimum folks on site. That’s always been the plan.’

Jacob pulled out an enormous pocket watch and studied it. ‘So you’d have to take off from here in about thirty minutes, to make this work, correct?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘A very tight turnaround. But as you said, you can’t get your plane off the water if it’s completely fueled.’

‘Affirmative.’

‘We have a dilemma.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m not a pilot, but I think there might be a way out of this, depending on how adventuresome you folks are.’

My past adventures came to mind: digging for gold in the Florida Keys, flying to Lisbon, giving the slip to Bauer and the Gestapo, escaping from Couba Island.

‘I’d say we know how to take a chance or two.’

‘You’ll have to delay your mission twenty-four hours.  I need time to set up a few things, including a scouting mission.’

I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. So I listened to what he had to say. When he finished describing his harebrained scheme, I compared it to what we’d done so far and decided if the mission was going to happen at all, it would have to be his way.

‘Breakfast at seven,’ Jacob said. ‘We pick up our first trip at 9a.m. sharp, over at the landing.’

‘Any chance we can get something to eat? ‘All we’ve had are Ziggy’s sandwiches.’

Ziggy looked pained, so I added, ‘Not that they weren’t great. It’s just that…’

Jacob intervened with a sweeping gesture of his four-striped sleeve,

‘Your timing is perfect, my dear lady and gentlemen, my brother and I were just about to sit down to dinner when you made your dramatic entrance.’ He extended his arm to Ava. ‘May I escort you to the dining room, Miss James?’

She looked faintly surprised.

Jacob continued smoothly, ‘Only a fool wouldn’t recognize one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses.’

She fingered her wrinkled blouse. ‘Dressed like this?’

He patted her hand with his dimpled fingers. ‘A princess in rags is still a princess.’

We learned during dinner that the
Desert Queen
made three trips around the lake every day and overnight trips on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The lake’s one hundred-fifty-mile shoreline allowed plenty of sightseeing opportunities, although what everybody really wanted to see was only a few miles downstream from Sentinel Island: Boulder Dam; the world’s highest dam that had created Lake Mead in the first place.