Black Sun Reich (2 page)

 

MOVIETONE NEWS PRESENTS . . . THE WORLD ON PARADE . . .

Dateline the Texas Freehold:
The gods of the East must have been smiling given the warm welcome and even warmer weather that greeted famed Hindu poet Sir Rabindranath when he sailed into the Texas port city of New Orleans aboard the airship
Goa Winds
. It was the poet's first visit to a North American nation since his celebrated book tour of the Republic of California in 1920. Welcome back, Sir Rabindranath, and mind those ladies on Bourbon Street.

Dateline Germany:
Reports that the Third Reich is dedicating resources to cleaning up the poisoned wastelands on their eastern border and the “Dead Zone” in the Rhineland on their western border are apparently true, according to the BBC. Information from inside the Reich is hard to come by since the mustachioed strongman came to power in the 1922 revolution, but sources tell the BBC that some western powers are concerned the Huns may be using the cover of the Dead Zone to violate the terms of the 1918 armistice. Watch yourself, Adolf, or Germany will get another taste of the old one-two.

Dateline Confederate States:
President Robert Mosby addressed Congress as part of his ongoing uphill battle to pass the nation's first Voting Rights Act. The bill, which would ensure voting rights for the Southern nation's colored citizens, doesn't address the institution of legal segregation that remains in six of the CSA's eleven states. Opposition to the bill is strong, but Mosby is the grandson of the famed guerrilla fighter known as the Gray Ghost. Overcoming impossible odds is a family tradition.

Dateline Union States:
Some 20,000 Union States veterans of the Great War marched with General Pershing in Boston to protest the Labor Party's planned tax on military pensions. Government benefits for the Yank doughboys who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Imperial German Army against the Allied Powers of France, Britain, the CSA, and the Texas volunteers have become the latest economic battleground in the Northern nation's ongoing economic depression. President Joseph Kennedy, who knows how to appeal to the common man, is vowing to veto the new tax. To our neighbors to the north, we say hang in there.

 

CHAPTER ONE

Santa Marta, Colombia

May 1928

T
he sun was just rising over the treetops lining the beach as the German doctor stepped out from the so-called VIP lounge at Santa Marta International Aerodrome onto the passenger tarmac. The tropical heat threatened to overwhelm him. Within moments the leather handles of the attaché in his left hand and the suitcase in his right felt sticky. He set his suitcase down—but not the attaché—then doffed his fedora and wiped his face with his pocket square.

His “tropical weight” gray wool suit felt anything but; sweat was streaming down his ribs from under his arms. Still, he did not remove his jacket. He did not loosen his tie. He did not allow himself to regret using his usual styling oil to properly comb his blond hair.

He checked his charter document again. The information on it hadn't changed in the last fifteen minutes.

FAR RANGER AIR, FLIGHT 002

DEPARTS SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA AT 8:45 A.M.

His watch said 9:57
A.M.

The German had observed the few other passengers in the VIP lounge in the casual, local version of what passed for business wear in this damnably humid country. He'd gathered they were booked for the next flight after his to Havana. Compared to his own fastidious travel wear, the other passengers wore rough-spun cotton tunics, loose pants, and sandals. It was as if they'd been doing farm chores and decided midway through the morning, “To hell with this, I'd rather be in Cuba.”

Still, compared to him, they seemed comfortable in this steam room of a country. The German doctor wasn't one for informality, but in rare moments like this he questioned his slavish adherence to protocol, proper fashion, and etiquette. Even after two months living in the interminable heat of the South American nations—seven weeks in Rio, one here in Colombia—he hadn't changed his ways.

No, he refused to go native, as the saying went. But for a moment he took in the gentle tropical scents of sweet hibiscus plants and salty ocean air. He listened to the rhythmic Vallenato music drifting from somewhere nearby. It was a music he'd grown to appreciate during his time in South America.

But he was resolved: he would show the fortitude of his breeding and culture by treating the heat like any other irritant beneath his notice. He would show no weakness in front of these natives.

He would show them the quiet, poised dignity of a young, twenty-three-year-old Prussian noble. The German's shoulders crept up to his ears at what he heard next.

“I don't give a flying doughnut hump what that boy says, I bought a ticket for a flight that's supposed to be up and in the air by nine
A.M.
, and that was an hour ago. And I don't want another damn mo-jee-toe or what passes for a Manhattan from youse. You people best get me in the air before I cause you a hell of a lot of trouble!”

The German closed his ice-blue eyes and silently repeated his resolve of poise and dignity.

A rough slap on the back nearly knocked him over.

“You and me both, we need to find out what's the holdup up there,” said the man, whose grating, hard-vowel accent and blunt manners marked him a citizen of the Union States. “You're on the flight to Austin, too, eh?”

The German regarded the Yank with the same look he might regard someone who passed wind in an operating room. The man wore a wrinkled seersucker suit ill tailored for his round figure. The sweaty mess of hair combed across his balding dome was doing him no favors. The smell of his Cuban cigar combined with the heat made the German doctor want to vomit.

Then the fat man stuck out a fat paw.

“My name's Daniel Chamberlain,” the Yank said. “From New York City. German, eh? You know I was in the army during the Great War, fighting alongside you Kaiser boys against the frogs, limeys, and the Con-feds. It's been rough for all of us after the war, but things sure are different nowadays over there since your Uncle Adolf took charge, eh? Things are looking up, eh? Sometimes all it takes is a good man with a strong hand.”

The German cringed. He faced more than ten hours on a flight to Austin, Texas, with this man. Could he pretend not to speak English? No, the Northron had clearly overheard him speaking more than once to the aerodrome field master in English.

Etiquette drilled into the German for more than two decades took over. One didn't let the commoners—no matter how common—affect one's manners. The German clicked his heels and nodded his head.

“Dr. Kurt von Deitel,” he said with a clipped and much affected accent. Perhaps he could pretend to barely speak English.

The doctor's mission to Austin—his first—required absolute discretion. So much was hanging in the balance, and undoubtedly the Gestapo was on the trail of the materials he carried. If not Deitel himself. Dealing with this American would complicate things. Drawing attention would be worse, though.

The American took Deitel's hand in his sweaty, cold, flabby mitt and shook it vigorously.

“Well, glad to meet you. Doctor, huh? Maybe on the flight you could look at this growth I have on my back. But that's if we ever get on our flight. Let's go find out what's going on,” Chamberlain said, waving in the direction of the twin-engine transport on the tarmac with his cigar.

It had to be their flight, as it was the only plane on the ground aside from a few twin-wing crop dusters turned into tour flights. The small airship dock was currently unoccupied. Chamberlain was already off marching toward their belated charter.

Deitel pinched his thin hawklike nose between two fingers, sighed, and reluctantly followed.

On closer examination, the plane was nothing like what Deitel expected, given this remote and primitive airport. The plane was anything but primitive. Its wings and tail were swept back, and the rivets were countersunk flush to the body panel, which even Deitel knew would increase lift and reduce drag. The pod atop the fuselage housed the radio antenna in a likewise more aerodynamic manner than the older way in which antennae jutted out. The engines looked large and powerful. To Deitel's casual eye, it looked as advanced as the latest Fokker and Heinkel cargo planes. But at the same time its hull seemed battered in places and rough, the paint on its markings faded and chipped—almost deliberately so, he noted, given the well-maintained look of the prop works and the landing gear. The German's innate fastidiousness made him wonder why its owners would let exterior detailing appear in such a state, given the obvious care taken with the workings. Was it on purpose?

Emblazoned along the plane's nose was a smiling, winking cartoon head of a fox in a cowboy hat above the word
Raposa—
the Fox—as the German knew from his recent immersion in Portuguese. On the twin tail stabilizers it simply said in faded paint “Far Ranger Air.”

A tall man in mechanic's coveralls was standing under one of the plane's engines, his arms and upper torso enveloped in the open service panel of the housing.

Chamberlain shouted at him as they approached, “Hey there, service man. What's a matter, eh? We've been sitting out here for a coon's age waitin' for you to finish tinkering with that damn propeller.”

The mechanic slowly extricated himself from the underside of the engine, and Chamberlain's eyes went wide when he saw a black face turn to him with a slightly amused expression. Chamberlain stopped short.

Deitel noted this. What was the polite word here in the Americas? Negro? Perhaps octoroon, as the man's complexion was more a light mocha than deeply black? Chamberlain's Union States had more classifications by race than the Fatherland, and more immigration restrictions. Some of the Third Reich's racial policies were actually based on the laws in the Union States. But here in South America, did they even care? Deitel had noticed racial categorization wasn't practiced at all in Brazil.

Whatever his origin, the mechanic stood well over six feet, with broad shoulders to match. He was clean-shaven of face and head. And Deitel saw that despite his bemused demeanor he made Chamberlain nervous.

“This is not a propeller,” the black man said with a rich Carioca accent Deitel recognized from his time in Rio, but colored with a strong Englander influence. “This is one of two Rolls Royce RR-1950-90C eighteen-cylinder radial engines capable of producing 1,350 horsepower.

“That,” the mechanic indicated, pointing to where the engine housing met the front of the wing, and as if explaining a choo-choo train to a kindergartener, “is the propeller. It goes round in circles. Makes the plane go,” he said, miming the plane's wings with his hands.

It took a moment for Chamberlain to realize he'd been condescended to, and meanwhile Deitel was stifling an urge to grin.

“Now you listen here, boy. Go get the aeronaut pilot or chief mechanic—and tell him we want to have a talk,” Chamberlain said, his face growing red.

“Yes. We're waiting for the pilot,” the black man said, an unperturbed grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “Can't fly without him.”

Chamberlain huffed.

“Well, boy, why don't you get our bags on that plane of yours and get your damn pilot out here. Let's go,” he said. To Deitel, he whispered, “You have to know how to talk to these moulinyans.”

The black man made no move. He just stared past both of them, shaking his head. Deitel followed his gaze, and the beep of a horn from the approaching car on tarmac caused the two would-be passengers to jump. An open-top two-seater Fiat pulled up. Inside, a Colombian woman with curly blond hair and olive skin was at the wheel. A white man was in the seat beside her, snoring and sprawled out, his head lolled back.

The mechanic rolled his eyes and helped the semiconscious man out. He was wearing only a leather flight jacket, a rumpled straw cowboy hat, flier's sunglasses, boxer shorts, and cowboy boots. He smelled of rum. A faded scar ran from his forehead down, skipping his eye and continuing on his right cheek, and there were the makings of a new bruise on his chin. The mechanic and the blond woman walked the drunk to the plane.

“Hey, Chuy,” the man slurred, opening his bloodshot eyes. “This is . . . Isha . . . Isabel. Ish . . . Isabel Ripoll. She's from Barranquilla. We're gonna buy a bar together and live there.” He leaned to kiss Isabel and then promptly passed out again as the man he called Chuy put him over his shoulder.

Chuy grinned at the two passengers.

“Gentlemen, may I present your pilot, Captain Sean ‘Fox' Rucker.”

Rucker raised his head. “Howdy.”

Both passengers blanched.

Chuy thanked Isabel and slipped her a few notes of Brazilian scrip.

“Tell Fox to look me up when he's back this way,” she called as she drove away.

Chuy smiled broadly at the beautiful Colombian.

“You tell Geoff and Bonnie that next time dinner is on us. And let Bat know he still owes me two hundred dollars or a dance with Judy.”

“
Hasta luego,
Chuy.”

The two passengers watched without moving. Chuy carried Rucker up the boarding stairs. The drunk mumbled what sounded like a baritone “Calling Barranca,” and then his head lolled back.

Chuy got the drunken man into the plane and came back out, where the two passengers stood. They hadn't moved.

“Well, let's get going, sirs. Your chariot awaits. Wheels up in five minutes.”

“But aren't you worried that the pilot is too drunk to fly?” Deitel asked.

“I'd be more worried if he tried to fly the plane too sober,” Chuy said. “Don't worry—copilot can fly the first leg.”

The two climbed the stairs—Deitel carrying his luggage, Chamberlain empty-handed.

“Don't forget my luggage, boy.”

Inside, the
Raposa
looked utilitarian and well used. Deitel read the manufacturing plate:
CURTISS SUPERELECTRA XIX.
There were passenger seats for nine and enough cargo space past the rear bulkhead for a three-ton load.

The snoring from behind the rear bulkhead told Deitel where Chuy had deposited Rucker. Taking the seat as far from Chamberlain as he could, Deitel pulled out a magazine tucked in the chair's pocket. It was the current issue of
Texas Monthly
.

Deitel didn't store his attaché case under his seat. He kept it gripped under his arm. Tightly.

Chuy secured the hatch and stood in the aisle at the front of the plane.

“Welcome, gentlemen, to Far Ranger Air,” he said, removing his grimy coveralls as he talked. Underneath he wore a finely tailored white silk shirt and black gaucho pants. “My name is Jesus D'Anconia Lago—you may call me Chuy.”

Putting on a flier's hat and wrapping a silk scarf about his neck—an affectation from an earlier era of flying when pilots had to constantly turn their heads to look out for enemy planes as well as to clean their goggles—he said, “And at least until Captain Rucker awakens, I will be your pilot for today's flight.”

From the corner of his eye Deitel could see Chamberlain's reaction. The man was, fittingly, as white as a sheet.

“Our flight time to Austin is approximately ten hours, with a one hour layover for refueling,” Chuy said, and then closed the cockpit door.

“Oh my God,” Chamberlain muttered, hands gripping the armrests so tightly he would almost leave indentations.

In minutes they were up in the Big Blue heading north.

Chamberlain's bags were still sitting on the tarmac, the contents being picked over by some local boys who'd snuck onto the coastal airfield.

S
everal hours later, somewhere over the Caribbean, Deitel heard muffled retching from behind the rear bulkhead. The
Raposa
was surprisingly quiet inside once at cruising altitude. Then he heard what sounded for all the world like a shower running. Which was curious, since he'd never heard of a cargo plane or even a passenger plane with such an amenity. That kind of luxury was reserved for airships.