Return From the Inferno (36 page)

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Nicht So/date Major Tomas Glanz stared up at the starfilled sky and wondered why some stars were moving.

He was perched on the tiny porch attached to the large igloo-like building which housed the Oerlikon-Buhrle SAM launch systems. Inside, in the system's launch control room, the threat-warning indicators were buzzing off the consoles. His three crew members, their noses pressed to the trio of radar screens, were excited beyond their profession at the number of large blips coming out of the north from Free Canada.

They'd been manning this SAM site for nearly four months now, and had never seen so much activity as they had in the past five minutes. There were two dozen airplanes flying long elliptical orbits just inside Free Canadian airspace, over the city of Windsor and no more than 20 kilometers north of the SAM's location. What it all meant-and exactly what kinds of airplanes they were-was beyond the rather limited acumen of Glanz.

So like all underachieving NS officers, he'd been on the horn to his superiors since the time the first blip hit the screen.

The trouble was, his superiors were not responding, not even to tell him that it was unbecoming of a Fourth Reich officer to wet his pants just because the FC was up and flying a few extra planes.

This lack of response bothered Glanz. His superiors rarely missed a chance to blast their subordinates, and this seemed

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like too good an opportunity for them all to pass on. It could only mean one thing: They knew what was happening and were concentrating instead on saving their own Esels. In such dire instances, Glanz knew that underlings like him were usually hung out to dry.

When the blips on the screen suddenly turned south, Glanz began working the radio phone even harder. He called his unit commander, his brigade commander, even the division commander-all to no response. With the 24 Free Canadian aircraft now but five minutes away from entering Fourth Reich airspace and coming on strong, Glanz decided to call directly down to Fuhrerstadt.

He was astonished that someone acknowledged his radiophone call right away.

The man on the other end identified himself as the officer in charge of Fuhrerstadt central communications unit, a job he added that he'd been working only a few days now.

Glanz excitedly told him of the vast fleet of Free Canadians airplanes that were less than three minutes from flying right over his position. His standing orders were to shoot down any Free Canadian aircraft that appeared to be showing "hostile intent." Glanz wanted to know if 24 massive airplanes grouped together and pouring on the coals toward occupied America's airspace constituted a "hostile threat."

The CCU officer listened politely and then asked if Glanz thought the FC

aircraft were cargo planes. By this time, Glanz could see the vanguard of the aerial stampede, and yes, these planes did look like massive C-5 Galaxies, the largest cargo plane left in the world.

The CCU officer then read to Glanz, word-for-word, the Amerikafuhrer's

"Noninterference Decree," as it pertained to Free Canadian cargo planes. Glanz would have taken notes but he knew the rule by heart.

But now there was another problem: As these Galaxies passed directly overhead, Glanz saw that they were carrying what looked to be many, many missiles or bombs of some kind under their massive wings. He reported this, as it was happening, to the CCU man in Fuhrerstadt. Immediately this man's attitude changed. He became as jittery as Glanz.

"There is only one person who can authorize firing on Free Canadian cargo planes," the CCU told him coldly. "And that is the Amerikafuhrer himself."

"Can you ask him?" Glanz blithely asked the officer.

"He is asleep," was the CCU man's reply. "And he cannot be awakened. Even for this. . ."

Glanz was shaking now. If he fired a missile at the C-5s, he could be responsible for starting the incident which led to the war with Free Canada.

If he didn't fire, and the C-5s were out for a night of "hostile intent," then it would befall him the curse of being the man who'd left the door open.

What should he do? he asked the CCU man.

Call back in five minutes, he was told.

But when Glanz did-exactly 300 seconds later-the CCU man wouldn't take the call.

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The Aerospatiale Super Puma helicopter circled the top of the snowcapped mountain once before landing 100 feet in front of the iced-over, seemingly-abandoned ski lodge.

No sooner had the large assault chopper set down when its doors opened and a 25-man unit of the Fourth Reich Alpine Guards poured out of its passenger bay, followed by two officers. The heavily armed soldiers, dressed in the warmest of arctic combat gear, quickly took up positions around the chopper, with the majority of their firepower facing toward the dilapidated lodge itself.

The soldiers were on an armed search-and-rescue mission. Two ground patrols had been dispatched to Loki over the past two weeks and both had vanished. The contingent of Alpine Guards had been sent out to look for them.

It would turn out to be a relatively easy, if grisly task.

Not 50 feet away from where the Super Puma had set down were the four VBL

scout cars, each one underneath a thick transparent sheet of ice. While the main force consolidated its defensive positions, one of the unit's two officers took a five-man squad to investigate the abandoned vehicles.

It didn't take long after cutting through the thick ice covering the vehicles to find the bodies of their missing comrades. Each scout car contained five corpses. All had been killed by gunfire. All were now frozen in surreally grotesque positions.

Now the five-man squad's task became even more gruesome.

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They would have to thaw out each dead soldier to the point that the body was pliable enough to be pulled up and out of each scout car's narrow turret.

With portable heaters retrieved from the Puma, this ghastly procedure began.

Meanwhile, the Alpine Guards' officers in charge then turned their attention to the mysterious ski lodge.

A contingent of ten Guards had already surrounded the lodge. Using rifle butts and fire axes, the remaining ten easily busted down the building's main door.

It looked like the lodge had been empty for some time. The wood stove was stone cold, and there was no evidence of food or cooking about. There were bits of cut wood and metal filings in one corner, however, and the floor was covered with about an inch of sawdust.

The search became more intriguing as the troops broke into the lodge's enormous cellar. Here they found elaborate power tools, pneumatic drills, blowtorches, plus discarded and destroyed computer software. In a garage attached to the cellar, they found the remains of a tractor trailer truck, its sides battered in, its tires flattened, so it could fit inside the garage and thus be out of sight from the air.

The officers were baffled by these odd discoveries. It was obvious that something was or had been under construction inside the lodge cellar. But just what that was, seemed to be an unsolvable mystery.

Except for one clue.

There was a distinct odor of paint in the air. One of the officers discovered a large but faint outline had been left on the floor of cellar: the result of an overspray of white and red paint. He ordered his men to locate an outer point on the outline and stand there, in an effort to get an idea of what shape it was that was painted.

When all ten men were in place, the officers were astonished to find the outline was obviously that of a large, delta-winged jet aircraft.

"Someone was building a jet airplane? Up here?" one of the officers asked the other.

The second officer couldn't believe it either.

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"They were assembling one at least," he replied.

Leaving their 20 men behind to search the cellar more thoroughly, the two officers returned to the grisly scene outside.

Not seeing any of their troopers about, they climbed up onto the last ice-encased VBL and made a frightening discovery. Stuffed inside the small patrol car were the five fresh bodies of the men they'd just left to thaw out their dead comrades. They'd all been quietly stabbed to death.

Instantly, the two officers ran to the huge Puma helicopter, only to discover its pilot and copilot slumped over the control, also dead of stab wounds.

Their panic rising by the second, the officers retreated to the lodge, yelling for their troopers to come up out of the cellar.

But there was no response.

With the last bit of courage they could muster, the two officers descended the steps to the dark basement and were horrified to find all 20 of their troops had been quickly and quietly killed.

The two officers were trembling now-from the bitter cold and from shock. They both had feared coming to Loki Mountain-obviously the place was extremely haunted. Now as they rushed back up the stairs, intent on getting to the Puma and making an emergency radio call back to their base in Denver, they were faced with the most bizarre sight of all.

Standing in the middle of the large kitchen area was a stout elderly-appearing man wearing a red costume, a long white beard and smoking a long corncob pipe.

He was holding a huge pot of steaming soup in one hand, a ladle and two bowls in the other.

"You gentlemen look cold and in need of a hot meal," this ethereal apparition told them. "Please, let me serve you."

Neither Nazi officer could even raise his gun to shoot at the ghost. They were just too numb with fear and confusion. Their hesitation proved fatal. Two Pacific American militiamen appeared from nowhere and took them down quickly and quietly via their razor-sharp bayonets.

More PA men appeared and carried the bodies outside. Captain "Crunch" was there and he went through the officers' pockets, searching for ID and personal weapons. Meanwhile, the stout, middle-aged militiaman named Nick was struggling to get out of his red-on-red costume.

"I can't do this another time, Captain." Nick told "Crunch" as he removed his false gray beard and white wig. "It's really getting to me."

"You won't have to," "Crunch" replied, grimly. "They'll be up here with four choppers soon enough."

Nick hastily lit a nerve-calming cigarette, exhaling the smoke into the frigid morning air.

"Will we be finished by that time, sir?" he asked "Crunch."

"Possibly," "Crunch" replied. "But whether it will do any good or not, I just don't know."

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The burly NS sergeant peeked inside the open door leading to the young girl's quarters before entering.

She was at her window as usual, staring out at the lit-up city below. Her work-in-progress was still on its easel, the snowcapped mountain scene looking bizarrely tranquil with the city raging in flames in the background. He checked his watch. It was nearly two in the morning.

Someone her age should be in bed, he thought.

He walked over to her as quietly as possible, passing three trays of lavish but uneaten meals on the way.

"The watch is changing," the NS trooper told her in a subdued voice. "Is there anything I can get for you before I leave?"

She looked up at him, her eyes as sad and teary as usual. She'd removed her white frilly dress and was clothed only in a T-shirt and jeans-the clothes she'd worn when she was a slave.

"What is going on outside?" she asked him. "There's so many lights. So much activity for the past few days."

The NS sergeant didn't know how to answer her. All the preparations were for the upcoming wedding of the Amerikafuhrer and the Witch Elizabeth. It was hardly a state secret, yet the NS man knew he would feel awkward trying to explain it all to her.

"There is a big ceremony coming up," he said simply. "Your maids or your dresser will tell you all about it."

She just shrugged and then stared at her painting for a long few moments.

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"I just can't seem to finish it," she said, more to herself than to the NS

sergeant. "Yet, I can't go to sleep."

She nonchalantly ran her hands over her tight little body and stretched. As always, the NS man grew fidgety.

"I will leave you now," he said, stumbling over each word. "Try to have a good night."

The soldier beat a hasty retreat, leaving the girl alone once again. She was tired, but the many times she'd lain down to sleep, nothing happened. It was like she'd forgotten how to sleep.

And she was worried that when she did fall asleep, that she'd forget how to wake up.

Something had to change. Inside and outside. She got up and walked to her dresser drawer. One of her maids had slipped her a small plastic bag earlier in the day, knowing that she needed to sleep. Now the young girl retrieved the bag, wet her finger and stuck it inside the bag. She came out with a slight amount of the sticky golden substance on her fingernail.

What would happen if she took it?

What difference did it make if she did?

She took one long look back at her painting and then put the myx to her lips.

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Its official name was the "Captain John Henry Long Memorial Bridge."

Named after a Confederate war veteran who also fathered no fewer than 19

children, the 475-foot suspension bridge joined the town of Myersburg, Tennessee on the east bank of the Mississippi with the small city of Sunshine, Missouri on the west.

The underbridge clearance was 97 feet, leaving plenty of room for even the largest ships to pass underneath. Even though the huge celebration planned to mark its passage was canceled at the last minute, The Great Ship had passed underneath the span around dawn that morning, quietly and with no problems.

It was now close to noontime.

The Long Memorial Bridge was now covered with Fourth Reich troops. Two full battalions-1800 men-of the elite Strom Wacht were stationed on the bridge and on its supports alone. Another reinforced battalion had been split into two and entrenched on the banks fanning out about 200 feet from the bottom of the bridge.