Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air

by Melissa Scott

  “For some people,” von Rosen said. “In any case, I have been thinking I might look toward the Far East. There is money to be made there.”

  Was she imagining it, Alma thought, or did Göring relax just a fraction? “If you’d like to come forward, I’d be glad to show you the working end of the plane.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Segura, I’ll just stay here.” Frau Göring smiled up at her politely. “This is lovely coffee, and to be blunt, my feet are aching.”

  “You don’t have to come with us, darling,” Göring said. “Sante would be glad to escort you ashore.”

  “But then I would have to move.” She shook her head. “No, I’ll just stay here. I can provide a passenger’s perspective on the whole thing.”

  “Of course.” Göring smiled. “Whatever you’d like.”

  “I’ll send Tiny back with some more coffee, then,” Alma said. “And if you gentlemen would follow me…”

  She led the others forward while Tiny fetched more coffee, let Balbo and Göring climb up to look over the flight engineer’s station, then brought them on into the next compartment. “Navigation and radio,” she said, waving at the chart table and the bank of radio equipment tucked in between the ribs of the fuselage. This looked more like the Cat they’d flown in Hawaii, all business, though Floyd’s people had covered the raw metal with a coat of pale blue paint, and there were sturdy mats carpeting the deck. Göring and Balbo examined the radio with interest, and von Rosen said, “How many men in the crew, Mrs. Segura?”

  “We can fly with as few as three,” Alma answered, “which is what we’ll be doing today. The recommended minimum crew is five, but we tested routinely with four. Of course, we weren’t doing any serious navigation at that point.”

  Von Rosen nodded thoughtfully. “Pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, radio operator — navigator?”

  “Right.”

  “And on a long flight, you’d want someone to spell the pilots and the engineer,” Balbo said.

  Alma nodded. “Mitch and I were figuring we’d want a crew of ten for a transpacific flight. Three pilots, two engineers, three people to handle radio and navigation, and then two stewards to take care of the passengers. Although we don’t have them installed, there’s room in the flight engineer’s compartment to put another pair of bunks.”

  “You’d certainly want staff for the passengers,” Göring agreed. He was looking at von Rosen, who shrugged like a sullen schoolboy.

  “One must always take the passengers into account, of course.”

  And what was that about? Alma wondered. She pointed them to the cramped cockpit, standing back so that they could take turns stepping through, and let Mitch answer questions for a while.

  “Excuse me, Mrs Segura.” Tiny put his head through the hatch. “The harbormaster says they’re ready any time.”

  “Thanks.” Alma took a breath, and plastered her best smile on her face. “Gentlemen. The harbormaster is ready for our flight. You’re welcome to make yourselves comfortable in the back, of course, but I thought you might like to take the navigator’s position.

  “That’s very kind of you, dear lady,” Balbo said. “I most certainly will.”

  “And I.” Göring gave a polite half-bow.

  Von Rosen looked pointedly at the available seats, one at the radio position, the other at the navigation table. “I will join Frau Göring, I think.”

  “Nonsense.” Göring pointed to the jump seat folded against the bulkhead beside the hatch. “Sit there, Carl.”

  “If you wish,” von Rosen said. He pulled down the seat and latched it in place, then seated himself, arms crossed. “As long as it doesn’t inconvenience Mrs. Segura.”

  “Not at all,” Alma said. Göring was a careful man to have spotted that, she thought. But then, you’d expect that from a fighter ace with the Pour la Mérite. She got them settled, found headsets and showed them the intercom channels, then stepped quickly back to the passenger compartment. Frau Göring assured her that she was perfectly comfortable, and accepted a refill of her coffee, and then at last Alma was able to slide into the cockpit next to Mitch.

  “I’ve got the harbormaster on channel three,” he said. “And I’ve started the checklist.”

  “Thanks.” She had left the cockpit door open, knowing that they would have visitors as soon as they were in the air. “I’ve got everyone on the intercom.”

  And that, she hoped, would be warning enough for her crew. Mitch gave her a crooked grin, and reached for the radio.

  “Harbormaster, this is Gilchrist. We’re just finishing our checklist now.”

  “Roger that, Gilchrist,” the harbormaster answered, with what Alma felt was admirable patience. “Inform us when you are ready to taxi.”

  “Will do,” Alma answered, and bent her attention to the checklist. When it was complete, and the two big engines were running, she called the harbormaster and received permission to taxi out of the hangar.

  As promised, the wind had dropped over the course of the day, and the harbor no longer showed the heavy chop that would have made takeoff and landing unpleasant. Even so, she hoped none of the passengers were subject to seasickness as the Cat jounced over the waves, steering with engines and rudder to line up at last in the buoyed takeoff lane. The harbormaster cleared them, and she advanced the throttles, her eyes flicking from her instruments to the water ahead. It stretched open and inviting in the watery sunlight, and she couldn’t suppress a grin as she felt the tail lift and hauled back on the control yoke. The Catalina lifted, the stepped hull breaking cleanly from the water, and the harbor fell away beneath them.

  “Gilchrist, this is harbormaster. You are cleared on heading 035. There is still traffic inland over Boccadifalco, but if you stay out to sea, you will be clear.”

  “Roger that,” Alma answered. “We will be leveling off at five thousand feet.”

  “Roger, Gilchrist, five thousand feet, heading zero-three-five.”

  Alma kept the big plane steady as they climbed, running north along the coast away from the harbor. At five thousand feet, she leveled out, then began a sweeping turn back to the east. They were entirely over water now, a few wisps of cloud five hundred feet above them, and a more solid layer a thousand feet above that, filtering the sunlight to a silvery haze. The Cat was running perfectly, engines throttle back to their most economical cruising speed, the enormous wing grabbing every bit of lift.

  “Belissima!” Balbo shouted from the cockpit door, and Alma glanced back, wondering how long he’d been there. “A most lovely machine — and, of course, a lovely pilot, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “May I ask where you plan to take us, Mrs. Segura?” And that was Göring, his voice pleasant in her headphones.

  “I thought we’d turn east along the coast, down to, say — um, the second cape.”

  “Cefalu,” Mitch supplied.

  “Yes, Cefalu, and then come back along the coast. We’ll be in the air about half an hour.”

  “Perfect, Mrs. Segura,” Göring said, and she could almost see him settling back in his seat beside the radio.

  “Ideal,” Balbo shouted, leaning forward to study the controls.

  Alma reported her flight plan to the harbormaster, and turned east again, keeping the edge of the island just in sight off her right wing. They passed over one of the ferries from the mainland, its wake a silver arrow against the deep blue — even the Mediterranean was darker in the winter, a rich and perilous color. As she came abreast of Cefalu, the coast seemed to come out to meet them; she saw the flash of the lighthouse and banked gently toward it, straightening once they’d made the full one hundred eighty degree turn and were facing back toward Palermo. Now the coast was on their left wing, and she followed its curve south again, passing over the smaller cape south of the city and back over open water.

  Mitch contacted the Palermo harbormaster, and Alma focused on her landing, waiting for the harbormaster to give them a clear lane and then set
ting the Cat down as gently as if it were a much smaller plane.

  “Beautiful,” Balbo said again — he hadn’t budged from his place in the cockpit door. “I assure you, Mrs. Segura, Consolidated couldn’t find anyone better to demonstrate their airplane.”

  “Thank you.” Alma concentrated on bringing the Catalina alongside the hangar, where a tender was waiting to tow it back to its dock. Then there were the farewells — Balbo effusive, Göring and his wife politely enthusiastic, von Rosen still hanging back silently. If I didn’t know better, Alma thought, I’d say he was sulking. Finally they were gone, and Mitch dogged the hatch behind them. Alma leaned against the bulkhead.

  “Well, that’s over. Is there any coffee left, Tiny?”

  “Maybe a little?” He checked the pot. “I could make more.”

  “Just give me what there is,” Alma said.

  “I think it went well,” Mitch said. “Balbo seemed interested — I reckon Floyd wouldn’t turn down an Italian Air Force contract.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Alma held out her hand for the coffee, noting that it already had milk and sugar added. “Thanks, Tiny.”

  “Did that von Rosen guy talk to you?” Tiny asked.

  Alma frowned, the coffee forgotten. “No.”

  “He hardly talked at all,” Mitch said.

  “He came back and asked a bunch of questions about fuel consumption and payload and stuff,” Tiny said. “I told him what I could, but a lot of it, well, I said he’d need to talk to you.” He looked from one to the other. “That was ok, wasn’t it?”

  “Fine,” Alma said, and tried to ignore the niggling worry at the pit of her stomach.

  “What’s he up to?” Mitch asked.

  “He’s a pilot, and he’s a count,” Alma said, “which ought to mean he’s got some money. The Air Minister was needling him about buying one for — some business of his own? But I don’t know why Göring would care.”

  “Mr. Göring’s his uncle by marriage,” Tiny said. “That’s what he said.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t approve of the current Mrs. Göring,” Mitch said.

  “Maybe so.” Alma drained the last of her coffee. “So let’s assume it’s a family thing. Not our business.”

  “For now,” Mitch said, and Alma slanted a glance at him.

  “For now.”

  Alexandria, Egypt

  December 29, 1935

  Jerry woke before dawn and dressed without a light. It seemed entirely natural that he had two good legs and that he put on a robe of fine white linen like the robe he wore in ritual. He did not shave — his well-trimmed beard required nothing this morning. He went down the stairs while the sky grayed the stars still bright above Alexandria.

  The part of him that was Dr. Jerry Ballard realized that he was dreaming, but it seemed an unimportant fact. The damaged body that lay sleeping in his apartment bed might be the dream and this — this was real. This man was his own age, vigorous, quick-minded and quick-handed, and he walked through the grid of streets without hesitation.

  Down the block on the ground floor of one of the insulae a cookshop was opening for the morning, the proprietor opening the shutters while his boy washed off the white stones of the terrace around the little tables with a bucket of water and a mop. Jerry raised a hand to him in greeting, a wave which was returned. At the first corner past he turned into a larger street, the dawn breeze picking up as it blew down the length of the wide street that led directly to the harbor. Lights showed in windows here and there. Far away, beyond the end of the street, was a brighter gleam, the vast mirrors of the lighthouse turning, casting their shifting beam over land and sea.

  He put his back to the harbor and walked on. The gates of the Serapeum ahead were well guarded, eight men on the post, the gates closed. They had never used to need to do this. The temple used to be able to stand open night and day…

  Day, and bright sun. Day, and the gates giving at last before the mob, the screams and the sound of splintering wood, a cobblestone that came out of nowhere hitting him full in the side of the head, ears ringing and sight going blind…

  Jerry snapped awake, his whole body twisting, phantom pains spiraling down a leg that was no longer there. His breath was harsh in the cool night air. Jerry sat up, clutching sweated sheets and looking about the room. Everything was just as he had left it. The window was cracked, a little cool air coming in. Everything was quiet. The clock said that it was still short of six am.

  Jerry took a deep breath. Dreams. They had been only dreams, imaginings pieced together out of the events of the day, imagining that he walked the city he excavated. It was archaeological imagination. He could even put names to the events. That had been the destruction of the Serapeum, perhaps the greatest temple of its age, destroyed and looted by a Christian mob in 391 AD. It had been so thoroughly ruined that only a few tumbled stones remained for the modern archaeologist. He knew this — knew it through years of study. It was just that sleep gave shape to his reading. Dreams reared temples from ruins.

  And yet it felt real. His heart pounded still from a mortal blow, and he put his hand to his head. Of course there was no blood. Nothing had happened. He stilled his hands against the cool cotton sheets. Certainly he wasn’t going back to sleep. He might as well get up.

  The coffee was perking on the tiny stove and Jerry was getting out a mug when Iskinder came out of the other room, scrubbing his stubbled chin with one hand. He checked when he saw Jerry. “You’re up early.”

  “So are you,” Jerry said. “Coffee?”

  “Please.” Iskinder got a second mug. “I’ve never entirely managed to get in the habit of tea. But then…” his eyes twinkled at the lead for an old joke.

  “…coffee is your cultural heritage,” Jerry finished. He poured for them both. It had been a long-running excuse for requiring black coffee at all hours of the day when they’d been in college.

  They settled companionably at the little table. Iskinder looked at him a little too keenly. “Is your leg bothering you?”

  “No.” Jerry shook his head. “Dreams.”

  “Bad ones?”

  “Good, and then bad.” Jerry stirred a scant teaspoon of sugar into his cup. “I dreamed about Alexandria. Natural, I suppose.” He didn’t look up. “I dreamed about being a priest of the Serapeum.”

  “I imagine you were,” Iskinder said evenly. “I’ve seen you garbed that way.”

  Jerry met his eyes. “It seems silly when I say it out loud. Like some of the less rational people in our world who claim to talk to Jesus or the Ascended Masters or time travelers from the future or all-knowing spirits of Indians.”

  “And yet,” Iskinder quoted, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  “The Bard has a word for every occasion,” Jerry said. He took a long drink of the hot coffee. “You saw it?”

  “I think so.” Iskinder shrugged. “In New York three years ago. But you’ve always loved Alexandria, haven’t you?”

  “Oh yes. The first time I was here, the 12-13 season…” Jerry closed his eyes and then opened them again. “I suppose I fell in love with the city. Or with what it was. Or what it represents to me.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The White City.”

  Iskinder quirked an eyebrow. “Jonathan Edwards’ City on the Hill? We certainly heard quite a lot about that at Harvard.”

  “No,” Jerry said. “The City on the Hill is a Puritan dream, the city of the righteous where everyone follows the same creed and everyone is Saved by a Calvinist god. The White City is almost its antithesis, the crossroads of the world. The city of a million voices, with prayers rising in a hundred languages with song or with incense or with chanting. The city of a thousand creeds, of freedom and democracy and the constant jostling of ideas. A society based on liberty and humanity.”

  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Iskinder said. “The S
tatue of Liberty.”

  “Sometimes I see the shade of the White City in New York,” Jerry said. “What we could be. What I want us to be. I want us to be that torch to the world. I want New York to be that beacon. But we’re not. Not quite. Not when every street corner has tramps begging for a dime, men who should be working to support their families but there’s no work. Not when there’s segregation and gangs out looking for a tramp to roll and people driving by in limousines. But I see the shadow of it. The promise of what we might be.”

  Iskinder nodded slowly. “And this was the first White City.”

  “Yes. This was the first time someone deliberately built that. And it failed, and it never was everything it might have been, but it was the greatest city for an age. It came the closest in a thousand years.” Jerry felt tears start in his eyes entirely unexpectedly. “And for that I revere it.”

  Iskinder took a deep breath, then pulled the wrapped bundle of the pectoral out of his pocket. “And that’s why this comes to you. As a symbol of everything you treasure.”

  “As that,” Jerry said. “And for you.”

  Iskinder smiled. “Ah Jerry. A true friend is priceless.” He clasped his hand across the table. “Now I had best get dressed and busy. I need to meet this man we had dealings with, Michel Claudet. The Emperor’s proxy arranged for him to receive the shipment of arms and keep them in his warehouse until someone arrived for them. Then he’s supposed to have a plane to transport them and me back to Ethiopia.”

  “Surely you’re not going out on the street now,” Jerry said. “Today is Eid.”

  “And that’s why I must go today,” Iskinder said. “The streets will be very busy with everyone running to family parties and gathering for one thing and another. If there is a time that I can be inconspicuous in a crowd, it will be today. And M. Claudet is French. He does not keep Eid.”

  “Just be careful,” Jerry said.

  Jerry spread the big map of Alexandria out on the desk while Bill Peavey closed the door, instructing his secretary not to interrupt for anything short of a catastrophe. Willi lit a cigarette while Jerry unfolded the Strabo map and, of course, brought out an 8 by 10 blow up of the photo of the medallion.